In here was the kitchen, a veritable shrine to cooking that would make Remmie sob with joy, could he see it. A wide wooden table, knife-scarred, in the centre. More vast scrubbed benches against the long, whitewashed stone walls. A roasting alcove complete with turnspit, heavy logs on their grating slowly turning to charcoal. Gleaming pots and pans hanging on hooks overhead, wickedly sharp knives, an enormous, deep triple sink, a full wall of hobs and ovens. Fresh-killed and plucked fowl sat plump on a granite slab, slapped side by side with a rack of bloody beef ribs and a basin of garden peas waiting to be shelled. The fire-warmed air was rich with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Barl felt her mouth flood, and heard her empty belly growl.

A man wrapped in a blue-and-white striped apron stirred a pot on one hot hob. The master servant tapped his shoulder then jerked a thumb. “See what’s low in the flour bins, Biddle. I’ll call when you’re wanted back.” He glanced in the pot. “Take that stock off the heat. It can sit a while with no harm.”

“Master Rumm,” the man muttered, dragged the pot aside then scuttled from the kitchen. Not so much as a curious glance at the newcomer. The master servant would likely cuff him for that kind of temerity.

Rumm pointed at a wooden stool set up by the turnspit. “Sit. Did they feed you, those mages at the Hall?”

“No,” Barl said, cautiously perching on the edge of the stool.

“No, sir,” he corrected, scowling. “You’ll mind your manners here, Mage Lindin.”

She bit back a pointless retort. “No, sir. They did not feed me, or give me drink. If they’d found me dead of hunger this morning they’d have laughed, I think, and counted themselves lucky.”

Rumm grunted. “There’ll be no commenting on the Council under Lord Danfey’s roof. Wait there.”

She watched him leave the vast kitchen through the nearest of its three doors. Waiting, with no-one to gawk at her, she let her spine slump a little. Let the weight of her impossible situation press her closer to the stone floor. Clearly, she was to be put to work here like a servant. Probably this was why Morgan Danfey had offered to house her. Cheap labour. Why pay good money for a housemaid when he could bind himself one for free?

That binding. The incant was quiet again but still, she could feel it. Like a banked fire it burned beneath her skin, its heat as steady as the warmth from the hot coals under the turnspit.

So I might as well be in that stone cell beneath the Hall. If I were in Brantone, or Vharne, if I fled to Iringa, I’d still be the Council’s prisoner. I carry my cage with me.