Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1

Twenty: The Contract

"Why are you shaking so much?"

"Because it's cold." Grace's eyes glittered at Nova through the gloom. She hadn't stopped crying for hours. "Aren't you cold?"

"I'm used to it." Nova settled back against the cage bars and crossed her legs. Her lacerated back ached in protest. It hadn't recovered from her last punishment when Faellian had added another dozen lashes, but at least she hadn't screamed like Grace had. Screaming always made it worse.

The girl was curled in a tight ball on the other side of the cage, which wasn't far considering it was designed to only hold one person. Their feet were almost touching in the middle. Grace had at least been left with the dignity of clothing, though she had put her dress on back to front so that it didn't chafe the wounds on her back from the whip. The lord had been considerably harder on her than on Nova during the interrogation about Sebastien's death. Nova knew she ought to feel guiltier for being relieved, and she was, for the most part, able to squash it.

It had been such a long time since the attention had not been on her, however, that the relief was very powerful.

"How can you be used to it?" Grace demanded. "It's freezing."

"It's always freezing down here," Nova said pointedly. The girl was quiet for a moment.

"Sorry. That was insensitive of me."

Nova blinked.

"That's okay," she said slowly, uncertain it was the right response. When Grace seemed satisfied with it she relaxed.

"How much longer do you think he'll keep us down here?" Grace asked after a moment. She looked sick; her eyes were ringed with dark circles, and Nova didn't think that washed-out and greyish was a normal or healthy colour for someone from Earth.

"I don't know," Nova replied. In reality, it would be anywhere between a day and a week, but Grace was already at snapping point and she didn't think that telling her would help.

She was saved the burden when an hour later the door rattled and swung open, illuminating Brillan holding a lantern and the keys to their cage. The butler unlocked the door and let Grace out first, and then he roughly dressed Nova and secured cuffs on her wrists. Grace's outrage was snuffed with a sharp look over Brillan's shoulder. Nova didn't need defending, especially not from something that had been her lot for ten years.

A deeper part of her just didn't want Faellian to work out that anything more than forced proximity was between them. She didn't think he would suffer her to have anything close to a friendship, especially not with a member of his staff.

"What's going on?" Grace asked, turning her back to pull her dress on the right way round. "Is it time for a trial already?"

"No." The butler's response was clipped. He pointed to the door, and then shunted Nova out after Grace. "Turn left, girl. The trial's been postponed. Someone is here to see you and would like to vouch for you."

Nova frowned. There was only one person that was likely to be, but she couldn't think what Jordan Haverford could offer that Ethred wouldn't have already put forward to have his acolyte excused. The thought still made her blood boil. After the bodies had been found and Silas had been taken away, Faellian had taken them both into his study, where he had interrogated them with the help of a barbed whip; afterwards Ethred had threatened to frame Grace by whatever means possible. There was very little doubt that Grace hadn't committed the crime – she would have been bloodied, for a start, and Sebastien had had a good foot and a half of height on her and was at least half her weight again. Silas would have had some fighting skill from his training at the temple, and was a teenage boy in the middle of his growth. There was also the prickly issue of his being alive; two separate weapons had been used, only two people were present, and only one of them died of poisoning.