Blessed Bernard’s buns, how did that happen? Who put her in this awful place?
But Pip knew, of course. It had to have been Perfect Pamela’s husband. Did that mean he was the real lion in the family? Would it also mean that Pamela had more information than Pip had thought? And what had she done to deserve this?
Then Pip saw something that made it all so much worse. Something she couldn’t bear, even if it was Perfect Pamela. As soon as the aids left the room and turned back toward the quieting rooms, Pip saw Pamela lift a hand and drop it, nothing more, as if that was all the energy she could muster.
“Please,” she whispered to the ceiling. “Don’t do this.”
There were tears trailing down her temples to dampen her pillow and a look of such despair in her eyes Pip caught herself just shy of running in to help. Even though there was no help she could offer. At least not then.
She so wished she could talk to her. She wished she could simply sit and hold her hand. But she couldn’t risk being unmasked. Not until she found Miss Schroeder. After her run-ins with Perfect Pamela, though, it should have surprised her how hard it was to simply turn away.
“Cox,” the Matron said, approaching at a brisk clip, her starched white apron rustling, “the usual maid is busy and Quieting Room number one needs cleaning. If you go to the back, you’ll see the blue door. It leads to them. Here.”
And she handed off a key.
Pip curtsied, her eyes down so she didn’t betray her relief at not being caught, and walked on to the closet that held her cleaning supplies. Her heart had begun to gallop and her hands to sweat. This was her opportunity. She could at least assess the area. She desperately needed to find Miss Schroeder and get her out of here. She had to alert Diccan. She had to get Mrs. Baxter. She had to hope they were in the quieting rooms, or she feared they would never find them.
At first glance the quieting room looked to be fairly innocuous. Down a flight of wooden stairs, obviously dug from the earth just like the dower cellar, along a sterile-looking hallway that was unaccountably unattended. Five feet square, perhaps. Painted unrelieved white and empty.
Empty. How did that work? No bed? No Chairs? Not even a chamberpot?
She found the chamberpot down the hall, but it was obvious that Pamela had had trouble with it. The room reeked of urine. Pip couldn’t imagine what that would have done to such a proud, vain woman. Blast if it didn’t make her feel even worse for her.
But then Pip realized that in this empty white room there were no lights. The only lamps available were hanging in the hallway. No windows. Just a closed box where a person spent at least two days alone. Dark in the middle of the day, and as cold as any cave. She wasn’t even sure the women were fed while they were in there. She had never seen any trays pass that way from the kitchen.
She stood in that stark, blank room for too long, just imagining what it would be like when they closed the door on you. She had been right to have had chills.
The need to find Miss Schroeder became much more acute.
There were five more doors in the hallway, two with those red cards, and no visible staff anywhere. Should she yell? Call out a name? Or just try the key in each lock to see what happened.
She quickly mopped down the empty room. Then, key in hand, she tested the door across the hall, holding her breath, straining to hear any sounds, either from the cell or above her.
The door opened. To show nothing. The same empty stark white space. The same vague, pervasive scent of urine. Nothing more.
The same for the second cell. It was the third where she succeeded, one of the red card rooms. Tucked back in the far corner, knees to chest, head on knees, was another woman in dingy, wrinkled blue. It wasn’t Miss Schroeder. She was far too small and her hair gray.
“Mrs. Baxter?” Pip quietly asked.
The woman’s head snapped up. She winced at the light from Pip’s lantern, and then stared as if trying to decide whether she was an apparition.
“Yes?”
Pip let out a sigh of relief. “I am here to help. I am a friend of Miss Schroeder. My name is Phillipa Knight, and I have been sent by the people who are trying to stop the Lions.”
Pip could see no expression. “You want to know what I told her.”
“I do. But, as I said, I want to help you. I can’t do it alone, though. I need help. If we needed to move you fast, could you walk or run?”
She nodded. “I would crawl if I needed to. And then I want you to arrest my husband for treason.”
“We’ll try. Is Miss Schroeder down here?”
She pointed. “Next door. You are to get her out too?”
“I think we must. If you give me a minute, I need to see her.”
Again, Pip listened for visitors. Again, she tried the key on a red card door, her hands shaking. Again, she opened the door to see a woman tucked back in a corner, knees at her chest, arms wrapped around them to maintain heat, her shorn hair blond. Miss Schroeder, though, had her head up and her eyes open. She too, winced, then lifted her hand to shade her eyes. When she realized who had just come through the door, though, she jumped to her feet like a teenager and rushed forward.
