Chapter 6: Wrong Sister

Bram put his shoulder through the door on the third try.

The bolt tore out of the frame, and the room opened in front of us.

Mother was on the floor beside the dressing table, in my gray wrap, with both hands pressed to her chest.

Blood was coming between her fingers.

A knife stood in her, below the collarbone, with the pale ribbon wound around its handle.

Linnet knelt over her.

Her gloved hand was still on the grip.

She was staring at Mother's face with her mouth open.

"No," she said. "No, no. That was supposed to be Rosalind."

The east lodge elder hauled her backward by the shoulders.

She let him.

She kept staring, and her gloves came away red.

"She was in the wrap," she said. "She was at the dressing table. She was wearing her gray wrap."

"Linnet!" I said.

She looked up.

Her eyes found me in the doorway, and I saw the wrongness of it all come over her at once.

"You," she said. "You were supposed to be in here. You were supposed to be in the gown."

The old elder took her other arm.

"Everyone in this hall just heard that," he said.

Behind us a door slammed.

Father came down the hall at a run with Tobin behind him, and stopped in the doorway.

I watched him see the floor.

"Odette," he said.

He went down on his knees beside her.

"Odette. Odette, can you hear me?"

"Father, the healers are in the linen room," I said.

"No."

He said it without looking up.

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