He opened his mouth to respond, but no response came. He had no comfort to offer, no promise of reprieve. He still wasn’t entirely sure why he had been summoned. “I’m here,” he said finally, the words weak on his tongue. “I’m here.”

“How touching,” Matol observed. “He’s here, which means we can get started again. But first . . .” He motioned curtly, and the two guards holding Kiel shoved him forward as Matol himself reached out, seized Triste by the hair, and twisted her head viciously around.

“Look,” he demanded, shaking her roughly by the hair. “Look.”

Silent convulsions racked her body. Kaden still wasn’t sure what the older men hoped to achieve. It seemed to him that even if Triste and Kiel were both Csestriim, even if they did know each other, they would have the good sense to conceal the fact. On the other hand, the shock of recognition after what might be thousands of years was something you would notice, at least in a human. Did the Csestriim feel surprise? It was too late to ask Tan now. He considered Kiel’s face, carving the moving image for later scrutiny.

The Csestriim, for his part, showed nothing more than a bland curiosity, raising an eyebrow.

“A beautiful young woman,” he observed quietly.

“Are you with them?” Triste asked, hope and fear tangled in her voice. “What do you want?”

“No,” Kiel replied, “I am not with them. And I imagine you and I want similar things: freedom, light.”

“Help me,” Triste begged.

“I wish I could,” he said, raising his tied hands, “but as you see, I am powerless to help myself.”

“Why?” she asked.

“This is what they do,” he replied. “But you can take solace in this: Ananshael is stronger than Meshkent; in the end, death will release you from the pain.”

Triste’s voice, so lost and baffled just a heartbeat before, went suddenly hard as steel. “Do not presume to lecture me on the ministrations of Meshkent.” She set the words before her like knives, sharp and precise.

Kiel’s eyes widened. He tilted his head to one side, evidently interested for the first time in his fellow prisoner. Triste stared defiantly back at him, turned her gaze to Matol, then back to Kiel. She had barely moved, but everything had changed. The terrified girl of moments before had molted away like a dead skin.

“Tell me,” Kiel said quietly. “Tell me about your pain.”

Triste repeated the word slowly. “Pain.” She might have been savoring a bloody cut of meat.

“Yes,” Kiel said again. “When did you first encounter pain?”

Triste laughed, a full-throated, opulent, predatory laugh that made something deep inside Kaden quail. The sound went on and on, filling the tiny room, pressing back against the walls, battering at the stone itself until, abruptly, it was not laughing, but sobbing once again.

“Please let me go,” she whispered, voice ragged. “Please just let me go.”