CHAPTER 2

Fran wasn’t stupid enough to block a teleport, not unless she wanted to arrive as a disassociated pile of limbs. The room she found herself in was tastefully, if a little old fashionedly, furnished. A guest room, judging by the mismatched tables and smell of recent, frantic polishing.

"The bathroom is through that door, the kitchen there. You will be sent for when needed. You will not be able to leave this suite." Riarté vanished.

"He doesn’t want to be doing that too often," mused Fran. "All that power wasted..."

The window to the bedroom showed little more than a gravel drive and a neatly clipped lawn. It was the only colour under the grey sky. If she squashed her cheek right up to the glass, Fran could see the rest of the house.

She’d been in houses like this before, but only when the National Trust owned them. It was a proper stately home, pillars crowning at high wooden front doors. It positively cried out for exploration.

Gosh, future plans and everything. Life was starting to look good for Fran. Whistling, she went to fix herself some dinner.

She gasped slightly as she was teleported in mid-breath, to arrive in a bare room. There was only a little light, enough to illuminate the concrete floor she had landed on, and Riarté looking down at her.

"Now, Miss Holmes, I’m going to ask you some questions..."

Fran had never understood the concept of torture, had never understood how very simple it was. All she had was confused impressions from old war movies and Amnesty posters. She’d never known how easy it is to get someone to tell something- except she hadn’t been able to, because the questions were nonsense.

There was a polite knock at the door, and Fran nearly laughed. It wasn’t as though she could open the door, was it? Habit had her dry her eyes and run her hands through her hair before the visitor arrived.

It was, as she’d suspected, Fynn, who simply walked through the door. His eyes widened at the sight of her.

"He must have really laid into you. I couldn’t look, after a while."

"You were there?" Fran was suddenly tired. "You were part of this. Leave. Before I lose my temper."

Fynn spread his hands. "Don’t you even want to know why?"

"No... no, I don’t even want to owe you that much. Besides, I just don’t think you’re important enough to know."

Fynn’s eyes narrowed, and he wordlessly stalked back through the wall. Fran cursed herself. She may have lost herself a valuable ally. But the thought of Fynn being a part of that made her feel sick.

And so the week wore on. On the fourth day she suddenly slammed her fist into Riarté, winding him. He bounced the pain back onto her, but by that point Fran barely noticed. Her next punch broke his neck, but Riarté just laughed and sent her back to her suite. She was left alone for the next few days, no summons from Riarté, no visits from Fynn. Oddly, she had the impression they were pleased with her.

Fran stared at herself in the mirror. Pale, with dark circles around her eyes. Twenty-three hours of the day she was left in peace, but they were all spent in fear of that one. She’d started to put on weight, the preparation and consumption of food being an excellent distraction from the morning activities.

She considered her captors. It was too easy to dismiss Riarté as a monster or a madman, but even madness has a kind of interior logic, so Fran resolved to hold off judgement until she had more data.

Fynn, on the other hand, was a comparatively open book. Fran had a theory that the last social contact he had had with the opposite gender involved pulling plaits in the playground. He was playing the powerful enchanter, but really he was just a shy young man.

Fran debated long and hard with herself, but it was the only way she could think of. Riarté would slit her from here to breakfast, but it would be worth it.

"God, poor Fynn. I was such a bitch to him."

"You called?" Fynn walked through the wall. "Actually, the boss said you did."

So I’ve no privacy from him, then."I- I just wanted to apologise. I mean, none of this is your fault. You can’t help this."

Fynn sat down. "He makes me watch. Every day. And each time you manage not to scream I think ‘I’ll stop him. This has got to stop’. But it’s like I can’t move or speak. And I don’t know if it’s something he’s doing, or if I’m just too scared."

"Oh, Fynn, it’s all right. He might harm you if you get in the way."

Gently, Fran reached out and patted Fynn’s shoulder. She could see that vein in his neck hammer frantically, and the gesture turned into a caress. Fynn reached for her in turn- then stood up quickly. "We shouldn’t do this." He nearly ran through the barricaded door- but Fran was fast enough, and grabbed his wrist so that she was pulled through the door behind him. A soon as they were safely through, she slammed the enchanter to one side and ran.

She knew perfectly well where the front door was, but so did the others and they would spend precious seconds waiting for her. So she zig-zagged, up and down corridors in random patterns. She could hear her captors calling.

"Nothing up here!"

"She must have doubled-back."

"Over here, maybe?"

That last was a bit too close, and sent Fran bolting again. She heard them shout to each other that she was in the East Wing. She near as dammit fell down some back stairs- and found herself in the garage. It was dark, and she felt the towing ball on the back one of the cars crunch against her shin. Cursing, she made her way to the tantalising line of daylight projected onto the floor, then felt the wall beside it until she found a button. Chains and pulleys ground into motion, and the garage door began to rise.

The sound must surely have alerted Riarté and Fynn, so Fran decided she was running out of time. She judged that she could just about roll through the gap under the door, when a nasty thought struck her. Picking up a spanner, she threw it at the gap- and winced as the solid metal simply crumbled. Sooner throw yourself in an acid bath.

"Okay," she said aloud, "but did they ward a concrete wall?"

Fran remembered what it felt like to walk through a wall, and drove that memory at the side of the garage. With total confidence, she walked to the rough concrete wall, and bounced right off.

A throat was cleared behind her. Unlike the sulking Fynn, Riarté was genuinely admiring.

"Unexpectedly intelligent. I’m glad I did ward the walls, now, or you’d be half-way across the estate. Under the circumstances, you may as well have the freedom of the house. Oh, and I believe there was something Fynn wanted to say."

"Bitch!" Fynn brought his arm back, but Fran was still faster than him and caught the fist mid-swing. There was a nasty crunch of knuckles against palm, and Fynn’s face wrinkled.

"Believe me, that’s no big deal." Fran was still a prisoner, and there was something in her nature that wanted to share the frustration. Fynn look furious, and stalked off. Fran was grateful. She would have burst into tears if he’d been hurt.