white hung off the side of the Seneschal’s neck: a bandage, soft and clumsy. The Seneschal traced his gaze, and touched it. “The Tiernan set fire to the passage. Three of my men died. I didn’t. Old Cavellus in Archertown patched me up. He’s not half the healer you are.”
Apparently Nate was supposed to say something, but his mind was blank. He had failed. He had offered her the knife. She had refused to take it.
“The fire melted the locks and hinges on the inner door,” the Seneschal said. “Took us a few days to get back through. I’m sorry about that. You’d be in better shape if we’d been able to get in sooner. Cavellus gave you a tonic to wake you up. He’s outside, if you’d like to see him.” The gray man held out a glass of wine. “Here. Drink this. You’ll feel better.”
The musty smell of the wine nauseated him.
“Magus,” the Seneschal said, and there was no softening the command in his voice now, “what happened in that tower?”
He’d failed. Judah had refused the knife. His mother had died. Derie had died. They had been with him, in the Work, and Judah had jumped and the tower had burned them like candles to save her. His fault. He was nothing. Why hadn’t he died, too?
The Seneschal continued. “Gavin says Judah jumped, but if she were dead he wouldn’t be alive to tell me about it, and there’s no body in the light well. She’s hiding somewhere and we can’t find her. We can’t find Theron, either. The Tiernan’s playing dumb. You’re all I have.” He sat forward, his eyes intense. “What happened in the tower?”
Nate made his tongue move inside his dry mouth. Ran it over his blood-crusted lips. “My mother,” he said. The consonants sounded blunted.
The Seneschal frowned. “Your mother?”
“Dead,” Nate said.
The Seneschal glanced toward the massive desk that had once been Elban’s, considering. Then he drew his hand back and hit Nate, open-handed. The force of the blow knocked Nate off the sofa and he landed facedown on a thick rug printed with scarlet flowers. Fresh blood filled his mouth and a drop of brighter scarlet appeared on one of the flowers, then another. They were absorbed instantly.
The Seneschal’s strong hand gripped his collar, pulled him up, and dropped him back onto the sofa. Nate felt like a broken doll tossed around a room.
“I’m sorry about that,” the Seneschal said. “But I need you thinking clearly. I have men literally tearing apart walls looking for that stupid girl. If you’re sad about your mother, I’ll buy you a whore and you can tell her all about it, but right now, I need to know where Judah is.” The big man pulled at the sleeves of his coat to straighten them. “I need you with me, Nathaniel Magus. Are you with me?”
Nate was not Nathaniel Magus. Nate was nothing. Feeling blood run down his chin, he said, “She’s gone.”
“Who is? Judah, or your mother?”
“Judah.”
“Where?”
Where? He couldn’t feel her. But the Judah-places in his head were not torn, did not hurt. So she was still alive. “Somewhere,” he said, and then, “Nowhere.”
“You need to start being forthcoming with me, magus.” The Seneschal’s voice was dangerous. “I like you, but I can’t afford to be sentimental. Where is she?”
“Somewhere. Nowhere.”
This time the hand on his collar lifted him up entirely. A different hand hit him again. It didn’t seem like either hand could have anything to do with the Seneschal, whose voice spoke so calmly. “Where is she?”
There was only one answer, only one truth. “Somewhere. Nowhere.”
The collar-hand dropped him to his knees. Pain exploded in his side as a boot kicked him. “Magus, please,” the Seneschal said, sounding sorry. As if causing pain hurt him, too. “Where’s Judah?”
“Somewhere. Nowhere.” He’d been beaten before. He was used to being beaten. Being beaten was, in some ways, his natural state. There were no choices to be made during a beating. There was nothing to do at all.
The boot fell again. Something gave in his chest and when he tried to speak again his voice came out in gasps, it was hard to catch his breath. Still: “Somewhere. Nowhere,” the nothing-that-was-Nate heard himself say as the boot continued to come, over and over. “Somewhere. Nowhere.” As he receded into darkness:
Somewhere. Nowhere.
* * *
When the Seneschal returned to the parlor, the knuckles of his right hand were split and bleeding. “I see why the magus looks the way he does,”