“And cardamom and ginger and cinnamon and cloves,” Ruby said, shaking the bottle at her like a magic wand. “And black tea! Make her give me the vanilla!”
“Ruby, I am not…” Hattie trailed off, dazed. “Dressed?”
Ruby was glaring, her eyes darting around the room as if looking for hidden vanilla stores. “Yes, why aren’t you?” she said. “The cook said you are the lady of the house and I am aguest.A guest! In my own home!”
“I’ll speak to her,” Hattie promised, stepping quickly over to the bed to kick the port glasses beneath it. “She is new.”
“Yes, well,” Ruby said, deflating a bit, the glass vial sagging at her side, “I have not yet set up my laboratory and I need to get my scents in order before the showcase. I do not enjoy being treated like one of Monica’s seamstresses.”
“Oh, the seamstresses,” said Hattie, blinking. “One of them is Polish, I believe?”
“How should I know?” Ruby snapped, stepping forward and pushing the vial into Hattie’s palm. “Here. Use it sparingly until I can make more. God knows what else Cerberus will try to hide from me.”
“Are you calling her a dog?” Hattie asked her retreating foster sister. “Or a demon?”
“Yes!” Ruby shouted, slamming the door behind her.
Hattie blinked.
Was this what it would be like, as baroness?
Perhaps Elias hadn’t been wrong to express concern about all of the wards staying here for the full year.
She had been the first of Willa’s wards. Or the second, if one were to count Elias, which Hattie never really had. He was her real, actual, legally bound family, after all, not a lucky talent in need of a patroness.
Seven.
She tapped her fingertips again with her thumbnail.
Eight.
He was the eighth. She still smelled smoke when the number rounded itself in the air upon thinking it, but the doom had gone. The feeling of trepidation had eased.
How could she have forgotten him? Why had she locked him so tightly away that his very existence had distressed her so?
Was it just about that nonsense on the pier? Or was it because he had left the house after it and she’d always known, deep down, that it had been her doing? That she had been the thing that had driven him away?
What if she drove the others away now too, as baroness?
She frowned, shaking her head.
She had been the first, but Libba was right: she had never been the authority amongst them. She had never wished to be. If anything, she had observed and been grateful for inclusion when it had come along.
And after Elias had gone… well…
She supposed she might have kept herself at a bit of a distance after he’d left, lest she drive another away again. She’d been the first to venture out into the world. Even as a child, she’d often watch the others play rather than participate.
She’d gotten close to Elias once, and he’d shoved her into the sea for the trouble, after all.
She sighed, shaking her head.
She was likely thinking in circles because she hadn’t slept and because Elias had thrown her mind into disarray, because he’d chosen to teach via torment rather than titillation! Perhaps she ought to give him a stern talking-to about the merits of teaching with encouragement and reward rather than… well, whatever the devil he was doing to her.
Yes, it was Elias’s fault she was all turned about this morning.
That was all it was.
In any event, she supposed her days of lounging about in her shift until noon were likely over, at least at Starling’s Rest and for the duration of this very unusual year.
