Lisbet holds out her palm, showing the ring. The seated guard tries to see, but before he can Karl closes his gloved hand over hers, bunching it into a fist. His eyes are suddenly wide and afraid. He grips Lisbet’s wrist tighter and pulls her away from the table, towards the barred door.

‘Who sent you?’

‘Frederich,’ she whispers back, aware of the other guard ignoring the elderly man in order to try to hear.

‘I do not know him.’

‘Of course you do,’ says Sophey, and Lisbet startles. She has not explained the plan to Sophey and yet she already seems to have the measure of it. Her mother-in-law is a trove of surprises today. ‘And you need not fear us. He sends us with a favour.’

Karl’s eyes flick between them. He still suspects a trap. ‘Who are you?’

‘Frau Wiler, who he rooms with.’ Sophey purses her lips. ‘When he rooms at all.’

‘We are here for Ida Plater,’ says Lisbet. ‘She is my friend. We wish to see her.’

‘Plater . . .’ Karl’s face is grave. ‘The council man’s wife?’

‘The same,’ says Lisbet hungrily. ‘Please, where is she?’

‘Still here,’ he says cautiously. He still holds Lisbet’s fist, and now he looks down and gently unfurls her hand.

‘Yes, we know she is here,’ says Sophey impatiently.

Karl’s gaze is trained on the ring. ‘But not for much longer.’

Lisbet’s stomach flips. ‘She is to be released?’

The guard shifts. ‘No.’ He hesitates, looking at Lisbet’s belly. ‘I do not know if—’

‘She can hear whatever it is you must say,’ says Sophey. ‘Speak it.’

Karl looks Lisbet full in the eyes then. His are brown, as Frederich said, and kind, and sad.

‘She is sentenced.’

‘Already?’ says Sophey, and her voice shakes. ‘How?’

‘There are many fast judgements now,’ says Karl, not taking his eyes from Lisbet’s face. ‘The dancing plague has brought many falsifiers and strangers to the city. They pass out sentences by the score, because there is not room in the gaol for them all.’

‘Where do they move them, then?’ says Sophey.

Karl chews on air. ‘I am sorry. The penalty is set. She is to be drowned. Today.’

It is all Lisbet can do to keep herself steady. She must pale, because Karl holds her under her arm, and Sophey grasps her waist. But Lisbet is done with swooning, done with being thought weak. She pushes them away.

‘I want to see her.’

‘It is impossible—’

Lisbet holds up the ring. ‘It is all impossible. It is impossible that Ida is sentenced to drown for the same sin you also carry.’

Karl gapes at her. ‘She is a false dancer.’

‘She loves a woman.’

Karl blanches, hushes her, but she will not be silent.

‘She is in there still, and you have keys. So this thing, it is possible. And you will give me this one thing, though it is all wrong and rotted. You will take me to my friend.’