Amara’s first sense of the world coming back was the smell, damp stone, mildew, something metallic underneath it that she didn’t want to name.
Her second sense was pain. It ringed both wrists, sharp and constant, radiating up her arms every time she shifted. She forced her eyes open to a low, windowless room lit by a single guttering lamp, and looked down to find silver chains looped around her wrists, biting into skin already raw.
She remembered the needle. The dark that followed. Nothing after that.
Her hand moved automatically toward the pocket where she’d kept the token and the locket. Both gone. Whoever had searched her while she was unconscious had known exactly what they were looking for, which was almost more unsettling than losing them.
“Look who’s finally up.”
A man leaned i
