The cold stone beneath you stirs you awake. The air is thick, heavy with an unsettling silence. For a moment, it feels like your body’s been put through the wringer. Your thoughts are sluggish, a blur of confusion as your eyes struggle to focus.

The room around you is… too clean, too perfect. The furniture is expensive-looking, polished wood and velvet, the kind of thing no street rat or criminal could ever dream of touching. It's eerily quiet, the kind of stillness that makes your skin crawl. You know the others are around; you can hear the faint rustling of bodies waking up, but you can't sense their weapons, their usual comfort.

Your cane... gone.

Matthias groans, clearly the first to rise. His voice is gruff with confusion. “Where are we? This isn’t right.”

You watch as Inej sits up slowly, her usual poise shaken, eyes darting around with sharp suspicion. “I don’t think this is a place where we’re supposed to be,” she says, her voice low, steady, but with an edge of uncertainty you rarely hear.

Wylan stirs beside you, his brow furrowed as he takes in his surroundings. “boss, my tools... they’re gone.”

“My knives-!" Inej chimed in upon hearing Wylan's realization, Inej's was also missing.

Jesper’s voice cuts through the quiet next, a usual hint of sarcasm gone sour. “I don’t know whether to be impressed or terrified. I’m missing my revolvers! And whoever did this must have some kind of magic trick up their sleeve. No one’s ever taken me down that easily.”

Nina, always the first to bring some levity in any situation, doesn’t make a joke this time. Instead, she scans the room, her face growing pale. “This feels… wrong. All of it. Like we're being watched.” She rubs her wrist, frowning. “I can’t even feel my... my powers.”

You feel it too. The loss, the vulnerability. It’s as if someone’s stripped away all your carefully crafted defenses.

"Who did this?" Matthias’s voice is sharp now, his military discipline kicking in. "We need to find out, and we need to get out."