“But you know the best part?” He seemed to strive for a tone of superiority that eluded him. “You’re wrong about me. The Mahdoubt saw the truth, but she talked herself out of it. I belong to the Despiser. I do. I’ve been his ever since I put my hand in that bonfire ten years ago. I even learned to enjoy it.

“You kept trying to reach me, you kept trying, and you’re so earnest about it, I just had to laugh.”

Jeremiah—He or the croyel made Linden want to scream. She ached for the fused rage which had sustained her on Gallows Howe; but she had lost that granite. She was too weak and blind and beaten to find it in herself again.

“You have no idea,” her son continued, mocking her, “how much fun I had steering you here. With Legos! At first, you had me worried. You’re so slow on the uptake. But once you got to Revelstone, you thought you figured it out. After that, all I had to do was wait.”

“Oh, stop,” Covenant rasped as though he had the authority to command the croyel. “You aren’t fooling anybody. You didn’t want this. If you did, you wouldn’t be so scared now.”

He sounded stronger than he should have been. With lore and vitrim, the ur-viles had done more for him than Linden could.

“You wanted us to come here,” Covenant continued. “I believe that. Once the Worm woke up, Lord Foul could relax. He’s sure he’s going to escape the Arch. So now he’s just looking for entertainment. Trying to cause as much despair as he can while he waits. You all are, you and the Ravers and Lord Foul and my son.

“But you didn’t want this. It never occurred to you, any of you, that we might actually get here and trap you. You weren’t counting on her.” He must have meant She Who Must Not Be Named. “She doesn’t care what you taste like. She’ll take anything. You were counting on Roger. Now you’re in as much trouble as the rest of us, and you’re scared out of your mind.

“So stop sneering,” Covenant ordered sternly. “If I tell him to do it, Galt will be glad to make a few cuts in your throat, just to remind you you’re vulnerable.”

Jeremiah did not reply. Apparently the croyel feared the krill too much to test Covenant’s threat.

With Liand’s edema compressing her brain, Linden would not have believed that she could feel more pain. Surely any increase would have driven her into a coma? I belong to the Despiser. But her son’s tormentor had shown her that she was wrong.

Compelled by intolerable hurt and blindness, she gulped at the vitrim that Stave held to her lips.