Page 1269 -- CXXXIX.

((The Wednesday Triple: page 3 of 3))
Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Nine: ‘Solicitous souls, take heart...’
Click to display entire chapter at once -- (mobile link)

Emiliana couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Had that really been Hector just now? Was she hallucinating again?

The whole room trembled briefly as the storm outside raged with the strength of an earthquake for a moment, but she was growing accustomed to that by now and so didn’t allow it to distract her.

‘...Emiliana?’

She nearly laughed. ‘Hector! It IS you!’ She wasn’t sure if she was happier knowing that it really was him or just knowing that she wasn’t going crazy.

‘How...? Uh...? What is happening, right now?’

‘I have no idea,’ she said, still smiling. She wasn’t wearing her mask, as Gohvis had taken it from her.

‘Where are you?’

‘Oh, I--’ And she hesitated. Impulsively, she wanted to say. Of course she did. But what logic would there be in that? So that Hector would come after her? Or, perhaps more likely, her father?

No.

She couldn’t allow that. There was virtually no doubt in her mind that Gohvis would kill anyone who tried to take her away from this place.

‘...I don’t know where I am,’ she said.

‘...Are you okay?’ said Hector. ‘Is Chergoa?’

‘Yes, we are both fine. Gohvis has not harmed us.’ Well, technically, he had broken every bone in her body on the way here, she supposed, but he hadn’t permanently harmed her, at least.

‘So Ibai couldn’t get away, then.’

‘No. Gohvis is... inescapable, it would seem.’

‘I see...’

There came a long pause, as apparently neither of them knew what to say next.

Hector was the one to pick it up again. ‘Oh! Your father wants to talk to you. Here, I’ll put him on.’

Emiliana held her breath as she waited to hear her father’s words.

But they never came.