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“I’ve been here for a long time, and no one haseverfound a way inside. I don’t believe your arrival here is a coincidence.”

Twice more, she insists on testing whether she still has an effect on the spell containing me inside the chamber. I comply with her demands to walk down to the lower chamber, indulge her need to check the walls and floor, and even the stairs themselves, until the light starts to shift and I feel the pull of the binding strengthen.

“We need to go back. The binding grows stronger as night falls. It’s already pulling me back.”

“Why does it get stronger at night?”

“Those who created this prison designed it to be most restrictive when I otherwise would be most capable.”

“That’s … cruel.”

I don’t respond to that. Her sympathy, genuine or not, serves no practical purpose.

As evening deepens, I show her how the binding changes, moving to the edges whenever it shrinks my boundary, until I’m sitting on the edge of the mattress.

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

I nod. “By midnight, I’ll be unable to leave my bed.”

She walks over to me, and extends her hand. “Can we test it again?”

I reach out, even though the movement is difficult. When our fingers touch, it relaxes, though not as completely as it did earlier. Ican move my hand, but it takes effort, as though I’m pushing through viscous liquid rather than air.

“Interesting. Your effect is not as strong at night, but still present.”

She sighs. “This is more complicated than I thought.”

“Magic usually is.” I lay down, the pressure forcing me onto my back. “But we’ve learned valuable information today. Tomorrow, we’ll continue.”

She returns to her blankets, her expression thoughtful, while she processes everything she’s learned. I watch her from across the room, considering my next step. This first day of testing has exceeded my expectations in ways I couldn’t have predicted. She’s more powerful than I anticipated, her effect on the binding more profound than seems possible for someone not of this world.

And she’s proving cooperative, not out of naivety, but driven by her own desire to understand and escape. There’s an intelligence in her eyes I find myself respecting despite my best interests being to keep my distance.

Each day with her could bring me closer to freedom. Each experiment will reveal more about her capabilities, her connection to this tower’s magic, and her potential usefulness to my greater purpose. Yet something unexpected remains from today’s tests. The memory of her hand in mine, the first human touch I’ve experienced in years. The way her presence makes the perpetual silence of this tower less oppressive.

Dangerous thoughts. Distractions I cannot afford.

She believes she’s choosing to help me. She doesn’t realize thatshe is the key. The impossible, unexpected key that will finally unlock my chains.

What will happen after I’m free is something I choose not to share.

Chapter Seven

ELLIE

“The healer asks not what is broken, but what resists being made whole.”

The Healer’s Codex, ancient Tidvein manuscript

This ismy third day in the tower. Three days trapped in a world that isn’t mine, with a man I don’t truly trust. The blue-violet light continues to pulse steadily as I pace the circular chamber. I’ve examined every inch of these walls at least a dozen times, and still found nothing.

Sacha is sitting at his desk, same position as yesterday, same as the day before. His pen scratches across the journal’s surface, the sound grating against my fraying nerves. The steady motion of his hand never falters, patient in a way I can’t comprehend. His face betrays nothing of what he writes, nothing of what he’s thinking.

Twenty-seven years locked inside this room yet still incredibly composed.Twenty-seven yearswithout seeing the sky. Without feeling the wind. Without a single conversation or touch from another person. If our positions were reversed, I’d have clawed the walls to dust, screamed myself hoarse, surrendered to madness long ago. Howdoes someone survive with their mind intact? What has it cost him to remain so in control?

What day is it in Chicago? Is it Christmas Day, or has no time passed at all? My stomach twists at the thought of my apartment sitting empty. Plants wilting, mail piling up. Has anyone filed a missing person report? Do my neighbors evenknowmy name to report me missing? Have my friends tried to call me, or are they too busy with their Christmas plans to notice my absence? Has the world simply continued without me, sealing over the void I left behind like water rushing to fill a footprint in the sand?

The thought makes me sick. People vanish every day, and the world barely notices.