Biting my lip to withhold a sob, I moved farther into the room, pulling Michael along with me. I heard the crinkle of paper as either Philip or Gage picked up some of the pages on the floor I had stepped over, but I had no concentration to spare for them. It was all focused on Will. He seemed not to notice our presence, so consumed was he by the task before him.
“Will.” Michael spoke so gently, as if a word too harsh would send his brother spiraling to his death. Or flying across the room in a wild rage. Either possibility tested my resolve to stand there and witness it, no matter the obligations I felt toward Will.
“Will,” he repeated. “We have guests. You remember Kiera St. Mawr, don’t you?” he said a little louder, giving him my maiden name. “She married Sir Anthony Darby. You . . . you remember, you told me you had met him once.”
Through this entire exchange, Will made no movement to show that he even heard the words, let alone that he understood them. His focus remained resolutely on the wall before him, scratching softly with his charcoal against its surface. He was lost. Lost in one of his memories.
“I’m sorry . . .” Michael began to say as I pulled my arm from his grasp and moved deeper into the room.
“Kiera,” Philip warned as I came to a stop to stare up at the wall Will was sketching on.
Mini murals in black and white covered its surface from the floorboards to as high above his head as he could reach. The flickering light of the fireplace seemed to hide and reveal them in haunting patterns, illuminating first the image of a woman chained to a bed, and then a man with rivulets of what appeared to be water running down his arms, though from the trails’ starting points at the undersides of the figure’s elbows, I realized, with a chill, that it also could have been blood. A third sketch depicted a man, his head drawn overlarge to show the dilated pupils of a person who stared at a ceiling where insects and other winged things seemed to hover. A fourth illustrated a man with his head being held underwater by two men standing over him.
My steps slid toward Will, trying to see what he was drawing now.
“Kiera,” Philip cautioned again, shuffling closer. I held up my hand to hold him off.
The sour stench of body odor assailed my nostrils and I wrinkled my nose. I feared it was coming from Will, but as I moved closer it dispersed, as if it had never been.
I leaned forward to see that this drawing was no different from the others—a frantic scrawling of lines depicting exaggerated proportions and faces—but the emotion was somehow altered. The others were frightening and definitely tormented in their portrayal. But this one was worse, even though the subject matter was by far the least disturbing.
Will had utilized the corner of the wall to draw himself trapped into it. The imagined room surrounding him was stark and bare like the others, and empty of all save his huddled and broken body quivering against the cold stone. His arms raised to cover his face, it was impossible to see his expression, but the posture, the abject misery and despair etched into each line, told everything.
Before I could change my mind, before I could doubt my actions, I stepped closer and rested a hand on Will’s shoulder. One of the men behind me sucked in a harsh, worried breath, but Will did not even flinch. He simply continued to sketch in the lines of his feet. I pressed into his thin flesh more deeply and then kneeled to pick up a discarded nub of charcoal, settling onto the floor beside him. Silently I reached up to continue shading the wall of his all-too-real prison.
Several moments passed when all that could be heard was the scratching of our charcoal across the plaster. No one else moved, or breathed, the chamber was so still.
And then Will’s movements began to slow and then falter. I could feel his awareness shifting, like a tangible presence. He blinked his eyes at the wall in front of him. Not wanting to alarm him, I lowered my hand and waited to see if he would acknowledge me. Slowly his head turned, and his stormy gray eyes, the pupils almost swallowing their depths, stared back at me.
I willed my breath to remain calm, my gaze unchallenging and unclouded by emotion. A minute ticked by, and then two, and then a glimmer of something sparked in his vacant eyes. His brow crinkled and his mouth worked. And on a sliver of sound, he spoke.
“Kiera?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Never in my life had I felt so much sadness and so much joy in the same breath. The two opposing waves crashed inside me, enveloping me and threatening to pull me under. Emotion clogged my throat until I thought I might choke on it. Swallowing desperately to dislodge it, I nodded my head, worried I would lose him again if I did not answer. “Yes,” I murmured. “Yes, Will. It’s me.”