Vettie dipped her head towards her bowl of soup and concentrated on swallowing down the lump of sand that had formed in her throat. Every table in the servants dining hall was full at the 4 am maid rotation, eating breakfast of stew and yesterday’s bread before they dispersed to the hallways and classrooms that defined their days. The usual chatter of the kitchen staff and other maids had gone silent. 

At the center of the room stood Head Mistress Ellise. A figure unchanging as the mountains that ringed the far horizon. A metal brooch was clasped to the left side of her dress. She was the only one permitted to wear such finery. And she was the only one standing.

In her hand, she held a scroll bound with a blue ribbon.

 The crisp edges of her dress and sleek braid defined her against the blur of servants, maid and cooks. Maids wore cloth that could be discarded in case of spill or fire, you never knew which with Alchemists. They could intend to create a tonic for headaches and burn the room down. Vettie had heard it had happened once.

“Fifth Floor. It was Requested.” She said.

The girls shrunk inwards and the silence deepened. In now distant eyes, in hands hidden under tables or in the folds of cheap cotton skirts, as if not moving would cause the room to forget they were there, in shoulders stooped low for their years, hung the weight of the word they had hoped would remain unsaid. A pot on the far end kitchen hearth began to bubble under it’s lid.

Written down on a Task Scroll, imbued with a seal of it’s Purpose and passed to the Head Mistress of the Scullery by Chief of Staff. 

A Request took time to write, for it must be beautifully rendered as to not draw scorn for wasted ink and paper.

 A Request was highly visible. Anyone in the upper staff could see all requests that were made, and could report them ever upwards to anyone they deemed necessary. Requests were debated on panels, coordinated and scheduled to precision and delivered weeks in advance. 

This one had come as a surprise. But to everyone?

Vettie peeked under her curtain of bangs. Mistress Ellise had set her face into impassive marble. Her eyes roamed the room, looking for the twitch of a shoulder, the hint of a shuffle either towards or away from their sworn duty. 

“We are stewards of the Academy and it is our privileged obligation to accept requests from above.” She held out the scroll like a drowned rat. A few of the girls flinched. “One of you must. Today.”

“I will” Came a voice from Vettie’s left. 

Vettie shifted her eyes to see who had spoken. A creak of chairs behind her made it clear other’s were doing the same, though less constrained now that curiosity had replaced fear. 

It was Meridith who had spoken. She worked the second floor auditorium along with 3 others. There were more friends than enemies in this room but the closest of her group sat behind.

Meridith’s cheeks were flushed as if she had been running up a flight of stairs and had only just reached the landing. She put both her hands flat on the table and rose with effort to stand before her usual seat, her friends colored to various shades of pale. Her best friend, Clannae, was purple.

 Her eyes cast a confident glow as she took in the response of the room. She must had thought their expressions were funny, a smile played in the the corners of her mouth. Vettie’s frown deepened.

Mistress Ellise lowered the scroll to her side. The warm relief that had freed the room from their positions begun to fade. 

“Does this task amuse you?” 

“No, Head Mistress.” Meridith replied. 

Her posture wilted against the table as if she needed sudden support, a picture of demure non-defiance. But there was a lilt in her tone, a joke only she shared. 

“You seem eager.” Mistress Ellise said. It was not a question.

“This is an important task, a request as you say, and needs to be completed urgently. I should not wait to perform my privileged obligations.”

Vettie felt a flash of teeth in the word privileged. It made her ears itch. Meridith took a step towards the scroll.

“No.”

“I don’t understand, Head Mistress.”

“No. And I should not have to repeat myself.”

“But I - you asked.”

“Not you.” It carried across the hall in the ring that follows a hammer on a coffin nail. “Another girl will do. Vettani Ker Sen, come here.”

Another hammer strike. 

Vettie had never been called by her mother-given name. It was a name laced with regret, a promise given that could never have been kept. Vettani Ker Sen was the name of a lady, enrobed in security, who touched the world with delicate ease and left perfumed laughter in her wake. 

She looked down at her chaffed hands, her knuckles red from years of scrubbing, fingernails worn to nubs.

 The House of Ker Sen had stood before troubled waters and remained unaltered, a monument to conservative resolve. They counted amongst their numbers high ranking members of court, esteemed Alchemists, artists and one maid.

 It had been her house only briefly. 

There had been a room with red curtains. A garden, bathed in the orange glow of late summer, the world warm and unfolding to her touch. Tables laden with colorful cakes in celebration. Then outside into rain that fell hard as stones against her cloaked shoulders, carrying nothing but her name. 

She steeled herself against a shudder. And moved to stand where Meridith should have been. 

“Yes, Head Mistress?” 

“ It was requested specifically to be done this morning, before the first wave of classes must use the laboratory at 9 o clock. Move with haste, my girl.”

Vettie took the scroll with a bow and headed towards her obligation. 

——

The fifth floor laboratories had been designed by an Alchemist who took more concern with artistic liberties than function. To an Academy student there would be the single hallway stretching the length of the floor with grand buttressed ceilings. The hall was lined with windows that reached from floor to ceiling in single panes of colored glass on one side and doors that led to classrooms on the other. Three of the windows were draped in fine cloth, a rope and sign on each warned of broken glass. Between the windows on columns sat metallic busts of previous teachers, advisers and donors. The walls were papered in heavy purple damask. The floors were rough cut flagstone. 

  In the predawn, before the lamps were lit, it was all rough muted shadows. And places covered in dust. 

Vettie pushed the supplies cart down the central corridor. It was laden with a broom and mops, soap and buckets, cleaning cloths and sponges. The side bag held a rare treat, thick oil skinned gloves and a masked hood with glass paneled eyes. She had not questioned when the storage hand had secured it to the side of the cart, but now the glass eyes unnerved her under the dim light of passing windows. She had never seen anyone wear the hood, there had never been a need to. 

She kept her eye on the doors and her ears on the space behind her. 

 The wheels grated in the uneven divots of the floor. The contents shifting with each jostle. A film of sweat was building down her spine and the bones in her arms ached from stabilizing the cart. 

She switching to pulling and clamored on down the line counting up to her destination.

With relief she found it halfway down the hall and opened it without knocking. The hesitation in the kitchen had cost her time. The cart even more so. She sighed at the useless design tastes of people who never had to clean on a schedule and took in the room. It would be best to form a list, a random approach would only add time and once the clock tower struck nine the students would begin to filter in and she would have to navigate her cart through them. 

Alchemists spent their time contemplating the future, and occasionally debating the past, but the present concerns, especially when it involved a labor of life, as they called it, were deemed less important. Vettie might catch trouble for having wheeled over a toe, if they remembered her face, but if it meant retreating to the safety of her proper ground level sphere, she was willing to take the chance.

 Vettie crossed the room and opened the curtains, sneezed at the drift of dust as it settled on her and turned to face her opponent. Dawn seeped into room and cast grimy shadows. 

Unknown substances coated the tables, the floor and, in some places, the ceiling. There was a riot of glass tubing along the side of the room. The rest were cluttered tables of metal instruments, boxes of unknown substances and stacks of paper. 

Vettie crossed over to examine the beaker contraption and wondered if they also intended for her to wash, dry and replace all of the bottles. Timing wouldn’t allow it, even if they did. Best to start with the floor, and hope the soaps were strong enough.

She pulled on her gloves and, after a small pause, slipped on the mask and went to work.

——

Vettie was on her hands and knees when the door slam came. She froze, one hand braced on the soapy floor the other still on the scrub brush, as loud voices echoed down the hall and the footsteps that followed drew closer. Another door slam, closer this time.

She sent up a prayer to any elemental spirits, if there was such a thing, that might be listening, for those voices to pass her by, for their goal to not be here, not now, and not with her and the floor covered in soap. 

The was a thump and a curse from outside the door. The first voice raised in indignation. A voice with a perpetual whine responded. Then both voices were inside the room. 

“This is where she said.” Said the whining voice. “He’s been holed up here for weeks.”

“And he would just leave it around, yeah? Out in the open for all to see.” Said his companion. He had the voice of someone used to poking holes in other peoples ideas when they failed, and claiming them when they succeeded. 

“You don’t spend all that money to get into the King’s Court, kneel before the King and proclaim that you have successfully pulled of an Elixir of Life if you aren’t sure. Give the old man some credit, Krakio.”

“How could he even be sure? Tried to kill himself and it didn’t work? Got the keys to the kingdom and just shares it with all those pomps?” The voice known as Krakio said.

“That’s what I would do.” 

“Pish. Me, I’d take a stroll along the ocean floor. See if all that immortality stuff can actually be useful.” 

There was some rustling closer to Vettie’s hiding spot. She swallowed down a dust tickle.

“It’s not as if you-”

The second voice had been striding across the floor in long hurried steps. Vettie decided there wasn’t any helpful spirits, or they weren’t in the mood to listen, the moment he hit the floor. 

“Place is stinkin trapped!” Krakio said. “I’m out. You and you’re bad ideas gonna get us both kicked to the gray gutter. I don’t care who you wasted money on for their yappin, he wouldn’t be sloppy enough to leave the elixir here. Unlocked and all.” 

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Sure.” Krakio was farther away now.

The second voice moved to rise and fell again. She heard a long, strained sigh as he gripped the edge of the table, the glass contents rattled precariously as he pulled himself to stand.

The room went still. Vettie held her breath.

 She had lost every coin toss she had ever thrown. If this were a matter of chance, she was doomed. But maybe, if she was silent and quick, she could see her opening. She had lived her life walking across soapy floors and keeping quiet, he was two for two. 

She let go of her grip on the sponge and sat back on her heels, careful to keep her head below the desk. She flexed the ache out of her fingers and prepared to run. 

The air shifted, the moment before a raised hand strikes unprotected flesh, and a dizzy wave descended in a cloud across her vision. The pressure in her head pushed out from her eyes, traveled down her spine, and left a dull throb in the back of her head. A strangled cry then a gurgle came out from the row of desks next to her. Broken bottles followed his descent back to the floor.

She bent over and wretched. Unable to stop as the spasm burned the channels of her veins down into her fingers. It pooled in her lungs to choke her breath. Vettie closed her eyes and smelled rain.

There were voices but she couldn’t hear them. Rough hands that grabbed her arms and pulled her up but she could not open her eyes. She was held and still she fell into a distant place.

There had been a time where hands had been gentle. A garden where the sun didn’t set, and there had been iris and honeysuckle and primrose. The pressure pushed deeper.

There had been a party. Was it hers?

A toy on the stairs. Discarded?

Vettie felt the locks on her heart shudder. She held it cupped in her hands like a hummingbird. It would be so easy to close her hands, hold tighter until the thrumming stopped.

A song at the window. Hers? 

Vettie sat at the bottom of a well. It was darkness as familiar as thought and it was of her own making. Vettie had been in this well before and she knew how to get out. The bird had left her hands. To fly away over the mountains, she hoped. 

She felt knees still wet from the floor, her feet in rough leather shoes, the hands that held her. Vettie pushed the breath into her lungs now, two wings that could carry her out to the small circle of sky. Dreams carry no real pain. She let the ache of years settle into her skin.

And opened her eyes.

The 9 o'clock class stared back.