Ignoring them, Evin studied the room, looking for another means of escape. He noticed that the sky outside was now a deep violet, that the room filled with shadows. A lamp appeared on the ceiling and grew brighter. Magic could certainly be handy, he thought to himself.

Evin’s eyes came to settle on the desk—and on an inkwell with its quill. His mind raced until he remembered Marten’s trick to untying tight knots using the strangest of objects. He smiled.

“Hey, can you two stop bickering and help me stand?” he said. “I have an idea.”

Positioning themselves side by side, Bet and Jorick managed to give Evin enough leverage so that he could climb to his feet. As they watched, he hopped as carefully as he could to the desk. He landed hard against it, then twisted around so that he leaned back against the wooden edge. Feeling blindly with his bound hands, he found the quill and lifted it from the inkwell.

“Got it!” he said, and his friends smiled in encouragement.

Footsteps sounded outside, growing close to the door. A latch clicked as someone shoved a key into the lock.

Not wasting any time, Evin hopped forward and plopped down in a sitting position, his back toward the windows. Jorick and Bet hopped so that they sat in a circle.

The door to the room opened and the Swamp Witch waddled into the room. She rubbed her gnarled hands together as she looked over the trio.

“Still here,” she croaked. “And still compliant, I see. How wonderful, as night is here and it’s time for the real fun to begin.”

Crouching down, she looked each of them in the eye, one by one.

“Now tell me,” she said, “who wants to be the first to be sacrificed?”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Hennea the Swamp Witch cackled. “No volunteers?” she said. “Well, I suppose we could always draw straws. Now don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back.”

The squat woman disappeared into the hallway, the door slamming shut behind her.

“What?” Jorick cried as soon as the lock clicked.

“They are mad!” Bet exclaimed at the same time.

Evin gasped for breath. “She can’t be serious,” he said. “Can she? Why would they keep us alive if they were just going to kill us anyway?”

Pointing with his chin, Jorick gestured toward the grate above their heads. “For that, maybe?”

All three of them looked up at the grate. Through the slats they could see the night sky, stars faintly twinkling high above. But the metal of the grating wasn’t a simple crosshatch—instead, the metal had been bent and twisted to form the outlines of runic shapes.

“Oh no,” Bet gasped. Meeting their eyes, she slowly shook her head. “That is definitely a relic, not some covering. The metal gratings form ancient words of power. They must be doing some sort of ritual!”