She falls and does not rise. I pick up another arrow with another letter and let that one fly as well. Again and again I embed my story into the skulls of the Unconsecrated that surround us and still they keep coming. Their hunger driving them on, not caring that they walk over the truly dead forms of their fallen legion.

By the end, when all my arrows but one are gone, I've dropped twenty Unconsecrated. And yet there's no rest. No dent. Nothing to mark my accomplishment.

I take the last arrow with the last note tucked around it and I let it loose. It flies straight and buries itself in the wood at Harry's feet, where he stands at the edge of the platform watching my little hunt.

He leans over and plucks the paper from the shaft, leaving the arrow where it lies. He unfurls the letter and reads it. I tell him we are well and ask him if they are doing okay. And then I ask him if they have pondered escape.

I wait for his answer.

“They're starting to break through,” Travis says to me when I come inside. He's sitting at the large empty table in the main room of the house, looking at the door. Argos sits next to him and Travis absently tickles his ears. We both hear the scraping of the Unconsecrated against the wood. It is unending.

“I thought you said it would hold,” I say. I try not to sound accusatory but I cannot help but feel a certain sense of betrayal. As if Travis had promised to protect me and now he's giving up.

“We both knew it wouldn't last,” he says and I wonder if he's not just talking about the door and our defenses.

“How do you know they're breaking through?” I ask, my voice soft as I walk to the door and place my hand over the wooden beams that separate me from the outside world. They feel strong under my fingers and yet I can sense the strain on each individual splinter, the constant stress these timbers are under.

“I can hear it. In the way the wood groans under their weight. When I'm down here alone that is all I hear.”

My head drops to my chest under his accusing words.

“I've been trying to figure out ways to escape,” I tell him. “But I haven't been able to come up with a plan that will work.”

“Oh” is all he says.

I trace my finger along a wide crack in the wood. “To get one of us across. That isn't the hard part. It's …” I hesitate for just a moment too long.

“It's my leg,” he finishes.

I nod. “And the dog,” I add.

Travis almost laughs but it's more like a sigh as he pats Argos on the head. Argos leans against Travis's leg in response, his eyes closed with contentment. The loyal companion.

I turn to face the two, my hands behind me as I lean against the door. “I won't leave you,” I tell him.