The rattling of the train brought her to awareness. E41 sat up in bed, and promptly hit her head on the bunk above her. Something had awoken her, though she did not know what. Some instinct, half remembered, called her to get up. With practiced ease she rolled from her bed careful not to wake E3 beside her. The woman had a name, but their Master and Mistress could not pronounce it, hence the numbers.

E4 quickly addressed her clothing, that strange tingle in the back of her mind reminding her to hurry. She wanted to see what it was, but some instinct held her still. Half remembered scenes of disaster flashed through her mind. An emergency that had been a trick, a burn across her arms and face.2 For a moment she checked herself, but her skin was pale and unmarred save from the callouses on her hand from honest work and a bandage on one hand from a cut. Broken crystal she recalled, though she could not remember where. Working quickly she assembled her daily outfit. A black dress with long sleeves that reached three quarters past her knees, slender boots that reached almost to her knees, white gloves, and a hair band to hold back her hair. As E4 pulled on her gloves she noticed her right hand had been bandaged. A memory flashed of a broken chandelier, of sweeping up before something caught her eye, of touching something sharp. The sensation of someone saying her name just beneath her hearing flashed through her mind, and she shoved her hand in the glove before opening the door to her room.

The inside of the car was mostly wood paneling hiding steel beneath, though the floor did have a soft carpeting. E4 noticed the work boots next to the door, two of the conductors must be sleeping while the third ran the train. The knowledge came unbidden to her, she had never met either man and yet she knew all had long braided beards they kept tucked into their overalls. The lights flickered, and she immediately flexed her arm to… her hand struck the hilt of a knife in her pocket. Why was a maid carrying a knife? A soft cry caught her attention and she quietly jogged towards the back of the car.

The sleeping car was divided into four sections she remembered. The front two sections were for the maids and the conductors, four of one three of the other. The back two sections were the bathroom and the Master and Mistress’s rooms. She hurried to the Master’s room and froze. She wasn’t allowed in there, her training forbid her enter. The latch seemed to resist her touch, as if it were a magnet pushing her back.

A new sound, a low whimper, caught her attention. Decorum be condemned, she grabbed the knob and threw the door into the wall3. Her eyes immediately caught upon a figure standing before her master’s bed, and a chill went down her spine. No light seemed to reflect from the man’s coat, it was only visible as it was darker than all around it. A bowler cap sat upon the man’s head. Immediately E4 felt cold. Her every instinct told her to run. This monster was going to kill her, kill her master, kill them all. There was nothing she could do.

Her arm twitched, muscles that did not exist pulled on… something. Her hand went to her pocket, and drew the knife. She had never used a knife in anger before, yet with practiced precision she firmly planted it between the man’s fourth and fifth rib, ripping it out his side in a maneuver she had never practiced yet had done a dozen times. It wouldn’t scream, the torn lung would see to that. She retched at the thought of hurting another person, even as she readied herself to take another life.

Yet with a gasp the shadowy figure vanished as if it had been made from fog. Even as the fog settled to the ground a wisp of it swirled and forced itself up her nose and down her throat. E4 coughed, trying to force it back, before an electric tingle shot down her throat and set her to coughing in earnest.

“Huh, what?” Her master sat straight upright, and E4’s eyes widened in panic. She had just broken into her master’s room, and was now holding a knife. She dropped the blade and bolted towards the next car. With strength borne of adrenaline she forced the door open and rushed into the next car.

The kitchen car, as her mistress often called it, held both the kitchen and dining room. To E4’s eyes it looked the same as when she had cleaned it two days prior, yet she had never been there before. A pure white floor without crack or blemish revealed any spills, while the soft yellow electric light from overhead provided for excellent sight. She quickly stepped into the kitchen side, which was separated from the dining room by an island and the laboratory in the back by a small gray wall. She eyed the electric range, a feat of the greatest magic she could not possibly comprehend or use, save for the fact she had used them daily. She shook her head, memories flooding her. She had never been a good cook always making stew and even then burning it, yet she remembered making hamburgers and fries with her friends whose faces she could almost visualize. Baking was a monumental task due to how difficult it was to maintain a constant heat with a charcoal oven yet she remembered cakes and homemade bread, especially when she had been forbidden from stores and her credit cards marked. She paused, buying things with a piece of plastic? That made no sense, only the blessed could create plastic and yet,

“In here.” E4 immediately recognized her mistress’s voice despite having never heard it before. She quickly stepped t The laboratory sat behind a sealed steel door. E4 reached for the latch, a mild jolt running through her hand as she did. Within she was struck by the sight. Rack after rack of jars in all different colors were secured by straps and weights, or had been. The sight of her mistress lying in a pool of her own blood and the shattered remains of some manner of jar sent a spike of ice through her chest. The lab was small, and her mistress’s prone form nearly took up the entirety of it. Careful to step in as little of whatever chemical was now covering the floor E4 managed to lift her mistress and carry her to the kitchen.

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She remembered the first aid kit beneath the sink, and immediately went for it. Rather than a plastic box the kit was made from sturdy wood with metal accents. She opened the box, and for a moment was at a complete loss. The rolled bandages were normal, and band aids were band aids even when they were made from cloth rather than plastic, but the glass jars and bottles confused her. Was the whisky for sterilizing wounds or easing pain? C’pse’ter spit, she thought she had seen one of those once and ran from the horrific beast. Vulture bee honey, Twin rattler venom, Blood slime mold, she had heard of none of it, though the mold seemed to whisper something to her as she held it. Finally she found something very strange, a shadowy glass jar marked Aether Jelly. Despite the glass being smoked it seemed to shine with a strange inner light, and she felt her hair begin to stand on end as she held it. Some instinct told her to drop it and run, for Aether was anathema to all but the Aether Blessed.

Before her training could take hold she opened the jaw, the smell of ozone flooding the room. She heard a low moan as her mistress stirred. “Maid, what are you doing up?”

“Mistress,” E4 spoke, relief filling her voice. Before her lay the woman she loved4 yet she had never met before. Beautiful azure eyes sparked with the inner light of the Ether even as they transitioned from dazed to clear, silky smooth raven hair fell to shoulder length framing a beautiful pale face of high cheek bones and a cute button nose. She wore a sheer white chemise with a black and tan bodice and a skirt that was both scandalously short yet merely knee length. Said skirt was currently smoking from whatever she had been lying in. “Hold still, you are burning.” With practiced precision she drew a scalpel from the first aid kit.

“STOP!” her mistress yelled, and made a gesture. E4 felt every limb seemed to lock up, a sense of shame falling over her. She knelt in submission, a foolish move she did not agree with but felt compelled to obey, and bowed her head. “E4, give me the scalpel

E4 flipped the knife in a maneuver that was both practiced and unfamiliar. Despite the flourish she felt a welling dread within her gut. “Yes Mistress.”

Her entire world seemed to be crashing down. Her mistress was mad, her life was over just as it had begun. Yet that wasn’t right, she was 32, no 20 years old. E4’s mind began to swirl, her thoughts confused.

“Maid, speak your name.”

“Erin, Ere’th… Ere’th’va… E4 Mistress.” All around her the world seemed to fade as some manner of training took hold. The entire world lost color, her mistress’s skin fading to gray and her own thoughts dulling. It reminded her of the first time she was ambushed, falling on training when there was no time for thought. Her voice felt dull and stale in her throat, lacking emotion or inflection.

“Hmmm.” She put a hand on E4’s face. “What are you doing out of bed?”

“Mistress I felt your call.” A part of E4 knew that was the truth, but not how she knew that. Some sort of psychic link or resonant signal? A jolt of excitement shot through her mind at the thought of a resonant signal, not that she could articulate what that was or why.

Her mistress nodded. “Yes, I called for you, and you came.” The world seemed to brighten, color returning to her view. “Now help me get this dress off.” With that she began cutting. “Hold here, and watch yourself. This acid is nasty stuff.”

“Yes mistress.” E4 gripped the hem of the dress as her mistress cut away, leaving herself in a rather revealing set of shorts and a chemise which was actively burning away. E4 noticed her mistress had some burns on her otherwise pale skin, yet she did not seem to be bothered. “Mistress, you are burned. Hold on a moment.” She stepped towards the cupboard and found a metal canister marked baking soda. “I will mix a paste to help neutralize it,”

“It’s hydrochloric acid, lean heavy on the baking soda.” E4 eyed her Mistress as she drew the water to mix the paste, the burn looked more like a mild sunburn than the kind of damage a strong acid did. She remembered being sprayed with it, except there was no way she could have survived that. She was not Aether blessed. “Hmmm? You doubt your mistress?”

“No, never,” E4 lied, and her mistress grinned knowingly, stripping off her bodice and still disintegrating chemise. “Mistress,” E4 covered her eyes while presenting her mistress the pot of baking soda paste she had finished.

“Oh, hush, we’re both women. Give me a hand here.” E4 opened her eyes and got to work. The process came naturally, and it reminded her of treating burns… when had she treated burns? She knew she had, both thermal and chemical, but not the details. “Ok, now a bit of C’psee’ter spit to keep out the rot,” E4 quickly applied the substance, “then a bit of Aether jelly to accelerate the healing.” A4 quickly picked up the jar and opened it, “Wait,” E4 paused, her hand already in the jar of tingling material. It reminded her of petroleum jelly, maybe mixed with capsaicin or menthol, “You shouldn’t touch that, it’s harmful if you’re not Aether Blessed.”

“Oh,” E4 eyed the substance.

“Too late now, might as well get my back. I’ll get the front. Afterwards go to the main room and get the shower going, wash that stuff off. I’ll be right there.”

E4 did her task a little quicker than she might have like, then moved with great haste, slipping into the other car and almost bumping into her master.

“Maid, what is the matter?”

“Master, Mistress…” She realized she did not know her mistress’s name. She didn’t know her master’s name either, which registered as completely natural and quite odd in equal measures. “Mistress is hurt. She asked me to ready the shower.”

“Marissa is hurt? How?” He went to push past E4, yet he froze. “Hold still.” E4 heard a ripping sound, and suddenly was missing her skirt. A part of her wanted to curl up and die right there, while another wanted to sprout claws and… she didn’t have claws, right? “You get in the shower as well, and take off your boots. I don’t want you tracking acid everywhere.”

Needless to say, E4 was red as a beet as she heated the water. The process was magically simple, and she remembered the first time she saw it done even though she had never been in the bathroom. Yet it was not complicated, just a few knobs on pipes, she had dealt with worse.

An itch caught her attention, then a burning. Her hand, the one that was bandaged, it felt like something was crawling in it. Moving to the sink she unwound the bandage. The cut had healed well, the bone had been unnaturally sharp and cut right through the skin and touched the underlying bone. As she watched the skin bulged, and something small and covered in blood pushed its way free.

“Well hello again Mara.” She heard the door open and quickly washed the offending creature down the sink. “Mistress?”

“Right here Dear.” E4 quickly averted her eyes. “What’s wrong, shy?”

“It’s not proper, is all.” E4 felt her mistress put a hand on her shoulder.

“E4, it seems I can’t quite tell if I have a burn on my back, would you mind checking.”