The light reprimand caused the blush at my neck to rise. “You’re the one who hired him to show me the way,” I argued before I could control my tongue.
Julian’s eyes widened a fraction.
Here I was, steps from the door to the Mission, and I’d already corrected my Senior. But who was he to deserve my contrition? Barely older than I was. Nearly as new to Frostbrook.
At once, the radiance in me threatened to challenge his. I drew in a sharp breath and willed it back, but not before sparks danced along my fingertips.
He was watching me with a strange expression. “They’ve sent me aConductor,correct?”
“Yes, Senior.”
The silence that stretched between us was worse than a lecture.
I was behaving like an untamed Transistor. Like a child unable to control her emotions. I was proving to be exactly what had placed me in this terrible Mission at the edge of civilization.
But why was Julian Gray here, when he could work anywhere?
My mouth opened to form a question, but he spoke before me.
“You must be exhausted from your travels,” he said with little sympathy.
If he’d been anyone else, I would have agreed or begun to tell him about the train robbery. Instead, I shrugged, hope draining out of me like water seeping into dry dirt. How could I ever impress the House of Industry’s most talented graduate?
“Well,” I said, biting back a sigh and hefting my bag, “are you going to show me around?”
CHAPTER FOUR
The hallways of the dormant Mission were shrouded in darkness cut only by bright ribbons of light from windows that didn’t have panes installed yet. Only occasional shouts from the workers outside reminded me that I hadn’t been entombed.
Julian gestured impatiently for me to enter a small dark room. It hadn’t occurred to me until now that I’d have my own private space for the first time in my life.
“Oh,” I whispered, smiling despite myself. “This is mine.”
“Yes. Of course.” Speaking in a clipped tone, as if he had other pressing matters to attend to, Julian explained where the shared washroom was and told me how to find the kitchen. “We will not utilize servants at this Mission. The locals will drop off food every three days. There’s a larder in the kitchen. You’ll deliver my meals at dawn and sundown.”
“Deliver your meals?” I asked, hearing my voice become pinprick sharp.
His eyes narrowed. “Did I not communicate our lack of serving staff?”
“I was under the impression I came to Frostbrook to facilitate the operations of this Mission.”
“And surely keeping this Mission’s Senior comfortablefacilitates the operations of this Mission,” he replied.
Quite suddenly, I found him entirely less handsome, the gleam in his pretty eyes too haughty. “Of course,” I said, forcing my voice to take on the kind of mildness that rendered a girl invisible. I lowered my chin, imagining him falling off the retaining wall into the hungry river and turning into a block of ice to be carried to a distant sea where he’d certainly never require a meal again.
I opened my bag and began sifting through my belongings, reaching straight for the underthings, which sent Julian directly out of the room like a raven from a broom. I’d hang my silky things like banners in the doorway if I thought it would keep him from speaking to me ever again. But that was wishful thinking. I was here to work. And Julian had the power to shape that work into whatever he wished. I’d need to obey him—or at least encourage him to find me obedient—if I ever hoped to rise in rank, leave Frostbrook, and operate a Mission of my own.
If I wasn’t one of the best, I’d always be one of the ones fetching meals and doing someone else’s bidding. I’d be one of countless gears in a machine.
I had to stay focused on what I was meant to be doing and not on my curiosity. Or my anger.
It wasn’t going to be easy. Julian evidently had the ability to make me quite angry.
Sitting on the narrow cot under the slit of a window, I unpacked all that I owned: a set of nightclothes and a few spare blouses and skirts handed down by girls who had left for their posts before me. Every item of clothing but my new black dress bore the signs of years of mending and wear. Stroking the weathered fabric was the closest I’d get to physical affection now that I’d left the House for good.
I couldn’t help but wonder what it might be like to have a true companion, someone to touch and be touched by. The married women outside the train had seemed so comfortable together, like two objects orbiting each other, utterly in the right place. I’d never known anyone who made me want to orbit them or anyone tolerant enough to orbit me. Gertrude had been something close to a friend—and something more than a friend—and even then, I’d made myself too sharp to stay close to.
“Josephine Haven,” I told myself sternly, “you’ve made it to Frostbrook. You’ve got no time for this.”
