I woke to pain.
Not the sharp, demanding kind that required immediate attention, but the dull, persistent variety that had settled into my bones overnight and showed no signs of departure.
My hands throbbed where the wire had cut them. My shoulders ached from yesterday's grain sacks. Even my ribs felt bruised, though I couldn't recall doing anything specific to earn that particular complaint.
I lay on the cot for a moment, staring at the ceiling, and seriously considered whether I could simply will myself out of existence.
Apparently not.
With a sigh that could have belonged to someone three times my age, I pushed myself upright.
The day's work was already waiting as it always was.
The laundry came first.
I hauled the basket down to the washing room—a damp stone chamber that smelled permanently of lye and mildew—and began the tedious process of making the Nightshade family's linens acceptable.
My hands protested immediately. The soap found every cut. The water followed, cold and stinging.
I ignored them. It could complain all it liked, but the work still needed doing.
The first load went smoothly. The second did not.
"Ophelia."
I looked up.
Lady Calantha stood in the doorway, backlit by the corridor beyond, looking as though she'd been carved from ice.
"You've missed a stain," she said, gesturing at the basket of freshly folded linens.
I glanced at the pile. White fabric. Spotless. Not a mark on it.
"Where, My Lady?"
"There." She pointed vaguely. "Do it again."
I stared at the invisible stain for a long moment, then pulled the entire basket back toward the washtub.
"Yes, My Lady."
She didn't leave. She remained in the doorway, watching, as I submerged perfectly clean fabric into soapy water and began scrubbing at nothing.
"Your posture is dreadful," she added. "Shoulders back."
I adjusted.
"Lower your eyes when I'm speaking."
I dropped my gaze to the water.
"And stop slouching. It's unseemly."
I pulled my shoulders back whilst simultaneously keeping my head down, which created an impressive tension in my neck that I was fairly certain would result in permanent damage.
"Better," she said, in a tone that suggested it absolutely wasn't.
Then she left.
I finished rewashing the clean laundry, wrung it out with hands that felt like they were on fire, and hung everything to dry.
Then I moved on to sweeping.
The corridors of the Nightshade estate were long, numerous, and collected dust as though it was a renewable resource that needed constant harvesting.
I swept the entrance hall.
Then the drawing room.
Then the dining room.
Then back to the entrance hall, which had somehow accumulated more dust in the twenty minutes since I'd last been through.
My shoulders burned. The broom handle rubbed against my torn palms with every stroke.
I was halfway down the west corridor when I encountered one of the kitchen maids—the same older woman who'd looked at me yesterday and said nothing.
She was carrying a tea service. I stepped aside to let her pass.
She didn't meet my eyes. Didn't nod. Didn't acknowledge my existence beyond a slight adjustment in her path to avoid brushing against me.
I watched her disappear around the corner and tried to remember the last time another servant had spoken to me voluntarily.
Nothing came to mind.
The rest of the morning passed in a blur of menial tasks: carrying water, polishing silver, dusting shelves, scrubbing floors.
Every time I finished something, another task appeared. Every time I thought I might rest for a moment, Calantha materialized with fresh corrections.
"That corner. You missed it."
"The silver isn't shining properly. Start over."
"Why are you moving so slowly? Are you unwell?"
I wasn't unwell. I was exhausted. But saying so would only result in more work assigned as punishment for laziness.
By midday, I'd begun to notice something.
The servants were avoiding me.
Not subtly. Deliberately.
Conversations stopped when I entered a room. Eyes slid away when I passed. Even the cook—who usually tolerated my presence with gruff indifference—had turned her back when I came to collect kitchen scraps.
The atmosphere in the house felt heavier than usual. Like everyone knew something I didn't, and they'd all agreed not to tell me.
I told myself I was imagining it.
I didn't believe myself for a second.
***
I was polishing the drawing room's collection of decorative silver—candlesticks, trays, and various other items whose sole purpose appeared to be collecting dust, looking expensive, and making my life miserable—when Calantha arrived for her inspection.
She didn't announce herself. She simply appeared in the doorway, silent as a particularly elegant ghost, and began her examination.
I kept polishing. Experience had taught me that stopping work to acknowledge her presence was grounds for correction. So was not stopping. The trick was guessing which offence she'd choose to pursue on any given day.
She circled the room slowly, white-gloved fingers trailing across surfaces I'd already cleaned. Testing for dust. Finding none, which somehow made her expression tighten further.
"This candlestick," she said, lifting one from the mantle. "It's tarnished."
I glanced at it. The silver gleamed. I'd spent fifteen minutes on that particular piece alone, buffing it until I could see my reflection in the base.
"I can polish it again, My Lady."
"You will." She set it down with deliberate care. "And the rest. Clearly your standards require correction."
She moved to the window next, inspecting the drapes I'd beaten and rehung that morning.
"These are dusty."
They weren't.
"Take them down. Wash them. Rehang them before dinner."
That was four hours of work. At least. And I still had the evening's tasks waiting.
"Yes, My Lady."
She continued her circuit of the room, finding fault with the floors, the furniture arrangement, and the way I'd folded the cleaning rags. Each discovery came with a new task, delivered in that same cool, precise tone that made correction sound like courtesy.
By the time she finished, I had enough work to fill two days.
"Begin with the silver," she said. "I'll return to inspect it in an hour."
An hour. For twelve pieces that would each require at least twenty minutes to meet her standards.
"Yes, My Lady."
She turned to leave, then paused.
"Ava will be joining me for tea shortly. She may require assistance. Make yourself available."
Translation: stop whatever you're doing the moment her daughter wants something, even if it means the silver won't be finished in time, which will then be grounds for further punishment.
"Of course, My Lady."
She left.
I stared at the silver, at my torn hands, at the drapes that would need to be taken down and washed and somehow dried and rehung before evening.
Then I picked up the polishing cloth and started on the first candlestick.
Ava appeared twenty minutes later.
She was the third daughter—ten, blonde, and possessed of the particular kind of cruelty that comes from never being told no. She swept into the drawing room with the confidence of someone who'd never had to clean one.
"Ophelia," she said, not quite looking at me. "Mother wants you to fetch her blue shawl from her chambers."
I was elbow-deep in silver polish, three candlesticks down with nine to go and forty minutes remaining.
"Of course, Miss Ava."
I set down the cloth, wiped my hands on my apron—adding to the impressive collection of stains—and headed for the stairs.
I retrieved the shawl, returned, and handed it to Ava.
"Not that one," she said, examining it with a frown. "The other blue one. The silk."
Back upstairs. Found the silk shawl. Returned.
"Actually, I think Mother wanted the lace one after all."
I looked at her. She looked back, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
This wasn't about the shawl.
"I'll fetch it, Miss Ava."
By the time I returned with the correct shawl—the lace one, as originally requested—Calantha had materialized in the drawing room.
"Why isn't the silver finished?" she asked.
I looked at the nine remaining pieces, then at Ava, who was examining her nails with great interest.
"Miss Ava required assistance, My Lady."
"And that prevented you from completing your work?"
There was no correct answer to this question. If I said yes, I was making excuses. If I said no, I was admitting incompetence.
"I apologize, My Lady."
"Start again," Calantha said. "All of it. I want every piece polished to proper standard before dinner."
That was impossible. Even without interruptions, I wouldn't finish in time.
"Yes, My Lady."
Ava smiled.
I worked through the afternoon without stopping.
The silver came first—all twelve pieces, stripped of their previous polish and started fresh. My hands screamed. The chemicals in the polish found every cut, every blister, every raw patch of skin.
Then the drapes. I took them down—heavy velvet things that weighed nearly as much as I did—and hauled them to the washing room. Scrubbed them in cold water because there wasn't time to heat it. Wrung them out with hands that had gone numb with the pain and cold.
I was hanging the first panel back up when I noticed Calantha watching from the doorway.
I didn't acknowledge her. Kept working. Focused on getting the fabric to hang straight, which required stretching on my toes and reaching with shoulders that had been screaming since morning.
"You're being very quiet lately," she observed.
I didn't respond. Responding was dangerous.
"I wonder what occupies your thoughts," she continued. "You seem... distracted."
The words were casual. The tone was not.
I finished hanging the first panel and reached for the second.
"I've been thinking," she said, "that you're getting older. Sixteen now, aren't you?"
"Yes, My Lady."
"Old enough to be thinking about your future."
I kept my eyes on the drapes. On the fabric. On anything that wasn't her face.
"Old enough," she continued, "that certain arrangements might be appropriate."
My hands stilled for just a moment.
"We'll discuss it soon," Calantha said. "But for now, finish your work."
She left.
I stood there, arms raised, holding velvet that suddenly felt heavier than before.
Arrangements.
The word settled in my stomach like lead.
What could she be "arranging"?