She put the tray down on the floor within his reach … or rather, within his reach when the chains were slackened. She stood up and pushed back her hair, the shining length of it smooth and clean and rich. Despite his hatred for this Templar, he had to give credit where it was due. God had done right by her when it came to her hair.

Ahnvil growled low and fierce and she jumped in her own skin, quickly backpedaling toward the door. He had been captive here for two days and time was growing short. He needed to act now or risk insanity or, worse, permanent being. Of all the things his kind feared, permanent being was by far the greatest and most universal. Insanity could be healed with time and guidance, but permanent being … it meant being a prisoner in stone for all time.

“Before you go,” he said hastily, pausing to clear the rough anger in his voice. “Tell me why it is that I’m being held here. I know nothing of value, and wi’out my touchstone you have no ability to enslave me. All this does is risk permanent being. ’Tis senseless! I am just a guard for a low-level Politic Bodywalker,” he lied, “I swear I doona know anything!” His desperation was coming through in his voice, his thick Scot’s accent growing thicker, and he cursed himself for the weakness.

She put one hand in the other, twisting them together in agitation.

“I don’t know,” she said, and he knew she was speaking honestly because of the stark worry in her eyes.

Worry for me? he wondered. Hardly, he thought an instant later. She was a Templar. The worst kind of Bodywalker. The kind that robbed its host of all previous life and individuality. The kind that would enslave another being. The kind that would use evil magic to have their way. She was a snake. Perhaps a less dangerous snake in the grand scheme of things, but a snake just the same and her venom would be just as deadly … however small it might come in its doses. He shifted, testing his bonds for the thousandth time, the sting of his raw skin reflecting that. Early on he’d shifted from stone to skin, trying all manner of methods to free himself. Every attempt, no matter how small, reminded him that time was ticking away, and along with it his sanity. For, as strong as he was, the longer he was away from his touchstone, the weaker he became. The longer he was away from his touchstone, the looser his grasp on reality and … eventually, his mind. And the longer he was left without the stone, the more sure his impetus toward permanent being would become. Permanent being. Turning to stone and never being able to turn back again. Trapped in one’s own stone prison. No way of healing from it, no way of coming back. And these Templars were counting on his fear of that. They didn’t need to torture him. They need only wait and let time do it for them.

“Imagine how frustrating this is for me,” he said, letting his true desperation come through, trying to appeal to those flickers of humanity he saw within her from time to time. Maybe her host wasn’t completely subjugated, he thought with even more desperation. Maybe there was a true human being fighting within her.

Maybe he could use that to his advantage.

“Like you I am merely a servant tae a master. I know nothing. I’m li’le more than a dog playing fetch.” He growled. “I fought for freedom only tae find myself li’le more than a slave again,” he lied. Quite convincingly, he thought. He deflated with a sigh. “But they will no’ believe that. No’ even when I turn to permanent being.” He shuddered at the words, and he did not have to act the emotion.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and he almost believed her. “There’s nothing I can do.”

She turned to hurry out of the enclosure.

“Wait. What’s your name? Just so I know what tae call the only friend I seem tae have in here.” That’s it, he coaxed in his mind as she leaned back toward him, taking his measure as she tucked a silky strand of that hair behind her ear.

“Jan Li,” she said, and he knew instantly it was her host’s name, the Asian features of her face telling of it if nothing else. That was unusual. Usually Templars did not adopt their host’s names. The less they were reminded of the host within them, the happier they seemed to be.

“Jan Li. Thank you, Jan Li, for talking tae me. My name is Ahnvil.” She probably already knew that, but he gave her his name in order to coax her into humanizing him. It would work on whatever part of her was decent … if any part of her was. It did occur to him that she might be just as deceptive as he was being, acting the innocent to wheedle the information they wanted out of him using femininity and helplessness to pave the way. But it was worth the risk to play the odds. What other choice did he have?

Jan Li locked his cage back up, testing it with a rattle of metal, as if he could move that far forward in his little pacing acre. Then she went to the chain release and let him have the slack in his chains again. Perhaps … was it his imagination or was it a little more than he’d had before? He shook his head, trying not to let the situation toy with his grasp on reality. He would lose hold of that soon enough. What he did notice was that she kept looking over at him. Even as she left the room, she cast a slow look at him over her shoulder.

Then she left him alone.

Alone to wait.

She reappeared five hours later, the only one to breach his solitude, and it was harder and harder for him to ignore the ticking clock they had purposely left within his line of sight.

She was carrying yet another tray, coming toward the cage to trade it for the empty one at his feet. It wasn’t until she went for the lock that he realized that she hadn’t taken the slack from his chains. Did this mean she was beginning to trust him? Beginning to relax her guard?

She lowered the tray to the table and lifted her dark eyes up to his.

“You have five minutes at most before they notice you are missing. I have constructed a ruse that has brought the guard from his station. There is a camera watching you.”

“I figured as much,” he said, his breathlessness a result of his disbelieving elation.

“All I ask is that you take me with you. I cannot break free of these people on my own. I beg of you to lend me your protection. I am afraid I am of little strength and use to you and all you have is surprise and my knowledge of the complex on your side.”

“Deal. And ’tis enough,” he told her.

She wasted no time then entering the cage, making him realize immediately that she had a key grasped within her shaking fingers. She unlocked his manacles with lightning speed, something he found impressive, for all her talk of being weak. It occurred to him that this could all be a ruse, an act to get his hopes up only to crush them later. A way to further stress his mind in order to bend it to their will, but what other option did he have? And whatever else, his hands were unbound and that meant his wings could be called forth.