Squinting to try to make the black haze take shape, I began to move with my hand outstretched, making a point of staying far from Al’s voice. My ears strained to catch the echo of my breathing against the maybe-walls, but I heard nothing. A soft touch of fabric on my searching fingers jerked me to a stop, then I reached out. It was a warm body that smelled like blood and cinnamon. “Trent?” I whispered worriedly as I crouched closer and sent my hands over him. They had put us there together? “Oh, God. Are you all right?”

“For the moment,” he said. “Do you mind not touching me?”

His very awake tone shocked me, and I jerked back. “You’re all right!” I exclaimed as the warmth of embarrassment turned to a mild anger. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“What would be the point?”

I eased back and sat cross-legged as I heard him shift. I couldn’t see, but I guessed he was leaning into the opposite corner. It was the best place in the cell, seeing as it was farthest from Al. I think.

A shiver rose through me, and I stifled it. Al was there. I was here. I wished I could see. “What are they going to do with us?” I asked Trent. “How long have you been awake?”

A faint exhalation gave evidence of a sigh. “Too long, and what do you think they’re going to do with us?”

There was the slosh of water in a plastic bottle, and I grew ten times more thirsty.

“We were caught,” Trent said, his gray voice empty of hope. “I woke up here.”

Al cleared his throat dryly. “There’s a small question being debated right now as to the legality of my claim on you,” he said, and I wondered why he bothered, except that he was probably bored and didn’t like being ignored. “You had to go and show them that you could spindle energy. They don’t even care that I nullified the threat, deciding to drop me here and let me ‘think about what I’ve done.’ Soon as I’m summoned out, I’ll pop back in, throttle you to death, then throw your dead carcass on Dali’s floor and claim I was handling it and they owe me restitution for interfering.”

He still didn’t know I had his summoning name and couldn’t be pulled across the lines, but my brief relief died. What did it matter? He’d find out soon enough. My thoughts flicked to Jenks, and my heart seemed to fall to my gut. We’d been so close. God, I hoped he was okay.