Whatever Boltiex has in store, he wants her to be off-kilter. He wants her to be reacting emotionally, easily prodded into whatever actions he wants.

She has to remember that. Not let herself get caught in the moment like with Bianci.

Another flicker of lights on the staircase, and she swingsher head up to watch a pair of shoes stomp on the highest step, kicking up dust.

So even if he held a demon here, he didn’t come down to check on them very often.

Even more cruelty.

In the cage, the figure twitches.

“I’ll get you out, too,” she whispers, despite the danger. Despite the foolishness of getting anywhere close to another demon when she’s like this.

Finally, the dim figure raises their head, and their eyes glitter in the darkness.

The shoes step lightly on the staircase, too light for Boltiex, so Ambra eyes the area. There’s not enough brightness to see anything beyond shadows.

Until a hand on a light switch clicks it on, flooding the entire basement with harsh florescent.

The figure in the cage recoils back, but Ambra just blinks through the additional discomfort.

It doesn’t go away, not in the stasis chamber, but…she adjusts.

On the bottom stair, not quite stepping onto the basement floor, a young woman hesitates.

No, not a young woman, barely a teen. More of a child. Same age as Stella, same gangly limbs of a recent growth spurt.

The hair on the back of Ambra’s neck raises.

Her jaw is the same as Boltiex’s, and her hair the same deep brown.

She tilts her head at Ambra, and that, too, is the same sort of motion of Boltiex.

“What the fuck,” Ambra breathes, even though the child wouldn’t be able to hear her.

The child shakes off whatever fear she had, then steps into the basement.

“My dad says your TV isn’t working,” she says, declarative in the way only fearful people are.

Nobody knew he had children. Nobody knew he had any attachments at all, it was part of what made him unpredictable.

Still, Ambra gestures to the TV, where the flickering screen still shows Gurlien.

The figure in the cage shifts, and the girl freezes, shying back again.

The pre-teen glimmers with some sort of potential, some sort of magic that Ambra’s never seen before, and a quick glance to the demon in the cage catches them watching her sharply.

A fission of understanding passes between them, even with Ambra in the stasis chamber and him in the cage. Whatever this girl is, whatever the school of magic, it’s weird and the other demon is not gonna let Ambra interfere with it.

Fine with her. She has more pressing things to deal with.

What sort of father would send his child into a basement with two living demons improperly restrained?

And if Boltiex is insane enough to do that, what would he do to Gurlien?

Ambra stands, walking over, then splays her hand against the glass of the observation wall. The girl stares at her, not getting closer, as if she’s not sure how to approach Ambra, in the human body with hair that grows.

“It’s okay,” Ambra says, even though no sound could reach her. Then, “Free me?”