Algor had been awake for two days by the time I came down to the workshop, which I only knew because Clarissa told me at the door, in the tone of someone reporting a patient's vitals rather than a colleague's work ethic.
"He hasn't eaten since yesterday morning. I brought him bread twice. Both loaves are still sitting on the same shelf, going stale in the same spot, which means he hasn't so much as turned around."
"That bad."
"He keeps saying the word *elegant* like it's an insult." She held the door for me anyway. "Good luck."
I asked her, before I went in, whether Ophelia had eaten yet that morning, because it had become a habit of mine to ask after the one person in this castle still deciding whether she belonged in it. Clarissa's answer — a small shrug, a "some," delivered without elaboration — told me nothing had changed there either, and I filed that worry next to the others already crowding the day and went in.
