Page 104 of A Wayward Movement

“Are we in cages?” she asked.

“Something like that,” Benji said. “Although as far as I can tell, the bars are only on the end. Otherwise it’s like a stone chamber, about right for a person to lie in, but not big enough to sit up.”

“You mean…like a tomb?”

There was a pause. “Yes.”

Alina shuddered, trying not to panic under the wave of horror washing over her. “This is barbaric,” she murmured once she’d mastered herself. “Are you all right, Benji?”

“Just a little knocked around,” he said staunchly. “Mainly embarrassed. I should have been more careful coming home from the farm. I made it too easy for them.” His voice became more pained. “How did they get you, though? I thought for sure you’d be safe with the investigation team still around.”

“Never mind that,” Alina said. She couldn’t tell him about the linking enchantment when it was impossible to know who might be listening. “I’m all right. Where exactly are we?”

“I don’t know,” Benji said. “They knocked me out just after I left the farm, and the next thing I knew, I woke up here.”

“I was awake for some of the journey,” Alina said quickly. “We traveled into the desert. I think we’re near the refinement site. Were you alone when you came to?”

Benji hesitated. “Ye-es,” he said at last. “And when they brought you in, I pretended to still be unconscious. That was maybe fifteen minutes ago.”

Her eyes were starting to adjust, and she realized she could make Benji out, in a stone alcove like hers, just across a small aisle. He was on his stomach as well, gripping the bars. It was cool in their prison, the air musty in a way that suggested they were underground. Although not damp, at least, Alina reflected. A benefit of the desert, perhaps.

Looking along the row, she realized that their barred openings were only two of many. As she peered into the one next to Benji, her heart gave a horrible lurch. There was someone in there.

Benji obviously caught her little gasp.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “All the ones I can see from here are…occupied.”

“Are they dead?” The question came out as a hoarse whisper. Alina’s heart was pounding, fear threatening to overwhelm her. Was this what happened to all the victims? Buried alive in an underground tomb, left to die alongside their unfortunate fellows?

“We’re alive.” The faint voice from out of the darkness made Alina jump. “Just…can’t…risk…using…energy.”

The total exhaustion in the words wrenched Alina’s mind back to the terrifying feeling of teetering on the brink of a fathomless pit when she’d almost depleted herself.

“It’s all right,” she said quickly, relieved to know she wasn’t lying amongst a row of the dead. “Don’t try to talk. We’re going to figure something out.”

A low laugh, too miserable for humor, sounded from further along the row. Alina’s heart ached for her silent companions. If the timeline of disappearances was as they believed, some of them had been here for weeks.

“Are you all skilled with magic?” she asked.

Faint murmurs of assent sounded from all around them.

“What do they want with us?” she mused aloud. “Apparently it’s all to do with some method of storing magic in objects, and high energy capacity is especially desirable. But I don’t understand what exactly they’re doing.”

She closed her eyes, straining her extra sense to try to assess the situation a different way. There wasn’t much movement down in this vault, and she could still feel the blockage that prevented her from harnessing Dust. But it didn’t stop her sensing it.

“Benji,” she said softly. “Do you feel that? There’s Dust trailing from all of them.”

“What?” She could hear his frown. “But they’re not moving.”

“I know,” she mused. “It’s not exactly active. But it’s harnessed to them. In quite a quantity.” She screwed up her face, concentrating. “Not from you, though.”

There was a moment of silence as Benji did his own silent examination.

“You’re right,” he breathed at last. “It’s not coming from you, either.”

“Not yet.”

The ominous mutter came from somewhere down the line, and Alina’s fear spiked again. What exactly were they in for?