A small rose embellished the bottom of the scrap instead of a signature. I fisted the note and forced my mind to get around it, to keep moving forward. I didn’t need the little packet, and this note meant nothing. I could step on a stage and play a Chopin piece from memory, could command the attention of audiences without a word. I could make it to a lousy cellar.

“Bridget.” I dared whisper to her as the two aids spoke with each other. I meant to utter a friendly goodbye, a thanks for our brief friendship, but looking at her pale face I decided against it. It would go better for her if she knew nothing.

She waited, eyebrows raised.

“You have music too. You simply have to recognize it for what it is.”

She offered me a full, warm smile that reached her black Irish eyes, but then it dimmed. “It’s always easier, you know, to simply accept one’s fate. To not pretend.”

“Always easier, always easier,” chanted a woman named Lizzy Potts, as if chastising us as she rocked forward and back, hands tangled in her gown. “Eeeeeasier.”

But then I brought my tea to my lips and inhaled deeply, and a slightly bitter tang that was growing all too familiar met my senses. Sleeping tincture. I looked to be sure—there in the bottom of the cup swirled those now-familiar little flakes, ready to spin my senses and knock me flat so I couldn’t go anywhere but bed. It looked to be a double dose, even though sleeping tincture—even a standard dose—had never been part of my regime. Even as a patient. I blinked, glancing from one aid to the other. Chills climbed my arms and I set the cup on my knee.

It was coincidence. Merely coincidence. I’d been given the wrong cup, one meant for the volatile patients who took the tincture every night. I looked them over again—Duffy caught my gaze and held it, just for a moment.

Clara’s bright eyes were focused on me, and she smiled when I looked up at her. Bridget was watching too. Her eyebrows raised in question. Were they all staring at me? All aware of what I’d planned for that night? Of what was in my cup?

Or was I truly losing my mind?

I kept my head down. It suddenly seemed far easier to stay. To not risk being caught. Surely someone would find a way to come fetch me, and I could leave the right way.

But when?

No, it was time to go—now.

In carefully timed intervals, I dumped the tea into the potted plant on the sill near me as backs were turned, pretending to sip when they looked my way.