“Enough, enough.” Huxley’s voice rose above the collision of flesh and leather and bone. The beating stopped abruptly, but Magdala didn’t uncurl. She clung to consciousness like a climber gripping a cliff’s edge with only his fingertips.
“Now, you’ve had a taste,” Huxley’s voice hissed just above her. “Where is he?”
Magdala ground her teeth. She was the best of the royal guard, and she would not go down as a traitor, cowering and blubbering like Huxley had at the river.
“Where?” Huxley shouted.
Magdala shook her head.
“Do not think I will be merciful and let you die, Magdala. I will slice open your flesh. I will make you suffer.”
He flipped her onto her back and pushed her skirt above her knee. Magdala’s shoulder blades dug into the tile. When she smelled smoke, she couldn’t understand why—until a sharp burn shot across her thigh. Magdala shrieked, craning her neck to see her leg. Huxley crouched over her, holding a red-hot fire iron against her skin. The smell of her own charred flesh filled her nostrils. Smiling, Huxley blew on the iron, and it pulsed vivid orange. He turned it in his hand, the light reflecting in his cold, blue eyes.
“No,” Magdala gasped. “Please …”
The iron touched her thigh again. Her wail of agony and rage echoed off the vaulted ceiling. Before she could inhale, pain seared her again. With no air in her lungs, her third scream was silent.
Huxley tossed the iron aside and leaned over her, his arms braced on either side of her head. Magdala dragged in a breath and then sobbed.
“Tell us where he is,” Huxley said, “and you can go upstairs, to your own room, and lie down. By morning, this house will be yours by inheritance.”
She could not speak, so she shook her head.
“I will make you beg for death.”
But Huxley himself had taught Magdala how to endure pain. And so had the stone yards and the training mat. Magdala closed her eyes and imagined Asherton’s face in the moonlight, and the mark on his wrist, matching hers. She murmured the vows as Huxley pierced the tipof his knife through the center of her hand. She pictured the cave with the glowing water, traveled back to the room where she lay on Asherton’s chest and listened to his heartbeat.
When the burning began again—now it was on her stomach—she was running through the Wildlands, the heather scratching her ankles, and her feet cold on peat. And Asherton ran beside her, his dark curls in his eyes and his face alight with joy. Perhaps, in this world, there was a baby in her belly and a pot of stew on the stove. Perhaps her mother was humming while the bread rose to a chorus of crow song.
When she lost this fight, how long would it take Asherton to come? When he found her body here, broken and bloodless, what would he do to Huxley?
She noticed when the torture stopped because it jolted her from her reverie. Someone gripped a handful of her hair and dragged her to her knees. Her shoulder wrenched and she let out a hoarse wail.
“WHERE IS HE?” Huxley screamed.
Magdala’s jaw was clenched so hard, she couldn’t open her mouth.
“TELL ME!”
Her stomach rolled; she thought she might vomit. “I don’t know, but if I did, I would not tell you,” she murmured.
Huxley yanked her head back and jammed something against her lips. Lukewarm, bitter liquid filled her mouth, and she retched, convulsed, but Huxley clutched her jaw so she couldn’t spit it out. She choked on it and was forced to swallow or be drowned.
“There now, we only need to wait a moment,” he panted.
He shoved her and she dropped on the blood-slicked floor. The burns, the bruises, crowded out conscious thought. She was a patchwork of pain, uncertain where one wound ended and the next began.
“I wanted to spare you,” Huxley said, “for your father’s sake. But you wouldn’t tell me the truth, so the amenite will do it for you.”
Words bubbled on her lips, like a levee swelling against a rising tide. Her teeth cut into her tongue.
Huxley crouched in front of her. “Where is Asherton Ageric?”
But Magdala wasn’t listening to him. She was looking with swollen eyes at the door.
“Where is he?” Huxley asked.
“Behind you,” Magdala croaked.
