The room was a cube of beige concrete, twelve feet in each direction. There was no window, only a single, seamless sheet of metal for a door. The air was recycled, tasting faintly of metal and the faint, sweet smell of the apple the father had saved from breakfast.

She smiled. It was his reward. He would have carved out his own heart to keep that smile alive.

Later, after the single lightbulb dimmed for the “night” cycle, Elara whispered in the dark. “Papa?”

Then she squeezed his hand. “Then we won’t open the door, Papa. We’ll tell stories until the stories are bigger than the room. Until they push the walls out. And then there won’t be a room anymore.”

She told him stories, too. About the people who lived in the cracks in the wall. The Click-Clacks, she called them, because they made a soft, rhythmic sound when the air cycled. The Click-Clacks were having a festival today, she announced. The Queen Click-Clack was wearing a hat made of a single dust mote.

Leo sat up. He had lied to her. He had told her the scratching was the pipes. He had told her it was nothing. But she had always known. She was seven, but the room had aged her into something else. A small, fierce sentinel.

“Is that why we can’t open the door?”