Belle liked her little cell. She felt safe here, curled up on her cot, listening to the wind through the leaves and the chorus of tree frogs. A guard was posted outside, but from what she could see of his magic, he couldn't do any Earthbreaking, much less Metalwork, so he wouldn’t be able to enter her cell.

She would have expected herself to be riddled with nerves, hyperfocusing on every little sound, a thousand possibilities of what might happen all screaming at each other, vying for her attention. And a few of those did make themselves known—mostly worries about how panicked Jac must be, or if Clarix was safe. But she managed to wrangle those thoughts under control before they spiraled her into panic.

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In the dark, the silence, with the magic of the forest all around her, she felt like she was safe in her Mother’s embrace. Before long, Mother Dark had pulled her into the deepest sleep she’d had in years.

She was so dead to the world that she had no way of knowing how much time had passed before—

CRACK

Belle sat up, taking in the muted morning light crawling into her cell.

“Well,” she said to herself. “It took her no time at all.”