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Spell work was the only way he could have taken four warriors.

It eased her heart a little that these soldiers had been taken, just like she and her friends had been. They were older, stronger. More experienced.

Another rustle of clothing from the dark corner of their cell told Vivi that Ric was coming to join them. He had recovered the slowest of them all, and she still suspected their abductor had hurt him, not just put him into a magical sleep.

She’d kept a close eye on him since they’d begun moving around and felt more themselves, but he was slower, and moved like he hurt. Just like their abductor did.

He said he was fine, but she didn’t believe him, and she didn’t think Jon did either.

She slid off the bench and sat, leaning back against the hard wood, and covertly studied him.

He was chained further back than Jon, and ended up sitting cross-legged, his chain lifted off the ground and stretching behind him.

They sat in silence, but none of the four soldiers so much as stirred, and Vivi got a good idea of how things had been for her and her friends before they had finally woken, hungry, thirsty and stiff.

Their abductor came every morning with two jugs of water, a loaf of bread, four apples and a hunk of cheese, and they had to ration it how they saw fit through the day.

It was better that way, she had decided after the first day.

When he turned his attention to them more fully, things would be far, far worse. Of that, she was positive.

There was a glee in his voice and on his face when he opened the grate to one side to push the food and water through, and take the empty platter from the day before. Sometimes he set the platter and jugs just inside, and as the one chained closest, Vivi had to stretch out on her stomach to reach them.

At least there were two latrines built into the cell, one in each of the back corners. They were nothing but two overlapping brick walls set in the corner that shielded a hole in the ground. All of the chains were just long enough to allow them inside.

At least it gave a modicum of privacy, but Vivi had the feeling that they would have no secrets from each other by the time they got out of here.

And they would.

They would get out of here.

CHAPTER 19

Nena’s smallholding lookedas rundown and dilapidated as she’d said it was.

She was a victim, Theo reminded himself. While she’d been explaining her inability to work, he’d recalled his own strange feelings of befuddlement, and he had only been exposed to it for a few hours. She lived on the edge of the spell, and when the wind blew her way, she would have had no escape from a blight she couldn’t see.

He and Melodie were on foot, and it had taken them twenty minutes to reach the broken gate into Nena’s property from the inn, the road curving gently up the hill, but winding to the right side.

He’d stopped to look down the rutted path that led to her house, hidden by a line of trees with just the roofline visible, but Melodie grabbed his arm as he turned to walk on, toward Gus’s meeting spot, her grip strong enough to surprise him.

“Stop.”

He froze, allowing her to pull him right up against her.

“What is it?” he breathed the word into her ear.

“A spell.” She drew him through the gate, toward Nena’s house, and then off the drive, walking along the broken fenceline, so they were still moving parallel to the road, over rough ground.

“Here.” She pointed to a spot on the track that was in line with the only pole that wasn’t rotting away.

He saw another pole on the opposite side of the road. “A trip wire?” he asked.

“Something that looks a bit like a spider’s web,” she said. “Might be that it even feels like one when you touch it.”

A warning system.

Theo didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t see the danger around him. He was blind in this fight.