Chapter Three
Theo was feeling particularly broody. He'd dreamt of the two strangers again. This time they had been insulting each other back and forth, the tension between the two of them electric, as they walked their horses through the dense woods.
It had been several days since his father had last visited, and Theo was lonely. Even if at his best, all his father did was make Theo feel as though he wasn't good enough, he and Pips, the house elf, were still company.
Theo didn't think that a person was meant to spend this much time in their own company. He had his books and his dreams, but they were not feeling like anything close to enough these days. He threw open the window and sat there looking out at the world that he knew he'd never get to see, the trees and the babbling brook, the hills and the mountains beyond them.
His father had beat him half to death the last time he had asked to leave the tower. Theo still bore the scars of that ill-fated day. He tried to ignore their existence, but they hurt him in cold weather, the skin tight on his back and shoulders. Sometimes he pretended that he had once had wings that his father had cut away, wings that could have taken him far away from here.
Cheek in his palm, his curls fell into his eyes as tears pooled there. They ran over his cheeks and made his vision go blurry. He did not see the horses and riders that came into the clearing near the base of the tower. His own heartbeat drowned out the sound of their voices.
But Theo thought of the two people from his dream and wished more than anything that the quest that they must be undertaking would bring them to him, would make them his rescuers.
Theo was painfully aware that he was in no position to save himself.