Her voice was tender, but Will heard the iron certainty at its core, felt it as a bittersweet twinge within his chest. He wanted to believe he could be the person she saw, just as he wanted to believe that a tapestry spun of fairy tales could deliver a happily ever after. He wanted it so badly that it pained him.
This whole day, he'd spent plugging metaphorical cracks, tightening their defences, scouring every meagre clue, rallying the troops. Saying the stuff you're supposed to say, like we're gonna bring them back and he ain't getting any more of us, as though the act of voicing it might make it feel true again.
The whole sleepless night before, he'd spent hopelessly sifting through dead ends and shitty, shitty plans, each one less likely to work than the last.
"I remember 'em all, y'know," he said hoarsely. "Every time the Sheriff... 'sall the one story, o' course, but he allus managed to twist the knife with every telling. Sometimes it was straight to the hanging tree. Sometimes he throwed me in the cells for a few weeks, let the lice and the cold have their turn first. One time he strung me up in the town square, to make an example..." Forty lashes. When Will had lost consciousness, the Sheriff had doused him in cold water to rouse him, then started the count all over again. "That could be them right now. He could be doing anything." He heard, in his own voice, Tuck's frantic words echoed back at him, and gave a low groan.