Page 116 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
He fell to the floor, doubled over, not quite screaming, not yet. He wanted to, but he was saving it, saving it for the worst part. If he screamed now, there would be nowhere else to go.
Thomas arrived back at the cell door. “Adie—”
“Not yet,” she said. “Not just yet.”
She pulled his head into her lap, holding him there. “Look at me,” she told him. “Scream if you need to, but look at me.” She brushed back his hair. “This will pass. This will all be over soon. But I will be here until it is.”
Dimitri wanted to believe her, wanted to wrap those words around him, but he could no longer feel her fingers against him. All he felt was fire, spreading through every pore of his skin.
“Breathe,” she told him calmly. “One breath after another.”
He could see his face in her eyes, contorted into a twisted mask, a frightful parody of human emotion. He writhed and clutched for her with balled-up fists, desperately trying to avoid hurting her.
“One after the next,” Adeline continued, voice shaking. “A few more seconds…”
In a few more seconds, Dimitri’s bones started to snap, and then he couldn’t hold back any longer. He screamed and screamed, the sounds tripping over each other, punctuated only by the cracking of his bones.
Thomas wrenched Adeline from the room, locking it securely behind them, grabbing her by the shoulders.
“I’m all right,” she said, voice solid.
Thomas shook his head. “How could you be? You don’t have to pretend, you know. It’s all right to let loose.”
Dimitri screamed and thrashed against the floor. Desperate for her to come back, desperate for her to leave.
Come back, come back, don’t leave.
Run, run, get away.
“How could I?” she whispered. “If I let loose, I’m not sure if I’d ever collect myself again.”
She tore from Thomas’ side and sat beside the bars, and sang to Dimitri as he twisted into something else. He clung to her words as his screams turned to roars, and he was dragged under the blackness.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Torn
In the early hours of the morning, Adeline woke to someone rapping loudly at her door.
“Adeline! Adeline, come quickly!”
The desperation in Mrs Minton’s voice rose her straight from the muggy dark. She stumbled for the door. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s been an incident. You’re needed in the dungeons.”
“What—”
“Come!”
Not even pausing to grab a shawl, she hurtled after Mrs Minton, heart pounding. Voices emanated from below, quick and rushed.
“We called a healer,” Mrs Minton rushed, “but he couldn’t get near him until he started to shift back…”
Adeline peered into the gloom. Thomas was rushing around, lighting lamps around a table. In the cell, next to Hughes, stood a figure in a white robe, and his assistant in brown. They crowded around a twisted form on the floor, rapidly turning from beast into something that resembled human.
“Quickly,” the healer snapped at Thomas. “Let’s get him on the table.”
Thomas rushed forward, and Hughes and he picked Dimitri up between them, levering him onto the table outside the cell, just as the final traces of the transformation vanished from his face.
It was only then that Adeline saw why she’d been summoned, why the healer had come.
