She nodded, gratified, and turned to leave.
“Is there a Mistress of the House?” I ventured before she could disappear.
She turned to me in astonishment. “Has no one told you?”
When I shook my head, she stepped closer, lowered her voice. “Belisama Shearwater died after having Miss Catua. Childbed fever. Never mention her name. It hit the three eldest very hard indeed. Master Llir was but four years old, Miss Vercha six. And Master Emment…well, he hasn’t been the same since.” Her gaze wandered; she pressed her lips together. “A very great shame. The heir to the Brigancy…”
With a shudder, I tried to imagine being raised solely by Rexim Shearwater. He had probably palmed off most of his offspring’s care onto his servants.
Miss Haney swept away through a narrow door, and I approached the well, gazing down into its depths.
This water was glass clear, sitting lazily at the bottom, and though it took a few tries, it responded to my entreaties. Miss Haney’s confidence in me had calmed my rattled nerves, and this was a task we’d practiced hundreds of times at Arbenhaw. This water, drawn from the rock below, was far closer to the cold springs I’d worked with for a decade than the violence, the frenzy, of those archwater waves.
When the groundwater rose, spilling into my waiting bucket, hot relief sparked briefly in my chest before I tamped it down and concentrated on my chores. My muscles still burned from my climb, and my palms stung where they gripped the handles of the buckets, but before long I found a kind of rhythm in the work.
As I coaxed water into the vat, preparing to churn laundry, I caught movement behind a window on the second floor. A figure waspassing, and they paused, glancing down at me. It was Llir, his smooth features distorted by the leaded glass.
I forced myself not to be the first to break the stare. To give every impression that this morning’s test hadn’t bothered me. And after a few long seconds, he turned and disappeared.
10
I toiledall the rest of that day, late into the evening, then sat up trying to memorize Tigo’s tide tables. But my thoughts kept zipping from Zennia’s letter to the story Tigo and Rhianne had told me, and then to my meeting, now a mere week away. I’d already heard Vercha mention market day more than once. I’d need to make sure I was still in town at sunset, slip away somehow…andacquire myself a mask.
My work was exhausting in spite of my ability. Though I could persuade the groundwater to go where I willed it, I couldn’t tell the wire brushes to scrub off stubborn stains. I couldn’t tell the tubs and ewers to haul themselves around. Despite whipping through my duties faster than a normal servant could, I still went to bed that night half dazed and aching, doubly tired after my ordeal with the Waking Tide.
All the same, I forced myself to rise before sunup the next morning and hurried down the rocky path that led to the shingle beach.
Worry was gnawing at me, a growing unease that before long, nearer pallwater, my services would be called on. The family would expectme to steer their boats, clear the causeway. After what had happened in front of Llir and Tigo, and in the cove, I had todosomething. I had to keep trying.
I’d chosen this particular time of day for a reason: The Waking Tide was still a quarter of an hour off, and the waves were low, receding around the island. The causeway shone under ivory moonslight, and either side of it stretched the endless mudflats, empty and ominous in the predawn dark.
I shuffled to the water’s edge—it would soon retreat beyond the island—and crouched, staring at it, trying to get a sense of it. It lapped at the shingle, rippling almost with a purr.
“I’m Corith,” I said tentatively. “It’s good to meet you.”
I sensed only a vast weightiness, an indifferent disregard.
“I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot the other day. But I really hope we can learn to work together.”
I thought I detected a weak answering swirl, but it was gone before I could be sure I’d really seen it. The water seemed bent on its withdrawal from the bay, on building its strength for the assault to come.
“Form a whirlpool,” I whispered. “Please. Or a wave.”
But there was something so removed about these archwater swells. As though the ocean’s purpose was so great, so consuming, that my entreaties didn’t register at all.
What would Zennia do if she were here instead of you?
The thought surprised me, made my breath catch in my throat. I gazed out at the waves and realized I didn’t really know. Zennia was lost; I could barely think of her without crumpling.
But what I did know was that my friend wouldneverhave given up.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said to the surf, “and the next day.”
And even though the tide hadn’t deigned to respond, I murmured a quick “Thank you” as I rose and backed away.
—
Late morning found me in one of the fine halls I’d padded down the day before with Miss Haney. My duties included washing the floors, and I was hauling a bucket of lavender water. This part of the castle seemed oddly quiet, and when I passed Rexim’s study, I was surprised to see the door standing ajar, no sign of him within.
