Already Lilith had recognized the smell of her fear, but when her luminous eyes took in the object that shone cold and keen in the Girl’s trembling fingers, outstretched like a weapon to ward her off, she knew:

The spoon.

The Nameless Girl turned and ran.

With a roar, the white tigress Lilith gave chase.

—

Rough hands. Strong, bruising fingers. Indistinct voices.

Before long, Yehuda Leib’s arms were bound behind his back and a sack was pulled over his head.

He was shoved and pushed around corners, up stairs, down corridors. He’d lost all sense of direction. Every moment stretched to five times its normal length as he strained to glean any usable information from the noise, the shuffle all around him.

Soon he was shoved roughly into the snowy outdoors, the cold and the wind rushing in to meet him, and the first words he’d heard spoken since his capture met his ears.

“To the castrum, double time. Noise-and-light discipline. Move!”

Yehuda Leib’s arms were taken hold of, and he was forced forward at a quicker pace than his exhausted legs could possibly hope to match. Soon he was being dragged as much as anything, his sliding boots making contact with the ground only once or twice every five steps.

“Lift him,” said the voice, and immediately Yehuda Leib became a piece of baggage, jostled and bounced at the swift pace of the retreating soldiers.

On and on they went through the howling wind, on and on into the darkness, and just when Yehuda Leib thought his brain would be shaken into a thick soup against the walls of his skull, a halt was called.

Stillness—blessed stillness.

“Put him down,” said the officer, and with a dizzying impact, Yehuda Leib’s feet were slotted into the snow.

A tearing withdrawal: the sack was pulled from his head. Yehuda Leib’s eyes began to water—even the pale moonlight, diffused as it was through the falling snow, was nearly blinding.

The sneer of the gold-toothed officer swam up before him.

“Walk, boy,” he said.

The walls of the camp were high—ranks of massive stakes as thick as trees, their sides straight and smooth. The tip of each stake was honed to a treacherously keen point, the outer perimeter of the camp jutting forth like the lower jaw of some needle-toothed predator. Guard towers had been erected on either side of the narrow gateway, and from far above, the guards posted on perpetual watch leered down at him with still eyes. The night was stiff with cold, but no puffing steam issued from their mouths and noses—dead men draw no breath.

Yehuda Leib tried not to stare, but the farther into the camp they marched, the more difficult it became.