Bianca Harrison's POV
I sigh, releasing the weight my memories have created. I try to move and realize, with a belated shiver, that I'm not in the room I was assigned.
I can see through the window that it's not quite dawn yet. I'm dirty. I smell of earth, of fear, of defeat. And I see a shadow on the balcony.
My heart races. My armor, the one I thought was made of steel forged in six years of silence, activates with a metallic click inside my chest. I know someone saved me, but I don't remember who.
The emptiness I feel is terrifying. I approach fearfully… and when the man turns, I see that it's Gustave Mackenzie. That stone man. The same one who looks at the world with the certainty that it owes him something. But in his eyes… I don't find harshness. I find something else: underst
