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“If we use the rope, she fades away.” But Sirna was thinking about it, she could see. Even if just as a short-term solution.

“What if we use some of it? Just one end?” Evelyn gestured to her. “Tie it around her waist like a belt and put the rest into a bag at her hip.”

“You’ve been thinking about this.” Sirna’s brows lifted as he secured the reins.

“I told you I wanted to sleep inside.” Evelyn held his gaze, a challenge in her eyes.

“It might be a short-term solution.” He started untying the knot he’d made earlier, then unwound the rope and tugged her toward him. “Come on,” he said to Ava. “No matter what, I can’t leave you up here.”

No, he couldn’t. From her lack of proper clothing, to the blanket around her and the rope, she looked exactly like what she was—a prisoner.

That would, at the very least, raise eyebrows.

She felt a rise in dread with every step she took to the back. She wanted to turn and run. To scream for help.

Evelyn came along behind her, not quite crowing, but smug enough that Ava felt a flare of hatred for the woman.

“Go and get it, then, Evie.” Sirna held fast to the rope at Ava’s waist when they reached the back, hidden from the view of the small caravan up ahead.

Had they even noticed Sirna’s cart, yet?

Evelyn swung up into the back and Ava saw her don the gloves.

Fear and panic engulfed her, and she heard herself panting like a cornered animal.

She must have moved back, her full focus on Evelyn donning the gloves, so the cold blade of Sirna’s knife was a shock against the warm skin of her throat.

“I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t have talk about a prisoner. I know what kind of hornet’s nest I’ve stirred up, taking you. I should have been rid of you days ago, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. You keep your mouth shut, and you’ll get to the border in one piece. After that, I don’t much care.”

But would she be in one piece?

As Evelyn brought out the rope, Ava thought its magic felt even stronger than it had before, a dark light dimming the sunlit day, looking for bright clean energy to devour.

Was that just her imagination, she wondered? Or a result of being caught in the rope for too long?

She flinched away from it as Evelyn lifted it up, and the knife nicked her neck.

“Careful.” Sirna shook her, a vicious, impatient rattling of her teeth. He lifted the knife away, but it hovered just within her periphery.

“Do you have a bag to put the rest in?” Sirna asked Evelyn.

She sighed, set the rope on the ground, and went back into the cart.

Ava shuffled back. It seemed to her that one of the coils moved closer to her feet.

“It’s absorbed too much of my energy.” She kept her voice low, but urgent. “It’s semi-alive.”

“Don’t talk nonsense.” Sirna lifted the knife a little higher, but he stepped back, eyeing the coils suspiciously.

“Don’t put it against my skin.” She tried to think of ways to mitigate this disaster. “It will leech me through my clothes, but slower. It won’t be as bad that way.”

Sirna hesitated. “Maybe.”

He didn’t trust her. Ava didn’t expect anything else, but she hoped Sirna’s fear ofHimself, the man from Grimwalt, would make him consider what she had to say.

Evelyn came back out with a rough bag that looked like it was for foraging the forest for berries, mushrooms and nuts. The strap was long enough to be worn across the body, and she lifted the rope and stuffed it in. She suddenly cried out as one of the coils touched the bare skin of her wrist above the gloves.

“What is it?” Sirna frowned at her as she lifted her arm and rubbed it.