Chapter 22
The kitchens roared around her. Heat pressed against her skin, thick with smoke and sweat and the bite of salt.
Trays clattered, oil spat, someone cursed as a pot tipped too far.
Thessa moved through it all, hair plastered to her face, the floor slick beneath her boots.
She slid another dish into the water, the sting of it biting at her reddened fingers.
She flexed her hand once, shook it dry, and reached for the next tray. Six more to go. Half the shift left.
She straightened just in time to hear it: two scullery girls huddled near the pantry wall, whispering loud enough for their fear to carry.
“It was in the middle of the song, they said,” one murmured, her face pale beneath a smudge of flour. “He just—stopped playing. Lit up like a hearth coal. And then dropped.”
“No,” the other hissed, glancing around. “It wasn’t like that. They said his veins shone. Like light was trying to claw out from under his skin.”
Thessa froze with her hand halfway to the dirty pan.
“Did you hear,” the flour-smudged one whispered next, “about that girl in the North Quarter?”
A puff of steam hit her face, making her eyes sting; she pretended to check the stew while listening.
The other girl’s eyes went wide. “The singing one?”
“Yes. In the middle of sleep, they said. Started humming. Neighbors heard. Said she kept repeating something.”
“They came just after first light. Her father opened the door, and that was it. It’s horrible and looks like pandemic… what if it’s another Crimson Plague?”
Thessa blinked hard and turned, busying herself with a cloth and a pan that didn’t need wiping. Her thoughts churned.
Dreams. Humming.
Sera.
Her chest tightened. The girl they were whispering about could have been her sister. The sickness had changed lately—what started as fever and trembling had turned strange, unpredictable. It was getting worse every day, and no one dared say why.
She pressed the cloth harder against the pan, trying to steady her hands. She would check on Sera as soon as she got home.
A pan clattered near the hearth, followed by a creative string of curses. Thessa tasted metal again and kept her gaze fixed on the bubbling stew.
The girls went quiet, but not for long. Another voice—older, maybe Lena—sighed. “House Mera’s looking.”
“Looking?” the first girl asked.
“For quiet ones. Pretty ones. Noble-adjacent work. Good money.”
Thessa tilted her head, scraping a little slower.
Since her father died, the numbers hadn’t added up.
Joren worked dawn to dusk and still came home with hands red from saddle soap and half his pay missing thanks to levies on “temporary stable extensions.” Thessa had once been told she could apply to the Artisan Circle as a dancer, a rare chance for someone of her standing, but the fees alone cost more than her family earned in a season.
She had resigned herself to the kitchens instead.
Their mother also tried to make do, but the word make had started to mean skip. Meals. Baths. Medicine.
So maybe Thessa could apply.
She wiped her hands on the apron, glanced over her shoulder, and stepped closer under the pretense of rinsing herbs, lowering her voice. “Did you say House Mera?”
The girls paused. One nodded. “Don’t know much. They’re taking applications. Personal servants for social events. Might even travel.”
“Sounds decent,” Thessa said, careful to keep her tone neutral.
The other girl shrugged. “Decent pay, maybe. But no one knows what they’re really hiring for.”
“They say it’s proper work,” Lena added. “Food, coin. Just keep your mouth shut and smile nice. But… you know.”
Thessa did. Everyone did.
The first girl lowered her voice. “It’s hard times. Even peasants are getting conscripted now. Rhyssa knows why.”
“After the Second Crimson Plague, the fields went bare,” the second girl murmured. “If it’s serving lords or starving, I know what I’d pick.”
She took a breath and stepped closer to the older girl.
“Do you know who to speak to? For House Mera.”
The woman pivoted, took her in with a glance, then shrugged. “You don’t speak. You get noticed. Be near the silk gate at sundown. Wear clean shoes.”
Thessa nodded, murmured thanks, and turned back to her work.
It was late when she finally made her way home.
The sky had gone that particular shade of bruised indigo that warned of colder nights.
Her fingers were stiff, raw from dishwater and burns, but she clutched the basket tightly anyway.
More leftovers—some ends of roasted squash, a sliver of salted meat, and two rolls that hadn’t been too badly scorched.
All the way back her thoughts circled like crows. The job. House Mera. Clean shoes, good posture, polite smile. A few weeks of pretending to be invisible—how hard could that be? She was already half-expert at vanishing in plain sight.
The scent of woodsmoke met her before the door did, thin and cold as breath.
When she opened the door, her mother was crouched on the floor, a damp cloth in her hand.
The latch clicked shut, dull in the small room.
Sera lay curled on the mat by the fire, her small frame still, her brow sheened with sweat.
“She won’t eat,” Aerenne uttered without looking up. Her voice was low and frayed at the edges. “Barely drank anything.”
Thessa knelt beside her sister, setting the basket down. “Sera,” she said gently. “Can you hear me?”
Her sister’s eyes fluttered. Bright and fevered, not really seeing. Her breath was shallow, quick. The air around her felt… strange. First warm, then sharp with chill, like a window had been left ajar. Thessa reached for the blanket and pulled it tighter around her sister.
“She has a fever,” Aerenne murmured, rubbing at her temples with one hand, the other still holding the cloth.
But the words sounded like a prayer trying to convince itself it was a fact. But just fever didn’t look like that. Thessa pressed her palm to Sera’s cheek. The heat pulsed beneath the skin. Her sister’s mouth moved again.
“They’re watching…” she whispered. “Eyes in the sky… in the water…”
Thessa swallowed hard. Her attention darted to her mother. The cloth slipped from her fingers when the girl’s head tipped back for a breath.
“It’s the fever,” Aerenne repeated. But her hand trembled slightly as she dabbed the cloth across Sera’s brow. “It makes children say strange things. You said worse, when you were little.”
She doubted it.
Thessa’s eyes lingered on the wall above the hearth. The marks were gone now. Washed. But she could still see the outline in her mind: curves, hooks, sharp lines carved from dream.
If they had coin, they could call a physician. Not just the old apothecary with his bark-root and spit-tonics. A real doctor. One with clean hands and fine instruments. One who could tell them what was happening, what Sera had, how to cure it.
But they had bruised apples and bread crusts and a blanket that smelled like ash.
Her mother rose slowly, joints creaking. She seemed ten years older than she had the day before. Her gaze fixed on Thessa, holding her there.
“She needs rest,” she said. “And warmth. We’ll light the second hearth tomorrow. It’ll be fine.”
It wouldn’t. Not unless something changed.
Thessa rose without a word. She crossed the room, pulled the last clean cloth from the shelf. She reached for the worn shoes tucked under the bench. The leather creaked as she rubbed at the dirt, flakes of dried mud falling onto the floorboards.
Just one week. Maybe two.
If it meant Sera would stop whispering things that tasted like prophecy.
Then she’d go.