Page 85 of The Vespertine Treaty

Consciousness did not return like a sunrise; it returned like a drowning victim breaking the surface of a frozen lake.

Gasps. Needles of cold air piercing my lungs. A violent, shuddering heave of my chest.

I opened my eyes, but the world was a smear of greys and spinning blacks. My head felt heavy, stuffed with cotton and broken glass, the aftertaste of something chemical and sweet coating the back of my tongue. Sedative. I knew the taste. I knew the hazy, disconnected floating sensation that came with it.

I tried to move, to curl into a ball—the instinct of a wounded animal—but the ropes bit into my wrists, abrasive and unforgiving.

Panic, cold and sharp, sliced through the drug-induced fog.

My hands were bound behind me. My ankles were lashed to the legs of a heavy wooden chair. I was sitting upright in a room that smelled of damp stone, mildew, and ancient malice.

This wasn't the silver room.

This was somewhere deeper. The silver silk walls I remembered waking up to in the delirium were gone, replaced by dripping, rough-hewn rock. They had moved me. Or perhaps the silk had been an illusion all along.

"No," I whimpered, the sound scraping against my dry throat. "No, no, no."

I thrashed, testing the bonds, but they only tightened, burning my skin. I looked down. I was still wearing my nightgown—the flimsy slip of pale silk Cain had given me. It offered no warmth against the biting chill of the cell. It felt like I was naked, exposed to the stagnant air and whatever eyes might be watching from the dark.

Where am I?

The memories tried to barge in, a chaotic flood of images. The garden. Malathor stepping from the archway. The realisation that Caspian was never there.

And the needle.

A violent, fragmented memory flashed behind my eyes. I remembered raising my dagger, ready to fight.

But I never got the chance.

As I had stepped back, Poppy had lunged from the shadows to protect me. But a black shape had struck faster. Sybel.

I remembered the sickening sight of Rosette's familiar—a massive, ink-black snake—coiling around Poppy’s small throat, squeezing the air out of her. While the fox thrashed, Rosette had stepped forward, plunging a syringe into Poppy's flank.

Then Malathor had turned to me.

He hadn't used magic to strike me. He had moved with terrifying, clinical speed, gripping my arm. I felt the sharp, stinging pinch of a needle sliding into the soft skin of my neck.

"Alchemical sleep," he had whispered as my knees buckled and the world turned grey. "Straight from the Scholars' Quarter. No magic to trace, Ophelia. Just chemistry."

The memory faded, leaving me shivering.

Poppy.

The name hit me like a physical blow. Where was she? I squeezed my eyes tighter, ignoring the spinning of the room, and reached out with my mind. I reached for that strange, warm little tether that connected me to the fox.

For a terrifying second, I felt nothing. Just the Void.

Then... a flicker. Faint. Weak. Like a candle flame seen from miles away across a dark plain.

Alive.

She was awake. I could feel a distant, muzzy confusion coming from her, but it was far away. She was miles away. Too far for her to hear me. Too far for me to send comfort. But she was safe. She wasn't here in this cold hell with me.

A sob broke from my chest, a jagged sound of relief that echoed off the damp walls. She is safe. Thank the gods, she is safe.

The heavy iron door groaned, the sound of metal grinding on rusted hinges.

I snapped my head up, terror seizing my muscles, locking them tight.