She would have to escape by more mundane means. Up to the skylight and out through the windows and the shutters. Or down, hoping to find a tunnel, a sewer or something that this well connected up with. If it was a well, and if there was a way to get through the floor.

Clariel stamped her feet, hoping that the groan and creak of timbers would answer. But there was the dull, leaden sound of stone instead, and she hurt her feet testing it. To make sure, she got up and slowly stomped around, feeling her way with her outstretched hands. With every stomp she hoped to hear an echo or some give in the floor, indicating a trapdoor under a thin veneer of stone, or a timbered portion in one corner or something.

There was no such echo. Even checking under the bed confirmed that the floor was stone, and solid stone at that. Her fingers told her there were four great slabs, each covering a quarter of the room, and they were butted up so close together she couldn’t even get a fingernail between them. Each one would be far too heavy to lift or move anyway, even if she could find some purchase.

That left climbing. Clariel sat down again and thought about a tool for picking mortar. It would need to be metal, and there was nothing metal in the chamber. She crawled over to the chamber pot to confirm that it was a soft terracotta, as was its lid and the water jug. So breaking them wouldn’t even provide a useful shard.

The bed turned out to be pegged together. Clariel felt over every part of it, without finding any nails, screws or bolts.

She went over to the wall and felt the bricks and tested various lines of mortar. None were crumbly enough to pick out with just fingers. A metal tool was absolutely necessary. Even then, the bricks were so close together that if she did somehow manage to pry out the mortar, the toe- and fingerholds would be thin, and extremely precarious. It was thirty feet to the top, and a fall from even halfway might be fatal …

Clariel was thinking about that and regretting the absence of anything even vaguely useful when she remembered her silk tunic was fastened at the back of the neck with a metal button. Quickly, she felt for it, fearing it might have been torn off. The buttons looked gold, but they were only gilded, iron coated with a thin layer of gold. Jaciel did not approve of using soft gold for such utilitarian purposes as hidden buttons.

Or rather, she hadn’t approved … Clariel fought against the hope that her mother was alive. She was certain Kilp had told her this to weaken her, and she would not be drawn into believing it.

Jaciel and Harven were dead, and she was alone.