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"Don't you worry about that," Lily tells her, with a smile. Close she may be in years to Chloe's own age, but there is a sense about her of being jaded far beyond the number of those years, aged by experience rather than by time. "It don't mean naught against you, not being given a real name. Lily is name enough, and I'll answer to it just fine."

Nonetheless the lady seems pleased that she should sit close, and smiles over at her once she has, encouraging her to stay close. She seems to like Chloe, for all their differences. "It's no kind of signal, it's from a story. An old story, and I was thinking of it when I thought've Harmon going out and finding you." She leans back into her mounding of pillows, and unless Chloe stops her, she will launch into the tale straightaway.

"Once in a town just outside've the Wardwood there were a midwife who was known all about for her skills. It weren't a rich town, and she weren't a rich woman, but she loved her work and did it well and there were those several towns over who knew her name because of it.

"One night a man come to her door, a strange fellow who were more than passing fair, and something about him made her uneasy. But he says to her, 'My master's wife is in childbed, but the child will not come,' and so she knew she had to go.

" 'Do your master have a name?' she asked.

" 'You'll not have his name nor his dwelling,' said the man, 'for I'll carry you there blindfolded, and back as well.'

"The midwife did not much like this, but she worried fair for the babe, and so she let him blindfold her and set her up on a great steed. Off they went and she knew not where they'd gone, but soon enough he helped her down and walked her into a place before he took off the blindfold. She were surprised to find she were in a hovel, a dirty little cottage all of rags and dust and muck, with naught but wax paper over the windows and a low fire on the hearth.

"But there were a bed all of rags, and on the bed a woman laboring hard to no avail. The midwife knew her job so she rolled up her sleeves and went to work. Within minutes the babe were born. As she wrapped the babe up in swaddling, the new mother stirred and spoke.

" 'Rub the babe all over with this,' the mother begged, pointing to a little box of ointment, and plainly being too weak to do so herself. 'It is the custom of this house. But have care not to get it in your eyes, for it will go ill with you.'

"The midwife had never heard of such a thing, but she did not wish to upset the new mother, so she unwrapped the babe and rubbed it well with the ointment. But as she was working, she felt an itching in her left eye, and without thinking, she rubbed it with one of the fingers that had ointment on it!

"At that same moment, all she saw with that eye change. No longer was she in a dirty hovel, but in a room in a grand house, hung about with tapestries. There were plush carpets on the floor, and the bed was draped with embroidered coverlets. The new mother were more than fair, she were a beauty beyond compare, and her young babe was glowing softly as if he were not wholly human. Everything about had a gleam of gold to it.

"The midwife did not show her amazement for fear of being found out. Instead she wrapped the babe up and gave it over to its mother, wishing her well. Then the messenger came and covered her eyes again, and returned her home full of fear that she'd been in the home of one of the Small Gods, one who'd taken a human wife!

"But time dulls all fears, and one day at market when she saw the messenger who'd been to her home, the midwife nodded to him as one would to an old acquaintance. The messenger nodded back, and asked 'And which eye, miss, do you see me with?'

" 'Why, this one,' the midwife innocently replied, pointing to her left eye. And so the messenger leaned over and blew on the eye, and the cold breath clouded it over forever. Then the messenger of the Small Gods vanished, and the midwife were left one-sighted forever."

"Cut the apple, then, if you must." This is said with a scowl, for she'd hoped to make Chloe forget about the food for a time with her unusual tale. She had been quite proud of herself, and certain it would drive all thoughts of duty from the other girl's mind, but this is apparently not to be the case. This is apparently at least part of the reason that Harmon hired her -- if Lily is not willing to eat, at night they would have no time to coax, cajole, or bribe her. "I will eat that, and no more."

"Tell me, while you do, how it was that Harmon found you. I can't see him just calling about for a nice little gel, asking who there was that might want to sit up nights in a whorehouse."

This tale, however brief, seems to amuse Lily a great deal; she accepts the apple from Chloe, setting the napkin in her lap. While she eyes the first slice with trepidation, after she has eaten in small, neat bites she immediately starts on the second, and shall have the whole of the apple disappearing in very short order. Perhaps the other girls here did not think of such a thing, or simply weren't accustomed to caring for those who are ill.

"How very like Harmon! He cannot stand to see a pretty girl in any sort of distress, you know; it makes him ever so angry." She pauses long enough for another slice or two of apple, considering Chloe's words with a sigh. "I know. And I dare not lose him; it shall go worse for me if the babe is less than healthy. Perhaps .. just a little bit of cheese? The apple was not so bad as I thought."

How casually she speaks -- without seeming to realize that her words might seem strange. It's not that she worries about the baby for its own sake, but that it will 'go worse for her?'

"Sugared tea? Truly?" Lily seems to take this at face value, and brightens at the thought -- this is apparently something else that does appeal to her, and she will spend several happy minutes discussing with Chloe what types and flavors of tea might be best. She is an easy conversationalist, relaxing more and more the longer that Chloe is there, happy to relate the names of the kitchen staff as well as anecdotes about the others who work here. She talks a great deal about Harmon especially, who seems to be an admired hero of hers, in a way, insisting again and again that he could never mean a woman harm.

But as the evening progresses, she talks less and less. She dozes, although only fitfully, and after a while she is sick, caught somewhere between retching and weeping for a torturous half hour. The kitchen seems to expect this, and sends up cool water and soft cloths with which to clean her face and cool her down, although Chloe is largely on her own to watch over her.

It is shortly after this -- and nearing the hours in between night and morning -- when Lily finally succumbs to a deeper sleep and silence falls over the little garret room. The sounds from the floors below have been growing softer and more infrequent, so that when a steady tread moves up the hall, Chloe will probably be able to hear it long before Harmon eases the door open with so much care that it will not even creak. He looks a bit tired, but he has eyes only for Lily, crossing the room directly to stand over her.

Paused at her bedside he seems not even to breathe, his gaze locked on her face; after a long moment he reaches out and tucks a single curl behind her ear before glancing over his shoulder at Chloe.

This is all so very .. professional that he stares at her, then at the paper, and then at her again. It is not the sort of thing that one expects out of a orphan from a poorhouse, the sort of person for whom a single apple is an unprecedented gift. After a moment he makes a very odd noise in the back of his throat, one hand coming up to cover his mouth as he does his best to swallow his laughter whole. " .. indeed?" He asks her, speaking just as softly as she. "I shall put that request to them, although it may be best if you simply ask the kitchen what has been toward for the day: very few of my flowers can write."

The corners of his mouth are still twitching when Whsst slips into the room behind him, apparently also here to check on Lily; the brown cat trots nonchalantly over to the bed, and though Harmon winces, Lily does not even twitch. The cat walks up the length of the bed, carefully, and sniffs curiously at the back of her neck before settling there, curled up against her back.

"When the midwife next visits, I will see that word of her wisdom is left for you, little mother. Are you ready to wend your way homeward?"

This silence is met with surprise as well as confusion, which he allows to creep into his expression by inches; for several seconds he merely regards her without saying a word, as if he might somehow divine the problem by looking closely enough at her. It is clear that he is puzzled by the abrupt change in her, and altogether uncertain what has caused it. Why should she be upset that he has disparaged the education of the whores here? It is only the literal truth; very few of them are educated, much less well-educated enough to read or write.

"Have I somehow offended, fair maiden? It was not intended, if so; I find it speaks very well of you that you would go to so much effort for a whore." He uses the word bluntly, without gentling it, though he looks earnestly at her all the while, and there is just the tiniest thread of something in his words that begs for her to trust him -- though if her anger runs hot enough, that will burn it out entirely. "There are many who would not even have looked after her for coin, much less thought about how they might look after her well."

He remains puzzled, wondering if perhaps this is simply due to his lack of experience with much younger women; the ones he generally tends to are older in years -- and made older at heart by things they have experienced. Perhaps he will have Lily ask, come tomorrow, to divine what it was he said or did. For now he merely nods gently to her, and beckons for her to follow him out of Lily's room and into the hall. "As you like, fair maiden. If you will but follow me, a warm breakfast awaits you in the kitchen; by the time you have eaten Sir Ivon shall be along again, to escort you safely back for your well-earned rest."

Without pressing her further he shall lead her down the hall and then downstairs, to the same kitchen where she was before. There is warm porridge there for her, and good porridge, thick and sweetened with honey, with chunks of apples and the scent of cinnamon about it. She will simply be presented with it, as if it is her due, and set with a great big bowl of it on a chair beside the fire while the staff there prepares other such morning meals -- presumably for the ladies who work here.