Eliska shifted her weight on a cold stone bench in her bare, bleak cell. She couldn’t get comfortable.

She’d gotten herself into a lot of dangerous situations, but she’d never been in jail before. She always managed to avoid this until now.

She cursed that idiot Watch Commander for his short-sightedness. Not even him being a powerless imp could excuse him treating her party like this.

Eliska and her fellow travelers had been the only thing to stop the Darklings from destroying this flea-bitten town. He knew that and he arrested them anyway.

She hated him for that, but at least he couldn’t hold her here. If the Darklings attacked again, she would break out of this house and abandon the town to its fate. That was the least they deserved after this insult.

The Watch Commander took her staff, but he couldn’t take her magic. It worked better when she channeled it through some object, but she could use her magic perfectly well with her bare hands if it came to that.

She could have killed him. She could have killed the entire Watch.

She wanted to, but that boy stopped her. He stood up for her.

She couldn’t remember anyone ever doing that for her before. He stood up for her to his own father. That counted for something.

Would she have the guts to abandon him to certain death? She would be if she left him in this town.

He was an imp. He fought well against the Darkling, but he wouldn’t survive another battle—not without her there to save him.

She pushed those thoughts out of her mind. She couldn’t start caring about some imp boy in some no-name town in a forgotten corner of the Coil. He was nothing. He certainly wasn’t important enough for her to risk her life to save him.

She tried one more time to find a comfortable sitting position when the storm doors crashed open above her head. Sunlight streamed into the basement and she braced herself for another confrontation with the Watch Commander.

She stiffened when the boy climbed down the stairs into the basement. He wasn’t as tall or imposing as his fellow Watchmen. He couldn’t be more than seventeen, but he had a sturdy, solid air about him. He didn’t move fast—not now.

He moved plenty fast during the battle. She wouldn’t have expected an imp to be so quick and ferocious.

He had cleaned himself up and changed into clean clothes. His dark hair was still wet and it hung over his eyes. They sparkled with a dark light when he studied her through the bars of her cell.

He wore the same black uniform as the rest of the Watch with a small gold insignia embroidered on the upper left shoulder. Other than the insignia, the uniform was solid black pants, shirt, and jacket.

A single gold pip marked the corner of his plain, banded collar buttoned tight around his neck. The Watch Commander wore an oak leaf on his collar. The other Watchmen wore more than one pip depending on their rank, but this boy only had one.

He held up a plate covered with a cloth. “I’m Yann. I brought you something to eat.”

“Leave me alone,” she snapped. “If you aren’t here to let me out, you’re useless to me.”

“I can’t let you out. Only my father can do that.”

“Then go away. I helped you and this is how you repay me.”

“I tried to stop him from putting you in here. You heard me.”

“Do you always do what he tells you? Did he tell you to come down here and interrogate me? He’s a coward if he didn’t come himself.”

“He didn’t want me to come. He wanted to send Rainier to bring you this, but I asked him to let me bring it. I wanted to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to talk to you. Get out. You’re his dog if you do what he says.”

“He’s my Watch Commander. I’m under his orders whether he’s my father or not.”

“Then go lick his boots. Maybe he can save you from the Darklings. I sure won’t.”

He didn’t leave. The way he looked at her was really starting to piss her off.

He squatted down outside the bars and slid the plate across the floor into the cell. He pushed it as far inside as he could reach, but she didn’t move. She refused even to look at it even though she was hungry.

She hadn’t eaten in four days, but she wouldn’t show him that. This food was another trick just like so many others.

These imps wanted to manipulate her and then pull the rug out from under her. She’d seen it a thousand times before.

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He stepped away and leaned against the opposite wall—far enough away that she wouldn’t see him as a threat—as if he could possibly threaten her.

He put his hands behind his back and rested his weight on one foot. “I’ve never seen anyone who can defeat the Darklings the way you can,” he remarked again. “I was wondering if I could convince you to help us.”

“I will never help you again—ever,” she spat back. “I hope you die out there. That’s the least you deserve. Your father deserves to watch you die in battle against the Darklings.”

He didn’t react to her insults. He just kept studying her. “Who are you? Where do you come from?”

“Why should I tell you—so you can run home and tell your father all about me? I hate you.”

“He didn’t want me to talk to you about any of that. He thinks you’re dangerous.”

She burst out laughing. “I’m dangerous to him. Go home and tell him I’ll kill him the first chance I get.”

“You could kill him now. You could destroy this whole house with the whole Watch inside it. You could kill everyone in town and be on your way into the Coil where you belong.”

She looked away. She didn’t like where this conversation was going.

“Where did you come from, Eliska?” he asked in a much softer tone. “How did you wind up out in the Coil?”

“How the hell should I know?” she grumbled. “I’ve been out there as long as I can remember.”

“Don’t you have any family?”

“Of course not. Do you think I would be wandering around in the Coil if I had any family? I’m an orphan. Is that what you want to hear? Be grateful you have a father who wants to get you killed. It’s better than nothing.”

“You must have incredible magic if you’ve survived out there for that long. Where did you learn it?”

“I didn’t learn anything. I picked up a few things here and there. That’s all.” Her resolve crumbled and she bent over to pick up the plate. She might as well eat if he was going to stand there shooting questions at her all day. “No one ever sticks around for long. I travel with someone for a day or two and then they either die or disappear or I disappear. It never lasts.”

“So you don’t know how you developed the ability to defeat the Darklings?”

“I have to keep myself alive somehow. What difference does it make how I do it?”

She took the cloth off the plate and started eating. He’d brought a hunk of bread, a piece of cheese, and a shaved pile of juicy roasted meat.

Yann didn’t interrupt for a minute. She tore off a hunk of the bread and then started stuffing the meat into her mouth. It tasted mind-blowingly delicious.

“Your friend Wesh said your group came here on purpose to stop the Darkling incursion,” Yann finally went on.

“Wesh isn’t my friend,” she mumbled around a mouthful of cheese. “I don’t even know the guy.”

“You acted like you knew him outside. You and Wesh and Mael stood together and talked after the battle.”

She shrugged. Telling him this wouldn’t make any difference in the end, especially if he didn’t plan to tell his father what she said.

“I just bumped into them yesterday. I’ve never seen them before in my life. They were on their way here. Wesh said I might be able to get work here so I came with them. Then we got caught in the battle. That’s all I know.”

Yann frowned at her. “My father thinks Wesh and the other wizards who were with you might have brought those Darklings here for some reason.”

She snorted. “Your father isn’t the sharpest, is he? The Darklings came out of the Layers. You were standing right there. You saw.”

He cocked his head the other way. “How do you know I was standing there?”

“Because I saw you, punk! Do you think I’m blind? I saw you through the barricade. You were on watch when the Darklings overran us. They rushed the barricade and we moved between you to defend the town.”

He didn’t answer. He kept frowning down at the floor thinking something over.

“Your father doesn’t think much of you if he doesn’t take the report of his own Watchman,” she went on between mouthfuls. “He said he’d investigate our claim, but he hasn’t done that if he didn’t even ask you what you saw.”

“I already told him what I saw.”

“Then he’s a fool who doesn’t deserve his post. Someone else should be Watch Commander—you, maybe.”

Yann laughed and pushed himself off the wall. His eyes twinkled and his face lit up when he laughed like that. “I’m too young to be Watch Commander. The other Watchmen wouldn’t take me. They wouldn’t listen to me any more than he does.”

“He’s going to get you killed. A Watch Commander is supposed to defend humankind, not put people in danger for no reason.”

He met her gaze, but he didn’t stop smiling. He looked like a completely different person. His whole countenance glowed in an unsettling way.

She found it impossible to hate him when he looked at her like that—like he might actually like her as much as she was starting to like him.

“I’ll tell him what you said,” he finished.

“You said you already did. What will telling him again do?”

“I don’t mean about the Darklings coming out of the Layers. I mean I’ll tell him what you said about only joining up with those wizards yesterday and about getting caught in the battle when you had no idea where they were going. Even if Wesh and Mael knew the Darklings planned to attack the town, it means you didn’t. My father will release you.”

“You hope he does, you mean. You can’t guarantee he will.”

Yann shrugged. “You’re right, but I’ll still tell him. He’ll let you out and then you can leave us all to our deaths if you want to.”

He waited for her reaction, but when she didn’t give it, he walked away, climbed the stairs, shut the storm doors, and his footsteps got farther away in the street outside.

She turned back to her plate. Half the food still lay there waiting for her to eat it. He didn’t take it away from her for being rude and hateful to him.

Maybe he wasn’t as bad as all that, but she couldn’t say the same about the Watch Commander or his other Watchmen. None of them stuck up for her or tried to change the Watch Commander’s mind about her. She didn’t owe them anything.

She suffered a pang of guilt about Yann, though. He was right. The instant the Watch Commander let her out of this cell, she would leave Middleborough and go her own way.

She’d survived in the Coil long enough on her own. She never stuck around anywhere for long.

She didn’t mind leaving all of these other people to die, but she couldn’t feel the same way about Yann. No one had been this kind to her in a long, long time.

In fact, she couldn’t remember anyone being this kind to her. Would she really leave him to die, too?

He would stay. He wouldn’t leave Middleborough even if she offered to take him with her—which she wouldn’t.

He was a member of the Black Watch. They didn’t run.

He would stay and fight and then he would die just like all the others. Members of the Black Watch only died one way. They died on the wall.

If she wanted to help Yann, she would have to stay, too, but she would never do that.

She would never die on the wall defending a flea-bag town like Middleborough.

She’d spent too many years and too much blood keeping herself alive to throw it all away for nothing.

End of Chapter 3.