“This looks like something straight out of Lengard,” Cami notes suspiciously. Under her breath, she adds, “Or Star Trek.”

I’m glad she said it. I didn’t have the guts to.

A wall of glass separates the limestone encircling us from the ultramodern sterile cell on the other side of the transparent barrier. The floor-to-ceiling white space is empty save for a raised mattress resting in the middle—a mattress that I notice comes equipped with wrist and ankle restraints.

My stomach lurches, my mind transporting me back to a week ago when I was shackled in Vanik’s lab.

“My dad built this room,” Kael says, his voice returning me to the present. “Pandora helped him by infusing my ability into the walls. Nothing Spoken inside the cell can penetrate beyond the glass, all words destroyed before they can leave that side of the room.”

A spark of an idea hits me, but Kael catches my eye and continues, “That said, Dad designed it so Creators are an exception. He didn’t want to accidentally trap himself down here.”

That makes sense, but it also crushes the hope I’d momentarily felt at the thought of locking Vanik in here, if Ward’s comment about his “success” means he’s already turned himself into a Creator.

“So if, like, Crew was in there …” Cami says, trailing off.

“If he tried to use his Slayer ability on someone standing out here, nothing would happen,” Arryn says. “They’d be perfectly safe.”

“Of course, it’ll have no effect on Ward, since he doesn’t have an offensive ability,” Kael says, heaving him forward when Arryn places her hand on the glass and a door panel slides open. “But it’s still one of the only lockable rooms in the catacombs.”

“Thus your ‘better safe than sorry,’” I say, echoing his earlier words.

He nods. “Exactly.”

I’m inexplicably relieved when he places Ward on the mattress but doesn’t clamp the manacles around him. Cami, too, seems to be holding her breath beside me, at least until Kael turns and walks back to us, sealing Ward in the room— shackle free. Perhaps he’s acknowledging her words about how Ward won’t awaken on his own. Or perhaps he’s reading the tension in the air, understanding how I might feel about seeing someone restrained as I was, understanding how Cami might feel about her brother being treated like a criminal.

“Come on, let’s get you some food.”

I blink, then blink again when Kael places a guiding hand on my back and steers me toward the ladder.

“But—”

“You can see for yourself that he’s perfectly secure here. The cell only opens from this side; he’s not going anywhere. So that means it’s time for dinner and a nap, remember?”