by Sharon Shinn
There was always a pitcher of water by Elyssa’s bed and I was relieved to see, as I made my way through the sitting room and into her bedroom, that the pitcher was there tonight. But when I picked it up, I was disappointed to find it less than half full.
Still, better than empty. I filled the glass on the nightstand and drank the contents straight down. Then I filled it again for each of the echoes, who gulped down the water as greedily as I had. I shared the final half-glass of water among the three of us. I was still a little thirsty, but I felt immeasurably better.
We prowled around the room looking for other tidbits. There was a single orange sitting on the windowsill—a remnant of the previous day’s breakfast, perhaps—so I peeled it and distributed the slices equally. I couldn’t remember the last time anything had tasted so delicious. But we found nothing else lying around the room—no forgotten rolls of bread or boxes of candy. For a few moments, I studied the vase of roses in the sitting room but decided the petals probably had no nutritional value and the water at the bottom would be tainted and moldy. Still, if the pitcher by the bed had been dry, I might have sipped from the flower vase and counted myself lucky.
We were so relieved to be out of our cramped space that we stayed in the sitting room until we could sense that Elyssa was on her way back upstairs. By the time she came through the door, we had retreated to our room and were sitting meekly on our beds. We were still sitting there when Trima arrived a few minutes later.
She did not, as I had been hoping, bring a dinner tray with her. She merely got Elyssa ready for bed and disappeared for the night. Elyssa fell asleep right away, but the echoes and I lay awake for hours, trying not to listen to the sounds of our stomachs rumbling.
The following day was almost exactly the same.
Elyssa left us behind when she went down for her meals, and nobody else remembered that we also needed to be fed. I was beginning to be seriously worried. Shouldn’t someone in the household care that Elyssa’s echoes might be starving to death? Elyssa had always hated us, and if she really believed she might marry Marco, she would have no more use for us, but surely she could not do away with us before that wedding took place? Surely Hodia or Bentam still considered us valuable properties in the endless fight for status?
They must not have given any thought to how we were being cared for when we were not at Elyssa’s back. They must have believed someone was feeding us even if Elyssa wasn’t. I wondered how I could draw attention to our plight without giving myself away. Perhaps the echoes and I could be lying on the sitting room floor, weak and semiconscious, when Trima entered tomorrow morning. That might raise the alarm.
On the other hand, Trima had never protected us in the past when Elyssa had bedeviled us. Maybe she wouldn’t care if we were wasting away. Maybe more extreme measures were called for. Maybe tomorrow morning the three of us should be lying on the floor of the hallway where passing maids and footmen would discover us. It would be a risky move—but I wasn’t sure how many options we had if we wanted to stay alive. I would reconnoiter tonight and pick our best spot.
I waited until Elyssa was sound asleep before I belted on a heavy velvet robe and crept out of my tiny bedroom. The echoes rose to follow me, but I was able to close our bedroom door before they had made it out of the room. They didn’t have enough volition to turn the handle on their own, so they stayed on the other side of the door, but I could feel their anxiety. I shut my heart to it. I had to focus on our survival.
Taking a deep breath, I silently opened the outer door to the hallway. I had never stepped across this threshold unless it was at Elyssa’s heels, and I hadn’t realized how strange it would seem. Yes, I had explored every inch of the bedroom suite under my own power, but that was a confined space, safe and familiar. Past this heavy door, the whole world waited, so big I could not imagine navigating it, filled with hazards at every turn. How easy it would be to get lost! How terrifying to be out in it on my own!
How exhilarating …
I paused for a moment to orient myself. Elyssa’s room was down one end of a short corridor that fed off the main stairwell; Hodia and Bentam had rooms on the other end. If the echoes and I wanted to be noticed in the morning, we should be found languishing on the stairwell itself—someplace that saw a fair amount of traffic from the other residents of the house.
I glided forward soundlessly on the smooth wood floors and descended the first three steps, then bent to peer over the carved bannister toward the lower level. Most of the house was in darkness, but lamps were set at widely spaced intervals down every hallway to guide anyone who happened to be up in the middle of the night. I could see a faint flickering from the hall that led to the kitchen and the servants’ quarters at the back of the house.
The kitchen …
I tightened my grip on the railing and thought about it. Well, why not? It was late and no one else in the whole mansion seemed to be awake. I could make a swift foray into the kitchen, gather up a few items, and return to my room without anyone being the wiser. That is probably a terrible idea, I thought, but I was so hungry that I wasn’t sure I would be able to tell good ideas from bad.
I took another deep breath, kept my hand curled around the bannister, and tiptoed down the stairs.
The shadows seemed deeper and more menacing on the bottom story, and I stood for a moment getting my bearings before making my way forward again. Truth to tell, I was only guessing where the kitchen was, as I had never been there before in my memory. But I knew which hallways the footmen used when they brought in platters for meals, so I knew the likeliest direction to try. Though I might make a wrong turn if I wasn’t careful.
I picked up one of the lamps as I passed it, holding it at shoulder height to light my way. I never would have thought the house I lived in could look so foreign. Doorways I had walked through a thousand times seemed portals to dangerous realms; chairs and bookshelves took on a crouching, predatory appearance. A half-size gold statue of a young girl—an object I passed almost every day—seemed to leap out at me like a child thief aiming to slit my throat. I had to strangle a scream as I saw her bright face grinning at me from its dark corner.
I finally made it through the common rooms of the house and to the much less cluttered corridors used primarily by the servants. The enticing scents of roasted meat and warm yeast led me directly to the kitchen. I paused to glance around at the long worktables, big sinks, and oversized oven, imagining how busy the place must be when the cook and her helpers were putting together a formal meal. Then I set my lamp on one of the tables and began searching for something to eat.
The first thing I found was a barrel of apples, so I dropped two into the pockets of my robe and ate a third one while I continued looking around. There were three loaves of bread on the center table; a round of cheese sitting next to them with a sharp knife lying conveniently nearby; and a basket of carrots and onions off to the side. I wasn’t keen on biting into a raw onion, but everything else made me almost faint with desire.
I cut a wedge of cheese, stuffed most of it into my mouth, and considered the best way to carry part of it upstairs to the echoes. Was there something here I could use to wrap up a few pieces? Tomorrow morning, would the cook remember how much of the round had been left the evening before? Would it be better to simply take the whole thing and let her think one of the servants had made off with it in the night? Or would it be better to appropriate only a single loaf of bread?
I was still debating my options when I heard a jingle and a footfall behind me. I whirled around to see a shadowy shape moving down the hallway, straight for the kitchen door. My purloined lamp was close enough to illuminate me clearly while shedding no light on the newcomer at all.
I couldn’t move. I stood frozen in abject terror as the figure grew closer and resolved itself into Hodia.
Frowning at me as if at the vilest creature in the world.
“What are you doing up roaming the halls?” she demanded.
I
had never spoken in the presence of a noble, and I was not about to answer her now. Maybe she would conclude I had—somehow, unbelievably—sleepwalked through the house, untethered from Elyssa’s will but not really acting under my own power. Maybe she would take my shoulder and say, “Poor, silly thing,” and guide me upstairs and tell Elyssa in the morning that she needed to keep her echoes under better control. If I kept my eyes averted, my expression blank, she wouldn’t realize that I was conscious, that I was awake, that I was here of my own desire—
“Are you hungry? I wouldn’t be surprised. You hardly ate a thing at dinner,” Hodia went on. “But I didn’t think you even knew your way to the kitchens for all the interest you’ve ever shown in holding together a household.”
She thought I was Elyssa.
While I tried to assimilate what that meant, she came deeper into the room and began rummaging in one of the cabinets. She pulled out the ruins of a layer cake, covered with swirls of white icing and curls of roasted coconut, and set it on the table between us. “This was very good,” she said, using a fork to take a bite of it without bothering to cut a piece first. “Did you try any? Oh, but you don’t like coconut, do you? I always forget.”
She thought I was Elyssa. Could I carry out this charade well enough to keep her convinced? There was certainly no one who knew my original better than I did. I shook my hair back and rested my fingers on the table. My palms were sweating so much I thought I might leave handprints behind. “I don’t like a lot of things,” I said in Elyssa’s sullen way.
“Well, that’s the truth,” Hodia agreed. “A lot of things and a lot of people.”
“You should talk about disliking people,” I scoffed.
Hodia’s stern face relaxed into a wintry smile. “Yes, but I know how to pretend to like them,” she said. “You never bothered to learn that skill.”
“When you’re beautiful,” I said outrageously, “you don’t have to make that kind of effort.”
Now Hodia’s mouth pressed into a hard line. “Even if you’re beautiful, you could profit by displaying intelligence as well,” she shot back. “So far, I see you making only stupid choices.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m still young,” I said. “Plenty of time left.”
“Not that young,” Hodia said cuttingly. “Not that much time.”
I shrugged. My heart was racing but I was trying to act careless and unconcerned. I reached for the loaf of bread—and then, as if it was an afterthought, for the wheel of cheese. “Well, I don’t want to waste my time having pointless conversations in the middle of the night,” I said. “I’m hungry. I’ll just take this upstairs.”
Hodia said nothing as I balanced the bread on top of the cheese and strolled right past her toward the door. I didn’t have a hand free to pick up the lamp, so I hoped I would be able to find my way in the dark. “You shouldn’t take food up to your bedroom,” she said as I was stepping into the hallway. “You’ll draw rats.”
I turned to look back at her, knowing I was far enough from the lantern that she wouldn’t be able to see my face clearly. “I’m used to rats,” I said softly. “They’re everywhere.” Then I turned on my heel and sauntered out. Behind me, Hodia said nothing. I thought I heard her fork clatter slightly against the metal of the cake pan as she took another bite.
I continued walking with confident insolence until I was completely lost to darkness, and then I had to come to a brief stop and compose myself. My hands were shaking so badly I thought I might drop the items I had come so far, risked so much, to secure. Sweat was dripping down my armpits, and I could feel hair matted to the back of my neck.
I had pretended to be Elyssa, and someone had believed me.
Sweet goddess have mercy on my soul.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Exhilaration had kept me awake half the night, but when I woke in the morning, it was a different story. My head was pounding and my belly harbored a gnawing pain. Both symptoms were likely the aftereffects of starvation, I thought. The echoes and I had devoured the bread and cheese last night, but it wasn’t enough to make up for two full days of missed meals. Though the cramping in my gut didn’t feel exactly like hunger—in fact, I entertained the possibility that I might throw up.
Moving carefully to avoid jarring my poor head, I pushed aside my covers and swung myself to a sitting position. That was when I noticed the feel of wetness between my legs, and I glanced down at the nightgown bunched around my thighs.
Blood. A patch of it staining the fabric.
I looked over at the bottom sheet where my body had lain. More blood. Not much, but a bright enough red to scream with alarm and warning.
I slapped a hand over my mouth and forced back a cry of terror. What was happening to me? Had I contracted some terrible disease that was breaking down my body from the inside? Had my activities and exertions of the past few months overburdened this frail echo’s body, which hadn’t been built to withstand so much independent motion? Or—just as bad—had Elyssa developed some awful illness that was being reflected in her echoes? Would she be subjected to a slow, wasting death that dragged the three of us down alongside her?
Or was it just me?
Once I had recovered my self-possession, I would have to check the echoes’ bodies to make sure. They had woken when I did, sat up when I did, but their expressions, as always, were remote and serene. From where I sat, I could not see any bloodstains on their clothing, but I would need to make a closer examination.
Across the suite, divided from me by two doors, I felt Elyssa wake up and stretch contentedly in her bed. There was a moment of startled surprise, and then she began laughing.
I closed my eyes and pushed myself back on the bed so I could lean my aching head against the wall. I was dying and Elyssa was laughing. It seemed entirely congruous with the rest of my life.
I had been sitting there only about five minutes before Trima came bustling into the suite and into Elyssa’s room. “Oh, good, you’re awake,” she said. “I hope you remember we have company arriving today, so you’ll have to attempt to seem like a civilized human being.”
Elyssa laughed again. “Look, Trima! Do you see? The best news!”
A moment of silence while Trima examined whatever Elyssa had to show her. “Well, then. You get lucky again,” was all the maid said. “The triple goddess certainly looks out for you.”
“I’ve never been so happy to see blood in all my life.”
My eyes flew open. Blood. If Elyssa was also bleeding—
I wasn’t dying. I was merely experiencing monthly courses, the same as Elyssa. It had never happened before. In fact, somewhere I had gained the impression that echoes, who were sterile, never produced the bodily fluids that led to reproduction.
If I was bleeding, it wasn’t because my expanded activities had overtaxed my body. It was because I was becoming more real with every passing day.
Except for the way it started out, this day was closer to normal than any day we’d had since returning from Wemberton. I did have to exercise some ingenuity to hide my soiled sheets and garments, then bundle them up with Elyssa’s laundry when no one was looking. Fortunately, my bleeding stopped almost immediately, so I didn’t have to figure out how to manage for the rest of the week. But the same problem would arise in a month—or so I thought—and I had better start working on solutions.
But for the rest of this day, the focus was all on food. While Elyssa entertained company over breakfast, the echoes and I ate as much as we could cram into our mouths without drawing attention to ourselves, and we slipped bits of fruit and bread into our pockets. The visitors lingered through lunch, so again we devoured everything in sight. They were gone by dinnertime, but Elyssa hadn’t bothered to go upstairs and mope, so we just followed her into the dining hall when the meal was announced. I fell asleep that night feeling sated and happy.
The next two days were hit or miss, with Elyssa bringing us along for only a single meal each day, so the echoes and I ma
de the most of our limited opportunities. Still, I did not like this trend and the precarious existence it portended. I was even more worried the following day, when Elyssa rose late, left us behind, and never returned to the suite until she was ready to crawl into bed. As the hours unfolded, the echoes and I shared the fruits and nuts and hard rolls we’d managed to sneak to our room on previous outings, but we went to bed hungry and nervous.
Morning seemed to come earlier than usual, and it brought Trima barging into the room without her usual courtesy. Through the closed door, I heard her roust an unwilling Elyssa from bed.
“Up. Now. Your father has visitors, and he wants you there.”
“Who is it? I don’t even care. I’m going back to sleep.”
“You’re not. It’s Marietta and Fannon, and they seem to have dire news. I’m guessing it has something to do with the death of that boy from Orenza.”
Elyssa yawned but forced herself upright. In our room, the echoes and I did the same. I wasn’t happy about the early hour, but I was ecstatic at the prospect of breakfast. If there were nobles in the house, Elyssa would have to bring us downstairs with her. I could hardly wait.
We were quickly dressed in sober, prim attire that wouldn’t have been out of place on Counting Day, and heading downstairs to greet the visitors. Sure enough, Bentam and his guests were already in the breakfast room, and Elyssa and the rest of us filled our plates before sitting down. Elyssa joined the other three at the main table, while I sat with the other echoes—Bentam’s two, and the single echoes each of the other nobles had brought along.
“You seem very serious,” Elyssa said. “What’s so urgent?”
One of the visitors looked over. I had met her before and remembered her name as Marietta. She was a graceful older woman with graying blond hair and faded blue eyes; she had clearly once been a great beauty, the kind of woman who might care only about clothes and fashion. But her hostile expression and pursed lips made her look anything but frivolous. “Orenza is on the move,” she said. “There is an army three thousand strong marching south along the Charamon Road.”