Her plans had not survived a single day of Aelisum, but one adjusted or was annihilated, and Mydea rather enjoyed being alive.

When she returned to her room after tea with Princess Mirah—which really felt more like dinner after one tried a little of everything—the first thing that stood out to her was Troia’s bandaged hand being tended to by the other maids. “What happened?” Mydea asked with furrowed brows.

“I burned myself while making some tea,” Troia said with a wince.

Ridiculous, Mydea thought. Troia was no strawborn prodigy like Father was, but she had still completed a classical education at the Thalassian Athenaeum—first on bursary, then with Mydea’s patronage. Regulating heat was well within her capabilities, to say nothing of healing minor burns. Her eyes shifted to Ida and Khloe. “Did either of you see it happen?”

“No, my lady,” Khloe said. “It happened while I was delivering your message.”

“Miss Troia had asked me to get our meals from the kitchens,” Ida said.

Ah, she thought. Troia was hiding something from them. They had no clue how skilled Troia was at magic yet, and so could not tell truth from trickery. “Show me your hand,” Mydea said, a faint glow emanating from her own.

“There’s no need to exert yourself on my behalf,” Troia said as Ida unwrapped the bandaging slowly, as if scared of aggravating her. The burn was an ugly, red blotch branded across her palm, and Troia had applied a salve of honey and lavender over it. There was only one reason to resort to a salve, and that was when water would not work.

Mydea let the light around her hand fade. A curse of some sort? Breaking such things had never been her forte, nor was she a medician by nature like her sister. Even if she were, there was never a guarantee that a curse applied could be unmade.

“Have the hystors examine it on the morrow,” Mydea said. It looked painful, but not perilous. She turned her attention to the other maids and sat. “Help me out of this outfit.”

Their hands brushed against her skin as they pulled off Mydea’s leather half boots, velvet inner shoes, and silk stockings. There was a story in that if one was trained to see. Though she was not the match of a hystor, or a diviner like Tomas, she was still the daughter of Kassandra Kolchis.

Khloe’s callousses spoke of long hours scrubbing pans as a scullery maid, while Ida’s smooth ones revealed a softer sort of life. She’d not risen through the ranks like Khloe had, but had entered the Imperial Palace as a lady’s maid only recently. Nor did she seem subject to the hardships of most strawborn from a younger age, yet Ida did not come from a wealthy family, at least not any more considering she had to support them.

Perhaps they’d fallen into poverty more recently? Ida made no mention of a father, and death could come for any man at any day.

With the influx of nobility brought about by Prince Jaeson’s search for a wife, the stewards of the Seraglio would need to hire extra help to tend to them all. Mydea was hardly a guest of great importance, but assigning her a former scullery maid and an untrained girl was both a slight to Kolchis, and a means of spying on her. She did not imagine either would stay on for long in their new posts once she was gone, and there was some leverage there for her. After all, what scullery maid would want to scrub dishes when she could live an easier life of dressing a stoneborn woman? And Ida needed the coin and was hardly equipped to find gainful employment elsewhere.

Mydea stood, and the pair peeled away at her layer by layer like an onion. First was her wool and fur-lined dress which clung to her like a familiar embrace, then the camisole and petticoats. Ida’s clumsy fingers worked on undoing the backlacing of her corset, while Troia busied herself even with just her weak hand to work with, picking up discarded articles like her leaf-shaped headpiece and storing them away properly.

When she was naught but in her linen chemise, Mydea had made up her mind. “I despise tardiness, and if you continue to serve me, I will not have it in you either. Starting tomorrow, Khloe shall serve in the scullery for a sennight as punishment. To serve as a lady’s maid is a privilege, not a right. Reflect on that.” She turned to Ida. “You’ve escaped the same fate as her, but only narrowly. Be thankful.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Yes, my lady,” Khloe bit out. Ida nodded shakily.

She had thought to send the both of them to work in the scullery as punishment for their earlier delays, but Troia’s injury changed things. Her lady’s maid could hardly see to her needs with only one good hand, and she did not know if her hand could be healed or how long it would take. Ida seemed far more easily intimidated that the threat of punishment might be enough to keep her in line for now, but Khloe was a harder read.

Perhaps it is better this way though, Mydea thought. They did not seem close, and separating them up early on ensured they would not become so anytime soon. Khloe might even come to resent Ida for escaping punishment, especially when she’d risen from a scullery maid to where she was now, while Ida was new yet now her equal.

In any case, this incident ought to teach them to act with haste moving forward, and more importantly, they might think their subterfuge unnoticed in favor of the lesser sin. She had forgotten nothing, but dismissal would see them replaced with the subtler sort and served her little.

No, better they were complacent than cautious.

“You are dismissed,” Mydea said, waving them away. “Troia, a moment if you will. I require your input for tomorrow’s activities.”

A dozen heartbeats passed after the door shut before she sent out wisps of wind to ensure no one was eavesdropping. Any proper door ought to have been warded against wandering ears, but there were forces scheming to steal her secrets already, and she could not be certain her privacy’s protection remained intact.

“What really happened?” Mydea asked, once she thought them reasonably secure.

“I was hiding away the books you’d brought when one of them burned me,” Troia said in a low tone. “Its cover was black leather, but bore no title.”

Father’s journal, Mydea thought with a frown. That was odd though. When she had pilfered it from his room, nothing of the sort had happened. She’d even tested it with her magic and found nothing. She had thought Father’s work unguarded, but perhaps she’d been mistaken. Father’s style of magic was often showy, but he knew how to weave subtle spells too. “Where is it now?”

“Back in the trunk, locked,” Troia said, patting the key in her dress pocket with her uninjured hand. “I left it stashed beneath a few books too to keep it hidden in case one of them managed to break through the lock while I wasn’t present.”

Mydea nodded. A sensible precaution. She walked over to her trunk and Troia inserted the key into the lock. After setting aside a quarter dozen thick tomes, Mydea found it.

Was it blood bound like the grimoires of great families, or was there some curse that had come to life after it left Aigis? Perhaps its protections were activated once Father discovered it was missing? Something else? Taking a deep breath, she touched it—

Nothing. That ruled out the last option at least, though it helped her understanding little. “Until we know more, I am the only one to handle this book,” Mydea said, as she flipped it open. Her face contorted.

There were sketches of birds and pegasi, her mother in various poses, wide landscapes, sprawling structures, and anything else that caught Father’s eye it seemed. She did not understand the purpose of them, but at least she knew what they were. The words were a different matter entirely, written in a cursive, flowing script she could not decipher. It was not any language she knew of, and she was not ignorant in that subject. Some pages had words arranged in ordered blocks that appeared to be stanzas, others in the format of letters, but she didn’t know what they spoke of.

Father could be crafty when he cared to be. Any thief would not only have to contend with his curse, but even the contents would not betray his secrets so easily.

This is a setback, Mydea thought, but surely there is someone in all of Aelisium who will know just what script this is. She copied out a few lines from what she guessed was a poem, which likely wouldn’t raise any suspicions if she showed it to others. She stashed the journal away.

“This arrived for you while you were away,” Troia said as she handed Mydea a letter. “How was tea?”

“It was brewed to perfection. I can only commend Princess Mirah on that,” Mydea said, nodding to herself as she skimmed through Tomas’ reply. “But everything else has put me in a foul mood, myself most of all. I underestimated the forces at work here.”

“You give yourself too little credit, my lady,” Troia said. “I’m sure you did as best as you could.”

Would that be enough to see me through these perilous waters? Mydea thought. “Nevermind that. It is done now, and what remains is to move forward. I shall be meeting with Tomas after breaking fast. He is showing me to the Archive.” Mayhaps she’d ask him if he knew what language the journal was in? It couldn’t hurt anything, and he held fluency in a considerable breadth of languages.

“I shall pick out a suitable outfit,” Troia said. “Will I be accompanying you there?”

“No, see to your hand’s care first,” Mydea said. “I’ll be leaving Ida with you as well. Teach her what you can for now. That girl’s an embarrassment as is, and even if I could trust her, I wouldn’t dare bring her anywhere.”

“As you say, my lady.”