The January Uprising had failed for many different reasons, not the least of which was that its leaders had not been nearly meticulous enough. He could not afford to make the same mistakes.
The Inquisitor in tow, he strolled through the house. Except for the number of books, there was nothing remarkable about it. The Inquisitor’s agents swarmed, checking walls and floors, pulling open drawers and cabinets. Nearly half a dozen agents crowded around the trunk, which, thankfully, seemed to be a one-time portal that kept its destination to itself.
On the front lawn, guarded by more agents, the girl’s guardian and the housebreaker were laid out, both still unconscious.
“Are they dead?” he asked.
“No, they are both very much alive.”
“They need medical attention, in that case.”
“Which they will receive in due time—at the Inquisitory.”
“They are my subjects. Why are they being taken to the Inquisitory?”
He made sure he sounded peevish, concerned not so much about his subjects but about his own lack of power.
“We merely wish to question them, Your Highness. Representatives of the Crown are welcome at any time to see them while they remain in our care,” said the Inquisitor.
No representatives of the Crown had been allowed into the Inquisitory in a decade.
“And may I call on you this evening, Your Highness,” continued the Inquisitor, “to discuss what you have seen?”
Another drop of sweat crept down Titus’s spine. So she did suspect him—of something.
“I have already mentioned everything I saw. Besides, my holidays have ended. I return to school later today.”
“I thought you weren’t leaving until tomorrow morning.”
“And I thought I was quite at liberty to come and go as I wish, as I am the master of all I survey,” he snapped.
They were there in her eyes, the atrocities she wanted to commit, to reduce him to a witless imbecile.
She would not. The pleasure she would derive from destroying him was not worth the trouble it would incite, given that he was, after all, the Master of the Domain.
Or so Titus told himself.
The Inquisitor smiled. He hated her smiles almost more than her stares.
“Of course you may shape your itinerary as you wish, Your Highness,” she said.
He had been let go. He tried not to exhale too loudly in relief.
When they were once again on the field behind the house, she bowed. He remounted Marble. Marble spread her wings and pushed off the ground.
But even after they were airborne, he still felt the Inquisitor’s unwavering gaze on his back.
This was no instantaneous transportation. Iolanthe kept dropping. She screamed for a while and stopped when she realized that no air rushed past her to indicate speed. She might as well have been suspended in place, only thinking that she was falling because there was nothing underneath her.
Suddenly there was. She thudded onto her bottom and grunted with the skeleton-jarring impact.
It remained pitch-black. Her hands touched soft things that smelled of dust and faded lavender—folded clothes. Digging beneath the clothes, she found a lining of smooth, stretched leather. The solid material under the leather was probably wood. Wary of making any unnecessary sounds, she did not knock to find out.
She continued to explore her new surroundings. Action kept fear—and jumbled emotions—at bay. If she tried to make sense of the events of the afternoon, she might howl in bewilderment. And if she thought about Master Haywood, she’d crumble from panic. Or pure guilt.
He had not been deluded by merixida. He had not even exaggerated. And she had chosen not to believe him.
Leather-covered walls rose shoulder-height about her, ending in a padded, tufted leather ceiling: she was inside another trunk.
The trunk seemed tightly closed. She decided to risk a flicker of fire. It shed a dim, coppery light that illuminated a sturdy latch below the seam of the lid.
The implication of the latch was discomfiting: it was for her to keep the trunk shut. To either side of the latch was a round disc of wood, one marked with an eye, the other, an ear. Reconnoitering was clearly recommended.
She extinguished the fire in her palm—its light might give her away—and felt for the discs.
The first one she found was the ear hole, which conveyed only silence. She moved to the peephole but likewise saw nothing. The room that contained her trunk was as dark as the bottom of the ocean, without even the telltale nimbus of light around a curtained window.
Wherever she was, she seemed to be completely alone. She found and released the latch. Placing her palms against the lid of the trunk, she applied a gentle pressure.
The lid moved a fraction of an inch and stopped. She pushed harder and heard a metallic scrape, but the lid did not lift any higher. Frowning, she put the latch back and tried again. This time, the lid moved not at all. So the latch in place prevented the trunk from opening. What had caused the trunk to open only a crack after the latch had been released?
The tips of her fingers turned cold. The trunk was secured from the outside.