Kai had lost all sense of time by the second day.
There were no windows, no clocks, no sunrise or moonlight, just the sterile glow of enchantments and the wet echo of silence pressing in from all sides. But he remembered Orlin’s voice, sharp and steady in the back of his mind.
"When you can’t tell time anymore, count. Count. Count until your mind stops shaking from it. Eventually, you’ll always be counting. Without even thinking about it."
So he did.
’One... two... three...’
Each second felt like a drop of water into a rusted bowl.
He tried to focus on the numbers, but it was difficult.
Beside him, Aliza and Kleo withered slowly.
They were given nothing to eat, nor drink. Kai, luckier than them, needed neither, but still felt the dryness in his mouth.
While the two girls got to know one another, he formed plans to leave, and scratched at the bars with his finger nails in an attempt to remove the sigils.
And the Devourer, that abomination cloaked in the headmaster’s flesh, breathed it in.
Every morning, she’d arrive with graceful, too-long steps and eyes void of colour. She’d inhale deeply through her nose, her chest rising as if savouring perfume from the orb in the centre of the room. And from Aliza and Kleo, the faintest wisps of golden-white light were torn from their bodies like smoke from dying candles.
---
The cold stone floor pressed against Kleo’s back as she lay curled against the bars of her cage. Her hands were raw from where she’d gripped the metal, and her lips were dry, cracked from the stale air and lack of water. She hadn’t spoken since they’d been thrown in here.
In the cage beside her, a girl sat upright, stiff-backed despite the horror of their situation. Her hair, once immaculately tied with a distinctive golden hairclip, now fell in wild tangles. She hadn’t said much either. Just a name.
Aliza.
The name echoed in Kleo’s head like a curse.
Aliza of Forne.
The name was infamous where Kleo came from. The girl who lived in marble towers while her people starved in the gutters. Who had family that loved her, cared for her, and basically ruled the world with her. A girl who wore silk while others begged for scraps.
She should’ve hated her.
She did hate her.
Or at least the idea of her.
The girl in the cage beside her didn’t look like a princess.
She looked scared.
They were both scared.
Time passed. The light from the torches didn’t shift much, but it was enough to mark hours, then days. Neither of them knew what hour it was when Kleo finally broke the silence.
"You ever been hungry before?" Kleo asked. Her voice was rasped, like it had been buried under rocks.
Aliza blinked at her. "What?"
Kleo shifted her weight. "Hunger. Not just skipping a meal. I mean the kind that makes your bones ache. Makes you wonder if you could eat your own fingers and still survive."
Aliza hesitated.
"Yes," she finally said. Her voice trembled like a lie. But then she added, "Once. During the War of Vex. My convoy got lost in the mountain pass. We ran out of supplies. Five days before anyone found us."
Kleo sat up, her expression unreadable. "Did you eat anyone?"
Aliza recoiled. "No!"
"Did you think about it?"
"Definitely not!"
Kleo gave a dry, humorless laugh. "Then you weren’t starving, princess."
Aliza looked away. Her hands clenched into fists.
Minutes passed. Maybe hours.
Then Aliza spoke again. "I’m not her, you know."
Kleo raised a brow.
"That girl you think I am. I didn’t ask to be born with a title. I didn’t want to live in a palace. I wanted to be a healer. I ran from the court because I hated how they used people. How they... fed off them."
Kleo frowned. "That supposed to make us the same?"
"No," Aliza said quietly. "It’s supposed to mean I’m trying."
"That doesn’t matter! Did you know my sister was taken away from me by the criminals in the city? Did your family do anything to help? Did the knights or guards? No! And then I learn that the palace, your family, is buying her? Royals aren’t to be trusted."
"I... I didn’t know. Truly. If I did..." Aliza wept.
The silence that followed was sharper than before. It lasted hours.
But the tension did settle between them like a pause in a storm. Quieter. Softer.
Kleo leaned her head against the bars, her restlessness and curiosity getting the better of her. "You ever steal?"
Aliza blinked. "No."
"I have. Thousands of times. Definitely lost count years ago. Bread, meat, potions, coin. Mostly from people who wouldn’t miss it. Sometimes from people who would. I’m not proud of it. But if I hadn’t, my brother and I would’ve died."
Aliza didn’t say anything.
"I think..." Kleo murmured, "We both got good at surviving the way the world let us."
Aliza met her eyes.
"And now we’re in the same cage," Kleo added, almost bitterly. "What a joke."
Aliza surprised her by laughing. Just a little. It wasn’t graceful or polished. It was tired and breathy and real.
"I guess... fate doesn’t care about titles," she said.
"No," Kleo said. "It really doesn’t."
A pause. A long one.
"...My name’s Kleo Targest, by the way."
"I know. Well, I knew your first name, at least," Aliza said with a soft smile. "You and Mirlin, or Kai, I guess, used each other’s names when we met."
Kleo flushed faintly. "Oh. Right."
Aliza extended a hand through the bars. "Friends?"
Kleo stared at it. Narrowed her eyes. Then reached forward and took it, dirty, bloodied fingers interlacing with the hand of a girl who once could’ve had her executed on a whim.
"Let’s go with ’not enemies’," Kleo said.
Aliza smiled. "Fair."
---
The headmaster came in again to suck their essence from the orb.
Kai watched it happen.
Every.
Single.
Day.
He watched the Devourer take. And take.
And take again.
He would slam against the bars until his fists bled. He screamed until his voice broke. He began to promise anything and everything if the Devourer would just stop. Anything, of course, except eating that accursed fruit she offered.
But she never did. She only smiled, thin-lipped and serene, as if his suffering was the wine to accompany the meal.
’I will make it out of here. With the two of them. Just you wait.’