The crown still spun on its rim when Whitelock collapsed back in the chair, seemingly exhausted.

We wonder where that person is hiding, the scribe had said. We wonder what that person is hiding.

Who were Whitelock and these . . . others . . . worried about? Who could hide something of such importance from them? Surely, it could not be he. Not the man he was. He looked at Whitelock. Not the man he would become.

The crown spun, round and round, slowly descending . . .

Run!

Yes. It made sense now. Only someone who truly understood Virtue could hide something from Whitelock and the others, someone like the man—the boy—he had once been.

Spun round and round, slowly descending to the floor . . .

Spinning and descending . . .

Descending into the depths of...

* * *

Time had passed, a lifetime—at least for one of them. The fire had actually raged for what could have been no more than a few minutes. Then the rain had started to fall, heavy enough to quench the flames, if not enough to save the man the flames had ravaged. His father collapsed. Still the rain fell, washing away the last of the smoke, but not the unctuous residue of burnt flesh, nor the remembrance of his father's agonized screams.

His father's body lay on its side, green robes frayed and smoldering, a few of the golden threads within the Scales of Justice still red hot, but fading in the shower's gray curtain. Despite the horrific burns elsewhere, one half of his father's face miraculously remained untouched by the fire. Raindrops trickled down pale flesh, pooled in the one eye that was wide and unseeing, then fell into the mouth that hung open in its final cry, red and raw like a gate to the Abyss.

"I forgive thee, father," the boy said, and turned away. Shaana's father would have heard the screams, and would be coming . . .

"Blackthorn."

'Twas a kind voice, a compassionate one, yet sorrowful, burdened. He turned. 'Twas not his father who had spoken. How could it be? His father had died.

Where the trees once marked the edge of the glade was now a stone wall, so tall it disappeared into the darkness of its own ceiling. He followed the curve of the wall, his sight drifting over burnt tapestries and broken columns; the glade, it appeared, had been transformed into a chamber, so vast it was a cavern in itself. Cracked tiles of white and black replaced earth and leaf. Where the body of his father had lain was a blackened depression, a rent in the earth, the cracks of which had laced outward through the chamber and uprooted the floor. In the center of the depression stood—no, not his father, as he had thought. Nonetheless, the man who could easily be mistaken for the Lord Mayor. He was armored neck to foot in black, boiled leather. He was tall, regal, his hair and beard neatly trimmed. He had recently suffered a wound. Blood glinted from the gash within his breastplate.