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He stumbled when they entered, despite his rush. Despite his need.

High above, cages lined the walls two stories tall. Light spilled down from an open-air ceiling where a catwalk connected one end of the prison cells to the other. Shouts echoed from the cell block, blue-sleeved arms reaching through the cages, a caustic rain of pleas falling from above. The sound morphed within his ears, recognition spreading like a fire, whispers replacing shouts, questions instead of foul names.

Master Orpheus?

The title lanced through his chest and straight into Orpheus’ soul.

They think I’ve betrayed them. He couldn’t see their individual faces just as they couldn’t see anything but his dark robes and strange gait. He could shout up at them, but the chance swept away with the rise of their voices. Jeers and curses fell like rain, awful and accusing. And when Orpheus stumbled over his bad leg when he tried to look up, Atticus’ hand caught his elbow in a false display of care that sent the soldiers into a frenzy. By the time they reached the door at the far side of the cell block, Orpheus limped through it of his own volition.

This is all wrong.

“Where is he?” Orpheus begged Atticus when they came to a second door. “Where are you keeping him?”

Atticus didn’t reply. He pulled a key from a ring at his belt and sunk it into the lock, the mechanism giving way easier than the exterior door.

The scent that hit Orpheus’ nose nearly brought what little food was left in his belly up. Cooked meat was one thing, but hours-old flesh was another. Bodies lay atop banquet tables, quartered into parts and already attracting flies. In the corner, swords and guns were sorted into piles, coats folded beside them, stained dark by their blood—singed black with the burn marks of a hundred lightning strikes.

Despite his better judgement, despite the sick crawling up his throat, Orpheus searched every dead gray face he passed.

He’s not here, should have brought him comfort.

He must be a prisoner, because if he wasn’t dead, that was the only reason Fenrir wouldn’t be here right now, fulfilling his promise.

He’s taking me to him, lodged deep in his heart. As if Atticus was doing him a kindness rather than confirming the killer of his wife was finally in his hands.

“In here.”

Duluth retrieved a Netherflame lantern while Atticus waited at the mouth of a long narrow hallway that descended into darkness. Shadows leaked from the walls where the obsidian had not touched the light of day in possibly ever, and Orpheus stumbled to a stop once he crossed the threshold, Atticus’ hand landing solidly on his shoulder.

“Nearly there,” Atticus murmured, grip firm, a pressure forward Orpheus could not disobey.

A room came into view some ways down. A room open to the hallway, light reflecting off a clear surface Orpheus didn’t realize was glass until he was several yards away. The glare from Duluth’s lantern blew out more than he could see. A set of boots, a bloodied coat. He held his breath as the room grew closer, cane clicking loudly in the quiet, a countdown towards something he shouldn’t want to escape.

Fenrir? he thought with his next step, attention locked on the military-issued boots peeking from below the glare of light.

Fenrir! He wanted to scream when a bloodied blue coat dropped to the ground and those boots moved, glass thrumming when palms slapped its surface.

Fenrir! swelled in his chest when the lantern’s glare narrowed enough that he caught a lock of blonde hair that—no—

No—no!

Like the unraveling of a dream, the whole world began to tunnel, buzzing, shifting, tilting and then coming apart, piece by impossible piece.

It’s not him.

Behind the thick glass of a solitary prison cell, Farris stared, Red laid out on the cot behind him, face wrapped in a bandage half soaked through with blood.

It’s not Fenrir, though he should be glad to see his friends alive, if not unharmed.

It’s not Fenrir, and what did it mean that they were here instead of him? Heroes, neither of them, but desperate enough to seek him out despite it?

Where is Fenrir? Because if he wasn’t here, surely he was out there, still coming—

“The man was carrying something when we recovered them.”

From the stack of supplies beside the glass, Atticus carefully withdrew something Orpheus would have recognized anywhere.

“No,” he said, voice breaking. “No, no, no.”