A guard entered. He was followed by the three prisoners and then two more guards. Rolling Fuck’s negotiators were all handcuffed to each other. Roland had been shown pictures of all three captives before they’d departed the city of wheels, so it wasn’t hard to recognize Marigold, Tule and Rick. But they all looked different. Marigold’s bright purple hair was limp and greasy. The sockets on her augmented arm had been filled in with some sort of resinous substance.

Tule, bald in her pictures, now had a head full of peach fuzz. Her necklaces and amulets and rings were all gone, of course. She looked pale and deflated. Roland could see the ghost of an old black eye, likely earned during the initial capture. She walked with a limp, but otherwise looked healthy enough.

And then there was Rick. His wounds were fresh, and extensive. He was covered in bruises and it looked like his guards had cut into him, “writing” over several of his scarified tattoos with a combat knife. His left eye was broken and looked dead. Roland could tell the man’s orbital bone had been shattered. And with the slow, juddering way his good eye looked around the room, it was likely he’d suffered at least one concussion.

Dr. Brandt sighed and went right to the injured young man. “Have the others sit down,” he told the guards. He started to examine Rick. His jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed. Roland felt the doctor’s heart rate accelerate in anger.

“You’ve been at him again, haven’t you?” Dr. Brandt sounded angry. “I told you all this had to stop. He’s clearly concussed. You could have killed him.”

The lead guard shrugged and rolled his eyes. One of the other guards snickered. Roland could tell by the look of fury on the doctor’s face that he was not used to being treated this way.

“Soldier, I am the senior medical doctor of this entire Kingdom. I will bring your superior into this, and I will…”

Roland heard, and then smelled, six new men enter the jail. His mind rocketed downstairs, away from the petty argument, and started to analyze the new arrivals. They were soldiers, he could tell by the sound of their footfalls and the strong smell of gun oil and powder that wafted off of them. One of them smelled familiar, he’d been present when Manny had been abducted to the factory. Roland guessed this was the guy Sasha had told him about during their impromptu rescue mission.

“Huh,” Roland said out loud. Manny was the only one who seemed to notice.

“What?” Manny asked in a voice low enough that the guards wouldn’t hear it over the sound of Dr. Brandt dressing them down.

“That guy, Alexander. He just entered the building with a squad of armed men.”

“What does that mean?”

“I dunno,” Roland shrugged. “Probably an ambush.”