“Was it really your first time in a communal bath?” Lyssara asked, scrunching something that smelled like warm coconut and citrus into her coils.
“Yes,” Esther admitted. “It was very… unique. I wouldn’t mind doing it again.”
She had expected to feel awkward—exposed, even—but instead the warm water, gentle chatter, and lingering woodsmoke from the bathhouse hearth had soothed her in a way palace baths never had. No maids were hovering behind her. No heavy silence. No rigid expectations pressing down on her shoulders.
Just warmth. Steam. Running water. Women laughing.
The bathhouse itself felt like a living thing, its stone worn smooth by generations of bodies. Low lanterns glowed amber, stained by years of steam, and wooden pegs were carved with tiny sigils meant to ward against slipping and sickness alike. Esther noticed how everyone brought something different. Mismatched towels. Shared soaps. Chipped bowls of oil passed freely from hand to hand. No one watched her closely. No one cared who she was. In the palace, baths had been private affairs of perfection and silence. Here, they were maintenance. Of bodies. Of community. Of survival.
Children had splashed at the edges of the pool, earning scoldings from their mothers and giggles from each other. The sight had stirred a brief ache in Esther’s chest—memories of her own mother, lost too early—but the sound of their laughter chased the sadness away.
“Well that’s odd,” Lyssara said. “Being a maid and all. I thought palace staff shared living and bathing quarters.”
Esther froze, her breath catching painfully in her throat. She had forgotten the lie she frantically told in the bath, when Lyssara pressed the issue.
In the palace, her world had been routine and rigid:
Lessons → tea → silence at meals → more lessons → embroidery → evenings locked away with smuggled books.
She had never asked Lucy where she slept.
She’d never even thought to.
The realization sat heavy and wrong in her chest. Lucy hadn’t just chosen to stay. Lucy had never been given the space to leave.
“I—my hours were different,” Esther said finally, her stomach tightening. “As a personal maid, I had more private accommodations.”
She winced inwardly. The lie scratched her throat on the way out. Lucy had always been there—at meals, during lessons, through every waking hour, always beside her.
Esther realized, with a slight and painful pang, how little she truly knew about Lucy’s life outside of her own shadow.
“That seems lonely,” Lyssara said softly.
The words hit like a stone.
Her own loneliness.
Lucy’s loneliness.
How Esther had clung to Lucy like a lifeline—and how Lucy had quietly accepted the weight of it. Guilt settled thick and sticky against her ribs.
“It was,” Esther whispered. “For both of us, I think.”
Knock-knock.
“Delivery for a Miss Esther,” Helga called from outside.
Steam still drifted off Esther’s skin as Lyssara tied her robe tighter and flung the door open.
“Perfect timing!” Lyssara cheered. “Nythir! Come pay for this!”
A sleepy grumble echoed from the adjoining room.
“That was fast,” Nythir yawned. “How much?”
“Five marks and three petals,” Helga replied, dropping a surprisingly heavy box into Lyssara’s arms. A faint scent of pine and wool drifted from it.
Esther blinked at the unfamiliar mix of currency. Marks she knew, the standard coin stamped and regulated by the crown. Petals were something else entirely. Pressed bits of lacquered wood, traded in river towns where business moved faster than royal oversight ever could. They were favors and promises, debts remembered long after the coin had changed hands.
