I slept for five hours. It was the first thing anyone had made me do in days that I completely agreed with.
When I woke, the light through the window had turned the color of old brass, and somebody had left a tray on the table by the door: bread, cheese, a pot of tea that had gone cold, and a folded note in Sorel's handwriting. It said Eat this, and underneath, in smaller letters, as though she had come back to add it, You may use Barrier again. Please don't.
I ate the bread. I considered the tea, and decided it had suffered enough.
Then I looked at the clothes hanging on the back of the door, and lay down again. Penelope had packed two formal outfits. I had worn one of them to Lord Merrow's dinner, where it had sat through three forks and a great deal of polite lying. The second had apparently been waiting for this. I didn't know how she had known. I suspected the answer was that she always knew, and that this was one of the more frightening things about her.
[You are awake.]
