Thirty-one sunrises that she watched through a crack in the boarded-up window. Thirty-one nights of praying to a God she hadn't spoken to in years.
Sofia sat on the floor, her back against the cold stone wall. She was thinner now, her cheekbones sharp enough to cut, her hands trembling from the lack of nourishment.
She looked at the door—the heavy, iron-reinforced barrier that separated her from the man she loved.
Every night, she expected to hear the roar of Alfred's motorcade.
She expected to hear the sound of the front doors being kicked off their hinges, the tactical precision of Max's gunfire, and the terrifying, beautiful sound of Alfred's voice calling her name.
But the night remained silent.
The hope that had been a bright, burning flame in the first week was now a low, steady ember. It didn't go out—she wouldn't let it—but it was becoming a cold fire.
"He isn't coming today, is he?" she whispered to the shadows.
She thought of Alfred. She pictured him in the ruins of their home, surrounded by maps and monitors, his face a mask of stone. She knew him.
She knew he wouldn't stop. But as the fourth week turned into the fifth, a terrifying thought began to take root in the back of her mind.
What if Julian was right? What if she was so well hidden, so deeply buried in this pocket of forgotten history, that even the King of the city couldn't find her?
She looked down at her dirty, tattered wedding dress. The silk was gray, the lace was shredded, but the emerald on her finger—the one Julian hadn't been able to pry off her swollen, cold finger—still caught the moonlight.
"I am still here," she breathed, pressing the stone to her lips. "I am still here, Alfred. Find the light."
Outside, the wind howled through the skeletal trees surrounding the mansion, carrying no answers, only the sound of a world that had seemingly moved on without her.
The thirty-fifth night was the coldest yet. The frost had begun to bloom like white ferns across the inside of the windowpane, and Sofia's breath came in small, ghostly clouds. She sat on the edge of the bed, her fingers numb, trying to rub warmth into her arms through the tattered, dirty remains of her wedding silk.
The heavy iron door groaned open. Julian Vane stepped inside, but he wasn't alone. Two guards followed him, carrying a small wooden desk and a single, flickering oil lamp. The light was blinding after weeks of near-total darkness, and Sofia shielded her eyes, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
"You look pale, Sofia," Julian remarked, his voice smooth and clinical.
He gestured for the guards to set the desk down in front of her. On it lay a single sheet of cream parchment and a fountain pen—the very one Alfred had bought for her when she finished her first draft. "The hunger is starting to eat at the edges of your beauty. It's a tragedy, really."
Julian leaned against the bedpost, the lamp light casting long, demonic shadows behind him. He unscrewed the cap of the pen and held it out to her.
"I want you to write a letter," he said softly. "A final one. Tell Alfred that you've realized the life he offered you was a cage. Tell him you've left the city with someone who can actually offer you peace. Tell him... to stop looking."
Sofia looked at the pen, then up at Julian. Her eyes were sunken, surrounded by dark circles of exhaustion, but the fire in them hadn't gone out. "He won't believe it. He knows my heart. He knows I would never leave him."
Julian stepped closer, his cold fingers gripping her chin, forcing her to look at him. "He's a man on the edge of a breakdown, Sofia.
He hasn't slept in a month. He's burning his own warehouses in his rage. If he receives a letter in your hand, written with the pen he gave you... the doubt will do what my bombs couldn't. It will shatter him."
Sofia pushed his hand away, her voice a raspy, defiant whisper. "I will die in this dust before I help you kill him."
Julian's expression didn't change, but the air in the room grew several degrees colder. He turned to the guards. "No more bread. No more water. And take the blanket."
One of the guards stepped forward, ripping the tattered velvet coverlet from the bed, leaving Sofia exposed to the biting draft.
"You think you're being strong," Julian said, walking toward the door. "But a writer should know that every story needs an ending. If you won't write the one I want, I'll let the cold write the one you deserve."
When the door slammed shut, Sofia was left in total darkness again. She curled into a ball on the bare, stained mattress, her body shaking so hard her bones felt like they were vibrating.
She thought of Alfred.
She pictured him standing on the balcony of the mansion, looking out at the city he no longer cared to rule. She imagined the hollow look in his eyes, the way he probably touched the empty side of the bed every night.
"Don't listen to the silence, Alfred," she breathed into the dark, her voice barely a ghost of a sound. "I'm still here. I'm still writing our ending."
She reached out in the dark, her fingers finding the wood of the headboard where she had scratched her secret messages. She traced the letters of his name over and over, using the tactile sensation to keep her mind from drifting into the delirium of hunger.
A month had passed. The world thought she was a memory. But as Sofia closed her eyes, she didn't see the gray walls of her prison. She saw the emerald green of the island, the warmth of Alfred's hand in hers, and the promise that as long as she was breathing, the story wasn't over.