Nox moved without a second thought. She turned on her heels and gave the wide-eyed Amaris a quick shove back into the pantry. She closed the door behind her in one swift motion. What remained of the jagged bottle tumbled from her hand to the floor with a tinkling clatter. Barely four heartbeats passed in the time it took for the door to click shut and the robed man to enter. The bishop stepped into the space accompanied by Agnes. Nox leaned her back against the pantry door, attempting a face of contrition.

Agnes’s face flashed from confusion to fury to horror. A three-act play painted itself across the older woman’s face as she regarded the disaster that had befallen the kitchen. Nox stood alone as the sole object of blame.

The kitchen suddenly felt entirely too cramped. The way the bishop filled the doorway made Nox feel terribly small as the permeating smell of homey foods and the happy crackling of the fire mocked the grim occasion. Nox’s linen clothes were covered in paste, splotches of cooking oil pressed into her knees where she’d been kneeling only moments prior. Droplets of blood continued to leak from her palm, dripping off her fingertips and joining the mess on the floor. Her dark eyes remained fixed on her shoes, unwilling to meet the judge and jury of the adults around her.

The holy man’s eyebrows had arched with painful disapproval.

The Gray Matron spoke first, her words raspy and hurried. “What happened?”

What had happened, indeed?

Nox scarcely knew, though she had been present for all of it. Agnes wasn’t really asking, as the answer didn’t matter. Nox was at the epicenter of this disaster, and that’s all the bishop would be permitted to see. Agnes’s voice caught in the question as though it had been filtered through a sieve. Even as it left her lips, she’d known Nox wouldn’t be able to respond. The Gray Matron understood precisely what treasure lay behind the closed pantry door, just as she knew why Nox now leaned against it.

The bishop turned to Agnes, his lip pulled up in a sneer. “Is this the kind of home you run for children?”

Agnes shook her head, reining in the emotions and willing her face into a quilted stillness. “No. Certainly not.”

“And how will this be punished?”

Nox watched the exchange, knowing the end was a foregone conclusion.

The bishop’s face portrayed little emotion. He sounded nothing more than curious as he examined Matron Agnes, looking down at her over the length of his nose. He struck a pose that was perhaps meant to emulate a vision of piety and patience.

Mable looked between Agnes and the young girl. As if she might protest, the matron’s hands went to her apron, fists balling against the fabric in what may have been smothering her urge to defend Nox.