Once Betrayed, Twice Shy

I start talking

FARAH

I don’t know what made me come down here.

That’s the honest answer, and I’ve stopped lying to myself about things that concern him because I’m running out of convincing lies. I heard the sounds from my room — distant and muffled by floors and walls and the solid indifferent stone of this palace, but unmistakable, something between a roar and a human cry that moved through the building like a frequency designed specifically to find me. I was out of bed and at my door before I finished processing what I was doing.

The guard on my door is young. He made the mistake of believing me when I told him, with complete authority, that I was needed downstairs, and I was already at the staircase before he’d finished deciding whether to stop me. I followed the sound down two flights, through th