He lowered his head into the crawl space and peered around, then pulled back. “I said I would tell you the secret if you retrieved the book…which I would have, had there been a book to retrieve.”

I clenched my teeth and forced myself to be quiet. When I didn’t respond, he ducked his head back in, trying again, unsuccessfully, to see me.

“You might as well come out of there,” he said. “There’s no place to go.”

As he spoke, I crept forward, then stopped when he did. He sighed.

“Cowering in that hole does not become you. Or are you sulking?”

I made it halfway across this time. As he paused, I itched to creep another few steps, but didn’t dare. Even the whisper of my clothes as I moved was too loud. When he started talking, I started moving.

“I will count to five, and then I will come in there after you, and drag you out by that pretty, long hair.”

I waited, barely a foot from his face, holding myself as still as I could.

“Five…four—”

I hooked him around the neck and yanked. He tumbled into the hole. He scrambled onto me and tried to pin my arms. When he couldn’t get a grip on them, he seized my hair. I slammed my open palm into the bottom of his jaw. He grunted, and fell back.

I slid out from under him. He reached for me again, but I scrambled out of the way, and grabbed the edge of the hatch, hoisting myself up. When he came at me, I kicked him in the face. He stumbled back. I dropped into the hole and fell on him.

He bucked to throw me off, but I managed to flip him onto his stomach. I kneeled as best I could on his back. Then I grasped his hands and held them and, with my teeth, untied the extra piece of vine. He rocked and wriggled and cursed, but after a few tries, I got the vine tied around his wrists and ankles.

“You think you’re clever?” he snarled. “One scream from me and every one of those beasties up there will come running—”

“Whoops, almost forgot. Thanks.”

I stuffed my other sock into his mouth. Then I paid him the same honor he’d promised me: I grabbed him by the hair and hauled him out of the crawl space.

“So,” I said as I dumped him on the bedroom floor.

“Are you going to tell me how to catch the Nix?”

He only narrowed his eyes, a “fuck you” in any language.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll come back in a couple of days, see whether you’ve changed your mind.”

As I walked toward the living room, Dachev made a guttural sound behind his gag.