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and stopped when she heard an angry voice behind her.
    “That,” the voice said, “is just about the last move you’re ever going to make.”

Chapter Three
    C ass had no time at all to react to the harsh voice at her ear. A hand tightened abruptly across her chest and she was dragged back toward the door. She tried to cry out, to reach for her father, but the ceiling was beginning to buckle already in half a dozen places, and a shimmering curtain of blinding flame broke through the thick roiling smoke to hide both his shattered body and the door to the cellar. Sparks that seemed alive in their fury leapt to her dress and hair, smoke and fumes filled her lungs and eyes, and it seemed decades before she felt herself outside, stumbling across the porch and into the hands of another man who grabbed her roughly and flung her face-down across his saddle. She offered no resistance. She was too weak from fright, too disheartened at the sudden and bloody collapse of her life, to do more than utter Geoff’s name and whimper for her parents. All she could feel was the searing heat, the burns on her legs and face, and the powerful muscles of the horse beneath her as it reared and bucked away from the flames.
    A shouted order broke through her despairing fog, and the horses galloped swiftly down the lane. By twisting around and grabbing at one stirrup for support, Cass was able to give herself one final glimpse of the flames that now reached through the swirling gray clouds. And as she watched the dwindling sight, the chimney collapsed outward and fell in a slow, dreamlike shower of heated fieldstone. Then the roof seemed to sigh as it sagged toward collapse, and before the wall of trees blocked everything from view, there was nothing left but a roaring shell pathetically struggling to stay upright.
    It was then, in the cool shadows of the lane at night, that awareness finally broke through the shock and Cass began to struggle against her captor, screaming, shrieking, causing the horse to veer sharply and rear in fright. Tears blinded her as the smoke had done, and she grabbed at the rider’s near leg in an attempt to pull herself free. A sudden blow to the back of her head stunned her, and she felt herself manhandled until she was perched sidesaddle in front of him, his one hand holding the reins, the other clamped around her arms, pinioning them to her side. She shook her head to clear it of the sharp pain and noticed as they turned at the well by the road that there were two others riding beside her, dark forms hunched over their mounts’ stretched necks to cut wind resistance. As their speed increased, her captor’s arm freed her so he could take the reins with both hands, and she dug her fingers into the horse’s mane to keep herself from falling. She wanted to scream again, to cry out for help even though she knew there would not be another house within calling distance for at least five miles; but she bit her lower lip to keep herself silent—she had no doubts at all that she would be killed as ruthlessly as her father had been if a single word escaped her. The wind stung her eyes, her burns subsided to a throbbing ache.
    She was alone. She had no illusions about that, either. She could not see how either her mother or Geoff could have escaped that inferno behind her, or saved themselves from suffocating. They were dead, all of them were dead, and she was left alone to … to do what?
    But there were no tears; they had all gone dry, seared from her eyes by the heat of the flames that had destroyed her home. In their stead, a slowly burgeoning anger that gave her eyes a steady, piercing look as she calmed herself for long enough to examine the area they rode through, to look for the means and the time to attempt an escape.
    S he was sure it was well past midnight when they reached a crossroads and the three men slowed indecisively, muttering to each other about direction and the rapid approach of the storm whose lightning