The room was not meant to be used that way.
It had once been a storage annex—stone floor worn smooth in the center, a narrow window caked with dust, a single rusted hook embedded in the wall where lanterns had once been hung. The door did not lock properly. It had never needed to.
The Under-Steward pushed it shut with his heel. The sound was final, a soft thud that sealed away the world.
The girl lay where he had left her.
Not arranged. Not positioned.
Dropped.
Her breathing was shallow now, uneven—the ragged, weakening rhythm of a bellows losing its purpose. One arm lay twisted beneath her, pale fingers curled toward the cold stone as if grasping for something that was no longer there. The fabric of her simple dress was torn at the shoulder, revealing a bruise already darkening like a storm cloud under skin.
He wiped his hands on a linen cloth, methodical, as though cleaning tools after a messy task. His gaze fell to her face.
Her eyes were half-lidded, the glassy sheen of a doll's gaze. Only the faint, frantic flutter of a pulse at her temple betrayed the fading life within.
He watched it for a moment, his head tilted. A craftsman observing the final tremors of a broken mechanism.
"Still breathing," he muttered, not with concern, but with clinical note.
He crouched, the leather of his boots creaking. With two fingers, he nudged her shoulder.
No response. No gasp. No whimper.
That was normal.
It always went this way toward the end—too much force, too little time, too much of him poured into a vessel not built to hold it. He never planned for the stillness that followed. Planning was for fools; it left patterns, expectations, traces in a ledger. This was simpler. This was release.
He stood and adjusted his belt, his movements easy, practiced. His reflection in the grimy window showed a face flushed with exertion, satisfied, touched with a faint thread of annoyance. The annoyance of a task completed messily.
"They never last," he said to the empty room, the words bouncing off the barren walls.
He opened the door.
The corridor beyond was a tunnel of shadow, empty and silent.
Good.
He stepped out, pulled the door until it sat just ajar, then paused. His eyes cut back into the gloom one final time.
The girl did not move.
Her chest rose—a shallow, stuttering lift.
Then it stilled.
He frowned, a brief pinch between his brows. Then he shrugged, the motion dissolving the tension. Someone would find her. Or the rats would. Or she would simply become another quiet absence, a name silently scratched from a list. Either way, she was no longer his concern.
He had another.
The garden was quiet in the late afternoon lull. Sunlight, filtered through the wooden trellis, cut the air into strips of gold and shadow. The scent of damp soil and iron-rich water from the irrigation channels lay heavy and still. Everything was in perfect, sterile order—beds neatly aligned, paths swept clean of debris, tools returned to their shed.
Except her.
She knelt near the far wall, her hands buried wrist-deep in the dark earth. A low, tuneless hum vibrated in her throat, a sound without melody, only the steady repetition of a creature soothing itself. It was the sound of something remembering warmth.
The Under-Steward stopped at the wrought-iron gate.
There she was.
Still here. Unmoved. Unclaimed.
A slow, familiar curve touched his mouth.
"Well," he said, his voice soft as a blade being drawn. "You've been waiting."
She did not look up.
The disregard needled him. He stepped onto the gravel path, the crunch loud in the hushed space.
Her head lifted instantly.
Not startled. Alert.
Her eyes, wide and clear, fixed on him. Her pupils narrowed slightly, like a cat's adjusting to a sudden shift in light.
"There you are," he said, taking another step. "I was looking for you."
She tilted her head, a gesture of pure, animal curiosity. "Why?"
The genuineness of the question amused him. He walked closer, his shadow falling over her kneeling form. "You're being reassigned," he said, the lie smooth and easy. "Again."
She stared, unblinking.
The smell hit her then, cutting through the garden's clean scents—sweat, salt, and beneath it, something metallic and wrong. The scent of the storage annex. The scent of the girl who did not move.
Her nose wrinkled.
"No," she said. The word was flat, absolute, an instinct speaking before thought.
He laughed, a short, harsh bark. "You don't get to say that."
He reached for her wrist, his fingers aiming to clamp and control.
She moved.
Not away. Up.
In one fluid motion, she was on her feet, her hands slapping against the edge of the low shed roof. She pulled herself upward with a wiry strength he hadn't anticipated, bare feet finding purchase on the rough stone wall, her body coiling and unfolding with a quick, feral grace.
"What—" he started, surprise freezing him for a second.
She was already on the roof, crouched low, her weight balanced on the balls of her feet. Her gaze locked on him, no longer curious, but sharp and assessing.
For a heartbeat, neither moved—the hunter stalled, the prey poised above.
Then she ran.
Across the clay tiles, light as a shadow. Over the trellis, her body flowing rather than leaping. She did not hesitate. Did not look back.
"Hey!" he shouted, the sound ripping through the garden's peace.
Too late.
She dropped from the far side of the roof into the neighboring kitchen garden, rolled once to break her fall, and vanished into a thicket of tall rosemary and foxglove.
The Under-Steward stood rooted, then swore viciously, the crude word staining the quiet air.
She did not understand panic. Panic was a luxury, a complex human storm of fear and forethought.
She understood pursuit.
Her feet, tough and silent, carried her across gravel and grass. Paths blurred beneath her. Leaves whipped against her arms and face. She scaled a low stone wall where it was easier than finding a gate, her fingers finding cracks invisible to the eye.
Behind her, footsteps crashed through foliage, accompanied by ragged breaths and muttered curses.
He was loud. Heavy. Predictable.
She darted across the ornamental fish pond, her toes barely brushing the slick stepping stones. One foot slipped on moss; she corrected without breaking rhythm, a subtle shift of weight that spoke of a body in perfect dialogue with treacherous ground.
The second garden—the quiet one with the medicinal herbs—greeted her with high walls. She took them in a single vault, hauling herself over the top and dropping soundlessly into the soft earth on the other side.
And stopped.
The way was blocked. A dead end formed by the high estate wall and a locked glasshouse.
She crouched atop the wall and looked back.
The Under-Steward burst through a gap in the hedge, his tunic snagged, his face flushed a furious red. He saw her, isolated now, and a grim smile spread across his features.
"There you are," he snarled, advancing slowly, cutting off her only retreat.
She blinked at him, her head cocked.
"You smell bad," she stated, her voice clear in the enclosed space.
He froze. "What?"
She wrinkled her nose again, a gesture of pure distaste. "Like fear," she elaborated, as if explaining something obvious. "And old blood."
His expression twisted, the smugness evaporating into something ugly and raw. "You little bitc—"
He lunged, hands outstretched to drag her down.
She didn't jump away.
She jumped over him.
He stumbled forward with the momentum of his own charge, his boots skidding on damp leaves. A string of curses erupted from him as he nearly plunged into a deep reflecting pool.
But his reinforcements arrived swiftly.
The Under-Steward righted himself, his eyes never leaving her. The grim smile returned, colder now, assured.
"Take her," he said, the command leaving no room for question. "The new trench in the Master's garden needs filling. And this one… she'll do nicely."