Jones's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Jones held the flame steady. The clicks had become a chorus, but one cell had gone quiet. From inside it, a voice scraped out his name. Not a guess. His name, spoken slow, like something tasted. He stepped closer despite himself. The creature inside pressed a clawed hand to the bars. Purple fur, jagged teeth, eyes like wet coal. At its feet sat a broken slab of stone, runes burned red along the crack. "They sent word ahead," it said. "Down here we read what falls through." Jones glanced at the latch. Tiny screws had worked loose from the hinge plate and lay scattered on the stone. The bar trembled in its bracket. One good push and the door would swing. "Who sent word," Jones said. He kept his voice flat. The creature smiled wider. "The ones who want you off the chair before you sit on it. They wrote it on the stone so we'd know the face. Mismatched eyes. A boy with a claim." It tapped the rune. "Let me out. I'll tell you their name." Jones weighed it. A name was leverage. But a free thing with claws was a problem he couldn't cage twice. He drove his boot into the latch, hard, and slammed the loose bar back into its bracket. Then he kicked the rune-stone through the bars, into the dark behind the creature, out of reach. The thing shrieked. He ran. The corridor swallowed the flame's edge and the cells screamed behind him, but the latch had held. He'd learned two things and kept them both. Someone in the court had paid to have his face described in stone. And whoever they were, they were close enough now to whisper through walls.