So maybe Thessa could apply.
She wiped her hands on the apron, glanced over her shoulder, and stepped closer under the pretense of rinsing herbs, lowering her voice. “Did you say House Mera?”
The girls paused. One nodded. “Don’t know much. They’re taking applications. Personal servants for social events. Might even travel.”
“Sounds decent,” Thessa said, careful to keep her tone neutral.
The other girl shrugged. “Decent pay, maybe. But no one knows what they’re really hiring for.”
“They say it’s proper work,” Lena added. “Food, coin. Just keep your mouth shut and smile nice. But… you know.”
Thessa did. Everyone did.
The first girl lowered her voice. “It’s hard times. Even peasants are getting conscripted now. Rhyssa knows why.”
“After the Second Crimson Plague, the fields went bare,” the second girl murmured. “If it’s serving lords or starving, I know what I’d pick.”
She took a breath and stepped closer to the older girl.
“Do you know who to speak to? For House Mera.”
The woman pivoted, took her in with a glance, then shrugged. “You don’t speak. You get noticed. Be near the silk gate at sundown. Wear clean shoes.”
Thessa nodded, murmured thanks, and turned back to her work.
It was late when she finally made her way home. The sky had gone that particular shade of bruised indigo that warned of colder nights. Her fingers were stiff, raw from dishwater and burns, but she clutched the basket tightly anyway. More leftovers—some ends of roasted squash, a sliver of salted meat, and two rolls that hadn’t been too badly scorched.
All the way back her thoughts circled like crows. The job. House Mera. Clean shoes, good posture, polite smile. A few weeks of pretending to be invisible—how hard could that be? She was already half-expert at vanishing in plain sight.
The scent of woodsmoke met her before the door did, thin and cold as breath. When she opened the door, her mother wascrouched on the floor, a damp cloth in her hand. The latch clicked shut, dull in the small room. Sera lay curled on the mat by the fire, her small frame still, her brow sheened with sweat.
“She won’t eat,” Aerenne uttered without looking up. Her voice was low and frayed at the edges. “Barely drank anything.”
Thessa knelt beside her sister, setting the basket down. “Sera,” she said gently. “Can you hear me?”
Her sister’s eyes fluttered. Bright and fevered, not really seeing. Her breath was shallow, quick. The air around her felt… strange. First warm, then sharp with chill, like a window had been left ajar. Thessa reached for the blanket and pulled it tighter around her sister.
“She has a fever,” Aerenne murmured, rubbing at her temples with one hand, the other still holding the cloth.
But the words sounded like a prayer trying to convince itself it was a fact. But just fever didn’t look like that. Thessa pressed her palm to Sera’s cheek. The heat pulsed beneath the skin. Her sister’s mouth moved again.
“They’re watching…” she whispered. “Eyes in the sky… in the water…”
Thessa swallowed hard. Her attention darted to her mother. The cloth slipped from her fingers when the girl’s head tipped back for a breath.
“It’s the fever,” Aerenne repeated. But her hand trembled slightly as she dabbed the cloth across Sera’s brow. “It makes children say strange things. You said worse, when you were little.”
She doubted it.
Thessa’s eyes lingered on the wall above the hearth. The marks were gone now. Washed. But she could still see the outline in her mind: curves, hooks, sharp lines carved from dream.
If they had coin, they could call a physician. Not just the old apothecary with his bark-root and spit-tonics. A real doctor. One with clean hands and fine instruments. One who could tell them what was happening, what Sera had, how to cure it.
But they had bruised apples and bread crusts and a blanket that smelled like ash.
Her mother rose slowly, joints creaking. She seemed ten years older than she had the day before. Her gaze fixed on Thessa, holding her there.
“She needs rest,” she said. “And warmth. We’ll light the second hearth tomorrow. It’ll be fine.”
