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“You give me the details of any and everyone who might be coming after you, and in return I’ll set your broken fingers. If we run out of those, I’ll answer your questions.”

Orpheus made an involuntary sound around the gag; Atticus understood what he didn’t.

“Now, no biting, you hear? And no magic. Well, not that you can, but best to be safe.”

Atticus hooked a finger under the silver collar and gave it an almost playful tug, the smirk marring his face revealing that he did not, in fact, know Orpheus had lost his magic.

Gwen hadn’t told him? There must be a reason. But what? Why?

The pressure around the back of his head loosened enough that the bit between his teeth slid free.

Orpheus sucked in a breath through his mouth, then tried to swallow. His whole throat seized in a convulsive clench.

“Drink.”

The rim of a canteen touched his lips, and Orpheus drank what, last night, he’d been cruelly teased with. Water flooded his mouth, cool and sweet and fresh, washing away the dust of the previous day’s ride and the woody taste of campfire smoke clinging to the back of his tongue.

He got three good gulps in before Atticus pulled the canteen away.

“Not too much now. Water isn’t the most precious resource where we’re from, but it’s close.”

“And where in all hells is that?” Orpheus snapped without thinking.

Atticus chuckled, crouching with his back to the dying firelight.

Dawn limned him in gold, eyes paler than Fenrir’s glimmering beneath thick gray brows, the lines framing his mouth smoother than they had been yesterday. This far from home, Atticus seemed calmer, the enemy territory he had invaded traded for what was obviously somewhat familiar ground.

Orpheus shifted where he sat, chain clinking, teeth grinding.

“Can’t say I’m not a generous man, so consider this a freebie.” Orpheus cursed under his breath, recognizing the trap he’d walked into. “You’ll see for yourself soon enough, anyways.”

Beyond the breathing coals of the campfire, past the rippling waves of the tall grass, dawn rose from a blackened horizon of a place Orpheus had never thought to see again. The Rim, and beyond it, the ruinous results of the Incident—a chasm so devastating it had nearly wiped out the whole of humanity when it’d released literal hell on Earth.

It was this Atticus gestured to. “I believe you call it the Rim.”

“How?” Orpheus breathed.

“Well, we’re a bit deeper in than you savages were capable of exploring. But we’d built quite the civilization long before your lot began to stir shit up.” Squatting before Orpheus, Attics dropped his forearms atop his knees and leaned in close. “The chasm kept us apart, but I must say, you drew the short stick. We scouted just far enough to see what savagery your side was up to and decided it best you stay where you were.”

Orpheus shook his head. “So why are you here now?”

“Three questions already?” Atticus’ mouth quirked up into a smirk. “Like I said, I’m a generous man. And I suppose you deserve the explanation, considering we came all this way to see that justice is served, and its perpetrators punished.”

Orpheus winced as if Atticus’ words were a sword headed for his neck.

“That chasm was doing more than keeping our peoples apart, my unfortunate mage.” Atticus’ voice pitched lower as he spoke, the softness in direct contradiction with the hateful fire in his eyes. Orpheus felt a cold descend on him that had nothing to do with the dying fire.

But as quickly as it emerged, it was gone. Atticus’ face transformed back into that calm, calculating kindness Orpheus knew better than to trust.

“But I’ve said too much already, haven’t I? How about we take care of those fingers?”

Pain shot through Orpheus’ hands when he reflectively closed them into fists.

“You give me a name and description, I set a finger. You give me a bit about them—what they do, what they’re good at, what they may be thinking in their savage little head that could possibly cause me trouble—and I’ll set two.”

Someone threw a bucket of water on what remained of the fire; the hiss of smoke barely drowned out the growing buzz inside his head.

Orpheus swallowed. “What are you going to do to them?”