Sapphique

You’ll carry me on your watchchain.’ He looked beyond her, at the Warden. ‘And from now on there will be freedom for us all.’ The Warden’s smile was narrow. ‘So, my old friend, you have found yourself a body after all’ Despite all your efforts, John Arlex.

‘But you haven’t Escaped.’ Jared shrugged, an odd, slightly alien movement. ‘Ah but I have. I’ve Escaped myself but I won’t be leaving. That is the paradox that is Sapphique.’ He made a small movement with his hand, and all the people gasped. Behind them, all around them, the walls lit and they saw the grey room of the Portal, its door crowded with watchers, and Fi

Jared turned. ‘Now we’re all together. Inside and Outside.’

‘Do you mean the Prisoners can Escape?’ Keiro snapped and Claudia realized they had heard everything.

Jared smiled. ‘Escape to what? To the ruin of the Realm?

We will make this their paradise, Keiro, just as it was supposed to be, just as the Sapienti always pla

People murmured, echoing his words, passing them from one to another. She heard the promise reverberate through the Prison’s landscapes. But she felt desolate and sick, because once she had been the Warden’s daughter, and now she would be the Queen, and without Jared it would be another role to play, another part of the game.

Jared edged past her and walked down to meet the crowd.

They held out their hands and touched him, grasped the dragonglove, fell at his feet. One, a woman, sobbed, and he touched her gently, his hands round hers.

‘Don’t worry;’ the Warden said softly in Claudia’s ear.

‘I can’t help it. He’s not strong.’

‘Oh I think he is stronger than all of us.’

‘The Prison will corrupt him.’ Attia said it, and Claudia turned on her angrily. ‘No!’

‘It will. Incarceron is cruel, and your tutor is too gentle to control it. It will all go wrong just like it did before’ Attia was cold; she knew her words hurt but she still said them, and a bitter misery made her add, ‘And you and Fi

And will I get my Apprentice back?’

‘No chance.’ Keiro flickered a blue glance at Fi

‘Shall we see more of the Art Magicke? Make us a door, Rix.’ The sorcerer laughed. He took a small piece of chalk from his pocket and held it up, and the crowd stared. Then he bent over and drew with it on the marble floor where the statue had once stood. Carefully he drew the door of a dungeon, ancient and wooden, with a barred grille and a great keyhole and chains looped across it. On it he wrote SAPPHIQUE.

‘They all think you’re Sapphique’ he said to Jared, straightening. ‘But of course you’re not. I won’t tell them, you can trust me He came close to Attia and winked at her.

‘It’s all an illusion. There’s a patchbook like it. A man steals fire from the gods and saves the people with its warmth.

They punish him by binding him with a great chain for ever.

But he struggles and squirms, and at the world’s end he will come back. In a ship made of fingernails.’ Then he smiled at her sadly. ‘I’ll miss you, Attia.’ Jared reached out and touched the chalked door with the tip of a dragonclaw. Instantly it became real, and opened, the door falling inwards with a great clang, leaving a rectangular darkness in the floor.

Fi

Jared led Claudia gently to its edge. ‘Go on, Claudia. You’ll be there, and I here. We’ll work together, just as we always have She nodded, and looked at her father. The Warden said, ‘Master Jared, may I have a word with my daughter?’ Jared bowed and moved away.

‘Do as he says,’ the Warden said.

‘What about you?’ Her father smiled his cold smile. ‘My plan was for you to be Queen, Claudia. That was what I worked for. Perhaps it is time I did some work here, in my own realm. This new regime will need a Warden. Jared is far too lenient, and Incarceron too harsh.’ She nodded. Then she said, ‘Tell me the truth. What happened to Prince Giles?’ He was silent a while. He stroked his narrow beard with his thumb. ‘Claudia...’

‘Tell me.’

‘Does it matter?’ He looked at Fi

‘But is he?’ His grey eyes held her. ‘If you are my daughter, you will not ask me.’ She was silent too. For a long moment they looked at each other. Then, formally, he lifted her hand and kissed it, and she gave him a low curtsy.

‘Goodbye, father,’ she whispered.

‘Rebuild the Realm,’ he said. ‘And I will come home at intervals, as I used to do. Perhaps from now on you will not dread my coming so much.’

‘I won’t dread it at all.’ She walked to the edge of the trapdoor, and glanced back at him. ‘You must come to Fi

‘And yours.’ She shrugged. Then, with one last look at Jared, she walked down the steps of darkness inside the door, and they saw her climb up into the room of the Portal, Fi

‘Go on, girl,’ Rix said to Attia.

‘No.’ She was watching the screen. ‘You can’t lose both your Apprentices, Rix.’

‘Ah, but my powers have grown. Now I can conjure a winged being into life, Attia. I can bring a man from the stars. What a show I’ll take on the road! I’m made, for ever.

However it’s true I can always use an assistant. .

‘I could stay. . .’ Keiro said, ‘So you’re scared then?’

‘Scared?’ Attia glared up at him. ‘Of what?’

‘Of seeing Outside.’

‘What do you care?’ He shrugged, his eyes blue and cold. ‘I don’t.’

‘Right.’

‘But Fi

‘For what? I was the one who got the Glove. Who saved your life Fi

Keiro said, ‘Not so difficult, was it?’ She stared round. The room was grey and calm, it hummed with a faint power. Outside the door in a ruined corridor a few bruised men watched, sitting slumped against the wall.

They looked at her as if she was a ghost.

In the screen on the desk the Warden’s face was fading.

‘Not only will I come to the coronation, Claudia,’ he said.

‘But I will expect an invitation to the wedding.’ And then the screen was dark, and it whispered in Jared’s voice, So will I.

There was no way down so they climbed up the remains of the stairs to the roof.

Fi