“We can arrange a nice long sit, your ladyship.” She yanked me by the neck of my gown.

I coughed. Swallowed what shot up into my mouth. The light outside was fading, along with my chance of escape. Richard—would he wait? How long?

“Let’s see what Dr. Thornhill has to say about this.”

A river of nausea streamed through me. I hurried along beside the woman who made no concession for my stumbling stride, and we turned left down another hall, away from where we’d been going with the masses.

Away. That was a start. There was hope. We neared the end of the corridor and there were many doors, some cracked open. Yes. Yes, a spell. I had to have a spell. I gave myself over to the trembling, the sheer terror that gripped me, and let it utterly consume me. I could almost smell it.

Passing a window that seemed even darker than the last, I threw myself on the ground, biting clean through my lip as I hit. I tasted blood. I added jolts and spasms, magnifying everything. Then I went absolutely limp, hair splayed over my face and limbs askew . . . and I waited.

She screamed, that wretched nurse, and I almost felt sorry. She tore off down the hall, yelling for the doctor, and I lay still as death.

The second her footfall turned the corner, I scrambled up, reining in fear as if I was walking onstage to perform and bolted, holding my sleeve to my bleeding lip. I dove through the doorway at the end, happily discovering the most beautiful sight—stairs. I flew down two flights, trying to soften the clunk of my footfalls in those awful hard shoes they’d given me, wondering how long it would take. How long until I reached the basement, or until they found me. Whichever came first.

The stairway opened into the main floor in the back hallway, which led to the kitchen. I paused in a wondrous state of calm. I was alone. Halfway there. Which way was the lower stairs? One more level to go. I yanked off those treacherous old shoes that kept tripping me and hurled them deep into the kitchen and ran on bare feet—my first taste of freedom.

I skidded to a stop as a shadow bounced over the tile at the other end, growing larger. I ducked into an open door—a vacant office. I put both hands over my heart to still it.

A nurse’s frantic voice echoed off the walls, then that deep bassoon voice joined it. “Come, I heard something this way.” The voice came into the hall. “She can’t have gotten far, and she isn’t leaving. The place is locked up tight as a drum.”