Mireya didn't step fully into the lab.
Not at first.
She stayed in the doorway long enough to let her eyes adjust and her ears map the space—micro-sounds, tiny tells.
Blue witch-lamps burned too steady along the walls. Their hum sat under everything like a held note.
A drip somewhere distant. Not water—condensation from pipes.
Paper shifting, faint, as if a draft moved through the room even though there were no windows.
And the smell.
Herbs. Metal. Clean wax.
Something sweet underneath it that made her stomach want to turn.
She looked at the table again.
Two chairs bolted to the floor.
Two sets of iron rings.
SILENT / PULSE.
Someone had planned their bodies into furniture.
Mireya's hand flexed at her side.
The part of her that survived by counting exits did what it always did—cataloged the room like a ledger.
One door behind her.
Another door across the lab with a Confessor mark on the frame.
Three cabinet drawers.
Two shelves of sealed jars.
One rack of instruments covered in cloth.
No people.
Not yet.
She moved.
Quiet, controlled, Silence tight to skin. Not the big kind. Not the kind that announced her presence. Just enough that her breath didn't exist in the room.
At the table, she didn't touch the chairs.
She reached for the papers stacked near the edge—lab notes held down by a bone weight.
Her fingers hovered for half a beat.
Then she felt the bond tug, sharp and uneasy.
Stellan had seen the labels.
He was seeing the room through her eyes right now, whether he wanted to or not.
Mireya didn't soften for it.
She lifted the top page and scanned.
Numbers. Dates. Measurements.
Then a phrase that made her throat tighten:
CONCORD SALT: BATCH 6 — STABILITY YIELD ACCEPTABLE.
So Vesna was right.
Not rumor. Not theory.
Inventory.
Below it, neat handwriting:
PAIRING PROTOCOL — SILENT / PULSE.
SUBJECT SELECTION: ASSET / WARDEN.
OUTCOME TARGET: VOLUNTARY BRIDGE → REPEATABLE.
Mireya's nails dug into the paper.
"Repeatable," she whispered without sound.
Her anger sharpened into something hot enough to burn.
She flipped to the next page.
A list.
Not notes.
Logs.
Rows of numbers and names replaced by marks—stamps, classifications, the language of ownership.
PAIR 01 — FAILED.
PAIR 02 — FAILED.
PAIR 03 — SUBJECT A HOLLOWED. SUBJECT B TERMINATED.
PAIR 04 — INVERSION EVENT. BOTH UNUSABLE.
PAIR 05 — "SLEEP-MERGE." SUBJECTS NONCOMPLIANT.
Mireya's stomach dropped.
Sleep-merge.
Dream rewrite.
They weren't unique.
They were the next attempt that hadn't died yet.
Her jaw tightened until it hurt.
She turned another page.
And another.
It got worse—not in gore, not in blood, but in the cold way the words refused to care.
"SCREAMING" written as a symptom.
"HOLLOWED" written as an outcome.
"DISPOSAL" written like laundry.
Mireya didn't breathe for a second.
Then her hand closed around the stack.
She started pulling pages free.
The bone weight slid aside with a tiny scrape.
She froze.
Listened.
No footsteps. No door shift.
Only the hum.
She ripped the top half of the notes clean off their binding and shoved them into the inner pocket of her coat.
Proof.
Or fuel.
She didn't know which she wanted more.
The bond tugged again, harder—Stellan's attention snapping to her hands like a warning.
His voice didn't come through the air.
It came through the thread between them—raw intent, no softness.
Don't burn it yet.
Mireya's teeth clenched.
She whispered into the bond, barely forming the thought: I will.
A pulse of resistance hit her—Stellan's refusal.
Then his words landed, blunt, like they always did.
We need it.
Mireya's fingers tightened around the remaining pages.
She didn't argue out loud. She didn't have time.
But her mind snapped back at him anyway, sharp as a thrown knife.
We need Mave. Not paper.
The reply came instantly, and it wasn't gentle.
Paper is how we stop them from doing this again.
Mireya's eyes stung—anger, not tears.
She hated that he was right.
She hated more that he'd made her hear it.
Mireya shoved the rest of the pages back under the bone weight and forced herself to move deeper into the lab.
Cabinets first.
She slid open the top drawer.
Glass vials. Powder packets. Wax-sealed pouches stamped with the sunburst.
Concord salt, measured into doses like medicine.
Mireya's stomach went cold.
She took two pouches and tucked them beside the notes.
Then she opened the second drawer.
A stack of thin folios—sealed with a Confessor mark.
She broke the seal with her thumbnail.
Inside: diagrams of bodies. Lines drawn where source magic "sat." Notes on "compliance," "pairing stress," "inversion triggers."
Then a line that made her pause:
TRIGGER CONTROL: EMOTIONAL SPIKE → INVERSION RESPONSE.
So it wasn't just punishment.
It was a switch they could pull.
Mireya swallowed hard.
She slid the folio into her coat.
Behind her, the air changed.
Not a sound.
A pressure shift—someone stepping into the stairwell outside.
Mireya went still.
Silence tightened.
Micro-sounds: a boot sole brushing grit. A slow inhale. Cloth moving—heavy robe, not guard leather.
A Confessor's attendant.
Close.
Mireya didn't turn toward the door.
She didn't run, either.
She moved sideways, melting behind the shelf of jars, keeping the table between herself and the entrance.
The door latch clicked.
The door eased open.
A figure entered—hooded, carrying a lantern that didn't flicker.
He didn't look around like a man expecting thieves.
He walked straight to the SILENT / PULSE chairs.
Like he expected guests.
Mireya's stomach tightened.
The attendant set the lantern down, then reached under the table and pulled a thin chain up onto the surface.
Two collars at the end.
Iron, etched, small enough to sit at the throat.
The man murmured to himself as he worked. Not prayer. Checklist.
"Rings secure. Marks aligned."
Mireya's jaw clenched so hard her teeth ached.
Stellan felt it through the bond—anger like heat on skin.
His voice cut through her mind. Mireya. Breathe.
She didn't want his help.
She used it anyway.
In. Out.
Controlled.
The attendant adjusted the collars.
Then he spoke again, softly, like he was comforting an animal.
"Don't fight. It makes the graft settle wrong."
Mireya went cold.
That wasn't a new line.
It was a line from the playback.
Meaning this man wasn't just repeating doctrine.
He'd been there.
Her fingers curled around her knife.
Stellan's intent slammed into the bond, immediate.
No.
Mireya didn't look away from the attendant. He knows me.
Later, Stellan pushed back. Not here. Not now.
Mireya's throat tightened.
Her hand loosened, a fraction.
Not because she agreed.
Because the footfalls outside the lab multiplied—faint, distant, approaching.
More people.
The net closing.
The attendant lifted his lantern again and turned toward the far door, leaving the collars on the table like an invitation.
He paused at the threshold and glanced back, as if sensing something.
Mireya held perfectly still.
Silence wrapped her like skin.
The man left.
The door shut.
Footsteps receded.
Mireya stayed behind the shelf for a full count of ten before moving again.
Her heart hammered.
Not from fear of death.
From the sick certainty that they weren't being hunted to be killed.
They were being hunted to be used.
Mireya slid out from cover and crossed to the far door the attendant had used.
Confessor mark on the frame.
Two ward locks.
She didn't have time to pick them cleanly.
She pressed her ear to the seam.
Micro-sounds: a corridor beyond. A faint, rhythmic hum—like chanting through stone. A chain clink. A muffled whimper.
Cells.
Mireya forced her hands steady and worked the locks fast—careful enough not to set the ward, fast enough not to die.
Click.
Click.
The door opened.
Cold air breathed out.
Not glacier cold.
Dungeon cold.
Mireya slipped into the corridor.
It was narrower than the stairwell, lit by the same blue lamps. Doors lined the walls—iron, each with a small viewing slit.
From behind one door, a sound came—thin, ragged, human.
A sob that kept stopping as if someone had trained it not to exist.
Mireya's stomach rolled.
She moved forward, one step at a time, scanning for the right door. The sublevel. The chapel annex. Mave.
Stellan's awareness tightened through the bond, sharp with urgency.
Find her.
Mireya's mouth went hard. I am.
She passed another cell.
Then another.
Behind the third, a voice suddenly rose—loud, broken, unfiltered.
Not a scream of pain.
A scream of memory.
A line, shouted in a raw, cracking voice like the person didn't know what else to do with it.
A lullaby.
A simple childhood melody turned into a weapon by terror.
Stellan heard it through Mireya's ears—and went still wherever he was, because the bond carried his reaction like a punch.
"No," he breathed, not to the crowd, not to Tess, not to anyone with a body.
To the sound.
He knew that line.
He'd heard it in his hut when the world was safe enough to pretend it stayed safe.
Mave's voice, singing it under her breath while stirring stew.
Mave's line.
The scream repeated it again, desperate, as if saying it would summon rescue.
Stellan's voice came through the bond, hoarse and sudden.
"That's her song."
Mireya's throat went dry.
Meaning Mave wasn't just "beneath the palace."
She was close enough for her lullaby to leak through iron and stone.
Close enough to be found.
Close enough to be lost.