The Ribbon & The Rope. The phantom chronicles, #1

It smelled of wet wool, sour breath, and the slow rot of hope. Kit had been inside before-not as prisoner, but as "Mrs. Vale, " wife of a minor customs official, touring the prison's "reformed" women's wing with a basket of hymnals and a face full of pity. Lies, all of it. She'd been mapping escape routes, noting guard rotations, memorizing which turnkeys took bribes in gin and which in silence.