Darina ladles stew into three bowls. While she’s busy setting the table, I decide to go upstairs and see if Osric would like to eat. He hasn’t come down yet, which is strange for him. Usually, he spends his day working in the garden.
I haven’t seen Nim, either. Maybe she got spooked by our cleaning earlier.
I knock on his door.
“Lunch is ready,” I call.
There’s movement inside, a rustle of sheets or clothes, then a shuffle of steps across the stone floor. I straighten my back and wait for him to open the door. He doesn’t.
I can hear him breathe on the other side, rough and loud enough to raise goosebumps on my skin. Then I hear a low grunt, short and clenched, the sound of a man in pain trying to stay quiet.
I raise my hand to knock again but stop with my knuckles barely grazing the wood.
“Osric?”
No answer.
I press my palm to the door. I don’t know why, it’s like I’m trying to feel him through it, get closer to him this way. He knows I’m here, and he isn’t opening. Whatever is wrong with him, he’d rather not tell me.
“All right, well…” I take a deep breath and release it slowly, trying to not take his attitude personally. “Come down whenever. There’s food.”
Then I turn on my heel and go back downstairs to join Darina in the dining room.
“Is he coming?” Darina asks, setting down the bowls.
“No.” I sit next to her. “He didn’t answer. I heard him, though. He was breathing hard, and he made a sound, like a grunt. It sounded painful.”
“Should we bring food up to him? Maybe he’s sick.”
“He heard me and chose not to open the door or even talk to me.” I push the stew around my bowl. “I don’t understand what’s wrong with him. He’s been coughing and clearing his throat, did you notice?”
Darina eats a few spoonfuls before she speaks again.
“Are you starting to feel guilty?” she asks.
I set my spoon down.
“Guilty about what?”
“I only asked.”
“I have nothing to feel guilty about. He bought me, but I owe him nothing. He said so himself. I can leave whenever I want, I don’t owe him the credits he spent on me, and us living here is only temporary.”
“All right,” she says, and passes me the bread.
She doesn’t sulk, and neither do I. We’ve never known how to stay cross with each other.
After lunch, I find Nim curled in the warm stone hollow by the terrace door. When she hears me, her ears perk up. She watches me with narrowed eyes and a suspicious scowl as I approach andcrouch a little way off to hold out my hand slowly. I imagine this is how you’re supposed to make friends with an animal.
“We live in the same house,” I tell her. “We should be friends.”
She strikes so fast that I barely have time to pull my hand away. I hear a hiss and her teeth snapping shut where my fingers were just a fraction of a second before. I cradle my hand against my chest, checking to see if I still have all my fingers.
“You nearly bit me!” I stare at her. “I’ve been nothing but polite to you.”
Her ears flatten against her elegant skull, and I lower my voice.
“Is this about him?” I ask her. “Because I haven’t done anything to him. If he’s upset, it can’t be because of me. You know that. You watch everything in this house.”
