Page 38 of The City Of Fractured Memory

Xavier stops mid-stride, turning to me. His mouth pulls into a grim line, eyes flicking toward the bars as though Riven might materialise from them. “Depends on his mood.”

“That’s not comforting.”

He leans his shoulder against the wall, exhaling through his nose. “I’ve heard things, you know. Rumours about what goes on inside these walls. They say Riven doesn’t just kill those who cross him. He…draws it out. Keeps troublemakers alive for weeks in the dungeons beneath his estate. Some say he likes to peel away more than flesh, that he likes to break people from the inside out.”

My stomach knots and I pull a face at that unwelcome information, but I can’t ignore what my surroundings tell me either. “By the looks of it, these cells haven’t been occupied in a long time. Rumours are cheap, and you sound like one of the wardens gossiping outside the morgue.”

“Maybe.” Xavier’s tone sharpens. “But the ones who talk about him like that usually don’t have the courage to say his name too loudly. That should tell you something.”

“Well, you’d better figure something out quickly, seeing as you’re the reason we are in this mess,” I growl, though it holds no bite. If I’m being honest with myself, I was feeling the urge to punch the master in his smug face too.

My gaze drifts beyond the bars again, my mind painting horrors in the shadows beyond. I think of Riven’s hands around the guard’s throat, the ease of his strength, the way his eyes had burned with such fire when they caught mine. Rumours are often misleading, and I only work with facts, though whatever the truth is about his methods, I know one thing for sure. There is no mistaking the darkness that coils within him.

Stryx finally speaks up, her voice soft, but unyielding. “I don’t think he kills for pleasure.”

Both Xavier and I turn to her with a frown.

Stryx lifts her gaze to ours, firelight glimmering faintly in her irises. “If he wanted you dead, Octavia, you wouldn’t be sitting here wondering about it.”

Her words should comfort me. Instead, they make me wonder what’s worse—death, or whatever Riven has in mind for us next. My gaze catches on her feet, and despite our current predicament, I can’t help but smirk when I see she has actually put shoes on for once, albeit on the wrong feet.

She catches my amusement and tracks my eye-line, a reluctant smile breaking out across her face. “I thought that maybe a brothel wasn’t the best place to walk barefoot.”

There’s a pause before we both burst out laughing, Xavier looking between the two of us incredulously. But our laughter fades abruptly as the door at the end of the corridor swings open with a bang and two wardens come marching towards us. Xavier lurches towards the bars, baring his teeth as they come to a halt a foot away from our cell door.

“Detective Wren, the Governor would like a word,” the broad, moustached one grunts, his eyes betraying a vacancy that makes me wonder if his muscles severely outweigh his brains. “You two, face the wall.”

I rise gingerly to my feet, my shoulder still throbbing relentlessly from the fight as Stryx and Xavier reluctantly do as they’re bid. Stryx offers me a startled look as I step forward, but I give her an encouraging smile back.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” I whisper, praying to the Gods that my promise holds true. The warden opens the door and grabs me roughly, pushing me out into the corridor and making me wince as my shoulder protests. The joint pinches painfully as I move, my arm hanging limp by my side as the weight of the manacles holds my hands down, and I sigh as I wonder if it might be dislocated. My ring helps a lot, but there is a limit to its power, and whilst it usually does a good job of keeping my joints where they should be, healing a complete dislocation is asking a bit too much of it.

Not that there’s much point in worrying about such things when we may not even make it out of here alive, let alone in one piece.

Nineteen

I’m led along various winding corridors, no windows anywhere to let me know what time of night it is. We finally reach a thick wooden door at the end of a dark hall, a large brass knocker glinting in the faint candlelight shining from the sconces on the wall. The warden knocks loudly with two sharp bangs of his fist and we enter without waiting for permission.

I’m shoved into the room before the door slams loudly behind me, locking me in with my captor. I recover my footing and stare around at the enormous room before me, unable to stop the sharp intake of breath that releases from me as I take in my surroundings.

Books. Hundreds upon hundreds of books. Shelves encompass three of the four walls in what I assume to be the Governor’s office, stacking continuously to the top of the domed ceiling. On one of the shelves, various ancient trinkets are dotted, some covered thickly in dust, like the numerous scattered crystals, whilst others look more cared for, like a trio of seer diadems and an alchemist’s crucible. A ladder attached to a metal runner spans the width of the space in a remarkable design.

It’s nothing at all like I expected.

No lavish display of power, no particularly gaudy trophies to flaunt his wealth, just an austere sort of authority, the kind that doesn’t need to prove itself. In the centre of the room is a huge mahogany desk, covered in paperwork and seating the man himself.

“Sit, Miss Wren,” he says, his voice deathly quiet as he gestures to the chair opposite the desk, not bothering to look up from his paperwork.

My feet betray me, sliding quietly into the chair, the noise of his quill scratching against parchment the only sound breaking the tense silence. I try to peek at what he’s writing, but the only thing I can see with clarity is a small illustration of a black crow above his name heading all his various letters. Family crests are a rarity these days; his family must be very old and powerful to still retain one.

When he finally halts his writing, he leans back in his chair and surveys me with his fingers steepled. The quiet builds, my ears ringing with the deafening absence of sound, my Shadow materialising to loom at my back which only serves to increase my anxiety further. Riven’s gaze lifts slightly before settling back on me, the ghost of a frown lingering on his face.

“You like books,” I blurt out, unable to cope with the silence any longer. The words feel ridiculous as soon as they leave my mouth. Riven seems to share the sentiment as he tilts his head with a raised brow.

“That’s what you have to say?” he murmurs quietly. “Not ‘why did you kill the head Archivist’, or ‘why do you have my colleagues locked in a cell’?”

I bristle. “Would you tell me if I asked?”

He smirks. “No.”