Fire lanterns burned wildly in a rough ring far around me, their orange glow clashing with the silver-blue of the moon.
I bucked against the ropes, knowing it was useless but doing it anyway. The steel was unyielding beneath me, the cords digging into my skin as I thrashed.
My breath came fast and hot against the cold.
Then I barked.
“Hey!”
No reaction.
“Hey, you stupid fuckers!” My throat scraped raw as I tried again, twisting my arms, trying to wiggle them out.
They didn’t even twitch. The chanting rolled on, steady and unbroken, like I wasn’t there at all.
I let my head fall back, panting, my chest heaving as I tried to think again.
And the thought of him came crashing in.
Thrax.
Back then, I’d not felt any fear, so he couldn’t have picked up on the fact that I was in danger. Even if he had, he would have asked me what was wrong, not told me to run.
Fear lodged itself in my throat.
Did something happen to him?
That had to be the reason he wasn’t here. He always knew where I was. Always—
Unless they’d severed the link.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
Tears burned behind my eyes at the thought of him tearing through the town in search of me while I lay here like an offering. Anger surged up right behind it, white-hot and searing, burning through my veins.
“Hey, bastards!” I thrashed against the ropes, my voice ripping my throat raw. “Look at me!” My muscles strained, wrists twisting, heels digging into the steel. “LOOK AT ME!”
I continued my tantrum, doing everything I could to get to them.
But it wasn’t until they were done chanting did they break their circle. And even then, they did not pay me any attention. Five of the figures bent and each retrieved a long white cloth from the basket they’d been chanting over. Without looking at me, they spread out in a larger circle around me, each holding an edge of the cloth so it connected them like a spider web.
Only one figure stayed empty-handed. He stepped forward, his hood still hiding his face. Something in the way he moved told me he was the centre of this.
I squinted, trying to make out who he was through the shadow casting down on his face.
“Who the fuck are you?” My voice cracked. “Where is this place? Where’s Winifred?”
He bowed his head slightly, then raised his hands. In a slow way that grated on my nerves, he pulled back his hood.
“I’m right here.”
Fucking bastard.
My teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached, a pulse of pain shivering through my skull. My nails cut into my palms as I glared at his figure standing beside where I lay strapped to the steel. It was jarring to see him upright. The last time I’d seen Winifred, he’d been broken, body confined to a wheelchair. I’d been certain it would be months before he stood again. Months before he could even walk.
And yet here he was.
Now I regretted calling Thrax’s name that day, stopping him from doing more than breaking his bones.
