He began working to unfasten the knotted rope around the first guard’s wrists and ankles. The rope was stiff, like new—unlike any rope Quill had seen in decades, he was sure.

Gondoleery appeared in the doorway, but she didn’t deign to help. Instead she peppered the guards with questions once a few of them were able to remove their gags.

“Who did this? When did it happen? Where’s Aaron?”

The head guard coughed, trying to speak. Liam rushed to get him a cup of water from the bucket while Gondoleery continued with more questions. “Did the Quillitary do this? Or did Aaron? What is going on here?”

Finally, the guard could speak. “Neither. We were ambushed last evening. Twenty or more strangers broke in and overtook us. They shoved us in here and tied us up. A few hours later we heard another scuffle, then nothing more until you found us.” He coughed. “We don’t know who they were, but it wasn’t the Quillitary. And I don’t know where the high priest is, or if he was involved. I heard a muffled shout that sounded like him last evening, and then silence. I can only guess he was captured and taken away.”

Liam and Gondoleery exchanged looks.

“Captured?” Gondoleery asked slowly. “Taken away?”

The words sank in. With a strange look on her face, Gondoleery turned and walked out of the room. At the door leading outside she paused, her singed fingertips on the handle. And then a wicked smile spread across her face. She opened the door, looked over her shoulder at Liam.

“Governor,” she said, “you are relieved of your duties. I’m taking over as high priest, and I declare that your time in Quill is done. Please make your way to the Ancients Sector.”

Liam’s mouth fell open. His stomach knotted with fear. He gripped the banister as sweat broke out on his forehead, and the knot in his stomach twisted and churned. “What?” he whispered.

Gondoleery cackled. “You heard me.” She turned to go once more, when a flurry of activity stopped her in the open doorway. A small group of bedraggled Necessaries was running up the driveway, covered in rock-wall dust, fresh wounds bleeding through torn bits of clothing. Some carried children.

Gondoleery sneered. “What do you want?” she asked the first one to reach her.

“There was an accident, Governor! The last section of the wall collapsed. It fell inward, on top of the workers, and it crushed several houses.”

Gondoleery sighed. “What a shame.”

“Rows twenty-five through twenty-seven in the Necessaries Sector are completely demolished!”

“What do you want me to do about it?” Gondoleery tilted her head as if she hadn’t a clue.

“Tell the high priest, for one!” cried the Necessary. He looked around desperately at the stragglers behind him.

A man approached, carrying two crying toddlers. “These children are orphans—their parents died in the collapse.”

Gondoleery looked at the children like they were diseased animals. “Well, I surely don’t want them,” she said.

The man sighed, exasperated. “They aren’t for you, they’re for the high priest—”

“That’s what we’re trying to tell you,” interrupted the first. “The high priest’s father was working on the wall when it collapsed. And it crushed their house, where his wife was with the children. The Stowes—they’re both dead, you see. We pulled the babies from the rubble. They’re the high priest’s sisters.”

“I’m sure he would want to look after them,” said another Necessary.

Gondoleery stared at them.

Liam stared at Gondoleery, still in shock from what happened earlier, and now this. . . .

Gondoleery looked from one bloody, bruised face to the next. “Aaron’s sisters, you say?” she asked slowly.

“Yes,” said the first Necessary. He took one of the girls and held her out to Gondoleery.

She narrowed her eyes, but took the child gingerly in her arms, and then reached out for the other, a look of disgust apparent on her face. “I’ll see to it that Aaron gets them,” she said. “Soldiers,” she said to the Quillitary members stationed by the door, “please escort the Necessaries outside the palace gates where they belong.”

She didn’t wait for the Necessaries or the soldiers to respond. Instead she stepped back into the palace and closed the door with her foot. Then she shoved the twins into Liam’s arms. “Here.”

Startled, he took them. “What am I supposed to do with babies?”

“You’ll take them with you to the Ancients Sector,” Gondoleery said. She wiped her hands on her blouse, then opened the door to make sure the Necessaries were gone and stepped out once more. “Let the proprietor know I want all three of you put to sleep by morning.”

Liam gaped. Gondoleery slammed the palace door, shoved past the Quillitary guards, and got into an awaiting vehicle. Through the window he could see her barking orders, and soon the jalopy roared off. He looked at the girls. One of them tugged at his ear, and the other began to fuss. “Mama,” she whimpered.

“What in Quill?” Liam whispered, and a fearful breath escaped him. Babies? To the Ancients Sector? No one had ever heard such a heartless command, not even in Quill. Liam’s eyes darted around the palace, from the empty staircase to the servants’ kitchen where half a dozen guards had heard every command given by the new self-declared high priest. They would see to it that her wishes were carried out—that was the way of Quill. His chest tightened, and he could taste something sour burning his throat. Gondoleery was a monster. A monster who was now in control of Quill. And Liam and these babies would be dead by morning.