“Sabrina, how are you?” Shawna asked her.
“Incredibly angry—with those awful people and myself! I let them get me. I’m quite fine, Skylar needn’t be fussing over me the way she is—I do have one hell of a headache. My bones ache. I’m in pain and—” she broke off, seeing Sloan where he stood next to Hawk and David. All the color that had come back into her face deserted her.
“Sloan!” she gasped.
“Yes, it’s me,” Sloan said.
Sabrina struggled for composure. “Major Trelawny, how in God’s name are you here?”
“Ocean voyage,” Sloan said briefly. “Which doesn’t matter at all now. Sabrina, you need to tell us what happened,”
She didn’t seem to hear him. She kept staring at him, remaining very pale.
“Sabrina?” Skylar said worriedly.
Sabrina forced her gaze from Sloan and looked at her sister. “They attacked me.” She looked back to Sloan nervously. “I don’t understand! How can you be here?”
After he explained, he added softly, “Sabrina, we need to know what happened to you.”
She still stared at him, as if he were a ghost.
“Sabrina!” Shawna said. “Please, we need your help. People in those cloaks have attacked us several times now. They were shooting at us in the cemetery when we were searching for you. We need to see that ‘they’ don’t come back for anyone. Who are ‘they,’ Sabrina?”
“The people in the cloaks,” Sabrina repeated.
“Aye, but?—”
Sabrina seemed to regain her wits. “Shawna, don’t you think I’d say something if I knew who had done this? I was terrified and furious. They were going to kill me, I’m quite certain. It was terrible, waking up trussed like a hog in that awful vault…I’d like to see them hanged. But I didn’t see anything at all. Except a white handkerchief coming at me and two—maybe three—people in cloaks.”
“Where were you taken from?” David demanded.
Sabrina frowned. “I—I don’t remember.”
“From the castle?” David persisted.
Again, she caught sight of Sloan watching her. She focused her gaze on Shawna. “I—remember. I thought I heard a child crying. I followed the sound to the chapel—and then out the chapel door to the cemetery. That’s—that’s where they got me.”
“Do you remember anything else at all?” David queried her gently.
Sabrina shook her head. “Maybe a few snatches of whispered conversation, but I’m not even sure it was real.”
“What was said?” Shawna prompted her.
Sabrina arched a brow. “They said things like, ‘Death will come for the innocents, the innocents feed the earth.’ And…”
“What else?” Shawna prompted.
“I think that someone kept saying that I wasn’t really who they wanted, but perhaps I would have to do. They—they wanted—you, Shawna. You have escaped death so far. This all sounds so ridiculous, but it seemed that one of them was saying that you have changed the destiny death requires, and the gods of the underworld will come for you.”
“What nonsense!” Sloan said.
“It’s what I heard!” Sabrina declared defensively.
“I didn’t mean that you spoke nonsense, Sabrina,” Sloan told her with a sigh of impatience. “This whole thing seems to be based on some pathetic, dangerous nonsense!”
“I agree,” David murmured.
Someone was tapping on the door. Hawk opened it carefully. Edwina was there. She came hurrying in, an embroidered bag of her ointments and herbs at her side.