You’re less broken than they bet on.” And then she walked out, heels clicking down the empty hall, leaving a silence that told me, more than anything else in that room, that I had badly misread the shape of this.

Perpetua was not a jealous girlfriend.

She was something I hadn’t accounted for yet, and I filed that away too.

Chapter 10 — The Lever

Silvia frowned at the empty doorway, thrown.

This was not in her plan, and a person whose plan is coming apart is a person who will tell you things.