Elsie Montgomery should not have left the estate alone. She knew that now, with a clarity that came far too late.

The evening had been mild, the kind of soft English dusk that lulled one into foolish confidence. The sky was brushed with pale rose and fading gold, the air carrying the scent of damp earth and early spring blossoms. The Montgomery estate lay behind her, its windows glowing faintly through the trees, safe and orderly and close enough to touch.

She had only meant to go for a walk.

Selene had been restless all afternoon, pacing, fretting, and Elsie wanted to give her some time to herself. After all, Selene always seemed to be at her best when she had some time to breathe on her own, to stay alone with her thoughts.

She could have simply gone to her chambers or any of the other myriad rooms in the estate. But instead, she had chosen to go out of its bounds—and out of its safety.

“I’ll be back before the lamps are lit,” Elsie had told herself, drawing her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

She had believed it.

The path curved away from the house, narrow but well-trodden, bordered by low stone walls and tangled hawthorn. Crickets began their evening song as the light thinned, the sound steady and comforting. Elsie walked with measured steps, her gloved fingers brushing the tops of the hedges, her thoughts drifting toward nothing more dangerous than what Selene might say when she returned.

Halfway down the lane, she slowed.

Something felt wrong, though she could not pinpoint what that might be. The air seemed heavier here, the birds suddenly quiet. Even the wind had stilled, as though the world was holding its breath.

Elsie stopped dead in her tracks, looking around at her surroundings, trying to see if she could find anything noteworthy in the dimming light.

“Hello?” she called softly, feeling foolish even as unease crept up her spine.

There was no answer.

She took another step forward, her senses sharper now, her ears straining for anything she might hear, her eyes darting about her for any sign of danger.

A sound came from behind her—footsteps, too measured to be accidental.

Elsie turned sharply, only to find the lane empty behind her.

Her heart beat faster. She told herself it was nothing; a farmhand, perhaps, or a traveler. Maybe even her imagination running ahead of her.

She turned back toward the path, eager to return to the estate, to the safety of the walls, suffocating as they were—

—and a hand clamped over her mouth.

The force of it knocked the breath from her lungs. Elsie screamed, but the sound was swallowed by skin and leather, her cry reduced to a muffled gasp. An arm locked around her waist, crushing her against a hard chest as her feet left the ground.

“Quiet,” a man hissed in her ear, his breath hot and foul. “Unless you want tae die here.”

She kicked, wild and desperate, her boots scraping uselessly against the packed earth. Her nails clawed at the arm around her, drawing a sharp curse from him, but his grip only tightened.

Another figure emerged from the hedge, a shadow pulling itself free of the dusk.

“No, please—” she tried to say, her words breaking against the hand over her mouth.

“Shouldn’t be walking alone,” one of them said, almost conversationally. “Pretty thing like ye.”

Rage flared through her fear. Couldn’t they see she was a lady? Couldn’t they see they had no right speaking to her like this?

She bit down hard on the hand clamped around her mouth. The man shouted, jerking back, and she twisted free just enough to stumble forward. Hope surged—

—and died as the other grabbed her hair from behind, yanking her head back painfully.

“Enough,” the first man snapped. “We dinnae get paid more fer bruises.”

A cloth was shoved over her face. The smell hit her instantly—sharp, sweet, choking—but she couldn’t hold her breath for long. She thrashed, shaking her head, fighting with everything she had left, making it as difficult as she could for the man holding her.

“Stop!” she gasped. “My sister will—”

“Yer sister willnae find ye,” the man said flatly. “Nay one will.”

The two men held her firmly, giving her no space to move. She couldn’t escape their grasp; she couldn’t even escape the rag that was pressed over her nose and mouth, unable now to move her head at all. They had immobilized her, and the more she tried to get out of their grip, the more she hurt herself, her joints strained, her skin chafing.

The world tilted. The hedgerows around her blurred and the sky fractured into spinning color and shadow as her strength drained from her limbs.

The last thing Elsie saw was the faint glow of Montgomery estate through the trees—so far it might as well have been another world.

Then darkness took her, deep and relentless, the kind that would not let her resurface for hours.

***

Elsie woke to pain and motion. Her wrists burned, bound tightly with rough rope that bit into her skin. The ground under her jolted and swayed, every movement sending fresh waves of nausea through her body.

Wood pressed against her cheek.

She opened her eyes to darkness, complete and suffocating. Her breath hitched in her throat, cut short by the panic that welled up inside her.

Where was she? What had happened to her?

Memories of the attack rushed back to her unbridled, flooding her mind with images. She remembered leaving the estate and going for a walk. She remembered the two men who had attacked her, grabbing her and holding her still as they pressed a rag to her nose and mouth, forcing her to breathe in the fumes that had made her fall asleep.

And now, she had no idea where she was. All she knew was that she was moving, which could only mean she was on a carriage.

“Hello?” she whispered, her voice rough, weak with as much drowsiness as fear.

A low laugh answered from somewhere above her.

“She’s awake,” a man said.

Light flooded in as a flap was lifted. Elsie squinted, blinking as shapes formed—two men seated at the front of a rough wagon, their faces hard and unfamiliar.

She didn’t ask who they were, as she doubted she would get a response—at least not a satisfying one. Besides, who they were didn’t matter to her at all. They were brigands, and that was all that mattered. All she wanted to know was how far she was from the estate and what her chances were of making it back home if she managed to escape.

“Where are you taking me?” she demanded, her voice trembling despite her effort to sound composed.

“Far enough,” one replied.

“Why?” Her heart pounded in her chest like a war drum, but she tried to ignore it; she tried to ignore the panic, the bitter taste of bile in the back of her throat, to keep herself calm enough to find a way out—a way home. “My family will pay whatever you want.”

The men laughed in unison, as if what Elsie had said was hilarious to them. She stared at them in silence, impatiently waiting for them to stop, but then one of them—the larger of the two, with an ugly scar over his face—spoke.

“Her family, she says,” the man said in a mocking tone, one that had Elsie’s heart sinking. Were they not after gold? By the looks of them, they were brigands, nothing more, and so she expected them to want gold. Her family could pay plenty of it. Selene would surely give them what they wanted if it meant she could have her back home, safe. “Did ye hear that? Dae ye reckon we should turn around, then? Head back tae her family?”

The other man laughed once more, nodding fervently. “Oh aye, I’m sure that would be a great plan.”

The two men continued to laugh for what seemed like an infinity to Elsie. They seemed to share a joke she couldn’t understand—at least until. The first man spoke once more.

“That’s nae how this works,” he said. “Ye’re nae a ransom. Ye’re goods.”

The word hollowed her out, though she didn’t know what, precisely, the man meant. Did they plan on selling her to the highest bidder? How could that even happen? Where would they find someone who wanted to purchase her?

What was the cost of a life anyway?

The wagon lurched forward, throwing her against the wall. She cried out, curling inward as the wheels creaked and the road carried her farther and farther away from everything she had ever known.

Elsie pressed her forehead to the cold wood, tears sliding silently down her face. She didn’t want the men to see her like that. She didn’t want to show any weakness, not when they would descend upon her like vultures, taking advantage of any vulnerability she showed.

Selene. She imagined her sister back at the estate, wondering where she was. She imagined her panicking when she would realize she was no longer there, sending out search parties for her that would lead nowhere.

The mere thought was enough to bring forth a pang of pain, like a blade to the heart. How could she have been so foolish? How could she have put herself in such a dangerous situation when her sister had warned her not to stray outside the estate alone?

Then, with a strength she did not know she possessed, she steadied her breath.

She would survive, she told herself. She had to. If not for herself, then for her sister; for Selene, who would do anything in her power to bring her back home.

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