The look in her eyes says what he's feeling: Something's wrong.
Whitney hisses at her to straighten up and sit properly, and she almost subsides in the indignity of being scolded by an older sister, but --
But something's wrong. The guests, Lord and Lady Briarwood, glittering and foreign and enthralling up until this moment -- they're part of it, somehow, that feeling of wrongness. Too solid, too much here, as though outlined in black; everything around them feels horribly fragile by comparison. Her parents, her brothers and sisters, the castle itself, the solid foundations of her life ... looking at them is suddenly like looking at one of the crystal wineglasses on the table, sitting too close to the edge: the slightest wrong move and they'll shatter.
A steaming bowl of soup is placed in front of her; blink and instead it's a slice of rare roast beef in wine sauce, thick dark-red liquid spreading slowly across the pale gold porcelain. It's colder in the hall suddenly, darker, no one at the table but herself and --
Something's wrong.
"Excuse me," she says abruptly, her voice small and tight. And then, to the look of startlement (and mild reproof) on her mother's face: "Mama, may I please be excused? I'm sorry, I don't feel well."
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Whitney hisses at her to straighten up and sit properly, and she almost subsides in the indignity of being scolded by an older sister, but --
But something's wrong. The guests, Lord and Lady Briarwood, glittering and foreign and enthralling up until this moment -- they're part of it, somehow, that feeling of wrongness. Too solid, too much here, as though outlined in black; everything around them feels horribly fragile by comparison. Her parents, her brothers and sisters, the castle itself, the solid foundations of her life ... looking at them is suddenly like looking at one of the crystal wineglasses on the table, sitting too close to the edge: the slightest wrong move and they'll shatter.
A steaming bowl of soup is placed in front of her; blink and instead it's a slice of rare roast beef in wine sauce, thick dark-red liquid spreading slowly across the pale gold porcelain. It's colder in the hall suddenly, darker, no one at the table but herself and --
Something's wrong.
"Excuse me," she says abruptly, her voice small and tight. And then, to the look of startlement (and mild reproof) on her mother's face: "Mama, may I please be excused? I'm sorry, I don't feel well."