Cree Bega regarded the boy without speaking, his gimlet eyes hard and unpleasant. Bek tried to hold his own gaze steady, but the Mwellret’s eyes made him queasy and weak. Finally, ashamed at his failure, he looked away.
Cree Bega reached with clawed fingers and removed the gag from Bek’s mouth. He dropped the piece of cloth on the floor and stepped back. Bek took his first unobstructed breath of air in hours, but he could smell the Mwellrets in doing so, their raw, fecal odor rough and overpowering.
“Who are you, boy?” Cree Bega asked softly.
He spoke in a distant, almost distracted way, as if he didn’t really expect an answer, but was asking only to voice the question to himself. His voice made Bek shiver. Fearing that what was going to happen next was not what his sister had planned, Bek worked his hands against the ropes once more.
Catching sight of the surreptitious movement, Cree Bega stepped forward and cuffed him sideways onto the floor. Then he reached down, hauled the boy back into a sitting position, and slammed him against the wall.
“There iss no esscape for little peopless,” he whispered, “no esscape from uss!”
Bek tasted blood in his mouth and he swallowed it, his eyes locked on the Mwellret. Cree Bega knelt slowly so that his gaze was level with the boy’s when he spoke.
“Thinkss perhapss sshe will come back to ssave you? Ilsse Witch, sso powerful, sso sstrong, fearss nothing? Hssst! Foolissh little peo-pless are nothing to her. Sshe forgetss you already.”
He leaned forward. “Retss are your only friendss, little peo-pless. Only oness who can ssave you.” His cold eyes glittered. “Thinkss me wrong, foolissh like you? Sshe wantss what’ss up here.” He tapped Bek’s head slowly. “Wantss nothing elsse but what sshe can usse againsst the Druid.”
His eyes dead, his strange face empty of expression, he studied the boy’s face for a long moment. “But if little peopless do ass I assk, I will sset you free.”
Bek tried to speak and could not. He tried to move and could not. He was voiceless and paralyzed, locked in place by the other’s gaze and the effects of the Ilse Witch’s magic. Fear and despair flooded through him, and he fought to keep them from showing in his eyes. He did not succeed.
Cree Bega rose and walked away as if he were finished with Bek. He strode to the other side of the room, looked out of the open portal at the night sky, and then moved over to the two Mwellrets who stood waiting in the shadows against the wall. Bek watched him the way a ground bird would watch a hungry snake. He could do nothing to save himself. He could only listen and wait and hope.
One of the Mwellrets emerged from the darkness and knelt beside Bek. Slowly and deliberately, he unfolded a leather apron to reveal a series of glittering knives and razor-sharp probes. He never looked at Bek, never paid him any attention at all. He simply laid out the pouch with its cutting implements, rose again, and walked away.
Everything inside Bek knotted and twisted. He wanted to scream for help, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. He strained anew against the bonds that secured his wrists, but they were as tight as before. His choices were narrowing and his time was running out. Just moments earlier he might have believed that he had a chance still to escape harm; he no longer believed that was so.
Cree Bega moved back over to where Bek sat, stood over him like a great, dark, crushing force. “Thinkss carefully, little peopless,” he rasped softly. “Wayss to make you sspeak the wordss you hide. Retss know wayss. Makess you sscream if you wissh to have uss tesst you. Eassier to jusst ansswer uss when we assk. Besst if you do. Then little peopless goess free.”
He waited a moment, watching. Bek stared straight ahead at nothing, fighting against his terror, willing himself to stay calm.
Cree Bega nudged him gently with his boot. “Comess back to ssee you ssoon,” he whispered.
Without a glance back, he turned and went to the storeroom door, opened it, and disappeared from view. The door closed softly behind him, and the latch snapped back into place.