I started cataloging the symptoms on the third day.
Not because I wanted to. Because if I didn't give my mind something to do with the information, I was going to break something, and the only thing in this chamber worth breaking was me.
I used the blank pages at the back of the journal Judson had given me. The irony wasn't lost on me. I wrote in small, precise letters, the way you write when you're documenting evidence rather than feelings.
*Day 1 post-exposure: Elevated heart rate. Tremor in hands. Nausea upon waking. Metallic taste, persistent.*
*Day 2: Tremor worsening. Difficulty maintaining focus. Visual disturbances—edges of objects appear to shimmer. Taste now identifiable as argentum compound, likely silver-bonded alkaloid.*
*Day 3: Cross-referenced symptoms against Healer Maren's Compendium of Suppressive Agents, volume II, chapter 7. Match: Banned wolfsbane variant, synthesis requires controlled distillation at—*
I stopped writing. Pressed my thumb against my wrist. Three beats. Four.
The banned variant.
The one that didn't just suppress a wolf. The one that, with prolonged exposure, would prevent a wolf from ever awakening. Permanent dormancy. A biological lock with no key.
I set the pen down very carefully.
Then I picked it up again and kept writing, because the alternative was screaming, and no one would hear me anyway.
*Judson's tincture—cedar and wild honey scent—derived from same compound. Exposure duration: approx. 6 weeks, multiple visits per week, close proximity. Cumulative effect: would have resulted in permanent suppression within 8-12 additional weeks.*
My hand was shaking so hard the letters blurred.
He wasn't just manipulating me. He was erasing me. Slowly. Methodically. Every visit, every whispered promise, every time he pressed his forehead to mine and told me I was his—he was killing the part of me that could ever be anything but his.
I closed the journal. Slid it under the thin mattress on my cot.
Then I went to the altar where my mother had left the ceramic cup three nights ago, knelt on the cold stone, and used the edge of the cup to scrape a sample of the dried residue from the floor into the glass vial I'd stolen from the healer's storage two days prior. My hands were steady now. Steady the way they got when I was doing something that mattered.
I sealed the vial. Wrapped it in a strip of cloth torn from the hem of my dress. Hid it in the hollow space beneath the loose stone in the corner where the Deltas never looked.
I did not cry.
I pressed my thumb against my wrist and I planned.
---
Annalise came to the chamber four days later.
She didn't knock. She never did. The iron door swung open and she stepped inside carrying a rolled parchment tied with a red ribbon, her amber-gold hair catching the torchlight from the hall behind her. She looked radiant. She always did.
"Aria." Her voice was bright, almost cheerful. "Father wants you to look at this."
She crossed the chamber and unrolled the parchment on the altar. I recognized the notation immediately. The opening measures of *Broken Butterfly.* My composition. My howl.
But the title at the top of the page, written in Annalise's looping script, read: *Broken Butterfly—Original Composition by Annalise Fisher.*
"It's for the Crescent Vale Showcase next week," she said, smoothing the parchment flat with one hand. "Six allied packs. The Lycan Court is sending an observer. Father thinks it's the perfect opportunity to solidify our standing."
I stared at the page. At my notes. At her name.
"You want me to channel it," I said quietly.
"Of course." She tilted her head, her expression open and guileless. "You're so good at it, Aria. No one else could make it sound the way you do."
I looked at her. Really looked at her. At the girl who had worn my gift like a gown for nineteen years, who had stood in the torchlight and accepted applause for a voice that wasn't hers, who had never once—not once—asked me if I minded.
"No," I said.
The word landed in the chamber like a stone dropped into still water.
Annalise blinked. "What?"
"No. I'm not channeling it."
Her smile faltered. "Aria, don't be difficult. This is important. The Lycan Court observer—"
"I said no."
She stared at me. For a moment I thought she might argue, might try to coax or cajole the way she sometimes did when she wanted something from me. But then her expression shifted into something I'd never seen on her face before.
Cold clarity.
"Fine," she said softly. She rolled the parchment back up, tucked it under her arm, and turned toward the door. "I'll tell Father you're being uncooperative. I'm sure he'll know how to handle it."
She left. The lock turned.
I sat on the edge of the cot and waited.
---
They came at dawn.
My father. My mother. Two Deltas I didn't recognize. And Judson, standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, his hazel eyes unreadable.
My father was carrying a piece of white chalk.
He didn't speak. He knelt on the stone floor and began drawing a circle around the altar—slow, deliberate strokes, the chalk hissing against the stone. I recognized the symbols at the cardinal points. Wolfsbane sigils. Containment marks.
My mother stood near the door, her hands folded in front of her. She wouldn't look at me.
"Aria," my father said without looking up. "You're going to perform *Broken Butterfly* tonight. You're going to do it the way you always have. And you're going to do it without complaint."
I looked at Judson. He was watching me. Not my father. Not the circle. Me.
"And if I refuse?" I said quietly.
My father finished the circle. Stood. Dusted the chalk from his hands.
"Then we'll make sure you can't."
The door opened again. Annalise stepped inside, carrying a small wooden case. She set it on the altar, opened the lid, and lifted out a syringe filled with pale green liquid.
I knew what it was before she said it.
"Concentrated nerve serum," my father said. "Wolfsbane-laced. Enough to force your gift to activate whether you want it to or not."
I looked at Judson again. His expression hadn't changed.
"You're going to let them do this," I said. Not a question.
He didn't answer.
Annalise crossed the circle. Knelt beside me. Her hand was steady as she pressed the needle to the side of my neck.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. She didn't sound sorry.
The serum hit my bloodstream like liquid fire.
I don't remember screaming. I remember the howl tearing out of my throat, raw and agonized, the notes of *Broken Butterfly* ripping through me not as a song but as a detonation. I remember the silver-burn agony splitting every nerve, my body convulsing inside the chalk circle, my vision whiting out.
I remember the soundproofed walls swallowing everything.
And I remember, in the last seconds before the pain dragged me under, looking at Judson standing in the doorway.
He was still watching.
He did not move.
