The door led into a black hallway and to more closed doors, one of which Boroskov kicked open with his foot. The room was as lightless and dank as the rest of the house, its sole furnishing a soiled mattress scattered with a heap of blankets.
“I’ll leave you two alone now, to make your tender farewells. You have two hours. The girl will come with me—in the off chance that you get the notion to take an unscheduled trip.”
Quentin growled, stricken with the savage fury that should have summoned his other self. Fenris remained silent. “If you hurt her,” he rasped, “so much as a hair on her head, you’d better kill me.”
“As I said,” Boroskov replied, dragging May toward the door, “that is entirely up to you.” He bowed to Johanna and walked out. A lock clicked into place, and Boroskov’s footsteps, accompanied by May’s stumbling counterpoint, receded down the hall. A minute later Quentin heard hoofbeats, the jingle of harness, and the clatter of a carriage driving away.
Johanna went to the door and rested her hands against the scored wood and peeling paint. She had no hope of breaking the lock. Quentin might have the strength, but what good would come of that? Boroskov had them trapped as surely as if he’d barred them in a cage.
And there was nothing she could do about it.
Nothing.
“Where is he taking May?” she whispered.
“To his henchmen, no doubt, for safekeeping,” Quentin said. His voice emerged from the darkness, somewhere in the vicinity of the mattress. “He won’t harm her. He has no reason to.”
She struck her forehead against the door once, and then again. Quentin was at her side before she could strike again.
“Johanna.”
She turned. Quentin looked at her, such transparent compassion on his face that her body bowed under the weight of her emotions.
Shame. Fear. Anger. At herself most of all. Johanna Schell, the great and innovative doctor who would show the world how the insane could be healed. It had all become one vast joke.
Worst was the hopelessness that stripped her of even the desire to continue fighting.
“Well,” she said, her voice cracking. “What now? I have not a single suggestion to make to you. Shall we draw lots to see who shall live and who shall die?”
He remained where he was, as if he feared to approach her. As one might fear to approach a lunatic. “Don’t blame yourself,” he said in a raw whisper. “You’re not responsible.”
“Am I not?”
“I brought all this down on your head, Johanna, and on May’s. I. My own selfishness—”
“And my insufferable arrogance. Now we shall spend the time Boroskov has left us discussing which one of us is more contemptible.” She walked to the mattress and sat down. “Perhaps that is his plan: divide and conquer. Not that I should ever be the least threat to him—”
“You heard him, Johanna. He’ll use you as a way to get to me.”
“And May as the means of forcing both of us to do his bidding.” She rested her head in her hands and began to rock. “I am sorry. So sorry. So sorry—”
“Stop it.” Quentin knelt before her and took her hands, pulling them away from her face. “Don’t leave me now, Johanna.”
Was he afraid that she was descending into madness? She wished it were possible. Possible to let go, dismiss reality, and resign every responsibility for her life. She felt like collapsing into Quentin’s arms and wailing like a child, begging for him to make it all better.
Even May hadn’t done that. May had kept her head and her courage, and look what she had received as a reward.
She, Johanna Schell, was supposed to be the strong one. No longer. All her illusions were cracked apart like the last of her mother’s china figurines, destroyed by an angry patient. Like a mind that had borne too much.
“I never thought I’d see the day when you felt sorry for yourself.” Quentin forced her chin up. “Look at me, Johanna.”
She had no choice. He compelled her with his eyes, with his voice, with his will. Above all, with his heart.