Chapter 53 – Breaking

“Valentina?”

Terror gripped Valentina’s heart. What was Innogen doing here?

“That complicates things.”

Johann’s hand tightened around her shoulder. His grip wasn’t brutal, just firm. He knew, after all, that his captive couldn’t go anywhere. Valentina could feel him tense up, like a foxhound that had caught the scent of fresh game.

“Damn it,” said Vyxara.

Innogen came down the stairs, barefoot, in her nightgown, holding a small essence lamp. “I fell asleep while waiting for you. I wanted to-“

Innogen stopped at the second-to-last step.

At first there was confusion on her face at seeing Valentina wearing nothing but her cloak and boots, her hair tousled. Then she noticed Johann, standing broad-shouldered behind Valentina in the doorway.

Her confusion gave way to alarm. “Val, what-“

“Innogen, run!” Valentina screamed.

But unfortunately, Innogen was not one for running. Innogen dropped the Essence lamp, which clattered onto the stair and rolled against the railing. Then she began to weave a Luvt pattern.

Johann, however, wove his own Luvt pattern much faster and with frightening ease, a pattern that not only neutralized Innogen’s but also knocked her off her feet with a violent gust of air and hurled her against the wall of the stairwell.

Innogen was a gifted student, one of the best in her class, but it was as if a child had tried to attack a knight with a stick. Her back slammed against the wood with a dull thud, then she slid down the stairs and collapsed, gasping, onto the floor of the bottom step.

“She has nothing to do with this!” Valentina threw herself between Johann and the stairs, trying to hold him back with her body, even though her hands were still useless and stiff beneath her cloak, bound by the invisible shackles of the demonic pattern. “She’s just a friend, she came to visit me, she doesn’t know anything-“

Johann struck her temple hard with the flat of his hand.

The skin above her right eyebrow split open, and warm blood ran into her eyelashes. For a moment, she completely lost her bearings.

“You’re inside the house now!” Vyxara’s voice was sharp and urgent. “We’re in our territory. Take him upstairs to the study, up to the Eye, no matter what you have to do, get him there!”

Valentina blinked, wiped the blood from her right eye, and sat up. The pain shot hot through her brow.

“Please,” she pleaded with him. “Leave her alone. I’ll take you to the Eye right away. It’s upstairs, in my study. Please, Johann, she doesn’t know anything.”

Johann looked at her appraisingly for a moment. Then he glanced over at Innogen, who was trying to sit down on the bottom step, dazed.

“Alright,” he said.

Dragging Valentina behind him, he walked over to Innogen, pulled the small vial of Corrupted Essence from his coat pocket, and wove the same demonic pattern that had held Valentina’s hands captive, and Innogen gasped as her hands suddenly froze.

“Up,” said Johann, roughly pulling Innogen to her feet by the arm.

He shoved them both up the stairs, and Valentina stumbled on the narrow steps, unable to hold onto the banister with her bound hands, and behind her, Innogen was breathing heavily.

Halfway up, Valentina turned around. Innogen’s eyes met hers in the dim light, and she saw fear in them.

Valentina wanted to say something. That everything would be all right, but she couldn’t lie. Not now. And then Johann was already pushing her through the study door and closing it behind him.

“This is good,” she heard Vyxara say in her head. “Very good.”

Johann’s eyes narrowed slightly as he noticed the patterns Valentina had crafted, with Vyxara’s help, to secure the walls.

He raised his hand with the ring and whispered a word in Altothal.

The air pressure in the room seemed to thicken, and a coldness that had nothing to do with the  winter season suddenly crept into Valentina’s bones. The ancient, malevolent presence of the demon now literally filled the room, and Innogen let out a stifled gasp.

“Master.” The voice from the ring sounded like millstones grinding against each other. “What do you desire?”

“These patterns on the walls,” said Johann. “Are they a threat?”

There was a moment of silence, then the demonic voice sounded again, almost bored: “Their purpose is to conceal from an Essence Weaver outside this room what is happening inside.”

“And they’re all intact,” Vyxara confirmed in Valentina’s mind. “Valentina, keep him in this room. No matter what happens, no matter what he does. I have a plan.”

Valentina swallowed. “What’s your plan?”

“Trust me.”

Innogen stood with her back against the wall next to the door. Her nightgown was completely soiled at the knees, and she pressed her bound hands against her chest. Her eyes were wide open, and her whole body was trembling.

“Where is the Eye?” Johann asked.

Valentina nodded toward the desk. “Under the floorboards, over there.”

Johann took a step closer and looked down at the floor. “Narzoz, how is the Eye secured?”

“I can make out patterns beneath the floorboards,” said Narzoz, and the barely concealed mockery in his grinding voice sent a shiver down Valentina’s spine. “Remarkably sophisticated for a human. They’re designed to inflict serious harm on anyone who tampers with them without authorization. It would take a long time to release them without her help.”

Johann regarded Valentina with cool calculation. Then he grabbed Innogen’s braid, closed his fist around it, and yanked her toward him. Innogen screamed in pain.

“You will now open the floor,” he said to Valentina as he wove with his other hand. “Slowly and without funny business. If you try anything that doesn’t serve to give me the Eye, I’ll snap her neck before you’ve finished weaving.”

The demonic pattern around her right hand faded, and a painful, stinging tingling shot from her wrist to her fingertips.

“Now?” Valentina thought to Vyxara. “What do you want me to do?”

“Not yet. Give him the eye first, we need him distracted.”

She knelt down next to the desk and fumbled awkwardly for the right tile with her right hand still trembling slightly.

She began to release her protective patterns, but something was strange. The patterns were there and responded to her touch, but their texture felt somehow wrong, so to speak.

“Valentina,” said Vyxara, and the sudden sharpness in the demon’s voice revealed that Vyxara, too, sensed it. “Someone has tampered with our patterns.”

Valentina’s heart was pounding as she removed the remaining layers as quickly as she could, pushed the plank aside, and pulled out the far too light iron box.

Valentina flipped open the lid and… the box was empty.

She stared at the empty bottom of the box, at the cloth in which the Eye of Deceit had been wrapped and which now lay abandoned on the bottom of the box. For a long moment, she couldn’t think at all. Her mind simply refused to process the information.

“How?” Vyxara’s bewildered voice echoed in her head. “Who?”

“It’s gone,” Valentina whispered.

“What did you say?” Johann’s voice was tense.

Valentina picked up the empty box and, still completely shocked, turned it toward him. “It’s gone.”

His expression barely changed, but he didn’t let go of Innogen’s braid. “Where is it?”

“I don’t know.” Valentina’s voice was firm. “It was here. I used it just a few days ago. Someone must have taken it.”

Johann studied her face, apparently searching for the slightest telltale sign of a lie.

“Who knows about it?” he wanted to know.

“No one.”

“No one.” He repeated the words mockingly. “So you’re trying to make me believe that someone just happened to find your hiding place, break the protective patterns, and steal the Eye?”

“I’ve never told anyone about it and that’s the truth.”

A brief twitch in his jaw. “Then you’d better think carefully, Valentina. Think very carefully now.”

Valentina’s thoughts raced. Who? When? The protective structures had been cleanly undone by someone who knew a thing or two about Essence Weaving and had obviously had plenty of time to work on it at their leisure and then put it back together remarkably well.

“I don’t know!” she said, and this time there was true despair in her voice. “I swear to you, Johann, I-“

“WHERE IS IT?!” he shouted, and beneath his usual politeness, a cold, ugly grimace appeared.

“I DON’T KNOW!”

Johann took a deep breath and then turned the ring on his finger.

“Master?”

“Is she lying?”

The silence lasted only a heartbeat, but it stretched out like an eternity.

“Yes,” Narzoz ground out. “She tells lies.”

“What?” Valentina was completely baffled. “That’s not true! It’s lying!”

“He wasn’t lying,” Vyxara said quickly in Valentina’s mind, noticing her confusion. “He answered the question that was asked. Johann asked if you were lying, and in a general sense you are telling lies, Valentina. If he had asked if you knew the location of the Eye of Deceit, the answer would have been different. I assume the demon always tells his master the truth, but in the most misleading way he can reconcile with his binding.”

At that moment, Valentina saw Johann’s fist flying toward her face again and tried to duck.

With no success. Johann struck her twice, in quick succession.

The first blow came from the right and jerked her head to the side, and the second, a backhand, followed so immediately that she didn’t even really register the impact until her head had already struck the edge of her desk. She felt dizzy, and the hot taste of blood spread through her mouth. Her lip had split open.

Johann stood over her, watching as she pulled herself up on the desk with her free hand.

“Please, I don’t know where it is,” Valentina mumbled so indistinctly through the blood in her mouth that she could barely understand herself. “Johann, please, I swear to you, I-“

“Silence!”

Johann wove the demonic pattern once more, and the invisible shackle closed around Valentina’s right hand again, prying her fingers apart and immobilizing her.

Then he turned to Innogen.

“No.” Valentina pushed herself away from the desk and dropped to her knees in front of Johann. “No, no, no, please, I’ll do anything!”

Johann grabbed Innogen by the upper arm and forced her to her knees in front of the desk.

Innogen’s eyes were wide, and she was trembling uncontrollably. “Listen, my father is the Marquess of Timberpine, he’s rich, he-“

With a single blow, he silenced her as well.

“Valentina.” Johann’s voice was frighteningly polite again now. “I want to give you one last chance to tell me where the Eye is. After that, I’ll provide you with a different kind of motivation.”

“Johann, please.” Valentina crawled toward him on her knees, trying to reach for his hands, but he pushed her away. “Please, don’t hurt her. Please, she has nothing to do with this! I don’t know where it is. Your demon is lying to you, it’s twisting the truth, it-“

“Narzoz can’t lie to me.”

“It didn’t answer what you wanted to know! It just told you-“

“Last chance,” interrupted Johann.

“Please don’t!” sobbed Valentina.

The demonic pattern that held Innogen’s fingers splayed and frozen shifted, bending Innogen’s little finger so violently that she began to scream in pain. 

“NO!” Valentina lunged forward, trying to squeeze between Johann and Innogen, ramming her shoulder against his leg, but Johann punched her squarely in the eye and then kicked her in the chest with his boot, sending her flying backward into the desk leg and slamming the back of her head against it.

For a moment she couldn’t see properly, and her left eye swelled up so quickly that she could barely keep her eyelid open. A dull pain throbbed where the back of her head had struck the desk leg.

Then a sickening crack rang out, as loud as a lash of a whip.

A scream burst from Innogen, an animalistic cry of pain that seared into Valentina’s heart like a red-hot poker.

The little finger on Innogen’s left hand jutted out at an unnatural angle and snapped a second time before Valentina’s eyes.

“Stop!” Valentina crawled forward again on her knees, and the blood from her eyebrow dripped onto the floorboards. “STOP! Please, I’ll do anything, I’ll find it, I can go and look for it, I-“

Johann moved on to the ring finger, and when that too snapped with a gruesome crack, only stifled sobs gurgled from Innogen.

“Valentina.” Vyxara’s voice was tense and thinner than Valentina had ever heard it. “Hang in there. Keep a clear head.”

“DO SOMETHING!” Valentina screamed silently in her head. “HELP HER! DO SOMETHING!”

“I can’t. Not yet. We need an opening, and there isn’t one right now. Hang in there!”

“Where’s the Eye?” he asked.

“Damn it, I don’t know,” Valentina sobbed. “I swear by all the flames of the Martyr, I don’t know, I swear on anything you want, please!”

Johann shook his head, and Innogen’s left middle finger snapped in three places.

Innogen stopped screaming. She crouched on the floor, contorted with pain, and only a wet, gasping whimper escaped her, her whole body jerking with every crack as if a knife were being thrust into her.

Valentina screamed and tried so hard to move her fingers that her muscles and sinews burned like fire, and she threw everything she had at the demonic pattern, but it didn’t give an inch.

Innogen lifted her head and looked at Valentina, her eyes filled with a raw, desperate plea. It tore at Valentina’s heart.

“Val,” Innogen whispered. “Please…”

Her index finger snapped.

Valentina tried to sit up, tried to attack Johann again, to do something, anything, but could barely stand in the fog of pain and dizziness.

Then she heard a soft creak on the stairs, just before the door to her study was kicked open.