The hallway changed after the fourth turn.
The walls were darker here — not just in color, but in feeling. As if they remembered things they weren't supposed to. The lights dimmed, spaced farther apart. Shadows stretched long across the marble floor, and the silence thickened like a fog between them.
Naya followed Kael without speaking, barefoot, steady, each step echoing in her bones.
She didn't trust him.
But she wanted to know what he thought she couldn't handle.
The hallway curved again, leading toward a narrow corridor that branched off from the main wing. Here, the air was colder. Not from the weather — from the absence of life.
Kael finally stopped.
He stood in front of a door unlike any of the others. It wasn't wood or polished metal like the rest of the house. It was steel.
Painted deep, matte red.
There was no handle.
Only a keypad.
Naya's breath caught.
Kael turned toward her. "You said you weren't trying to escape. You wanted to know what I was hiding."
She didn't respond, but her eyes stayed locked on the door.
He tilted his head. "I don't show this to everyone. Most girls would fall apart if they even stood here."
"I'm not most girls," she whispered.
"No," he murmured. "You're not."
He typed a series of numbers into the keypad.
The door clicked.
Then hissed.
Then opened.
Inside, the light was cold and sterile — white fluorescents lining the ceiling. The walls were a pale grey, stripped of decoration or warmth. It looked like a lab. Or a ward. Or something worse.
Kael stepped in first.
Naya hesitated — just for a second — then followed.
The door closed behind them with a deep mechanical thud.
⸻
There were rooms behind glass.
Six of them.
Each one the size of a small cell — clean, empty, and quiet. One had a bed, still made. Another had scratches on the wall, counted out in groups of five.
But the third…
Naya froze.
A woman sat inside. Curled in the corner. Knees to chest. Hair matted and eyes empty.
Alive. But barely.
Kael stood beside her, watching her reaction. "Her name is Mira. She's been here two years."
Naya felt her stomach twist. "Why?"
"She tried to kill me," he said simply.
Silence.
"I didn't punish her," he added. "I just kept her here. Where she couldn't hurt anyone."
"That's worse," Naya said softly.
He turned to face her, that unreadable expression back on his face. "You think so?"
She looked through the glass again. The woman hadn't moved. Hadn't even blinked.
Naya's voice shook. "What is this place?"
"A reminder," he said. "For me. And now, for you."
"Of what?"
"That not everyone is strong enough to survive their own pain."
Naya's fingers curled into fists.
"You brought me here to scare me?" she asked.
"No." His voice was calm. Almost quiet. "I brought you here because you wanted the truth. This is part of it."
He stepped closer.
"There have been many before you. Some ran. Some fought. Some tried to seduce their way out." He glanced toward Mira's glass cell. "Some tried to destroy me."
"And Celeste?" Naya asked, the name tasting like ash.
Kael looked at her for a long moment.
"She left," he said finally. "I let her."
"Why?"
His eyes flickered. "Because I loved her."
The words hit harder than she expected.
"She didn't love me back," he added, almost as an afterthought. "But I gave her a choice."
Naya stared at him. "And me? Do I get a choice?"
Kael stepped so close she could feel the heat from his chest.
"I haven't decided yet."
⸻
She didn't sleep that night.
When he led her back to the east wing, she didn't eat. Didn't cry. Didn't speak.
Her thoughts were too loud.
That room. Those cells. Mira. The truth about Celeste. And Kael — calm, cruel, calculating Kael — who claimed to have loved a girl he'd once locked in the same mansion he kept her in now.
What was she to him?
A test?
A replacement?
Or something worse?
⸻
By sunrise, her hands were trembling from the weight of everything she'd seen.
But she didn't fall apart.
She dressed in silence, brushed the knots from her hair with shaking fingers, and sat by the window waiting.
Waiting for Kael to come back.
Waiting to face whatever came next.
Waiting to take something back — even if it was small.
⸻
The door opened just after eight.
But it wasn't Kael.
It was Leo — eyes wide, face pale, holding something in both hands.
"Naya," he whispered. "You have to come with me. Right now."
She stood instantly.
"What is it?" she asked.
He looked over his shoulder.
Then back at her.
"It's Mira. She's not in her cell.