He accepted and took a bite. Cold. Hard. Crumbling in the mouth. He’d be dying of thirst before morning.
Adel uncorked a small jar and lifted it to her nose. “Water.” She took a sip.
“Aren’t you worried there might be something mixed in?”
Adel took another sip. “And die?” She glanced around at the underground cavern of cages and chains. “That would be a pity, would it not?” She passed the jar through the bars. “Poison is too merciful for Blandus Albus.”
He accepted with a nod of agreement. Unfortunately, she was right.
Adel sorted through the rest of the things and held up a bandage. “You can finish your job after all.”
He set the jar aside and wiped his hands down his tunic before reaching for the supplies. “Sit closer.” He glanced at the lantern and beckoned her to sit alongside the bars so the cut on her thigh was closest to him.
She complied, discomfort tightening the lines of her lips as she bared the cut.
He dipped the end of the bandage into the water and reached through the bars to clean the wound and dangling needle. Her muscles tensed beneath his touch.
“Does that hurt?”
“No.”
With a sigh, Felix withdrew. “Adel.” He waited for her to look at him. “You can tell me the truth.”
She dropped her gaze to the white-knuckled grip her hands had on each other. “Why does it matter so much to you how I feel? Why do you care?”
Because her fire had drawn him to seek its source. And her pain had tugged at his compassion. And the hints of her heart, no matter how repressed and disguised, had lit in him a determination to see it wildand free. But saying any of that would send her to the opposite side of her cell.
Instead, he lowered his voice. “Perhaps I have fallen in love with your wit and charming personality.”
“Well.” Her throat worked, lips parted. And then she nodded as if that was the most sensible answer he could have given. “I cannot blame you for that.”
“You have not made it easy on me.” A smile still pulled at his lips as he reached through the bars once more. He gently pressed the edges of the cut together and began to stitch.
There. They were back on steady ground. Dancing around the fissure cracking between them, threatening to collapse and pull them both in. A destructive force, this thing tugging at him, drawing him to her.
“So, what happens now that your brilliant rescue plan has failed?”
What indeed?
XXXII
26 DECEMBER, AD 403
“Up.”
The singular command brought Felix to his feet after two nights in the punishment cells. Finally, a trial. He’d rehearsed his defense a thousand times. He’d left nothing to chance.
The guard turned to Adel. “You too.”
Except that.
“Why her?” Felix winced as he moved out of the cell and toward the dark stairs, blackened against the blinding rectangle of light shining from the open doorway above. “Does the magistrate need to question her too?”
“Magistrate?” The guard frowned. “Haven’t they told you?”
“Told me what?”
The guard shifted his belt and gestured them to climb the stairs. “There is no trial. Once Jovan and Blandus Albus explained everything, the authorities left your punishment in their hands.”
