Thread by @TheEdVerse

1)
“Chant,” Wolf says suddenly, “see yon door? Open it—WARILY—and see if there’s a loose spline of wood in the edge, below the latch.”
“Done. There is. Safe to pull out?”
“Yes. Hold to the spline, it’ll become a handle.”
#epicfantasy

2)
Chant does so—and finds herself holding a “U” of wood: the spline, a top-bar, and a second, longer flat stick, that has a cord wrapped around and around it, ending in a tie to a hole in the stick’s bottom end, and with the…
#epicfantasy

3)
…top pinched in a wooden jaw at the top end. Chant looks at Wolf. “You pre-prepare for hauling up errant courtiers in this wing of the Palace?”
“Preparation for trussing captives, actually.”
“Ah. That’s more the Wolf I know.”
#epicfantasy

4)
Chant works the upper end of the cord out of the jaw, to lower it down to Palonder, then stops when she notices something slipped over it: a “sleeve” of matching cord. “For the cord taut, over rough edges?”
#epicfantasy

5)
“It’s a gag, actually.”
“Ah. For these same captives, or bondage play?”
“Yes.”
Chant gives Wolf a look. “THAT’S the Wolf I know.”
#epicfantasy