Strax did not take Mercedes to a meeting room.
He did not lead her to the office, nor to the main hall, nor to any place where a diplomatic conversation could happen with tea, comfortable chairs, and carefully chosen words. After a few minutes of silence in the corridor, he merely gestured for her to follow him and began walking toward the deepest wing of the mansion.
Mercedes understood before she even asked.
The path changed.
The bright, well-kept corridors gave way to narrower, colder, quieter passages. The tapestries disappeared. So did the windows. The light from the magical lamps became lower, bluer, casting long shadows against the stone walls. With each door they passed, the feeling of being inside a house disappeared a little more, replaced by the presence of something subterranean, ancient, and carefully isolated from the rest of the property.
"You brought her here," Mercedes said.
Strax did not look back.
"I did."
"Instead of killing her at the castle."
"Yes."
