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“Was anyone hurt?”
“They say a woman died,” a serving girl said in an important voice.
“Oh no!” Madeleine exclaimed. “Do you know who it was?”
“The courier who came this morning told us it was an old woman,” said Norrah. “She lived all alone and her neighbors never saw her.”
“That’s awful.”
“It is,” Norrah agreed. “Aussen, my dear, what a nice plate you’ve put together. Now why don’t you carry it out to the small dining room?”
“I can’t just eat in here?”
Norrah waved at the broad wooden table, covered with bowls and pans and bags of ingredients. “It’s baking day, and there’s just no room,” she said.
“I’ll eat with you,” Aussen offered.
That made Madeleine laugh. “Well, then. You have to fill your own plate.”
As soon as they were seated in the smaller dining room, Aussen began chattering away in a mix of Zessin and Cordish. Madeleine didn’t entirely follow her story, but she thought it involved a visit to Cody’s house and a footrace with some of his roommates. She just nodded encouragingly and concentrated on her food.
Jayla stepped into the room fifteen minutes later. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Norrah just told me she’d sent Aussen in with you.”
“To get both of us out of the way, I think.”
“Ihelpin the kitchen!” Aussen said, offended.
“Of course you do,” Madeleine said gravely. “Norrah tells me that all the time.”
Jayla hid a smile. “Tokah is the one who will be arriving today, and her code word is eleven,” she said.
In the past two weeks, Madeleine had met Jayla’s friend Cody, an easy-going young courier, and a whole host of his friends. They had set up a complex schedule of visits to ensure that one of them saw Madeleine every day to receive her assurance that she was safe and under no duress. If the day came that these things weren’t true, Cody would hand-carry letters to a designated list of Council families and businesspeople, telling the raw truth of Madeleine’s situation. As Madeleine understood it, the couriers all took different routes to the house, arrived at different times of day, and followed circuitous paths home to make it difficult for any spies to track them down.
Sometimes she wondered if Jayla was taking overly dramatic precautions. Other times she wondered if there was any value in threatening to reveal her fate. Maybe no one else in the city would care that the occasional woman or child was surrendered to keep the rest of them safe and happy. But Harlo and her father seemed worried about what might happen if the news leaked out, and she had nothing else to bargain with.
“Tokah,” she repeated. “That’s Cody’s sister, right?”
“Yes.”
“I like him so much.”
“You’ve spent all of five minutes with him.”
“I still like him.”
“Most people do.”
“IloveCody,” Aussen announced. “And I love Tokah, and I love Kammi. I don’t love Rovyn.”
“Which one is Rovyn? The petite pretty girl?”
“That’s her,” Jayla said, her voice dry.
Madeleine tilted her head, hearing a hint of dislike. For someone as reserved as Jayla, that spoke volumes. “What makes her so disagreeable?”
“Nothing. She seems nice enough.”
“She follows Cody around,” Aussen supplied. “All the time! She’s always touching him!”
