She picked up one of the diamond pouches.
"At that rate, paying off your father's debt would take forty years. Maybe fifty. You would all be old and broken before you were free."
Mara set the pouch back down and looked directly at Thomas and Sarah.
"But performing for Kraven? That pays ten times, twenty times what normal work pays. You could clear your family's entire debt in two years instead of fifty. You could buy your freedom and your mother's freedom. You could actually have a future instead of dying as servants in this inn."
Thomas's voice was bitter. "So we sell our dignity, our bodies, and our souls to a monster who gets off on watching siblings fuck each other. That's the price of freedom?"
"Yes," Mara said bluntly. "That's exactly the price. And you've been paying it willingly for six months now, so don't act like this is some new revelation."
She crossed her arms, her expression becoming businesslike again.
