That would have unsettled me enough under any circumstances. What chilled me was that, as she spoke, three of the younger children breathed in at precisely the same moment, and the smallest boy smiled with a sadness too old for his face.
I asked permission to draw blood.
Silas nodded at once. Lenora did not. She studied me as though measuring not my request but the man who made it.
“You may take from Ada,” she said at last. “And from Thomas. No more than that.”
I laid out the lancet, the glass slides, the collection vials. Ada extended her hand. I pricked the finger. A bright bead rose. She did not blink. I repeated the process with Thomas. He did not so much as tighten his jaw. What I noticed then, and have never forgotten, was not their endurance but the reaction of the others. As the blood welled, every child in the line looked down at the same place on his or her own hand.
