The crowd was restricted to the left side of the street watching Duke Winslow as he sat leaning on the wheel of his carriage, heaving as blood poured down his open mouth to his drenched clothes to the cobblestoned road below. The soldiers — still a little dazed — were not doing their best job, but they could hardly be blamed for it. Callahan had tried to be merciful, making it brief, keeping them from becoming the wraiths' prey like the duke had been, but they had gotten a peek of what it was like in the Nether. And it was hardly something one can look past, and move on easily. Callahan would know.
'What happened to the duchess?' Arthur asked, looking away from the scene to him.
'She's safe.'
'And the apothecary?' He hesitated for a moment, then asked. 'Is she the one from the queen's vision?'
Callahan didn't need to reply to that. It was a rhetorical question. His silence was an additional confirmation.
