“It clearly says spelt,” the boy says.
“Well, we don’t have any.” The woman—presumably the cook—shakes the barley in the boy’s face.
“Potatoes again?” The third servant, a girl who looks about fourteen, with hair plaited around her head like a crown, breaks into a burlap sack. “I heard Lara say that this much starch is making her harder to lift when she skates.”
“I wouldn’t have any trouble lifting Lara,” the cook mutters, crushing the barley into the soup. “Right out that window.”
Nina clears her throat and they look up in attention. “Mrs. Vestergaard’s returned. And she’s brought home a daughter.”
The servants instantly whirl around, the barley forgotten. My heart squeezes to hear those words. Eve is not an orphan anymore. She’s someone’s daughter, again.
“What did you say?” The butler stands and in his haste sends the polish clattering to the floor.
“She’s been looking for so long I thought she’d never find one—”
“A daughter, finally—”
“And without any notice?” the cook cries. She springs into action, whipping a towel from the table and tying an apron around her waist. “She’ll be expecting a feast and I barely have scraps until the delivery tomorrow.” She starts rummaging through the cupboards for cookbooks and flour and barking orders. “A pudding. Signe, check to see if we have any figs. Brock, run to the greenhouse and get me whatever smells the best. I’ll make it work.”
“I’ll show you to your quarters,” Nina says to me briskly, and seems anxious to rush me along before the other servants take notice.
We wind through a drafty hallway and up three flights of stairs to the east wing of the servants’ quarters. They are toasty warm and well lit, crammed with nooks and storage closets and workrooms. It reminds me of the day I arrived at the Mill, with all the orphans watching me climb the stairs to the dorm room with my suitcase in hand. I was determined not to cry, even though it smelled so different from home and no one was going to braid my hair and read “The Snow Queen” when I was in bed with a fever. The next three years were the loneliest of my life, until the day Eve approached me with Wubbins and her fierce scowl. I picture her climbing a staircase right now, parallel to this one, with only a few walls to separate us. But how different a house must feel when you enter it as part of the family—not as a temporary arrangement, conditional on proving yourself useful.
Nina is rapidly going over the rules ahead of me, her breath shortening the higher we climb: “Dinner at seven prompt or you don’t eat, no girls allowed in the boys’ quarters and vice versa, we all head to town once a month, curfew’s half past eight, and absolutely no leaving the house after dark. Make sure you never keep Mrs. Vestergaard waiting, and get all your work done neatly and on time. Early’s even better.”
There’s an explosion of laughter through the door as we crest the third floor. Nina harrumphs. “I can only imagine what she’s doing in there,” she says, glowering and jangling the keys. “The infamous Liljan.”
Nina slips the key into the lock and, with a jerk of her wrist, bursts through the door.
“Nina!” Liljan exclaims, scurrying to hide something under her pillow. “You might have knocked!”
I step into the room behind Nina. The infamous Liljan has hair the color of straw. Her blue eyes turn down at the corners and sparkle with light. She seems like the sort of girl who claps with glee over just about everything. Next to her, sitting on the bed that’s probably meant to be mine, is a boy.
“You’re not supposed to be in here!” Nina roars. The boy turns to us and he has mussed hair that sticks up, wire spectacles, and these dark eyes that make something in my chest feel funny. “And no eating!” She confiscates half-wrapped candies from them. “Do you want rats?”
They both look dutifully ashamed, but once Nina’s back is turned, Liljan’s mouth begins to quirk. The boy glares and throws a candy at her head when Nina faces me again. “No boys. No eating in the room,” she repeats to me sternly. “Just don’t do whatever Liljan is doing and you’ll be fine.”
“But, Nina, light of my life,” Liljan says, “you haven’t introduced us!”
“This is Marit Olsen. Marit, this is Liljan Dahl, housemaid and resident pain in my rear. And this,” Nina says, grabbing the boy’s arm, “is her brother, Jakob Dahl. Leaving.” She leads him toward the door. “Mrs. Vestergaard will ring if she needs you,” she tells me. “Wear your uniform in the main house, starched enough to stand up even without you in it, and never be late!” She shoves Jakob into the hall and slams the door.
“Hello, Marit Olsen,” Liljan says, leaning forward on her elbows. “What’d you get hired for?” She unwraps another candy with a shiny red shell.
“I’m, um, the seamstress,” I say, setting my bag down at my feet. To my surprise, Liljan’s face falls. She heaves a sigh and rolls over. “That one’s yours,” she says, gesturing to the unmade straw mattress where Jakob was sitting. “Sofie only slept in it for about two weeks.”
“Sofie?” I ask.
“The seamstress before you.” Liljan presses her lips together. “They don’t tend to be here for long.”
“Why?” I ask too quickly, but Liljan merely shrugs and pops the candy into her mouth.
I steal a nervous look at my new bed. Suddenly, taking this job feels like stepping into clothes someone else died in.
I get to work making the bed, laying out the feather tick, admiring the underblanket and a quilt made of eiderdown. There’s a small washstand and a matching tiled chamber pot, and the walls are covered with an intricate floral pattern of lavender wisteria knit like lace. When Liljan’s back is turned, I run my fingertips over it. I’ve never heard of such quality in a servants’ room before.
Liljan sucks on the candy. “Uniforms in the far trunk,” she says.
I shake out and shape the straw sack mattress, then change into a crisp ink-black Vestergaard uniform. What would my father think, to see me here now? Working for his old employer—using magic?
His letter falls from my pocket and I tuck it carefully into the book of Hans Christian Andersen stories, wishing for the hundredth time that Far had written my name. This final thing from him, the last thing I have, and it wasn’t even meant for me. It rankles me still, even after all these years, that he addressed it only to her. Why?
“Dinner!” Liljan suddenly trills. “Hope you’re made of stiff stuff, Marit,” she says, and though her tone is skeptical, it almost feels as though she’s extending a piece of advice. “Coming?”
She opens the door and we’re hit with the most intoxicating smell, as if the air itself has turned rich and golden. I tighten my apron across my front like a shield and follow her downstairs.
* * *
The atmosphere at dinner is more raucous than Ness ever would have allowed, with people bustling in and out, gossip flying as the doors whip open and shut, servants heading to the main house with their tureens of red cabbage and platters of pork roast with crackling skin. The girl named Signe is whipping fresh cream, and the cook is pulling an apple cake out of the wood-fired stove, with browned cinnamon apple slices laced on top in a swirling pattern like the opening petals of a rose. My stomach rumbles. I think of Agnes, sitting alone in our room at Thorsen’s, always sniveling and bent over her plate as if I were going to steal from it. For one half second, I almost feel sorry for her.
“So Mrs. Vestergaard’s actually gone and brought home a daughter?” Signe asks. The staff is crowded around the thick wooden table, their faces lit by flickering wax candles as platters of food are set in front of them.
I stand in the doorway uncertainly—and then start with a sudden realization.
Magic practically shimmers around them all. I’ve never sensed it like this before—but then again, I’ve never seen so much of it collected in one place or so freshly used. Somehow I simply know it’s there, an extra sense prickling along my skin, as if a low hum or buzz is radiatin
g from them all. My breath catches in my chest as I remember the way Helene examined my work on the coat, and the realization that follows carves through me like ice. Of course she knew exactly what she was asking of me. Everyone working here must have magic. Because you have to be superior to earn a place in a house like this one.
And superior usually means magic.
I know now why she had a plum in November. I think of the gorgeous flowers overflowing from their vase in the foyer. What kind of woman fills her house with people who risk the Firn for her benefit? A woman from the same family who asked men to risk their lives in mines and ignored the orphans they left behind. And yet—I steal a furtive glance around the room. No one seems frightened or unhappy here. The atmosphere in this kitchen is actually warm and jovial. Even familial.
Until the moment when everyone suddenly seems to notice me at once.
Silence falls as they turn toward the doorway in unison.
They seem confused.
The cook says: “Well, who in spoon’s haven is that?”
“That’s Marit Olsen,” Nina announces in a crisp voice. “Mrs. Vestergaard’s newest seamstress.” My arms keep trying to come up and cross my chest, but I hold them firmly at my sides.
The young man with long, dirty hair thunks his spoon down on the table with a deep growl in his throat. “I thought that job was finally going to be Ivy’s.”
The cook half drops a glass platter on the table and a streaking crack appears down the middle of it. She swears under her breath and then looks up in anguish at a girl about my age, with a long blond braid and a mole perched like a cake crumb on her right cheek. “Ivy,” the cook says, “we tried so hard. I thought this time you were finally going to get to stay.”
“Oh, Aunt Dorit,” the girl named Ivy says, her eyes bright. “It isn’t your fault. I’m sorry I can’t be what Mrs. Vestergaard needs. My sewing is good, but of course it isn’t the same as being gifted with it.” She places her palm over the glass, and when she takes her hand away, the platter is whole again. As if she healed it. My face heats. I’ve never seen anyone do magic so brazenly before—or speak of it so openly. It makes me feel exposed somehow. Like walking into a hall of mirrors and glimpsing an angle of myself I’d never seen before.
“Someone is going to want what you can do, darling,” the cook says to Ivy. “And if Helene Vestergaard had half a mi—”
“Dorit!” Nina says sharply. “That’s enough.”
Dorit flings a heaping serving of salad down onto a plate. “I remember when Ivy lost her first tooth right there,” she says, choking on a sob. “I promised my sister Rhody that I would always watch out for her.”
Everyone turns once again to glare at me.
Oh, great.
Every seat is filled around the huge wooden table and no one makes any move to scoot over, so I sheepishly walk toward the wall and squeeze in at the small space left at the corner. I think of Eve and how knowing someone as a child can weave them into your heart like a web, no matter what happens next or who they grow up to become.
I understand that perfectly well. But that doesn’t mean I’m leaving. I steel myself against the glares, pretending I don’t notice them. I survived a decade in an orphanage and three months with Agnes the shrew—a welcome like this isn’t exactly going to make me wilt like a piece of lettuce.
Especially when there’s a platter of pork and crackling making its way around the table. Wax drips down the flickering candles as warmth rolls off the hearth fire. I eye the crackling, crisp and golden, and my mouth waters. I haven’t had that dish since I was six years old.
The girl next to me takes a piece of roast. “Brock?” she says sweetly, offering it to the greasy-haired boy, who manages to grab the platter from her before I can get any. My hand curls into a fist in my lap. Brock sends the food farther away from me, then leans closer and says in a low voice: “Ivy grew up here, with us. She deserves that spot.”
I look back at him without flinching. “Why don’t you take it up with Mrs. Vestergaard, then?”
“Why don’t you just quit?”
“No,” I say defiantly, and as a result, the basket of rolls is passed right over my head. I clear my throat and ask for someone to pass the red cabbage to me, please.
My request is ignored.
I stand up to get it myself, but just as I reach for it, Dorit picks up the dish and whisks it to the kitchen counter. At least no one stops me from grabbing the soggy tomatoes left in the bottom of the salad bowl, even though I hate tomatoes. I feel Jakob Dahl studying me across the length of the table. When I look up, he meets my gaze, blinking dark lashes behind his spectacles. He isn’t unfriendly—but he doesn’t exactly smile, either.
I wonder if he notices me flinch when the gossip suddenly turns toward Eve.
“Who’s seen her?” says a boy with dark, close-cropped hair, shoveling food into his mouth. “The daughter? What’s she look like?”
“She’s a sweet-looking little thing, just a slip of a girl; I can’t imagine she was being fed enough at that orphanage she came from—” says Dorit.
“She’s dark, isn’t she?” interrupts a girl with blond hair the color of dishwater. She chews loudly, showing her food. “Is she even Danish?”
I take a sharp breath.
“She’s a dancer, like Mrs. Vestergaard,” someone to my left says. “Lara saw a tutu when she unpacked her trunk—”
“I heard she comes from the same orphanage that Helene grew up in—”
“She’s lucky as they come, ain’t she? I wish Mrs. Vestergaard would adopt me!” says the first boy, and sets the table to laughing. He turns to the girl with the dishwater hair and obnoxious chewing. “Pauper to prince. I’d make you warm my towels by the fire, Rae, and feed me figs from the tip of your fork.”
Rae shows him her tongue. “I’d lick them first, I would.”
Anger grows in vines of fire through me to hear the person I love being passed around and picked apart like the meat on the platter. I start to rise, words that I’ll probably regret burning in my throat, when—
“Yes, well,” Brock says, his voice crisp and cold. He picks up his fork and examines the tines in the light. “I think I’d be forever looking over my shoulder if Helene adopted me.”
I stop short, my words dying on my lips. I quietly, inconspicuously sit back down. Listening carefully with ears pricked.
“Oh, stop,” Rae says with a dismissive groan. “Not this again.”
Brock shrugs, stabbing his meat with his fork. “Aleks Vestergaard was a healthy man in the prime of life—that’s all I’m going to say.”
From across the table, Jakob adjusts his spectacles, resting them on his cheekbones.
“He had a problem with his heart,” Rae says with exasperation. “He wasn’t murdered, you imbecile. Who would have murdered him? Helene?” She laughs.
My stomach suddenly turns.
“You know who,” Brock says, his face darkening. He selects a bone and picks his teeth. “But good on Helene. It’s a smart countermove. He takes out one heir; she adds another. It’s like moving a pawn in front of your queen.”
“Enough,” Nina orders from the other end of the table. “You know I don’t approve of this gossiping about the master’s death. It’s undignified, it’s unprofessional, it’s far outside the bounds of propriety.”
I pull my collar from my neck, my heart loud in my ears. Who are they talking about? And surely Brock isn’t saying what I think he’s saying?
Surely Aleks Vestergaard wasn’t murdered?
“Marit,” Ivy says quietly, and I jump. The final tomato slips from my fork and splatters on my plate in a limp red puddle. “Here,” she whispers. She has piled her own plate with crackling and cabbage, and she pushes it in front of me.
My mind is still caught on what Brock said, and I look at her in surprise.
“Thank you,” I whisper. My throat has gone dry.
“You’re too nice, Ivy,” Brock says, as if h
e’s disgusted.
“You know I love you, and you know how much I want to stay,” she says, smoothing her napkin. “But you don’t need to drive Marit away. Someone else will just come. They always do.”
Apparently the table is done discussing Eve and the potential murder of the late Mr. Vestergaard and has decided to return its collective focus to me. I’m fresher blood, anyway.
“I disagree,” Brock says loudly, as if he’s rallying them all to action. “Eventually, Mrs. Vestergaard will run out of magical seamstress replacements and realize she should just pick someone who already fits in with us all.” He turns to me. “I’m Ivy’s brother, and her aunt’s the cook,” he continues. “So will you prefer hair, sand, or glass in your breakfast?”
The whole table is watching him slowly smear butter onto a plump roll. And watching to see how I’ll react.
My veins are buzzing. Somehow, I need to establish that I won’t be trifled with by these people.
I pick up my knife and saw through an enormous piece of Ivy’s roast.
“If I’m leaving the seamstress job, you’ll be the first to know, Brock,” I announce, brandishing the knife in a way that is at least vaguely threatening. “I’ll submit my resignation by tying you to the banister with your own dirty hair.”
For a moment there is gaping silence as Brock splutters, practically choking, and everyone else stares at me, mouths parted. It’s no idle threat. With magic, I probably could.
Then Liljan erupts into a roar of delighted laughter and bangs the table. “Brock, do you need a formal introduction? Because this is Marit. I think she also goes by ‘Your Match.’ ”
“There’s your stiff stuff,” I mutter. It seems I’ve won enough cachet from the staff to finish eating in peace, and they all move on, clattering their dishes into the sink and starting their evening chores. The only person who stays at the table is Jakob, his eyes glittering thoughtfully behind his spectacles.
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