Tainted

Chapter Eight

I don't like non-duel days. I don't particularly like duel days either, but if it's an exhibition duel at least it's better than lying around on a cold stone floor listening to the final ragged breaths of the other Ill-Fated.

Binks flips over onto her stomach, eyeing me from beneath her bushy brows. "What shall we do today? Count the number of stones on the floor? I think last time we got up to twenty-seven." She traces a finger around a flagstone, carving lines in the thin layer of dirt.

"There," she says. "One."

I huff a laugh, my hair fluttering before my face. "But what do we count as stones? Last time you wouldn't let me count the broken ones."

Jak's cellmate lets out a wheezy cough. Binks talks over it. "Because the broken ones don't count as full stones, Mi."

"That's deep, Binks. Did you ever think of becoming a carnival fortune teller?" I ask.

Ezzi laughs weakly from the next cell. I see Binks's nostrils flare at the sound.

"How do you know that's not how they got me?" Binks says, idly dragging her finger through the dirt. "Maybe I was telling the wrong people fortunes they didn't want to hear, and I was locked in irons for it."

At least every month it seems like Binks comes up with yet another story for why she was imprisoned. None of us know the true story. I've tried to guess, but each version she tells sounds both more and less plausible than the one before. Binks always tells the same stories about her brothers and Bandelaire, but after that, things get hazy. All I know is that she left home somewhere between five and six years ago and has been in this prison for the past three.

I once tried to pull her aside and ask her outright about her arrest story, but she simply smiled and whispered, "I was found declaring my love for the princess," and walked away.

"I know of something we can do to pass the time," Camden says slyly. He winks through the bars.

Binks pushes herself to her knees and turns to face the rock wall of our cell. She grabs a shard of stone and carves a white line into the wall, next to a slew of others.

Binks counts the marks, her tongue between her teeth.

"Seven hundred and fifteen," she says. She turns to Camden. "You have said the same thing to us seven hundred and fifteen times. No wonder you're in prison. You should be jailed for lack of creativity."

Camden looks taken aback. He stares at the wall, then stares at Binks. A slow smile creeps over his face. He leans forward, curling his long fingers around the iron bars.

"So you do listen when I talk. Like the sound of my voice, do you?" Camden purrs.

Binks rolls her eyes. She lays back down on her stomach and traces another stone.

"Two," she says pointedly.

Camden's smile droops.

"Sorry," I mouth to him. He shakes his head, and flips around, pressing his back to the bars.

I stretch out on the floor next to Binks, the stitches pulling the skin of my back. I dig my finger into the dirt and follow the grout around a nearby flagstone.

"Three," I say, adding to her count.

Sprinkles of water land on the backs of my legs. I twist around and look up at the skylight. It's begun to rain. The sun had been shining weakly this morning, but as it bled into afternoon, dark clouds had crossed over the skylight.

"Rain," I say to no one in particular. Some of the Ill-Fated shift at the sound, but most of them continue their quiet conversations uninterrupted. The rain will break the nine-day heat we've been having, but there's also a very real chance it could flood the dungeons. The cells are all on a downward slope, so the guards' feet will always stay dry, but we will always stay wet.