Derek turned his head to the side. “I’ll tell you nothing,” he cried suddenly. “You hold me here against any law in this world.” His words came out in sobs. “You keep me your prisoner year on end and you drink my blood as if it belongs to you! I loathe you and detest you. And you, cruel one, the whole tribe despises you and is it any wonder? And you think you can make me an ally?” He tried to stop himself, but he couldn’t. “Some night, I’ll get even with you for all this, some night, I will have you as a prisoner and you will be at my mercy! Some night you will pay for all you have done to me! Some night I’ll get to your Prince and tell him all that you did to me! Some night I’ll tell your whole world!”

Rhoshamandes laughed.

“You’re doing yourself no good at all, Derek,” said Roland with his usual icy condescension. “Simply tell us what you know of this Garekyn.”

“This ax is sharp,” said Rhoshamandes. Derek was too frightened suddenly to make a sound. He went over the promise of the Parents again in his mind, that if pain was too much for him to bear, he would lose consciousness. And then what? Awake to a world in which he was a butchered fragment of his former self? And would he live on if this demon did hack him limb from limb, even severing his head from his trunk? He gasped and wiped frantically at his eyes.

“Someone cut off my left arm not very long ago,” said Rhoshamandes, “and the effect of that blow was amazing. There is nothing quite like seeing your own limb hacked off.”

“Yes, it drove you mad!” said Allesandra. “It robbed you of all hope and optimism! Now put that tool aside. You will not harm this boy. What would you gain by doing that? You’ve gone about this all in the wrong way.”

“Don’t harm him any further,” said Arion. “Can’t you bargain with the Prince by offering to bring the boy himself?”

“No, I need more than that! As soon as they know about the boy, they’ll come in such numbers that we can’t defeat them, and they’ll take the boy!”

“Why not try it, Rhosh?” asked Roland. “I’ve given him to you for whatever you wish. Tell them what you have here, a living specimen of the same ilk as the one that escaped. And that we will bring this creature to them at the Château if they will guarantee your complete exoneration, if they will welcome you into the Court on terms of full equality.”

“The Prince will keep his word if he gives it,” said Allesandra, “just as he did before.”

“I need more than that, much more,” said Rhoshamandes. But he was pondering, obviously.