Elizabeth and Sophie were waiting in her room. Elizabeth stood up as soon as we came in. Sophie didn't. She looked at me, then at Daphne, then at my hands, checking for blood. There wasn't any. James closed the door behind us.
I didn't sit on the rug. I didn't sit anywhere.
"What did you find?" said Elizabeth.
I told them all of it: the room, the collars, the injuries, the children, the tiger mark, and what the guards had said. When I reached "the ones going to the western road," nobody interrupted. When I reached "collars off before transport," James stopped leaning on the wall, and Sophie put a hand over her mouth. Elizabeth's expression went completely still. Daphne filled in the count.
"Thirteen," she said. "Eleven adults. Two children."
I had counted badly. She hadn't. The rest was mine to give.
