Chapter 12: The Second Cup

I dressed in the time it takes to say it.

My fingers found the charcoal stick in my skirt pocket, and I ran.

Three flights, bare ankles on cold stone, my braid still half undone.

The nursery door stood open.

Ewan sat up in his bed with the blanket round his knees.

On the bed beside him sat Odessa in a gown the color of cream, her gloved hands folded round a blue-striped cup.

The nurse stood against the wall, small and white.

A page waited by the door, and behind him the cook, red and puffing, with a wet cloth in her fists.

Perrin was on the stair a step below me.

"Linnet," said Odessa warmly. "There you are. I came up myself to bring him his milk. The poor nurse was run off her feet."

"Put it down," I said.

"What?"

"Put the cup down, Odessa."

"Don't be silly. He's hungry." She turned the cup toward Ewan, and lifted it to his mouth. "Drink up, my darling."

Ewan's eyes went huge.

He looked at me.

I crossed the room in three steps and struck the cup out of her hands.

It flew across the floor and rang on the stone, and milk splashed in a long white arc.

"Linnet!" Odessa gasped, and put her hand to her breast.

"Everyone, look at the floor."

The milk lay on the grey flagstones in a spreading pool.

Nobody moved.

Then the stone beneath it began to change.

It darkened from the edges inward, a deep ugly black.

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