Four or five of those individuals were now at the mercy of our enemy. Jeremy Meath walked into the library, accompanied by his satyrs and maenads.
I tensed as a satyr reached for Rose, fingers brushing the side of her face, her lips, and her throat.
“Don’t,” I said, from my vantage point in the hallway.
The satyr ignored me. “She’s breathing.”
“Be careful,” Jeremy said. “They were in Fell’s company for a time.”
“I am being careful. I see her, hear her breathing, smell her, feel her,” the satyr said. He smiled wickedly, “I could taste her.”
“No. That’ll do. Bring her here,” Jeremy said. He walked around the writing desk, pulling the chair back.
The Satyr scooped up Rose, showing an easy sort of strength. Rose’s head lolled, arms dangling at her sides. Her fingers moved unconsciously, as if she were dreaming.
When I saw her eyes, only for a moment as the Satyr rounded the desk, I could see only whites. They’d rolled into the back of her head.
She was placed in the chair.
“We’ll need restraints,” Jeremy said.
A satyr produced a pair of handcuffs from a back pocket. One of the maenads was wearing a chain for a belt, held in place with a combination lock, and began unwinding it.
“Thank you,” the priest said. “We’ve got several captives here. Anyone else?”
“Not here,” another satyr said.
“I’ve got restraints on me,” a third chimed in, grinning, “but they’re for men only.”
Jeremy looked down at Ty. “Let’s not subject the young man to that. Search the cabinets. Be wary of traps, sniff first, check the surroundings, communicate with those near you so they know what you’re doing.”
He paused, glancing at me. “Keep your distance from reflective surfaces while you’re at it.”
The satyrs and maenads fanned out. Jeremy worked with the satyr to chain Rose to the swivel chair, leaning her forward to wind the chain in and out of the bars in the back, under and over the arms, and around her body.
“Jeremy,” I said.
“Are you surrendering?” he asked, without looking my way.
“No.”
“Are you picking a fight?”
“No,” I said. “I want to negotiate. Talk this out.”
And I want to distract you in the hopes that you make a mistake here.
“We can talk when I’m done. If you want to leave, I won’t try and stop you. Arcas, do me a favor and lay that mirror flat on the ground, very carefully. Don’t let it face anyone, and leave the cloth in place. Maybe use a cord or your own shirt to tie the sheet in place, to be sure.”
He was talking about the full-length mirror that had a sheet thrown over it. Back when Rose and I had occupied the house together, it had been her window into the library, giving her access to the books.
“We could break it,” a maenads said.
“I would if I was sure there wasn’t anything inside it,” Jeremy said. “We’re doing this carefully.”
“You’re just ignoring me?” I asked.
“I don’t think I can catch you just yet, and I’d rather do this right.”
He opened the drawers of the desk he’d just chained Rose to. He pulled them out of the desk altogether, checking the bottoms, and then stacked them on the desk’s edge, one by one. “Aurope, take these through to the nearest empty room, stack them out of sight.”
One of the maenads hurried to obey, carrying drawers that were stacked one on top of the other, three high. I had a glimpse of the contents as she approached me. Old pens, including fountain pens with stylized tips, letter openers, a syringe, and bottles of ink, with tidy little scrolls of paper.
“Cuff her ankle to the desk,” Jeremy said. “No, not the leg of the desk – she could free herself easily by lifting the desk up.”
“It’s solid wood. I couldn’t lift it, and I’m strong.”
“Strong like bull,” a voice said, from the sidelines.
The satyr grinned. “If she’s strong enough to lift that, she’s strong enough to break the cuffs,” a satyr said.
“I won’t rule anything out, and I know people are capable of amazing acts when they’re scared enough. Here, this bit, where the drawers were.
I heard the click of the cuffs.
“The bird?” a maenad asked.
Evan.
Evan was key here.
“Evan!” I shouted.
“Buh?” I heard his voice, faint.
“Fly! Fly away!”
“No go, mirror dweller,” the maenad said. “Bird in the hand.”
“Literally,” said the satyr that was busy unspooling a roll of twine.
“Thank you for adding to the dialogue,” the maenad said, sarcastically.
“Oh,” I heard Evan, though I couldn’t see him through the bodies that were in the way.
“Now would be a great time to escape,” I told the bird, ignoring the various Others.
“Can’t,” he said. He was talking like he had his mouth full. Drunker than I was. I wasn’t sure how that really worked, since he had a beak, not lips, and his ‘speech’ was something else entirely, but whatever. He added, “Not good.”
“No,” I said, clenching my hands. As fuzzy as some of my senses were around the edges, my voice was still clear, at least. “It really isn’t.”
“Bring the bird here, Metrodora” Jeremy said. “I’ll be with you in a moment, mirror man. If you’re willing to stay there and cooperate, we can negotiate. If you want to leave, that’s fine as well. Right this moment, though, I need to secure things here.”
I stared, my expression grave.
He turned to his maenad companion. “Right. I’ll need him right here. Down on the floor.”
The maenad knelt beside Jeremy as he set down books on the ground at the base of the desk , stacking them atop one another to form a box of sorts, utilizing the space between the stacked texts.
I was tense, watching.
If they were going to contain him, they had to let go. He had a window of opportunity.
If I had any sort of bond with Evan…
Suddenly in action, I turned to search my surroundings. I didn’t have anything to cut myself with that wasn’t the Hyena, and I didn’t want to use that.
“A little bit of wine,” Jeremy was saying, in the other room. “Like so.”
“Aww, you’re wasting it,” a male voice. A satyr.
“Don’t know what he is, exactly, I’m relying on my tried and true approach. Stand ready, you two. Metrodora-”
“Bird goes in between the books?” she asked.
“Yes. Arcas, when I anoint the circle, I want you to drop the book on top, carefully. It’s like a lid. A container within a container. I’ll say a prayer over it to seal it for a third layer of protection.”
I couldn’t find anything sharp in my little patch of world. The drawers were in darkness, leaving me unable to retrieve the mirror equivalents of tools Aurope had carried away. Why did the furniture in this house have to be so solid?
Rhetorical question. I suspected I knew why: the occupants had long been anticipating something like a siege or something within the house wanting to get out. Every little bit mattered.
My eye fell on the swivel chair. The mirror to Rose’s own. Not entirely in the darkness.