the final box and get in position!?>
“Who has it, Orso?” said Crasedes gently. “Tell me. Now.”
Orso screamed, a ragged, miserable, self-hating cry, like he was trying to exhaust himself rather than give this up to Crasedes. But it did not matter, in the end.
“Berenice!” he sobbed. “It’s Berenice! Berenice has it, I think!”
“You…think?”
“Yes! I…I don’t know, but…”
“But you assume.” Crasedes nodded, satisfied. “I see.”
There was a long silence.
“And…who is Berenice?” asked Crasedes, sounding a bit puzzled.
“She’s Sancia’s girlfriend,” said Orso, weeping.
“Ahh!” said Crasedes. “I see. But…you don’t know where she is.”
“No…”
“Does Sancia know?”
“Yes,” he sobbed. “She does.”
whispered Berenice in her ear.
“Hm! I see.” Crasedes turned his black mask on her. “I just assume you’re not going to tell me where your girlfriend is,” he asked, resigned, “are you, Sancia?”
“I sure as shit am not,” said Sancia.
Crasedes sighed. “Very well. In that case…” He flicked a finger. The ceiling trembled, and a long, thin iron nail suddenly punched through the plaster to hover above him, the pointed end focused on Sancia. “I must resort to less reasonable methods.”
said Berenice in her ear.
said Sancia.
The nail drifted closer to her. She tried to ignore it, but she couldn’t stop gazing at its point, which still bore the dust of old wood on its rippled surface.
The nail turned slowly in the air, like the bit of a drill.
“I don’t want to do this,” said Crasedes softly.
The nail floated closer. Its point was now just inches away from her eye.
“Oh God,” she whispered. “Oh God…” She tried to think of something to say, anything. “She…She hid it!” she said desperately.
He stopped circling her. “This Berenice hid the imperiat? Where?”
“Under the bridge behind our firm!” she said. “The one running over the ditch!”
Crasedes looked at her for a moment. Then he turned to Orso and said, “Orso—do you think she’s telling the truth?”
said Sancia.
“N-No,” Orso said weakly.
Crasedes sighed. “I must admit,” he said, “it’s frustrating…I keep giving people opportunities to save themselves, and they just keep rejecting me.” He tutted very quietly. “Oh, well…”
The nail drifted to the left, to float before her left hand.
“I know who you are!” she cried.
“Pardon me?” he asked.
“I…I know why you were looking for Clef! Why you wanted him back so badly!”
He looked at her sharply. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw a memory of Valeria’s,” she said. “A weeping man, begging for a way to save his dying son. I know what you did to save him. I know what sins you’ve committed, first of all hierophants.”
There was a long silence.
Crasedes leaned forward. “She remembers that?” he said softly.
“You think you’re so special,” said Sancia. “But underneath it all, you’re just a dying old man trying to make up for all his mistakes. There’s nothing special about you, you bastard.”
He seemed to relax a little. “An old man? Well. Sancia…You know, I’m not sure you saw what you thought you saw.” He leaned close, and whispered, “I know why he liked you, by the way.”
“W-What?” asked Sancia.
“A slave, a child, desperate and hungry and alone,” whispered Crasedes. “I’ve no doubt he would have loved nothing more than to save you. But he can’t save you now. He was never terribly good at saving people, anyway…That was always up to me.”
He waved a hand.
The nail hurtled forward so fast Sancia couldn’t even see it move. The next thing she knew there was a loud, wooden thunk, and her left hand erupted in pain, and she was screaming.
Her back arched