‘And if I’m not?’ Alice snapped.

‘It’s not worth thinking about. You’re going to need your strength and your wits about you, though. I’m going to try and delay that knowledge reaching the priestess until at least tonight. You need food and warmth before you can even consider attempting to face them. Now … please may I use some of your magic to conjure up some food?’

Alice nodded, still dumbfounded. ‘I didn’t even know I had magic…’

‘You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t, believe me.’ The girl held out one hand and placed it on Alice’s shoulder, concentrated for a moment, and then in her other outstretched hand a bowl of steaming soup appeared, right before Alice’s eyes. She had a feeling that this was going to take a lot of getting used to, but her hunger had overtaken any other instincts. She grabbed the bowl from the girl and lifted it to her lips, her stomach growling.

The sensation of warm, spiced soup lining her empty stomach was euphoric. She had no idea when she had last eaten. The girl sat back, crossed her legs, and watched Alice like a proud mother bear watching her cub demolish a fresh kill. Alice’s joints immediately felt less stiff and she sensed strength rising through her body. Her fingertips tingled with a powerful energy she’d never felt before. While Alice drank the rest of the soup, the girl rested a hand gently on each of her ankles.

‘May I?’ the girl asked.

Alice just shrugged, gulping heartily from the bowl that was still lifted to her mouth.

The girl nodded and the shackles on her legs disappeared, but the grazes and sores remained. Alice finished the soup and handed the bowl back to her companion, who emptied it with a flick of her wrist, and then handed it back to Alice, filled with steaming water.

‘Hold this for me. I’ll help you get those cuts and bruises cleaned up,’ she instructed.

Now that the warming, healing powers of the soup had passed, she felt the keen and raw throbbing of her injuries. She raised a hand to her temple and found it tender and crusty with dried blood. Her hair, too, was hanging in clumps around her shoulders. The dried blood from her head injuries had coagulated until her hair was a greasy, brittle bird’s nest. Alice became self-conscious all of a sudden.

The warmth of the water in the bowl seeped into her arms with a comforting glow, and the girl soaked a strip of cloth and took great care while she dabbed and cleaned each of Alice’s many seeping wounds. She started with her face and head, letting the warm water run through Alice’s hair. She was painstaking in her attention to detail, and she took her time, washing away the blood from Alice’s neck and collarbones. She moved further down to clean the mud and the raw skin on Alice’s wrists and then finally ended by cleaning the dirt and the blood from Alice’s ankles and feet.