“I will help you find your names,” she said, but the words were whisked away as soon as she formed them.
She needed to touch them. She could not help them if she could not touch them. But she had no hands. No eyes. No ears. No tongue. And no names.
Dani wouldn’t let go of the drapes. Her hands were clamped around the folds and she clung, her eyes closed, her legs buckling, a golden-haloed witch tied to a whipping post, barely conscious. This did not resemble the dreamy Dani with her enlarged pupils and her searching touch. This was something else.
He swept her up in his arms and stepped away from the drapes, attempting to pull her hands free.
“Let go, Dani,” he roared, but she didn’t react. Her fingers were like icicles, sharp and frail, and he feared he would break them if he forced them free.
He sank down to his knees, bringing her with him, using her body weight to assist his efforts. She jerked, her arms fully extended, her grip unyielding, but the fabric was taut. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and tugged at the cloth, freeing one hand and then the other before scooping her up again and staggering for the door, half convinced the curtains would twine around his legs and pull them both down into whatever pit he’d dragged her from.
He didn’t close the door behind him, and he hardly remembered descending the stairs, Dani cold and motionless in his arms. Goddamn it, she was so cold. He had to get her warm. It was all he knew to do. Get her warm and wake her up.
He must have looked a sight, half running, his arms full of unconscious woman as he cut across the Rauses’ lawn, which was wholly visible from the busy street. It was a wonder no one honked or stopped or contacted the authorities. But the sun was sinking, and the sky was a frothy pink, and maybe he simply looked like a man clinging to his love, and not a man running for his life, though later it would occur to him he was doing both.
He crashed through the laundry room door and barreled down the hall and into the bathroom, this time pausing long enough to secure the door and thank providence that Margaret would have gone home, and the aunts would most likely be upstairs.
He toed off his shoes and stepped into the wide tub and settled her between his legs, turning on the water as hot as he could bear it. Her head lolled against him and he tightened his arms, but breath fluttered between her lips, and when he pressed his fingers to the column of her throat, he could feel her heartbeat.
“Dani,” he begged. “Dani, where are you?”
He made a quick inventory. Three of her nails on her left hand and all of the nails on her right were bleeding and they would be sore, but her fingers appeared unbroken. He pressed them to his lips, the way a parent does with a child, though he knew he was consoling himself. Was it just last night he’d kissed her hand? Good God, he’d aged ten years in mere hours.
“Dani?” he repeated, smoothing her hair back from her brow. The water was rising, steam billowed around them, and her skin was starting to pinken.
Then her eyes opened, and awareness descended. She blinked, blinked again, and then lifted her head slightly from the crook of his shoulder, her expression bemused. A damp tendril clung to her cheek and she swiped at it.
“I haven’t missed my room . . . but I have missed this tub,” she murmured.
He almost laughed in sheer relief. “Oh yeah?”
“Yes. It’s delightfully large. As you can see. And very comfortable for a long soak.”
“It is. I’ve enjoyed it very much.”
“Hmm. Good. That’s good. I’m glad,” she said. “But why . . . why exactly . . . are we here?” she asked. “In our clothes?”
He wiped at the bead of sweat trickling down his nose and reached for the faucet, turning it off. Dani’s dress tangled around his legs, and he’d lost two buttons on his shirt in the scuffle. It gaped, revealing his sodden undershirt beneath.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked.
She puzzled over that question and then laid her head down against him again.
“Zuzana is scared. That’s why she said those things at breakfast. She’s afraid I will leave her. Like my mother did.”
“And that’s the last thing you remember?” he asked, dumbfounded.
“No,” she said. “But now . . . now you’re going to think she’s right.”
Breakfast seemed like a lifetime ago, and it was hardly relevant to the current situation. “Right about what?”
“That’s never happened to me before,” she whispered, not answering him directly. “I promise I’m not crazy.”