Chapter 299: Castile versus Konstantin Castile looked over the young mage on the bed that Eryk had left her to deal with. She was probably attractive under the gag and all the grime. She sighed as she pulled out the short knife hidden on her hip and cut the cordage and leather straps binding her ankles, but left her hands tied. Eryk had gone overboard with securing her, and she didn’t want to waste time unraveling the knots.She wondered what he meant when he said he was rough with her, but doubted he had abused the woman. It wasn’t in his nature, but then again, she had been wrong about so many men in her lifetime. He also couldn’t escape fast enough from the room after depositing her—so maybe he had some guilt about how he had treated her. It was still unfathomable to her that he could store people in his dimensional space. She guessed she was even now underestimating its size.Next, she checked the bandage wrapped around the woman’s thigh. It was still wet with blood and hadn’t clotted completely. The mage poison must be new to the Hounds, as she had never heard of it, or perhaps it was a secret that Erk was not supposed to share. Since they frequently hunted rogue mages, it made sense that they would have ways to deal with them. She cleaned the wound and put on a fresh dressing. Eryk had mentioned that healing potions would be less effective until the poison cleared her body, so maybe that could wait until after she awoke and could access her core.She left the gag on for now and moved to the writing desk with Selene’s pack. She started emptying it and laying out its contents. The woman had certainly taken a small fortune: stacks of gold and silver and two modest piles of jewelry. She searched the jewelry, but didn’t find anything that excited her aetheric probing.