The door opened.
A pale eyed man entered, his features partially obscured by the lamp in the hall. “Miss Hargrove,” he said smoothly, “the Undersecretary will see you now.”
The man who’d been watching her shuffled his papers, clearly eager to be rid of her as the new arrival untied her from the chair, but kept her wrists bound.
Eleanor stood. She had no choice.
The pale-eyed attendant guided her down the corridor, the cord still biting at her wrists.
As they walked, Eleanor counted her steps, memorized the pattern of the floor, and listened for any echo that might betray an exit.
She did not look back.
The Undersecretary’s room was disappointingly empty. No desk. No portraits. Not even tea. Just a bare table scored with old scratches, and a ledger so large it looked capable of flattening all moral ambiguity beneath its spine.
The pale-eyed attendant locked the door with an audible click.
Eleanor waited, perched on the edge of the table. The cord at her wrists had softened with sweat and stolen water; her left thumb—now numb—had already worked a shallow groove in the fibers.
She counted the seconds, and at forty-two, the attendant returned.
He carried nothing. Said nothing. Just stood inside the door, a silent measure of her unimportance.
“Water, please,” Eleanor said, letting her voice waver. “I do not feel well. It is the smoke.”
He did not move at first.
She laughed as though she were choking.
He scowled, then fetched a carafe from a sideboard and poured. The clink of glass was sharp.
Eleanor drank, coughed, and sagged.
“Will the Undersecretary be long?” she asked, voice faint.
He hesitated. “He is delayed. The inquiry is running late.”
Eleanor nodded, letting her head droop as if defeated.
Inside, she was anything but.
The attendant moved to the table and began working through a pile of forms, his pen slicing through sheets. She watched him, waiting for the rhythm.
Every third document, he paused to log the entry into the ledger, fingers leaving pale smudges on the page.
Eleanor let the silence stretch.
Then, in a voice more frayed than before, she said, “I need air. Please. I think I am going to faint.”
He looked up, annoyed. “Miss, remain seated. I am not permitted to?—”
Eleanor lurched forward. Her elbow caught the edge of the table and the cup toppled, water fanning across the ledger as her shoulder struck the inkstand. It tumbled, spewing ink over a stack of forms.
“Damnation!” The attendant lunged, snatching papers and dabbing frantically at the spreading stain.
Eleanor slumped and let her hands dangle behind her.
The cord slipped—barely, but enough.
