Chapter 83: Insolent.

Samantha had reached the landing of the stairs when she stopped. That was the first floor.

"Is anything the matter?" her companion, a thick dark-haired woman around her forties, said concernedly.

"Nothing is the matter, Ophelia—am I right? You, go first," said Samantha, pensively.

Samantha signaled the woman and she left off with the pastries and the fruits she was taking up to the fifth floor.

Samantha had originally intended to go up as well to be with her sister. Not at the moment, she wouldn't. Not with that peculiar machoness that had shrouded her nostrils. She knew he had to be the one…

Thinking she would be damned to not get to the root of the matter, Samantha looked over her shoulder—once, twice, then back around— before limping close to the doorpost where she buried her right ear against the chest of the door.