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“The kitchens are a wreck, I’ve never seen the like,” Elizabeth complained a week later over dinner. “All this fuss over one man.” She clucked her tongue and looked at her own plate regretfully.

The kitchen had been holding back on the patients’ dinner the whole week, reserving the best of everything for the upcoming party. Grace stared at her plain bread, dry chicken with no gravy, and rather small carrot. Still, she hadn’t had to fight anyone for it like in Boston. She concentrated on eating, her fingers rubbing the key to the west turret through the folds of her skirts for comfort.

“Aye, I’m none too happy meself,” Nell said. “I been down in the root cellars findin’ the best potatoes, as if I grew them for this Mr. Mae in the first place. Which I didna, and I’ve ’alf a mind to tell ’im so.”

Grace grabbed her friend’s wrist and shook her head violently.

“Oy, now, feisty lass.” Nell pulled away from her. “I’ll not be misbehavin’. Come tomorrow night I plan to make meself scarce, unless they try to put us all to work. Not that they’d let me in the kitchens, anyway.” Her hand went to the trail of sores that worked its way from the corner of her mouth, marring her once porcelain complexion.

“They’ve hired out the work,” Elizabeth said, mouth tight as if she found it offensive. “The insane aren’t good enough to prepare Senator Mae’s food, I suppose.”

The sound of her father’s name in her friends’ mouths made Grace’s stomach clench shut, her hands form fists. His impending arrival had weighed heavy on her mind, causing nightmares that interfered with her sleep. Their dark fingers dug for purchase into the daylight hours, where sudden movements caused her to jump and she found herself wishing there was a lock on her bedroom door after all.

“There’s nothing to fear, physically,” Thornhollow had repeated that morning. “Your father believes you are dead. He has no knowledge of me or our connection. There’s no reason for him to suspect a thing. You’ll be safe with Nell and Lizzie. The only thing that could go wrong would be if I happen to punch him in the jaw.”

Grace smiled to herself as she remembered Thornhollow’s words, his own tension showing through the joke. The trio of girls left the dining hall, shooed out early by attendants who needed to put everything in order early, in case the senator could be enticed into a tour of the asylum. This sort of hospitality was exactly what Grace feared. Even if he were kept to the public areas, his presence was a stain she’d be able to sense long after he’d gone.

Janey met them in the hallway, eyes alight. “Girls, you’ll never guess—I’ve been invited to the reception this evening. The dinner is only for a few of the politicals in town of course, and our own doctors, but the superintendent said the head ward nurses could come to the reception, if we’ve got the proper clothing for the thing.” She fell in beside them, her happiness at the thought overwhelming the fact that she was an employee and they patients. “I half think he assumed we’d not have the right wardrobe, but Mother always insisted I keep the church dress for church only, and I suppose if it’s good enough for God, it’s good enough for Senator Mae.”

Grace squeezed her eyes shut, fingers on her temples. Elizabeth’s hands were on her shoulders instantly. “Are you all right, Grace? Is it a headache?”

Grace nodded and Janey herded them all into Grace’s room, her excitement about the dinner overwhelmed by concern for her patient as she leaned Grace back on her bed. “Is it the dinner? So many strangers being here? Sometimes I know that can send you quiet ones over the edge. But don’t you worry none. The super said that he’ll be happy to show off the common places, but nobody’s to see your private rooms. He said you’re not to be paraded about for their entertainment, fancy-pants politician or not.”

Grace kept her eyes closed, fingertips on her scars. That Janey had guessed somewhat correctly left her nerves more frayed than soothed. If the night was to pass uneventfully, she had to get herself under control. Weights settled on both ends of the bed as her friends nestled in with her.

“We’ll stay with ’er, Janey,” Nell said, one hand rubbing Grace’s foot. “You go put on yer pretty things. Have a night without thinkin’ o’ the mad, fer once.”

Janey remained in the doorway, hands working each other in her indecision. “I don’t much like leaving with Grace being in a state, though.”

“She’s in less of a state than you,” Elizabeth said. “Go on ahead.”

“All right,” Janey agreed. “If it helps her, you girls have my permission to bring your pallet here into her room tonight, sleep all together if there’s some comfort in it.”

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Elizabeth said. “Thank you, Janey.”

After the door shut behind their nurse, Nell let out a giggle. “As if we ’aven’t already done tha’ a time or two before.”

“Except now we have permission,” Lizzie said. “Which means we don’t have to get up with the cock crow so that no one knows any different.”

“Oh, I dinna,” Nell said. “I don’t mind wakin’ up with a co—”

“Enough out of you!” Lizzie shushed Nell’s comment to focus on Grace. “What’s wrong, love? Is it really the guests or . . . Grace? What is that?”

Grace held up the little iron key, a small smile on her face.

The stairs to the turret were thin, the plaster brushing both Grace’s shoulders as she pushed cobwebs out of their path. Even though her calves were beginning to burn, each step took her upward and away from the guests who had begun to arrive, their unfamiliar voices lifting through the floorboards to the patients.

“I don’t believe many people come this way,” Elizabeth said, coughing politely as dust filled her nose.

“Nae, only the crazies who fancy a toss, I’d say.” Nell’s voice carried from the rear.

“Do patients really do that?” Elizabeth asked over her shoulder.

“There’s a few, fer sure. Charlie said ’e’s had ’alf the female ward, though I’d wager ’e does a bit o’ exaggeratin’.”

Grace reached the end of the stairs, handed the lamp down to Elizabeth, and put the key into the lock on the trapdoor. It turned easily, and Grace swung the door out into the cold night air with a gentle push. Disrupted snow fell on their upturned faces and Elizabeth sputtered. Grace gratefully took in the clean air and the openness surrounding her as she climbed onto the roof.

The west turret looked down over the gravel roundabout, just filling with carriages from town. Grace gave them a glance before reaching down to help Lizzie climb up. She put a hand down for Nell, but the Irish girl shook her head.