The voices in the house were loud. People were shouting, laughing, telling stories, having fun, having tense conversations, singing, humming. There was the muffled sound of a baby crying somewhere in the house. But that noise was nothing compared to the noise in her head. Katarzyna was trying hard to learn how to block out the voices in her head. But it was slow going. And hard.

It was easier to block out the thoughts of people further away, in the corners of the house. The closer someone was to her, the harder it was. Someone standing right next to her would have the loudest voice of all. All the noise gave her a headache. Sometimes she felt like her head might split open right down the middle. It took all her self control not to cry from the pain.

Her empath powers were easier to control. She'd learned, over time, to understand and interpret others feelings without jacking her own mood around. She could keep herself in check around other people now. Mostly. It was far simpler to deal with people's emotions instead of their thoughts.

Kata had taken, over the weeks she'd been at the Convent, to isolating herself from the others. She felt useless, and the steady echo of pain in her head made her crabby. On top of that, she was an outcast among outcasts because she barely spoke English. This was the only time in her short life that she'd actually felt like she'd have been better off with the Black Circle. Surely they had medicine to dull the ache in her temples.

She folded herself onto the brick rim of one of the estate's fountains, sitting cross-legged with her back to the house itself. The sound of the steady stream of water blocked out some of the noise in her head. She closed her eyes, then took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. She concentrated on blocking out the voices in her head, but all she managed to do was muffle them slightly. For a long time she sat like that, until she couldn't concentrate anymore. She screamed in frustration, then buried her head in her hands, resting her elbows on her knees. It was too much for one girl to take.