Chapter Seventeen
Breakfast tastes like cardboard, no matter how carefully I test every bite before letting Bella eat. Try as I might, I still don't fully trust William. He might've saved me in some ways, but he's done nothing but try to own me in others.
The tray came in while we slept, as always — unseen hands moving through the locked wing, setting the silver plates and covered bowls as though by magic. The eggs are warm, the tea still steaming, but the knowledge that strangers slipped in while we were unconscious makes every swallow bitter.
Bella doesn’t notice. She chatters softly to herself as she picks out the berries first, the way she always does, her small fingers stained red. She tries to hum, but her voice is thin, uncertain, as if even she knows this is a poor disguise for
