It was too much. At least the bed was warm. He had a new mother, he was supposedly the future for Arborium, and the people he loved were in terrible danger. And now, he found out that he’d been praying not to some far-off goddess all his life, but to his own grandmother. Ark hugged himself. Even though he was exhausted, his head would not leave him alone. He closed his eyes, but all he could see was his little sister with her impish grin; the smell of the smoky fire at home; Mucum blundering toward him, desperate to avenge his honor; Petronio’s dismissive laugh; the gleam of the ore in the root tunnels down below; the faraway voices plotting destruction as their sounds filtered through the plumbing. It all washed over him like ripples until his body finally had enough and he drifted into a long, troubled sleep.

32• DUNGEON DELIGHT

“Where in Diana’s dim and inglorious name is my son?” Grasp sat behind his desk. If he had had any remaining hair, he would have been pulling it, hard. Instead, he took out his anger on the man in front of him.

“Don’t know, sir. ’Aven’t seen ’im.” Since when was Salix responsible for that preening wood louse?

“You don’t know, do you? That’s your problem,” hissed Grasp. “The people I employ tend to know nothing about nothing. It’s a wonder I even bother to pay you!”

The guard fingered the stiletto in his belt, idly wondering how it would look plunged deep into his arrogant employer’s eye. “Well, I could go and look for him, I suppose.” The last thing Salix wanted to do was head out into the cold. He’d saved the boy’s life once. As far as Bombax Salix was concerned, that was once too often.

Grasp paused, puffing out his chest hidden behind a ridiculously pink satin doublet. “He’s probably out sucking the sap or some other such nonsense.” The Councillor allowed himself a single, grim twitch of his lips. He’d been a hollyraiser when younger. And the boy was only fourteen after all … still, it was rather late. “Well, then. Let me know when he returns. You can send him to my quarters.”

Salix turned to go.

“By the way, have you told the Malikum parents that their son is truly and finally dead?”

Salix nodded his head. The plumber’s boy had got away from them too many times. But to escape the clutch of the ravens? It had never been done, and Salix was not stupid enough to believe in miracles. The task of informing the parents had been the only satisfying part of his day. To see the once feisty mother reduced to a shambling wreck was pure pleasure, and the way the boy’s father crumpled back into his pathetic cot brought a savage twinkle to the guard’s eye.