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“I can hear you thinking from over here.” That irritating slightly amused tone sets my teeth on edge. There’s always a hint of superiority in it, like he’s ten steps ahead in a game I don’t even know I’m playing.

“If there’s no way out, what was the point of yesterday’s testing?” I stop in front of his desk, frustration bubbling over. “Why bother with experiments that lead nowhere?”

He sets down his pen. His eyes meet mine, and for once, the distance in them gives way to something that might almost be real interest.

“Because your presence changed something.” His voice drops lower, a subtle shift that draws me in despite myself. “The way the binding responds to you isn’t just unusual, it’s unique.”

Yesterday’s discovery still doesn’t make sense to me. My proximity somehow weakens the magic that holds him, and mytouch allows him to cross thresholds he couldn’t before. But we’restilltrapped in the tower, and I’m no closer to finding my way home.

I cross to the table where breakfast has appeared, the same way it does every morning. More bread, more fruit, more of the strange meat I’ve come to accept. At least the food is good. But it’s another unanswered mystery of this place.

How does it appear? Who or what provides it?

Magic, Sacha would say if I asked, but that explanation feels too convenient, too clean.

The bread today tastes slightly sweet. I wonder about the hands that might have baked it, the fields where the grain was grown. Is there a civilization beyond this desert? People living ordinary lives, while I’m trapped in an impossible tower with this impossible man?

My fingers trace patterns in the condensation along the side of the pitcher. Three days, and I haven’t quite adjusted to the taste of the water here—slightly metallic with a mineral aftertaste that lingers on the tongue. It’s nothing like the filtered tap water, or bottled water I took for granted back home. Even the air feels different in my lungs, heavier somehow.

“What if we pushed it further?” The words form before I’ve fully thought them through, surprising even me. I set down the bread. “Your binding, I mean?”

Sacha goes still. Not the ordinary stillness of a person pausing, but the complete immobility of a predator sensing a change in the air. His expression doesn’t change, but his eyes sharpen, focusing on me. “Explain.”

“We know my touch releases you from this room, but what ifwe could break the binding completely?” My heart beats faster as the idea takes shape. “Not just stretch it temporarily, but actuallybreakit.Permanently.”

There’s a barely perceptible change in his eyes, a flicker of something raw and hungry that vanishes so quickly I’d have missed it if I hadn’t been watching for exactly that reaction. For all his control, there are moments when the mask slips, just enough to glimpse what lies beneath, and it’s usually in his eyes.

“If we can break the binding, maybe that will be the key to getting out of the tower.” I lean forward, lowering my voice even though there’s no one else here to hear us. “The tower, the binding. They have to be connected somehow, right? Change one, maybe we change both.” I meet his gaze directly, challenging him. “Unless you have a better idea?”

He considers my words for a moment. “And how do you propose we make that happen?”

I finish eating, wipe my hands, and stand up. “I don’t know, but we have to try.”

“So be it.” He rises to his feet, and meets me in the center of the chamber. “Take my hand.”

I place my palm against his. His skin is cooler than it should be, as if the tower or his imprisonment has leached some vital warmth from him. That strange current I noticed yesterday flows between us again. The sensation travels up my arms, raising goosebumps along my skin.

His hand dwarfs mine, fingers long and elegant, but marked with unexpected calluses along the pads and palm. They tell stories of work, of discipline, of skills stubbornly maintained long after reasonsaid to stop. These aren’t the hands of someone who has been idle for all his life. I find myself wondering what those hands did before the tower, what arts or work they mastered. What damage they could do. What they might be capable of now.

“Focus on the binding itself.” His voice is quieter than usual. His eyes stay locked on our joined hands with an intensity I can almost feel. “See if you can sense it while we’re touching. It should feel like resistance, like pressure pushing back against something that wants to be free.”

I close my eyes, and focus on the strange sensation where our hands meet. At first, there’s only coolness—not cold, just not warm—and the faintest movement of his fingers against mine.

Then …there.

Something invisible but undeniably present surrounds him. It’s like standing at the edge of a spider’s web you can feel but not see.

I’ve never felt anything like it before, and yet it’s strangely familiar. Like a word forgotten until someone speaks it, or a song half-remembered from childhood. The invisible bonds pulse with a rhythm that belongs to neither of us. They have their own heartbeat, their own will. They’re alive in some way I don’t understand.

“I think I can feel it.” I keep my eyes closed. “It’s like threads or strings pulling at you. Holding you back.” An unexpected wave of sadness washes over me at how completely they’ve ensnared him, how thoroughly they’ve constrained everything he is.

“Good. That’s exactly what it is.” His voice stays level, but there’s an undercurrent of tension to it. “Now try to disrupt it. Push against it with your mind. Imagine cutting through each strand.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Imagine severing those strings. Visualize them pulling apart, snapping.”

I try. I picture the threads again—long, silken cords drawn tight around him—and will them to tear. Nothing happens.