Fiona was in the bathroom when I got back to our room. I saw the lights on in there and heard the light splashing sounds of small movements in the tub.
She’d left the door ajar. I pressed it open lightly and found her lying in a steaming, soapy, pine and lavender scented bath.
“So?” she asked. “How’d it go? What was the very urgent thing that Iris needed to show you?”
I let my back fall heavily against the wall. And probably stared at Fiona for a full minute or longer while trying to think of how to begin telling her about what had just happened.
She waited, patient and perceptive. She knew something unpleasant was coming.
Finally I dove in, beginning with the entire scene at Iris’s door. The highly visible and clearly fresh bloody scratches on her neck, and the terrible lie abou
