Later that day, when Jessamine received yet another owl, a response from Liliana, she didn’t feel so haughty anymore. In fact, she turned a ghostly shade of white at the prospect of her father’s reaction to her unladylike language in her last letter and she thought she was going to be sick. Scribbling a quick reply and sending it back, she didn’t know which was worse - that this was a cruel prank to get her into trouble with her father, or that her mother really was ill and her sister really was dead... and she dreaded her father’s letter which would tell her which one it was; she had no choice but to just wait helplessly and see.