I felt sick seeing his kind smile, but the hunger pangs in my stomach were too strong to resist. I had to eat. I had to survive. I had to plot.
It was like taking glass each spoonful, because he took notice of every movement with those predatory eyes. There was a silence, oppressive, suffocating, between us, interrupted only by the slight clash of metal with ceramic. He was standing against the door-frame, with his hands crossed in a manner that made certain that I ate every mouthful of what seemed to myself to be my own defeat.
The food was good--too good. Probably made by some cook that he maintained on payroll, this is yet another luxury in this gilded prison. It made me hate him more. How would he nourish me well, and rob me of my freedom?
“Done,” I muttered, shamefully bending my h
