She lies there for a long time, hoping that the strength will come back to her. It doesn’t. She should call out for help, but she doesn’t want to explain what she’s doing down here. Instead, she imagines her little pallet and wonders, if she dreams about resting there, if she’ll wake up there when she opens her eyes again.

Unlikely.

She forces her eyes open again a few minutes later; she’s fairly certain she heard footsteps, though she doesn’t know how long ago. A girl with blonde, curling hair peers down at her. She can’t be more than twenty, but Phosyne sees something in her eyes that makes her twitch and roll away with a weak moan.

“You’re Ser Leodegardis’s madwoman, aren’t you?” the girl asks.

Yes, she supposes she is.

The girl leans in again, her face too close for comfort. Then her nose wrinkles. “Stay there,” she says, and then she is gone.

Phosyne doesn’t particularly want to follow orders, but she can’t get her legs to work again. She’s tired. She’s so tired, the panic having stolen every last drop of her waning strength.

She half expects the girl to come back with Ser Voyne, or not at all, but when she returns (how much later? Five minutes? Five hours? Phosyne can’t be certain), she is carrying a little pouch. She crouches down beside Phosyne and from that pouch pulls—

Dried fruit.

Phosyne’s mouth would water, if she weren’t such a dried-out husk herself.

“You realize you’re dying, right?” the girl says.

Phosyne manages a weak smile. “Aren’t we all?” she whispers hoarsely.

The girl quirks a brow. “Fruit will help. I’ve been there before.” Echoes of Ser Voyne. How many in this castle have come close enough to death to learn from it? That means something, Phosyne thinks, but can’t discern what.

Maybe just bad luck.

“Please,” she says, when the girl doesn’t move to put the wrinkled fruit between her lips. “I don’t know if I can get up.”

The girl looks her over, appraising. “You can,” she declares. “For a little while longer, anyway. Probably doesn’t feel like it, though.”

There’s an undercurrent of something sharp in her words. Cruelty, Phosyne realizes. “Please,” she says again, more forcefully this time. “Or—or send for Ser Voyne. She will want to know where I am.”

“She’s a little distracted with our visitors,” the girl says, smiling. It doesn’t look like a real smile.

Then again, much of the room doesn’t look like a real room. The darkness is emptiness, and if Phosyne doesn’t concentrate very hard, she thinks she’ll fall through the floor. She pays attention to its solidity. It’s very hard. Her back hurts.