The candle had burned out hours ago.
Bella sat awake in the dark, her back to the cold wall, arms folded across her chest. Eli lay curled on the mat beside the cracked water jar. Neither of them spoke.
Footsteps came just after the first bell. Not rushed. Not heavy. Routine.
The door creaked open. A man in plain uniform stepped in.
"You two," the guard said. "Up."
They followed him without a word. He didn't ask their names. Didn't need to.
As they walked, Bella kept her eyes forward, but her thoughts moved faster.
New assignments didn't mean relief. They meant a new kind of pain, a new place to fail. She'd seen what reassignment looked like for others - wrists torn open from slag hauling, burns from the forge, girls who returned from rat runs with eyes like they'd left something behind.
This could be worse. Or better. Or just different enough to hurt in new places. She didn't care which. But Eli did. And she couldn't stop thinking about that.
The halls still held the damp of night. Somewhere far off, metal clanged - tools being dropped or sorted. A bell rang again. Another shift starting.
Bella didn't recognize the corridors they took. This part of the compound was quieter, less patrolled. The floor sloped slightly downward, toward the far end of the main yard.
They passed a smoke chute, then a wall lined with crates. The smell shifted - still foul, but different. Old oils, sour grain, something boiled too long and left to rot.
Just before they reached the cooking center, the man in uniform slowed beside a wide metal door.
Bella saw the figure ahead and recognized him instantly.
Silas. Clean boots, quiet stance - the kind of calm that never meant safety.
He didn't nod. Didn't greet them like someone who'd seen them before. He just looked at them and said, flatly, "You'll report here from now on."
Bella's eyes flicked to the heavy door behind him. Smoke curled from a vent above it.
"This place is different," Silas said. "No guards inside. No bells. She has her own way of doing things."
Eli hesitated. "Who?"
"Merra. She runs the kitchen. Has for years. Doesn't answer to wardens. Won't tolerate mistakes."
Then he looked directly at Bella.
"Stay put this time. No more fences. No more counting. If you try again, I won't be the one who finds you."
He didn't raise his voice. Didn't need to.
And Bella understood what he didn't say: if it wasn't him next time, it would be alarms. Shackles. Blood in daylight.
He turned without waiting for an answer.
The man beside them pulled the latch open.
"Go."
The heat hit as soon as they stepped through - thick and bitter, heavy with woodsmoke and old grease. The air didn't move. Cast-iron pots hissed over fire pits sunk into the stone. Blackened beams overhead were streaked with soot.
The sound inside wasn't loud, but it never stopped. Clinking pans. Metal scraping stone. Spoons stirring thick slop in copper vats. Something bubbled. Something cracked.
A woman turned from the far side of the room.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Hands marked by steam and blade. A grey apron hung from her shoulders, stained darker at the hem. The sleeves of her dress had been hacked off long ago, and her arms were dusted with flour and something darker.
A white rag was tied around her head, pulled low. Her pale eyes didn't blink as she took them in.
"You're the new ones," she said. Not a greeting. Not a question.
Neither girl answered.
She stepped closer. "Don't speak unless you're told. Don't stand still unless you're dead. Got it?"
Eli nodded.
"Good." She pointed toward a mound of broken crates and rusted tins near the back wall. "Start there. Clean it. Don't ask how."
The girls moved.
No one else acknowledged them. A few younger workers passed - arms full of grain, one dragging a bag of rotting onions. No one made eye contact.
Bella found a rusted hook and began prying splinters from a broken crate. Eli knelt beside her, sweeping ash and rat droppings into a chipped basin.
They worked in silence. Smoke clung to their clothes. Bella's hands were raw within the hour. Their shoulders brushed once. Neither of them pulled away.
Merra returned to supervise their work, dragging a crate of empty jugs near the hearth and dropping it with a grunt. She didn't say much - just circled slowly, watching what they'd done. Her eyes paused on the scraped tins and the cleared ash pile.
Not perfect. Not to her liking. But enough to keep them here.
"You'll haul and scrub," she said at last. "That's it for now. Don't touch knives unless I say. Don't sneak. Don't faint."
Bella straightened, voice steady. "And if we don't mess up? If we do everything exactly how you want?"
Merra gave a half-smile that wasn't kind or cruel. "Then you'll be ignored. Which is better than most get."
She began to turn away - then paused.
Her gaze landed on Bella again.
"You've got strange eyes," she said.
Bella didn't respond. Just scraped the inside of a tin.
"Too clear for down here. Doesn't match the soot."
"I was born here," Bella said flatly.
"Plenty are," Merra replied. "Doesn't mean much."
She wiped her hands on her apron and kept staring.
"You Lilly's girl?"
Bella froze. "I don't know who that is."
Merra didn't blink. "No? Could've sworn. Eyes looked like hers. That grey-blue — the kind that doesn't dull, no matter how much ash's in the air."
She looked at Bella longer than before. "Back when she had light in them."
Then she turned and walked off without waiting for more.
Eli looked over once Merra was gone.
"Who's Lilly?" she whispered.
Bella didn't answer. Not that she knew anything.
She wiped her hands on her dress and stared at the wall, not seeing the mess in front of her anymore.
She didn't know the name. It meant nothing to her yet.
But someone had looked at her and said her eyes looked like someone else's.
No one had ever told her who she was. No one had cared to.
Until now.
And for the first time, she needed to know.
Merra knew something.
And Bella would get it from her - one way or another.