X.

My eyes open to light through a small barred window at the top of the cell. She is still curled in my arms, dressed in a thin grey tunic, straw bundled around us. I lay my hand lightly upon her head. Where there once were long, black, matted locks now there is only stubble and welts. I have not seen her this vulnerable since she first entered the world. My fingers move slowly across her scalp, careful not to disturb the scabs.

Then I close my eyes. And sleep takes me.

When I awake again, I am alone.

I shoot to my feet, glancing about. Did I imagine it? Was it just a dream? But no—the straw beside me lies flattened, still outlining the frail shape of her body. To be sure, I kneel down and begin to sniff the area.

From beyond the bars, laughter. The old guard draws nearer, the bones in his knees creaking with each step. “Lost something, have we?” he says.

“My daughter,” I say, crawling over to the gate and pulling myself up on the bars. “Have you seen her, sir?”

“Oh, yes, I certainly have seen her. Nothing happens in this place without me seeing it.”

“Good, good,” I say. “That’s very good—so she was here? Where is she now?”

He nods, pleased. “A fine morning for it,” he says, peering up toward the window, a minor slit recessed in the stonework. “Light came early. Earlier than yesterday. Or perhaps I rose late. It amounts to the same.”

“My daughter,” I repeat. “You said you saw her.”

“I see most things,” he says. “Not all. Not what is kept from me, of course. But the rest—yes. I see the comings and the goings. The enterings and the leavings. The being broughts and the being takens.” He leans closer to the bars. His sour breath floats leisurely upon the damp air. “Yours was brought.”

“And taken?” I say.

He considers this, then shrugs. “All things are taken in time.”

I grip the bars. “But where is she now?”

“Where she is meant to be,” he says. “Where we all go, sooner or later.” He taps the side of his nose. “You’ll forgive me. I don’t keep a ledger. Not anymore. My father did. And his father before him. Pages and pages of it—names and times, descriptions and dispositions. Very thorough. But it becomes a burden, you understand, remembering who is where at all hours and why.”

“Please, but you must remember something?”

“As I’ve already told you, prisoner, I see things. But I myself am no record-keeper. Though—oh, you’ll surely get a kick out of this—it was the very act of record-keeping that turned my grandfather into a prophet. It’s true. His system for note-taking grew more and more detailed over the decades until, one day, he began describing the very mechanisms that govern the Cosmos, and the nodes that connect the Many to the One. It did not come as revelation for him—no, not revelation at all—but as a continuous unfolding of minutia right down to the very bottom. It was then, at last, that he lifted the mask of Time—and do you know the face he saw? He saw no face at all. I swear to you, he vanished right on the spot… Ah, but I see the crooked look on your face! Don’t believe me? Fine, then—ask my father.”

“Your father?” I say. “You are not alone here?”

“Alone?” He laughs. “No, no. Never alone. That would be quite unusual.”

He turns, as though recalling something trivial, and gestures down the corridor.

“Look,” he says. “You may as well meet them. We take our breakfast at this hour.”

I follow his gesture. Where before there was only shadow, there is now a table set a short distance down the hall, just beyond the reach of the dim light. I cannot say when it appeared. A plump woman sits at one end, her back to us, pouring something dark into a row of cups. Two soot-faced children lean over their bowls, speaking in low voices. At the head of the table sits a man I take at first to be the guard himself, until I notice the difference in the set of the shoulders, the sagging of the eyelids.

They do not look towards us.

“Family,” the guard says, almost apologetically. “We have always kept the post. It passes unobstructed from one to the next. My father kept it. His father kept it. And so on. Now I keep it. And when I am finished—” he waves vaguely in their direction—“one of them will take it up. We are not particular as to which. My father believes we are too modern in this regard, but times have changed.”

“Do they see me?” I ask.

“See you?” he says with a sharp laugh. “No, no. Not unless you are meant to be seen.”

The woman lifts a cup, sets it down again. One of the children giggles at something I cannot hear.

“My daughter,” I say. “Please, you’re a family man yourself. She was here, wasn’t she? You saw her.”

“Yes,” he says. “Curled up just there.” He nods towards the straw. “Made very little noise, all things considered. Not like some.” He pauses. “She has good lungs, though. You should be proud.”

My grip tightens.

“Where,” I say, “is she now?”

He tilts his head, and for a moment the mockery leaves his face.

“Oh, hush—you’ll see her again,” he says. “That much is certain. Yes, that much is quite certain.”

From somewhere farther down the corridor, beyond the table, beyond the reach of sight, there comes a sound. A footstep, then another. A shuffling of feet perhaps.

The guard straightens slightly. “Ah,” he says. “There it is.”

“What is it?” I say.

“Best stand properly,” he murmurs. “He does not care for disorder. No, he does not.”

The shuffling grows louder, closer.

“Who?” I say, reaching through the bars and taking hold of the guard by his leather smock. “Tell me who you speak of.”

“He speaks of me,” replies a firm voice to my left.

I turn.

He is here—inside my cell. The leather in my hand trembles. I glance back to the guard; he is tittering with one hand over his mouth.

“Release him,” says the man.

I let go at once.

“Now put this on. You are not fit to be seen.” He places a folded white tunic in my hands.

“I…” I say, glancing down at my nakedness. “My apologies, sincerely. I’d completely forgotten… If I had known—”

“Do not speak until you are dressed,” he says.

Somewhere down the dim corridor, the guard’s laughter merges with the low murmur of his family at Table. I pull the tunic over my head. The fabric is stiff, smelling faintly of lye. It catches briefly at my shoulders before falling into place.

“There,” he says.

“Thank you, Conductor,” I say, smoothing the front of it with my hands. “But please, tell me what happened to my daughter.”

“Your daughter? But you only just saw her. Aren’t you curious about what has happened to the rest of your lovely family?”

“I don’t… I don’t understand.”

He shakes his head. “Sit.”

I lower myself onto the hay. He remains standing.

“Now,” he says, “what do you remember from yesterday’s Execution?”

“It’s a blur. It’s always a blur with the gas. I remember the heat through the contraption, the foam in my throat. I remember… a commotion—yes, a commotion outside.”

“A commotion,” he says. “Yes.”

“You… slipped. Fell, I think. The people looked worried. Then you stood again. But they were still… they were still quite angry with the ground.”

As I speak, he unbuttons his shirt. The fabric parts. Bandages, darkened in places.

“Here,” he says.

I stare.

“Your daughter was precise,” he says. “The error was one of depth.”

“No… my—”

He lifts a hand. I stop.

“This was not unexpected,” he says. “It had been accounted for.”

My mouth dries.

“What was not accounted for,” he continues, “was your son.”

“My son? My son remained at the panel. I watched him. He did everything required. He was nervous, yes, of course he was nervous, but—”

“Not that son.”

I feel something shift. “Nokweed?”

“Yes, the younger one,” he says, buttoning his shirt up. “He entered the event.”

The event. It returns in fragments—the pushing, the pulling, the shouting, the kicking.

“Perhaps… Perhaps he was not in his right mind when he interfered,” I say. “Perhaps he thought he was protecting you.”

“Be that as it may,” he says, “we’ll not be asking him.”

The room buckles. I brace myself against the floor. “No,” I say. In my mind: the tousled hair, the red-stained heap.

“He is being preserved in your Home,” he says. “In your Sanctuary.”

I do not meet his eye.

“The North Chapel will decide what remains to be done.”

He takes a step towards me, so close I can make out the weave of his dress pants.

“Now,” he says, straightening his collar, “I have more pressing matters to attend to.”

From inside his jacket he removes a bottle of thick brown glass, about the length of his palm. He holds it up to the narrow shaft of light and gives it a whirl.

“There will be a recital of Piano Concerto No. 2 this afternoon,” he says, pulling the cork and pouring the contents over my head. “Served with savoury brūcklebūrry tea from the furthest reaches of Empire.”

The liquid runs into my eyes, my mouth. It soaks the straw.

“I look forward to my day of rest,” he says. I hear him, but it does not reach me. “Alas, today is not Sunday. No—today is a work day.”

And then: the grating swoosh of the head along the striker.

“Today is Thursday,” he says. “Day of the Blaze.”

He flicks the match.

And the flame takes me.