Then, Isther drifted her graceful hand over to the next in line. “Femme Alabaster Rennington.” The girl, perhaps my age or a bit younger, fiddled with the threads of her dress until Isther glared and she relaxed her fingers. Her very dark hair hung in a braid down her back, and bangs brushed her brow. She was as pale as her name implied, but her gray eyes twinkled as if she held secrets in them.

“And of course, little Femme Charlotte Joan, the youngest of our siblings and the most beloved.” But the frizzy-haired child scoffed at that comment, glaring at her eldest sister and not at me.

“Why don’t we sit and begin our meal, Aurelie?” Isther motioned to two empty seats, side by side, one for her and one for me. I quickly took mine, before the pyre standing with his back to the wall could seat me. Isther noticed with a shadow of a frown but said nothing.

“Who is this?” Poppy, the wife of Oeric said, her voice nasal and shrill. “I dare say I’ve never heard of her before this very moment.”

“She is—” Isther began.

“Let the Femme speak for herself,” Oeric interrupted. He turned stern, spectacled eyes to me, sitting with his back so straight I suspected his exhaustion was constant. “Who are you and what are you doing here exactly, Cousin ? Go on then. Speak up.”

Episode 49: Fine Dining And A Thorough Examination

“She looks scared,” Alabaster said, her eyes a bit too close together, still glittering in a bland, pale face. “Perhaps we are oh so very frightening.”

“Nonsense,” Poppy said, preparing her lap linen by flapping it in the air far too many times. “We are no more frightening than the icy nightmare she escaped. The South.” She shivered for effect. “The girl is probably still defrosting, is all. Too frozen to speak.”

The pyres began passing out the food on sterling trays. Boiled eggs with pepper and spices, braised lamb bits with wilted spinach, honey-dipped cherries. Though my hunger was extreme, the whole display turned my stomach, for I knew the ones who prepared and served our meal had been snatched from Lykkean forests, broken, and taught to serve humans. Imagining a wild pyre boiling an egg brought blood to my cheeks.

“You must forgive our cousin,” Isther spoke on my behalf. “Her appetite may wane, for she is struggling with great grief. Her father has passed.”

Why did Isther not simply state that I did not speak? It would make everything so much easier.

“Yes, but who is he ?” Oeric asked, his brow quizzical and scrunched. “Who is this dead uncle of whom I’ve never heard?”

Dead. I had not heard anyone say it so plainly. I squeezed my palms together beneath the table so that there was something to do besides throwing my food or scrambling to my feet and hurling myself out the vast bay windows.