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“It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Not yet. But it might, with time.”

“I don’thavetime. I want to go home!”

“I understand that.” His voice softens. “But consider this. If you can affect the magical structures in this world, then that same ability might also be the key to returning to yours.”

“But how?” It’s almost too much to comprehend. “What are you suggesting?”

“That we can help each other, after all. You affect the binding that holds me. I understand the magic of this realm. Together, we might discover what brought you here … and how to send you back.”

I don’t trust him. But that doesn’t matter when there is no one else here, and no way out.

“I need to think about this.”

He nods, and turns away, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

Now that I know what he’s hiding, it’s impossible not to see it.The way tension gathers in his frame. His movements become less smooth as evening wears on, like each gesture pains him.

Eventually he crosses the room without a word and lowers himself onto the bed. After that, he doesn’t move. He doesn’t sleep though. His eyes are open, staring up at the ceiling. Everything about it looks unnatural. As though his body isn’t obeying him anymore.

My own body tenses up, almost in sympathy. How must it feel to be held by an invisible force in one position for hours on end?

I sit on my makeshift bed, blankets wrapped around my shoulders against the tower’s chill, and try to make sense of everything he’s told me.

A magical binding. Invisible but powerful enough to trap him here for years—how many, I can’t guess and he won’t tell me. He doesn’t look much older than me, but something about him feels older than I am. Tired. Worn. The same walls, the same ceiling, the same silence. I can’t imagine it. I don’twantto. But the thought of it won’t leave me. The concept is so horrifying, my mind struggles to fully grasp it.

And somehow, I make it worse. Or better. I don’t know which. But reading between the lines of what hehastold me, I change the status quo.

I change something I don’t understand. Just by being near him.

What does that mean about me? Was I drawn to this tower because of it? Am I only here because he needed someone who could break it?

And what if I do? What happens if I undo whatever has beenholding him in place? Will he help me get home, or is there a reason someone went to this much trouble to keep him here?

And that raises more questions. What am I, if I can bend magic without meaning to? What else might I change by reaching for it? And what happens when he stops needing me to?

I curl up, pulling the blankets tighter around me as if they can shield me from these questions.

The tower hums around me—low, steady, harder to ignore than before. Or maybe I’m just listening to it differently now.

But one thing is certain. Sacha knows more than he’s telling me.Muchmore. And whatever his reasons for being bound here are, I’m no longer separate from them. I’m already part of whatever comes next.

Chapter Six

SACHA

“Where names are lost, identity becomes shape, movement, silence.”

Reflections on Captivity—Sacha Torran’s Journals

I risethe instant the binding lifts, the familiar relief accompanied by something new—a current of anticipation threading through me unlike anything I’ve felt in all the time I’ve been here.

For the second morning in a row, I don’t clear the center of the room and practice forms.

I don’t extend.

I don’t pivot.