As they walked down the hallway, led by the Judge and trailed by the jailor and a couple of other soldiers who seemed to join more out of curiosity than duty, Remy said, “Are you always so lax? No restraints for any of us, no guards to speak of?”

The Judge chuckled. “You’re not going to cause any harm. I see more than you think with these spectacles, boy. Besides, even if you intended trouble, you’d find it quite a challenge to do more than make a bit of a mess.”

The narrow hall opened into a wider hall, which in turn led to a hall so wide and tall it seemed like an indoor road. At the far end was a large pair of double doors. One of them was ajar, opening inward.

The Judge rapped on it, then pushed it open. “Galbaric, pull yourself together. I’ve brought something interesting.”

The room beyond was vast, the wall obscured by a forest of ornate bronze pipes dotted with gears and wheels. Steam drifted along the ceiling and fogged the spaces between the pipes. A hum like a high voltage line suffused the space, quiet but omnipresent, and a bright white light came from somewhere high above. Jim winced and shielded his eyes from the light, and Ainsel patted his arm reassuringly.

“Eh? That you, Quartermaster?” A couch as ornate as the plumbing curved around a console with levers and dials, with a man sprawled upon it. He had his head hanging upside down off the cushions, with one foot hooked over the back of the couch.

“No, you fool. But if you can’t pull yourself together I’ll send this gift right back out into the wastes.”

The man sat up. He had dark skin and shaggy blue-white hair with a big beak of a nose, and he wore a tight leather vest and loose pants. “You know, you really ought not speak to your lord and master that way, Steel. Creatures have been eaten for far less of an offense.”

The Judge snorted, and waved Ainsel and Remy into the chamber. “I’d be delighted to see you try. Look at what I’ve found.”

Galbaric the Admin stood up, and Ainsel took a step back, running into Remy’s chest. The master of Bone Station was the largest man she’d ever seen: not broad like the Judge, but so tall and proportional that he would have filled the jail door frame and had to duck to come in. No wonder the doors to this chamber were so large.

He squinted dark eyes at them. “A girl, a boy and a man. Why are you bothering me with this?”

The Judge sighed, like a man hanging onto his patience with his teeth. “Look closer. Or must I lend you my spectacles?”

The Admin took a few long steps and crossed half the room. His nostrils flared and he said, “Ah.” Then he started laughing, a low crackling rumble. “How charming. Here we have five natives of the Five Worlds, all in one room. I ought to etch a picture.”

Ainsel shifted uncomfortably, still pressed against Remy, and he rested his hand lightly on her hip: a reassurance. She wasn’t from Earth, from the Middle World. She couldn’t really argue that anymore. But she couldn’t remember anything about where she’d come from. She was afraid to even try. What if they told her something she wasn’t ready to hear?

It didn’t matter, she realized. She’d never be ‘ready’ to hear it. That’s why she ran away. If she didn’t let it catch her, she’d always be running away.

“Yes,” said the Judge deliberately. “Don’t you think your kin in Prime would be just as amused by a gift of the residents of the Far World and its shadow?”

“Oh, possibly. But why should I share with those bastards? I don’t like them very much, Steel.”

The Judge tapped his fingers together. “Because you hate it here, and if you please them they might let you return?”

“Well, I hate it there, too.” The Admin fell back onto his couch again and put his feet up on the console, wiggling one of them idly. Jim winced again, and Ainsel realized he’d been staring around the room in fascination.

“I still think you should send them on,” said the Judge stubbornly. “At least the girl. She’s a prize beyond price. And that together they survived the guardians is very interesting, don’t you think?”

The Admin glanced at them again, and something sparked in his eyes. “That’s true. Clearly our defenses aren’t as good as we thought. Then again, do I really care about that?”

Remy spoke, his voice a rumble against Ainsel’s back. “This is all very interesting, but we’re going back to the Middle World. We have business of our own to attend to.”

“All three of us,” added Ainsel, trying for a firmness she didn’t feel. All of a sudden, she missed Andrea and Kishar, and how effortlessly they seemed to handle most of life’s little challenges. Andrea and Kishar and—somebody else. A voice she couldn’t quite remember, and a pain that stabbed at her heart.

Somebody who wasn’t handling anything anymore. She covered her face. So much for being firm.

The Admin sat up straight. “Oh, how sweet. They think they have a say in this.”

Remy said, “It doesn’t seem like it would be very hard to walk out of here. Your soldiers certainly couldn’t stop us.”

Ainsel glanced up at Remy. His eyes glittered, but she had the sense he was provoking the Admin rather than challenging him. She had no idea why.

“Hey!” said one of the soldiers lounging against the wall just inside the door.

But he was overridden by the Admin, who leaned forward. “Who needs them? It wouldn’t even overcharge me to pin you to the ground, little sparkling.”

“Size isn’t everything. Some of those monsters outside were very large.”

“Hollow shells,” scoffed the Admin. He tapped the console in front of him. “The creations of our creations. But perhaps you’re right, Steel. Perhaps I ought to send the girl onto Prime. We could put the boy, so eager for a fight, into the arena. It might be amusing for a while.”

Remy raised his eyebrows. “An arena? What do you fight there, drunkards?”

“You can start there, if you wish. Some of them are surprisingly strong. And then you can move onto celebrated pit fighters, and then to arena-crafted guardians and captured beasts. And then, if you’re worth the effort, you might face me.” The Admin smiled ferociously, all pointy teeth and flashing eyes. “Briefly.”

Remy narrowed his eyes. “And is there a prize for winning?”

“You get to keep fighting,” said the Admin airily. “There’s extra rations. I suppose if you make it past the guardians I might grant you a boon or two.”

“And what if, say, I defeated… you?” Remy’s voice was distant and even, as if he didn’t much care about the answer.

The Judge rolled his eyes as the Admin laughed outright. “What an energetic child you are. Little one, if you could but knock me to the ground, I would cede control of this entire wretched outpost to you and go off to seek my fortune as lesser creatures do. It would be no more than I deserved.”

There was a rap on the big doors, and the previously-affronted guard said, “Quartermaster’s here with his cart, chief.”

“Bring him in.” The Admin looked between Ainsel and Remy. “The business of Bone Station keeps me so very busy, you see. Be patient a moment and we can return to this delightful wrangle.”

A spare old man with a full head of iron-gray hair pushed in a low four-wheeled cart. “Here for the bread, sir.” He looked between the prisoners and the Admin curiously.

“Of course,” said the Admin graciously. “Go ahead.” He leaned forward, resting his arms on the console and tapping his fingers. He had dark blade-like protrusions on his arms, Ainsel realized. She couldn’t tell if they were costume or natural.

The Quartermaster moved his cart over to a faded square painted in front of an open pipe mouth, then turned and faced the Admin at attention. “Ready, sir.”

The Admin tapped on the console in a few places and pulled a lever. For a moment nothing happened, until there was a rumbling under their feet. Ainsel remembered the moments before the guardian insects had appeared, but this wasn’t nearly as strong an earthquake.

Then with a clatter and a hiss, hundreds of discs spilled out of the pipe and into the waiting cart. Ainsel blinked, realizing that each disc was a loaf of the awful bread they’d brought her in the jail cell. Did they have that many prisoners? The jail had seemed empty.

The cart filled and filled, until the Admin finally pushed a lever and it stopped, brimming over with what barely qualified in food.

In the sudden silence, the Admin said, “There you go, Quartermaster. Take it away, feed the troops.” He smirked again at the prisoners.

Ainsel heard it all in distant shock. Then she blurted, “You feed everybody that crap? No wonder this place is a wreck!”

The Admin’s restless fidgeting stilled. The Judge gave her a worried glance and said, “It’s very nutritious.”

“It’s vile,” Ainsel said. Remy’s hand tightened on her hip but she didn’t care. “There’s more to food than nutrition.”

Coldly, the Admin said, “My soldiers are perfectly happy with what I give them.”

Ainsel glanced at the guard who had been loitering. He was youngish, with a shock of spiky brown hair, and in response to the Admin’s words he shuffled his feet and looked down.

“You probably threaten to eat them if they complain. Or exile them. You’re a big bully and you’re forcing everybody to eat this horrible food.”

“It’s what the machine makes,” the Admin said, the thin whine of peevishness in his voice. “What else am I supposed to do? Even I eat it, when I have to eat.”

“Oh my God,” said Ainsel, dizzy with the horror.

“I suppose you think you could do better?” added the Admin. “Somehow make the bread more appetizing?”

Ainsel looked the Admin directly in his fiery eyes, and ignored Remy’s warning squeeze. “Yes, I could!”

“Capital! A challenge worthy of the arena. And much better than yet another boring bloodbath. How long do you think you’ll need? A few days? A week? You’ll only be able to put off your fate for so long.”

“A few hours,” Ainsel said, and wondered what she was doing. She had no implements, no recipes, and no ingredients. Could she really do this?

She looked at that horrible bread and the strange Admin who summoned it and realized she had no other choice, now.