There's no safe way to return. She knows that the Maker won't allow it this time. This will hurt. She un-gloves her fingers and wraps two hands firmly around the arrow. Then with one Victorian boot digging into the tree trunk, she takes a deep breath and she pulls.
--
I heard it!
Back there.
Yes. Quick. Let's go.
Let's end this.
--
The forest settles back into silence. The last two giants will have heard the scream. The pain has left him unconscious again, but free at least. She takes the bottle, tips it into a large folded handkerchief and starts to wrap it around the loose, free arm.
The ground shakes.
--
It didn't sound like Loneliness. Maybe she's torturing him.
Maybe. But pain is not her style. She works from the inside-out, remember.
You think something has happened?
I do, Lustfulness, I do. Look. Is that the place?
Yes, yes, I think it is. Let's go.
No, wait. Look.
What?
The fire.
It's low.
It's almost out. Stop. Think.
Loneliness wouldn't let it burn out this quickly?
Something has happened.
Wait. What do we do?
Exactly that. Wait. Then we plan.
--
Silence. Well, back to the rustling of the trees anyway. She shivers as she drags the leaves over his shuddering body. His face is barely visible in the flickering firelight. There's a peace about him that she hasn't seen before. No more loneliness, she supposes as she smiles to herself.
Firewood. She pokes the smouldering ash-pile with a splinter of one of Loneliness's arrows. Orange sparks flick upwards in a cloud of smoke. Soon, the broken arrows are piled on to the fire and yellow flames are licking around them, hungrily.
--
So she's been helping him all along?
No wonder.
No wonder indeed. She's one of them.
Hmm.
--
Can't go back - it's not in the Maker's instructions. And this fight isn't over. She's there for a reason. But what? Will he wake up? Will the laudanum work? Two giants down but two left - and she knows how difficult they will be to defeat. For the first time in a long time, she wonders whether he will ever really make it against the twin foes of Hopelessness and Lustfulness.
Hopelessness and hope. In his bag he still carries the Photograph. Surely, it must show the full picture now? Surely it was what the Maker intended? Yet he clings to it as though his life depends on it. She almost wishes she could take it back, so that he could see...
What was that?
A twig snapping? She is alert, gripping a piece of broken arrow and on her feet.
Silence.
Her eyes dart to the pile of leaves and branches. Nothing. It must have been an animal of some sort.
She settles back to her tree stump and pokes the fire once again, turning the ash and shuffling the woodpile as it burns. Her face tightens with the heat. She is tired. Perhaps the giants will wait for daylight. Perhaps she ought to sleep.
"Hullo," says a voice in the darkness. She jumps and spins.
There, standing three feet away is a bob-haired woman dressed in velvet and crinoline, carrying a parasol and a small wooden box. She is smiling, prettily.
"How is he doing?" asks the stranger. "Oh, it's okay, I'm er, I'm on your side. I've been sent to help... by the Maker."
The Photographer breathes a sigh of relief and lowers the splinter of wood back to the fire.
"I am the Photographer," she says, lightly. I've been looking out for Matt for a while now, and he's... well... he's... I am sorry, what did you say your name was?"
"I'm the Apothecary," says the young woman, happily, "But you must call me Ivy."
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