“Oh, you’re alive,” he said. “That’s too bad.”

He leaned back against the pile of hay and sacking as if it were silk.

“I’m thrilled to see you don’t look well,” he added. “Magnus Bane proved a more formidable opponent than you imagined? Who could have guessed? Wait, I told you that you had no chance against him. Repeatedly.”

Shinyun aimed a vicious kick at his midsection. She kept kicking, until she was rewarded with a groan.

“Maybe things didn’t work out as I hoped,” she panted. “You’ll be as sorry for it as I am. I have another plan, a plan for all the eldest curses, and you are going to help me.”

“I doubt that,” he said. “I’m not the helpful type.”

Shinyun hit him. She kicked him until he curled up around the pain, and she turned her face aside so he would not see her tears.

“You have no choice. Nobody is coming to save you,” she said, cold and sure. “You’re all on your own, Ragnor Fell. Everybody thinks you’re dead.”