“Tighter,” I heard Vera saying to someone, as if down a pipe or from a long distance. I was groggy, I realized, but understanding didn’t improve anything. Groggy and weak. Why was she talking? Why wouldn’t she let me sleep? “No, tighter,” she said.

“I can’t, my lady,” said a deep female voice—Belle. “It doesn’t fit right, even with his hand growing back. The strap won’t stay.”

“Then tie it. Use a piece of cord.”

Belle was apparently helping her mistress put on her nightclothes, but why were they doing it in my room? Or was I in Vera’s room? And why were they talking about my hand? Wherever it was, I couldn’t be lying in a very comfortable position, because my joints were aching.

I tried to open my eyes, but that wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Even my lids felt weighed down, like someone had set Charon’s heavy coins on them. But I had already made that journey, hadn’t I? I had already crossed the River of Death because I was in Hell. Could you cross twice? I was confused, my thoughts thick like syrup.

At last I got my eyes open, something that took actual hard effort. I was in my own room, all right, and Vera and Belle were indeed struggling with cords and straps, but it had nothing to do with Lady Zinc’s nightware because Vera was still dressed for the opera. The cord in question was being tied around my wounded arm, which apparently had kept coming out of its restraining strap. My other arm with the whole hand hadn’t been a problem for them—it was bound securely to the headboard of the bed.

As Belle pulled on the cord knotted around my arm just below the elbow, I realized for the first time what was going on, although for a moment I didn’t quite grasp the why of it. Had I fallen out of bed? Injured myself? Why was I being restrained? But then the first cold gust of reality blew through me and some of the grogginess receded.

“You may go now, Belle,” said Vera when both of my arms were pulled out straight on either side. My ankles had been bound as well, and I was helpless as any sacrificial victim. “I have things to say to Lord Snakestaff that require privacy.”

“As you say, Mistress.” But Belle clearly didn’t want to go, and she paused in the doorway, filling it with her huge frame, to look at her handiwork: me, trussed like a turkey about to go in the oven.

Vera was pacing back and forth beside the bed, the color in her cheeks darker and deeper than I had ever seen.