The ensuing day passes in interminable agony. As the hour grows nearer, we find we have nothing left to say to one another. Our every sense is attuned to the horizon.

My appetite roils as if I've a belly full of eels, restless and slick and writhing. Even a glance at my ration of hardened bread and mush threatens to loose them. 

My throat is dry, full of nothing but my fluttering heartbeat. My body is exhausted with the effort of holding myself still, when all I want to do is panic. Shout. Beg for mercy and tear at the confines of our collective cage. We have already lost so much, but tonight threatens to take the rest: our lives, our cause, our dignity.

I wish they would start talking again, if only to give my reeling mind a fixed point on which to focus. As it is, I can barely finish fretting over one issue before landing on another. I've tumbled through no less than a dozen half-hatched plans for escape, but the conclusion is always the same.

My only wish is that Corsa and the others will find a way out of this.

She had warned us. All those months ago. We laughed, we ignored, we attempted to silence her. None of us could have imagined that things would get so bad so quickly, always assuming that someone would step in to stop him before he could take things too far. It was in this certainty that no one had thought to do it themselves. It was too easy to overlook and endure. To wait. Hope requires of us both nothing and everything.

Looking back, it is easy to see how he had manipulated us, but at the time, his grasp over our community grew so insidiously that we did not realize we were within it until it was too late. By the time we became aware, his fist was already tightening into a chokehold.

Enos had been afraid of inciting reprisal, but it was exactly then that we should have struck. There were so many opportunities to topple his empire while it was building. So many instances when a simple no could have broken this chain of events. Taken one at a time, though, they seemed like such small matters to dismiss. He wasn't attacking us until he was. It seemed a betrayal, but now I realize that Dager had only ever been angling for himself.

I feel Wart somewhere out of sight. I underestimated him. Underestimated myself. If only I had given reign to him sooner, he could have saved us. My life has been too short to be so full of regret.

The screech of the bars to signal our midday meal rouses me from my spiraling thoughts. Kov manages to hit the guards in the head with his petrified loaf. This minor victory loses us our dinner privileges.

As darkness falls, the warmth seems to seep out of the air, the oxygen out of my lungs. Each sound that might signal Dager's arrival causes me to flinch. This uncertainty is perhaps the most torturous of all. Now that the day has gone, excruciating as it was, I wish I could live it again. One thousand times. Anything for another hour with Mab. 

Midnight marks the hour of our fate. These are the final moments that we will be together, and they trickle away like grains of sand through an hourglass. Tomorrow, we will be forever changed. 

Footsteps approach. Stop. A cell opens, a command spoken. When Mab appears, she wears her ceremonial dress. I recognize it instantly from the night of the Enlightenment. She walks with her head held high, though he knees tremble. Hatred blazes in her eyes and on her fair cheeks as she meets Dager's stare. He helps her onto the stage, every bit the gentleman, though there are none of us naïve enough to be fooled.

"You stand accused," he begins in dulcet tones, "of treason." Not a word is spoken. Not a movement made. The glassy eyes of the crowd mirror my own horror. Silent tears glimmer. We have seen this all before, and we will see it again. 

"Have you any arguments?"

I can see the challenge in his set jaw. If Mab were to renounce us, vow to be the obedient daughter he desired, would he allow her back into his home? She was useful to him. That much was undeniable. He had not yet given up hope that this product could be salvaged.

Would our deaths be enough punishment? A costly lesson, to be sure, but if it would teach her to mind, it is doubtless worth the effort in his mind. She could be kept. Strict supervision. A quick marriage, a lasting alliance.

"I have none," Mab says. His frown is one of mere inconvenience. The mask returns.

"So be it." Dager straightens. 

"I take no pleasure in punishment," he lies. "Especially of one so beloved... But the peoples' needs must come first. You have betrayed your community, Mab, and there must be consequences. A lesson must be learned tonight, and no expense is too great. For your crimes, you will hang." Dager nods, but the hangman falters.

"I cannot, sir... Not this time." 

A warring of eyes commences. One which Dager apparently loses, for he stomps toward Mab. The stage creaks beneath his vehemence.

"Then I will do it myself," the man spits. "And you shall be next." The hangman, to his credit, makes no attempt to hide. Nor, though, does he intervene.

"As I have commanded," Dager repeats as he guides the rope over her head. "You will hang. By the neck. Until dead." 

The coil pools heavily on her thin shoulders. My fists grip the bars until my hands lose feeling. I am certain that my heart will stop with hers, though I know that reality can only be much worse. Dager's heels click sharp and deliberate as he puts distance between them.

"Such a shame," he says, half to himself. Then, to the operator: "Now."

The floor falls out beneath her, the rope goes taut, and Mab bursts into flame.