I'm placed in a cell. Except it's not really a cell. There's only damp soil everywhere that seeps into your clothes no matter what you do. There's no light, no bed, only a small hole in the ground for doing your business, and a tightly locked door that actually fits this time.

I relieve myself in the puny hole and then retreat to the other side of the tiny room, as far away from it as possible.

Sat on the wet ground, I blink in the darkness and think.

Bea and I have been through a lot, I realise. First, it started with a conversation on an aeroplane, then it rapidly escalated from there. The digging in the river, the trout swallowing us whole, seeing glimpses of happy Bea by the river, then the terrifying beating of my heart as she slipped down the hole and the chill of my bones as I soon tumbled in after her. And then discovering the trout had actually been taking us to the underground warren all along, the interrogation with Igris, his beefy arms around my neck. Then, the reunion with Bea in the high-ceilinged hall, and then the horror as she was dragged away.

And now I'm here. I might never see her again.

In response to that thought, I stalk up to the door and pound it with my fists. I grit my teeth through the pain, yanking out the splinters in my knuckles and try again.

Bea could be anywhere. God knows what the King could be doing to her right now.

I flop down on the floor in my exasperation. Smells are beginning to arise from the hole in the ground from earlier. Minutes later and the entire room is stinking of my piss.

Anger is prowling around inside of me. I've never considered myself to be an angry person. Mum said I was as soft as a marshmallow. But now there is something pulsing in my veins, something that wants to get out!

I scream at the wall until my throat is raw.

After all my energy has left me, I slump back flat onto the ground and wait.

That is the only thing you can do. Wait.