A garderobe. A real one, with a wooden seat and a shaft that dropped into darkness below. But that wasn't what caught her breath. There was a basin on a stand, porcelain painted with blue flowers. A pitcher beside it, and when Mab touched the side, the water inside was warm.
Mab stood there with her hand on the pitcher, trying to remember the last time she'd washed with water she hadn't hauled herself. The scullery had a pump in the yard. Winter mornings meant breaking ice off the bucket and washing fast because the cold would crack her skin if she lingered.
This water was warm. Someone had brought warm water to this room while she slept.
Not someone. Varek.
The thought landed strangely. The orc who'd killed Lord Cresswick, who'd walked through the holding with blood drying on his hands, who'd claimed her in front of thirty warriors likeshe was territory to be marked—that same orc had carried her to bed and brought warm water for her to wash with.
Mab didn't know what to do with that.
"Mab." Annie was dancing from foot to foot now, her urgency plain.
"Right. Sorry." Mab stepped back to give her privacy, but Annie shook her head.
"Don't leave."
"I'll be right here. Just on the other side of the door."
"No." Annie's voice cracked. "Please. Don't leave."
Mab looked at the girl's face. Twelve years old and terrified of being alone in a room for thirty seconds. Yesterday, Annie had watched orcs pour through the kitchen. She'd heard the screams. She'd hidden in a crawlspace and counted her own heartbeats and waited to die.
"Okay." Mab stepped back into the garderobe and turned to face the wall. "I'm not leaving. Go ahead."
She studied the basin while Annie did what she needed to do. The porcelain was finer than anything in the kitchen stores. The blue flowers were hand-painted, each petal distinct. There was a small mirror mounted above the basin, silver-backed like the larger one in the bedchamber, and Mab found herself looking into it before she could think better of it.
She looked terrible. Her hair had come loose from its kerchief sometime in the night and hung around her face in tangled red ropes. Her eyes were shadowed underneath, her skin pale except for the flush the warm room had brought to her cheeks. There was a smudge of soot on her jaw.
This was what Varek had looked at last night. This was what he'd pulled into his lap and held against his chest. This was what he'd calledmine.
Mab turned away from the mirror.
"Done," Annie said quietly.
They traded places. Mab used the garderobe while Annie stood with her back pressed to the door, and then they washed together at the basin. The warm water was a luxury Mab made herself accept without rushing. She wet a cloth and cleaned her face, her neck, the hollow of her throat where yesterday's sweat had dried. She scrubbed her hands until the water in the basin turned gray.
Annie watched her with solemn eyes, then held out her own hands without being asked.
Mab washed them for her. The girl's fingers were small and cold, the nails bitten down to nothing. There was a scrape across one knuckle that Mab didn't remember seeing before. She cleaned it carefully, the way Hester used to clean Mab's cuts when she was small, and Annie didn't pull away.
"Is he going to kill us?" The question came out flat. Not frightened, exactly. Just tired.
"No." Mab kept her voice steady. "He said we're under his protection."
"What does that mean?"
Mab wrung out the cloth and hung it over the edge of the basin. "I'm not entirely sure yet."
It was the truth. She didn't have better words for it, and Annie deserved honesty more than comfort.
"But he didn't hurt us last night," Mab continued. "He brought us here. He built up the fire. He—" She stopped, not sure how to explain the rest of it. The way he'd held her. The way he'd saidminelike it meant something different than ownership. "I think we're safe with him. Safer than we'd be walking south alone."
"Tibbs said orcs eat people."
"Tibbs is thirteen and knows about as much as the rest of us." Mab dried her hands on her apron. "Which is to say, not much."
They found Tibbs awake when they came back into the bedchamber, sitting up in the bed with his knees drawn to hischest. His eyes went to Mab first, then to Annie, then swept the room in a quick circuit that ended on the closed door.
