The woman’s lips pinched into a narrow line. “We does what we can for them, but there’s only so much of the staff to go ’round.” The woman with steel-colored hair was brusque and efficient now, even in the way she walked—I struggled to keep up.

“Of course.” As we left the large, open entryway, the thick walls of the corridor muffled everything, and it was all oddly silent, with hanging lights casting swinging shadows. “How many patients are there?”

“Near to three hundred altogether. A hundred or so on the women’s side, twice again as many on the men’s.”

“And the staff?”

“One superintendent—that’s Dr. Thornhill, of course—a handful of attending doctors, a few nurses, and maybe ten or fifteen women to see to things, depending on how many have left or come on board that week.”

“That isn’t many.”

Her face was grim. “Like I said, we does what we can.”

We turned a corner, and down the corridor to the left stood a pair in heated discussion—a tall, dark-suited doctor and the nurse he towered over.

I braced myself to keep from rushing to her rescue, so like my father the man seemed. “What is he doing?”

“That’d be Dr. Turner. He has a lot of opinions. Strong ones.” Nurse Branson tensed as we moved on, crossing her arms. “Duffy,” she called, and the little nurse broke away, hurrying toward us from the shadows.

Face white, eyes wide, the young woman approached, obviously straining for composure. “Yes, Matron?”

“Show this woman around, won’t you? She’s the new aid.”

“Yes, ma’am.” She dipped a curtsy, her face still pale, and some primal urgency in me surged to the surface. A need to escape. And to rescue the nurse, of all people.

Still flushed and unsettled, Nurse Duffy frowned at me. “Well, come along, then.”

Distant cooing sounds echoed about the walls. Birds? No, voices. Residents. Humans. Short little screeches followed, and those echoed. They were jarring.

I looked about, memorizing the place as if drawing an escape map for when I’d have need of it—the arched doors with heavy metal locks, the raftered ceiling, two high barred windows at the end. The entire building made a U shape, with the large entryway and main living and working spaces forming the base of the letter and two identical wards—one for men and one for women—branching northward from it.

The woman called Duffy paused at a narrow linen closet and rummaged about inside, coming out with an armload of gray uniforms and whitish aprons similar to what the other staff wore. “You’ll need these. Won’t want to soil your own things.” She looked only about thirty, a bony little thing, but seemed aged already. “Now, this way. I’ll take you to the kitchen.”