“I … can’t.” I whispered.
“You can’t?” Forsythe repeated, his voice dripping with false sympathy, “Pity.”
“You know I’m not lying!” I exclaimed angrily, “Why are you doing this to your own kind?”
But of course I knew the answer already. Perhaps Sebastian Forsythe wished to keep his little collection of human gadgets a secret and was using my current lack of Power as an excuse to have me imprisoned as punishment. Of course he knew that I was a Mage, and clearly no one was going to believe a word I said if Sebastian deemed me a liar.
Forsythe ignored me and straightened up, “You will be kept here until we get the information we need from you.”
Without another word he stepped from the cell and watched as the door closed.
“Wait, please.” My voice trembled and my heart pounded frantically, “Where is Jack?”
“Jack who?” Forsythe said absentmindedly, picking at some lint upon his clothes.
“Jack … Jack Greenwood.” I said rather befuddled, “The boy who was-”
“Greenwood, the healer boy?” Forsythe raised an eyebrow and scoffed as I nodded frantically, “What does he have to do with anything?”
One of the guards chimed in, “We accidentally attacked the young Mage on our hunt for the human, sir. Knocked him out good and proper of course, but we didn’t realise he was a Mage, see?”
“She had an accomplice?” Forsythe said suddenly stern. It seemed he had been unaware of Jack’s presence in this whole fiasco.
“No, sir. The Healer lad said he’d been hoodwinked. At first we thought he might be a human too, sir, but he showed us his Power and we let him go.”
“You let him go?” Forsythe repeated slowly.
“Of course, Sir. He … he was a Mage.” Porter said uncertainly.
“But he was helping the human.” Even I could detect the lie in Forsythe’s voice as he referred to me as Human.
“Sorry sir, but our department doesn’t handle criminal Mage’s. We specialise in Human affairs and enslavement, like catching runaways like this one.” He jerked his thumb in my direction.
Forsythe pinched the bridge of his nose in an annoyed fashion and heaved a sigh before continuing, “Very well. I suppose it doesn’t matter anyway. The boy is insignificant in the scheme of things, yet useful at the manor.”
My heart rate slowed down. Jack would be safe. He was in no danger. I could have cracked a smile yet it was hardly appropriate at the time.
Chapter Eighteen
Saviour
Time escaped me as I sat in the freezing dungeon. I was given meals after what felt like an immense amount of time. I tried to count the hours between each meal, but they were so far apart that I would lose count every time. Hours and hours. More than ten hours between each meal. More than twenty.
I was being given one meal every twenty-four hours. This is how I counted the days. Every time the tiny meal was thrown at my feet I scratched a little tally mark into the moss covering the stone wall. My hunger was made even worse, because I was halving every one of my meals with the tiny human girl who shared my cell. She was close to death and I guessed she hadn’t eaten for a very long time. I assumed that she had been forgotten about like every other body in the room. I wondered why the humans hadn’t turned on each other and resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. I felt disgusted that I had even thought that of them. They were not animals. Right now we were equals.
I wondered why I was being fed, and the human girl not. Whatever the case, I was sure Sebastian Forsythe did not want me dead just yet.
It had taken a lot of persuading to get the human to eat the food I provided her with. She shied away and cowered at the very sight of me, yet after much deliberation I had forced the food into her hand and put her hand to her mouth. Very unsure, she began to eat, and now every time a meal was given to me, she perked her head up hopefully like a mistreated dog.
After my eighth meal and eighth day, the frail girl shuffled out of her corner and sat beside me while we shared the tiny portion. She was so thin that her bones jutted out harshly and I thought she might break if a gust of wind came along.