Maybe there was a time when Camilla Hect didn’t sleep with one eye open, but those days are long past, buried under the remains of Canaan House, sealed behind the same locked doors in her mind where she keeps her memories of being tortured on this very ship. Sometimes, she finds a scrap of paper that reads you need to rest, and she knows that Palamedes has noticed the dark circles under her eyes. She always crumples up the paper into a ball and leaves it exactly where she found it, knowing he will get the message.
She can imagine him rolling his eyes (her eyes), even if she will never see him do it.
Camilla is sitting upright on the mattress now, staring directly at the woman on the other side of the door. She stands up and approaches, peering through the window with grey eyes full of suspicion.
Then she disappears from view.
When the prisoner returns, the eyes have changed. They are a deep earth-brown now. More significantly, they dance with relief and something like triumph. The person waves cheerfully, and then points down, disappearing again to slip a piece of paper under the door. On the paper is a passcode, which will unlock the door using a panel on the wall.
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Maybe there was a time when Camilla Hect didn’t sleep with one eye open, but those days are long past, buried under the remains of Canaan House, sealed behind the same locked doors in her mind where she keeps her memories of being tortured on this very ship. Sometimes, she finds a scrap of paper that reads you need to rest, and she knows that Palamedes has noticed the dark circles under her eyes. She always crumples up the paper into a ball and leaves it exactly where she found it, knowing he will get the message.
She can imagine him rolling his eyes (her eyes), even if she will never see him do it.
Camilla is sitting upright on the mattress now, staring directly at the woman on the other side of the door. She stands up and approaches, peering through the window with grey eyes full of suspicion.
Then she disappears from view.
When the prisoner returns, the eyes have changed. They are a deep earth-brown now. More significantly, they dance with relief and something like triumph. The person waves cheerfully, and then points down, disappearing again to slip a piece of paper under the door. On the paper is a passcode, which will unlock the door using a panel on the wall.