“I want to talk to him,” Werth says. “Before he… before whatever it is you’re gonna do to him.”

“That is not an option.”

Shit shit shit. He can’t take this guy. He has no chance in the world. The assassin would dismantle him like a baby calf under a carpet of army ants.

“Listen. I lied. I don’t want to talk to him. I want to–” And here he gives bunny-ear air quotes. “‘Talk’ to him. Know what I mean?”

Sorago stares.

“I want to beat his monkey ass for doing this to me. To us. To the Boss.”

Sorago still says nothing.

The Snakeface’s eyes flit to behind Werth, and it’s an unlikely voice that saves him.

“Let him do it,” Candlefly says. Then, to Werth, “I’m glad you’re coming around. Besides, if it will make you feel like a valuable asset to punish treachery with a little violence, who am I to stand in the way?” Werth feels embers of victory swirl and bloom with triumphant fire until Candlefly adds, “In fact, I’ll not only not stand in your way, I’d like to come downstairs and watch.”

That smile. Like oil on a puddle.

Fuck.

“Yeah,” Werth says, no longer sure how he’s going to make this work. The plan was always simple and stupid: go downstairs, unchain Mookie, fight their way out of this place and make a break for it. Use the Red stuff if they had to. That’s now a dead-end non-option. He could try to overpower Candlefly, but he’s not sure that’s a winner of an idea, either. Mookie beat the man’s face into ambrosia salad, and one day later the guy looks like he’s even handsomer than before.

Candlefly opens the door, gestures for Werth to go first.

No other choice now.

Time to improvise.

For a moment Mookie thinks he’s being wrapped up and choked out by one of the Snakeface assassins: serpent arms snaked all the way around him, squeezing him like an antelope in an anaconda grip. But then he gasps awake and realizes it’s just the chains.

He tastes blood. Old blood. His blood. A mouthful of iron and salt.

From somewhere, a scream. A woman’s scream. A girl, maybe. A little flare of hope in the darkness: It’s Nora. She’s alive, my daughter… but like all flares the light streaks and fades and then it’s back to the eternal night of dead hope. Because she’s dead. She has to be. Candlefly told him she was dead to taunt him.

But taunt him with truth, or a lie?

How much of this has been a lie? Was her captivity even real?