* * *
Jamie woke up in a dark room, his head throbbing in pain. He started to reach up toward his head but found his arms bound down. He struggled against the restraints, but the more he struggled, the more the iron cuffs seemed to tighten around his wrists and ankles.
“There was one rule, Mr. Thiessen,” a silky voice drifted impassively through the darkness. “Stay in your rooms unless otherwise told. Quite simple, really.”
Jamie twisted in his chair trying to see the source of the voice, but the Cleaner’s black robes blended into the darkness. His face was turned away, hiding even the mask on his face.
“And now I have to punish you, and believe it or not, it’s not really something I take joy in.”
The Cleaner walked around, keeping to the shadows, his footsteps echoing against the walls. “Twenty lashes,” he said thoughtfully. “I think that would be a suitable punishment. Though the question remains: how best to distribute them.”
Jamie stiffened in his seat, a sudden chill racing up his spine.
“Yes, Mr. Thiessen. You didn’t really think that your indiscretions wouldn’t impact the rest of your team, did you?”
The Cleaner walked to the door and rapped loudly against it. At his signal, the door opened, and three more silver-masked Cleaners walked through, pushing Pete, Gemma, and Eva before them.
Pete was stoic, but Gemma was terrified, her eyes darting wildly around the room. Eva was the last through the door, struggling furiously like a wildcat.
“Five lashes each,” the first Cleaner said emotionlessly.
Adrenaline surged through Jamie’s veins. “Wait,” he said wildly, his voice hoarse. “Wait, they have nothing to do with this. I did this alone—they didn’t know anything. I’ll take the twenty lashes, I broke the rules. I deserve it.”
Eva stilled suddenly at his words. “He’s lying,” she said sharply, the words ringing clearly, silvery and alive. “I knew exactly what he was doing. I helped him break the rules, and I’ll take ten lashes.”
“Eva!” Jamie shouted out.
“Shut up, Jamie,” she spat and turned to the Cleaner holding her. “Just get it done.”
“No,” Pete said. “I was involved too. I’ll share in the punishment.”
“And I,” Gemma said tightly, her eyes wild, but her voice steady enough.
“This is all very heartwarming,” the Cleaner said, and he waved his hands to the other Cleaners in the room. “Do it.”
The shackles around his ankles sprang free with a click, and rough hands pulled Jamie to his feet, shoving him toward the wall. After he was slammed face first into the wall, his arms were pulled up and his cuffed wrists tied to an iron ring nailed into the wall. His shirt was ripped from him, and before he had a chance to tense up, the whip sliced through the air and tore into his flesh. Jamie gasped in pain, but the sound of it was lost beneath Gemma’s scream.
The whip rang through the air once more and ripped into his back again, and this time, it seemed to tear the flesh from his bones. Jamie couldn’t help the howl of pain that escaped him. His vision wavered with the third lash, and with the fourth, his grip on consciousness slipped, and he faded gratefully into the darkness.
* * *
Jamie woke up back in his own bed. For a moment, he relished the cool crispness of the starched sheets against his skin, a moment of mercy, until the flood of pain rushed over him like a tsunami.
He got to his feet carefully, every tiny movement sending jolts of pain through his back, tearing open flesh barely starting to knit together. He stood with his back to the mirror and twisted around to see the damage. Red gashes crisscrossed his back, not clean lines but rather jagged tears dotted with crosses, as if the whip had been armed with barbs.
“Not pretty, is it?”
Jamie twisted at Eva’s voice and winced as his wounds tore open once more. Eva stood at his door, paler than he’d ever seen her. So pale that he could see the light dusting of freckles across her nose.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“Don’t apologize. Just tell me…” Eva glanced around her shoulder at Pete and Gemma. “Tell us, what the hell you were trying to do.”
Jamie followed Eva from his room into the shared sitting room. Gemma sat on the edge of a chair, her purple hair limp around her face and her cheeks pinched with pain. Pete glanced up as Jamie walked into the room but quickly averted his eyes. His reaction wasn’t unexpected; Pete had studiously avoided Jamie since Eva’s outburst with the Gem Nexus. And Jamie, for his part, had ignored the new tension, unsure of how best to handle the situation.
Carefully settling onto a wooden seat, making sure to keep his back from touching anything, Jamie finally looked up at the three people around him. They had chosen to share in his punishment, to suffer for his offenses. There was nothing he could do but share his secrets. At least some of them.
He started to speak, and as the first words left his lips, it was as if the floodgates had opened. He found himself telling them about Emma and why he was here. About the Archivist and his plan.
Afterward, he said once more, “I’m sorry.” The words sounded utterly inadequate, even to his own ears.
“Why didn’t you just tell us,” Gemma asked. “We could’ve helped you.”
It wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting. There was no blame or recrimination in her voice. “I couldn’t ask that of you,” Jamie replied, his head bowed. “I couldn’t put you into
