My stomach is a tight knot of nerves, and despite the cool, mouldy air in my cage, I am sweating. I sit on the wooden pallet, my damaged foot raised awkwardly to lift the weight off it, but it is hard to stay still.

Picking at the thread of the bandage on my hand, I wonder what kind of dangerous plan Tug is concocting to get me out of here. He has never trusted the Prince, and after what happened in the throne room, I can't say I'm sorry for it. But he is taking an enormous risk just staying in the Ruby Palace. His presence here fills me equally with relief and dread.

And what about the Prince? What was that performance in the throne room, if it was a performance? All my previous fears about the Prince's memories coming back and transforming his personality wrestle inside me. Either way, Jakut is a long way from controlling the situation.

I force myself to stop fidgeting, breathe deeply and focus through the pain and anxiety. Eyes closed, I glide through the mind-world, move up the palace levels headed for the Prince's chambers. I want to discover if he's still fighting for us, and against Strik. The only way to be sure is to root around his recent memories.

It is some minutes before I come across the mind shaped like a great wall of some ancient myth. A wall built to keep out demons; a myth told to scare children. Even exhausted, bones aching, pain constant, moving through the mind-world is a hundred times easier than it was when I first left Blackfoot Forest. It is like a muscle that has grown strong from weeks of practice.

I slip inside the Prince's mind without effort, skim across his recent memories until I find one where he and Calmi are alone.

Calmi stands by the door of a lavish suite with enormous wood carvings, purple pillows strewn across six low ottomans, blue hand-painted patterns on the walls. The Prince is twisting an ornament in his hands, a golden filigree egg. He watches Calmi and she stares back.

"If you want to pass Grandfather's test," she says, "Mirra must hang."

"It's not an option."

"Then he will know his voice wields no power over you. He will not hesitate to get rid of you. The Queen and the heir she carries will take your place. And Caruca will be under his rule."

"You are asking me to make an impossible choice."

"There is no choice. Your emotions are getting in your way."

"Sacrifice one to save many?" Jakut says, scornfully.

"As you did with your father."

"This is different. My father was not innocent."

"It is not different. The only difference is the way you feel about her. Grandfather is suspicious—because of your spiritual cleansing after you massacred his men, and now the missing Duke, and the escaped prisoner. Unless she hangs with the others, you will never get close enough to kill him."

"I cannot do it."

"But you must."

A shout from somewhere near my cage yanks my attention out of the Prince's mind. I blink at the murky darkness, noting the smell of burning that lingers on the air.

The torch on the wall outside my cage has been snuffed out. There comes another gruff shout, then a sound of a fist hitting flesh. A sword clangs against stone, followed by a crack. I crawl off the wooden pallet, and wriggle across the cage floor on my stomach. More grunts, gurgles, sounds of punching, kicking. I pull myself up to the bars and squint at the faint edges of shadow.

A scuffling sound, followed by an agonised cry, quickly smothered. I wait, time pounding in my ears with the beating of my heart. The darkness is like a wall, like the mountain is claiming back these subterranean passages and trying to bury us.

Don't be dead, Tug. Don't you dare be dead.

A match sparks. In the light of a small flame, all I can make out are the fingers holding it. Then the flame grows as a torch is lit, illuminating the man who carries it.

I clap my hand over my mouth to stop myself from sobbing. Tug is panting, breathless, blood licking down the side of his unmarked face. A soldier moans, but I barely notice. All I see is Tug, those fierce, determined eyes, and I can't break it to him. Not straight away. He doesn't know that Strik is the only one with a key to my cage.

I prolong the moment of truth, distract both of us, if only for a few seconds. "When you said you'd come back for me," I say, "I thought you meant in a few months, not hours."

"Sorry to disappoint you." He moves away from the cage door, props the torch in a sconce and starts hunting for the key. I watch him. For some reason I still cannot tell him he won't find what he's looking for.

I guess I'm afraid I'll see that defiance crack and if Tug cracks then I'm not sure I can keep up any semblance of bravery. His search grows more vigorous, more impatient. Eventually, once he has scoured both soldiers twice over, he turns to me from where he is crouched over one of the men.

"Where's the key?"

"Strik has it." The truth falls down over his eyes like a pitch-black night. He looks ready to snake his arm over the soldier by his side and suffocate him. "Tug, Tug, please. You can't get me out of here. I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" There's an edge to his voice that winds me.

"Please, just talk to me for a few minutes. Then go. Get away from the city. Go to Lyndonia."

"I'm not going to let you die today. I will kill Strik if the Prince cannot."

"You said it yourself. Many have tried. Yet Lord Strik still lives."

"The Prince will find a way to delay. He will not sacrifice you."

"He has no choice. Strik has used his power to order the hanging." I do not tell him that I have discovered why Calmi puts so much faith in the Prince, because Jakut has the unique ability to resist Strik's power. I do not tell him because I know what Tug will do if he discovers the Prince could stop my death, but allows it to win Strik's trust and save the kingdom.

"You did not come here to die, Mirra." The anger and frustration seem to bleed out from him, twisting up my insides. It is worse to be left behind. To have someone taken from right under you, and be powerless to stop it. I could not let it happen to Kel. It will be hard for Tug. He will blame himself for the fact I'm here in the first place. The Prince might be capable of sacrificing me for the greater good, but unless I persuade Tug otherwise, he will die trying to stop it.

"If the Prince cannot find a way to take Lord Strik's life before the hanging," I say, "then it is impossible. You cannot allow yourself to be killed. You still have a promise to keep."

"Damn you, Mirra. Start thinking of yourself. Your brother is safe."

"You have received word?"

"It is too soon. But the carrier pigeon will have reached Lyndonia. And an answer will arrive before nightfall."

I look down, wondering if I will ever know that answer. Tug's hand wraps over mine where I hold the cage bars. His knuckles are bleeding. I can feel lacerations cut into his palm.

"You have to let me try, Mirra."

He wants my permission to let him get himself killed trying to assassinate Strik. I don't want to give it. But if I make him go against his own nature, the sense of honor that he has finally won back, then am I any better than Strik? How would I have felt if my mother had emotionally blackmailed me not to go after Kel? I would never have been able to live knowing I'd done nothing.

I tilt my head in a small nod. "But only once you've received word from Lyndonia and are certain that Kel is safe."

"Then I will wait," he nods, "and whatever I do, it will be at the hanging." I twitch my fingers to press against the bottom of his. We stay that way for a long moment, the fragile connection of touch like the delicate threads holding our lives to the world. On the edges of my inner-eye I sense someone approach.

"Someone is coming." Tug withdraws his hand but I'm not ready to let go. I reach through the bars, and put my palm on his shoulder. The powder he has used to conceal the tattoos has smeared, revealing shadows of his beast-face. His look presses into me.

Tug the mercenary, the soldier, the diplomat, the guardian, the drunk, the hero. My feelings are as tangled and complicated as his past. Up until two days ago, I didn't think I had any, except for hate, distrust, and anger.

The lantern in the sconce on the wall flutters and dances. Tug nods at me, then steps away and silently vanishes.

I grip onto the cage door and wait for the mind that has entered this underground tomb through a forgotten passage. A passage I imagine only the rats have used for a thousand years.

Sixe approaches like a spectre. If I couldn't sense his mind, I would have no indication he was here. When he is close enough to see the guards, one unconscious, the other still splayed on the floor whimpering, he stops hiding and rushes to the cage.

In the mind-world he pulls up a memory.

Calmi stands in a stable, hair tied back, sweaty as though she has just returned from riding. She holds out a pendant with a glass centerpiece shaped like a crystal sword.

"This is for you, Mirra," she says, talking to Sixe, but addressing me. "It is a mix of herbs and two poisons. I have only tested it on rabbits, but it is designed to slow the heartbeat. In the long-sleep the heart rate drops to fifteen beats per minute. Two drops of this and it will drop to two or three beats per minute. When you sense the soldiers coming for you just before dusk, take two drops. No more. It is fast working. By the time the soldiers reach your cell it will look as though you are having a seizure and dying. When they check for your pulse, they will not find it."

Calmi glances behind her, eyes wide and wary. Then she looks back at Sixe—at me. "I do not know how long the coma will last. I cannot promise you will ever wake from it. But if you don't take it, there will be no stopping Jakut. He plans to surprise Grandfather at the hanging. He will try to stab him in public, in plain view of Grandfather's assassins. And while Grandfather may survive the attack, it is certain the Prince will not. I am sorry to ask you to do this, Mirra."

She pushes the pendant into Sixe's hands. "Go now," she tells him.

The memory dissolves, and I am left gazing at Sixe. He slips the crystal pendant through the bars. I take it. My hand shakes as I lift the glass to the torchlight. For a moment I think Calmi has made a mistake and the glass is empty. But then I realize she has filled it up to the top so it looks as though there is nothing there.

I slip the thread off the pendant and tuck the narrow crystal into the bandage around my injured hand. Then I look at Sixe. His expression reminds me of a river pebble I once found, formed in beautiful layers. Each layer a shade of sandy brown, volcanic black, salty gray, the passage of time captured in the sedimentary strips. I showed it to Ma and she called it the silent life of a stone, a witness to the force of nature and the passing of the ages.

I reach through the bars and squeeze Sixe's arm. As he turns to leave, I see the tear glistening on his cheek. Far off in the mind-world wind howls and waves crash against the sparkling cliffs of the Island of the Rushing Winds, the home of our ancestors, drowned beneath the sea years ago, but still echoing in our people's memories.