Constance’s eyes shone with tears. She muttered, “I was happy before I met him.”

Then Ruby’s phone beeped. Gregor. Has she taken the tonic yet?

Just doing it now, she replied.

“He says you need to take your medicine.”

“Good,” said Constance. “At least I’ll be unconscious for a while.” She went to the bathroom, and Ruby heard the cupboard opening and shutting, the clinking of a glass bottle. When she returned, Ruby spoke out of the side of her mouth, still aware of the camera overhead, hoping the sound of the TV was masking them completely.

“We need to think about the next steps,” she said. “The plan for getting you both out of here.”

“Not now,” said Constance. “It’s too much. Today I sleep.”

“But he said he might send you away soon. I don’t know how long we’ve got.”

“Send me away? Where?”

“For treatment. But you can’t trust him.”

“I can’t leave. Not without my coat.”

“Your coat?” Was it real, then, after all? Ruby decided that even if it wasn’t, she had to pretend she believed in it if Constance was to trust her. “Can’t you get a new one?”

She shook her head no. “It’s part of me. I was born in it.”

Ruby imagined the scene, a wind-blown stone cottage on an island, the mother in labor with nothing but an old coat to cushion the baby from the packed earth floor.

“But what if he’s gotten rid of it?”

“I don’t think he has. The man keeps things, forever if he can. I think he’s planning to keep you too, Ruby, one way or another.” The tonic was starting to take effect, as Constance’s speech slowed and she slumped deeper into the cushions.

Ruby felt her heart rate increase. They could go right now, if they were quick. But Constance curled on the sofa, her eyelids starting to droop.

“Is it really worth staying here for the sake of a coat?”

“I stay here only because of the coat. Otherwise, don’t you think I would have gone already?”

When she looked into Constance’s eyes, she thought she understood, finally. The coat was a link to her past, to her real self, to everything Gregor had been keeping from her. It was more than a symbol, more than a possession. Ruby wanted so much to help Constance regain something of what she’d lost, something of her fragile sanity, her sense of self. But more than that, she needed to get them away.

When Gregor came back an hour later, Constance was fully asleep and snoring. She didn’t even stir when he hauled her up into his arms, carried her to bed.

Ruby hid her fear, or she hoped she had. She yawned and stretched, started to get up to leave.

“You off?” he said.