I briefly wondered if the Maker would choose to look elsewhere if I pocketed a few sets, but was distracted by Raniero passing through the room carrying a huge, stuffed chair. He was barefoot and in cloth similar to mine, his shirt flowing over his massive chest and almost glowing against his charcoal-colored skin. He gave me a small smile of reassurance and continued on.
I almost laughed aloud when I saw Ronan walk through with a table, so glad was I to see him, especially looking so clean and handsome. But when he paused, staring at me in return, I shifted in embarrassment.
“Andriana,” he whispered, looking at me in open admiration.
I blushed, and then doubly when the butler looked from me to Ronan and back again. He snapped his fingers. Ronan and I hurried into action again. “There shall be no fraternization among the servants!” Mr. Olin cried after Ronan. “No fraternization!” I had no idea what the word meant, but I understood his tone.
But as Ronan turned and left the room, my heart caught, because I could clearly see his armband through the gossamerthin fabric of his shirt, and he didn’t even have a slit, as my dress did. I glanced down and saw that as my arms strained to keep hold of the plates, mine was all the more visible too. The stack in my hands waved precariously off balance, and my eyes went wide as I quickly stepped to the side to bring them back into balance.
“Set them here, girl, before you drop them,” said Mr. Olin, pointing to a side table. He pulled a small black stick from inside a pocket and took a plate from the stack, leading me to the table to give me instruction. “Now, I want you to take this stick and make certain the plates are equidistant between fork and knife, as well as this length from the edge of the table. Can you see that done?”
I nodded.
“Good. Your eyes are beautiful, but moreover they’re quick. I hope my confidence in you has not been misplaced.”
“No, I don’t believe it has been, sir.”
He gave me the tiniest of smiles. “Well, see to your task with care. If you do a good job this night, perhaps we will speak of further employment in the coming weeks. You are quite comely. That will please the master.”
“Thank you, sir. That would be an honor, sir.” I looked down, not wanting him to see in my eyes that we would not likely share breakfast. But then, who knew? Maybe it’d take a while to figure out how to cross the Great Expanse, as well as gather some funds. Perhaps we were to sojourn here for a few more days, weeks even. Earn some coin as well as room and board to replace what we’d lost. It all depended on where we were led and when … which was decidedly less than easily seen in advance, I thought with frustration.
When my protectors had told me that I was Ailith, that I’d been born to help save the world, I’d thought our path would be much … clearer, obvious, than it was turning out to be. This felt more like muddling our way through from station to station than any clear-cut path to do the Maker’s bidding. So far, all we knew for sure was that we were to free Kapriel. Somehow. Some way.
Mr. Olin left the room, and I stole glances at the fine fixtures around the plates. Gleaming silver candelabras, one between every four place settings. The four crystal goblets, in various sizes, above each plate. A thick, soft napkin that I couldn’t resist running my finger across — I’d never touched such fine fabric! Above, on the walls that climbed high, high above, were pictures — vast oil paintings of foreign landscapes and people in odd costume, next to golden-edged mirrors. I forced my attention back to my task. It wouldn’t do to have Mr. Olin return and see I’d gotten distracted.
I’d placed fourteen plates, carefully measuring from the lip of the table and then placing them as instructed, when I heard a woman singing outside the window.
I looked left and right, and saw both doorways were empty. No, stay on task, Dri.
I went and took three more plates from the stack and placed them as I’d been told. But the woman’s voice — so high, so clear, so haunting — filled the streets and filtered up to the dining hall and through the slightly opened windows. The doorways remained empty as I returned for three more plates; no one else apparently was about. I took up more plates and was turning when I heard her voice, in haunting measure, each syllable floating up to me
“And upon the field, and upon the plain,
The Ailith rose where they were slain,
And forevermore, whene’re she sang,
He wept and wept and wept again.”
Had I misheard her? Or had she actually mentioned the Ailith?
I rotated back to the window and saw that the sun had broken through the clouds and streamed through them, down toward the palace and in through the window in dusty rays. I could see the outline of other rooftops, the edge of the castle wall … Unable to resist any longer, I hurried over to the glass and looked down. Below was a small courtyard surrounded on three sides by buildings — one of which was this fine house — and atop a small pedestal was the woman.
The singer continued to weave her song, each note higher and higher, while her eyes stayed focused on the window. My window. She seemed to be singing directly to me, staring but not seeing, with wide, glassy eyes. I listened hard, but her words seemed to be slurring, becoming difficult to make out. But surely her words, and one in particular, hadn’t been my imagination! As I attempted to decipher more of her song, people gathered before her and rocked back and forth to the tempo, smiles across their faces.
It was just sinking in that my cuff was humming, along with dropping in temperature so that it chilled my entire arm, when a man said, “She has quite the beautiful — ”
I whirled, and the center plate slipped from the stack in my hands. I tried to grab it, missed, and then all three were slipping in different directions.
“Whoa!” the man said, reaching out to grab one from the air and then another with lightning-fast hands.
Just as the last was about to hit the marble tiles, I knelt and caught it, inches from shattering. I let out a little breath of relief and wonder, then slowly looked up, along fine trousers, a wide belt, and a shirt of the finest silk, to the handsome face of a man of about two decades. Two young women trailed behind him. All three of them had honey-gold blonde hair, eerily similar in shade. Dyed?
Still holding the plates, he grinned down at me. “Girl?” he asked, lifting them slightly, as if to remind me of my task.
“Oh! Forgive me,” I said, rising in a fluid motion. “Thank you so — ”
“Girl! What a travesty! What were you doing?” asked the butler, sweeping in beside us. He bowed, and bowed again. “Lord Maximillian, forgive her. Forgive us.”
Lord Maximillian. The lord of this house? One so young? He couldn’t be more than two decades and two. The kitchen gossips’ conversation came back to me and I eyed his companions. Where was the third?
“Girl!” Mr. Olin barked, frowning furiously at me. I hurriedly looked to the ground.
“Ease up, Olin,” he said. I could feel his gray-green eyes studying me, examining every inch of me. And my armband was vibrating, the chill a stark warning. But it confused me. Because every other time it had grown so cold, I was around Sheolites. Men out to kill me. This one … wasn’t. Was he?
“I startled her, Olin,” he said, his tone warm and friendly. “It was entirely my fault.”
I glanced up then, grateful for his intercession, and his smile broadened a bit. He had even, white teeth. Dimples. And that honey-blond hair that curled about his ears. I inwardly reached out, trying to read him, but got no emotion at all.
“By the cosmos, you’re certainly beautiful,” he said, staring back into my eyes. The women behind him, dressed in the manner of Pacifica, drifted away and out the door, as if excused.
I looked down again, embarrassed at his praise. Was that the way of Castle Vega? Such easy compliments?
“When did you come to work in my house?” he said.
“Just this morning,” I said.
“You shall address Lord Maximillian as ‘my lord,’ ” Mr. Olin s
napped, cheeks reddening. He hadn’t informed me, and I was apparently making him look bad.
“What’s your name?” Lord Maximillian said in an easy tone.
“Andriana … my lord,” I hastened to add.
“Get back to your task, Andriana,” Mr. Olin hissed, “with the salad plates next.” I immediately set off, reaching with trembling hands for more plates and hurrying to the table.
But the lord of the house followed me, studying my every move. I gave him a darting look over my shoulder and tried to read him again — wanting confirmation of warning, clarification, anything — but could get nothing, nothing but confusion, flitting emotions impossible to pin down. He paused, and then smiled. I decided he was flirting, playing, not intending to do me harm. Perhaps the armband had been warning me of someone else, nearby. The chill in it had thawed a bit. I fought to control my breath, and dropped my shoulders and lifted my chin, pretending as if he weren’t there.
“Have we met before, Andriana?” he asked.
“No, my lord.”
“Are you quite certain?”
“Quite, my lord,” I said, measuring the plate from the edge of the table and adjusting it a tad.
“Somewhere in the city, other than this house?”
“No, my lord.”
“How? How are you so certain?”
He stood in front of me, blocking my way. I dragged my eyes up to meet his, trying to think of an answer that would send him on his way. “Because I just arrived in the city, my lord.”
The young nobleman studied me, smiling with chin in hand and his eyes squinting, then waved the butler away. I felt Mr. Olin slip from the dining room behind me and felt twice as vulnerable. How I longed for my sword …
“Stand still for a moment, Andriana.” I did as he asked; there was no getting around it. The lord’s eyes ran from the top of my head, raked slowly down my body to my toes, then back to my face. I bent my head in shame, wishing I could take him down and choke him until he understood that I was to be respected. He’d never met a woman like me. If he only knew what —
“Do you play a game with me? Tell me the truth. Have we not met? You are terribly familiar. Perhaps in another district … one you don’t wish to admit to.”
I swallowed hard. It didn’t take much for me to imagine what sort of district that might be, in a city that had no moral code. “No, my lord, I am not playing a game. Perhaps I only remind you of another.” I waited, head bowed, and he finally stepped aside so I could continue my task.
“So you are new to Castle Vega,” he insisted, trailing me. “Perhaps we’ve met elsewhere in the Union or Pacifica. From where do you hail?”
“Most recently from Georgii Post,” I said, moving around him to retrieve more plates once he leaned against the cupboard counter, directly in my way. But as I lifted my arms, he caught my wrist with his right hand.
“Now what is this?”
I froze and looked at him, the Maker only narrowly keeping me from twisting, turning, and flipping the man onto his back. Could he feel my darting pulse beneath his fingers?
His eyes moved from my flared nostrils down to my armband, well aware that I was alarmed, angry that he dared to touch me. Enjoying it. He casually lifted his left hand and ran his fingers up the slit, separating the fabric, peeking in. The humor in his green eyes faded. “Where did you get this, Andriana?” he asked.
My armband was icy-cold. It was as if he recognized the design. Because of the tattoo that Kapriel and Azarel shared? I remembered Azarel and Asher’s fear when they saw whose house our Georgii Post friends had led us to, their refusal to enter. Was this young lord one they feared would recognize them?
Even with him touching me, I still wasn’t able to read his emotions. But they were plain enough on his face. Danger, my heart screamed. Danger, danger, danger …
“A trinket,” I said, gently but firmly pulling my wrist from his grip. “Given to me by someone dear. A simple reminder of my home, Lord Maximillian,” I said, reaching up with my other hand, as if I might cover it, hide it, make him forget he’d ever seen it.
“A trinket,” he repeated flatly, looking into my eyes. Staring hard. Penetrating as if he could reach through them and delve directly into my heart, grabbing hold of it and the truth within. I gasped and took a step back, as if he’d struck me, my hand moving to my heart. I could feel it pound beneath my palm, but it felt distant, foreign. My armband began to vibrate, so cold it felt as if it might shatter.
Several long seconds passed.
“Andriana,” he said softly, as if mulling over my name, breaking our gaze at last and moving to another tall cupboard beside a tiny window at the end of the storage room. I could no longer hear the singer outside. Indeed, it seemed as if her presence had been a dream. He opened a cabinet, pulled out a heavy, crystal bottle, and lifted the glass stopper off the top. He poured amber liquid into a thick, short glass and lifted it to his lips, sipping slowly. I waited nervously.
“You are new to this city. Do you know who I am, Andriana?” He took another long, slow sip, then looked over at me with deadly calm eyes. It was if he squeezed my heart as he said my name.
“L-lord of this house, Lord Maximillian Jala.”
“Yes,” he said, after a moment’s pause. “That’s a start. You may go, Andriana. We are done for now.”
CHAPTER
23
I rounded the corner and leaned against the wall, closing my eyes.
Something had just gone terribly wrong. I could feel it, even if I couldn’t put my finger on it. While Asher had seemed confident we’d been led to this location for a reason, clearly he and Azarel had never thought one of us would be placed anywhere but in the kitchen this day. But I had. And the master had recognized something about me, beyond the armband I wore. Did he know I was Ailith?
I took a deep breath and strode toward the kitchen, intent on finding the man from Georgii Post we’d saved. He could tell me more of what I needed to know. Once there, I ducked behind a tall clock as Mr. Olin passed to avoid having another task assigned, and searched through the thirty or more servants, all moving in different directions and on different tasks in the kitchen. The closer we got to dinner, the more crowded and bustling this room would become, I decided.
I glimpsed the man I sought on the far side of the kitchen, but by the time I got there he was gone. In frustration, I reached out and stopped a girl of perhaps a decade and five. “Please …” I said. “Tell me. Who is the lord of this house?”
She stared at me in confusion, then mirth. “Why, this is the holiday house of Lord Maximillian Jala, one of the Six.”
“One of the Six?” But before I finished my question, I knew of whom she spoke.
I stepped back from her and belatedly realized I’d brought a hand to my chest, as if alarmed, and dropped it.
The Council of Six. Pacifica’s ruling body, formed to do Keallach’s bidding. I’d heard Asher mention it in conversation with Niero. I turned away from the girl, so that my face wouldn’t betray me further, but my mind was racing. I’d imagined the Six as old men, vile and menacing. Lord Jala … I shook my head, remembering his warm green eyes and glossy blond hair. His quick smile — and his quicker hands, catching the plates. Saving me from disaster. And yet, would it not have been better for the plates to crash? For me to be summarily dismissed by Olin? Rather than have one of the Council of Six take note of me as he had?
But then, was this not just the sort of break we needed? To get closer to Keallach and his men? To find out how to get to the Isle of Catal and free Kapriel?
Men and women passed me in the kitchen, and I lifted a towel and plate, wiping it so I looked busy, hoping one of the Ailith would come by. I needed to talk to Raniero.
Now.
Setting down the plate and towel once the crowd had passed, I picked up a pile of clean linens and went out the door, as if Olin had set me upon another task. I walked down a wide hallway, then past one grand room after another, each wit
h beautiful, polished stone floors and luxurious carpets, rich paint, and even fabric on the walls. Walking quickly through the house, I saw many servants but none of the Ailith, and the longer I searched, the more anxious I became. What if I ran into Lord Jala again?
I squeezed the linens in my sweaty hand, wondering at the heat in this part of the Union, and glad for my light gown and bare feet upon cool tiles. I heard the laughter before I saw them. Up ahead, the house opened up into a central courtyard, lined on all sides in a three-story portico draped with flowering vines. In the center, beside a curving pool tiled in blue, young men were throwing their heads back laughing, clapping one another on the back. I moved around a screen and peeked through the crack, watching as they drank from crystal glasses filled with amber liquid, just as Lord Jala had done.
Young women hung about them. These were not dressed as the women of Pacifica, but rather scantily, showing belly and cleavage as if they were in their underthings rather than clothing for the light of day. They draped their arms around the young men’s chests from behind, tickled their ears, kissed their necks and jaws. But the men practically ignored them, concentrating on one man’s engaging story from what he called “the front.”
“The swine had taken up a farm!” said the man. I had a hard time looking away from him and the other men, they were so collectively beautiful. Like cousins of Lord Jala. Where was the lord of the house? Why was he not with these others, plainly his friends? I’d never seen so many handsome men close to my own age, in such a small space, in … well, ever. I was drawn to them, like one of Dagan’s bees to the flowers.
Dagan. What had the man just said about a farm?
“You have to watch the simpletons every moment,” said a tall man with a long, straight nose and sculpted cheeks. “They are far better off looking to us for everything they need.”
Season of Wonder Page 26
