Chapter 23

The sun streamed in through the thin white curtains and settled into bright beams that might

have been painted in a fresco somewhere, settled on the head of some particularly beneficent

saint. August Fenwick was neither, but the chairs had been arranged in this vast,

airy room so that the beams would fall on his head anyway. It was the next morning, and the Red Panda had celebrated his second escape from custody

with a lie-in and a slap-up breakfast, surrounded by papers that proclaimed August Fenwick,

innocent. He felt he needed only one thing to make the morning complete.

"'I wish you'd sit down and have breakfast with me,' he said at the girl in the immaculate

grey driver's uniform who stood at the ready, waiting for him to finish up.

"'Sure,' she drawled.

"'That'd go over big with the other servants.'

"'There's no one else around,' he cajoled.

"'There's no one else around,' he cajoled. "'There's no one else around until the second I sit down. That's how it would happen,' she insisted.

"'Besides, you think they'd notice when you ordered an extra plate of eggs?'

"'I don't see why we can't sit and eat,' he sulked.

"'You can,' she said, and I did before I came in.

Those are the rules.

The rules are silly, he said.

Sit down.

No, she said plainly.

I'm sorry, I didn't catch that part, he blinked.

I said, no.

...