Elena did not sleep.
She couldn’t.
The chamber was too silent, too polished, too wrong. Every surface gleamed like it had been carved from a nightmare dressed in luxury. The silk sheets were soft enough to make her skin ache. The air smelled faintly of shadows, metallic and cold. Every now and then, the glass wall flickered with passing shapes, creatures of the realm sniffing at the barriers, drawn by her magic.
Cassian hadn’t lied about one thing: they wanted her blood.
And if the glass cracked even once…
Her breath hitched.
She didn’t finish the thought.
Instead, she wrapped her arms around herself and sat on the floor with her back against the wall, staring at the door as if sheer willpower could tear it open. Minutes crawled. Maybe hours. Time was slippery here.
She whispered D
