The next day crawled past like a wounded slug that had given up on life but was too stubborn to actually die. Pyra went through the motions—eating her disappointment stew, doing stretches that made her ribs scream protest, listening to Ranth's increasingly dubious survival advice—while her brain fixated on the upcoming midnight meeting.

"You're distracted," Ranth observed during the afternoon lull. "More than usual."

"Just thinking about my next fight."

"Liar. You get a different look when you're thinking about fighting. This seems like your 'planning something stupid' look."

"You're very concerned with my facial expressions."

"Four months in a cage gives you time to study people." Ranth scratched his beard thoughtfully. "Whatever you're planning, be careful. Survivors don't take unnecessary risks."

"Define unnecessary."

"Anything that isn't absolutely required for staying alive."

"That sounds... limiting." And like something Cinder would say while Kindle and Ember rolled their eyes in unison. Dammit. Focus.

Ranth shrugged. "Call it limiting, call it practical. Point is, the more complicated things get, the faster people die around here."

"You're a regular ray of sunshine."

"I'm honest. Sunshine's got nothing to do with it." He settled against the far wall of his cage and closed his eyes. "Just remember what I said."

Pyra forced herself to eat dinner (thin stew that tasted of boiled grass and regret) and sat through the healer's quick assessment (more paste for the ribs, which still hated her). The guards delivered three fighters to the arena—two didn't return, the third came back barely conscious—and the day's routine ground on.

Eventually, the corridors emptied out. Most prisoners turned in for the night, seeking whatever fitful rest hard stone and thin rags allowed.

The hours between midnight and "a few hours past midnight" moved with the speed of bored snails after a lunch of particularly dull turtle soup.

Pyra lay on her stone floor, pretending to sleep while her brain ran laps around every possible scenario. Malik would come. They'd talk. He'd explain what he knew. She'd figure out how to escape without admitting she'd been surviving on luck, sand-throwing, and the tactical genius of "don't die immediately."

Simple.

Except nothing about this was simple, starting with the fact that Malik apparently thought she was some kind of undercover investigator instead of someone who'd woken up in a cage with no memory of how she got there and powers that barely qualified as "mildly warm."

Ranth's snoring provided steady rhythm to her anxiety. The man could sleep through anything, which Pyra envied deeply. Her own brain refused to shut down, spinning through implications like a broken mill wheel.

Footsteps approached around what her tired brain estimated was three hours past midnight. Light. Quick. The distinctive pattern of someone trying not to draw attention.

Pyra sat up slowly, moving to the front of her cage.

Malik appeared carrying cleaning supplies, glancing both directions down the corridor before kneeling beside her bars. "You awake?"

"Yeah." Pyra kept her voice barely above a whisper. "This is risky."

"Everything's risky." Malik set down his bucket, positioning himself to watch the corridor while they talked. "Guards change shifts in about ten minutes. After that, we've got maybe fifteen before the next patrol. Not much time."

"Then let's skip the pleasantries." Pyra leaned closer to the bars. "You think I'm here investigating something, but I have absolutely no idea what's going on."

Malik blinked. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. I woke up in this cage a few days ago with no idea how I got here, powers that barely work, and zero clues about who captured me or why."

Pyra watched his expression shift from confident to confused. It was kind of amusing, really, in a completely not-funny situation sort of way.

Silence stretched between them, broken only by distant dripping water and Ranth's persistent snoring.

"So you're not..." Malik trailed off, recalibrating. "Your presence here is coincidental?"

"Coincidental is one word for it. Catastrophically unlucky is another." Pyra glanced toward Ranth's cage, confirming he was still asleep. "Look, I can't explain everything. But my sisters and I got separated. Something went wrong. I woke up here. That's it. No clever plan. No infiltration strategy. Just me, a cage, and the desperate hope that I'd survive long enough to figure out where the hell I am."

Malik studied her for a long moment, then sighed. "This is going to be more complicated than I anticipated."

"Story of our lives," Pyra muttered. "So why are you here? Investigating some shadow merchant conspiracy or something?"

"Yes and no." Malik shifted, eyes scanning the corridor again. "My mentor—a woman named Thessaly—was killed six months ago. Murdered by people wearing silver masks, asking questions about magical talent and physical resilience."

"The Silent Hand."

"You know the name?"

"Had a run-in with them a while ago." Pyra touched her head bandage, which still itched. "Ended with us fighting one of their leaders a harbor. Summoned a huge water elemental thing. Tough fight. They ended up getting away."

Malik's eyebrows rose. "That sounds like a story."

"One that'll have to wait. So you're here for revenge?"

"Revenge. Justice. Information. Pick whichever sounds most heroic." Malik's smile was brief and bitter. "Thessaly taught me everything about information brokerage. How to gather intelligence, who to trust, where to look when people want secrets kept. She was investigating the Silent Hand when they killed her. I'm finishing what she started."

"By getting hired as arena cleaning staff."

"Best way to access restricted areas without raising suspicion. People ignore workers. Assume we belong. Gives me time to dig into who the buyers are, what their criteria is, why they're suddenly so interested in this specific arena." He glanced at her again. "And that's where you come in. Or rather, where I thought you came in, but now I'm rethinking the plan."

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"I'm listening."

"The buyers—The Silent Hand—are due for another evaluation session tomorrow. I think they're picking candidates for something bigger, some other purpose. Never stays consistent. Always watching, evaluating. So my plan was to tag along during their evaluations, pick up whatever I could from the guards' gossip, see who stands out to them."

"Good plan. Simple. Elegant."

"But if you're here by accident, that means your escape strategy's lacking."

"No, my escape strategy's nonexistent." Pyra gestured to her cage, the corridor, the general ambiance of subterranean captivity. "Surviving the fights is taking up most of my attention. Trying really hard not to die so the rest of me can put myself back together and figure this mess out."

"Self?" Malik tilted his head, and she realized her slip-up. "I remember you all mentioning that you were quintuplets who could somehow revive yourselves from death because of some... cultural practice of strength distribution?"

"Something like that," Pyra hedged. No time for that conversation right now. Or ever. Definitely not right now, though. She waved a hand, trying to dismiss it. "You were saying?"

Malik looked unconvinced but continued. "...so the buyers are coming. If you are still planning to get out somehow, I have an idea."

"Tell me. Please. Because I have nothing, and the next fights aren't looking any easier."

"Like I said earlier, I've been tracking them ever since. Following their operations. Trying to understand what they're doing."

"And what are they doing?"

"Buying people. Specifically, people with magical potential who can survive physical trauma."

"Like special prisoners who fight in arena pits for entertainment."

"Exactly." Malik leaned closer, dropping his voice lower. "They take purchased fighters to research facilities. No one knows exactly what happens there because no one comes back. But I've found references to something called vessel preparation. Pattern Weaver research. Consciousness transfer experiments."

Pattern Weaver. That name had come up with Nasir back in Ebran—something about creating duplicates, transferring consciousness. The details were fuzzy (most things were lately), but her brain had apparently filed it under "probably important, definitely bad."

Surprised she still remembered all of that, considering the general state of her recollection lately. But it sounded important enough to file away for later.

"What's vessel preparation?" she asked, though part of her didn't want to know.

"Near as I can tell, they're modifying people. Changing them somehow. Preparing them to host... something. The research mentions dimensional entities, consciousness anchoring, permanent bindings." Malik shook his head. "It's fragments. Pieces of a larger picture I can't quite see. But whatever they're doing, it requires bodies that can handle magical and physical stress."

"That's horrifying."

"That's why I'm here." Malik glanced down the corridor—still clear. "The Silent Hand representatives are coming back in three days. Another selection event. They'll buy fighters who impressed them this week. I need to know where they take purchased fighters. Need someone inside their transport to mark the route, observe the facility, gather information."

Pyra's stomach did an uncomfortable flip. "You want me to let them buy me."

"Not exactly. I want us to stage it. Make you interesting enough that they select you, but on terms that give us advantage." Malik pulled out a rough map, held it close to the bars. "I've got contacts in Dugales. People who owe Thessaly's memory. They can track the transport at a distance. But I need someone inside to leave signs, provide intelligence about the facility layout."

"Someone they'll experiment on, you mean."

"Not if we move fast." Malik met her eyes. "I know it's asking a lot. I know you have no reason to trust me. But these people killed my mentor. They're torturing and disappearing fighters. And whatever they're planning with this consciousness transfer thing, it's only going to get worse."

Pyra chewed her lip, brain running through possibilities. The plan was terrible. Spectacularly terrible. The kind of terrible that would make Cinder spend an hour explaining exactly how many ways it could fail, then another hour listing alternatives that didn't involve deliberately getting kidnapped by evil experimenters.

But Cinder wasn't here.

None of them were.

And Pyra was so tired of just surviving. Of waiting in a cage for the next fight. Of having no control over anything.

"What if they do something permanent before you can extract me?" she asked.

"Then your sisters will absolutely hunt me down for revenge, and I'll deserve it." Malik's expression was serious. "I won't lie—this is dangerous. Probably stupid. But you've survived three matches against opponents who should have killed you. You're tougher than you think."

"I survived through luck and throwing sand in people's eyes."

"Luck counts. So does creativity." He glanced toward Ranth's cage, where the snoring continued uninterrupted. "Look, if you don't want to do this, I understand. I can try to smuggle you out instead. Get you away from here, back to looking for your sisters. But—"

"But other fighters will keep getting bought," Pyra finished. "And whatever the Silent Hand is planning continues."

"Yeah."

Pyra thought about Ranth, who'd survived four months in this place through sheer stubborn determination. About the few fighters who'd shown her small kindnesses—sharing advice, offering encouragement, treating her like a person instead of entertainment.

She thought about her sister-selves, scattered somewhere across this world, probably dealing with their own impossible situations. What would they do?

Ember would want to protect everyone. Cinder would calculate the risks and probabilities. Kindle would look for the optimistic angle. Ash would consider the philosophical implications of consciousness transfer and vessel preparation and probably have thoughts about autonomy and identity.

But Pyra? Pyra wanted to hit something. Wanted to fight back against the people who'd put her in this cage. Wanted to do something that mattered instead of just surviving until tomorrow.

"I'm in," she said. "But I need weapons. Real ones. Not just weak flames and poor impulse control."

Malik's smile was quick and genuine. "I can work with that. What do you need?"

"Something sharp. Something I can hide. And if you can get me anything that boosts magical output, that'd be great." Pyra flexed her fingers, watching pathetic orange flames sputter into existence. "My fire's operating at maybe a tenth of its usual power. I need every advantage."

"I'll see what I can do. Nothing too obvious. Guards search prisoners sometimes. But small blades, magical catalysts disguised as jewelry, emergency signals..." Malik stood, hefted his bucket. "I can handle that. Three days. Win your fights. Make yourself impressive but not suspicious. During the selection event, I'll make sure you're noticed."

"How?"

"I'll be working the event. Arena staff assist with evaluations—moving fighters, handling paperwork, that sort of thing. I'll position you where the Silent Hand representatives can see you clearly. Make sure your wins are fresh in their minds." He tucked away his journal. "When they buy you, you'll be transported in a covered wagon. My contacts will follow at a distance. You mark the route however you can. Dropped items, flame markers, anything distinctive."

"And when I reach the facility?"

"Observe everything. Guard patterns, security measures, layout, number of prisoners, what the experiments actually involve. We'll extract you within a day. Two at most." Malik's expression went serious. "If something goes wrong—if we can't reach you quickly—you improvise an escape and run. Head northeast toward Kinstreeh. It's a coastal town about nine leagues from here. I'll have people watching for you there."

Nine leagues. With her reduced speed, that'd take... Pyra's brain did math it really didn't want to do.

Many hours. Probably while being chased.

"You really know how to sell a plan," she said.

"I'm a bard, not a salesman." Footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor—distant but approaching. "Guards. I need to go. Stay alive. Win fights. Trust me."

"That's asking a lot."

"I know." He paused, meeting her eyes. "For what it's worth, I think you're braver than you realize. Most people would have given up by now."

Then he was gone, disappearing down a side passage just as torchlight began painting the corridor walls.

Pyra lay back down, heart pounding, and stared at the darkness above her cage.

Three days.

Three more fights.

Then she'd deliberately let herself get kidnapped by people who did horrible things to fighters in the name of research.

This was absolutely, categorically, monumentally stupid. A plan that could fail in approximately seventy-three different ways, and that was being generous.

But it was her plan. Her choice. Made with actual thought instead of just "hit it until it stops moving.

Growth, probably.

She hoped her sister-selves were doing better than she was. Hoped they weren't in cages somewhere, fighting for survival with reduced powers and no backup.

Hoped they'd forgive her for whatever stupid decisions she was about to make.

Ranth's snoring continued, steady as a metronome, and eventually Pyra's exhausted brain stopped spinning and let her slip into uneasy sleep.

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