Okay, okay, not the bright sunlight he’d been expecting, but he was out, right? Or was he?

The wind carried a distant voice to him. Yelling from overhead, if he wasn’t mistaken.

He ran into a damp hallway with rough walls, past a curtain, into a dimly lit room with gray walls and stacks of brown containers. Stairs rose on his left, and he hurried for them.

The voices grew louder. Or voice, he should say—one gruff voice expressing enough outrage to slow Billos to a timid climb.

He nudged the door at the top, saw no immediate danger, and stepped into . . . a library of some kind?

Bookcases towered on either side of a passage that led into a great room, two stories high. A large crystalline chandelier hung from the domed ceiling.

“You betrayed them, Cutes. For that I think you deserve to die, don’t you?” The voice echoed from the main room. “You think your lover boy will try to save you now? I think not.”

A chill rode Billos’s spine. He gripped the knife tighter and crept forward on the balls of his feet. Behind him the door clicked shut. He reached back for the doorknob.

Locked.

There would be no going back the way he’d come.

“You should be thrilled that at least one of you is going to make it out of this place alive. You know that these doors are sealed with blood. Only blood can pry them open. If not yours, then whose? Hmmm? Not mine, not a chance, Cutes.”

Soft crying. Muffled, definitely muffled.

Something about that voice struck a chord deep in Billos’s mind. Female. Familiar.

He stopped.

Darsal?

A dozen thoughts crashed into his mind, and he knew that he was right. Darsal was not only in this place, but her life was hanging in the balance.

And lover boy? Someone else? No, never!

But what if? He’d never even considered the possibility that Darsal might fall for another man. She’d never shown the slightest interest in anyone but him since he’d killed her uncle for habitually beating her to a pulp after her parents’ deaths.

The thought of losing her to another man suddenly struck him as obscene. Billos dropped the pretense of stealth and sprinted the rest of the way.

Around him rose a round atrium bordered on all sides with bookcases. A dozen vacant tables sat in the middle. Railing ran along the perimeter, separating the bookcases from the tables.

Darsal was strapped to the railing, hands tied behind her back, mouth gagged with a brown cloth. Her eyes darted to him, spread wide with fear. Then wrinkled, begging.

In front of Darsal stood a tall man dressed in black. Black hat, black trench coat, black slacks, black boots tipped in silver. Dark hair to his shoulders, smile twisted like a snake’s tail, one eyebrow arched.