Moments later we found ourselves ascending through the prison's internal structure, climbing stairs that spiraled upward in tight coils of dark metal grating that rang beneath our boots with each step.
The sound echoed in strange patterns, bouncing off walls and ceiling until it created this disorienting chorus of footfalls that made it impossible to tell if we were being followed or if the architecture itself had developed opinions about our presence.
The air grew thicker as we climbed, pressed down by the weight of stone and iron above us, carrying undertones of rust and old fear that had seeped into the very molecules over years of accumulated misery.
By the time we reached the top floor, my calves burned with exertion and Willow was breathing just slightly harder than normal—which, for a succubus, meant she was actually putting in effort.
The room we occupied was industrial in nature, stripped of any pretense toward comfort or aesthetic appeal beyond the bare minimum required to suggest this was a place where humans occasionally worked.
It stretched out in a perfect circle, the walls curving in a smooth unbroken arc that created this sense of being inside some massive mechanical component—a gear maybe, or the interior of a clock tower's main chamber.
The ceiling rose high overhead, supported by exposed iron beams that crossed at regular intervals and created geometric patterns of shadow when the light hit them from certain angles.
Thick rivets studded every surface where metal plates joined together, each one the size of my fist, their heads worn smooth by time and the constant vibration that seemed to live in the prison's bones.
The floor was the same dark grating we'd walked on throughout our climb, though here it was reinforced with additional crossbeams that formed a lattice pattern beneath our feet, and through the gaps I could see straight down into the depths below—several stories of empty air terminating in darkness so complete it looked nearly solid.
Pipes ran along the walls at shoulder height, painted in faded colors that might have once meant something to someone who understood industrial codes but now just looked arbitrary. They hissed and clanked at irregular intervals, steam venting from joints with soft sighs that added to the room's already oppressive atmosphere.
The walls themselves were covered in a patchwork of different materials—iron plates, sheets of riveted steel, sections of what looked like repurposed ship hull—all welded together in a way that spoke of repairs layered over decades until the original structure was completely obscured beneath generations of maintenance.
At the far end of the room sat a desk so wildly out of place it actually made me pause mid-step to process the cognitive dissonance. The thing was ornate—genuinely, elaborately ornate—crafted from dark wood polished to a mirror shine and carved with intricate designs of vines and flowers.
Behind it sat an equally incongruous piece of furniture, a lavish velvet chair in deep burgundy, its high back embroidered with gold thread in patterns that probably told stories I didn't have the cultural context to understand.
The juxtaposition was jarring in the best worst way—like someone had teleported a piece of luxury into a nightmare and expected everyone to just accept it.
The man occupying that chair was old in the way that suggested he'd achieved his age through sheer stubborn refusal to die despite the universe's best efforts. His face was a landscape of wrinkles so deep they created valleys and ridges that cast their own tiny shadows, skin hanging loose around his jowls and neck in folds that wobbled slightly when he moved.
He was round—not just overweight but genuinely spherical, his body seeming to distribute mass in a perfect circle around his center of gravity. A thin patch of white hair clung desperately to the top of his head, combed over in a style that fooled absolutely no one but apparently made him feel better about the situation.
Thick round glasses perched on his nose, the lenses so heavy they'd created permanent indentations on either side of the bridge, magnifying his eyes to comical proportions that made him look perpetually startled.
He gestured toward two chairs positioned in front of the desk with movements that were surprisingly fluid despite his age and size.
"Please," he said, his voice carrying the gravelly quality of someone who'd spent decades barking orders in environments that demanded volume. "Get comfortable. We may be here a while depending on how this conversation develops, and I find negotiations proceed more smoothly when everyone's backside isn't screaming for relief."
Willow and I exchanged glances—hers skeptical, mine intrigued—before settling into the offered seats with cautious grace. Oberen and the two crew members holding him remained standing by the door.
The warden leaned back in his velvet throne with a sigh that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his gut, his hands folding neatly across his substantial belly.
"I saw the commotion outside," he began without preamble, his magnified eyes tracking between Willow and me with an interest that bordered on academic. "Quite the display, I must say. We don't often get visitors who can reduce that man to a puddle of his own waste. Under normal circumstances I would've turned you away at the gate—we have protocols, paperwork, official channels that must be observed—but I confess, you've intrigued me."
He paused to adjust his glasses, pushing them higher on his nose with one pudgy finger. "So, what brings you two to my humble establishment with a bound prisoner in tow?"
I leaned forward slightly, resting my elbows on the desk's polished surface with casual familiarity. "We want to deposit a prisoner," I explained with my brightest smile, the one that promised cooperation with minimal property damage. "This particular specimen"—I gestured lazily toward Oberen without looking at him—"is a gambling lord who's made quite the career out of ruining lives through predatory practices. Many of his victims currently reside in your facility, actually, which makes this all delightfully poetic."
The warden chuckled—a dry, wheezing sound that shook his entire frame and made his jowls wobble in hypnotic patterns. Then he shook his head with the slow deliberation of someone about to deliver disappointing news. "I appreciate the poetry of it, truly, but I'm afraid that wouldn't be possible."
Willow's emerald eyes narrowed with suspicion. "And why not?" Her voice carried just enough edge to suggest she was prepared to make this everyone's problem if the answer wasn't satisfactory.
The warden sighed again, deeper this time, his expression settling into something approaching genuine weariness. "The prison is overcrowded," he stated flatly, gesturing toward the window that overlooked the courtyard below. "You saw it yourselves—prisoners packed together like sardines, fighting for space, building those desperate human towers in futile escape attempts. We're currently operating at approximately three hundred percent capacity, which is causing exactly the kind of chaos you'd expect from forcing that many desperate, violent individuals into a space designed for a fraction of that population."
He paused to clean his glasses with a handkerchief produced from somewhere within his voluminous robes, the motion automatic and well-practiced. "The overcrowding creates cascading problems," he continued, replacing the spectacles and blinking his magnified eyes into focus. "Sanitation becomes impossible—we simply don't have the facilities to handle waste from this many bodies, which creates health hazards that breed disease. Food distribution turns into warfare, with the strong stealing from the weak and starvation becoming just as common as execution. Violence escalates exponentially when people are packed this tight—territorial disputes, revenge killings, opportunistic assaults, all of it spiraling out of control faster than my guards can suppress it."
I tilted my head with curiosity that was only partially performative. "Why not transfer prisoners to other facilities? Surely there are other prisons in the city that could absorb the overflow?"
The warden's expression darkened into something approaching bitter amusement. "Ah, yes, other prisons. Here's where it gets interesting." He leaned forward, his chair creaking ominously under the shift in weight distribution. "The Maw serves a very specific purpose in the city's justice system—we're death row, the final stop for individuals deemed too dangerous, too criminal, or too inconvenient for rehabilitation. Other prisons won't accept transfers from here because it would contaminate their populations with these sort of individuals, create administrative nightmares regarding execution schedules, and generally upset the delicate political balance that keeps the entire system functioning."
He spread his hands in a gesture of helpless frustration. "We're stuck with everyone we get, and the city keeps sending more. The courts love handing down death sentences because it makes them look tough on crime, the nobles use us as a dumping ground for people who've inconvenienced them, and the Director occasionally deposits political problems he doesn't want to deal with through official channels. Meanwhile, I'm here trying to prevent this powder keg from exploding while my budget shrinks every fiscal cycle and my guards threaten mutiny over their working conditions."
The warden fixed me with a stare that carried decades of accumulated bureaucratic suffering. "So no, I cannot afford even one additional prisoner. Not one. My apologies for the inconvenience, but I simply cannot accommodate your request regardless of how poetic the justice might be."
I paused, my mind immediately shifting into problem-solving mode as I tapped my chin with one finger in that universal gesture of deep contemplation. The silence stretched between us, broken only by the hissing pipes and Oberen's quiet whimpering from his position by the door.
Willow tried to catch my attention with small movements in my peripheral vision—a shift of posture, a clearing of her throat—but I was already gone, diving deep into the mental gymnastics required to find a workaround to this particular obstacle.
The moment dragged on long enough to become uncomfortable, the warden watching me with patient curiosity while Willow's concern grew more visible with each passing second. She reached out tentatively, her hand hovering near my shoulder as though considering whether physical contact might reboot my brain, when suddenly—brilliantly, perfectly—it clicked.
My features lit up with absolute joy, the kind of incandescent delight that comes from solving a puzzle you didn't even know was a puzzle until the solution presented itself fully formed.
The transformation must've been dramatic because Willow actually jumped back in her seat with a startled squeak, her emerald eyes going wide as she processed the shift from contemplative stillness to manic excitement in the span of a heartbeat.
"I've figured it out!" I exclaimed, turning to Willow with an energy that made my words tumble over themselves in their rush to escape. "Our brothel's specialty! The thing that will set us apart from every other establishment in the city!" I grabbed her hands with both of mine, squeezing them with perhaps excessive force. "Willow, this is perfect!"
She blinked at me with an expression caught between confusion and cautious optimism. "What are you talking about?"
I composed myself with visible effort—smoothing down my dress, taking a breath, forcing my racing thoughts into coherent order—before turning back to the warden with renewed focus. "Would there be a chance," I asked with deliberate slowness, "that we could perhaps purchase prisoners from you directly?"
The warden's eyebrows shot up so high they nearly disappeared into his thin patch of remaining hair. "Purchase?" He repeated the word like he wasn't entirely sure he'd heard it correctly. "You want to buy prisoners? From a death row facility?" His magnified eyes tracked between Willow and me as though searching for signs of some elaborate practical joke.
Even Willow turned to stare at me with bewilderment written across every line of her face. "Loona, what—"
I held up my hand to forestall her questions, "Just hear me out. I've been thinking about what our theater's unique attribute should be—the thing that makes us special, that draws crowds and builds reputation. We've thrown around a lot of creative ideas, but the one that kept coming back to me was Grisha's suggestion about fighting pits."
Willow's confusion deepened into something approaching alarm. "Fighting pits? But you said—"
"I dismissed it initially," I continued, warming to my explanation now that the pieces were assembling themselves into coherent narrative. "Because fighting pits are rather common in the city and securing quality fighters would be a logistical nightmare. Just fighting alone wouldn't suffice—if we're ever going to reach the status of a top brothel, we need something more thrilling. Something beyond a little spilt blood." I paused for dramatic effect, letting the tension build. "We need stakes that matter. Real stakes. Life and death stakes."
Willow's eyes widened with dawning comprehension, her voice dropping to a hushed whisper. "You don't mean—"
"They're already on the verge of death," I said simply, gesturing toward the window and the courtyard full of condemned prisoners below. "Every day they wake up not knowing if this is the day the wheel lands on their number. They're living in constant terror of random execution, fighting each other over scraps, slowly going mad from the pressure. We'd be offering them something different. A deal I'm sure they'd be quite satisfied with."
Willow swallowed hard, her throat working visibly as she processed this information. "But you said before—back when we were planning—you said the theater should be first and foremost a theater. That our specialty should surround that fact."
I nodded enthusiastically, my grin spreading wider. "Exactly! And I have an idea for that as well, one that incorporates both elements in a way that's never been done before. I'll share the details when we get back to the theater and can properly workshop it with the full crew, but trust me—this is going to be spectacular in ways the city has never seen."
Willow looked puzzled but didn't reject the concept outright, her expression cycling through various stages of processing before settling into cautious acceptance.
She knew me well enough by now to understand that when I got this excited about a plan, it was either brilliance or disaster with very little middle ground, and she'd apparently decided to trust my judgment pending further details.
I turned back to the warden, my energy barely contained as I leaned forward to face him fully. "So. How about it? We'll take two prisoners per week to start—nothing that would strain your operations, just enough to alleviate some of the overcrowding pressure while establishing a steady supply for our needs. You reduce your population slowly but consistently, we get the fighters we need for our establishment, everyone wins."
The warden stared at me for a long moment, his magnified eyes unreadable behind those thick lenses. His fingers drummed against the desk's polished surface, creating a soft rhythm that filled the silence while he considered the proposal from every angle.
"The benefits," he finally said, his voice thoughtful, "would be significant. Reducing population even incrementally helps with the overcrowding crisis—less strain on sanitation, fewer fights over resources, slightly better living conditions for those who remain."
He leaned back in his velvet chair, which protested with alarming creaks before nodding slowly, his decision crystallizing behind his eyes.
"Very well. I agree to your proposal. Two prisoners per week, selected from the general population at your discretion within reasonable parameters. In addition, Oberen will be processed and added to the condemned roster effective immediately." He extended one pudgy hand across the desk. "We have a deal."
I shook his hand with perhaps excessive vigor, my excitement threatening to burst out of my skin in visible sparks. "Excellent! This is going to be amazing. Revolutionary, even. The nobles won't know what hit them."
The warden cleared his throat, his expression shifting into something more businesslike. "There is one last issue we should address before finalizing this arrangement." He folded his hands atop the desk with careful precision. "Do you have anyone specific in mind for your initial acquisition?"
My smirk grew wild then—absolutely feral, the kind of expression that made sensible people reconsider their life choices and proximity to exits.
I hopped out of my seat with enough energy to make the chair scrape backward across the metal grating, already moving toward the double doors that led to the small balcony overlooking the prison complex.
My fingers closed around the handles and pulled them open in one smooth motion, revealing the narrow platform beyond and the view it commanded.
The courtyard spread below us in all its miserable glory—prisoners still milling about in their endless patterns of desperation, guards maintaining their vigilant watch, the whole ecosystem of violence and fear continuing its perpetual cycle.
And there, right in the middle of it all, exactly where I'd left him, knelt the Boss's former right-hand man. Still hunched over. Still soaking in a puddle of his own shame. Still radiating defeat so complete it was visible even from several stories up.
I turned back to the warden with a grin that probably violated several laws of facial anatomy, my voice carrying across the industrial chamber with perfect clarity.
"As a matter of fact, I already have someone in mind."