“You’ve got that look again.”

Enid looked up and glanced at Myra once she heard her words. The laundry room was at the back of the manor, half buried in a hillside where stones stayed cool even in the summer. Steam rose from the wooden tubs, thick with lye and lavender. It had been about three months since she started looking after the children. Anastasia was nearing eight months and Nico would surely have a birthday soon.

However, Enid was currently having complicated feelings. About the children. About Helios. About her role.

The air was damp enough to make her edges curl loose from the humidity. Hers had given up entirely. Her dark hair frizzed around her face in a wild halo as she scrubbed one of Anastasia’s tiny gowns against a washboard. Beside her, Myra worked through a pile of Nico’s shirts, humming off-tune. 

“What look?” 

“The one where you think too hard and forget to breathe.”

Enid let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. I’m fine. 

“Mhmm.” Myra wrung out a shirt and tossed it into the rinse bucket. “And I’m the Empress of the Southern Isles. Come on, then. Out with it.”

There was a moment of hesitation from Enid. The truth is, the nursery had been on her mind. Helios was on the floor, his children leaning against him, appearing almost...human. She thought about the way he looked at her like she was an unexpected puzzle that arrived at his home. One that he was adamant on figuring out, but she couldn’t say any of that. 

“It’s nothing,” she said instead. “Just tired.”

Mara snorted and rolled her eyes. 

“You’re a terrible liar Enid. Always have been.” She paused, studying Enid’s face with sharp dark eyes. “Is it the Duke? He’s been different lately. The whole house has noticed.” 

“Different how?” Enid asked back. 

Myra only shrugged. “Less terrifying for one. Cook said he actually thanked him for dinner last night. Thanked him. I thought he was going to faint.”

Enid bit her lip to hide a smile. “Maybe he’s just in a good mood.”

“The serpent of the empire doesn’t have good moods. He has varying degrees of murderous intent.” Myra leaned closer, almost conspiratorially. “Some of the other servants think it’s because of you.”

Enid’s hands stilled on the washboard. She shook her head wildly. 

“That’s ridiculous.” 

“Is it? You’re the only one he doesn’t bark at. You’re practically living in a nursery now and I’ve seen the way he looks at you when he thinks no one’s watching or doesn’t care that they’re watching.”

“I’m just saying.” Myra shrugged, returning back to her work. “Strange are happening at the estate and you’re the center of them.”

Enid didn’t have a response for that. A blush heated up her face and she plunged the tiny nightgown in her hands back in the water and scrubbed harder as if she could wash away the uncomfortable truth of Myra’s words. 

For a while they worked in silence. 

The rhythm of scrubbing and water splashing filled the space between them.

Then Myra spoke again, her voice more careful. “Speaking of strange things... have you heard of rumors? Of the rumors?” 

“Which ones?” 

“Rumors about Lady Calista Marin.”

The name sent a chill down Enette’s spine that had nothing to do with the damp air in the cool morning weather. 

Of course she knew that name. 

Why wouldn’t she know the name of the heroine, Lady Calista Marin, the golden-haired noblewoman who had been the Duchess’s only female friend among the aristocracy? 

Beautiful, graceful, impeccably bred. She had been a suitable match as far as friendship goes for the late Duchess. Both of the families were of similar social standing and for all things considered from the story they were the best of friends until the Duchess died of childbirth.

In the original story when Anastasia is still under a year old, Calista pays the estate a visit and eventually becomes the nanny to the Duke’s two children. Eventually as the story progresses, she and the Duke fall in love. She was the woman who tamed the serpent and became the beloved stepmother to his children. 

That heroine. 

“What about her?” Enid’s voice was neutral as she asked, so her emotions wouldn’t show.

Myra glanced around, then leaned in. “What is she coming for a visit? Soon. She wrote to the Duke herself, something about paying respects to the late Duchess’s memory while checking on the children.” 

“And how do you know this/” Enid asked, giving her a very suspicious side eye. 

“Well, Sir Georgios has a big mouth. 

“You’ve been talking to him?”

“He’s nice company when he’s not being a skirt chaser. And you know me, I’m not even into men.”

Mara shakes off her thoughts and continued. “No one knows when for certain, but the letter arrived this morning. Georgios collected it himself.” Her eyebrows rose meaningfully. 

“You should have seen the Duke’s face when he read it. Georgios said it was like someone fed him poison and expected him to say thank you.”

This made Enid confused.

Lady Calista wasn’t necessarily Helios’ friend or companion. 

However, he was quite civil with the woman that his wife saw as her best friend, but she shook off her thoughts and attributed it to Helios pretty much being that way with everyone, even herself. Her mind recognized that she’ll come very soon. 

The woman who is supposed to be the nanny. 

Not Ines, not Enid, but her.

Enid thought of Nico’s small hands in hers. 

Of Anastasia’s bright eyes and gummy smiles. 

Of Helios and the nursery, soft in a way that she never thought she’d see. 

She paused, the garment in her hand still covered in suds. Perhaps this was a good point to stop getting close to the children. She wasn’t even supposed to be in this role in the first place. She was supposed to make her money, have her room and board and meals, and live a mundane life for the second time.

“Enid?” Mara’s voice cut through her spiraling thoughts. “Are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Fine,” Enid said automatically. “I’m fine.” 

She wasn’t fine, but she’d survived two lives already. She could survive this one as well. She would just have to step aside when the heroine came and when Helios eventually hired her in her place. 

𓆙_________ ׂׂૢ་༘࿐

Helios stood at the window of his study, a letter crumpled in his fist. Behind him Georgios lounged against the door frame with the casual grace of a man who had never faced consequences for anything in his life. His green eyes sparkled with barely contained amusement. 

“Helios, you’re going to pop a blood vessel if you keep glaring like that,” Georgios said cheerfully. 

“It’s just a letter, cousin, from a very lonely, very persistent young lady who—” 

“Get out!” 

“—who, I might add, has been writing you for months now and you’ve ignored every single—”

“Georgios.”

“I’m just saying.” Georgios raised his hand and mocked surrender. “Lady Calista was Lucia’s friend, and it’s not unreasonable for her to want to visit the children. Pay her respects. All very proper and above board.”

Helios turned slowly. The light from the window caught the scarred side of his face, throwing half of it into shadow. His silver eye gleamed like a blade. “She was not Lucia’s friend,” he said, his voice dangerously quiet. “She was a vulture circling my wife. She watched my wife suffer through her pregnancy, just waiting for her to die so she can take her place.” 

Georgios’ smile faltered. “That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?” Helios looked down at the letter in his hand. The handwriting was elegant, looping every stroke designed to project grace and refinement. He could practically smell the perfume she’d dabbed on the paper.

‘My dearest Duke,’ it began. 

He hadn’t read past those three words.

“She’ll expect an answer,” Georgios said, softer now. “If you reuse her outright, it will cause talk. Her family has powerful connections, Helios. You know that her family–”

“I don’t care about her family.”

“You should.”

“You know her aunt is the Empress. A direct insult—”

“Let them come.” Helios placed a letter on his desk as if it were repulsive. 

“Let them all come. I’ve buried better enemies than the House Marin.”

 Georgio’s sighed, “You can’t kill a fight as everyone’s cousin.”

“Are you sure about that?”

A long silence stretched between them. 

Finally, Georgios pushed off the doorframe and crossed to the desk. Karma picked up the discarded letter with two fingers. 

“What if she’s genuine?” he asked quietly. “What if she really does want to see the children?” 

“Bullshit. Lucia didn’t trust her. Near the last months of her pregnancy, she warned me about Calista. He turned back to the window. I should have listened. 

“You couldn’t have known—”

“I should have listened to her, I should have listened to everything Lucia told me. If I had been there when she gave birth—” The words hung in the air, heavy with old grief. 

“You couldn’t stop her death, Helios.”

“I…I know, I just…I always think about her begging me to stay and having to leave her because o the emperor’s orders.”

Georgios thought for a moment before he said: “So, what will you do?” 

Helios stared out at the grounds below. From there, he could see the pathway that led to the garden. If he looked carefully, he could almost imagine he saw movement behind the windows. Nico’s dark head, perhaps the flash of a servant’s apron. 

Enid. 

Her name rose in his mind, unbidden. A kitchen maid who has somehow become the center of his children’s world. Who looked at him with those brown eyes and saw... what? Not the serpent. Not the monster of the empire had made him. Something else. Something that made him want to be worthy of that gaze. 

“I’ll let her come,” he said finally. 

Georgios blinked. 

“You will?”

“I’ll let her come, and I’ll watch her every move. And if she so much as looks at my children wrong,” he turned, and the wintry smile on his face made even Georgios take a step back. 

“I’ll remind the Empire why I’m called the Serpent.”

Georgios smiled, swallowed. “Right. Well. I’ll draft a response then, something appropriately cordial.”

“Do what you want.”

Georgios hesitated as he reached the door. 

“Cousin?”

“What?”

“The maid. Enid.” Georgios’ voice probed with ease. “She’s done well with the children. The whole house is noticed. Perhaps... a reward of some kind? To show your appreciation?”

Helios said nothing for a long time. Then, slowly, the corners of his mouth curved. 

“Yes,” he murmured, “a reward.” 

Georgios frowned.

What kind of reward his cousin had in mind? 

The look on Helios’s face was answer enough.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” Georgios said before he fled.

Now alone in his study, Helios let the smile linger. 

A reward for Enid. 

For her diligence. 

For her care. 

For the way she brought warmth back into a house that had forgotten what warmth felt like. 

He thought of her laughing at something Niko said as she told him how much of a special boy he was. He thought of her hands, work calloused, capable, and quite gentle when cuddling Anastasia against her chest. 

Something nice for her—but as Helios thought of this, he also thought of something else. 

He thought of her on the nursery floor, curls escaping a bonnet, her backside tutted out and her back curved. 

Then his cock got hard. 

He thought of the way she trembled when he stood too close. The flush that crept up her neck when he spoke her name. 

Yes. 

He would reward her. 

His mouse had been so very, very good, and Helios was a man who paid his debts.