My shoulders tremble and I pull myself tighter, fighting sobs. Sir trained me better than this, but I don’t have any strength left to keep myself stoic and calm. Mather was always the one who was able to hide his feelings no matter the situation. And if Mather is on the run, and Theron, and Bithai fallen, and Angra as ancient and evil as Hannah said—I’ll probably die in here.
I force a soundless scream into the cave of my legs, gripping my hair and squeezing into myself. No. This isn’t how it was supposed to end—
The lock on the door clicks, but I can’t find it in me to care. Let Angra come for me, or Herod even. There’s nothing else they can take from me.
Feet shuffle in and the door locks again. Someone’s in here with me.
A second passes. Two. Whoever it is kneels beside me. I keep my eyes shut, sniffing in the darkness of my knees, and stiffen when a hand unfolds on my shoulder.
I look up. It’s the Winterians from the palace, the two men and the girl who got whipped in the dirt. She has the marks on her arms to prove it, jagged cuts caked in dried blood. But she’s smiling, a comforting smile, and light shines deep behind the bruises around her eyes.
She drops a half-empty bowl of stew on the ground, forgotten in the way she stares at me. “You’re here,” she breathes like she’s just as shocked as I am. Like this is some dream come to life, and she’s afraid if she doesn’t say it, I’ll vanish.
The two men sit behind her, their eyes on me, a dull flicker of interest hiding behind their wounds as they sip at their own bowls of stew. They’re more wary of me than the girl is, but the weight of their lives sits even heavier on them.
I exhale, inhale, still unable to believe the girl touching me is real. They’re all real, and here, and alive. Seeing them from a distance was hard to accept, but this is impossible.
The girl says nothing else. She sits next to me, our hips touching, and curls her arm around my shoulders. She’s so thin that I’m afraid I’ll break her if I touch her at all. But we just sit in silence, the men staring through the bars, the girl holding me or me holding her.
As sunlight fades over the work camp, a small voice resonates from the back of my mind, something that makes the horrors not quite so overwhelming:
You will understand how to use all this when you are ready.
It really was Hannah, talking to me. And if she thought it was important to tell me about the past, to try to help me figure out something, then maybe there’s still a way to win this.
The girl shifts. She’s asleep now, her head on my shoulder and her breathing slow. I lean my head onto hers and close my eyes.
Sir and Mather and Theron might be lost, but the Winterians aren’t. And as long as they live, I’m not entirely alone.