Nain stared at him.
"What did you just say?"
Jhed scratched the back of his head. "Nothing. Just — thinking out loud."
"Okay but — Nain." He turned to her properly. "We need to get out of here."
"And go where?" Her voice was flat. "If we run, they'll kill us. Immediately."
"So what — you want to stay here forever? With—" he gestured at the room around them— "all of this?"
Nain said nothing.
Something had shifted in Jhed. A small, stubborn flame that hadn't been there before.
I need to get back. To my world. To something.
"What powers do we have?" he said, thinking out loud. "Between the two of us — what can we actually do?"
"I don't know mine," Nain said simply.
"You don't know?"
"No."
Jhed looked at her for a moment. Then — "You really don't want to leave, do you."
"No," she said again.
"Fine." He stood up. "I'm leaving. Stay if you want."
He crossed to the jail door and stood in front of it.
Iron. Heavy. Old but solid. A small barred window near the top — too high, too narrow.
The lock is on the other side. I can't even reach it.
He kicked it anyway.
The door didn't move.
He kicked it again. And again. Each impact sent pain shooting back up through his foot and leg. The door didn't care.
He kept going until his legs gave out and he slid down against it, breathing hard.
Not even a scratch.
He stared at the ceiling.
Mom is waiting. Linea, I mean. She'll be worried. I've been gone too long.
He got back up and kicked it again.
Nain watched him from across the room. Arms folded. Expression unreadable.
How stupid, she thought. He's just hurting himself.
"Wait," she said.
Jhed stopped. Turned.
She walked toward him slowly — like she hadn't decided yet whether this was a good idea.
"You're going to break your own legs before you break that door." She stopped a few feet away. "And even if you get out — where do you go? We leave this room, we're still inside the building. We leave the building, we're still inside the city. We leave the city—" she paused— "we can't. You said it yourself. A hundred gold coins."
"So we just wait here to die?"
She didn't answer.
Jhed sat down against the wall. Dropped his head back.
She's right. She's completely right. Even if I break down this door, I have nowhere to go.
Think. Think properly.
He pulled his knees up and covered his face with his hands. Just breathed for a moment.
Calm down. Panicking doesn't open doors.
"How long have you been in here?" he asked.
"Two years."
He looked up. "Two years."
"Yes."
"And food?"
A pause.
"The bodies," she said.
Jhed stared at her.
"You— you eat them?"
"I'm still alive, aren't I."
He looked around the room again — at the corners where only bones remained, at the ones that were newer. The full picture of two years settled over him like cold water.
She survived in here for two years. Alone. In this.
And she's still sane enough to have a conversation.
"Doesn't it make you angry?" he said quietly. "That they killed everyone around you. Your people. People you knew."
"None of them were my friends." Her voice was even. Practiced. "They all talked behind my back. 'She's so arrogant, she never talks to anyone, she thinks she's better than us because she's a princess.' So tell me — why would I grieve for them?"
Jhed was quiet for a moment.
She sounds like me, he thought. She sounds exactly like me.
"Then leave for yourself," he said. "Not for them. Not for anyone else. Just for you."
She looked at him.
"If you live for yourself," he said, "other people's opinions stop mattering so much."
He stood up. Extended his hand toward her.
"I don't want to die in here. And you shouldn't either." A small smile. "So — let's find a way out."
Nain looked at his hand for a long moment.