Chapter 16: Not Twice

The dogs came down the stair first, two grey shapes in a storm of splinters.

Theron came behind them.

He had his spear in one hand and a Sun guard's broken shield on the other arm.

There was blood down the whole left side of his face.

Not his, mostly.

He hit the bottom step and stopped dead in the arch.

He saw the chains.

He saw me in them.

I watched it happen to him.

Every bit of color left his face at once, and under the blood he was the grey of old ash.

"Stay there."

Phaedon had me by the hair.

He'd moved fast, faster than I'd ever seen him move, and there was a knife at my throat.

A little gold eating knife, from his belt.

It was sharp enough.

"One step, uncle," he said. "One, and I open her up."

The dogs had stopped, growling, flat to the floor.

Ismene was on her knees with the cup, frozen.

Theron didn't move.

He looked at the knife at my throat, and then at the white thread running from my wrist into the cup.

His mouth opened.

"I'm not doing it twice," he said.

It came out of him very quietly.

Phaedon laughed.

"Doing what twice?"

Theron let go of the spear.

It fell on the stone with a long ringing clatter.

He dropped the shield after it.

Then he walked toward us with his empty hands at his sides.

"I'll do it," Phaedon said. "I'll do it."

"No, you won't," Theron said. "You need her alive for seven nights."

Phaedon's knife hand jerked.

Theron was already there.

He took Phaedon's wrist and turned it, and the gold knife dropped out of Phaedon's fingers.

Phaedon screamed.

Theron didn't break the wrist.

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