//CLARA//
I must have drifted off. The brain has a funny way of checking out when the reality of being tied to a chair in a damp cellar becomes too much to process.
I woke to the violent clang of metal hitting stone.
A silver tray slammed onto the floor in front of me, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the small space. The meal—if you could call the grayish, lukewarm sludge that spilled over the rim a meal—sprayed across the floor, some of it splattering onto the hem of my ruined silk skirts.
The smell hit me then, sour and rancid, like meat left too long in summer heat mixed with the metallic tang of cheap tin. I stared at it with a disgust so deep it actually bypassed the hollow ache in my stomach.
Silas stood above me, lantern in hand, watching my reaction with the detached interest of a man observing insects. I looked up, glaring at him through the tangled mess of my hair.
"Eat."
