EVELYN’S POV
Normally, when one seeks air, one goes out, not down.
I am not one.
By the time I reached the lower levels of Nightfang packhouse—mansion, really—my erratic, tangled emotions had quieted.
They were compressed now, like pressure that sat beneath your ribs and expanded every time you tried not to think about it.
The dungeon corridors were colder than the medical wing. Stone walls swallowed sound and returned only echoes, while old wards hummed beneath the floors like distant insects trapped under ice.
Two guards stationed outside the final room straightened as I approached and gave me an acknowledging nod.
Neither stopped me nor questioned why I was here.
Like the medical wing, my presence here was a regular occurrence.
I pressed my palm against the warded door and felt the layered enchantments—containment wards, sedation wards, suppression arrays—recognize my magic before disengaging one by one beneath my fingertips.
