Chapter 32: Tea at Orchard Hill

Mara's POV

The Director's kitchen was white from the floor to the ceiling.

White cabinets, white curtains, a white enamel table, and on the table a silver tray with a teapot and four white cups.

Her wolves stood at the back door.

Abel had been taken out to the porch with a collared man on either side of him.

Ronan stood just inside the kitchen doorway, a step behind my chair, with his arms folded and his hands tucked under them.

"Sit, Ms. Linwood," Opal Harkness said. "Please. You have come a long way."

"I'll stand."

"As you like."

She poured a cup of tea and set it in front of me.

Her glove did not shake this time.

She seemed steadier than she had in her office, and her skin looked smoother.

"I can't drink that," I said. "Number five. I drink nothing in your building."

"This is my house, Ms. Linwood. It is not a building."

"It's close enough."

I picked up the white cup, walked to the sink, and poured the tea down the drain.

I turned on the tap and rinsed the cup, and set it on the drainboard upside down.

"Very pointed," Opal said, pleasantly.

"What's in your cellar?"

"Forty beds for forty wards. A licensed Registry facility."

"At nine o'clock at night."

"Elders keep no hours."

"What was in the box with Ronan's mother's name on it?"

Behind me Ronan went entirely still.

"Effects," the Director said. "Mrs. Draycott left her effects to the Registry, in the usual way."

"She didn't."

"There is a form."

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