10
‘Psst!’
Higgs’s eyes flickered open at the sound. He was lying crumpled in the back corner of his cell, the dim red light unchanged from the last time he had woken in this place, the very air seeming to seethe and bleed.
‘Psst! Boy!’
The voice was coming from the front of the cell, beyond the dull green stone bars. He shifted and sat up, his bones groaning in protest and the muscles in his back twisting with cramp.
‘I can hear you moving in there. Back so soon?’
Higgs pulled himself forward and leaned close to the corner to better hear the whisper. He coughed, his throat burning with thirst.
‘Still can’t talk?’
It was the same voice as before. The same girl. Noble sounding, superior, though her accent was strange to him, the esses hissed slightly, as though she was speaking in a
