By the time night settled over the second floor, the bed was still untouched.

  Writ kept the same spot on the floor, only shifting to press her back against the door instead of the window. The wooden panel was firmer than the wall, colder, and the chill helped her spine stay straight.

  She traced the curtain with her eyes. How it breathed in the faint draft, how moonlight mixed with the garden lamps and slid across the floor in thin, shifting bands. Every time the light moved, she adjusted her breathing to match it, slow and controlled.

  The house sounded different at night. Walls settling, beams exhaling, the quiet hum of something warm in the distance. Everything slower. Everything heavier.

  She lay awake, staring at the floor tiles close enough that she could see the slight ridges in the tile. Her knees throbbed from hours curled tight. Her neck ached from holding alert. Every few minutes she stretched her fingers just to feel them, making sure they still obeyed. Flex, curl, flex again.

  She had stayed in the room the rest of the day, rising only when absolutely necessary. The one time she left was to slip to the bathroom next to her room after listening a full minute at the door, ensuring no footsteps crossed the hall. She’d moved quickly, head down, shoulders angled narrow, the way someone tries not to cast a shadow.

  She had finished her report as well. The one they demanded after the execution. Every word stripped of emotion. It was due tomorrow. Already reduced to a written submission, no face-to-face trial. She would rather not fail even that smaller expectation.

  Dinner arrived like lunch had. A soft knock, then Knell’s voice through the wood. Low, steady, not waiting for any answer.

  “Your meals,” Knell murmured, then footsteps descending.

  Writ brought the dinner set inside and returned the lunch tray to the hall. The report went down beside the untouched food, left neatly outside her door.

  Writ stared at the tray for a long breath, unmoving.

  Broth. Bread. A sandwich. Stew. Two boiled eggs. Water.

  Her body didn't want to cooperate, but she forced her knees to bend, forced her hands to move.

  The eggs she managed. Barely. Each swallow scraped her throat raw, and she gagged until her eyes stung and blurred. But she got them down.

  The rest... her own hands refused. Fingers locked. Muscles rigid, as if trained by different hands, different years, to freeze in the face of too much.

  She wished quietly, desperately, that Knell had meant the words as they sounded. Eat what you can. Nothing hidden. Nothing sharpened. Nothing waiting to be used as a mark against her.

  But Knell would tell Tiran. And Tiran never tolerated failure. The thought of the black box hollowed her chest all over again.

  She had no idea if it existed in this house at all. She had only ever been taken to the one inside the Hall’s branches. There was always one. They never told her where.

  Every trip had been blindfolded, conscious the entire time. Left in a space too small to sit upright, too tight to breathe without hearing her own breath echo back, too dark to trust she still had a body at all.

  One wrong thought in that darkness and she would split.

  She couldn’t handle that today. Or tomorrow. Or anytime soon. Not with her head already ringing like this.

  She shifted her hands over her wrist, fingertips brushing the dark ring of bruise. Even in the faint moonlight it stood out, stark and claiming.

  Magic, the fairy had said. Illusion, Caustic had guessed.

  Her breath snagged.

  Had Caustic been right? Had the fairy actually meant to sabotage her? To harm her? Did he—

  A sharp pain flared under her ribs, muscle locked from holding too much breath too long. She exhaled fast, controlling the sound, letting the pain cut the thought clean.

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  No. No thought about fairy. Not that direction.

  She focused on the pressure of her palm on the floor. Cool tile beneath her palm. Unforgiving. Real.

  Caustic had dragged her deep into Black Quill territory today. A setup, a ruse, a whole performance just to get her inside. He’d said it was to warn her, about the magic creature that—

  No. Not that either. Try again.

  Caustic warned her.

  And he’d said she could come to that office any time.

  Said any Black Quill stationed there would alert him if she visited. Said this would be the last time they met, unless she sought him.

  She pressed the heel of her hand between her eyebrows, grounding. The pressure helped keep the thoughts from scattering.

  Did he mean that? That she was actually allowed to seek him, allowed to ask for him? But why would she? What would she even need from a Black Quill?

  Everyone avoided looking at him when she followed him through the halls today. He was their marker. Their blade at the throat. What sense would it make to approach him willingly? Wouldn’t that only make her easier to assess? Easier to punish?

  It didn’t make sense.

  But maybe... maybe he had meant it. She still couldn’t tell why. Just like he had meant it when he told her Tiran fought for her.

  Tiran.

  Her jaw tightened until a pulse beat along her ear. She slowly unclenched and rested her chin on her knee. Not for comfort, just to stop the tension from crawling any higher.

  Tiran. That Tiran. Harbinger Tiran. The one who enforced rule to its sharpest edge. The one who never hesitated to escalate. But today he’d asked. Offered choice. Followed through. Didn’t dangle her for the Judges.

  She swallowed, throat tight, and rubbed her palms against her thighs to bring feeling back to them.

  Had he known Caedern offered her a division switch? The Judge and Black Quill surely knew by now. But did the information reach Tiran? And if it did, what would he do with it?

  Punish her for catching Caedern’s interest? For being... amusing? For the half-barbed jokes she should never have let slip?

  Maybe if she had stayed silent, folded smaller, none of today would have happened. No offer. No choking fingers digging into her throat. No fairy putting—

  Stop.

  No fairy.

  Her nails dug lightly into her arms. Sharp enough to anchor, not enough to leave marks.

  Think of something else.

  What?

  Right, today’s execution.

  The incident with Caedern had made them assign Caustic as additional guide. Caedern should’ve led the session alone. She was grateful he hadn’t.

  If Caedern had full control... would he have pushed her to open every hood? Every restraint? Just to watch her break? He already forced her to open one even with Caustic present.

  She let her head fall back against the door, a dull thud she immediately regretted. She steadied her breathing, counting silently to four.

  Could she have executed the second if she’d been made to unhood that woman?

  Probably. The second didn't linger in her memory. Yes, something about that woman scratched at the edges. She reminded her of herself, reminded her of her relationship with—

  No.

  No more of that.

  Her hand drifted toward her pocket, toward the pouch, before she caught herself and pulled it back.

  Skip the second.

  The third, then. Could she have killed him if his hood came off?

  She pictured the acid hissing against her glove. Too fresh. Too cruel. Too much. If his skin had fused to the fabric...

  Then death was a mercy.

  She would have done it quickly. But then, would that be seen as attachment? Hesitation disguised as pity? A suspicious mercy?

  Her stomach cramped. She shifted, stretching her legs out one at a time until the pins and needles flared bright and painful. She welcomed the sting. It cut through the thoughts.

  Or maybe it wasn’t about her at all. Maybe it was about him.

  Maybe it was punishment for a mistake. For something unforgivable. Or because he was being made an example. Or simply procedure.

  Either way, she was grateful she hadn’t been made to see what was left under that hood.

  She was grateful Caustic had stopped Caedern. Grateful he’d come to retrieve her before Caedern had too much time alone with her, Grateful for the intervention, however thin and sharp-edged it had been.

  Her gaze dropped to her wrist again.

  Maybe the bruises weren’t sabotage. Maybe the fairy really had meant to help her from—

  Stop.

  Her teeth clenched hard enough to ache.

  Why was she still thinking about him?

  He was gone. She had sent him away. Told him not to follow. He wouldn’t come back.

  So stop thinking about him.

  Stop.

  She adjusted her breath.

  Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Hold.

  Once more.

  Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Hold.

  She forced each breath to the same measured length, the same practiced rhythm she’d drilled into herself years ago.

  She had to remember her place. Everything unraveled because she forgot. Because she leaned when she shouldn’t. Because she let warmth in. Because she let herself weaken.

  It must not happen again.

  She needed to be stable. Functional. Obedient.

  Not weak. Not vulnerable. Not dependent.

  She was a zero. The brittle ones broke early and never recovered. She wasn’t brittle. Wasn’t allowed to be.

  She had survived that man. Survived Thorn Marching. Survived the ruins and the notebook, the interrogations and the executions, the Judges and the Black Quill. She could survive that fairy too.

  She should cut him off fully. Obey her own order: don’t follow me.

  That was the only safe path.

  Without him she could function. Without him she could meet Tiran’s expectations. And Knell’s. Without him she could remain useful. Not disposable. Without him she could preserve herself. Protect herself. And in the end... she wished it would protect him too.

  She cut the thought off immediately.

  One more breath. Steady, controlled, exact.

  If tomorrow is worse, she will endure that too

  This was the correct shape.

  The only shape she was allowed.