Chapter 361 - 361: Extra Charge

"Don't touch the crew," Rigel said.

Cynthia had already taken a step toward the mason with the mallet.

The mallet kept tapping.

Third bell.

Watch change.

A polite knock from a door that was not a door.

Mesterica's blade was out.

The point stayed off Erna's back by a handspan, no more.

"She's speaking to it."

"She's also the only one in this line who insulted it," Rigel said.

"Leave her mouth. Watch her hands."

Erna's palm was still on the stone.

The fingers had gone white at the nails.

Not listening.

Bracing.

"If I take my hand off, the crack widens," she said, without looking at them.

"I tested it. Half an inch. I'm not doing that again."

The thing in the wall made a pleased sound.

"Competent. We could use a site chief."

"You couldn't afford me."

Rigel almost laughed.

He put his heel on the floor a finger short of the pale film around the packet.

The wrapped metal ticked again.

Hungrier, if metal could be that.

"Cynthia. Pell."

"Gone. Window shut. Latch turned from this side. He left the knots tied in a circle on the blanket like a joke."

Her breath was still running.

"The healer smiled when she asked. Then she forgot she had asked. She tried to feed the empty bed."

"Is she following you."

"No. I told her to sit. She sat. That might mean nothing."

Mesterica's eyes flicked to the lined masons.

"These will walk when it finishes talking. You know that."

"I know."

Rigel crouched by the packet and did not unwrap it.

The cloth had more dark lines now, like writing that wanted out.

He spoke to the crack.

"You wanted the maker. Here. You don't get the work. You don't get the house list. You get one question, and if I like the answer I don't grind this into the floor."

Silence, tasting him.

Then, milder:

"Ask."

"What are you wearing these people in."

Erna's shoulders jumped.

The crew did not.

"Not bodies first," the wall said.

"Routes. A well cover. A servant passage. A formula that leaves the mind awake. We put a foot in the route, then a voice, then a face if the face is convenient. Your collar taught us a cleaner stitch. Thank you."

"You didn't learn it from me. You sniffed a scrap."

"A scrap is enough when the maker keeps testing it on live throats."

The crack breathed stone-cold over Erna's wrist.

"Two sisters in a dark room. A girl who still says Master when she wants to run. You are not subtle, Lord Gousel."

Mesterica's head turned a fraction.

She did not ask now.

She would ask later, with a sword on the table.

Cynthia heard it too.

Her jaw set.

Later for her as well.

Rigel let the names pass over him like weather.

Weather could wait.

The film on the floor could not.

It had crept toward the packet while they talked.

A pale tongue, thin as flour paste.

"Erna," he said.

"If I move this, does the crack follow."

"I don't know. I'm a mason, not a priest."

Her voice frayed on the last word.

"Don't you put that iron near my crew."

"Wasn't going to."

He picked the packet up.

The tick jumped into his palm, sharp, pleased.

The film on the floor stopped, confused, then began to gather under where the cloth had been, like a mouth that had missed a spoon.

The mason's mallet missed a beat.

Just one.

Then it found the rhythm again.

Cynthia whispered, "They're a clock."

"They're a lock," Mesterica said.

"Something is waiting for the count to finish."

Rigel looked down the corridor, toward the conference wing.

Sixth bottle.

Wrong cadence.

A civil official still writing.

"Count Blade is the next route," he said.

"He knows the duty roster. He knows which returned names to keep off it. That's a better map than an archive."

The wall sounded almost kind.

"He already asked us how his daughter sleeps. We haven't answered. We were being polite."

Cynthia went white around the mouth.

"If you used his tongue—"

"Then stop talking to me and go cut the conversation," Rigel said.

She moved.

Mesterica did not follow at once.

She watched Erna's hand on the stone.

"If I pull her away, the hole opens."

"Yes," Erna said.

"And if you leave me, I start answering it like them. I can feel the seam. Same as your watchman, I bet. I just have a thicker skull and a worse temper."

Rigel stepped in close enough that only she would hear.

"You want danger pay. This is it. You keep that hand there until I come back. You do not agree to any price it offers. You do not give it a name it can wear."

Erna's laugh was small and ugly.

"You left me in a wall once already today."

"And you didn't yield."

"I yielded enough."

"Not on the number that matters."

Her eyes flicked to him, bright with hate and the leftover heat of noon, and under that a craftsman's refusal to let a job sit unfinished.

"If I start humming third bell," she said, "you cut my hand off the stone. Not my throat. I still have a site to close."

"Done."

Mesterica heard enough of that to look ill.

She still took Rigel's left and matched his pace toward the conference rooms, because the castle was making a new sound now.

Not a bell.

A chair, dragged.

Slow.

As if someone inside had stood up after sitting too long and was remembering how legs worked.

The civil official met them in the doorway with ink on his fingers and no ink on his fear.

That was the first wrong thing.

The second was the smile he had borrowed from the Riverbend healer.

"Lord Rigel. Lady Mesterica. The Count will see you."

He stepped aside too smoothly.

"He asked how many of your private bindings are portable."

Mesterica's blade came up under his chin and stopped a hair off skin.

"Say your own name."

The official blinked.

For a moment his face was only tired, a man who had ordered stomach potion by the box.

"Calden," he said.

"I think. I wrote Calden on the requisition this morning. The letters looked like mine."

Behind him, Count Blade stood at the head of the long table.

The map was rolled shut.

The sixth bottle was empty.

His eyes were his eyes.

His voice, when it came, had the old iron in it, and a second tone laid under the iron like a lining.

"Rigel. Cynthia is my daughter. If you have brought that wrapped scrap into my hall, you will put it on the table where I can see it, or I will assume you are the route."

Rigel showed his teeth.

"You're assuming with two throats, Count."

Count Blade's hand rested on the table edge.

The fingers drummed once.

Not third bell.

Close.

"Then ask me something only I would hate to answer," he said, very calmly.

"If I answer too easily, cut me. If I refuse, I may still be here."

From the north corridor, faint, Erna shouted a number.

"Ten!"

Not a scream.

A price.

Nailed to the stone like a spike.

The thing in the wall laughed, delighted, and the masons' mallets all struck together, one clean knock.

Count Blade's fingers stopped.

In the same instant, Cynthia's voice tore down the far hall, raw.

"Father, don't look at the table. The map opened itself."