Eli carried a pocket watch on him, so she knew that it was a little after dawn when they reached the portion of the tunnel that passed beneath the wall.

They’d spent most of the night in silence–Nick having fallen into natural sleep. Mara’s growing fatigue was so heavy, the aches in her body so loud, even the oppressive dark and silence faded from her awareness.

But three breaks ago, the tunnel had begun to shrink, at first gradually so that Mara thought it might be a trick of her exhausted mind. But after a time, it grew so narrow she couldn’t extend her arm out all the way, even if she walked with her other shoulder close to the wall. The ceiling, meanwhile, crept lower and lower until Eli had to walk with a slight hunch to avoid knocking his head.

Now, the fear crept back in on silent, predatory feet. Her mind awoke from its exhausted stupor to knead relentlessly at questions to which she didn’t want to know the answers. How deep beneath the earth had they traveled? How many pounds of earth lay above them? How much air was there to breathe? If the tunnel grew too narrow and they became stuck, who would know? Nobody. They would simply die, their remains carried off by whatever creeping creatures made their homes so far beneath the earth, only bones and scraps of clothing left behind to warn away the next poor souls who sought to escape through this death trap.

“Mara?”

She jerked. Smacked her head against the ceiling, which she too had to stoop to avoid.

“Yes?” Her voice emerged reedy, breathless.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s take a break.”

“There’s no need, I–”

But he was already stopping, his movements awkward in the cramped space as he knelt, Nick still cradled in his arms. “Sit, Mara. Please.”

She obeyed the command, relieved to have something to do other than panic. She sat cross-legged on the ground, closed her eyes, and tried to breathe deeply, to connect with the earth. But she couldn’t concentrate. Not with the cold silence of the rock hemming her in, the piercing sensation of Eli’s attention careening off the walls and stabbing through her. If she couldn’t calm herself down, would he take matters into his own hands?

“Are you going to spell me?” she asked, refusing to open her eyes. He’d already demonstrated that his persuasion was strong enough to work without eye contact, but she had no intention of making it easier on him.

“No. I swore to you I wouldn’t.”

She opened her eyes but kept her gaze trained on her hands, folded in her lap. They looked like the hands of a dead thing in the strange magical light–white and cold. “Give me Nick.”

Why did she have to say it like that? So accusatory? Like he was keeping them apart on purpose? She felt even worse when Nick was placed carefully on the ground beside her, his head in her lap.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“I don’t trust you.” The statement burbled out of her, utterly devoid of context. But there was no room in this meandering coffin for context. Just honesty and helpless fear. She had no defenses against anything that threatened her. She couldn’t hold up the earth if the walls of this tunnel caved in, nor could she fight off persuasion. And while she’d convinced herself, with Beth’s reassurance, to trust him with her safety, her mind was an entirely different question.

“I know. I don’t expect you to trust me. Would it help if we worked on your resistance technique?”

“Resistance doesn’t work.” Davy had always warned her not to trust in it. A persuasive magic user with half the power she’d seen Eli employ could make kindling of any mental door she tried to close against him.

“That’s not entirely true. You’re a physik, so I assume you already have a strong grasp of listening?”

Mara ran her trembling, corpse’s fingers through Nick’s hair and bit her lip. Listening, or ‘sensing’ as Mara had always called it, took hours of daily practice and intense concentration, which made it all but inaccessible to the mother of a young child. Once upon a time, she’d been able to reach out with her mind and brush her fingertips against the magical currents that bound the world together. Now, the only current she sensed with any consistency was the gushing, arterial flow of her love, her strength, her essence into her son. “I’ve fallen out of practice.”

“But you have the foundation, and if those books Davy was always scrounging up for you are any indication, you know the theory. It’s just a matter of building the muscle back.”

“I suppose.”

“We’ll work on that first, then. Half of resistance is recognizing that you’re under persuasion, and if you learn to tuck that recognition away in your brain, it’ll take stronger persuasion than I’ve got to pry it out.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He didn’t answer, and though her sensing muscles were weak, she knew it was defeat that kept him silent. Was this how it would be between them, for however long this journey lasted? Him offering peace and her slapping it out of his hand? She supposed it was up to her. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not under the illusion that what I did to you is forgivable, Mara. Doubting one’s perception of reality is a curse I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy, let alone someone I mean to protect. I intend to make it right, but I don’t expect it to be easy.”

Mara leaned her head back against the stone wall and closed her eyes. “Are you always so reasonable?”

“Only when I’m making amends for a grave transgression.”

Mara pressed her lips together to keep them from curving up in a smile. She shouldn’t be smiling. She should never smile. Davy was gone. Davy was dead. Smiling at anything other than Nick was a relic of her past. “So… resistance techniques.”

“Would you like to learn?” If she wasn’t mistaken, the lightest touch of relief colored his tone.

“I’d be a fool not to, wouldn’t I?”

He elected, perhaps wisely, not to answer that question. “In that case, the first step is to get your listening technique back. Since you already have a method, I won’t try to impose any of mine on you. You can work on that for a few days and let me know when you feel ready to move on.”

She shrugged without opening her eyes, though her mind skipped just a touch, the way it always did when she was presented with a new challenge. That old, familiar yearning sparked to life within her, that impatience, that need to practice, to master, to move on to the next step and the next.

“Okay.”

“You feeling okay? Ready to keep moving?”

“Sure.”

Wordlessly, she and Eli gathered themselves and carried on, stooped beneath the low ceiling, the weight of uncertainty. Mara wasn’t unaware of what he’d done for her. She was embarrassed that he had to, certainly. Ashamed. Unwillingly resentful that he was the one here to calm and distract her, and not Davy. But she was aware.

Eventually, the warring emotions within her called a truce and she was able to discern the one that most deserved a voice.

“Thank you,” she said to his back, her voice steady.

“Mm.”