Any sensation at all? Nothing I said. And again. And again. Both sets of toes, and the soles of my feet. And now further up my legs and it was amazing to me, to see the pin prick my skin until my blood was drawn to the surface in tiny red flecks. I felt nothing at all.

Later, after he had gone. I tried it myself. I had slipped a needle out of his black bag without his noticing and I tested just as he had done. Nothing. In the end, in desperation, I stabbed the needle so deep into my leg it should have made me scream. Instead, I lay and sobbed. I cannot move my legs. The doctor wouldn’t talk to me, but I heard him. I heard what he said to my father in the hallway as he left this morning when he had come to check my progress and found me the same as the days before. He whispered his prognosis, but my ears are not broken, just my back. The doctor says that I am paralysed from the waist down. He says he is quite certain. The damage to my spine is absolute. I will never walk again.

Chapter 7: The Wheelchair Mystery

I am sure that the doctor is wrong. Rose is going to recover. She is not much older than me, and she has yet to paint her greatest works. Doctors make mistakes about things. I saw a woman come out of a coma once on Grey’s Anatomy, and no one was expecting it, so it happens.

Today, as I walked across the cobblestones to get to class, I thought about what life would be like without my legs. If I couldn’t stand at my easel then I couldn’t paint. Mind you, Augustin thinks I’m a useless artist anyway. He hasn’t said a kind word to me. I thought he might try to encourage me after being so brutal about my work last week, but no.

In class I’ve continued to try to rework the sketch as a painting, to give it the soul he keeps telling me it needs to have. All I’ve managed to do is make it overwrought and now the paint is so thick and gloopy it won’t dry.

After school today I couldn’t face going home. I walked out of the gates and went left, heading down the avenue to the Célestins Guards’ quarters.

The guard on the gate gave me a smile. “You’re Oscar’s little friend, aren’t you?” He raised the barrier. “He said you might be back.”

I couldn’t believe he’d just let me in like that. I felt my heart racing as I walked across the courtyard. And then I got to Claude’s stall and found it empty, and all the excitement drained out of me.

“They’re out on patrol.”