MADELEINE COULDN’T STOP shivering, and she hated how it made her look timid more than anything else. The chamber they brought her to was colder than the cell she had scrubbed two days before. Cold in a way that wasn’t from draft or stone or shadow, but from the iciness of the people who occupied it.
Two Seraphs stood on the raised platform at the far end, their gold catching the light in hard, clean angles that made the rest of the room feel smaller. A scribe waited beside them, quill poised, eyes fixed on Madeleine with polite disinterest.
She kept her hands folded tightly in front of her apron as the guards stepped aside. The door shut behind her with a finality she understood all too well.
“Madeleine Amser,” Seraph Moriah said, her voice as sharp as the lines of her robe. “You tended the lower cells two days ago.”
Madeleine bowed her head. “Yes, Seraph.”
Lysander shifted, studying her with an expression that felt as sharp as glass. “Then you understand why you’ve been summoned. You were the last to see the boy before the Council intervened.”
She nodded once. “I understand.”
They made her kneel—not forcefully, but with expectation heavy enough that refusing would have been its own execution. The stone floor chilled through her stockings as she lowered herself down, old joints protesting.
