Lucca led — practically dragged — Valerie up to Dana’s bedroom. One of the room’s walls was decorated with a sculptural panel about eight feet long, of dark walnut slats. The slats ran floor to ceiling, and were mounted to the wall on their narrow edge and spaced evenly apart. Each slat was carved into an organic series of curves and arches, reinforced with black steel edge-work. Each arch was a potential attachment point, and a hidden panel opened to a neatly organized set of locks and other hardware. Restraints, rope, or chain could be attached almost anywhere across the surface, and Dana regularly bound Valerie against the wall for whatever teasing or torture she had in mind; or merely as an objet d’art to admire. Valerie was very familiar with this section of wall.

Dana answered the door, and Lucca was there. They were a silhouette in the doorway, resplendent in the afternoon light. Even from that first moment, something felt off. Dana expected a Lucca that was relaxed, maybe even eager to have Valerie to themself for a few days; but instead, they seemed dour, and tense. They seemed unhappy.

A chain ran from the ring on Valerie’s collar to a second steel ring set into the wall. She had come to learn that Dana’s house had dozens of hardpoints scattered about; hidden behind electrical outlets, artwork, or in some cases simply disguised by architectural visual elements. In the cell, where she had first been kept those weeks ago, they were more overt.

Dana marked Valerie’s first month with a candle-lit dinner; the romantic overtones of such a celebration were subverted by the fact that, opposite her at the table, Valerie was clad from the neck down in black latex, and bound tightly to the dining room chair. She had just enough range of motion in her hands and arms that she could reach her own food and wine, but she couldn’t reach any of the knots or hardware that held her in the chair.

Later that evening, Dana cooked dinner for the two of them, fresh pasta that was close to expiring, in a simple pan sauce of peppery olive oil emulsified with a little of the salted pasta water, and root vegetables that she cubed and roasted. Valerie watched rapt from a bar stool opposite the expansive kitchen island.

Valerie shared Dana’s bed that night, though they simply slept— or at least, Dana did. Valerie slept poorly; she was nervous, sharing a bed with a new— her thought process shuddered to a stop before it could insert the word “girlfriend”. She was unsure what word to use, but certainly not that one. Boss? Mistress? Owner?

Mira rested her injured hand on Ness’s leg, and the power flowed into her; a still powerful stream, but manageable. Barely. She breathed deeply, careful to not let the pain radiating from her hand leak into her voice, or disrupt her metre.

Mira slumped against a tree opposite the one Ness was propped up against, defeated. She tried and failed to come up with any idea that had the slightest chance of working.

Chapter 8 — Misgivings The branch gave way and gravity ripped the other out of Ness’s hand, and then there was nothing but disorientation and tumbling. Her first thought was that she should’ve accepted her friends’ offer to teach her to rock climb. Her second thought, when she felt the back of her head hit a tree limb, was that the headache was going to be wicked. Before that idea could even fully crystallize, she was no longer thinking thoughts. ...

Invoking and shaping magic, like Mira had done the evening before, took something out of the spell worker that was hard to articulate. Skill as a sorceress meant not only the knowledge of spells and the nature of magic, but more importantly the mental fortitude to focus and direct magical power. As an apprentice, first learning the applications of magic, the simplest spells would leave her so exhausted she could barely speak. These days, after years of work, she could shape those same simple spells without even speaking their words aloud.