"Wake up, big sister—don't die on us!" Dax's small voice hit me before my eyes did. "Shh," I croaked. My mouth tasted of mud and river. My lungs burned. I could feel the coarse straw mattress through the thin shirt, the room reeked of boiled cabbage and sweat, and a weight pressed on my ribs that was not entirely physical. "Open your eyes, Laure," Elise said. Her hands were cool on my cheek. "You were gone so long." "Don't—" Ethel's bark cut the room in two. "Don't you scare me like that. You little liar, you played dead to get out of work." "She almost drowned!" Dax cried. "Silence," Ethel snapped. "Or you'll learn what happens to those who make trouble for the family." I coughed water. My tongue remembered river mud, and then a face banged into focus—Ethel's face, red with rage and accusation, her nose hairs like a crown. I pushed my elbows, sat up, and the world rebalanced on the edge of panic and calculation. "You're bleeding," Sylvie blurted from the doorway. "There's water in your hair." "Water makes the hair stick," Ethel said. "You pretended. You know what your cousin Julieta said—people who shirk get the cane. Your head—" She stepped forward and then stopped because I did what I always do when survival is a game: I made a claim that had teeth. "If you hit me," I said, each word drawn, careful