“You think it hurts now. The next thirty minutes will feel like thirty days. It will hurt in ways you can’t even imagine.”
Nobody would come for me. Nobody knew where I was. It was just me and him, the light of the lanterns hanging above me, and this table. That would be my world until I died.
And then, I realized with cold horror, I’d come back to life, and he would do it again. And again and again; even if I broke and told him everything he wanted to know, if he found out that I could die and resurrect, I would be a reusable torture toy. If I was lucky, I would lose my grip on reality. If not, I would die in agony and wake up perfectly aware I was in hell, over and over.
“Here’s what I know. The first time I saw you was in the Dog Market. You were in the crowd. Everyone was scared and shocked. You were angry. I noticed you. Then someone of your height and build attacked me in the plaza. Today I saw you again, entering the Citadel.”
He had been watching the Citadel. I should have thought of that.
“Every Firsday, Eliarde Docell visits her second cousin at the Citadel at exactly eleven o’clock. She rides through the barbican at the first strike of the bell. Today I watched you go in. Then a rider was dispatched. You left in a Defender carriage. I waited. The bell tolled, but Eliarde never came.”
He loomed over me, his eyes unhinged and filled with menace. “You knew. You warned them.”
I said nothing. My heart was pumping my blood out of my body with every beat. I could feel it draining out of me, taking my life with it.
He swung out of view, and I heard him walking. He circled the table like a shark. His voice vibrated with barely contained rage.
“That was Everard in the plaza. He was probably with you in the Dog Market before that. Didn’t see him today. They must be looking for him. Scars from Fatefire are hard to miss.”
The sooner I died, the sooner the pain would end. And once it did, I would have one shot at ending this. Only one.
“How did you know I would bring Velpor to the plaza? It’s a good question, but I have an even better one.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Only two people know who has earned the right to the full treatment. You belong to Everard. He trusts you. He has you run his errands. I only want to know one thing.” He leaned over me again, his teeth bared. He didn’t seem human, and his voice was a snarl. “Did that fuck Hreban betray me and conspire with Everard to stop me?”
There it was, confirmation of everything I suspected. Hreban had hired him.
“Answer me,” the Butcher growled.
I stared at him.
His expression relaxed. His voice was normal again. “I guess it’s true what they say about the Sleepless Duke. He does know how to pick his people.”
He stepped away, then turned back to me. He was holding big sharp shears in his hand. The kind you used to shear sheep or cut through branches.
“He stole Eliarde from me. I’m taking you from him. You’re a piss poor replacement but needs must.”
He fiddled with the restraints on my right hand and wrenched it upright, so I could see it. I tried to fight him, but my arm wouldn’t obey. I had no strength left.
He caught my index finger between the blades.
“Just one question.”
The blades came together with a metallic scrape. I screamed. He showed the bloody stump of my finger to me.
“It’s not complicated.”
The sheers sliced again. My middle finger was gone, and the pain drowned me. I hung in its depths, unable to move, unable to scream, just existing and hurting.
“Did Hreban betray me?”
Screech.
“Tell me and it will be over.”
Screech.
