Chapter 38. The Long Barn

June's POV

At dawn, I went down to the cellar.

Ewan was still sitting on the bottom step. His face was gray with exhaustion, and there was blood on his shirt that wasn't his.

Corvin lay curled on the stone floor at the end of the chain.

His right hand was a ruin. Two fingers broken, bent backward. His left ankle was swollen to twice its size. His eye was closed.

"He fought it all night," Ewan said hoarsely. "Every hour. Every minute. He broke his own fingers trying to keep his hands still. Broke his ankle trying to keep his feet still. Then the first gray light came through the grate, and it just… stopped. Like he said it would. The night was over, and the order with it. He fell down and he hasn't moved since."

"Is he alive?"

"He's alive." Ewan's voice cracked. "He talked to me. The whole night. When it was bad, he asked me to talk to him. So I did." He swallow