by Katie Cross
“Why?”
“No one knows. Can you maintain that for weeks at a time?”
She thought of the restlessness of the powers, her need for Letum Wood. Her certainty waned.
Could she do this?
“I think I can.”
“You better know it.”
He paused, staring hard at her. She swallowed. “I can.”
“Two: never breathe a word about your real life.”
“Obviously.”
“Witches in the East don’t clasp hands. They kiss each other on each cheek. No bowing. Don’t ever thank a superior verbally, simply avert your eyes. They don’t drink tea here but have wine at every meal and sometimes between. It’s a weaker version of the wine you know, but they get raving drunk often enough. No one should care that you’re from the Central Network, not with borders as porous as these, but do your best to blend in anyway. Because of the prohibition against magic, they have a hard time staffing this place. Your rank is the lowest of all of them.”
He pulled a book from his pocket. She almost cried in relief. Her Ilese study book! She’d be able to study the language in the evenings, now. When she reached for it, Maximillion held it back, forcing her to meet his gaze.
“Notice everything you can about this place. Details. Facts. Observations. Nothing is wasted.”
“Should I try to find Lucey?”
“No. Observe. Do nothing without my authorization.”
“How do I—”
“You don’t. I’ll find you. Be careful.” His lips twisted, as if he’d sucked on a lemon. “With Lucey incarcerated, we can’t afford to lose someone with your potential.”
“Don’t trip over the compliment.”
“Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
A flicker of something else moved in his eyes. Something vulnerable and raw. Isadora accepted the book, stuffing aside the urge to ask him why he had it on him in the first place. As if he’d planned on her staying all along. Maximillion yanked his hand back before she could touch him. His expression returned to its usual stoic indifference.
“No communication with anyone. I will be in touch with you. If you’re in danger, transport to Letum Wood, as deep as you can. Transport again to four different spots before walking for thirty minutes in an unorganized fashion and then transporting to Pearl’s. I will come to you.”
If she transported, they could follow her magic. But if she transported around Letum Wood several times, they probably wouldn’t follow. Walking in an unpredictable way would prevent the witches from finding her magic immediately when she transported a final time.
Such an elaborate scheme.
He eyed her.
“Good luck, Isadora. You’ll certainly need it.”
“I can do this.”
He peered outside, then stepped out and closed the door behind him. Isadora ran to the window, but by the time she’d made it, he had already disappeared, leaving her with a hollow feeling in her belly and a stomach full of fear.
The Book of the World’s Greatest Laundry Secrets and Other Things You Never Knew About Silk became Isadora’s best friend.
And worst enemy.
Explicit instructions on the laundry process filled every page, requiring elaborate, headache-inducing translations—not to mention hand-brewed potions. At least she could translate most of it, thanks to her study book, but it consumed hours of time. Isadora spent the rest of the day in the laundry room, alternately reading the instructions and staring at the piles and piles and piles of laundry.
Had the other lavanda maid really done nothing? Was it so hard to staff this lovely place—the horrific prison overhead aside?
The sun sank closer to the horizon as she leaned against a counter and turned a page that detailed the temperature of water based on color and type of fabric. The options ranged from lukewarm to warm to hot to boiling. How could she even tell? Her mind spun with instructions on dye creation, types of fabric to iron based on relative humidity, and potions for the perfect soap base for dense wool. All the information entered her mind, then vanished again.
“Find one thing to do,” she murmured, reciting advice Mam had given her when she was a little girl, staring at the teacups, unsure where to start. “Then do it.”
Isadora gazed around.
Exploring the lavanda seemed a better place to start. She set the book aside.
Irons hung from the wall in various states of disrepair—some of them wider than she was. Odd contraptions that must have been drying racks stood along another wall, near mounds of driftwood, firewood, and massive cauldrons. Wooden barrels were stacked along another wall—they hadn’t been there before when Fiona first brought her in, nor had the firewood. How could she use such massive barrels? No doubt all the freshwater had to be shipped in—she doubted there’d be any here naturally.
The back door opened onto a small courtyard surrounded by a high stone wall. Yards of twine hung a little higher than her head. Another drying area, no doubt. In the far-right corner lurked an old well, which smelled as briny as the outdoors. Could she wash clothes in sea water?
There wasn’t much more to discover. How was she supposed to find Lucey? Her eyes trailed up, above her, but she couldn’t see the strange stones of Carcere.
“Sorting next,” she said, clapping her hands.
The book specified that everything washed together had to be the same color, so she shoved her sleeves up. Deciding it would be safest to start washing the whites, she grabbed several sheets, towels, and grungy Guardian shirts and tucked them into one spot. An hour passed, and she’d created twenty new piles. The torches sprang to life when she lit them with a piece of flint, casting shadows in the corners.
Isadora stepped back with a satisfied sigh.
“Not bad.”
Strands of the sunset colored the sky as the sun sank to its watery grave. The sound of approaching footsteps came from the hall, drawing her from her thoughts. She straightened. A slender man stood in the doorway. His crisp, raven hair shone in the light, cut so it tapered around his ears and face. He’d rolled the sleeves of his white shirt halfway up his arms, exposing muscular forearms.
“You did it wrong,” he said.
Shock flooded her. Her eyes widened. Had he just spoken in the common language?
“What?”
He advanced, moving with an easy finesse. He wore a pair of loose linen pants that flapped around his legs. No shoes, which seemed odd. She swallowed when he motioned to the piles surrounding her in colorful mounds.
“Magic isn’t allowed here,” he said, his voice lightly accented, almost lyrical. Hesitation lingered in his gaze. His dark skin and hair stood in stark contrast to his white shirt.
“I-I didn’t use magic to sort them.”
“Good.”
He strode across the room, shoving and kicking all the piles into one great lump, leaving open space around the new central pile.
“Stop! I just spent an hour—”
“You wasted an hour.”
A shirt flew to the top of the pile with a quiet flutter.
“Wait, please. I just—”
“You sort wrong,” he said, tsking under his breath. “Not just by color, but by fabric, too. See this? It’s silk. If you wash it with cotton?”
He clucked, throwing a filthy apron into a corner with other kitchen towels. All her questions dissipated.
“I—”
“And no soap on the whites.”
“But why?”
He motioned to a cupboard. Vials of a pearlescent, filmy solution waited inside. “The potion you use with whites is finicky. Water must be a certain temperature, but it’s almost impossible to nail down. If you don’t, the whites will turn gray. If that happens? I suggest swimming home, particularly if the mistake is made with one of The Great One’s dresses.”
Isadora studied him as he sorted through the laundry. He must be some kind of servant here. A butler? No. No one visited here, and Fion
a seemed to rule the castle. No one with his poise and deep eyes would be a servant.
“How am I supposed to get into the barrels?”
“Pry open the top.” His eyes darted to the wall when footsteps sounded in the hallway. He froze, then resumed sorting—albeit faster than before—when the noise faded.
Her faint echo of his instructions faded in the air. “Pry open the—”
How did one pry those open, anyway? He gestured impatiently toward the wall, where a metal crowbar leaned against the stone.
“With that. Use the bucket to put water into the cauldron. Don’t waste any. We only receive water every six weeks.”
“There are spells that—”
“Never speak of magic again.”
The coldness in his voice arrested her suggestion. Isadora clamped her mouth shut.
He frowned, and the expression softened his face. “That firewood and water has to last at least six weeks, until the next resupply. Don’t waste a twig or a drop. Reuse the water if you can. Wash the filthiest things together.”
Ah, that explained it. The previous lavanda maid must have been out of water and firewood, which accounted for the ridiculous amount of laundry strewn around the floor.
“The driftwood burns in different colors, too, so beware.”
“I—”
The sound of a deep gong rippled through the air. He stopped and glanced over his shoulder toward the hall. When he turned back to Isadora, he seemed hurried.
“When it comes to silk, always by hand. Cold water, and no potion except the light blue one in the far corner.”
“The book says there’s a spell that works beautifully for silks.”
“Don’t use it.”
“Then why even read the book?”
“There’s good information in there.”
“Which is good and which bad?”
“Trust me on the silk.”
“Why should I?”
He glanced at her, eyes widening. Isadora fought the temptation to apologize. She hadn’t done anything wrong, and she didn’t know him at all.
His shoulders relaxed a little, although his gaze remained sharp.
“Because I worked the lavanda last year, when I had no place or honor.”
“What do you do this year?”
“Cleaning. Fiona runs the castle, I clean, and three cooks work in the kitchen. The Guardians staff Carcere. The Great One has her own staff of maids who are kept separate from us. She doesn’t like them interacting with us.”
“Why?”
“The Great One has many rules.”
Isadora’s rank on the bottom rung implied restrictions, no doubt. Like not being allowed to wander the castle, which Fiona had alluded to, but Isadora had hoped been a formality. Even if she snuck out from under Fiona’s studious gaze, others would recognize her.
A problem.
“Cleaning is better than laundry?” she asked.
“Oh, much. Much, much better. You are compared with the lichen on the stones. The, uh, waste of the fish in the sea. A lavanda servant is—”
“I get it. I get it. Why are you helping me?”
He paused. “Because I’m from the West, and I understand how it feels to be here. They’re obsessed with class, and it’s odd. Rich. Poor. Servant. Lavanda. Without social strata, they fall apart. The sooner you learn, the better.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“Best of luck to you.”
He spun on his heels and headed for the door. Isadora rushed after him. “Wait!”
He stopped just outside the door, eyebrows lifted.
“What’s your name?”
“They call me Lorenzo.”
Lorenzo turned around and left, the sound of his gentle footfalls echoing in his wake. The words place and honor rang in her ears. With determination, she shoved her sleeves farther up her arms, turned around, and faced the piles yet again.
Isadora didn’t leave the lavanda the next day.
Lighting the fire, lugging the heavy cauldron into the dry fireplace, and filling bucket after bucket of water occupied most of her day. Not to mention scrubbing the shirts on the washboard, wringing out the clothes, hanging them to dry, ironing them once the hot breeze whisked the moisture away, and folding them. She didn’t dare venture into the castle to put the finished laundry away but left it in neat piles. Fiona’s command not to wander rang in her ears.
When she woke the next morning, the finished laundry was gone. Only a note remained.
Work faster.
She pitched it into the fire.
Without the monstrous pile of bedsheets clogging the floor, the towels, servants’ stockings, washcloths, and elegant silk garments that frightened her to death could occupy her attention.
Meals—and not bad food at that—had shown up for her the day before. Most of it was dry, with too much salt, but it satisfied her ravenous hunger. The meals arrived again on the second day, which passed in hours of backbreaking work that reminded her of spring planting in Anguis.
The morning of her third day, Isadora held up a mousy brown apron with a groan.
“Too cold,” she cried, rubbing a hand over her face. What now? The once-white apron looked like the hairball of a screaming gnome. She shoved the ruined garment back into the bucket and grabbed The Book of the World’s Greatest Laundry Secrets and Other Things You Never Knew About Silk.
There had to be some sort of instructions for whitening fabrics. While she frantically shuffled through the pages, footsteps sounded in the hall. Her gazed flicked up just as a tall body filled the doorway.
“Idiota!”
Isadora shrank back, clutching the book to her chest. A wiry man with a mop of dark hair and fire in his eyes advanced on her, clutching what appeared to be a chef’s hat. She swallowed hard. She hadn’t washed any hats …
… had she?”
He shoved it in her face, knuckles white. A single, round tomato stain splattered the top of the hat. Words flew off his tongue at an alarming rate—she couldn’t decipher a single one.
“Regretta,” she stammered. “So sorry… er … mucha regretta?”
He hurled the hat into a pile—of shirts, which wasn’t even kitchen laundry—threw his hands in the air, and stalked out. Isadora blinked and swallowed hard to force the tears back.
“Two mistakes,” she said, soothed by the sound of her own voice. “Of course I’m going to make mistakes. Two is … n-nothing.”
The logic didn’t comfort her.
Before she could sink too far into her frustration and self-pity, Fiona’s head popped into the lavanda.
“Breakfast.” She waved her hand. “Come. I will introduce you to the staff now.”
Spurred by curiosity and relieved she didn’t have to go alone, Isadora followed her into the hall and to the right. The hallway flowed in a circle, illuminated with beams of light from the long, colored windows. They walked into another hallway that branched away from the main circle. Two words hung above the door mantle on an elegant, dried piece of driftwood.
Solo coraggioso.
“Servant?” she asked Fiona, then immediately shook her head. The first word meant … licorice? Ilese had a strange habit of reversing sounds on any given word. She could never remember which ones. “No …”
The corner of Fiona’s mouth lifted. “You’ll figure it out one day.”
They turned down a new hall, which branched right and left. The smell of porridge drifted on the air, along with several loud, laughing voices. Her palms began to sweat. If she could help Daid fight Talis, she could walk into a dining room and eat breakfast. More laughter rang out.
At least they sounded friendly.
Fiona nudged her to the right, then grabbed her arm to stop her. Isadora froze in the doorway. Five witches stared at her from the dining room. All laughter immediately ceased. Like Fiona, nearly all of them had the same warm skin and rich, black hair like shimmering coal, so unlike Isadora’s dark blonde waves.
&nb
sp; The moments that passed seemed interminable. Lorenzo stood at the far end holding a pewter mug. His eyebrows lifted with interest, but he said nothing to save her from the heavy awkwardness. Between them lay an irregular dining table cobbled together from pieces of driftwood.
Fiona broke the quiet with a calm, even voice.
“This is Isadora.” She stretched her name out to Eesadorra. “She’s running the lavanda.”
Based on the dismissal on most of their faces—two of them turned back to plates full of food, and two rolled their eyes—she imagined Fiona hadn’t needed to announce that much.
The voice that had been laughing the loudest—the cook who had screamed at her only minutes before—patted a new hat and glared at her. Two other cooks sat around the table. Someone said The Great One, and the rest laughed uproariously. Snatches of Ilese floated to Isadora here and there, but she struggled with their rapid-fire speech.
“Better than I expected,” Fiona mumbled under her breath, then tapped Isadora’s elbow. “Go. Before the wine turns cold.”
Fiona shuffled toward the far end, near Lorenzo. Before Isadora could step up to the table, the cooks rose. Their chairs grated against the stone floor as they shoved back, casting Isadora wary glances before exiting through another doorway. The good gods, but they acted like they couldn’t leave fast enough.
Only Lorenzo and Fiona, who spoke quietly together at the end of the table, remained. With a piece of white chalk, Lorenzo wrote on a long wooden board hanging on the wall. Fiona glanced at it often, also writing with a piece of chalk. The duties of the house, it appeared.
“Help yourself,” Lorenzo called without looking at Isadora. He waved a hand toward the sideboard but continued to regard the wall.
“Ah, thank you.”
Fiona sent her a quizzical glance, and Isadora realized her faux pas too late. Never say thank you to a superior, Maximillion had said. Lorenzo cleared his throat, a hand in front of his lips. Isadora turned away, cheeks burning.
Sunlight warmed the room, highlighting aprons hanging from the wall. A vase of flowers decorated the middle of the table. Broken remnants of what appeared to have once been crackers filled a pewter bowl. Next to it was a jug of warmed wine and a crock of jam.
