NineBridget’s eyes fluttered. Someone tugged on her arms, dragged her, stopped, tugged again, breathed heavily with the effort. A few inches at a time, her body endured scraping over snowy bricks and ice chunks. Her shoulder and stomach screaming.
Darkness.
Her mind rose to a foggy awareness, her shoulder ripping, her body dropping with a thud, pain, dropping. Thudding down a sharp-edged staircase.
Darkness.
Voices made her struggle to wake, fight heavy eyes that refused to do more than flutter. A woman held a lantern over her, the light distorting her face. A second shape at her other side. Icy fingers. A man drawing a threaded needle up from her stomach. The instrument catching a glint of the lantern light and falling through the air like a tear. A prick of pain, cruel probing finger
