I don’t remember how breakfast ended.

  I remember the door closing. The echo. The silence that followed—me collapsing to my knees with Elisabeth holding me, Lorcan watching me closely.

  After that, nothing is clear.

  I spent the rest of the day locked inside the guest room.

  My cage inside another cage.

  I didn’t come down for lunch.

  At some point, I thought I heard someone leaving a tray outside my door—only to take it away hours later.

  I didn’t sleep. But I wasn’t fully awake either.

  I stared at my phone for hours, chasing dopamine. Not really reading anything. Just scrolling through news, short videos, photos. People living normal lives that no longer belonged to me.

  That helped. thinking.

  I had unanswered messages. From Carmen. From Gabriel. From numbers I hadn’t saved.

  Every now and then I checked the clock, just to make sure time was still moving.

  Thirty-six hours.

  The number wouldn’t leave me alone.

  Still, I didn’t think about Lucian.

  I didn’t think about Lorcan.

  I didn’t think about the cage.

  I thought about what came after.

  Right now, all I could do was exist and let time pass.

  Even if it hurt.

  There’s a knock on the door.

  “Elena? Are you awake?”

  It’s Elisabeth. She sounds worried.

  “Dinner is ready. Why don’t you come down?”

  I get off the bed and open the door. Elisabeth is standing there. She doesn’t seem surprised to see me wearing the same clothes as this morning, as if the day hadn’t moved forward at all. Her expression is gentle.

  I can smell dinner. She made cheeseburgers, or so I think. On any other day, I wouldn’t be walking—I’d be running to the kitchen. But today…

  “I’m not hungry,” I say softly.

  Elisabeth sighs, understanding. She doesn’t insist. Somehow, that almost bothers me more.

  “Alright,” she says. “I just wanted to ask.”

  She takes a couple of steps back. I stay by the doorway.

  “Are you sure?”

  I nod. I don’t trust my voice.

  She watches me for another second, like she wants to say something and decides not to.

  “Okay,” she says. “I’ll leave them in the oven in case you get hungry later.”

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. Elisabeth.”

  She turns and walks down the hallway. Not rushed—but determined.

  I close the door once she’s out of sight.

  Back to the bed. I fall onto my back and reach for my phone—more numbing.

  Time feels strange.

  I hear the beast wake up and leave. Lorcan must have gone somewhere.

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  A while later, I hear footsteps approaching my room—and a familiar clinking sound. This time, there’s no knock. The door opens abruptly, startling me.

  It’s Elisabeth.

  She’s carrying wine and two glasses.

  “This isn’t a visit, Elena,” she says. “It’s a minor invasion.”

  She pours wine into both glasses with offensively casual confidence and sets the bottle on the table. I can’t process an appropriate response.

  “You said you weren’t hungry. You didn’t say anything about not wanting company.”

  “Mrs. Elisabeth, I—”

  “I’m not here to convince you of anything,” she interrupts, sliding a glass toward me. “Or to lecture you about anything. Unless you ask—I’m very good at that.”

  She takes a sip and sits on the chair across from me, crossing her legs. I just stare at her.

  “I only know you’ve been alone and locked up all day,” she continues, “so you probably need someone who actually listens.”

  Silence. The wine smells good.

  “If you don’t want to talk, we drink. If you want to scream, go ahead—Lorcan isn’t home and the rooms are soundproof anyway. But I’m not leaving. Because this is my house.”

  She doesn’t say because I care.

  She doesn’t say because it’s my duty.

  That makes it much harder to refuse.

  I can only laugh and take a sip. The wine is light and sweet.

  “I don’t know where to start,” I say.

  “Don’t start,” Elisabeth replies, lifting her glass. “Drink.”

  I don’t know when the first bottle emptied.

  I vaguely remember talking about Carmen. About the podcast. About how unfair it was that the world kept going while mine seemed to shrink. I might have cried. Quietly.

  “And then Lorcan wipes both their memories!” I say, shaking my glass and biting into one of the burgers Elisabeth left for me. “I get why he did it, but I thought I’d, maybe, at least have someone to talk to about… Well, you know...”

  “It was only preventive,” Elisabeth says. “For the trauma. As long as they don’t cross their Threshold, you can still see them and tell them whatever you want.”

  I stare at her.

  “Really?”

  “Do you think we teach control to our clients?” she replies. “Most of them just say ‘thanks for the help, I don’t want to know how you did it, here—take the keys to my car.’ Trust me. The less they know, the better. Just make sure they don't cross their own Thresholds.”

  “Well…” I take another sip. “Good to know.”

  The second bottle appears without ceremony.

  Elisabeth doesn’t rush me—but she doesn’t let me sink either. Every time my thoughts start looping, she cuts in with a precise sentence, surgical—like everything she does.

  “Don’t overthink it,” she says. “When you’re scared, you never say anything new.”

  That makes me laugh, even though I hate that she’s right.

  I don’t see her open the third bottle.

  I only remember the sound of glass touching the table—and her voice, lower now. More honest.

  “Elena,” she says, resting her elbow on the table. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  I look up. The room tilts slightly.

  “I was going to ask you today,” I say first. “Training. This morning. At breakfast. Before Lucian showed up.”

  She doesn’t look surprised.

  “I know,” she says.

  I blink.

  “What do you mean, you know?”

  “Because you were staring at me all morning like you wanted to ask for something,” she replies. “And because… I’d already thought about recommending it myself.”

  I fall silent. The wine doesn’t taste sweet anymore.

  “Then… why didn’t you say anything?”

  She turns her glass slowly in her hand.

  “Because I couldn’t,” she says. “Not without turning this into a political incident.”

  I frown.

  “It didn’t take us long to figure out your brother was the paladin,” she continues. “Formally training you could be seen by certain people as a provocation. And that could ignite things that don’t go out easily.”

  “What—like a crusade?”

  “Exactly.”

  She sets her glass down with a sharp sound.

  “If it looked like we were only containing you, it’s because that’s all we were allowed to do. The Council would’ve erased you—and that would’ve made everything worse. We couldn’t teach you control. Only protect you. I thought we were doing the right thing… but maybe I was wrong.”

  She stares into the distance. I’ve never seen her like this.

  “At the crossroads of my life,” she continues softly, “I usually knew which path was right. And I almost always chose the wrong one.”

  I look at her. There’s no irony.

  “Sometimes out of fear. Sometimes out of love. Sometimes because the right path demanded too much—and I didn’t want to pay it.” She shrugs. “And here I am. Alive. Tired. Not entirely regretful.”

  She meets my gaze.

  “I won’t stop you,” she says at last. “If you decide to go with your brother, I won’t put new chains on you. I don’t think Lorcan will either—though he’ll definitely try.”

  We share a brief laugh.

  “Life is a series of crossroads,” she adds. “Some obvious. Some invisible. But none of them are crossed without losing something.”

  She leans closer.

  “All that’s left afterward is living with the outcome. And moving forward. Even if it hurts. Even if it’s not the right path. But without turning your back on life. We’re all going to die anyway. The question is whether you’re going to live until then.”

  She raises her glass.

  “, Elena.”

  I clink my glass against hers.

  “, right?” I reply with a faint smile.

  For the first time that day, the weight eases a little.

  Just in time. I hear Lorcan returning to the mansion.

  Thirty-six hours.

  Too little time to decide a life.

  Enough time to make sure no one takes it from me without a fight.