"Then where is she?" Karla asked, clutching Warren's hand. Her voice felt tight, like her throat was closing up even as she tried to make words. "Where do you send her, when you threw her out of your house, away from her family?"

It was possible that the jar of lotion wouldn't be forthcoming now.

"Forgive me, lady, but we can't all be wealthy Blood aristos," Cora's aunt snapped. "I've got seven children of my own and my man got on the wrong side of a Blood dispute and now he's lame and can barely work! One more child, even my own kin, could push us right over the line to poverty. What could I do for her if we were all kicked out of this place and unable to eat?"

"Still more than you're doing for her now," Karla said bitterly.

"I sent her to a Blood-run orphanage," the woman hissed. "If she's not being cared for there, then it's your own people's fault and not mine!"