Agnes Viremont woke up in a chair that didn't belong.
She knew her father's study the way she knew every room he had ever occupied: by its architecture, by its scent, by the particular arrangement of power that Reginald Viremont applied to physical spaces the way other men applied wallpaper.
The mahogany desk. The bookshelves lined with ledgers that contained the financial anatomy of half the minor houses in Skardos. The window behind the desk, tall, narrow, positioned so the light fell on the chair across from it, which meant the person sitting in the chair was always lit and the person behind the desk was always shadowed.
The chair she was in was metal. Straight-backed. It did not belong in this study, which meant it had been brought in for this conversation, which meant this conversation had been planned before she ran.
Silver burned on her wrists.
