“Dead,” and I didn’t cry this time.Irena and her husband were both dead now.“You’re a widow?”Although I already knew Alaina had been married, I couldn’t know that in my current circumstances.And it took attention away from me.
“Of several years now.”
“Were you happy with him?”
She met my eyes and then shook her head.
I reached out my other hand to put it on top of the two of ours.The blanket slid off a shoulder.
“What happened?”Alaina pointed to a featherless patch of skin on my now-exposed arm.
“Nothing.”I withdrew both hands and pulled the blanket back over me.
“That's not nothing.”
“I had my own incident today,” I confessed, “but I didn’t want it to take precedence over yours.”
She glared me down until I told her about it.
“I don’t think there’s any permanent damage,” I assured her, “and I washed off most of the blood.There’s a spot by my wing that I couldn’t reach.Would you look at it?”
“Of course!”She gestured for me to put my back to her.
I shifted position, dragging my back along the bars so that the wings would have no choice but to go sideways, leaving my shoulder exposed to her view.
Her sound of disgust told me more than any description she could give me.
“I’m going to get the water.”She stood, walked around the cage, and then slid the water dish around to where she tended me.She resumed her seat and began working the tip of a handkerchief into my shoulder.“Were all your wounds this bad?”
“They don’t hurt anymore.I think it’s just the dried blood pulling on the feathers with this one.”
She rubbed, working at the crusted blood and lymph.It should have been painful, but I relaxed into her touch and settled back against the bars.Irena used to sit behind me and peel dead skin off my shoulders, scolding me all the while for basking in the sun long beyond what my fragile Ilyichian skin could handle.Alaina wasn’t Irena, but I almost forgot for a moment.
“I hate that you’re subject to such cruel treatment,” she grumbled.
“Ilyichia little cares about its people.Why would anyone give a thought more for one of the tsarina’s curiosities?”
“Kaylay,” she ventured after a long stretch of deep thought, “is the tsarina done with you?”
“If only.But she does not seem to require my presence as much as she once did.Why?”
“What if I could have you come under my care?”
“I do not think she would relinquish her hold on me so easily.”
“Unfortunately, I agree.But if I could have you moved up to my apartments, that might keep you safe.”
She dropped her hands from my shoulder, and I turned to face her.
“I am going to have to make a perfect nuisance of myself,” she said.
“That should take no effort then.”
“I’m going to have to complain, often and loudly, about today with you.About how cruel it is.And about how neglected you are.And how something so ugly needs to be protected, for how could such a rabble be expected to control itself when faced with such a creature?”
“Thanks.”
“If I pester her enough, maybe she’ll decide that, if I’m so concerned about your upkeep, I should take responsibility for you.”
