Clara
Now that I had a way to communicate, I didn’t know where to start. I had so many questions.
Luckily for me, Tracy did know what she wanted to ask.
“You said you were eighteen, right?” Tracy asked.
I nodded.
“Can you tell me anything about your parents?” Tracy asked. “Their names, where they are, anything.”
I shook my head, and wrote, “I am an orphan. I was found abandoned, by one of the royal maids. I never knew who they were or what happened to them.”
Tracy’s shoulders slumped. “Nothing at all?”
“My mother,” I wrote, and then added the word ‘adopted’ above it, “assumed they were dead. I always thought they abandoned me because I’m defective.”
“Defective? How?” Ronan asked. He seemed honestly baffled.
I pointed to my throat.
“What, because you’re quiet? Pretty one, in m
