Hope is a dangerous thing to a person in Elena’s position, and she knew it better than anyone.

For the first years of her imprisonment she had allowed herself hope, the ordinary hope of the wrongly accused that the truth would surely come out, that the system would surely correct itself, that no one could really be executed for a thing they did not do.

And that hope had been slowly, systematically destroyed, appeal by appeal, denial by denial, until she had learned to live without it because living with it had become a form of torture, a fresh wound reopened every time a door closed.

She had disciplined herself out of hope the way Mitchell had disciplined himself out of doubt, because for both of them it had become the only way to survive their positions.