“Your empathy has created poor survival habits.” Jember handed me a bottle of alcohol to disinfect my wounds. “Next time I’ll let them kill you.”

There was no next time. I never tried to protect anyone but myself again.

That wasn’t about to change now.

“Wake up, child,” Peggy snapped.

I blinked away the memory, and we were in front of an open doorway.

“He wants to see you,” she said. “Don’t keep him waiting.”

I stepped inside. Sunlight bathed the room from the large windows, rows of tall bookshelves cutting stark shadows into the light on the floor. Mr. Rochester sat in an armchair facing the blazing fireplace, leaning forward with a large pad of paper on his knees. He drew with a grey pencil, a red one tucked in his mess of soft curls, which were long enough to reach the bottom of his chin. His skin was the color of wet sand, but there was also something pale about his complexion, almost ill. It lacked the golden glow of someone who’d seen the sun anytime recently. But his cheekbones. Like blades. He stared at the wall for a while, as if deep in thought, then looked back down at his paper. Some sort of bell or metal at his wrist jingled with the movement of his hand.

I looked at the wall he seemed to be drawing. It was a fireplace backed by red and black paisley wallpaper. Over it was mounted a large portrait, littered with darts and scratches, of a white man with a thick sandy-blond beard, holding a swaddled baby. The man looked sad, and a little angry, as if he knew his portrait was marred by darts. I felt bad for the baby.

I knocked on the open door. “Sir?”

“Who is it?” he asked, without looking up.

“It’s Andr—”

“Right, yes.” He pushed a wayward curl at his temple behind his ear. “Come in.”

His voice was light and casual, not at all like the person I’d met the night before. I stepped into the room and Mr. Rochester continued, without looking at me, “I must get my subject down on paper before she notices. Help yourself to cherry tarts and coffee.”

Cherry tarts for breakfast? Odd, but I was still hungry after that mush. I sat on the puffy fabric chair on the other side of the small round table and took a tart, then glanced at the wall again. All I saw was the ill-tempered man and the baby, and yet he had said “she.” Who exactly was he drawing?

I peered at his drawing and gasped. On top of the fireplace stood a woman wearing a red kaba, the ornate bridal cape and crown fit for royalty. Blood gushed from her mouth, staining her white dress—the only use of the red pencil other than her kaba. The rest of the drawing was shaded in eerie tones of grey.