The key had fallen out of Nose’s hand when the rope had jerked him from his feet, but Logan was shaking too badly to lock the grate. Unsteadily, he got to his feet and walked up the hall.

Logan pulled on Weasel’s clothes, stretching them over his taller, more muscular body. He was lucky that the man’s clothing had been baggy or it wouldn’t have fit him at all. After pulling on boots that pinched his feet terribly, Logan stood.

He tried to find the strength to go back and lock the grate. If he never saw a prison again, he knew he would still have nightmares of this day for the rest of his life. The last thing he wanted was to go back down the long hallway to the Hole.

But he couldn’t let animals like that have even the slimmest chance of escape.

He walked down the long hall carefully, slowly, even though he knew he should hurry. Several paces from the grate, he stopped. It was undisturbed, but he could still hear the sounds of men tearing meat. He wanted to vomit.

The sound of approaching voices came to Logan from above. The long rock halls carried their words.

“Hey, you!” a voice with a Khalidoran accent demanded.

One of the men in the last set of cells before the Hole answered, but Logan couldn’t distinguish his words.

“Did a couple of soldiers and a prisoner come this way?”

Logan froze as the prisoner murmured something.

“See?” the voice said. “They didn’t come this way. And believe me, you don’t want to go down to the Hole.”

Logan silently blessed the prisoner who’d lied probably more out of the habit of lying to authorities than to save him.

“And you think a prisoner is going to tell you the truth?” a man with a cultured Khalidoran accent asked. “The prince demanded confirmation that Logan Gyre is dead. All your men are cooperating and searching the rest of this dungeon. Are you trying to hinder us?”

“No, sir!”

An unnatural, unflickering red light illuminated the long hallway.

A wytch! Oh shit, where can I go?

In the feeble torchlight, Logan examined the hallway again. But there were no niches, no crawl spaces. It was a dead end.

Have I been spared from death so many times just for this?

Logan considered a mad rush at the men. With only a knife, it would be tight, but if he could kill the wytch first he might have a chance.

“This is a place of power; I feel dizzy with it,” a different voice said.

“Indeed,” the first wytch answered, “I’ve not felt so much evil in one space since—well, since I last met with our liege.”

For some reason, they found that humorous. Logan’s heart broke as he heard at least six men laughing.