Scarlett’s POV

The room is sealed. Not locked—sealed.

I feel it in my bones the moment I step inside: the wards humming low beneath the stone floor, the runes etched into the walls responding to my presence like held breath. Candlelight flickers in a slow, deliberate circle, flames bending inward toward the center of the room as if drawn by gravity.

By me. The healer kneels within the circle, wrists unbound now but powerless all the same. She looks smaller without restraints, folded inward, ...