Orfeus woke up slowed. Dreary. All her new energy was gone. She was so tired and drained she might have been dead already.

Focus. She breathed. She could get out of anything, if she was smart, brave, clever.

Pretending to be unconscious was probably pointless; her breathing would have changed. Orfeus opened her eyes to get as much information as she could.

She was strapped to a chair. There was metal against her neck, she could feel the cold —her hair had been lifted aside to let it connect. She moved her head just slightly and didn’t feel anything connecting there at least, no cradle yet, no pain except a slight sting. She’d been jabbed.

Dosed, betrayed. Anger and fear clenched in her gut. Significance O’Hallow. She should have been more careful, kept her guard up, never trusted, never.

Flicking down her eyes, her stomach lurched again. There were tubes in her arms, running red and thick with blood. No wonder she felt so ill and weak. Her blood was being drained, again.

Betrayals on betrayals. She should have known better.

Significance O’Hallow strode into her line of sight, looking beautiful in soft cream robes, smile charming, eyes bright blue. “You’re awake!” xe said. Xe leaned over to smile at her, hands on xyr knees. “Greetings, good afternoon, good to see you again, Orfeus singer. I’ve been looking forward to having another conversation.”

Orfeus ran her tongue along her lips, ensuring she could speak. “Gonna start off strong,” she said, croaking only a little. “Fuck you.”

Significance laughed in delight, leaning back and clapping xyr hands. “Oh, that’s so archaic, you’re very knowledgeable. I knew I would enjoy this. Entertain me, enchant me.”

“Fuck off and die,” Orfeus said by way of obliging. Significance smiled more thinly.

Orfeus darted her eyes to the side. She moved her head and couldn’t move it more than slightly: metal bracketed it on either side. Orfeus let out a long breath, nothing to panic about, nothing to panic about, this was nowhere near as bad as it could be, barely even as bad as crawling through the tunnel.

She might be underground. She might be anywhere. This lab looked like the polar opposite of the other one, from what she could make out with her eyes still wanting to wince away from the light. There was a lot of light. Every surface gleamed, mostly very white, enough so that Significance’s clean cream robes looked positively shabby. Instruments were laid out on a table. Orfeus blinked her watering eyes at them and then averted her gaze. She didn’t want to know about that. Didn’t need to know about that quite yet.