The shower was cold. Her bruised body shivered under the rain of water from the barrel. Cassia scrubbed quickly, glad the contents of the bottle at leastsmelledlike soap. She turned the water off the moment she’d rinsed, grunting as she fought against a wheel that didn'twantto turn. She toweled herself dry and dressed back in Ashelle’s clothes.
Nervous to cook and use up something one of the Rivekers had plans for, she took a little bit of last night’s stew from the preservation chest. It wasn’t very good, especially not cold, but it tasted a far cry better than the first meal in the house. Shecleaned every item she’d touched as quietly as she could, trying to avoid another scolding, and put it right back where she’d found it.
Cassia didn’t think she’d ever had such a slow, lazy day, one without a single distraction or errand, not even the noise of a city to keep an ear trained on. She was back out on the front porch reading a book she’d found in Ashelle’s room when a thump on the wide front steps startled her up out of the pages.
It was Aevrin again. He stood in front of her, one foot on the top stair, one foot frozen on the step below. His hat cast the top half of his bronze face in shadow, but did nothing to cover his square jaw and full lips. His hands looked damp, like he'd just washed them, but a steak of dirt marred his muscled arms. His leather top had sleeves today, but only short ones.
“You about ready to go?” he asked.
“Hm?” He really was unfairly handsome. The whole family was.
“Clothes,” he reminded her bluntly.
Her hands were shaking slightly. She couldn’t say why, except it was an uncomfortable position to be in, taking and taking and taking, in a house where someone like her could never properly belong. They’d get tired of having a guest soon, or turn around and tell her she owed them for the stay. Cassia closed the book and squeezed it tight on her lap to keep the tremble from showing.
“You sure you don’t mind taking me? I know you’ve probably got a million better things to do.”
“Naw. I don’t get into town too much. Looking forward to it.” His voice was as grumbly as ever. She tried to trust the words. Hadn’t he always sounded like that, even when talking to his family?
She glanced down thoughtfully.
And realized she’d curled up on the rocking chair in such a way that the wrap-around skirt was split wide open over her curvy thigh and bent knee, showing what was surely a scandalous amount of flesh, even in Zhavek. Cassia quickly stood and straightened the garment. She didn’t look Aevrin’s way, but she could feel his dark eyes on her. Cassia flushed.
“Let me just put the book back,” she muttered awkwardly, and slipped inside the house. Cassia allowed herself one embarrassed moment in the foyer, burying her burning face in her hand, before she bustled upstairs to put back the book and take one last look in the mirror. It was hopeless, anyways. There was nothing she could do about her clothes or her bruised face. He probably thought she was an utter mess.
“You two heading out?” Gramma Prisca called, when Cassia walked back downstairs.
“I believe so, ma’am,” Cassia called back, using her upstairs voice: loud enough to be heard, soft enough to never offend an employer.
“Come in here.”
Cassia followed the sound of Gramma’s voice to a part of the house she hadn’t seen yet. The office was cluttered with binders and notebooks, but it wasn’t dirty, just crowded. Gramma Prisca sat in a cushioned wooden chair in front of the desk.
There was a spellstone on the desk, behind all the books. It was a perfect, smooth sphere, the size of Cassia’s head, its depths infinite and speckled with stars and dark swirls of cloud. Cassia tore her gaze away from it, surprised the Rivekers could afford magic so costly she’d only before encountered it in the houses of the elite city folk she’d cooked for.
She could see Rylan, with a spellstone. But she didn’t dare ask to. She owed the Rivekers too much already, and if she mentioned Rylan they might put one and two together.
A spellstone but only one soap in the shower, she thought with dry humor. Ranchers were an odd lot.
Gramma Prisca carefully inked a number in the open ledger in front of her, then turned to face Cassia, glasses still on.
“I figured you’d be more at ease if we talked about your pay before you went out shopping.”
“My pay for what?” she asked, blinking.
“Helping on the ranch.”
“Right,” Cassia said, and did feel a knot loosen a little: the guilt, over Aevrin Riveker spending evenmoremoney on her when he’d already paid her medical tab.
“I’ll take fifteen out for room and board, but it’s two hundred every week.”
Cassia gulped. It seemed like an absurd amount, rivaling the earnings she’d commanded from the stately homes she’d worked. Of course, it wasn’tactuallyas much as her employers had paid, just the same amount left over after all her costs. In the cities, as the saying went, you paid your rent in blood. Then again, ranching fire-breathing cattle seemed like terrifying work. Maybe they couldn’t get anyone to do it without paying handsomely.
“That’s kind of you. But I haven’t done a single thing around here yet except eat your food and take up your space,” Cassia said.
“So what? Whatever you spend today, I’ll just take from your next pay, so don’t you worry over it. Larie’s got a nice shop, mostly worn clothes. They’re priced real well.”
Cassia’s head spun. She couldn’t take the money if she wasn’t going to stay. But, well, she needed clothes, and she was going to need more than the money Evelya had given her to get all the way back home. It wasn’t a short journey.
