I look at her, feeling a bit of anger rising inside me. “They are not families, though. They’re orphaned children. How many kids have you put to work after their parents died?”
“There’s only a few,” Daphne tells me.
Only a few? Even one is too many. “And how did their parents die?”
“They died in an attack,” Daphne says, like it’s obvious.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “An attack caused by a land dispute? A dispute that can’t be settled reasonably? A dispute that did not involve them in the least?”
They both refuse to look at me as we stop outside the door to the kitchen.
“Those children will NOT be working by the time I leave. Am I understood? I don’t care what has to be done. It is not acceptable,” I tell them and open the door, not waiting for any kind of response b
