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Karigan returned to her bed cha to do, and she welco that had happened, all the revelations over the last twenty-four hours, had left her numb She tossed her hat and veil aside, sprawled on her bed, and stared at the ceiling She worked everything through her mind once more: Arhys, A she’d tell King Zachary about was Amberhill He host of Yates She wondered why he had appeared to her She’d had enough experience with ghosts to know that they did not appear without reason What would compel him to come across time and the veil of death to her?
If there was one facet of her day thatabout Cade’s aspirations to be Arhys’ Weapon He was beginning to show depths that she had not expected, and she looked forward to their next training session Still, all that she had learned since she’d been in this tiods Why was she here? Maybe there was no purpose, maybe she was arbitrarily deposited here, but she did not think so There was tooto the past, her past, for it to be a coincidence
Karigan could only ponder these things over the following days, which were, essentially, quiet and left her to brooding She saw little of the professor or Cade and received no invitations to join the hi lash wounds on his hide The air was too noxious, Luke explained, for even the horses to go for a run And it was true--a cloud had settled over the city, and she was not at all disposed to open thein her rooh and her eyes water Cloudy, the cat, had not appeared at herfor a visit anyway
Some of her time was taken up by a visit from Mistress Ilsa dela Enfande and her coterie, there to create an evening gown for her attendance at Dr Silk’s dinner party
"It shall be n," Mistress dela Enfande declared "Dr Silk is known for inviting only the an could only sigh She had no choice in the ave in to her fate, as well as to the capable talents of Mistress dela Enfande
Shethe assault of Mistress dela Enfande’s assistants and their h her cracked door, scowling Likewise Mirriam kept her distance and rean, and she’d gone from formal back to her foran sat by her , boredly gazing at another day’s vaporous clouds--hazing even the wall of the neighboring house--Lorine came in with clean linens, which she proceeded to store in the wardrobe
"How often is it like this?" Karigan asked Unable to ride, unable to do , she felt like a landlocked sailor in a storm
"We once had a full htfully, a folded sheet forgotten in her ar into space
"You were still what?" Karigan asked quietly
"I was still a slave in the h with all the cotton fibers flying about, but the s us would sicken, even die We still had to work, you see, no matter what the air was like But that was just one of a thousand hazards in themad confined to the indoors to avoid the bad air "I’ed "For what? You did not an had notto stop it either It was easy to forget, in the comfort of the professor’s house, how hard others labored "Do all the mills use slaves to do the work?"
"As far as I know, o there were soods, owned and run by free folk, but they couldn’t co mills that came in, so they went out of business"
Lorine finished what she was doing and closed the wardrobe doors She prepared to leave, but Karigan called her back
"Yes, miss?"
"Hoas it you came to work for the prof--er, my uncle? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want," she added hastily
"It’s all right," Lorine replied "I don’t"I--I’d had an accident at theher hair "I wore my hair back, always, but it didn’t always stay tied A bunch of it got caught up in the belting attached to one of the looan’s sharp intake of breath, Lorine said, "I’m sorry, "
"Please, don’t stop I’m sorry--you ed to, if you could not work, you were disposed of one way or another, sold off, or thrown out like garbage I lost a lot of blood and was insensible They leftthe day’s corpses, to be picked up later by the rubbish cart I guess "
Karigan shuddered, not able to even ih as a slave in such conditions