She fled.
Under the influence of the sedative, distances stretched into impossible lengths. The proportions and shapes of the corridor twisted and bent unnaturally; colors bled together as one crude, muddy smear; proportion ceased to exist. The brain was as heavy as a sack filled with grain and dirt, amplifying and echoing the heartbeat between the ears. Jule Mitchell rose and watched from behind as Noura's feet dragged across the floorboards. History had been ground by a thousand bootheels into the oak: spatters and stains of blood and fluid had formed a natural tattoo in the woodgrain.
"Impulse," he said, "is reserved for savages and addled men. No, Noura. Consider this the most mature and practiced expression of self-control I can possibly muster."
In the rooms she passed, patients slept, some restless and wheezing, others in repose like children beneath veils of carefully-prepared reductions and mixtures. As the dance of light and shadow in the overlit anteroom came into view, a white-glad figure turned to notice them--
The wildling. And behind her, Jule Mitchell.
He raised his hand to calm the onlooker, as if to say, Stay where you are.
"You could barely trust your feet to take you fifty paces beyond the stoop, Noura. Out there, I cannot guarantee your safety; likewise, I cannot guarantee that should you ever return here, whether by choice or under the influence of your other, I would not apply more dubious methods to ensure the well-being of my patients. But this night, I offer you a bed and the solace of peaceful rest.
"And in the morning, an opportunity for us to confer on ways to grant you dominion over that mistress in your mind."