Kael didn't look like a man who expected to survive the night.
He sat at the narrow table in the lower chamber with his wrists bound loosely enough to move a needle and thread, yet tightly enough to remind him that every inch of freedom he still had existed because Cassian allowed it. The chamber smelled of damp stone and old iron, the kind of scent that pressed against the back of Sable's throat whenever she passed nearby, and even though she wasn't down there, she could imagine it clearly: the cold, the quiet, the way the air made every breath feel like it carried weight.
Cassian had made sure she wasn't part of this room. Not because he thought she would break, but because he refused to let Kael see her as anything other than the problem that got other wolves killed. Cassian didn't grant enemies extra information, not by accident and not by pride.
