Lena was not taken back to the shared maid dorm that night. Instead she was moved to a smaller chamber in the inner palace. The room had only one bed, one window, and one locked door. The sheets were soft. The door felt like a wall.

It was not a cell. But it was not freedom.

A young attendant brought her a basin of warm water and a folded set of clothes. “You are to wear this now,” the girl said quietly.

The fabric was finer than what the other maids wore. Pale gray with a thin band of red at the sleeve. Lena ran her fingers over it. “What does the red mean.”

“It marks service to the royal household,” the girl said. “It means you answer to no one except the prince’s line.”

Lena gave a small nod. “What is your name.”

The girl hesitated. “Elara.”

“Thank you, Elara.”

Elara looked surprised to be thanked. Most people probably did not ask her name. Her voice dropped. “Be careful,” she whispered. “Some of the others do not like that you were moved here so fast. They will wonder who you are. They will think you are favored.”

“I am not favored,” Lena said.

Elara gave a tiny smile. “That does not matter. What matters is what they believe.”

When Elara left, Lena washed her hands. The burned skin from the fire still stung when it touched water. She remembered the flare from the torch, the heat, the way the crowd had gone quiet. She had not felt brave then. She had only felt like her body moved before her mind could stop it.

She lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. For a moment she let herself pretend she was back in her apartment. Plain walls. Cheap lamp. Space heater in the corner that rattled. Her roommate snoring down the hall. Street noise outside the window. The world she knew.

But the silence here was different. It was too clean.

In the middle of the night she woke to a sound outside her door. Not footsteps. A whisper. Metal against metal. She sat up and listened.

Then came a soft voice through the door. “Are you awake.”

Lena slid off the bed and moved closer. “Who is it.”

“It is me,” came the answer. “Mira.”

Lena let out a breath she had been holding. “How did you get in here. They said I was not allowed to see anyone.”

“I told the guard I had to bring you linens,” Mira said. “And then I actually brought linens. So it was not a lie.”

Lena smiled in spite of herself. “Are you all right.”

“I am alive,” Mira said. “Which is something. Everyone is talking about you. Half the girls think you saved the Festival of Flames. The other half think you are some kind of omen. Mistress Halden says nothing. That is how we know she is worried.”

Lena leaned against the door. She could almost picture Mira on the other side, sitting on the floor the way they used to sit by the fountain. “It is getting worse, Mira.”

“I know,” Mira said softly. “I can feel it too.”

Lena hesitated, then said, “There is something under the palace. A place. Old and powerful. I saw it. It is waking up.”

There was a long pause. “Is that why the prince moved you.”

“Yes.”

Mira exhaled. “Then listen to me. Do not trust anyone here. Not the guards. Not the ladies. Not even the prince.”

Lena frowned. “You do not trust the prince.”

“I trust that he serves the throne,” Mira said. “And you are not the throne.”

Lena closed her eyes. “I wish I could leave.”

“I wish you could too,” Mira said. “But I think you are tied now. Like a knot that cannot be pulled free without tearing the fabric.”

Lena gave a quiet laugh. “That sounds painful.”

“It is,” Mira said.

They stayed like that for a while. No talking. Just breathing on either side of the locked door.

Then Mira’s voice turned softer. “There is one more thing. A message for you.”

“From who.”

“I cannot say it loud,” Mira whispered. “But you know who.”

Lena’s heart jumped. “Say it anyway.”

Mira lowered her voice to almost nothing. “She says the Gate is not stable. Someone else is trying to reach it. Someone inside the palace.”

Lena felt cold. “Someone other than me.”

“Yes.”

Lena pressed her forehead to the door. Her mind raced. If someone else was trying to open the Gate, then this was not just about her crossing by accident. This was planned. Pushed. Forced. Maybe from the inside.

Mira stood. Lena heard the soft rustle of fabric. “I have to go. If they find me here they will cut my pay or worse.”

“Be careful,” Lena said.

“You too,” Mira whispered. “And Lena. Do not disappear.”

After Mira left, Lena sat awake for a long time. She thought about Lady Serah in the hidden chamber. She thought about the prince in his quiet anger. She thought about the glow beneath the floor and the voice that had spoken in her head. The way is not closed.

What if the Gate opened all the way. Would it pull her back to her own world. Would it pull something else through. Would it break both.

She did not know.

When dawn came, Elara returned with breakfast and orders. “You are to assist in the prince’s study,” she said. “Only light service. Tea. Ink. Records. You are not to wander.”

Lena nodded. “All right.”

Elara leaned in, voice tight. “And Lena. Be careful with what you say in that room. Words are written down in there. Forever.”

The prince’s study was unlike the great hall where he spoke to generals and nobles. It was smaller, quieter, lined with shelves of scrolls and ledgers. Maps lay across the tables. Some showed borders. Some showed troop routes. One, Lena noticed, was not a map of land at all. It was a map of the palace itself. Only this map had levels drawn below ground.

When she entered, Prince Alden was standing over that map.

Without looking up he said, “Close the door.”

She did.

He placed his hand on the lower levels of the map. “Tell me about the light you saw under the palace. Tell me what it did when you stood near it. Tell me every detail.”

Lena met his eyes. “If I tell you the truth,” she said, “will you tell me mine.”

His brow shifted. “Yours.”

“Why I am here,” she said. “Why I was brought.”

The prince held her gaze for a long time.

Then, finally, he said, “If I knew why you were here, Lena Carter, I would not be asking you these questions.”