She felt them before she heard them.
Not Kael — No not him. His presence arrived like pressure, like the moment before thunder, but this arrived like a drop in temperature. Subtle. Deliberate. The particular coldness of something that moved without being felt and had perfected it.
Nearly.
She was on her feet before the ventilation panel in the upper corner of the room finished moving.
She didn’t panic. Panic was loud and expensive and she couldn’t afford either. She simply stood in the center of the room, tracked the movement in her peripheral vision, and breathed slowly while her mind ran through what she had — which was a stone room, a table, a chair, a pitcher of water, and whatever she was.
She was beginning to suspect whatever she was might be enough.
The man who dropped from th
