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Pain lanced from his fingers to his wrists, making his gasp, then nearly wretch. He breathed through it, like a dog in a cage he knelt on all fours, panting through his muzzle while Duluth secured his ankle chain to a bolt in the frame and slammed the door shut.

Snickers rose from Serval, and Orpheus squeezed his eyes shut to block him out. He crawled towards the furthest wall of the wagon, huddling into the corner where two iron panels came together in a false cradle.

All that matters is that I’m still alive.

At least until Atticus found out he didn’t have his magic.

“Darling,” Atticus drawled, eyes on him though he spoke to Gwen, “would you assist Duluth with that lock?”

A low muttering preceded Gwen’s blonde hair appearing at Duluth’s side. “Can I catch a ride up, big guy?”

With the ease of a lion lifting a mouse, Duluth settled Gwen on his shoulder so she was eye level with the locks. The subsequent impression was undeniable, an echo from his past. Through the bars of his cage Orpheus stared at a sight he never thought he’d see again: a small girl atop a monster of a steed, sealing his fate with little more than a passing command.

Orpheus sank into his corner and glared.

Gwen seemed unfazed. “Fifi, huh? That really what they call you?” Head cocked so the fall of her hair hid her from Atticus, Gwen plucked at the wagon’s lock without actually doing anything, her gaze glancing off of his. “This here is Duluth, but I call him Lou. And this” — Gwen lifted her arm and the Umbralcat emerged from inside her cloak, big white eyes twin flames amongst smoky black fur— “this is Soot.”

As if on cue, the creature rose up on its spindly hind legs and bumped Gwen’s chin, little puffs of smoke trailing from its perpetually singed tail.

Gwen giggled. “And now you know why I call him Soot.” When her eyes returned to Orpheus’, they sparkled with her grin. “It’s a good nickname, don’t ya think? Better than Fifi, which is kinda stupid, but I guess you know that already.”

Orpheus bared his teeth around the gag, blinking past the sting of smoke in his eyes.

“Hah, I knew you hated it.” Gwen stuck her tongue out, then looked down at the lock, a tiny flame spilling from her hand into the mechanism. Orpheus didn’t miss how her magic barely ignited, the bleed of violet light no stronger than the failing bioluminescence of a crushed firefly.

So, last night wasn’t just a temporary fatigue. Her magic truly was as weak as it looked. No more than an ember plucked from an inferno.

“Must have pretty crappy friends to call you something like Fifi,” Gwen continued as if poking a beast locked in a cage was all perfectly normal. “Wait, I take that back. You seem like the type to not have friends.”

I don’t. At least, not until very recently. But that didn’t mean this runt of a child got to call him out on it.

“Lou here is my friend, but he doesn’t talk.” Gwen threw another look at Orpheus, a devious narrowing of her eyes. “Guess you don’t talk anymore either, huh?”

Oh, fuck off.

Orpheus raised his encased hands in what he hoped was a rude gesture.

Gwen merely laughed, then glanced over her shoulder. When she turned back to him, she pitched her voice low enough Orpheus strained to hear. “He’s not actually going to kill you, you know. At least, not yet. Not while Sanctuary needs your help.” She pretended to work while she spoke, turning the second lock over in mock examination. A short distance away, Atticus directed the soldiers holding their horses’ reins, glancing over as if he sensed Gwen was talking about him, only for an errant white cloak to drag his attention away. “Not so long as he believes you can do, well, this” —Another ball of Netherflame erupted in her palm, so much smaller than what Orpheus had been able to summon— “better than me.”

The puzzle in his head assembled in fractured glimpses, but this filled a curious hole, because it revealed that they’d tried to get Gwen to fix Sanctuary first, and in her failure, they’d turned to the one other mage left.

Him. Lore’s rabid dog, their enemy.

That meant they were out of options. Ideas. They were desperate.

Gwen continued talking as if she wasn’t giving Orpheus the second most precious resource she had to offer: information. “I’ve never been great at it. I can make fire and I can renew existing sigils, but I can’t actually cast. My spells...” Beyond the bars of his cage their eyes met, and Orpheus saw something he recognized. Not kinship or commiseration. Something deeper. Darker. A desire that festered. A want he knew the taste of, because he’d seen it before in a girl he’d called friend, and now harbored himself.

“I’ll help keep your secret as long as I can,” Gwen whispered. “But I want something in return.”

Orpheus breathed past his gag and held this awful child’s stare.

“Teach me. Everything. All that you know about magic, so I can undo what you did. Fix everything you broke.”

There is no fixing it, he wanted to tell her. Instead, he shoved his shoulders into the iron bars like he could sink through them. Go to hell, he would have added if he could. The lick of magic crawling up Gwen’s palm towards the third lock was his singular comfort—a promise of hope to regain all he’d lost.

No, not everything. Magic won’t bring back F—

Orpheus shoved the thought away.