To the right, separated from my and Robert’s cell by bars, Derek and Desandra sprawled in their own cage asleep under blankets. The Order’s medmage, a tall man with a long braid of brown hair who went by Steinlein, had examined them and declared there was nothing he could do. The toxin was working its way through their systems and they would bounce back or they wouldn’t. He seemed to think they would, because once they had turned human, their wounds had closed, which was a good sign.

Through the bars, I could see Ascanio. He lay limp on a table in the open. They had chained his ankles and his wrists. The chains weren’t silver, but they were thick enough to hold him. Steinlein chanted over him, rocking back and forth. I couldn’t tell if his chanting was doing anything. The boy didn’t look any better.

I felt so hollow, as if someone had gutted me. I didn’t know about whom to worry more, Ascanio dying or Derek and Desandra barely breathing.

The redheaded female knight with the buzz cut—Steinlein had called her Diana—watched us. Next to her a lean, muscular knight in his late twenties was giving me his version of a hard stare. He was carrying a tactical sword. A long scar crossed his face from his short blond hair to his chin. They both seemed convinced that if one of them looked away for a second, I’d escape from the locked cage and explode the Order.

“You keep staring, you’ll set me on fire,” I told them.

Neither of them answered. Great.

Mauro stepped into the vault.

“Did you call the Pack?” I asked him

“The phones are out,” he said.

Can I just fucking catch a break?

“But I sent a courier to Atlanta Medical, asking for assistance,” Mauro said. “They’ve got a new satellite office about four miles from here.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“It won’t help,” Steinlein said. “His chest and everything inside it is crushed. If he were weaker, he would be dead already. I’m only delaying the inevitable.”

Ascanio trusted me. He trusted me and I had let him come with me. He had no fear, because he was young and he thought he was immortal and because he counted on me keeping him alive. I couldn’t lose him. “If you’re done, chain me next to him, and I’ll keep chanting.”

The medmage turned to me. “I didn’t say I was giving up. I’m just telling you that there’s no light at the end of this tunnel. You have a couple of hours to come to terms with it.”

Doolittle would’ve ripped a new hole somewhere in him for his bedside manner. If he hadn’t been holding Ascanio’s life in his hands, I’d have told him exactly what I thought about it.