The sound of a weapon being drawn is what finally breaks my warm, soft stupor. My head whips around. Two men, too close. I try to stand, but my bare legs tangle in the sheets and I fall, doing their work for them. One of them even has the gall to snicker as he wraps his burly arms around me, scooping me up as if I weigh nothing. I open my mouth to scream, to call for Ana, but a blade at my throat silences me.

“One peep out of you and it’ll be your blood staining these sheets.”

“Fu—”

A rag—not a clean one—is shoved into my mouth, halting the string of invectives I was ready to hurl at them, knife be damned. My hands are wrenched behind my back with such force I’m fairly certain one is nearly dislocated, and a rope tied around my wrists with far too much alacrity. The man holding me hauls me over his shoulder as if I am a sack of grain and descends from the window with more ease than a lout of his size should be able to accomplish. There is a small outcropping to the rear of the tavern that provides a suitable landing between our room on the second floor and the cold, hard ground. It isn’t far to jump, but my body still jolts with the impact, the man’s shoulder digging painfully into my belly.

You son of a bitch, put me down.

I try to scream but my voice is too muffled.

Ana. They’re going to hurt Ana. I know this with the same certainty I know my own name. They’re treating me like precious cargo, but I don’t think they will do Ana the same courtesy.

A carriage waits a short jaunt down the road. The street is curiously empty as I am carried toward it. The streets of this neighborhood are never this empty, never. Someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure my kidnapping has no witnesses.

The door to the carriage swings open. I glimpse only a sleeve—dark blue, velvet, gold embroidery around the cuff—before I am hauled over the lout’s shoulder and into the belly of the carriage. My tailbone hits the floor and the door is slammed shut before I can even attempt to scramble to freedom. The force of it knocks the dirty rag out of my mouth, so that’s something to be thankful for at the very least.

“Hello, Kiki.”

The sound of that voice makes the skin at the nape of my neck pucker into gooseflesh. I turn, slowly, to see a man sitting there, clad in a fine velvet frock coat of deep blue with a spill of white lace at his throat.

“Hello, Sebastian.”