“Wait.”

It was a woman. All the hair on my head stood up. Gudanna.

“I want to see the girl who brought the platter without it being complete.”

Pulling my tendrils more closely around my face, I tried to shrink away into myself. Uruku might not remember my form, but Gudanna was different. As Nin Arwia’s former handmaiden, she’d seen me many times from a variety of angles throughout the Palace.

The serving girl stood stiffly at my side, and several of the other servants fled down the back stairway. The others held themselves still in various states of movement, as Nanaea and I had playing statues as children. One touch and we’d freeze, giggling, trying not to move. The game was over when someone lost her footing.

But this was not a game.

The door squeaked open again and Gudanna’s voice echoed, her shadow fusing with Uruku’s on the wall in front of me.

“Senseless girl,” she spat. The sound of a slap, and another, echoed through the corridor. Next to me, the girl was nearly knocked off her feet. “Remember your tasks next time or you shall be thrown in the Pit with the last one. Have I been understood?”

“Yes, my lady.”

Another slap echoed off the halls, and my fists bunched in my lap. I fought the urge to stand and defend her.

Uruku’s voice murmured, “Remember to stay calm, darling. You shouldn’t fuss. Not now.”

The shadows jerked apart.

“I am fine, I have told you.” Gudanna’s voice carried a touch of annoyance. “Now get off the floor or you’ll be cleaning it with your tongue.”

My body began to tremble when I realized she was talking to me.

I rose slowly, keeping my head down, Gudanna’s heavy breathing the only noise in the hallway. She sounded…ponderous, the way her voice hitched. Uruku shifted and light from their chamber threw her shadow on the wall again, showing off a large, round belly.

She was with child. Uruku wanted her to be calm because she was with child! My heart fluttered. If she ate the almonds, she would die, and so would the baby.

An innocent sacrificed for crimes it hadn’t committed!

Shame bubbled up inside me as bile climbed into my throat. There was nothing to do now. Nothing at all. I couldn’t take it back.

Do no harm.

“Now be gone! All of you rats go back to the kitchens!” Gudanna’s voice was like a whip cracked over the top of a horse, and I fled, jogging toward the staircase, anxiously trailing behind those who would not hurry enough.

Move! Move!

But had I not been last, had I not been willing the servants to move faster down the stairs, my body pleading by its proximity, I may not have heard the sound that brought hope, then thunderous guilt, into my chest: the distinct crunch of someone biting down on a handful of almonds.

But I couldn’t look back to find out who it was.