Chapter 22: The Feed Room

The studio of the Concord's federal broadcast hall held four thousand seats, and every one of them was full.

Thora stood at the center of the white stage with five men at her back and nine thousand cameras on her face.

The board of the great houses sat on a long dais.

The Marshal rose in front of them, took the Ostrow seal from her collar and laid it on the table.

"I resign the seat of my house," she said.

"I name my daughter Thora Ostrow its heir, by blood and by the registry."

"I will answer to this board for the child I traded and the girl I sent to Karst."

The hall rumbled.

On a bench at the side of the stage, between two guards, Stella sat with her hands in her lap.

She had washed her face.

She looked tiny, and young, and bruised.

"Stella Ostrow," the chair of the board said.

"You are charged with poisoning five men and with the death of a contestant. Do you wish to speak?"

Stella raised her head.

"I do," she said. "I'd like to say I'm sorry."

Thora felt it before she heard it.

A faint hiss, from the vents in the ceiling.

Then the smell came down, sweet and thick, with the bitter under it.

She knew it from the back of her tongue.

"Cover your faces!" she shouted. "Wet cloth, now!"

Nobody heard her.

Up on the dais the chair of the board had stopped speaking mid-word.

The guards beside Stella turned their heads toward her, slow and glad.

In the front row, a woman in a gold gown began to weep and held out her hands.

"Look at me," Stella said, and her voice rang across the hall.

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