The first few days after the Marquess left, Evelyn spent her days accompanying her grandmother around the house. The Marchioness was left in charge of everything when the Marquess was out, so she had paperwork and petitions to sign and account for. Anything too difficult, she set aside for the Marquess to handle when he returned.

This time, however, with Evelyn's presence, the work seemed to fly by. She would sit in the study working as Evelyn sat by the window reading a book she found. Do kids like to read world history books? she asked herself. Then, reminded of how much work she had left, she shook away the thought and continued reading the petitions. They had their meals together, and in the evening, they took a long stroll together in the garden or sat by the fire and talked until Evelyn felt too tired to continue. That was their new routine.

After about a week, Evelyn started going out into the courtyard when the Marchioness took breaks or had to meet with the local lords.

"My lady, why aren't you wearing your boots?"

Evelyn turned around to see Mildred frowning at her.

"Mildred, where have you been? I feel like I haven't seen you in ages."

"I went to visit family. Stop changing the subject. Or is your maid being neglectful?" she stated, rolling up her sleeves as if she was ready to fight Clara. The thought of my nanny fighting with timid Clara made me burst out in laughter.

This made Mildred frown harder. She then grabbed my hand and started dragging me inside. Once in my room, she started rummaging through my belongings, looking for the fur boots I had been given a while back.

"You won't find them," I called out.

"And why is that, my lady?" she called back, irate.

"Because I threw them out. They had gnarly holes in their soles that made me feel like I was walking barefoot."

"And why did you wait until now to say this?" Mildred asked, her tone growing strict like when she taught me how to read and write—she was the strictest governess in the world in my opinion.

"I thought you knew of another pair, perhaps," I answered, my voice quivering a little to feign innocence.

"This won't do. We will need to go buy a new pair soon. When's the next market day? Today is…" she started.

"Thursday," I interjected.

"Okay, then on Saturday we will go fit you for new boots. I'll raise the issue with the Marchioness. Until then, no going outside," she spoke with finality. At that exact moment, Clara walked in and, upon seeing Mildred, tried to make a 180-degree turn, but Mildred beckoned her inside and gave her an earful and relayed her instructions about my house arrest status.

Two days later, Bram, Mildred, and I hopped on a carriage and headed straight to the farming district, where the best animal skin goods were sold. Bram sat inside the carriage with us this time, but he seemed gloomy. Probably misses Victor. Or he got rejected earlier in one of his romantic escapades gone wrong.

Anyway, when we arrived, the entire area was packed with people. The crowd was so large that the carriage could no longer continue, so we alighted and started manoeuvring through the crowds on foot. The stalls that were popular were the ones selling foodstuffs and clothing. The ones not as popular were those selling furniture goods, though the ones selling plain wood seemed to do relatively well.

When we reached the stall, a young man in his twenties looked at us keenly.

"What can I do for you, dear customer?" he said with youthful charisma.

"We would like four pairs of boots in her size," Mildred answered, pointing at me.

"May I measure her feet?" he asked.

Mildred didn't answer. She merely moved into the stall's inner space and sat me on an empty chair in the corner.

The man took out carved wooden pieces shaped like feet and started measuring them against my feet.

"Do you want something she can grow into?" he asked, to no one in particular.

"Yes," Mildred answered. He then swapped out the piece he had placed before for a slightly larger one.

"Okay, that's a size five boot. I have a few you can look through," he said, then pulled out a chest, displaying his merchandise.

When we finished and Mildred paid the man, we began our way back to the carriage, but Mildred suddenly stopped in front of me.

"Where is Bram?" she asked, looking around. He wasn't anywhere in sight.

She let out a deep, frustrated sigh and traced back to the shop. I followed suit, but in the corner of my eye, I saw blonde hair bobbing through the crowd.

"Bram! There he is!"

But Mildred was already a bit far ahead, and the surrounding noise seemed to drown my voice. I followed after the blonde hair, afraid Bram had taken the wrong turn and gotten lost. It was his first time here too.

Bram kept turning this way and that. By the time I caught up to him, a reasonable amount of time had passed, but that wasn't my biggest concern… this wasn't Bram. I felt my stomach twist, and I started running back through the crowd. Before too long, I found I had wandered out of the market and into the narrow passageways of the surrounding settlement. I tried hard to find the main road, but every turn looked the same.

I crouched down by the wall. A few strange people passed by without saying a word. I was scared. I felt like my mind was playing tricks on me, and I was afraid of asking for directions from anyone here because you could never truly know their intentions.

An hour passed. I was still on the ground. I could feel anxiety rising within my chest. Will I get home safe? Will I be found before the sun sets? I continuously asked myself. Tears started to fall from my face, and without realizing it, I was sniffling and sobbing quite audibly.

I heard a faint shuffle behind me, and suddenly the wall I had my back to gave way… a doorway? I thought as I tumbled over. A young boy was looking down at me, quite irate.

"Piss off. You're making too much noise," he said. But my eyes grew wide with shock—maybe from the tone and language he chose to use, or from the realization that I knew him.

"Luca?" I asked, looking up.

Before he could say anything else, a child's crying interrupted him, and he turned to wander back into what we had earlier established to be their kitchen.

I got up, confused, and followed him back. Was there a baby last time?

I found Luca lying on a bed situated on the floor—no bedframe—and a small child wrapped up nicely in the corner. At the other end, there was a traditional stove and a DIY shelf of sorts with foodstuffs and a few utensils.

"I didn't know you had a younger sibling."

He didn't answer. He just looked back at me, anger in his eyes.

"This is your fault," he mouthed.

"My fault? How could this be my fault?" I asked.

The baby started crying louder, and Luca placed him down and tried to push me out of the house.

"Luca, what's going on?" his mother asked, startling both of us. We turned around to face her.

"Evelyn, what are you doing here?" she asked, alarmed.

"I got lost," I answered, a bit ashamed.

I heard Luca try to choke down a laugh.

"I didn't know you had another child," I said, trying to change the subject.

"I don't," Talia answered.

"Then whose…" I started.

"You know Freya?" she asked. "The young maid? Was recently hired?"

"Yes, I do."

"Oh, wonderful. Her mother lives on the other side of this wall," she said, pointing towards her room. "She can't raise the child since she is ill. She's afraid her child will contract the disease. So Luca, my dear angel, has taken it upon himself to take care of the three of us—Freya's mother, myself, and the child."

I looked over at Luca, who seemed preoccupied with the baby.

"She won't stop crying!" Luca exclaimed, completely frustrated. "I don't even know what I am doing."

"May I hold him?" I asked.

"Sure," Talia answered, amused.

I took him from Luca, who reluctantly obliged to his mother's wishes.

I looked at the little baby, his eyes red from crying, excessive drooling.

"Has he eaten anything?" I asked.

"Not much," Luca answered.

I walked over to a little pitcher of washing-up water. I poured some into the adjacent basin and rinsed off one hand before reaching for the baby's mouth.

"His gums are swollen," I stated, looking up at Luca.

"And?"

"That means he is teething. That's why he keeps crying. Do you have anything cold? A vegetable that has been exposed to the cold for some time, perhaps?"

Luca rushed out of the house and, after five minutes, came back. "We don't have anything of the sort, but Sam from down the street often brings back carrots from the fields. They've been left out in the barn for some time, so they've been exposed to the frost."

I placed the baby down on the bed and took the carrot, rinsed it, then peeled the outer skin before handing it to the baby.

"He can't eat that, you know," Luca retorted.

"It's not for eating," I replied snidely.

I placed the frozen carrot in the baby's mouth, and the previously crying baby stopped and chomped down on it, the cold providing relief from his irritation.

"Wow. How did you know to do that?" Talia, who had been quietly observing, asked.

"I picked it up," I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Aren't you the youngest child? Where would you pick it up?" she asked, but at this point, I was avoiding her gaze.

"And how did you learn to use a knife? Or how to hold a baby like that?" she asked. But again, I didn't answer.

"Is there any milk?" Luca pointed to a pitcher on the shelf. I measured out a bit. There was some vegetable stew brewing on the fireplace. I grabbed a cloth and moved the hot soup to the side before pouring the milk into an empty pot and placing it on the fire. After a bit, just to warm it up, I emptied the contents into a cup and tasted a bit to make sure it wasn't too hot.

"This milk has been boiled before, correct?" I asked Talia, but Luca answered in her place: "No."

"Ah. It's important to boil milk before drinking, or else you run the risk of getting the cough disease."

"How so?" Luca asked, but I cut him off.

I poured the milk back into the pan and heated it until it boiled, then I cooled it by repeatedly passing it from cup to cup.

I then sat down on the bed with the baby and gently urged him to drink the milk. He gulped it slowly but gladly finished it. I burped the child and rocked him for a few minutes, and he fell fast asleep.

"There. I have corrected my mistakes," I retorted to Luca.

"Freya said you were a stuck-up brat," he mumbled to himself, but I caught every word.

A stuck-up brat. That's what Freya thought of me. Good. Let her.

"Oh, yes, you said you were lost," Talia voiced, as if she had suddenly just remembered. "Luca, show her to the intersection and help her find her family."

At this, Luca grumbled but readily obliged. He nodded and motioned for me to follow. He seemed to know these alleys by heart.

"Thank you," I said to Talia, whose coughing had only persisted a few times during our entire interaction, but she had stayed at a distance, trying to be considerate.

I followed Luca as he made a few turns here and there, and we finally got back onto the main street. To think I wasn't too far off from the road this whole time. Up the road, not far from where we had emerged, was the carriage—exactly where it had stopped. I ran over excitedly but found Mildred hunched over, tears falling from her eyes.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

The crowd of guards, Bram, and Mildred turned around to find me standing there, perplexed.

"I thought I lost you!" she sobbed loudly.

Bram couldn't meet my eyes.

"I am sorry. This will never happen again," he mumbled.

"How did you find your way back?" Mildred asked between sobs.

"I was helped by this boy," I answered, pointing to where I thought Luca was, but by the time I turned my head, he was long gone.

Mildred looked so out of it that I started to get emotional too.

"I'm sorry for wandering off," I said, half-sobbing as the thought of how scared I had felt started flooding in too. "Please stop crying," I said, trying to wipe away Mildred's tears.

The carriage ride back was in complete silence, not one person daring to break it. I would later learn that word had been sent back to my grandmother that I had disappeared at the market. She had sent out a large group of the manor's guards to search the entire market for hours.

When we got back, I hurriedly apologized to my grandmother as well. I heard she was in so much shock she nearly fainted.

Freya had been given a day off on Sunday to go visit her family. She had heard that her younger brother was ill and refused to eat, so she had spent the better part of the week anxious. When she finally got home, however, she found Luca stuffing the baby's mouth with a large carrot.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" she shrieked. "Is that how you have been feeding him? No wonder he isn't eating."

"No, no, it's not like that. He is teething. This helps," Luca said proudly.

"What's teething?" Freya asked.

"It's when a baby's teeth are growing, so their gums swell and they can't eat."

"I never knew you were this good at taking care of babies," Freya answered in astonishment.

"I'm a bit of an expert, you know," Luca teased.

"An expert?" Talia answered, having been stirred awake by Freya's initial outburst. "Tell her the truth, Luca," his mother scolded.

"The stuck-up brat taught me," Luca admitted, indignant.

"What?!"

After being told the full story, Freya just couldn't wrap her head around the type of person Evelyn Vaelor was. Her evident hatred for her greatly diminished that day.

So later that week, when the two of them crossed paths in the hallway of the manor, she stopped Evelyn in the hallway and bowed, saying, "Thanks."

But Evelyn quickly told her to stand up. "Never do so toward me again," she uttered. "I only did what I felt was right. I don't want your thanks," was her reply.

What type of person was she? How strange.

A week later, while doing her chores, Clara informed her that Evelyn needed her for a moment.

She warily went, not exactly sure what to expect from the pampered snob who had chosen to come to Ismere.

"What job did Luca do before he had to take care of his mother?" Evelyn asked, much to her surprise.

"He delivered food to the mine workers together with his father."

"Really?" Evelyn's eyes lit up. A foreboding feeling rose up within Freya's gut. What's so exciting about that?

"Can you take me to see Luca?"

"What? Why would you want that? And why would I go anywhere with you?" Freya found herself retorting back, forgetting her position as a maid. But Evelyn did not react. She just continued talking as if nothing had happened.

"Please, Freya. I'll ask for permission from Nana. Just please help me."

Freya no longer knew what to make of the situation but gave in on account of Evelyn helping her brother.

Unbeknownst to her, a plan was brewing in Evelyn's mind—one that might leave the young Freya regretting her actions.