It was a long day. Cora found ways of amusing herself — for a while, she played solitaire with the cards Ian had left her, then she experimented with trying to toss them at a certain point on the wall, and then, when even that grew boring, she tried to coax the guard into speaking to her. That was an entertaining game, albeit one that made her feel a little cruel after a while — she began to worry that the man had actually had his tongue cut out, so uninterested was he in what she had to say. After about half an hour of goading, he very deliberately turned his chair ninety degrees so that the angle of his body prevented him from looking at her, and she took that as a signal to stop bothering him. It wouldn’t do to antagonize her captor, she supposed. After all, she had no idea how long she was going to be down here. Maybe she’d grow old in this cell. She and Ian could get married down here…she could bear his children…a baby would probably fit out through the spaces between the bars so long as she made sure to pass it through before it got too big…

Cora shook her head, laughing a little deliriously to herself. She had definitely been left to her own devices for too long. Maybe that would be what happened — she’d just lose her mind and become the gibbering madwoman in the dungeons. Perhaps after she died, she could haunt the place! The Ghost of Castle MacClaran…it had a nice ring to it, didn’t it? But would she still be restrained to this cell if she was a ghost? It would be nice at least to be able to drift around the castle grounds…visit with Hamish…a pang of grief. She missed the silly old horse. Oh, and it would be great fun to torment Donal. He told such wild stories as it was that there would be no way anyone would believe he’d seen an actual ghost. She chuckled aloud at the idea of Donal desperately trying to convince his older brother the Laird that he had the Sight, and that he’d decided to be a ghost hunter.

She knew she was entertaining these silly little fantasies as an escape mechanism from the horrible reality of her situation, but she didn’t care. She certainly had nothing better to do — every bit of power she had to affect her situation, she’d already used. God, she hoped she’d done well enough to spare her life. Things were just starting to look so good — she had a handsome lover who was mad about her, an excellent job doing what she loved, a house and a home and dear friends around her. There was just the tiny little problem of the murdered ancestor and the accusations of witchcraft to deal with…she laughed again, weakly, then dragged some of the blankets over herself and tried at least to get some sleep.

This time, she dreamed of Bellina in the pauses between torture sessions — when she tried to sleep, or tend in some way to her horrible wounds. For a long time, she tried to figure out how she could possibly prove to the men that she wasn’t a witch. She thought through every possible method of argument, and came up again and again with the conclusion that it was men who decided who was and wasn’t a witch, not the accused women in question. All the tests were loaded — either the women would fail the test and be executed, or succeed at the test and be killed. They were all violent — and all profoundly unscientific, it went without saying. Just as a trial by combat was a terrible way of deciding the guilt or innocence of a criminal, so too were the various methods of testing for witchcraft a sham. She and Bellina were agreed on that, and she awoke disconsolate, but feeling an odd sense of solidarity with her past incarnation. God, she was hardly coping with being cooped up for a day — and she hadn’t been tortured. Bellina had been an incredibly strong woman, and Cora felt a strong sense of honor to be related to her, to be the bearer of some part of her spirit.

It must have been late at night when Ian came to her, because she was beginning to grow tired again even after her afternoon nap. She rose to her feet when she saw him, delighted to see his face but also deeply frightened, because it meant he was bringing her news. News of what the Inquisitors had decided — of what Cotswold had said — of her possible fate.

His face wasn’t a happy one. And he was swaying slightly on the spot — and was that alcohol on his breath?

“Have you been drinking?”

He had the good grace to look a little ashamed. “Yes.”

“You could at least share.”

With a rueful smile, he passed a flask through the bars to her. She took a deep swallow of the whisky, feeling it burn her mouth and throat and build a comforting warm fire in the pit of her stomach.

Ian opened his mouth, and hesitated.

“Well? What’s the verdict?”

“You — you’re being offered a chance to prove your innocence,” Ian said, sounding a little guarded.

She narrowed her eyes. “How?”

“Well — Cotswold, it seems, lost it completely when they questioned him. Yelling, raving, the whole nine yards. It didn’t look good. But accusations of witchcraft are still a big deal, so the Inquisitors decided to leave it in the hands of a trusted test…and to let the result of that be the deciding factor.” There were tears in his eyes, she realized, with alarm growing in her stomach. “Cora — oh, my beautiful Cora. Please, please be brave. Please be braver than me.”

“What is it? Ian — tell me. What’s the test?”

“They call it a lot of things,” he murmured, “but the name I always knew it as was the Trial of the Depths. They throw you in the water, Cora. If you float, you’re a witch. If you sink —”

“You drown.” It was exactly as she’d feared. One of those no-happy-endings kinds of tests where the woman was either guilty or dead. Tears welled up in her eyes and her knees went weak — she retreated to the bed, dropped heavily onto it and buried her head in her hands, shaking as sobs racked her body.

She heard Ian murmuring to the guard — and when she looked up, to her absolute surprise, the man was disappearing into the depths of the dungeon. Ian was holding the key.

“I’m not running away,” she said immediately, through her tears. “They’ll only come down harder on the castle and the village.”

He smiled, unlocking the door and stepping into the cell — then locked it behind him.

“Of course not, my brave wee warrior woman,” he murmured. She stood, gazing up at him, and he swept her into his arms. “Of course not.”

When he kissed her his mouth burned with whisky and the desperation of their situation. She kissed him back, knowing it may be their last chance, wanting only the touch of his skin and the taste of his lips. If she was to be drowned tomorrow, or burned, she would first drown in her lover. He pinned her to the wall, kissing her with an urgency that she met and exceeded, dragging his shirt from his shoulders and pulling the belt of his kilt off with a practiced ease. No time to go slow — the guard could return at any minute — she took the length of him into her palm and stroked him until he was hard and jerking his hips in time with her movements. With a groan, he gripped her hips, lifted her up (her back pressed against the cold dungeon wall) and entered her in one sudden movement that knocked the breath out of her lungs.

They moved together, frantic and urgent, muffling their cries against each other’s flesh. This wasn’t a position they’d tried before and Cora was amazed by how quickly she began to near the edge — clearly the built up frustration, panic and fear needed to find its release somewhere, and here it came, in the arms of her lover. He, too, was beginning to get close, his breath coming in sharper and sharper spurts, his mouth on her neck, definitely leaving bruises that she was too overcome to think about. They climaxed simultaneously, her nails raking down his back as she bit down hard on her scream, him uttering a guttural moan that he cushioned in the side of her throat. Spent and exhausted, he turned and lowered her to the bed, then crawled onto it beside her and pulled the blanket over them both. They began to drift toward sleep, wrapped in each other’s arms. They shouldn’t have, not really, she thought drowsily — the guard would be coming back soon — surely they’d be punished for breaking the rules — but she may never have the chance to fall asleep with Ian in her arms again. Not if she was going to die in the morning anyway. To hell with the guard.

She heard his footsteps some time later — and then she heard him gently retrieve the keys from where Ian had dropped them by the door, and resume his seat. If he had a problem with there being two prisoners in his cell instead of one, he certainly didn’t say anything about it.

Thank God for small mercies, Cora thought, and then oblivion claimed her.