Lena had not felt steady since returning from the bathing chamber.

  Her hands had performed their work exactly as they had been trained to do. The wounds had been cleaned. The salves had been applied with precision. Fresh linens had repced the soaked ones, and every instrument had been returned carefully to its proper pce inside her kit.

  Order had been restored.

  Everything except her thoughts.

  She stood for a long moment at the small worktable in her quarters, adjusting the rows of bottles until their bels faced the same direction. It was a pointless gesture, but it gave her something to do while the images repyed in her mind.

  A few months earlier she had been summoned to tend to Genevra. That moment had been unlike anything she had witnessed in her professional life. Lena had witness the result of a once powerful woman torn apart at the hands of her own daughter .

  And tonight she had been summoned again.

  This time to the private bathing chamber.

  To Camille.

  Camille’s body had not been ruined, but it carried the unmistakable marks of an ordeal that had been both physical and psychological. Her skin bore welts and faint traces of blood where the water had washed it away. Her muscles trembled from exhaustion. Yet the most unsettling part had not been the injuries.

  It had been the calm in Camille’s eyes.

  There had been no rage left in her. No frantic resistance. Only a strange crity, as if some long internal battle had finally ended.

  And again Lena had heard the same quiet assurances.

  "You saw nothing.You will say nothing.You will be provided for."

  Lena closed the lid of her medical kit with more force than necessary.

  “I don’t want to be provided for,” she muttered to herself.

  What she wanted was understanding.

  There was only one person she trusted enough to ask without risking immediate consequences.

  Anika.

  Anika’s chamber reflected the change in her status since her promotion. The room itself had once belonged to someone else, and its architecture still carried the quiet authority of seniority. Tall windows framed heavy curtains, and an alcove desk stood near the far wall. Yet the space had clearly become Anika’s. The decorations were restrained, the surfaces organized, and nothing in the room felt ornamental for its own sake.

  Anika y across the bed on her side, scrolling idly through something on a tablet.

  A knock sounded at the door.

  “Come in,” she called casually.

  The door opened and Lena stepped inside.

  Anika immediately set the tablet aside. She could read Lena’s expression within seconds.

  Lena stood straight and composed, but there was tension in her shoulders and a tightness around her eyes that betrayed how unsettled she was.

  “Lena,” Anika said, curiosity softening her voice. “What is it, love?”

  Lena closed the door behind her before answering.

  “May I sit with you for a minute?”

  “Of course.”

  Anika shifted upright and moved slightly to make room.

  Lena sat on the edge of the bed rather than settling comfortably beside her. Her posture remained rigid, and her hands folded tightly in her p as if she were holding herself together.

  After a moment she spoke.

  “Can you please expin to me what is going on around here?”

  Anika tilted her head slightly.

  “What do you mean?”

  Lena exhaled slowly, clearly trying to remain calm.

  “Oh, come on. A couple of months ago I was called to tend to the complete dismantling of Genevra, and it happened at the hands of her own daughter. Now tonight I am summoned to their private bathing chamber to treat Camille, who looks as if she has just stepped down from a scourging pilr. Both times I was quietly told to keep my mouth shut and that I would be taken care of.”

  She paused, searching Anika’s face.

  “I do not want to be taken care of,” Lena continued more quietly. “I want to understand.”

  Anika leaned forward slightly, resting her forearms on her knees.

  “You know you are not simply staff here,” she said carefully.

  Lena frowned.

  “I treat injuries and wounds. That sounds very much like staff to me.”

  “That is not all you do,” Anika replied.

  Lena’s eyes narrowed.

  “Then what exactly am I doing here?”

  Anika considered her answer before speaking.

  “You are a witness.”

  The word hung in the air.

  “A witness to what?” Lena asked. “Punishment? Ritual humiliation? Power games? Because that is what it looks like from where I am standing.”

  “It is not punishment,” Anika said calmly.

  “Then expin Genevra.”

  “Genevra had done wrong. In one of the worse possible ways.”

  Lena shook her head in frustration.

  “And Camille?”

  “Camille reached the end of her resistance.”

  Lena stood and walked toward the window, running a hand through her hair before turning back.

  “When I saw Camille tonight,” she said slowly, “she was not angry. She was not fighting. It was as if something inside her had settled.”

  Anika nodded.

  “That is exactly what happened.”

  Lena stared at her.

  “You are telling me this is intentional.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that everyone involved simply agrees to it?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is very difficult to believe.”

  “No one is dragged into this house,” Anika said quietly. “And no one is forced to remain here.”

  Lena studied her face carefully.

  “You sound very certain.”

  “I asked the same questions when I first arrived,” Anika admitted. “I wondered if the entire pce was madness.”

  “And what convinced you otherwise?”

  “I realized the house does not break people,” Anika said. “It exposes them. Once they are exposed, they must decide who they truly are.”

  Lena’s voice softened slightly.

  “And if they do not like what they see?”

  “Then they leave.”

  “And Genevra?”

  “Genevra could not imagine herself anywhere else.”

  Lena fell silent for a moment.

  “And Camille?” she asked finally.

  “Camille stopped negotiating her pce here,” Anika replied.

  The words lingered between them.

  “I am being asked to treat people after these… events,” Lena said quietly. “Every time I leave one of those rooms I feel as though I am participating in something I cannot fully name.”

  “You are participating in care,” Anika said gently. “Not cruelty.”

  Lena’s shoulders lowered slightly as the tension drained from her posture.

  “This pce frightens me,” she admitted.

  Anika smiled faintly.

  “It frightens everyone at first.”

  Lena looked down at her hands.

  “What happens next?” she asked.

  “That depends,” Anika replied.

  “On what?”

  “On whether the house ever calls you forward.”

  Lena met her gaze again.

  “You think that might happen.”

  Anika did not answer immediately.

  “I think you would not be this unsettled if you were truly outside of it.”

  The statement nded with quiet weight.

  After a moment Lena rose and walked toward the door.

  “I will not speak of what I saw,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “But I will continue asking questions.”

  Anika smiled.

  “That is probably the safest way to survive here.”

  Lena paused with her hand on the door.

  “Anika?”

  “Yes?”

  “If I ever look the way Camille did tonight… will someone be there?”

  Anika answered without hesitation.

  “I will.”

  Lena nodded once and quietly left the room.

  Anika remained seated on the bed long after the door closed, her thoughts lingering on the conversation.

  Some questions, she knew, were not a sign of doubt.

  They were the beginning of belonging.