[Belin]

Celumëomaryu slipped into the Butler's room to wedge the door shut, wondering vaguely where he had disappeared to. She was certain he wouldn't move it. The importance of the punishment of Anna and Calimiel seemed lost on him, but he did understand that Maladil was a bad enemy, and that Maladil wished it.

She walked slowly up the stairs again, finding little eagerness to return to the dungeon that she had made her own. She hoped the Butler would come to talk to her. Maybe there would be a chance at her own library again, at the window with the light that did not warm her but still reminded her of a time when she hadn't needed to watch it. If there was no body, and if she promised to help him with Maladil, perhaps he would prove amenable. She hadn't expected to miss it.

She reached the dungeon, and she stood silently as her prisoners spoke to each other, even when Anna gestured derisively at her. They were speaking, worrying, planning, playing, and she was standing outside watching them as she always had. Nothing had changed.

Nothing would ever change.

She did not move. She wondered briefly whether another attempt to mutilate the bodies would make any difference and decided against it, for the moment. It would simply seem petty to attack them for playing. After all, it was they who were imprisoned, and it was she who was free...

She sighed slightly, a sound that nobody would have heard even had a stranger and far more startling sound come from outside.