a pathway, with ropes and braces. The parade will come through that gate, and
into the tent from this side.’ She swept her hand from right to left, east to
west, in a long curve from the Processional gate. The carnival tent was set up
between the auction block and the guards’ barracks.
They tried to circle the tent, but the area beyond it all the way to the wall
was blocked by rope barriers. In the front, a line of spectators already snaked
back far beyond any possible capacity.
‘We’ll never get in,’ Aerie said.
‘Maybe it’s for the best,’ Chan said. ‘We don’t need to be inside with Satan
we need to get him out.’
The shadows lengthened across the palace grounds. Wess sat motionless and
silent, waiting. Chan bit his fingernails and fidgeted. Aerie hunched under her
cloak, her hood pulled low to shadow her face. Quartz watched her anxiously, and
fingered the grip of her sword.
After again being refused an audience with the prince, this time at the palace
doors, they had secured a place next to the roped-off path. Across the way, a
work crew put the finishing touches on a platform. When it was completed,
servants hurried from the palace with rugs, a silk-fringed awning, several
chairs, and a brazier of coals. Wess would not have minded a brazier of coals
herself; as the sun fell, the air was growing chill.
The crowd continued to gather, becoming denser, louder, more and more drunk.
Fights broke out in the line at the tent, as people began to realize they would
never get inside. Soon the mood grew so ugly that criers spread among the