EMBER’S POVCatherine doesn’t so much as glance at him. She’s looking at me.“When I met you,” she says, slower now, “you were a woman being taken apart by procedure. You stood in that chamber, and you told the truth, and they very nearly buried you alive for it. And by the end you had the look of someone who’d already given up on being saved.” Her voice gentles, and it’s worse than if she’d been cruel. “I know that look, Ember. I’ve seen it on more women than I could ever count. It’s the look of someone who stopped expecting good things a long, long time ago — because in her experience, every good thing was only ever the quiet part before the next bad one.”I can’t speak. The bag is crushed flat against my chest.“And now.” She spreads one hand, taking in the whole absurd scene — the bags, the ribbon, me. “Now I walk into this house, and there is an abomination at the front gate, and I was informed by a staff member that there are five hundred rubber ducks somewhere in this building—
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