Garrick’s guards have dragged me from the wagon once again. I am flanked by four guards. One of them prods me with an electrified staff when I don’t move fast enough—which is hard, considering my feet are laden with heavy chains. I swear at him under my breath but pick up my pace before he hurts me again.
They lead me toward gray, rocky cliffs.
Garrick stands in his chariot, only one shadow casting over me. With what little strength I had left, I had contemplated trying to warn the guards again about Garrick’s Keres alliance this morning, but the evidence was gone when we left the palace. Garrick’s second shadow wasn’t with him. I had thought at first that perhaps he had gotten tired of playing host—or more likely the Keres had gotten tired of its host—but I realize now, in the brighter light of the outdoors, that Garrick’s secret would have been revealed. Everyone would have been able to see his second shadow.
“What are you staring at?” Garrick snarls, lashing at me with his horse whip. I’d thought he’d be more reasonable without the Keres present, but that assumption had also been wrong. “Do it,” he orders.
This is the third time in the last two hours he’s forced me to call for Daphne. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to help him. I don’t want him to find Daphne. But even more than what I want, I need the pain to stop.
“Daphne,” I shout, hoping she won’t hear me.
“Louder,” Garrick says.
One of the guards approaches with his crackling staff when I hesitate.
“Daphne!” I shout, raising my volume. “Daphne! Are you out there?”
I stop and listen, hoping a response doesn’t follow. Or maybe I do want a response, because then maybe this will be over. Garrick won’t make me do this anymore. Perhaps he will let me go back to my chair, where I can forget again.
No, I tell myself. That’s not what I want.
“Now deliver the message.”
“Water first,” I say. My lips are cracked and my throat is so parched—I think it may have been days since I’ve had anything to drink. That was one of the ways Garrick tortured me after removing me from the chair. He would offer me a cup filled to the brim with water but when I would try to drink from it, the water would recede from my lips. Garrick had called it the Water of Tantalus or something like that, and found my desperate attempts to drink it particularly amusing. I had never felt so murderous as when hearing him laugh. If only I had any strength left. “Shouting is difficult. I need real water before I can go on.”
Garrick looks as if he’s about to give me a swift slap instead, but then orders one of the guards to bring me a leather water pouch. He lets me drink just enough to wet my throat.
“Now do it,” Garrick says.
“She’s not out there,” I say.
“I told you to deliver the message.” He holds up his hand, showing me the blue lightning that webs between his fingers. Just the sight of it makes the fresh burns in my skin ache anew. I can’t take suffering through another.
I face the cliffs again. “Daphne, if you’re out there,” I shout, “Garrick wants me to tell you that if you don’t bring him the Key by first light tomorrow, he’ll have me killed.”
“Filleted alive, to be more specific,” Garrick shouts. “This isn’t a joke, Daphne. We know you have it. Bring the Key to the Pits by first light, or you’ll never see your best friend again.”
Garrick orders the guards to take me back to the wagon. The first few times we had gone through this routine, I had dragged my feet to make it more difficult on the guards, but I don’t resist anymore. Not after one of the guards wrenched my arm so hard it dislocated my shoulder.
“Where to next?” one of the guards asks Garrick.
“To the docks,” Garrick says. “We’ll deliver the message there next. Daphne was injured when the chariot crashed. She can’t have made it far on foot. She’ll hear us eventually.” He glares at me and then says, “For both our sakes, you had better pray she listens.”