“You have to wake up.”

The brown eyes opened, blinked up at her, sleepy and incurious. Abigail held the candle close and saw the pupils wide, not narrow with opiates. Rebecca flinched from the light, then gasped, “Abigail!” and clutched suddenly at Abigail’s wrist. “Oh, God!”

“We have to get out of here. Now, this minute. Can you sit up?”

“I did—Yesterday—first time.” Rebecca groped for her shoulder, dragged herself up. “Mary Mother of God, it’s cold—”

Abigail pulled her own small clasp knife from her pocket, dragged the blanket from beneath the ragged mattresses and cut a slit in it, so that it went over Rebecca’s head like a crude garment. All they had left her was her chemise. It was filthy, but nowhere was it marked with blood.

“Cut one of those ticks.” Muldoon turned his head from the window, and tossed Abigail the coil of clothes-rope, followed by his cloak. “Wrap up her feet.”

“Who’s he?” Rebecca’s eyes were wide at the unmistakable cut and color—visible when his arm came near to the light—of a British infantry coat.

“Mrs. Malvern, may I present Sergeant Patrick Muldoon of the King’s Sixty-Fourth Regiment of Foot? Sergeant Muldoon, Mrs. Malvern—the sergeant has been good enough to escort me here, and I hope at some point John and others will—”

“Damn!” Muldoon pulled the shutters to instants after he got them open. “Here they come!”

“Who?” gasped Rebecca shakily, as Abigail left her to dart to the window. “Abigail, where am I? I saw—Oh, God! Orion—”

“I know all about it.” Abigail peered grimly through the crack in the shutters. Her training held good and she said, “Oh!” instead of some of the more choice expressions Muldoon was using, but rage swept her, almost drowning out fear at the sight of the thirty or so men striding down the unpaved lane toward the blockhouse, burning billets of firewood aloft in their hands. The women—perhaps two thirds of the Congregation—swarmed among them, crying and shouting and pointing. The man in the lead wasn’t Bargest, but rather the dark-browed Brother Mortify, who had guided her and Thaxter out of the village lands.

She flung herself back to Rebecca, pulled her to her feet, and threw Muldoon’s cloak around her. “They’ll see us use the door—”

He was already working, ripping and levering at the hasp that locked the shutters of the single window in the gable wall. It faced at an angle, away from the street. Through the shutters on the street-side windows the torchlight showed up fiercely yellow, and Abigail heard the crash of the door opening downstairs. But instead of footsteps on the floor below, there was only the light, sharp crack of torches flung in, followed at once by billows of acrid smoke. Someone shouted, “Stand ready! She may fly!”

“I’ve my gun—”