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could see the panic in his eyes, the struggle to be free and come to her.
    The captive held tight to Sammy's right wrist, and she could no more have broken that hold than ripped away her own arm. The screaming inside her faded to a whisper—not gone, no, never gone now, but she could keep it quiet.
    "What are you?" she whispered then. It sounded rational, calm, controlled. It was not. She was not.
    "Name me and we will both know," he said.
    "I can't!" She stared past him, at the frozen-in-place form of her father, who was breathing in short, agonized gasps. There were tears running from his eyes down his cheeks, wetting his beard. "Please let my father go," she said. "Please."
    "If I let him go now, I will have to kill him. Is that what you want?"
    "No!"
    "Then he must stay there until you name me," the captive said. He was still writing with his left hand. He had never stopped, she realized, even as he held on to her. "What am I?"
    "You're—you're a demon!"
    "So speaks the Christian in you. What if I told you that this is my hell? And you are my demons?"
    "I'm not!"
    "Sweet Samarjit, you are exactly that to me. Demon. Master. Slaver. Monster ." He smiled wider this time, and she caught her breath at the sharpness of his teeth. "All these things, you are. And so you must name me."
    "Or?"
    "There is no or . Name me and I let you go."
    "What does my father call you?"
    "That's his name. It isn't yours. If you want to live, name me !" His face twisted into something no longer beautiful, and she saw his hunger, saw how he wanted to destroy her, her father, the Citadel, the world. He was a wounded and angry creature, hobbled and helpless, and it hurt to see it.
    "No," she said.
    He snapped her wrist.
    She screamed. It was a high, thin, shocked sound, more surprise than pain at first, but the pain came fast behind in electric waves that pulsed red behind her eyes. "Let go!"
    "Name me!" he roared and twisted her arm. More bones shattered. She shrieked and cried and battered at him, and while he broke her apart, one bone at a time, his left hand continued that steady, rapid scrape of chalk on walls. "Name me and live!"
    " Kaam! Your name is Kaam !"
    Oddly, she didn't even feel him let go. She only knew that he had turned away to focus on his endless, steady writing, and for a moment she clutched her arm close to her chest, trembling, unable to bear to move it . . . and then she realized the pain was completely gone.
    Her wrist was whole. Her bones were unbroken.
    Her father grabbed her and pulled her up and away, and she realized that he'd been released, too. He pushed her toward the door and advanced on the captive, on Kaam, with his knife. She knew he would kill him. She could see the rage.
    Kaam raised his free right hand without turning from the wall and his constant, rhythmic writing, and said, "Anger is not your sin, Chatar. Thank you for bringing her. Now tell her the truth."
    He was writing her name now. Over and over and over, in flowing white letters on black stone. Samarjit. Samarjit. Samarjit. Like a silent chant, madness and chalk on stone.
    Her father stopped. She could see his muscles twitching with the desire to act, to protect her, but he sheathed the kirpan and backed away. Then he grabbed her and hurried her out of the room, down the chalked hallways, down the stairs. She didn't care where she went now. Part of her would never leave that room.
    He pulled her to a stop at the thick plastic barrier. Through it, she could see the two soldiers standing guard, and the area beyond that was the world and not the Citadel. They were in the Citadel. That was the antechamber, worlds away. She understood now that what was out there was not . . . this.
    This, here, was real.
    The barrier, however thick, however secure, was not strong enough to hold in Kaam. All this high-tech security was a lie told by children to master their terror. A candle against a hurricane.
    Her father was breathing so hard that she feared for him. His