The room went quiet.
For the first time since Nina had walked in, something shifted across Lady Gina's face. It wasn't horror exactly, but it brushed close enough to it that Nina instinctively wondered if she'd said something wrong.
Across from her, Emory stared with her mouth slightly open.
She closed it.
Then opened it again.
"What do you mean?" she asked slowly.
Nina blinked at both women. "I have no skills." She hesitated, suddenly uncertain. "I can wash clothes, and I clean well." Her brows pinched together as she looked between them. "Are those… skills?"
Lady Gina lifted a hand and pressed it flat over her face as though fighting off a headache. Her other hand tightened around the back of her chair.
Emory still looked stunned.
Nina's gaze moved between them, genuinely confused by the reaction she'd caused.
"Are you not a noble?" Emory finally asked, her tone dangerously level. "How do you not have a single skill?"
Nina opened her mouth—
