Her wrists and ankles were bound to a chair, and her skin was already red and chafed from where the damp rope bit into her. She tugged against it experimentally but found it painfully secure.

“You’re awake.”

She gasped, nearly wrenching her neck in surprise. Lowry sat in an armchair in front of a rain-streaked window. Droplets steadily drummed on the roof—a strangely calming contrast to Lowry’s voracious gaze. “I was beginning to worry you’d died in your sleep. How unfortunate that would have been.”

She was still woozy from the anesthetic, but even with her blurred vision, there was no denying he looked awful. Against his all-black formalwear, his face was ashen, and his eyes were so hollow, he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. Sweat plastered his curls to his temples like seaweed dashed against slick ocean rock. His experiments had clearly taken a toll on his system.

“Where are they?” Her voice was ragged.

“Are you always so impatient? It’s maddening.” He rose from his chair. “You’ll see them soon enough.”

Step by agonizing step, he circled her like a stalking beast. She couldn’t turn her head enough to follow him when he slipped out of her peripheral vision. Only his footsteps echoed in the emptiness of this chamber. When he at last stood behind her, he grabbed the back of her chair and turned her around. The wooden legs scraped against the stone floor with a high-pitched squeal.

The light from the wall sconces was orange as rust. It caked the sharp edges of the surgical instruments lined up on the surface of a wheeled cart. Beside it was a slab of a table, and on it, a shape draped in a white sheet. The shock of it emptied her out, left her dizzy and reeling with fear. She did not want to see what was underneath, although she already knew.

“Shall we take a look?” Lowry pulled off the cover, and the blood drained from her face.

A thousand feelings careened through her, but she couldn’t manage a single word, a single movement. Hal lay outstretched on the table, strapped down with leather belts around his forehead, chest, and limbs. An intravenous drip punctured his arm like a plant taken root, steadily feeding him an anesthetic. Judging by the plum-purple marks streaking his forearm, he’d fought its insertion.

Lowry turned a crank on the operating table and, with a tinny whine, the platform lowered until Hal was nearly level with her knees. “Everything’s already set up for you.”

The full, horrible weight of his expectation threatened to crush her. She hardly felt it as he took a scalpel and cut one of her restraints. It broke with a clean snap, as easy as paring viscera. “Remove his blindfold.”

“No.”

“You’re hardly in a position to deny me.”

She wasn’t. “My magic is gone. I can’t.”

“Do it.”