Strax's sentence remained suspended in the archive hall for a few seconds.
"We will visit the Capital afterward."
No one there understood that as a diplomatic promise.
The floor was still covered in pale glass, formed from the contaminated sand that had been burned and frozen at the same time. The ancient archive shelves groaned beneath Mercedes's thin layer of blue ice, and pieces of parchment fluttered in the cold air, pinned by small translucent spears before they could touch any shadow. Havel remained collapsed against the wall, unconscious, his fingers bloodied, his face cracked, and his chest rising and falling in short breaths.
Mercedes did not look at the scribe like someone seeing a traitorous subordinate.
Her gaze was worse.
She looked at him like someone who had not yet decided whether the betrayal was large enough to kill him or small enough to keep him alive and useful.
"He goes to a cell without shadows," she said.
