The first thing Felicity learned about being taken was that the lights never changed.
No warmth, no dimming, no shift between morning and night, just the same sterile hum overhead that pressed behind her eyes like a migraine that hadn't decided to arrive yet, and she lay on the cot bolted to the concrete floor and breathed slowly and took inventory the way Victor had taught her, chemicals and sanitiser and the tang of steel and the complete absence of salt, no ocean, no water, and that was the wrong thing, the first wrong thing, because in Tidehaven the water had lived quietly beneath her skin like a distant tide moving through bone and breath and now there was nothing and the nothing pressed against her stomach in a way that had nothing to do with hunger.
Her magic was wrong, too. Not gone, but buried, like warmth beneath thick cloth, and when she tried to move it the pressure collapsed before it reached her throat and the effort sent pain lancing behind her eyes and her stomach heaved and she gripped the cot and a speaker crackled somewhere above her and a female voice said "do not attempt ability usage" in a tone that was calm and almost bored, and Felicity went very still and the voice said "you are not damaged, do not damage yourself" and the lights brightened slightly and she breathed through it and thought this is not a prison, it is a warehouse, and the difference mattered, she needed it to matter.
She learned the rules by watching because watching was the only thing available to her. Cells spaced so voices didn't carry, movements staggered so prisoners never crossed paths, doors opening one at a time, and all of the captives were women, some already hollow in the specific way of people who had stopped counting days, and there were no mirrors and no clocks and no names because this place didn't want rebellion, it wanted erosion, and Felicity understood that by the end of the first cycle and buried her anger beneath compliance and kept her mind moving underneath the stillness because Victor would notice and Voss would notice and her husbands always noticed when something was wrong and she needed only to survive long enough for them to find her.
During inspections she stood where they pointed with her hands at her sides and her eyes lowered and she let the guards examine her skin and her mouth and her hair and she did not flinch late and she did not speak, and she noticed that the women here were expected to be weak, minor magic, no threat, so she leaned into that expectation and moved slowly and nodded when spoken to and let her power sink deep beneath her skin where no one would think to look for it, and she folded the blanket exactly the way they showed her and sat when told and stood when told and did not speak and thought about Luna and the marble in her pocket that was no longer there and thought about Victor pressing his forehead to hers before he left and thought about Voss's hand on her head and thought, steadily and without panic, that she was going to be fine.
Far away, Snow Team was coming home.
The escort mission had stabilised after the ambush and the traders were alive and the route was clear and Luna rode on Victor's shoulders talking endlessly about the glass tunnels in Tidehaven and the fish that had swum overhead like floating constellations, and Frost walked beside them quietly practising shield formations, and Victor opened his space repeatedly as they travelled, packing blankets and soft cloth and dried fruit, and Luna held up a crooked metal charm she had found half-buried in the dirt and said "she'll laugh at this" with great pride and Victor tucked it away and smiled faintly and they did not know, they had no idea, and the not knowing sat in the chapter like a held breath.
The change in the guards came before anything was said. Their movements became more deliberate and they avoided looking at her and she understood that something had been decided, and when they unlocked her cell she was already dressed and standing where they expected her to stand with her ears still and her tail curled tight against her leg, and the guard said "come" and that was all, and she stepped across the threshold and the suppression ward hit instantly like stepping into freezing water, her breath leaving her lungs as the magic pressed against her skin and forced her power deeper into silence.
The walk through the facility was methodical and she watched everything, upper levels clinical with clean concrete and electric lights and disinfectant, and then lower down the building changed, concrete giving way to older stone, electric hum fading, torchlight replacing the sterile panels and the air thickening with oil smoke and something more ancient, ash, the smell of places that held pain and had learned to keep it, and Felicity felt it immediately because places that held pain developed a texture and the stone itself seemed to remember, and the holding cells above had been temporary but these cells had been built for permanence, and the guards halted in a corridor etched with claw marks and scorch scars and tapped a coded rhythm on the door and it opened silently and they stepped back and didn't push her inside, they simply stepped back, and Felicity stood there for a moment before crossing the threshold herself.
He was the first thing she noticed, not his height, not even the long coil of a serpentine tail resting across the stone floor, but the way the room seemed to bend toward him, gravity quietly rearranging itself around the place he stood, and a snake beastman stood at the window with his back partially turned and one clawed hand braced against the sill like he was holding himself still, obsidian scales tracing the length of his arms and throat and catching the torchlight in dull flashes of gold when he moved, and his scent reached her before he turned, burning metal and hot stone after lightning and beneath it something unmistakably reptilian, warm scales and dry heat, and her knees almost buckled because her body had not decided yet whether to be afraid or fascinated and was attempting both simultaneously.
He spoke without turning. "Sit."
She obeyed because she understood predators, and the floor was cold under her knees, and her hands folded in her lap, and when he finally turned, the room tilted, and his eyes were yellow with vertical pupils focused entirely on her, and she flinched before she could stop herself, and he noticed, and his jaw tightened slightly.
"I do not want your fear," he said slowly.
Felicity met his gaze. "It's not a choice, sir."
He studied her for a long moment and then crossed the room and poured water into a metal cup and said "drink" and she accepted it carefully and the water was cool and real and clean and the relief made her head spin with something that was almost gratitude, and when she lowered the cup he was crouched across from her, close enough that she could feel heat radiating from his body, and he inhaled slowly the way a snake tasted the air and something unreadable moved behind his eyes.
"I'm sorry you were brought here," he said. "It's not how I would have preferred."
She nodded. The silence stretched and he said eventually "you have never bitten" and it wasn't a question and she shook her head and he said "you could" and she said "I prefer not to" and his mouth curved faintly and he brought real food, warm broth and dense bread and roasted meat, and set it within her reach without touching her and without rushing her and simply watched while she ate slowly with careful breathing and small bites, and when she finished he removed the empty bowl and leaned back and said "you know what comes next" and she braced herself expecting restraints.
He stepped past her instead.
"You'll sleep," he said, and gestured toward the bed, and she blinked at him and said "and you?" before she could stop herself and he said "the couch" like it was the answer that had always been obvious, and she climbed onto the bed slowly and the mattress dipped softly and the blanket came up to her chin and across the room Damien lowered himself onto the couch with his massive scaled tail coiling slowly beside him, and the silence deepened, and Felicity lay in the dark and thought about her husbands and thought about Luna's charm tucked in Victor's pocket and thought about the word mummy and felt something steady move through her chest that was not quite hope and not quite calm but was somewhere between the two and close enough.
She slept.
Above her, the world kept turning, and somewhere in it Snow Team was moving fast, and they were coming, and they were going to be very angry, and Felicity, for the first time since the lights had stopped changing, allowed herself to be glad about that.