They walked in their usual formation. Madam Ria led with two attendants, while the other two followed behind Eluvie.

The bedroom door led them to a mezzanine. From there, a staircase led down to the third floor. Two guards jumped to attention when they came out, then relaxed when they saw the crew. Lady Mirab had executed the last set of guards, so the new ones were still on their best behavior. They jumped into the room if Eluvie made the slightest noise and treated everyone leaving the room like a potential assassin.

Still, they were the least interesting thing on the landing. The moment Eluvie stepped out, the voices began. They rose from every surface and filled the air, so the area felt like it was filled with a crowd of excited, whispering people.

"She's so beautiful," one breathless tone whispered.

"Not so loud, you," another said. "She'll hear."

"I wonder if she'll come this way."

"I brushed her! I can't believe it!"

"Be quiet!"

One voice tried to quiet the rest, but they only grew more frantic and drowned it out. Before long, Eluvie could not make out a single word from the chaos.

"For heaven's sake," one voice said. "You all saw her yesterday! I can't believe I ended up stuck with you dimwits. Look! She can hear you!"

Eluvie tried to school her expression, but the game was up. The voices quickly fell away. Within a second, there was such silence that she could not tell that anyone had ever spoken.

Eluvie's group made it onto the staircase, and then a voice spoke again.

"He's right," it said. "You lot always do this. You could have let something slip."

"You're one to talk," another one said. "It was you who gave away the thing about the rain."

"It was an accident!"

And the clamor started again. Eluvie fought hard to keep from smiling. If the voices were not a figment of her broken mind, then they were the most incompetent group of watchers in existence. If they heard a secret, they talked incessantly about how they couldn't share it - and then invariably let it slip.

It was a shame, then, that they had never heard a secret more monumental than the workers' romantic dalliances.

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"The witch is coming," someone said.

Eluvie froze. She heard the sign at the same time as the warning: jingling coming from the bottom of the staircase.

Someone bumped into her and almost sent her tumbling down the stairs. A quick grasp at the railing saved her.

The person swore. "What are you doing?!"

All the other footsteps ceased as the attendants tried to puzzle out her odd behavior.

"Eluvie!" Madam Ria said. "Move!"

The jingling reached the bottom of the steps. “I said move!” Madam Ria exclaimed.

Eluvie would have moved, but her body wouldn't listen.

“That's it! The rest of the day in the tub. Now, get moving!” Madam Ria ordered.

The punishment was ridiculous. Even ten minutes in the tub would break Eluvie. But Madam Ria rarely allowed logic to interfere with her cruelty.

“What's going on?” a voice asked. The jingling had stopped, except for an occasional twinkle, and Lady Mirab had come close enough that Eluvie could smell her; a strong, tangy smell with a hint of oranges.

“Good morning, Lady Mirab,” all the attendants greeted in unison.

Silence followed the greeting, and Eluvie was forced to guess at what was happening.

“Is something wrong?” Lady Mirab asked.

“She's being difficult,” Madam Ria replied.

Eluvie didn't defend herself. Years ago, she would have. She would have explained her position in great detail and hoped for some kind of fair treatment. Now, she knew how utterly pointless that was. Lady Mirab didn't care one whit for justice, but that was only part of the problem. The other was that she supported Madam Ria's cruelty. They had driven the lesson home; 'stay in line or we'll do worse.'

Lady Mirab confirmed Eluvie's prediction by changing the topic. “You're running late this morning,” she said. “What happened?”

“It's been difficult getting her going.”

Eluvie bit her lip to hold back a scoff. Madam Ria would never claim any blame. She could have blamed the new woman's training or her own lateness. But why bother? Eluvie was available.

There was another pause. Lady Mirab didn't believe her, of course. Unless provoked, Eluvie was always docile.

“Did she dream?” Lady Mirab asked.

“She said no.”

“Well?” Lady Mirab turned the question to Eluvie. She always asked again, no matter what Madam Ria reported. She wanted to hear it for herself, to confirm that Eluvie was not lying.

“I didn't dream,” Eluvie said.

“Not in the last week?”

“No, nothing,” Eluvie replied.

Lady Mirab hissed in annoyance. “Of all the nonsense,” she muttered. “A waste of bloody time. Spend more time sleeping and less being a nuisance. I have somewhere to be,” she addressed Madam Ria. “When the others arrive, make them wait. I shouldn't be more than a few hours. If they complain, just don't give them the blood, and they'll wait.”

Madam Ria confirmed the instruction, then they waited for Lady Mirab and her millions of tinkling jewelry to make it back down the steps.

“Walk,” Madam Ria said, and someone punctuated it with a shove.

Eluvie resumed walking. The voices were completely silent now. Once their initial frantic welcome was over, they tended to maintain their intended silence. There were occasional flutters when she turned the corner into a new corridor, but it seemed like most of the voices in the palace detected her at once and finished their uproar together.

They took one more flight of stairs, down to the second floor. Halfway down, Eluvie felt a sudden madness take hold of her, imploring her to shove the nearest attendant over a railing and rejoice at having one less captor. Such urges came frequently; she was used to fighting them off. If she ever committed murder, it would be for more than short-lived vindication.

The clinic was tucked away in a corner of the second floor, only accessible through a series of twists, turns, and walks down long corridors. For the first year, Eluvie believed that the workers were intentionally confusing her by taking a winding path. Now, she knew that the palace's architect had simply been insane. Corridors traveled in loops, tiny doorless rooms bookended grand ones, square rooms with wide doors in all four directions took the place of corridors, and there were at least three paths between any two points.

It wasn't named the Thousand Room Palace for no reason. There were literally a thousand rooms, though some of them barely qualified.

The smell of soap and medicine welcomed Eluvie half a corridor before the clinic. This section of the palace was completely windowless, so smells tended to linger. If someone threw up in the clinic, she would still smell it at her next week's appointment.

Two of Eluvie's attendants stopped at the clinic door, while the others led her inside.