Without further ado, Wencit reversed the dagger to grasp the blade, then took Derry’s right hand and wrapped it round the hilt of the weapon.

“Go ahead. Kill me, if you can.”

Derry froze for just an instant, unable to believe that Wencit would actually give him such an opportunity, then launched himself hysterically at his tormentor.

He never made it, of course. Wencit sidestepped neatly, easily wrenching Derry’s fingers from the dagger’s hilt, then pushed him back against the wall again, weak as a kitten. Unable to summon any resistance whatsoever, Derry watched dully as Wencit laughed and bent to slip the blade into the neck of his shirt, ripping down the front of the garment with one deft stroke and then parting the two halves to bare his victim’s chest.

He then crouched down and brought his right hand to rest lightly on Derry’s chest above the heart, the dagger balanced neatly on the fingers of his left. His eyes were cool and distant in the dim cell, and Derry knew with a sinking certainty that he was about to die.

What, in the name of all things holy, had ever made him think he could kill Wencit with a blade? Why, the man was a demon!—no, the Devil himself!

“So, you see, my dear Lord Derry, how very futile it all is,” Wencit said softly. “Your soul and will now are mine—and your body also, if I desire it. And you have lost even the power to kill. You cannot take my life…but I can order you to take your own, and you will obey me. Take the knife, Derry, and rest the point here by my hand, above your heart.”

As though he were watching someone else’s hand, Derry saw his fingers close around the hilt of the dagger Wencit offered, the blade angled downward, Wencit’s gloved hand closing over his. He watched with disbelief and dread as Wencit guided it to press lightly on the skin above his heart. He felt no sense of panic this time, no sense of struggle against what was happening. He knew that the hand was his and that it would kill him if Wencit so ordered. And there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

Smiling, Wencit removed his hand and rocked back on his heels, balancing easily in the rustling straw.

“Now, we shall begin with just a shallow cut, barely drawing blood,” he said. “Do it.”

The knife moved smoothly beneath Derry’s fascinated gaze, his hand guiding it along a fine line, no longer than the breadth of three fingers. Blood welled from the cut in tiny beads like jewels against his white skin, until the tip of the blade poised just below the breastbone, awaiting its next command.

“So we have drawn blood together, you and I,” Wencit whispered, his voice as soft as the silk he wore. “And now we may pause together on the brink of death, for just a little while. Make it so, my friend. Only a little pressure…and then we may converse with the angel of death in passing, here in this lonely cell of woe.”