The first thing Edward Harrow felt was the stone. Cold, damp, unyielding beneath his boots and against the back of the chair where they had lashed him. The hood had been ripped away at last, leaving him blinking in the dim lamplight of a chamber that smelled of mildew and oil. The air was heavy, close, as though the walls themselves leaned inward to suffocate him.
His hands were bound tight behind the chair. Iron bit into his wrists, the skin already raw where he had strained against them. He had been given water but nothing else. The taste of the cloth they had pressed over his face during the capture lingered bitter on his tongue.
And there before him, calm as a priest, stood Colonel Valdés.
