The dungeon smelled the same as it always had — stone and damp and the particular staleness of air that hadn't moved in centuries — but it felt different now, walking through it with Darius and Ethan while the party still murmured somewhere above us, oblivious.
Aeric's cell was exactly as Ethan had described. No broken lock. No disturbed straw. The chains that should have bound him to the wall hung open, but not torn — unlocked, deliberately, by someone who'd had the key.
"Someone on the inside," Darius said, crouching to examine the lock mechanism. "This wasn't picked. It was opened."
"How many people have access to these keys?" I asked.
"Officially? Four. The Warden, myself, Ethan, and you." Darius's expression darkened. "Unofficially, anyone who's bribed, threatened, or seduced one of those four people, or anyone who's copied a key over the eighteen months Aeric's been down here."
"That's not a short list."
"No. It isn't."
