MARGARET’S POV
The change of scenery was jarring.
That was my first thought when the guards shut the door behind me, and I stood again in the room I’d occupied when I’d first arrived on the island, before betrayal and captivity unraveled everything.
Soft linen on the bed. Curtains drawn back, filtered sunlight spilling across polished floors. A small seating area near the window, as though I could spend my days lounging.
It felt like a performance.
As if I were once again a guest rather than a prisoner whose freedom existed only within carefully measured boundaries.
The guards did not enter, but I could feel them beyond the door. Two, at least. Even without my psychic abilities, their menacing presence lingered at the edge of my awareness.
I forced myself to play the role Catherine expected.
Days blurred together, though not in the suffocating way they had in the dungeon.
Here, time moved again, marked by shifting light and the distant hum of activity beyond these walls.
