"Traitor." The prisoner hissed into my ear, his golden eyes piercing me. "Why would you work for the fae when you could have everything and more back in our homeland?" He was Icrodeian. Why was someone from my home kingdom trapped inside the tower? Was there a genuine reason for his capture? Or did he just get caught wandering around near the castle having gotten lost in the forest? If so, that could have easily been me sitting in that chair.

My hands worked to take the measurements of his ankles, but my mind couldn't process the numbers that appeared on the tape. I wasn't a traitor. I would never betray the land that I was born in, my heart was still very much attached to it, but I wouldn't betray Racaea either. How dare he suggest that I was.

Forcing myself to focus, I memorised the number my measuring tape showed for his ankle and took another look at the prisoner's face. Deep, dark circles resided under his eyes and patches of dirt were smudged across his skin, mixing with the blood that trickled down from his nose. It gave no clue as to why he had been brought in. I needed to get answers out of Kayne when I next saw him.

I moved behind him to wrap the tape around his torso, purposefully tugging it too tightly to cut off his blood circulation. It wasn't my choice to be working for Racaea, I was sold to the fae as a child.

After writing down the measurements on the back of my hand, I stood and made for the door. "I will be back later." I hoped my words came out threateningly, a warning that I was the one about to make his shackles and determine the majority of his comfort while he stayed in the tower, but I doubted that was how they sounded.

The guard that had showed me to the cell led me back out through the maze, her pace even quicker than it was before. Why was there an Icrodeian in the tower in the first place? Sure, the two kingdoms weren't on the best of terms, but they weren't hostile with each other either. My thoughts were filled with the screams that surrounded us, more strained and high-pitched than before. Who was kept in here besides the prisoner I had just seen?

I shuddered as sunlight broke free from the doors, allowing me to exit the tormented place and make my way back to the blacksmith. Where Auron and Trik would be waiting for me, searching for the same answers I was.

Compared to the tower, the blacksmith where we lived was tiny and rundown. The building was a small stone shack half-sunken into the ground with plumes of smoke rising from a chimney on the side, coming from the furnace within its walls.

Pacing back and forth outside the front door was Auron, his expression creased with worry. When he noticed me approaching, he halted and rushed over. "Sabre! Are you okay? What's going on?"

"I'm fine," I assured him as we entered the blacksmith, the overwhelming heat comforting me like a weighted blanket. "It was someone from Icrodeia in there. Kayne and the queen were there too, trying to get information out of him. So, it must be something serious."

"Do you know why he's in there?" He leant against the counter, the door to his room shut and locked.

"I have no idea," I replied, shaking my head. Kayne would know. He'd have to. As much as the prisoner had called me a traitor and spat at me, it still pained me to see one of my own locked up in a place meant for the cruellest and most sadistic people. "Where's Trik?" The blacksmith had offered to take my place when delivering the shackles, but I wanted to go myself to see if there was any progress.

Auron motioned his head to the locked door. "He's using my room for a customer right now as he hasn't had time to set up his own yet after coming back."

"He's getting requests already? Perhaps his tours around the continent really are getting him customers." It was a futile attempt to bring some light back into the conversation, the laugh at the end of my words tense and uneasy.

A small smirk appeared on Auron's mouth before vanishing again. "Not quite. It was an order for me, but I couldn't focus when I was thinking about you in the tower."

My heart squeezed at the fact that he had been nervous for me, so much so that he hadn't been able to do anything. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to distract you from your work."

"It's okay, you didn't really have a say in the matter."

An uncomfortable silence enveloped us, the only sound being the faint voices of Trik and another man in the locked room, until I held up my hand to show Auron the back of it. "I got the measurements. Do you want to help me make the shackles?"

His blue eyes sparkled at the thought of making something, of watching a bar of metal heat up in the furnace and become soft enough to mould into any shape you could think of. "Of course. I would love to."

While Auron took the task of creating the ankle restraints, I chose the one for the waist, wanting to make it the perfect tightness — wide enough that he could comfortably sit, but narrow enough that he would still have confined space to breathe in.

Traitor. His words haunted me along with the memory of his golden eyes. They were the second pair I had ever seen in Racaea, excluding my own. The first had been in The Lost and Found belonging to a lone traveller sitting at our table one time. I wasn't a traitor. I loved both kingdoms equally — the one where I grew up, learning more about the secrets it was full of every day, and the one where I was born, whose culture I adored.

Once Auron and I had made the shackles flawless in both size and design, we dipped them into a vat of water for a few minutes and left them to cool naturally the rest of the way. In the hours that it took, Auron decided to organise the front desk and I made an effort to tidy up my room (though it remained cluttered for the most part). When the shackles had finished cooling completely, Trik was still talking to his customer in the locked room.

"You'll do this the same as before, right? Straight in and then straight out?" Auron stood by the front door with me, checking me over like an anxious mother.

I nodded. Now that it had been a while, maybe the prisoner had spilt a few details as to why he was in Racaea. Or, hopefully, he had at least calmed down from his earlier outrage.

My friend breathed deeply. "Okay. If Trik finishes his business before you return, I'll go and search for Kayne to get some answers out of him for us. Does that sound like a plan?"

"Sounds like a decent one to me."

He waved to me as I left and headed for the tower. In the growing darkness of the night, it appeared to be even more sinister, casting shadows across the castle grounds as the sun nearly dipped completely below the horizon. I had travelled through the tower once before. I could do it again.

Outside, more guards than there had been before stood with weapons in their hands, watching and waiting to see if any intruders would break in, or if anybody trapped inside would try to escape. The woman who had guided me through the labyrinth earlier stepped towards the open doors to do so once more.

"Do you remember the rules?" There was a hint of apprehension in the way she walked, as if she was expecting something to go wrong.

"Stick close to you at all times and don't get distracted?" I offered, the new shackles heavy in my arms. At least they would weigh the prisoner down too.

With a nod, she entered the maze, assuming I would follow behind.

At first, I couldn't figure out what, but the inside of the tower felt different. After a moment of travelling through twists and turns, the guard bringing us to a dead-end at one point, I realised it was different. The walls had shifted and now we were faced with a new labyrinth entirely. So this was why they had to be trained for a young age specifically for this job. Who knew how many times the tower's interior changed in a day.

Not too long after we entered, we reached the prisoner's cell and the guard let us inside. The guard stationed inside of the Icrodeian's room took the shackles from me as I took in my surroundings.

The High Fae Queen was long gone, however, Kayne still remained. One look at the Icrodeian told me he was out cold and had been for quite a while. Blood coated his clothes and skin, having escaped from either his clearly broken nose or the several wounds that were scattered along his arms. The bloodied dagger discarded on the ground had to be the culprit for those.

Kayne breathed heavily, locks of his blonde hair fallen into his eyes, some strands dipped in a crimson substance. The prince towered over the prisoner, his bruised and battered hands still balled into fists by his sides. I had expected his features to be full of rage, anger, something that would cause him to harm the prisoner in such a cruel way, but all I found was a hollow emptiness.

What had happened while I was away?