“I owe you nothing!”
“You’veboundme! How?”
“How do you steal people’s pasts, Urchin?”
“You’d do better to leave that line of questioning. I mean it.”
“Do not tell me what to do as you reach to take my memories.”
“I wasnot.”
“Then what were you doing? While you search within your coat telling me I will certainly become a problem?” She moved to the opposite side only for him to block her again. If she must, she’d shackle his legs, too, and run. Though to where she'd run to she didn't know. Enver would never be safe again.
“A pen, Miss Pennigrim.”
“What?” she asked in disbelief.
“To write down a location for you. In case you’re ever in need of it.”
“That sounds like a lie, and even if it wasn’t then it sounds like a trap.”
“It isn’t a lie.”
“So it is a trap.”
He huffed through his nose. “It is neither.”
“You reached for a weapon.”
“No. Come and see. I cannot reach deep enough into the pocket on account of these magic manacles conjured from thin air.” He awkwardly patted his left breast pocket, hidden beneath the coat.
Alora narrowed her eyes. “If you harm me, I’ll truss you up in chains.”
She didn’t like that he paused awhile. “Understood.”
Alora stepped tentatively nearer, then nearer still, until she could reach out with her fingers and move his coat aside. Beneath was a black shirt with a single pocket. She saw no hint of a pen.
She cried out in surprise when the cool chain met the back of her neck, dragging her in.
“I don’t plan to harm you,” he said.
But when she looked up beneath the cowl his eyes were black.
Then so was everything.
Chapter Twelve
It was like a starless midnight, a black hole. Alora could see nothing at all, not even an outline. But the shackles were still cold against her neck, the body against her warm and unyielding, and when she clawed at the fabric against her hands, it shifted—real. She had only been plunged into darkness. She was not lost to it. Still, it didn't prevent the cry from leaving her lips.
“You’ve blinded me!” she cried. Despair echoed in each word.
“We’re both in the dark. Reversible. If you only remove the shackles.”
This was his plan then. Her body flushed, cold to hot, her fear giving way to a consuming anger. She struggled against him, attempted to lift her hands, but he only pressed her closer, so tight her breaths turned shallow. She could feel his arms flexed around her; she’d become immobile, the scent of leather all around. She couldn’t even raise her leg high enough to stomp on his foot.
“Remove the manacles,” he said into her hair.
She seethed against him. “Do you swear you’ll stay far from me?”
