The dimly lit chamber pulsed with an unsettling energy, the air thick with the scent of damp stone and burning candle wax.

Mattheo stormed forward, his boots striking the cold stone floor with a force that echoed through the chamber. His voice, when it came, was sharp enough to cut through the suffocating silence.

"You let her go?!"

Tom stood motionless, his posture eerily relaxed, his expression unreadable. Slowly, he turned his head toward Mattheo, his voice smooth as silk.

"Because she is crazy," he murmured, as if he were still trying to process it himself. "I pointed my wand at her throat, and I was this close—caught between cursing her into oblivion or making her scream." His voice dropped lower, as though the memory itself sent an uneasy chill down his spine. "And do you know what she did?"

Mattheo said nothing, his breath coming out in sharp, angry exhales.

Tom exhaled a slow breath through his nose. "She corrected me."

Mattheo’s brow furrowed, his fury momentarily overshadowed by confusion. "What?"

"She corrected me." Tom’s lips curled into something that wasn’t quite a smirk—there was no amusement in it, only an eerie kind of fascination. "She looked me de4d in the eyes, completely unfazed, and told me—calmly—that Transmogr!f!an t0rture would be far more painful than a simple Cruc!atus curse." He let the words settle, watching the way Mattheo’s expression shifted, the faintest flicker of unease creeping into his fury.

A tense silence stretched between them.

Mattheo exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through his hair. "You let her go because she outmaneuvered you in a conversation about t0rture?"

Tom’s gaze darkened, something unreadable flickering in the depths of his eyes. "I let her go," he said, voice barely above a whisper, "because, for the first time, I wasn’t entirely sure who held the real power in that room."