His thick fingers shoved hair out of the way, and there was a surprising civility in his eyes, a wretched pain expressed silently and with eloquence. Yet if I had a key, I wasn’t certain I’d have let him out. The door shifted against my weight with a small click. The man spun, enraged at the sight of us and lunging against his chains. I gave a cry and fell back, and Dr. Turner’s chest stopped my fall. I hid my face in his shirt, trembling. I would not turn back. No. Not for anything. The doctor’s arms came about me, hands splayed on my back, and their solid warmth calmed me.

The caged man’s cries and groans assaulted my senses, echoing off the walls, off my skin. “Hoooooow. Bit. Bit.”

I shivered and turned back to the patient. No hopeless cases. No hopeless cases.

“Hillfeh. Bitttter!” He lunged toward the door, gasping and straining, then went limp, standing defeated just outside the slices of light coming through the window. “Hillfah BIT HER!” He seemed desperate, as if willing me to understand his meaning, even though he could not get his tongue around the words properly. Helpless, restrained, he stared at me until tears warmed the corners of my eyes.

“I feel just as trapped as you.” I shivered.

He blew out a breath that lifted the hair from his face, then he shoved the dark strands back. When the light struck his arm, raw, bloodied flesh showed around the chains. “Oh, Dr. Turner.” My tears fell. “Mightn’t you put him in something besides chains? He’ll die of an infection in this terrible tower before anything can be done for him.”

Horror paled the doctor’s face as he saw the wounds. “Of course. We have leather straps in the long-stay ward. Perhaps that would be better.”

“Much.” I turned to the man and held my arm up to the window, grabbing my wrist to indicate the chains on his. “We’ll fix this. Would you like that?”

To my astonishment, he nodded and collapsed back on his stool, head hanging down. He poked at the raw flesh with a frown. I left the tower with a rattling sense of dread. I carried it down the first flight of steps and into the dark corridor where Dr. Turner led me. As I sped through the shadows, eager to put distance between me and those chains and groans, he caught up to me and laid a hand on my arm. “Are you well?”

I turned, fingertips against my forehead to restore a little calm. “Quite. It’s only . . . I’m not accustomed to this.”

“I thought it best that you understand the full extent of what we have here. Or perhaps I wanted to convince myself that you were wrong. About madness.”

I stopped under the flickering light of a torch overhead. “Why?”