Chapter 5
The night air bit through the thin wool of my beige knit sweater as I pressed my back against the damp limestone masonry of the estate's exterior wall. Below me, the gravel courtyard stretched out into the gray pre-dawn gloom, utterly silent save for the distant drip of condensation from the copper gutters above. My fingers, stiff from the cold, clutched the blue pharmacy receipts tucked safely inside my pocket. Julian’s heavy iron poker still clinked against the hearth inside the administrative office just behind the casement window, a faint, rhythmic reminder of how close I had come to being caught. I eased my weight sideways along the narrow ledge, testing each foothold on the weathered stone until I reached the external spiral iron staircase that descended into the lower kitchen gardens.
By the time the horizon began to bleed a pale, bruised violet over the eastern treeline, I had made my way around to the rear servants' entrance. The heavy oak door was unlocked this early, left ajar for the baker’s delivery boy, and I slipped inside before the rest of the household began to stir. The corridors smelled faintly of floor wax and stale coffee. I hurried down the dim hallway toward the staff locker room to shed my chilled sweater and wash the soot from my fingers, needing a moment of absolute stillness to steady my breathing. That was when the heavy double doors of the East Wing foyer swung open, and the crisp click of a familiar leather shoe echoed off the marble floor.
Dr. Aris strode into the hallway, his silver-rimmed glasses tucked into his coat pocket and his black medical bag swinging slightly at his side. He was the estate's consulting physician, a man whose official reports had for three years monotonously certified the irreversible, catatonic decline of the elderly man in the dark robe. Seeing him here at six in the morning, long before his scheduled afternoon rounds, sent a jolt of alarm through my chest. I stepped out from the shadows of the alcove, blocking his path before he could reach the grand staircase. He stopped abruptly, his brow furrowing as he took in my pale face and the dark circles under my eyes.
"Nurse," Dr. Aris said, his voice dropping to a cautious murmur as he glanced down the empty corridor. "You look as though you've spent the night in a trench. What are you doing down here at this hour?"
"I was in the grand room yesterday when he spoke," I said, keeping my voice level despite the frantic pounding of my heart. "He didn't just murmur, Doctor. He looked right at me, and he said Basta."
The physician's expression tightened, a flash of genuine discomfort crossing his features before he smoothed his expression back into professional neutrality. "Patients in long-term vegetative states frequently experience reflexive vocalizations, muscle spasms, or random bursts of neurological firing. It means nothing clinically. Julian has already instructed the administrative staff to double his evening sedative dosage to prevent any further disruptions."
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"Julian is burning the pharmacy logs in the administrative hearth," I countered, taking a sharp step forward. "The dosage isn't a medical necessity. It's a chemical cage. And I have the receipts in my pocket to prove it."
Dr. Aris froze, his gaze dropping to the hem of my sweater where the blue paper edge was barely visible. The silence stretched between us, thick and heavy with unspoken implications, until he finally let out a slow, weary breath and glanced toward the heavy doors of the West Wing.
