The Liar's Key

“For God’s sake! He couldn’t have been that scared of Snorri.”

“Not scared.” Kara shook her head. “Loyal. He couldn’t do that to his friend.”

I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes and tried to clear my thoughts. As I took them away I became aware once more of the muffled bellowing from down the corridor. It hadn’t stopped—I’d just blocked it out. “Snorri!”

The others followed me as I ran to cell ten and unlocked the door. They had Snorri chained to heavy iron rings set into the wall, his mouth bound by a leather gag. He showed no signs of torture but the wound he’d borne with him from the north, the cut from the assassin’s blade, was now a strip of raw flesh an inch wide, a foot and a half in length, crusted with salt that grew in needle-like crystals, some as long as a fingernail.

Snorri strained at the restraints, wrists bleeding where the manacles bit them. Kara crossed the room, taking a small knife from her belt and reaching up for the northman’s gag.

“Wait!” I ran forward to catch her arm. “I’ll do it.”

She met my gaze with furious eyes. “You think I’m going to cut his throat?”

“You wanted to leave him here!” I shouted, wrestling the blade from her hand.

“So did you!” she spat back.

“I didn’t want to— I just— Anyway, you wanted to take the key to that witch up north!”

“So did you. Just to a different witch and not so far north.”

I didn’t have an answer for that so I sawed away at the strap binding Snorri’s gag in place. Tough leather gave easily before the keen edge. That’s how Tuttugu should have given. The idiot should have saved himself. I pulled the gag away and Snorri slumped forward, choking.

Kara came forward, reaching up to hold his head. I watched her and realized it made no sense. “If Skilfar wanted the key why didn’t she just take it when Snorri was right there before her? It’s . . . you who wants it?” Kara’s own greed or Skilfar using her to steal it so as to avoid the curse? In the end it made no difference.

“Get the shackles off.” She gestured with her head.

“I can’t, they’re held with rivets. It needs a blacksmith.” I kept my eyes on her, looking for signs of treachery.

She turned from Snorri, concern hardening into something else. “You still haven’t understood what you have in your hand. Use it! And use your head.”

I bit back a curt response and decided not to remind her who the prince was here. I had to stand on tiptoes to reach the manacle on Snorri’s wrist and expecting little I took the key, still shaped for the cell door, and pushed its end to the first of the two iron rivets that had sealed it shut. The thing resisted. I applied more pressure and with a screech of protest it slid out and fell to the floor. I repeated the operation and broke the manacle open. Snorri slumped forward.

“Where’s Tutt?” He managed to raise his head but whatever strength had kept him battling the chains had gone.

I let Kara answer him while I removed the manacle on his other wrist.

“Valhalla.” She turned away and went to stand by Hennan, setting a hand to his shoulder. The boy flinched but didn’t shake her off.

Free of the second manacle, Snorri collapsed to his knees and fell forward to rest his head on his arms against the floor. I removed the manacles on his ankles and reached out to set a hand on his back but withdrew it before I made contact. Something about him made me think I might be safer putting my hand into a box of wildcats.

“Can you walk?” I asked. “We need to get out of here.”

“No!” Snorri thrust himself off the ground with a roar. “We’re not leaving until they’re all dead! Every last one of them!”

Kara stepped up to him as he got to his feet. “And where does it end? Which is the last one? A jailer from the ground floor? The man who delivers food to the Tower? The banker who signed the arrest order? His assistant?”

Snorri pushed her away, snarling. “All of them.” He pulled the short sword from my belt, too quick to stop.

I held the key out before him. “Tuttugu died so you could use this. He stood against hot irons because they thought him the weaker man, the man they could turn from his course.” I pressed it into Snorri’s palm, though careful to remove it again—it was, after all, all I had. “If you stay clockwork soldiers will come—you’ll die here—Tuttugu’s pain will have meant nothing.”

“Pain never means anything.” A growl, head down, face framed by dirty straggles of black hair, a glimpse of burning blue eyes behind. He made to leave.