Serena’s relaxed voice sounds so far away, “What time is it?”
“Two-forty.”
Something twists in me.
I left the dorm moments after the clock struck twelve—and now, less than three hours later, I’m sore and swollen and defeated in detention.
If I had just fought off my hunger a bit longer…
The article would’ve still been printed and delivered to the mess hall.
I wouldn’t have avoided that.
I nudge the cupboard door open that bit more. I scan the shelves within view for any jarred salves or balms. But it lookslike it’s just storage, not a medicine cabinet, so I give up and let my head fall back into the wall.
I ignore the burn of my scalp from Asta pulling my hair.
“Is your father home?” she asks.
I would frown if I could, but it all feels so swollen, so tight, like I’ve had a facelift in the past hour.
“I don’t know,” is my mumbled answer, an echo to my own ears.
Father hasn’t talked to me in a while. Hasn’t called me once in the weeks since the semester started.
“Say he’s home,” she starts, “and he was called right after Master Milton found us—which was about an hour ago?”
I shrug.
“It will take your father how long to get here?”
Still, my mind is as distant as my voice, “Three or four hours, depending on traffic.”
Whatever’s going on in her mind, it doesn’t interest me as I slip into my catatonic state.
“So your father should be here around dinner time.”
My hand moves on its own accord.
Serena’s thinking-out-loud nonsense is just background noise as I reach into the shadows of the cupboard, through the narrow gap between the doors, and I lure out a glass phial.
“The gondolas don’t stop running until five on Sundays. It’s almost three now.”
I bring the phial to my huddled knees.
It’s exactly like the one my blood samples were deposited into. Not regular blood phials. These ones have solid metal lids that screw on—then seal. The base is latched in lattice leatherfor grip. And the middle is bulbous, like Master Welham’s midsection.
“The atrium should be packed from four until six, between the curfew rush, the gondolas, and dinner in the mess hall.”
I turn the phial over in my hands. “How many blood samples did your witchdoctor take?”
There’s a beat of silence, of hesitation before—out the corner of my swelling eye—Serena turns a frown on me. “Um… three? Why?”
I just shrug my shoulders. “No reason.”
Same number for myself.
Three samples of blood drawn.
