The morning dawned early, and Ilona, along with the other servants, rose with it. She got up and dressed as quickly as she possibly could, hiding away from the field hands with her back to them, and there was a sombre mood amongst them that for now at least meant that not even Jed raised his voice to torment her. The routine was not yet something that she felt belonged to her, and though she followed all of the motions that Swallow demonstrated she still somehow felt as though she was playing a part of some kind. Swallow went out to the meeting with Molly for the morning’s chores and assignments, and as was now the decided routine, Ilona waited just inside the corridor so that she could join Swallow for their morning’s work as soon as the meeting was over.

The mood amongst all of the servants seemed a little subdued today, though Ilona did not know what could have caused it; perhaps they were always this serious, and it was the fact that they were now getting used to her working amongst them that was causing them to quieten down rather than making a fuss. She was not sure whether this was true or what other cause there might be, and so she tried to put it out of her mind and focus on the other trials that still lay ahead of her throughout the rest of the day.

Swallow came out of the door after a small interval, during which Ilona could hear Molly’s voice dimly through the walls, and started to lead the way towards the washing room as she had the day before and the day before that. Ilona heaved a small sigh deep in her chest; she knew that she was not very good at the task of washing clothes, and also that it would most likely take her a long time to get better at it, and it made her uncomfortable to think that she was going to have to stick at it nonetheless.

They soon settled down in front of their two pails of water, warm for the moment but sure to be as cold as the stone floors by the time that they had finished with the morning’s task. They spoke a little, only to separate the piles of clothes between themselves and to organise the beginning of the work, and then they worked in silence for a while. There was something about washing the clothes and dragging them through the water to scrub at them time and time again which was almost soothing, allowing the mind to drift away somewhere else while the hands were busy, and Ilona reflected then that it was probably the repetitive nature of the work – which required concentration all the same – which allowed her to keep going without thoughts of her fate and the awful life which no doubt awaited her long into the future.

All of a sudden, she thought of the fact that she was never going to see Griffin again, and while she had had this thought before, it had not seemed to take anchor until now. Something struck home deep within her chest and the air was suddenly sucked right out of the room. He was gone, and he was never coming back. Drawing in a deep and quick breath, Ilona felt a tightening in her chest and her lungs as the realisation coursed through her limbs, sending shudders through her and stopping her hands in their tracks. A great outpouring suddenly began of tears, not just the quiet and tired tears that she had shed so far, but this time huge and wracking sobs which made her whole body shake. Disregarding the water on her hands or the task that she was supposed to be completing, she dropped her head down to her knees and wrapped her arms around it, crying harder than she had ever cried in her life, shaking her whole body with each breath in and each sob that forced its way out.

After some time, she dimly became aware of Swallow’s hands on her back and her hair, trying to soothe and rouse her, and the other girl’s voice quietly pleading with her to stop crying. Though there was no real comfort in the words that she was saying – and she seemed to know better than to try and tell her that everything was going to be alright – that sound brought Ilona back, slowly, to herself. Her crying stopped just as suddenly as it had started, though the foggy sensation in her mind gave way to a small acknowledgement somewhere at the reaches of her consciousness that it was probably shock which stopped her, rather than the fact that she had finished wanting to cry; feeling weak and dry now, as if she had cried out all of the moisture in her body, she slowly straightened up again and allowed Swallow to draw her into a sisterly embrace.

As suddenly as it had started, the storm was past; Swallow wiped at Ilona’s face with the corner of her apron to try to clear away some of the marks that her tears had left behind, murmuring soothing words while she did, and after a few moments they both returned to their work. Ilona felt numb, and strange somehow; she had not expected to start crying and she did not know why she had stopped, and now as she continued with washing the clothes she tried as hard as she could to focus on that instead for a while. Thinking about Griffin was too much to handle.

For the next few days, her life seemed to follow an unpredictable and tempestuous pattern. She would be fine, or as fine as she could be in her new role; learning how to clean something by following Swallow’s directions, or helping to carry things through the servant corridors and laying them by the correct doors so that someone else could take them inside the family rooms. She rose early and dressed in the cold of the morning, worked all day, ate with the other servants – if a cold crust of bread and a thin stew could be called eating – and went to bed late. Some small semblance of routine began to fall into place, but through all of it, without warning or design, the storms of crying would overtake her. No matter where she was or what she was doing, all of a sudden she would not be able to help herself: she would sink to the floor, her whole body shaking, clutching tight to whatever she had been holding and covering her face.

Swallow did her best to cover these sudden fits up, but they did not always do their work together and it was only a matter of time, she said, before Molly would come on her while it was happening. She had to learn to control it, Swallow said, or at least to try only to think of him when she was not likely to be caught. But try as she might, Ilona could not shake those storms – and even when she kept her mind very firmly on the task which was before her, still sometimes they would come although she had been thinking of nothing at all.

She was out by the stables one morning, early on and with the threat of snow hanging in the cold air, when it hit her again. She had been counting the days and realising that it was just one week since everything had changed – since her life had been thrown into such a different path than the one it had been on – and she accidentally thought about the look on Griffin’s face when they had been caught. The image of the whipped man which Swallow had dreamed up into her head came back then, the one that she had dreamed on her first night, and she thought of how it might have come to be – and all for her. And what exactly had come to be? Stricken with the awful and unchanging reality that Griffin was gone, she sucked in cold air with a sudden sob and then clutched at her chest in surprise at the pain the freezing breath shot into her lungs. Feeling the rough fabric of her clothes under the sore and dry skin of her hands, which were unused to the work and complaining already, she remembered her own fate and began to cry in earnest.

She had been carrying a pair of empty buckets, each of them destined to go back to the stables after having been borrowed for some other task, but now they clattered over onto the floor as she abandoned them and gave herself over to the crying. She did not want to carry on like this, unable to control herself, but that thought only made her cry all the harder and wish that she could bury her face in Griffin’s chest instead for comfort. No one was around the stables at this time of morning, and she cried loudly, allowing the full vent of her tears to escape, even gasping his name out loud in-between sobs. Something about being able to say it felt right, in the situation; though it did not comfort her – indeed, thinking of him just made it worse – she wanted to say it, to scream it as loud as she could, and there was something almost darkly satisfying about being able to say it over and over while she cried.

She sank down to the cold, hard stones of the yard, unable to stand while the tears wracked her body, and covered her face with her hands, trying to breathe so that she could start to make her way towards something resembling calm. It was an uphill struggle; just the fact that she was crying was enough to push her onwards and make her cry more, and it was difficult to breathe through the sobs that seemed to have control over her. She was starting to calm down a small amount, feeling the sobs decrease in power and frequency, and the tears stopped rolling down her face as she struggled just to return to something as natural as a steady breathing pattern.

“Are you alright?”

The voice, close by her and off to one side, was enough to make her start and look around wildly. She had thought that she was totally alone, and hearing someone else nearby was completely unexpected, setting her heart pounding in her chest. For a brief irrational moment she was terrified that she had been caught by Molly or one of the other senior servants at last, but then she realised that the voice had sounded concerned, not angry.

The stables were dark, the dim light of the winter sun not having managed to penetrate the gloom inside the stalls yet, but when a young man came forward from the darkness to lean against the stable door from the inside she realised that it must have been him who spoke. He was blond-haired and well-built, and for a moment she felt that shock of pain coursing through her again as her mind added, without her permission, just like Griffin.

“I’ll answer for you, then,” he said, now able to get a good look at her tear streaked face and the fact that she had fallen down. “You aren’t.”

Ilona paused for a moment, staring at him still and attempting to process his words, before looking down at the two pails and realising what she was supposed to be doing. She wiped her face quickly and started to get to her feet, dusting off the small pieces of dirt which clung to her skirt from the ground and reaching for the buckets. “I’m – I’m fine – really -” she started, trying to gather herself together as much as she could.

“You’re not convincing anyone,” the man said, with a note of wry humour in his voice, as if to say that he did not blame her for trying. “But if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine.”

Ilona nodded, happy to agree with him so long as it meant that she could get away from him and the conversation. “Well. I’m to return these to the stables, so I must get going,” she said, lifting the buckets in her hands slightly to indicate them and starting to turn to go.

“You can leave them with me, then,” he said, reaching over to unlock the bolt on the front of the stable door and walking out towards her. “I know where they’re wanted.”

He stretched out a hand towards her as he approached, and after a moment of hesitation she turned and reluctantly reached out to hand them both over. He was dressed in the same rough kind of clothes that all of the stable boys worked in – not the grooms, who would help the family or their guests to mount their horses and who might even ride out with them on occasion; they would be dressed in clean and neat uniforms, but the stable boys who simply helped to clean out the stalls and feed the animals were not to be seen by anyone important. It was thus deemed that their clothing was less of a priority. He seemed strong, though, under those clothes, and he stood tall and straight shouldered. As she handed the first bucket over their hands touched by accident, and she looked up at his face with a tiny gasp. He smiled easily, and was carefully to take the second bucket without their hands meeting.

“I’m Wasp,” he offered, seemingly trying to put her at ease.

She nodded, and waited, looking down at the floor awkwardly and wishing that he would go.

“Not going to tell me your name?” he asked, in mock hurt. “That’s fine too. It’s not like I don’t know who you are.”

She glanced up at his face, afraid that there was some danger in what he said, that his words held a threat; but he was smiling still, and she saw that they did not. He was only trying to put her at ease, though it was not working.

“I must get on with my duties,” she said, the words seeming only just to fumble their way out of her mouth, her throat a little rough from the crying. It was only half a truth, and really all that she wanted to do was get away. Though he was showing her kindness – a kindness that she so desperately craved at that moment – there was something in his hair and build and clothing that was just too much like Griffin for comfort.

“Alright then,” he said, taking a step away as if to free her from the conversation. “Though if you want to chat to someone, I’ll give you my ear. I’m new here anyway. I don’t have any ideas of what you’re supposed to be like.”

She almost wanted to say something about that, to ask about what the others thought she was supposed to be like, but she started to walk away instead. When she looked back with the idea of asking again, he was already walking in the opposite direction, the pails swinging in his able hands as though they were built out of feathers.