The note from Master Oswin had been a seed of hope in the sensory desert of the null-cell. Felix committed its message to memory—East wall, floor level—and then, with a regretful sigh, he ate the paper. Evidence was a luxury he could not afford. The act was a grim reminder of his condition: he was an animal in a cage, reduced to the most primitive of instincts.
The "distraction" he had threatened was provided that night. Not a riot or an explosion, but something far more subtle and clever. A fire broke out in the royal scriptorium, a chamber filled with irreplaceable, flammable manuscripts. The bells that rang out across the citadel were not the low, lamenting tones of the night bell, but a frantic, high-pitched pealing. His guards, their discipline eroded by months of monotonous duty, ab
