I woke to the thin light of morning and the dry taste of chemicals in my mouth. My wrists ached. My ankles ached. The strap marks were gone, but my skin remembered them. The hood was gone too. Someone had folded the night into a neat lie and stacked it on a shelf where most people never look.
He was there in the chair by my bed, elbows on his knees, hands clasped like a man finishing a prayer. When I opened my eyes, he sat up fast and put on a face I knew too well—the careful worry, the soft voice ready to wrap around me like a blanket.
“Emma," he said, leaning forward, “thank the Goddess. You scared me."
I looked at him and said nothing. I let the corner of my mouth tilt up in a hard line. It was not a smile. It was a blade.
He frowned, as if the blade confused him. “Rogues tried to g
