Chapter 7

The hardest part of cleaning was the sorceress’s unceasing gaze. It lingered even when she wasn’t looking at me, making it impossible to relax. The only positive side was that I at least didn’t have to pretend that I had any idea what I was doing. I’d clean something, and Camilla would give me instructions on what to do next, correcting my technique when necessary. The minutes went by, and I began to wonder if there was a way to sneak in some spying somehow. It was impossible so long as she had her eye focused on me, but if I could distract her or somehow get her to leave the room for some reason, I'd have the perfect opportunity.

It was as I was pondering this that she said, “Well, you certainly seem quite… talented.”

I blinked, looking up from where I was, bent over on my knees, and scrubbing the floor. “I do?” I didn’t think I’d be any good at cleaning, considering how new I was at it. Maybe I’d underestimated myself.

Her eyes twinkled as she smiled. “Indeed.”

A moment’s pause and her mouth opened. “I…” she trailed off, her face becoming a complicated mixture of emotions as she looked away from me, appearing to stare at the wall. The sudden shift in demeanor confused me. She looked almost sad, perhaps forlorn, or maybe she was just angry. I couldn’t help but be curious what thoughts were going through her head. When she looked over to me once more, it was not with the confident eyes I expected. For a moment I thought that perhaps she seemed hesitant. It was the sort of look someone had when they felt uncertain, though surely I was just imagining it.

“I need a servant, a lady’s maid,” she said finally. She made another complicated face, before sighing. When her eyes met mine again, the confidence was plainly back, if muted. I’d definitely been imagining it, I thought. “And I’d like you to be that maid.

“I’ll understand if you’re not interested. What I’m looking for is a special kind of maid,” she said, with emphasis on ‘special.’

Slowly, I nodded, as a plan began to form. This was the perfect chance for me, I realized. If I couldn’t find a way to get rid of the curse today, then I’d certainly have future opportunities while pretending to be a maid for her. Being her maid meant being trusted, which meant ample time to do some proper spying. In fact, this was just like in The Chadrin Cycle, where Astere infiltrated the Savage Kingdoms to find a stolen relic.

This was it, I realized. The path of fate I was meant to take. This was what I needed to do to find out how to lift the curse. It was all coming together.

Missing most of what she’d been saying, my mind focused on Camilla once more. Hopefully, I hadn’t missed anything important. “Do you understand?” She raised an eyebrow and stared into my eyes as though she could see straight into my soul.

I gave her a confident smile of my own, hiding my nervousness. “I’d love to.”

She looked momentarily surprised before she eyed me seriously. “Are you certain? I realize that this would mean taking you away from being a maid for your friend Lena. Not to mention the other expectations. It’s a big decision. Don’t think that you need to decide immediately or feel pressured just because of who I am. I don’t want a girl who is here only because she feels obligated or pressured.”

Was she trying to be considerate? That seemed strange. I hadn’t expected a cursed sorceress to be considerate. It didn’t matter though; I’d made my decision. I gave her a firm nod.

“Definitely. I won’t let you down.”

She smiled, apparently somewhat amused by my answer.

“If you’re sure, then. As I mentioned, I’ll only keep you for a few months, and then we can try and get you into a good position with something more stable. Perhaps at the capital, if you desire. Having worked for one of the Marked can be seen as a sign of both bravery and competence. I’m sure we could find something suitable for you.”

“The Marked?” I asked.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you haven’t heard the phrase. Most people often just call us sorcerers or the cursed, but that's not what we call ourselves.” Leaning over, she delicately pulled down her lowcut-robed dress, nearly fully exposing her breast. My face began to steam from the growing heat as I blatantly stared, my desire to look fighting off my will to look away. Along the outside of her breast was a symbol quite similar to the one on my upper-butt. Unlike mine, hers was white and seemed to glow with power. Around it was an expanding tattoo much larger more complex than my own. I couldn’t see all of it without her exposing herself entirely, and I wondered just how far it extended. I nearly asked her to show me the entire thing, before my mind caught back up with me, and I looked away to stare at the floor. What sort of madness had come over me, to even consider asking a lady such a thing? Was this curse lowering my inhibitions?

The sorceress leaned back up, rearranging her dress as she did. Glancing up at her face, I saw the gleam of a mischievous smile. My eyes moved back down to the floor, and I continued blushing madly.

“The next step will be to speak with your family. Unless you’ve already signed onto something with Lena or her father?”

My mind froze as my head moved mechanically from side to side. My family? She intended to speak with my father? Of course she did! It only made sense. I was a girl, or at least pretending to be one, and still living with my Da. It was the sensible thing to do in a situation like this.

I panicked. “Umm, I don’t—surely you don’t—wedon’tneedtodothat.” The words flew out of my mouth in an instant.

She stared down at me, and I squeezed the wooden brush in my hand tighter. “Are you perhaps an orphan?”

“Huh? No. I— I’m not.“

“Or are you worried that they won’t let you? I can assure you that I can be quite persuasive.”

“That’s not…” My mind continued to spin. I had to find a way out of this before my father got involved. There was no way he would simply overlook the fact that I was dressed as a girl, not to mention a maid. On top of that, the fact that I was supposed to be training to take over the library was sure to come up. Any of those things would completely blow my cover, and I didn’t even want to imagine what would happen after that. Not the response of my father or the mysterious sorceress.

“Come on, tell me what’s wrong,” she insisted. "I'm sure we can work through it."

I had to think of something, anything to convince her that this was a terrible idea. “We— we just can’t, umm.” Come on, brain, think of something convincing! “He won’t let me.” I wanted to beat my head against a wall.

She smiled a devilish smile. “Don’t you worry about that. If you truly want this, just let me handle convincing your parents. Even the toughest people can crumble before one of the Marked. They won’t be able to say no, I can assure you. And once they’ve agreed, we can work on convincing them that this is what you want.” She paused. “You are certain that this is what you want?”

I barely hesitated before nodding. “Definitely.” I had to lose this curse, no matter the cost.

“Come along then, I can watch you scrub my floor later.” That was a strange way to phrase that, I thought. She pulled me up from the floor, and together we began moving out of the mansion as I continued to fret over how I was going to get out of this without blowing my cover and getting into gods knew how much trouble.

As we made our way down the main street, I continued to try and convince her to change her mind, which she stubbornly refused to do. For whatever reason, my attempts only seemed to amuse her more than anything. Meanwhile, I wanted to crawl under a large rock as we began to pass people by. The urge to just hide behind the sorceress was strong, despite how ridiculous the idea felt. We were supposed to be enemies, no matter how anxious I felt in the maid outfit, continually fretting that someone would recognize me, or worse, stop and question me. I had to be strong. Both for my own sake and the town. And if I couldn’t stop the cursed sorceress from visiting my father, well, I’d just have to figure out how to get through it without blowing my cover. …somehow. When fate was involved, there had to be a way.

Then I’d be able to find a way to save the town and stop my curse.

I nodded to myself, though I couldn't stop wringing the fabric of my apron in my hands. My thoughts were somewhat reassuring, but my stomach felt queasy.

As we approached the door to the library, I took several deep breaths.

A hand gently touched my shoulder. “It’ll be fine.”

She had no idea, I thought, no idea of what I was truly terrified about. We walked through the door and toward my inevitable demise. My father looked up from the desk, and I froze like a deer as he glanced between the two of us. A hand moved back behind my back, forcing me stiffly forward. As his eyes met my own, he gave me a confusing glance. Did he recognize me? There was no chance he didn’t; I wasn’t that lucky. If anything, today had been a string of incredibly poor luck thus far.

“Good evening. My name is Camilla, and I’m here to discuss something about your daughter if you don’t mind.” I held my breath. We stopped a few meters from the desk, and I stood there stiffly, wishing I could sink into the floor.

My Da closed his book, giving us his full attention. “My daughter?” His confusion was understandable. I was an only child and certainly no daughter, despite how I was dressed.

I bit my lip hard, enough so that I was certain it was bleeding. This was where things would fall apart. But what could I do? I looked down at the floor, not willing to meet either of their eyes as I awaited the inevitable reveal.

“Yes, good sir. You see, I’ve been in search of a new lady’s maid recently and felt your daughter here would be the perfect candidate.”

There was an awkward pause. I didn’t need to look up to know that he was staring at me. My stomach tightened.

“Please, call me Roben. I assume you’re the new sorceress in town everyone’s been fussing over?”

“Certainly, Mr. Roben, and that I am.” I could hear the smile in her voice. My father gave an awkward cough at the title, never having been a fan of formalities. “I spotted your daughter here in the Sunridge mansion up the road, and something in me just knew that she was exactly what I was looking for.” Her hand rubbed my shoulder. “A few months in my service and she could have doors opened up for her that would simply never be possible otherwise. The nobility up at the capital are always looking for competent servants, and I suspect she could go far beyond even that if she so desired.”

“Is that so?”

My eyes peeked upward to see him glancing between the both of us. For a brief moment our eyes met, and I continued my stare toward the floor. Unfortunately, my glance yielded nothing in terms of finding out what exactly he was thinking. His face was as calm and passive as always. If anything, it only made me sweat more.

“Quite so!” Camilla replied. “A truly once in a lifetime opportunity. I understand that she has some prior obligations, but I’m certain we can come to an agreement. After all, Pearl here seemed quite interested in the idea, herself. Right?” She gave me an encouraging pat.

My eyes widened as I looked up, having been put so suddenly on the spot. With a small jerky nod, I looked at my father once more.

“Do you mind if I talk with,” there was only the slightest pause, “her in private for a moment?”

My eyes began to water at the thought of speaking with him about this. It wasn’t anger that I feared, or harsh words. It was the crushing look of disappointment that I knew was coming. What would he say to me, and what would I tell him? Would he think this was a strange prank or game of mine? Or would he see the underlying truth; would he look down at me with a stare of dismay and sadness at my strange and unfulfillable desire for girlhood?

Camilla said something else, but I wasn’t listening as I walked with my father toward the backroom. I suppressed a hiccup as the door closed behind me, and rubbed away the tears that had begun to spill from my eyes. My father turned to me, and in a moment of shock, wrapped me in a hug. My slow tears became a full cry.

“It’s alright, it’s okay,” he said in a soft and gentle voice, rubbing my back as he held me. I didn't know why he was comforting me. He should have been upset. But I'd take it. My arms wrapped around him as I sobbed into his shoulder. He repeated his soothing words as I continued to cry for several long minutes, and my fingers clenched tightly around his shirt.

When my tears began to finally slow, he said, “Just tell me one thing. Is this what you really want? She’s not forcing this on you?” He pulled back away from me, staring deep into my eyes.

I hesitated. “I — she’s not. And…” I paused. “It is.”

To my surprise, he smiled and pulled me into another hug, one briefer than the last. When he pulled away once more, he said, “Just make sure you’re honest with her.”

I nodded, completely baffled. He was buying it? He was seriously not questioning this whole thing? Was this charade actually going to work somehow? I sniffed, rubbing the stray tears from my eyes as I tried to puzzle out in my mind how this whole thing had suddenly flipped for the better. It didn’t make any sense.

“We can talk about this more later. I —“ He paused for a moment. “Your mother would be proud.” His voice was somewhat stilted, and I stared at him in both shock and confusion. He never talked about my mother. It was a sore spot for him that he’d never truly gotten past. I tried to figure out what it was she’d be proud of as he began to guide me back to the door into the library. “Come on, let’s not keep the lady waiting any longer.”

Camilla greeted us both with a smile, and I wondered if she’d somehow overheard the whole thing. I supposed it would make sense that she would have ways to listen in on things.

The two of them talked further, but I couldn't bring myself to focus on it, despite my continuing terror that things would flip for the worse. It wasn’t long after that Camilla and I were walking back out of the library. I was still rather stunned, completely lost in my thoughts.

Somehow it had worked out; though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how. Now I just had to find the information I needed to stop the sorceress’s plan and get rid of my curse. Though, with the hardest parts over, how difficult could it be?