CHAPTER THREE:The House Without Windows

Elara learned quickly that time inside the house did not behave the way it did outside.

There were clocks, but they were decorative. There were windows, but most of them did not open. There were schedules, but no one told her what day it was.

The first rule of the house was simple:

Nothing is explained unless it must be.

Nyra became her guide—not a guard, not a friend, something in between.

“You can walk in these halls,” Nyra said one morning, handing Elara a folded map of the lower floors. “Not the east wing. Not the underground levels. Not the tower.”

“That’s most of the house.”

“Yes.”

Elara traced the lines on the map. “Why keep me if you’re afraid of me?”

Nyra shook her head. “They’re not afraid of you. They’re afraid of what happens if you leave.”

That was worse.

Elara began walking every day. She learned the rhythm of footsteps, the sound of distant doors, the way the house breathed—yes, breathed—through vents and hidden halls.

Some servants avoided her. Some stared like she was a story they didn’t want to hear. A few looked at her with something close to pity.

She hated that most of all.

Cassian appeared rarely. When he did, he spoke little and watched too much.

One afternoon, he found her in the library, running her fingers across old book spines.

“These books are older than the city,” she said without looking at him.

“So are some of its crimes.”

She turned. “Do you believe in the oath?”

Cassian leaned against a table. “I believe it exists.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

He was quiet. “I believe people are capable of terrible things when they think they’re saving the world.”

Elara crossed her arms. “So you’re saving it by keeping me here?”

“No,” he said. “I’m preventing it from ending the way it once almost did.”

“Which I’m not allowed to know about.”

“Not yet.”

“Ever?”

Cassian looked away. That was enough to answer.

The first real crack in Elara’s calm came at night.

She began to hear whispers—not voices, exactly, but echoes of sound in the walls. Sometimes she woke up thinking someone had said her name.

Once, she followed the sound down a corridor she wasn’t supposed to enter.

A door stood open.

Below it, stairs descended into dim light.

She didn’t think so.

She went down.

The underground levels were colder. Stone walls. Old lights. Long shadows.

She heard voices.

Two men were talking.

“…if the rival syndicate gets her—”

“They won’t. Dray would burn the city first.”

Elara stepped back too fast.

The floor creaked.

Silence.

“Who’s there?” a voice called.

She ran.

Footsteps chased her—not fast, but close enough to remind her she didn’t belong there.

She burst back into the main hall, heart pounding.

Cassian was standing there.

“Where were you?” he asked sharply.

“Walking.”

“That’s a lie.”

She lifted her chin. “So what if it is?”

He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “If you wander into the wrong place, you don’t just risk yourself. You risk everything tied to you.”

“Then tell me what I’m tied to!”

He didn’t answer.

But that night, guards appeared at the ends of her corridor.

Not close enough to touch.

Close enough to watch.

Meanwhile, in another part of the city, Nyx Calder sat in a room full of smoke and glass.

Nyx smiled like someone who enjoyed secrets more than power.

“The Drays have activated the Velvet Oath,” Nyx said.

A woman beside him frowned. “You’re sure?”

“Very. They’ve hidden their key in the old hill house.”

“And you want it.”

Nyx’s smile widened. “I want the girl.”

“Why not kill her and break the oath?”

Nyx shook his head. “You don’t destroy something you don’t understand. You steal it. Then you rewrite what it means.”

Back in the house, Elara began to feel something worse than fear.

Dependence.

Nyra brought her meals. Cassian brought her answers—small ones, controlled ones. The house brought her silence.

When you are isolated long enough, even a cage begins to feel like a shape you understand.

She hated herself for noticing.

One evening, Cassian brought her to a balcony she hadn’t seen before. It overlooked the city in full.

“Why show me this?” she asked.

“So you remember what’s at stake.”

She stared at the lights. “You act like I asked for this.”

“You didn’t,” he said. “But you inherited it.”

“That’s not how life should work.”

“No,” Cassian agreed. “But it often does.”

She looked at him. “Do you ever wish you could walk away?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Because when people like us walk away, others pay for it.”

Elara realized something then.

Cassian wasn’t cruel.

He was convinced.

And that made him more dangerous than someone who simply enjoyed control.

That night, Elara wrote on scraps of paper she hid under her mattress:

I am not a lock.

I am not a promise.

I am not theirs.

She didn’t know who she was writing for.

Maybe for herself.

Maybe for the girl she used to be.

Maybe for the future she still hoped existed.

Far away, Nyx Calder prepared his move.

And in the house without windows, the Velvet Oath tightened—not with chains, but with patience.