House of Blood

I closed the notch at two minutes fifty-six.

The shadow went out of me in one long, cold gulp, and Atlas dissolved like ink in water. My knees went with it. I hit the dais on all fours, tasting blood, with every nerve in my body ringing like a struck bell.

*Show-off,* Aurelix whispered, and curled into my collar, shaking.

Nobody moved. Two thousand students stared at me. Gareth, blinking like a man waking from a long dream, had half risen from his chair with a piece of bread still in his hand. The Inspectors had their swords out. The Doctor stood on his seat, hands clasped, glowing like a candle.

“Valerian Sanguis,” the older Inspector said, in a hoarse voice. “Governor of Bergis. And you’ve been…” He couldn’t finish.

“The Ghost,” the Doctor said helpfully. “The shadow-knight at the granary. Five dead bakers. A forged seating chart. A hall full of terrified children, and a boy in the middle of it, black-eyed and unashamed.”

“That’s a lie!” Pollux bellowed. She was halfway up the aisle with a table leg in her fists, blood in her teeth. “He saved us! He saved *all of you!*”

“Pollux.” Castor had caught her elbow. His voice was low, calm, and absolutely steady. “Look at the doors.”

She looked. Forty guards, shoulder to shoulder, shields up. Behind them, two thousand terrified students.

“If we run, they get hurt,” Castor said. “If we fight, they get hurt. The only move that doesn’t is the one he’s already making.”

He was looking at me. I’d made that choice the moment the door closed.

I put the rod on the floor and laid my hands on my head.

“I’m not resisting,” I said. “Take me. Just don’t touch anyone else.”

The cells under the Tribunal smelled like wet stone and old iron.

They put me in the last one, a narrow room with a plank bed and a drain in the floor. They took my staff. They took my coat. They did not take the little gold lizard curled in the hollow of my collar, because nobody ever looks at a lizard.

I sat on the plank and rubbed my throat.

*We’ve been here before,* Aurelix murmured.

“Not this room.”

*Same song, though.*

The lamp at the end of the corridor guttered. Footsteps came down the stairs, quick and light, and stopped outside my bars.

“You look terrible,” Solene said.

She had a tin mug in each hand and a rapier at her hip, and she was wearing the same grey Feast coat, torn at one shoulder. Her hair had come loose. She held out a mug through the bars, and I took it, and our fingers touched, and neither of us looked away fast enough.

“Tea,” she said. “I bribed a guard. He’s pretending he didn’t see me.”

“Thanks.”

“That’s seven, by the way.”

“Seven what?”

“Things you didn’t tell me.” She leaned her forehead against the bars. “I stopped counting after the scythe. And then you called a knight out of the floor in front of two thousand people.”

“That part went badly.”

“It went *brilliantly,*” she said fiercely. “That’s the problem. You saved everyone, and they’re going to hang you for it.”

I laughed. It came out cracked. “Guillotine, I think. They’ve got a nice one.”

She didn’t laugh.

“I keep a list,” she said, very quietly. “I thought it was for suspicion.” She looked at her mug. “Turns out it was just a list of things about you I couldn’t stop noticing.”

My ears went hot. I felt it spread all the way down my neck.

“Solene—”

“I’m not asking for anything,” she said quickly, pink to the tips of her ears. “I’m telling you so you know there’s one person who isn’t leaving. All right? Don’t die. That’s all. You’re already at the top of the *other* list.”

She slid her hand through the bars and squeezed mine, once, hard, and let go, and was gone up the stairs before I could say a word.

*Darling,* Aurelix said, very gently, *you’re the color of a tomato.*

“Shut up.”

*I’m not saying a thing. I’m only noticing.*

Lyra came an hour later.

She didn’t bother with the guard. She went straight past him, and he looked the other way, and she hit the bars at a run and grabbed them with both hands. Her eyes were swollen. Her hair stuck out in three directions. She’d been crying for a long time.

“They’re going to execute you,” she whispered. “They’re really going to do it.”

“Hey. Hey. Lyra.” I stood and put my hands over hers. They were freezing. “Slow down.”

“I can’t, you gave up your seat for Casper and I didn’t even say thank you, and I *hit* you with a staff once—”

“You didn’t.”

“In my *head* I did!”

I laughed. She laughed too, wetly, and then she was crying again, forehead against the bars, and I put my hand on the back of her head and let her.

“I’ll fix Casper,” she said into her sleeve. “I swear. I’ve been in the library since the Feast, and I’ve got four new leads on the hunger-mark, and as soon as it’s done I’m going to figure out how to get you *out.*”

“You don’t have to—”

“I *want* to.” She raised her head. Her face was blotchy and fierce and so unbelievably earnest that something in my chest gave a quiet, startled thump. “You never ask for help. You’re the worst at it. So I’m just going to *give* it, and you’re going to *take* it, and that’s that.”

She pushed something through the bars into my palm. A little cloth pouch, hand-stitched, smelling of lavender and salt.

“Charm,” she said. “I made it for Casper, but he’s got Pollux now. It’s for luck. Or warmth. Or whatever it does.” Her voice wobbled. “Keep it on you.”

“I will.”

“Don’t die. I’m not done being furious at you.”

She stood on tiptoe, pressed her forehead to mine through the gap in the bars, just for a second, and fled.

I stood there holding the pouch, and the ache in my ribs felt a little farther away.

The third visitor didn’t use the stairs.

I’d been dozing when the light changed. A soft white glow, like moonlight through snow, spilled across the stones, and there she was on the other side of the bars, in a plain grey robe with her hair loose and a faint silver shimmer around her like frost.

“Seraphina.”

“Valerian,” she said gently, and I realized it was the first time she’d ever said it.

I got to my feet. “How did you get in?”

“Elizabeth knows doors.” She smiled, small and tired and so tender it hurt. “The Sanctuary wouldn’t let me out, so I went through the roof.” Her eyes went serious. “Valerian. I know it was you. The Ghost. I’ve known for weeks.”

I went cold. “How?”

“Because when the Ghost saved me from the cultists in the north wing,” she said softly, “he put his hand on my head, and his palm was warm. And I thought, *whoever you are, you’re kind.* And then I met you, and you shelved a book for a stranger, and your palm was warm.” She hesitated. “I never told anyone. I thought you’d tell me when you were ready.”

“Everybody keeps saying that.”

“Then everybody’s right.” She slipped one hand through the bars, palm up, a question. “May I?”

I took it.

Her fingers were small and cool. Light spilled out from them, white and soft, and I felt my cracked rib knit, slowly, painlessly, as if a warm hand were smoothing it flat. I exhaled for what felt like the first time in a day.

“Elizabeth says it’s the Ninth,” Seraphina whispered. “She says he’s been waiting for this a very long time. She says the Doctor is only the knife.” Her fingers tightened on mine. “I won’t let them make you a monster, Valerian. Whatever they say tomorrow. Whatever happens. I’ll find you.”

“Seraphina—”

“Wait for me.” She pressed my hand to her cheek, very briefly, her skin warm, her eyes shining. “Please. I will find you. I promise.”

*Don’t die, boy,* a second voice murmured, from somewhere behind her ribs, dry and amused and unexpectedly gentle. *I’ve a promise to break, and I’m not finished with you.*

The light folded in on itself. The corridor went dark. I stood alone, holding a hand that wasn’t there anymore, and my rib didn’t hurt at all.

*Three visitors,* Aurelix said faintly. *Three. In one night. Valerian. My darling. You are in so much trouble.*

They came for me at dawn.

Boots on the stairs. Torches. The Doctor’s voice, bright and fresh and cheerful, humming something tuneless. I stood up and straightened my collar, and the little lizard went still against my neck.

The older Inspector unlocked the door. His face was grey. Beside him, the Doctor beamed, a thick scroll tucked under one arm, a black ribbon dangling from the seal.

“Good morning, Governor,” the Doctor said. “I trust you slept?”

“Not really.”

“Pity.” He unrolled the scroll with a flourish. “I’m afraid there’s been a slight change of venue. The Emperor himself heard of last night’s… *incident,* and has seen fit to convene a special tribunal. It begins at sunrise. He’s sent his own envoy.”

He turned the scroll around so I could read the seal.

Gold. Solarian. And stamped across the bottom, in letters as black as the ribbon, a single line I’d seen once before, in another life, on another day.

*Sentence: death by guillotine.*

I looked at it for a long moment.

Then I rubbed my throat, once, the way I always do.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”