They moved us at dawn.
Gray light. Cold rain. Lina on a stretcher, fever climbing again. Six guards around us with swords drawn, as if two half-dead girls were the real threat.
The north tower was worse than Room 13. Stone walls. Cobwebs thick as cloth. One torch that barely pushed back the dark. The air smelled of mold and old iron.
“You’ll be safe here,” a guard said without looking at me. “No one in. No one out.”
“What about my sister?”
“Healer twice a day. That is all.”
Three heavy bolts slid home. The sound echoed like a sentence.
I counted stones in the wall until I lost track. I watched the mark.
82.
Distance was supposed to slow it. So far it had only made the silence louder.
A soft scratching started at the bottom of the door. Too light for boots. Then a folded note slid
