**SASHA**
Time behaves differently down here, stretching and folding in on itself until it loses any resemblance to the way it works aboveground, and I stop trying to measure it after the second time I am sure hours have passed only for the torch outside my cell to burn at exactly the same height it was before. That, more than the cold or the stone or the iron, tells me this place is meant to disorient as much as it is meant to hold.
Jack wants me untethered from reality.
I sit with my back against the wall, knees drawn up, eyes half-lidded as if resting, because I learned early that appearing passive buys space to think, and thinking is the only weapon I have left right now. The wolfsbane has mostly burned out of my system, leaving behind a residual heaviness that dulls my reflexes jus
