Chapter 63: Seraphina’s Circumstances

The first thing Seraphina registered was the cold around her wrists.

Then the smell of rust crept up her nose, layered over the damp, mildewed stink that belonged exclusively to dungeons. She blinked twice. Her vision swam, then sharpened into a gray stone ceiling threaded with cracks, tufts of dark green moss clinging to the seams.

Her neck was stiff.

She tried to raise a hand to work out the kink. Metal rattled.

A chain clinked against stone, the sound ringing sharp through the cramped space.

A shackle thick as her wrist encircled her right arm, the other end anchored to an iron ring bolted into the wall. The slack gave her maybe three feet of movement. Her left wrist bore an identical setup. Her ankles, at least, were free. Small mercies.

"Kidnapping, then."

She stated it the way she might answer a surprise question in class—one she hadn't prepared for but still expected to ace.

She gave the chain a test tug. The iron ring thudded dully against stone. The shackle hummed against her skin, enchanted to suppress mana. Definitely the real thing. She stopped pulling and settled back cross-legged onto the thin blanket spread across the floor.

Her last memory: walking home from the date. Parting ways with Uriel. Cutting through the sycamore-lined avenue on the academy's west side. A cloyingly sweet smell. Then nothing.

Knockout gas. Professionally applied.

Seraphina tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and swept her gaze across the cell. Roughly six feet square. A wooden bucket sat in the corner, its purpose self-evident and best left unexamined.

Beyond the iron bars, a narrow corridor stretched in both directions, terminating in blind corners. A dim mana-lamp hung on the far wall, its glow barely reaching her cell. Stale air. No ventilation to speak of.

Footsteps approached from the right.

They stopped in front of her bars.

Three men. The leader wore a dark tunic with a sword at his hip and the kind of face designed to frighten small children — mean, but low-rent mean. The two behind him were cut from the same cloth. One had an old scar running down his cheek.

Scarface noticed she was awake and grunted. "Hey. Stay quiet, or you'll regret it."

Seraphina looked at him.

"Good morning."

Scarface blinked.

She delivered the greeting with the exact same poise she used when passing classmates in the academy halls — polite, composed, lips curved at a precise fifteen-degree smile. If not for the chains, she might have been hosting a tea social in this cell.

"...What?" Scarface clearly had not prepared for this.

Before he could recover, a new set of footsteps echoed down the corridor. Sharp. Measured. Leather heels on stone.

The three thugs parted instantly, their body language shifting to something close to deference.

The newcomer wore a long white coat over a charcoal turtleneck, a small leather case in one hand. His face was blank. A monocle sat over one eye, and behind it, his gaze carried the clinical disinterest of a man examining a specimen jar.

Two assistants trailed behind him, each carrying an instrument case.

The researcher stopped at the bars, produced a key from his pocket, and unlocked the gate. The hinges shrieked, flakes of rust snowing down onto the floor.

He stepped inside. The assistants followed. Scarface and the other two closed in behind them, pinning Seraphina's shoulders back against the wall.

The hands on her shoulders were strong.

Seraphina tilted her head to watch the researcher open his case.

Neat rows of glass vials. Needles. A roll of gauze. He selected a bloodletting needle, fitted it to a vial with the practiced ease of a man who had done this a thousand times, then lifted her right arm and pushed her sleeve above the elbow.

His fingers pressed against the inside of her elbow, searching for a vein.

The cold touch made her flinch. With her shoulders pinned, she couldn't pull away.

"Excuse me," she said, her tone conversational. "Are you the one who kidnapped me?"

The researcher's hands paused.

"Is this a physical exam?" Seraphina tilted her head toward the case. "The sanitation looks adequate. Are the needles new?"

The researcher adjusted his monocle and said nothing. He cracked open a vial of alcohol, soaked a cotton pad, and swabbed the inside of her elbow. Coolness bloomed across her skin.

"Will there be food after the blood draw?" she continued. "I'm a bit hungry."

Scarface's expression contorted. He opened his mouth — clearly intending to snarl something like shut the hell up — then closed it again, having realized he had absolutely no idea how to respond.

The researcher finally spoke. His voice was flat and dry. "...Hold her."

The needle slid in.

Seraphina watched dark red blood thread through the tube and fill the vial. Her expression didn't change. No cry of pain. No struggle. Just quiet observation. The researcher drew roughly thirty milliliters, withdrew the needle, pressed a square of gauze over the puncture, and wrapped it with a careless loop of medical tape.

Then he packed up.

Case snapped shut. He rose, turned, and walked out. The assistants followed. Scarface released her shoulder and shot her a look somewhere between confusion and irritation on his way out.

The iron gate clanged shut. Locked.

Seraphina looked down at her elbow. The tape was already peeling at one corner. She bent her arm and the gauze slid off immediately, a bead of blood welling at the puncture.

She frowned.

"Could someone loosen one of the shackles?" Her voice carried through the bars. "Or just hold this down for me? The wrapping is a bit sloppy."

No response from the corridor.

Footsteps receded.

"...Fine."

Seraphina pressed the gauze back over the puncture with her opposite thumb and held it there until the bleeding stopped. She pulled her sleeve down over the sloppy bandage.

---

At least someone brought food about half an hour later—even if the researcher never answered a single question.

A young guard on rotation duty opened the small hatch in the iron gate and passed a wooden tray through. A slab of hard bread sat beside a small bowl of mashed potatoes, a skin already forming on the surface. It had been sitting out for a while.

Seraphina accepted the tray with both hands. Her chains clinked.

"Thank you."

The guard blinked, mumbled something that might have been a syllable, and walked away fast.

The bread was hard enough to double as a blunt weapon. She tested it against her chain — clack — then broke off a piece and chewed until her jaw ached before it softened enough to swallow. The mashed potatoes were unseasoned but at least required less structural demolition to consume.

She ate slowly, counting seconds in her head.

Roughly two hours since she woke up.

The researcher returned twice more.

Same procedure each time: shoulders pinned, needle in, gauze wrapped with minimal effort. Left arm first, then back to the right. The vials were larger now. So were the draws.

By the third session, Seraphina watched the dark red liquid slosh in the vial and offered a piece of friendly advice.

"I think you should space these out."

The researcher glanced up.

She met his eyes with the earnestness of a student raising her hand in lecture. "An average body contains roughly ten pints of blood. I weigh under a hundred pounds, which puts me on the lower end. Drain more than a third of that, and you're looking at severe systemic failure—or as the healers call it, blood-starvation collapse — roughly a full pint." She nodded at the vial in his hand. "How much have you taken today?"

The researcher's fingers froze on the edge of his case.

Even Scarface loosened his grip on her shoulder.

"...Are you a healer?" the researcher asked. For the first time, something other than clinical detachment edged into his voice.

"Not really," Seraphina said. "That's just common knowledge."

He was quiet for several seconds. Then he placed the vial into its slot and closed the case. Before leaving, he glanced at Scarface and spoke low — but not low enough.

"Widen the intervals. Keep an eye on her condition."

When the gate locked behind them, Seraphina decided the day hadn't been a total waste.

But things got even better.

The evening draw — the last of the day — came with a smaller vial. And the assistant tasked with holding the gauze pressed down for a full two minutes. She was young, her fingers steady and precise against Seraphina's elbow, her eyes fixed firmly on the floor.

"Thank you. That's much better than earlier."

The girl didn't answer. She finished wrapping the gauze — neatly this time — and stood.

Seraphina flexed her arm. The bandage held.

After the researcher left, the rotation guard returned with dinner. Same bread and potatoes, but the mash was warm this time, and a small cup of water accompanied the tray. Seraphina noticed the guard linger at the gate an extra two seconds.

"You..." He scratched the back of his head. "Aren't you scared?"

Seraphina bit into the bread and looked up at him. "Would it help?"

The guard had no answer for that.

"Guess not." He nodded and left.

---

Day two was an improvement.

The draws dropped to twice daily. The researcher even asked "How are you feeling?" before each one — still in the tone of a man reading off a checklist, but it was technically a question. The assistant held the gauze longer each time, her touch growing gentler.

The shoulder-pinning was discontinued. Seraphina was now allowed to sit during the procedure. The guard assigned to "restrain" her had a lighter grip, his hands resting on her shoulders more as a formality than an actual hold.

By day three, they stopped touching her shoulders altogether.

She still blacked out briefly every time she stood. Her legs felt like they were made of wet paper. But Seraphina maintained her composure without fail — rolling up her own sleeve, extending her arm, clenching her fist to raise the vein. The whole routine flowed like a scheduled check-up at the academy infirmary.

During the long hours between draws, the guards started talking to her.

It began with observations like "You're pretty chill for a hostage." Seraphina would take the opening and ask about the weather outside, where the dungeon was located, how their shift rotation worked. She kept her tone mild and academic, as if conducting a field survey.

Then the conversations drifted.

"You kidnapped me. No ransom demand, no leverage play." Seraphina sat cross-legged on her blanket, counting off on her fingers through the bars. "So it's about me specifically. The usual motives are ransom, prisoner exchange, or exploitation of the person's identity or abilities."

The guard stared at her.

"You did your homework before grabbing me, so you know my family is comfortable but not exactly tycoon-tier. The risk of angering my family far outweighs any coin you'd squeeze out of them." She raised a second finger. "No one's asked me to write a letter or record a message, so it's not a hostage swap."

A third finger.

"So it's option three. You need me. The specific use is unclear, but given how much blood you're pulling, it's probably related. Could be research. Could be a ritual that requires a living person of a specific identity."

The guard's poker face collapsed in real time.

"How did you—"

"Basic deduction." Seraphina folded her hands in her lap, posture immaculate. "On a related note — are you planning to silence me?"

The guard opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

"...Let me go ask."

He actually did.

He came back with: "Boss says no."

Seraphina nodded, as if confirming a forecast she'd already made.

Then she moved on to the requests phase.

"Since I'm not getting killed, can you take the chains off?" She lifted her right wrist. Metal clattered. "They're inconvenient."

"...I'll have to clear it."

By that afternoon, the shackles were gone. Patrols doubled — a guard posted at each end of the corridor, eyes on her at all times. Seraphina had no complaints. She began pacing the cell, working the stiffness out of her shoulders and wrists.

The upside was immediate: the bucket problem was solved. She no longer had to face the wooden bucket in the corner — though a guard still had to come in and carry it out afterward. One young guard performed this duty while staring at the wall, ears red, as though enduring a personal humiliation of historic proportions.

Seraphina watched him suffer and filed a new request the next day.

"Let me use an actual bathroom. You won't have to empty a bucket, and I won't have to breathe that smell. Win-win."

The supervisor was summoned. He stood in silence for a long time.

"Escorted. Blindfolded. Every time."

So Seraphina now had two chances a day to leave the cell. Blindfolded and flanked by guards, led to a crude latrine somewhere she couldn't identify. But she got to move her legs. She got to breathe air that hadn't been recycled through stone walls.

On the third walk back, she caught a sound at a corridor junction.

Still blindfolded, she tilted her head — the shuffle of cards, muttered shouting, the clink of metal coins.

The guards were gambling. Interesting.

Seraphina stopped walking. Her escort tugged at her arm.

"Excuse me," she called toward the noise, her voice polite and perfectly projected. "Are you short a player? I'd like to join."

The card game went dead silent.

After a long, strange pause, a gruff voice answered, uncertain. "...You know how to play?"

"A little," Seraphina said, smiling beneath the blindfold. "I used to play with my elders at home."

---

That night, Seraphina sat at the edge of her cell, six cards fanned out in front of her, three ashen-faced guards slumped on the other side of the bars.

Five straight wins.

"Shall we go again?" She stacked her silver coins into a neat little tower, her tone that of a model student asking if there was extra credit.

The three guards looked at her. Then at each other.

One of them slapped his cards face-down on the floor and ground out four words through clenched teeth.

"Do you even remember you've been kidnapped?"