Yenna said nothing.
But she listened.
Kael looked toward the darkness.
"I was only able to leave this floor a month ago. And I spent that month outside."
Yenna's jaw tightened.
A month.
To someone trapped inside the Tower of the Dead, that single word probably sounded like a feast described to a starving prisoner.
"How?" she asked.
"I was invited to Floor Ten early," Kael said carefully. "Not cleared. Invited. Something happened there. I was sent outside for one month and told I would be brought back when the time ended."
"That is impossible."
"Yeah," Kael said. "I've heard that a lot."
Yenna leaned back slightly, suspicion still there, but now tangled with something else. Hunger. Not for food. For answers. For a door. For the idea that the Tower might not be a sealed coffin after all.
"And you came back willingly?" she asked.
"No." Kael gave her a flat look. "I was lying in bed. In pajamas. Does that look like willingly to you?"
