It’s when he starts to tug my arm from my jacket and ties his scarf around my wrist, looping the other end around the railing, that I realize just how far this trouble is escalating. That if I don’t act quickly, I might not be able to stop him at all.

He reaches for my other arm and I wrench my elbow up, connecting with his jaw. He shouts and starts to fall backward, tipped off balance. He stumbles a step, dragging me with him, and then the railing collapses and he falls off the end of the platform. His weight jerks against my hair, pulling me to my side on the rotting wood as a blinding pain tears across my scalp and neck. Frantic, I loop my legs around one of the remaining railing supports to stop myself from sliding after him.

I can barely breathe under the agony of his weight dragging on my hair and I flail for some way to make it stop. With his free hand he scrabbles for the edge of the platform but the wood’s old and wet with snow and crumbles under his fingers. “Help me!” he screams. Already I hear the Unconsecrated below shifting toward him, their footsteps a squelching crunch as they slog through frozen mud at the river’s edge.

“Pull me up!” he shouts, reaching for me. The pain’s blinding and I try to pry his fingers away but they’re too tangled. I feel the hairs start to pull from my head, searing pinpricks of bright agony.

“Let go!” I cry, but he won’t. I close my eyes and clench my jaw and fumble for the knife in my pocket, prying it open with my teeth. He’s starting to jerk against me as he tries to pull himself up. Moans fill the air around us, blood from my scalp saturating the air.

I shove the blade through my hair, sawing as hard and fast as I can. Finally, there’s so little hair left that it just pulls free, ripped from the roots with a torturous hot pain that makes me gag.

The man drops. I hear the crunch of him hitting the ground. Hot sticky blood trickles around my ear as I peer over the edge of the platform. My entire body shakes as I gulp in the frigid night air, terrified by what I’m about to see.

Chapter XXVI

There’s just enough light from the fires on the island and the stars in the sky for me to see him. He’s mewling in agony as a throng of bodies slowly descends on him. A few drops of blood drip from my fingers into the mass below and as one they raise their heads to me, mouths wet and smeared red.