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In that moment, beneath the water, there was no part of Farra that believed Thaddius Mesrich would help her escape, that he would make good on his word and release her. She would have to make her own way out.

Thaddius would need to be stalled. She thought of the sharp lines of his face, his shoulders, and swallowed. To be a woman of the Ledge was to endure. She could surely endure this too.

She could fell a grown man with a pick, a hammer, a knife. She could go days and days without a morsel to eat. She could sear her own wounds closed. She could knock a rotting tooth from her mouth. She could bear the brunt of a blizzard as it tried resolutely to pull her toward the Chasm.

She could borrow time. She could seduce a Glacian.

Farra waited alone for two days.

Food appeared at her bedside as she slept. It unsettled her to think she had not awoken to the sound of someone entering. And yet, she remained unharmed.

She paced and gnawed on her own thoughts, waiting for the moment Thaddius Mesrich would re-enter the room, but the Glacian remained resolutely and inexplicably on the other side of the great wooden door.

She could hear him. When she pressed her ear to the woodgrain, she could discern the heavy breaths of someone standing sentry. In the night, those breaths drew longer as they slept. Farra was sure it was him.

But still, he did not enter the room.

She ought to count her blessings, she thought. She was safe in this room after all. Instead, after two days, she was wearing a path into the stone as she circled the room. She pulled on her hair and cursed with increasing frequency. Despite all the things she was capable of enduring, she thought this – this tedious anticipation – might be the thing to thwart her.

Eventually, she stalked to the door and hammered her fists against it. “Are you going to leave me in here forever, Glacian?” she shouted.

There was a rough mumbling from the other side and then suddenly the handle rattled. The door pushed inward. It caught her off guard, made her stumble backward.

Thaddius Mesrich stepped into his chambers, swiftly closing the door behind him and locking it.

“You think I’ll try to run?” Farra asked, half hysterical.

The strange Glacian did not meet her eye. “I cannot allow you to. The others–”

“Will drink my soul if I try?”

She thought the Glacian might make some snide aside. Instead, he just said, “Or worse.”

Farra wondered if it was a threat. “Surely you can’t mean to keep me in here forever.”

Thaddius frowned. “It has only been two days.”

“Two days as a trapped animal!”

The ringing pitch of her voice made the Glacian grin slightly. His eyes perused the room. “Quite the cage,” he muttered. “I assure you that sleeping on the floor in the corridor was far less appealing than my own bed.”

Farra’s stomach curled at the mention of his bed.

“Your wounds need time to heal,” he sighed, already turning back toward the door.

“Wait!” she said, her hand reaching out to stop him.

Thaddius paused but did not look back at her. Instead, he looked warily at her fingers against the inside of his wrist, as though they were something to fear.

Her mind was sprinting. She had not given much forethought to this encounter or what she would do when she saw the Glacian again. She only knew that she needed to find a way to make him drop his guard. The Glacian was vigilant, cautious. That much was clear. If she was to outsmart him, outrun him, she would need to make him pliant, malleable. He would need to believe she was of no concern.

“I am sorry,” she said, softly this time, if a little breathless. “I am not used to… to being so alone.”

The Glacian’s eyes were hard – impenetrably so.

“Please,” she said, though the words sounded false, even to her. “Stay with me. It is surely better than guarding my door.”

Something in his expression faltered. His gaze swivelled back to the door in question.