Roxie's POV
Nobody in the room breathed.
The light from the pendant hung between us, and inside it my sister wept, and the curved knife rested against her throat, and I could not look away. I had spent days telling myself I hated Vera. I had built that hatred carefully, brick by brick, because hating her was easier than missing her. And now, watching her shake in those chains, every brick crumbled at once. She was my sister. She had braided my hair when we were small. She had snuck me bread when our father starved me. Whatever she had done, she did not deserve a blade at her neck.
"Move the picture," Aldric said suddenly. His blind face was turned toward the glowing light, but he was leaning in, listening, *smelling* the image somehow. "The walls behind her. Roxie, tilt the pendant. Le
