"I am all right. " seemed peculiar, as if he assumed Alicia was feeling ill after she had dinner with Martin.

Perplexed, she responded with a hint of suspicion, "What's going on?"

There was a brief pause before Tobias spoke. "The last time Martin and I had dinner, I drank the water handed by the maid and lost my ability to shift. It was the day after my eighteenth birthday. I was worried that you might have suffered the same accident, so I called to ask how you were doing."

Alicia's eyes widened in disbelief. "What happened? Why would that maid do such a vicious thing? Ellis only told me...