The name was a prayer offered to a void, a final, desperate coin tossed into a wishing well that had long run dry. She expected nothing. The silence, the darkness, they were the only true things here.
But the darkness moved.
The shape of him, the tear in the fabric of the night, did not fade. It stepped forward. He crossed the impossible distance of her small, lightless cell and knelt before her.
She saw him, not with her eyes, but with some deeper, more primal sense. She saw the impeccable cut of his black coat, the stark white of his shirt at his throat, the way his dark hair fell across his brow. She saw the fierce, burning light in his eyes, a light that held the cold fury of a winter storm.
He reached out and took her trembling, outstretched hand.
