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[04]
A NASCENT SOUL
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The West Villa’s kitchen hummed with frantic energy.

Steam rolled above copper pots while servants moved between crowded counters with practiced efficiency, carrying trays, chopping vegetables and weaving around one another through the narrow spaces between workstations. Pans clattered against iron grates, knives struck cutting boards in rapid rhythm, and somewhere near the ovens, a cook shouted for more flour.

Into the orchestrated chaos slipped Tina.

She found Head Chef Alistair exactly where she expected him to be—standing before the stove with the expression of a man personally offended by every meal he had ever been asked to prepare.

“Good morning, Alistair.”

“What now?” he snapped without turning. “Another meal for your lady to ignore?”

He shoved a pan across the stove harder than necessary.

“This kitchen is swamped. The young nobles of the Pillar houses are here, His Highness the Second Prince is here, and then there is that finicky commoner. I do not have time for whims.”

Tina’s mouth tightened.

He did not understand.

“It has been two days since she has properly eaten anything,” she said, a sliver of steel entering her voice. “The only real food she touched was at yesterday’s tea gathering. If the labor is too much, take it up with Butler Edmund.”

Alistair finally turned.

His face was flushed from the heat of the furnaces.

“THAT IS THE PROBLEM! SINCE YOUR LADY LOCKED HERSELF AWAY, THAT DAMN EDMUND VANISHED! PROBABLY HIDING FROM THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF IT ALL!”

The outburst rang through the kitchen.

Several servants paused in their work.

None of them dared look directly at him.

Tina flinched but held her ground.

The week before Lady Reise’s collapse had already been difficult enough. There had been angry outbursts, long periods of seclusion and days when Tina could barely persuade her to eat. Then yesterday had brought something entirely different—strange behavior, shattered porcelain, another locked door and hours of silence.

“Please, Alistair,” Tina said. “Just something simple. Broth. Something warm.”

Her composure slipped slightly.

“And a dessert. Not too sweet. Something she might actually eat.”

The fight seemed to drain out of Alistair.

He looked at Tina properly this time and noticed the dark circles beneath her eyes.

“Hey.”

His scowl softened.

“What is really going on with that lady of yours?”

Tina looked away.

“I do not know.”

Her fingers tightened around her apron.

“She is changing. And I cannot tell if that is something I should be relieved about or afraid of.”

“The scone was perfect!”

A bright voice cut through the steam.

Tina and Alistair turned toward the doorway.

Lilia stood there with her hands clasped anxiously in front of her.

“I heard the maids talking,” she said. “They said Lady Reise ate the scone at the tea gathering yesterday. Maybe… something like that would tempt her?”

Concern flickered across the young maid’s face.

She had been outside Lady Reise’s chambers the previous night. She had heard the violent scraping and crashing from behind the ornate door.

And before that, she still remembered the cold hand that had pulled her from the corridor floor.

“Are you not Lilia?” Tina asked, surprised. “Are you not meant to be with Miss Eliza in Annex-Duo?”

Alistair groaned.

“Do not tell me you are her messenger. If my menus are so offensive, let her use her own damn kitchen.”

Lilia quickly shook her head.

“No, Tair. I was looking for Miss Tina.”

She stepped farther inside.

“I want to help prepare My Lady’s breakfast.”

Her voice dropped.

“And… I was not needed there.”

Alistair rubbed the back of his neck.

“Fine. If you two want something warm and sweet, lend a hand.”

He reached over and pinched Lilia’s cheek.

“And call me Alistair, you brat.”

Lilia stuck her tongue out at him.

Then she and Tina got to work.

❈.❈.❈

The low rumble of the service cart’s wheels was the only sound accompanying Tina and Lilia through the opulent hallway.

Tina guided the cart toward Lady Reise’s chambers with both hands wrapped tightly around the handle. Lilia walked beside her, her hands tucked into her apron as they passed beneath the stern gazes of ancestral portraits.

With every turn of the wheels, Tina remembered the sounds from the previous night—the furniture dragging across the floor, objects crashing, drawers being opened and closed with little regard for whatever had been inside them.

By the time they reached the final stretch of corridor, her stomach had tightened into a knot.

Lady Reise’s door stood only a few steps away.

Tina stopped the cart and closed her eyes for a moment.

I would not even mind another hairpin at my throat, so long as she is there. Safe.

She knocked three times.

No answer came.

Her heart dropped.

Tina waited another moment before trying the handle.

Unlocked.

She pushed the door open and braced herself for whatever waited beyond it.

Morning sunlight poured across an eerily orderly room.

The curtains were arranged. The furniture stood upright. The floor had somehow been cleared. Everything appeared to be exactly where it belonged.

The only obvious evidence of the previous night’s destruction was the suspicious absence of several porcelain figurines.

Tina’s gaze immediately flew toward the bed.

The sheets had been thrown back.

No one was there.

Cold horror seized her.

“Lady Reise?”

Lilia hurried toward the bathroom.

She returned only seconds later, eyes wide.

“She is not there.”

Tina’s face drained of color.

“What are you doing standing there,” a familiar voice drawled from the balcony, “like you have lost your own fortune?”

Both maids spun toward the sound.

G6 stood beyond the glass doors beneath the morning light. The breeze stirred her white nightdress around her ankles and lifted strands of rose-gold hair around her face, while she watched them with an expression of mild amusement.

Perfectly alive.

Perfectly calm.

Tina nearly collapsed.

“My lady!”

Lilia’s shoulders visibly sagged with relief.

“You…” Tina breathed. “You did not run away.”

“Run away?”

G6 frowned.

A second later, understanding crossed her face.

“Ah.”

She considered the idea with far more seriousness than Tina wanted to see.

“You are right. I do have that choice.”

“My lady!”

The corner of G6’s mouth twitched.

“I don’t know what you were imagining, but I’m not running away.”

She started back into the room, then added almost as an afterthought,

“Yet.”

“It is not funny to say such things, My Lady!”

G6 dropped into the chair beside the tea table.

“Did I not tell you to stop calling me that?”

Her attention shifted toward the service cart.

“And aren’t you forgetting something?”

Tina froze.

She searched her memory immediately.

Had she forgotten medicine? An appointment? Some palace obligation?

G6 let her head fall against the back of the chair.

“You haven’t fed me a proper meal for two days. I’m starving. For real.”

The complaint was so blunt that Tina simply stared at her.

Then relief flooded her face.

“Lilia,” she said quickly, “bring the cart. Our Lady is hungry.”

G6 watched the little girl struggle to maneuver the heavy service cart toward the table.

The thing looked almost large enough to carry Lilia instead.

A laugh threatened to escape.

G6 disguised it as a cough.

Lilia eventually positioned the cart with extreme care before snapping upright.

“Hey, you.”

Lilia startled.

“Lilia, was it?”

Her eyes widened.

Lady Reise remembered her name.

“Ye… yes, m’lady.”

“How old are you?”

G6 looked her over.

“And why are you so small?”

There was no cruelty in the question. If anything, she sounded genuinely puzzled.

Tina stared at her.

The old Reise had rarely asked servants anything that was not an order.

“Uhm… I am eight.”

G6 raised her brows.

“When I was eight, I was tall.”

Tina placed a bowl of steaming broth in front of her.

“That is… not true.”

G6 looked up.

Tina calmly placed a fresh scone beside the bowl.

“You were just as tall as her.”

G6 opened her mouth.

Then closed it again.

Of course.

Tina was speaking about Reise.

Right. I’m Reise now.

“Tsk.”

Rather than answer, G6 picked up the spoon and tried the broth.

The first taste made her pause.

“Oh.”

She took another spoonful.

“This is good.”

G6 nodded once in approval.

“I want this whenever I have a hangover.”

Tina and Lilia exchanged a look.

“With all due respect,” Tina said carefully, “I do not recall you being able to handle alcohol.”

G6 looked up.

“Huh?”

Then her eyes narrowed.

“Watch me.”

She picked up the scone and took a bite.

The tension around her eyes eased for half a second.

It was even better than the one she had stolen from Lord Keith yesterday.

She was about to take another bite when she noticed someone staring.

G6 glanced sideways.

Lilia was watching the scone with the unwavering concentration of a starving cat.

G6 looked at the girl, then down at the pastry in her hand.

When she looked back at Lilia, the child immediately tried to pretend she had been staring at something else.

G6 placed the scone on the plate.

“You.”

Lilia straightened.

“Finish that.”

Silence followed.

“Lady Reise,” Tina objected, “that is highly improper.”

“M-Miss Tina is right—”

“What’s improper is the two of you watching me eat like I’m performing surgery.”

G6 pushed the plate toward Lilia.

“Consider it a command. I’ve decided I don’t want it anymore, so she eats it.”

Neither maid moved.

G6 glanced toward the open balcony.

“Unless you would prefer I throw it out the window.”

Tina’s eye twitched.

There it was again.

The old Reise had been capable of issuing commands with enough temper to frighten an entire room, but this was different. G6 did not sound petulant or offended. She sounded as though she had already made a decision and expected the people around her to act accordingly.

“Hurry,” G6 added.

Lilia looked toward Tina for permission.

After a brief hesitation, Tina nodded.

The girl approached the table.

“Sit.”

Lilia carefully perched on the vacant chair.

G6 slid the plate toward her.

“Taste it.”

Lilia took a small, cautious bite.

Her entire face brightened.

“It is so good!”

G6 watched her reaction, and something quietly satisfied flickered across her expression.

It disappeared almost immediately.

“Better than drooling from a distance.”

She lifted her tea and turned toward Tina.

“You too.”

Tina blinked.

“Sit.”

“No, my lady. Standing is—”

“It wasn’t a request.”

G6 rested her cheek against one hand.

“If you intend to keep serving me, sit.”

Tina hesitated.

Then, with the resignation of a woman who knew resistance would only extend the argument, she obeyed.

G6 took a clean cup, poured tea into it and pushed it toward her.

Tina recoiled.

“My lady! What are you doing?”

“No tea for the child,” G6 said, glancing toward Lilia. “Water.”

Then she looked back at Tina.

“And you.”

Something in her expression changed.

“I want you to treat me like you used to.”

Tina went still.

G6 held her gaze.

“Even if it’s only within these four walls.”

For a moment, neither maid knew how to answer.

G6 quietly watched them absorb the offer.

There was kindness in what she was doing, but kindness and calculation had never been mutually exclusive in her world.

She understood people well enough to know that fear made them guarded, while comfort encouraged them to speak. Servants passed through rooms nobles barely noticed them entering. They heard conversations no one thought important enough to conceal and saw details people of higher rank habitually ignored.

If Tina and Lilia trusted her, they would talk more freely.

They would also be less afraid of her.

Both outcomes were useful.

Earlier that morning, that calculation had already begun forming.

G6 had awakened to sunlight pouring through the balcony doors, Reise’s diary resting against her chest. After placing it inside the bedside drawer, she had walked outside and studied the West Villa grounds below.

Her attention moved automatically over the layout—the paths through the gardens, the entrances into the surrounding buildings, the places where walls or vegetation interrupted sightlines and the routes someone might use if leaving quickly became necessary.

The habit was automatic.

The conclusion that followed was not.

“I need more information,” she had murmured.

She leaned against the railing.

“And people who know this place.”

Her eyes had drifted toward the servants moving through the grounds.

People like them were everywhere.

That made them useful without making them expendable.

A network built through intimidation would eventually betray its owner. A network built because the people inside it believed protecting one another benefited everyone involved was harder to break.

G6 could work with that.

Movement near Annex-Duo had interrupted her thoughts.

Miss Eliza stood near the entrance with two servants beside her.

Even from a distance, there was something about the woman’s posture G6 disliked.

That woman looks arrogant.

G6 watched her for another moment.

Wonder what use she could be.

Then another thought followed before she could stop it.

Or how irritating she’d look without that expression.

G6 blinked.

Was that too mean?

She considered the question for perhaps half a second.

No.

A knock had sounded from inside the room soon after.

Through the reflection in the glass balcony doors, G6 watched Tina enter with Lilia behind her. She saw the moment Tina noticed the empty bed and the immediate loss of color from her face.

Lilia rushed toward the bathroom.

Tina did not move.

For the first time, G6 understood the extent of the woman’s fear.

It was not irritation over a troublesome mistress. It was not merely the concern of a servant performing her duties.

Tina looked genuinely terrified that Reise might be gone.

G6 remained silent long enough to understand what she was seeing before finally speaking from the balcony.

That realization stayed with her now as she looked across the breakfast table.

“So,” she said.

Her gaze settled on Lilia.

“Why are you glued to Tina?”

Lilia jumped.

G6 frowned slightly.

Am I really that frightening?

“She was not needed in Annex-Duo,” Tina explained. “So she helped prepare your breakfast.”

G6’s interest sharpened.

Annex-Duo meant Miss Eliza.

“How kind of you.”

She leaned slightly toward Lilia.

“But is that all?”

The girl hesitated.

G6 did not rush her.

“It was just…” Lilia swallowed. “Miss Eliza only entertains the two servants offered by His Highness the Second Prince. Annex-Duo only has five servants, and it isn’t very large, so…”

Her fingers twisted together.

“The help of a kid was not really needed.”

G6 studied her.

The answer was polite, but the expression accompanying it said enough.