Chapter 31
The House of Merit smelled like pipe smoke and wax-polished floorboards. Thessa adjusted the arrangement of fruits on the round table for the fifth time, unsure if the dizziness came from standing too fast, or not eating enough.
The others moved quietly through the meeting room, one lit the last of the chandeliers, its flame catching with a soft hiss.
Another set polished bowls of tobacco on the low tables, arranging pipes beside them.
Two more hauled in a barrel of dark liquor, wiping their hands on their aprons before vanishing through the side door.
No one spoke to Thessa. Not since her marking.
It was two days ago. She wasn’t even sure that was the right word for it. But it felt like it. She hadn’t remembered the needle. She remembered the cold and smell of iron. A damp, stone floor beneath her knees. Dropping water. Hands holding her shoulders. And pain, distant but unrelenting.
When she woke up at home, the tattoo had healed.
Just between her shoulder blades—a narrow symbol shaped like a braided thread looping into an eye.
They said it meant proximity. Trust.
She dressed carefully the next morning and pressed the first pouch of coins into her mother’s hand, saying that it was from extra shifts. Her mother had looked at her for a long time. Then said nothing. Just took it. Because Sera was sick and the firewood was low.
The ground had split three streets over. Just a crack at first—then the market caved in. A few stalls. Two homes. Dozens of people. The dust had hung in the air for hours. Her family’s house still stood, whole by some miracle. But the ache in her chest hadn’t eased since.
Now, preparing the room, a wariness curled beneath her ribs. She was too warm or too cold. Her sleep had turned fractured. Sera’s fevers had grown worse. Yesterday, Thessa woke to find soot symbols smeared on the doorframe again. She wiped them away—again.
So yes, she had been accepted by the House of Mera as a personal attendant.
She had met several others like herself—always close to their masters, never quite belonging to themselves.
They usually served one household exclusively, shadowing their assigned lord or lady.
But on occasions like this, when a gathering was hosted by one of their patrons, they came together to prepare the rooms.
One of the other girls passed behind her and muttered, “They say the prince is coming tonight.”
Thessa didn’t answer. She kept her eyes low, adjusted the tray.
The girl sniffed. “Think he’ll pick one?”
“I doubt it,” someone else whispered near the wine cabinet. “He’s got the princess.”
“Doesn’t stop most of them.”
Another giggle. A cough.
Thessa turned to the table and laid out the napkins one by one, carefully folded, edge to edge.
Tonight was the gentlemen’s club. The kind of appointment that paid for a doctor. Or at least something warm to bring Sera’s fever down.
Lord Mera wasn’t cruel.
Cruelty required effort and sharp edges. He had none of that.
He just didn’t see her at all.
Not as a person, not exactly. More like a tool someone else had already polished. A ribbon-wrapped fixture in the corner of his schedule. He never raised his voice. But he also never said please.
She learned quickly that he preferred timing over conversation. That he disliked uneven platters, and the scent of boiled herbs. That he referred to people as if arranging them, not meeting them.
And sometimes he asked her to sit. Or to stand nearby while he worked. Not always in the parlor. Once in the greenhouse. Another time in a drawing room that hadn’t been opened in years.
Always tending flowers.
He would hum under his breath, and clip stems with a silver blade.
She was never told why she had to be there, but afterward, she felt…
drained. Bone-tired, the way one feels after weeping too long.
And the tattoo itched like something was pulling at it from inside.
The first time it happened, she thought it was nothing.
The second, she thought she’d imagined it. But by the third…
It didn’t feel imagined anymore.
Thessa gathered the remaining napkins and walked toward the back of the building.
She’d only meant to cut through. Less chance of bumping into robed men who looked at her too long.
This wing of the House of Merit was quieter, lined in thick velvet and heavy incense.
But here, behind these doors, things happened. She knew that much.
People came here to talk. Or to take.
She was halfway down the hall when a timbre—sharp, elegant, male—cut through the silence behind one half-open door.
“It’s not the symbol that worries me. It’s the instability. The last one collapsed during recitation.”
She froze. Through the narrow gap in the door, she could make out only fragments—a flicker of firelight, the corner of a velvet chaise. Nothing more. She didn’t dare lean in.
“We’re past the point of nuance,” came a second voice—lower, velvety. “The rite must hold through the full moon.”
“I’ve secured three new vessels,” said the first man, voice deep. “Lowborn, compliant, untouched by the old sigils.”
Thessa’s heart began to hammer.
“We need silence,” the second man snapped. “The Court has no appetite for failure.”
The first man gave a quiet chuckle. “They never do. But they’ll adore the results.”
A beat.
“Make sure your vessels are ready. I don’t care if the girl sings herself hoarse. We must hear it all. This one is important.”
Then, lighter. Almost amused.
“Nearly as important as the girl listening outside the door.”
Thessa staggered back, nearly dropping the tray. Her skin turned to ice, mouth dry and useless. She spun around just as footsteps echoed down the corridor.
The door behind her creaked open.
Lord Mera was approaching—brisk, preoccupied—until he saw her frozen by the threshold, tray tilted in her hands, the door gaping slightly open behind her.
“What are you doing?” he barked.
Thessa jolted. The tray slipped from her grip and hit the floor with a loud metallic clatter. She dropped to her knees instantly, scrabbling to gather the scattered cups, head down, hair falling like a curtain to shield her face.
Before he could say another word, the door opened farther.
Thessa didn’t look. She felt the presence there—calm, deliberate, watching.
Lord Mera straightened abruptly, confusion stiffening into unease. He turned and dipped into a low bow, one hand across his chest. “My apologies. She’s one of the newer girls. I’ll see to it.”
Thessa knelt motionless, fingers clenched around the rim of a goblet.
From within, the velvety voice spoke again.
“Be sure that you do. A mind that wanders at night wanders from obedience.”
She didn’t understand half of the words. But the ones she did were worse than anything she could imagine.
Vessels. Marks. The girl. The girl.
The door shut with a quiet click and only then she dared to look up.
Lord Mera exhaled sharply through his nose, then looked down at Thessa with a sneer tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You’ll be paying for anything broken,” he said coldly. “And if I see you hovering near a closed door again, you’ll find yourself back in the kitchens.”
Thessa nodded once, still kneeling.
He didn’t wait for a reply. “Get up. Clean this, then finish setting the tables in the west room. The others are behind.”
And then he was gone—just footsteps and disdain, vanishing down the corridor like nothing had happened at all.
Only Thessa remained, trembling fingers gathering polished silver, heart thudding like a warning drum against her ribs.