The infirmary's secure observation room was a far cry from the opulent detention suites reserved for high-born offenders. It was a sterile, white-walled cell with a locked door and a small, barred window looking onto an inner courtyard. This was where they had placed Seraphina Vale—not as a guest, but as a patient under guard, a compromise between arrest and care that reflected the lingering ambiguity of her guilt.
I was not supposed to be here. My "protection" was confinement to my own quarters. But Prince Lucian, in a move of calculated transparency—or perhaps a deeper test—had ordered that the initial interrogations be conducted with key witnesses present. He wanted no whispers of evidence being manufactured in shadows. So, under heavy guard, I was brought to an adjacent room, separated from Seraphina's by a one-way mirror of enchanted glass. I could see and hear her clearly; she saw only her own reflection.
