The prison was cold, all stone and silence and dripping pipes echoing like slow-counting heartbeats. I walked down the corridor with Charlie trailing behind, neither of us speaking. We didn't need to. The air was heavy with it—this mix of anticipation and fury and desperation—that had been sitting in my chest like a boulder since Levi collapsed.
And now? Now it was time to make someone talk.
We reached the last row of cells and stopped in front of hers.
Elder Miranda.
She was still in her nightclothes, clearly snatched mid-preparation for sleep, hair disheveled and eyes dark with lack of rest. But when she saw me, her mouth curled into a smug little smile like this wasn't all collapsing around her.
"My, my," she said sweetly, stepping closer to the bars. "You're walking around just fine. Apparently someone ingested the poison for you."
She smiled like it was a joke. A private joke she thought only she got to laugh at.
"How dare you," I hissed.
