Alizeh had learned to cope with this over time—had found ways to protect herself with small measures—but she was well aware that it was her many physical strengths that’d saved her from worse fates over the years. It was easy, then, for her to imagine how many young women in her position had suffered greater blows than she ever would, though the understanding offered her cold comfort.
The sharp trill of a nightjar suddenly pierced the silence, the sound promptly followed by the hoot of an eagle owl. Alizeh shivered.
What had she been thinking about?
Ah, yes, Mrs. Amina.
Alizeh had been working at Baz House for nearly five months now, and in that time the housekeeper had shown her both unexpected kindness and stunning cruelty. She’d strike the girl across the face for minor infractions, but never once fail to remember Alizeh’s promised allotment of water. She’d threaten the girl constantly, finding fault in faultless work, and demand Alizeh do it again, and again. And then, for no apparent reason at all, she’d permit the lowest ranked servant in the house a fifteen-minute audience with a questionable guest.
Alizeh did not know what to make of the woman.
She realized her musings were strange—strange to be pondering the strangeness of a housekeeper who was doubtless strange even to herself—but this evening was quieter than she liked, causing her hands to twitch from more than mere cold. Alizeh’s reliable, creeping fear of the dark had evolved from uncomfortable to unsettling in the last several minutes, and with so much less to distract the senses tonight than the evening prior, she needed to keep her thoughts loud, and her wits about her.
This last bit was harder to achieve than she’d have hoped. Alizeh felt sluggish as she moved, her eyes begging to close even with the incessant snap of winter against her cheeks. Mrs. Amina had worked the girl to within an inch of her life in the wake of Omid’s visit, tempering a single act of generosity with swift punishment. It was almost as if the housekeeper had sensed Alizeh’s happiness and had made it her business to disabuse the girl of such fanciful notions.
It was unfortunate, then, that Mrs. Amina had very nearly accomplished her goal.
By the end of the workday Alizeh had been so ragged with exhaustion she’d startled when she walked past a window and discovered it dark. She’d been abovestairs most of the day and hardly noticed when the sun was siphoned off into the horizon, and even now, as she stepped from one pool of gaslit cobblestone to another, she could not fathom where the day had gone, or what joys it once held.
The glow of Omid’s visit had faded in the aftermath of many hours of physical toil, and her melancholy was made worse by what seemed the permanent loss of her firefly. Alizeh realized only in its absence that she’d conjured an unreasonable amount of hope at the insect’s initial appearance; the sudden and complete loss of the creature made her think the firefly had found her only by mistake, and that upon realizing its error, had left to begin a fresh search.
A shame, for Alizeh had been looking forward to meeting its owner.
The walk from Baz House to Follad Place came to an abrupt and startling finish; Alizeh had been so lost in her own thoughts, she’d not realized how quickly she’d covered the distance. Her spirits lifting at the prospect of imminent warmth and lamplight, she headed eagerly to the servants’ entrance.
Alizeh stamped her feet against the cold before knocking twice at the imposing wooden door. She wondered, distantly, whether she’d be able to use some of her new earnings to buy a bolt of wool for a proper winter coat.
Maybe even a hat.
Alizeh wedged her carpet bag between her legs, crossed her arms tightly against her chest. It was far more painful to remain unmoving in this weather. True, Alizeh was unnaturally cold at all times—but it really was an uncommonly frigid night. She peered up at the staggering reach of Follad Place, its sharp silhouette pressed in relief against the night sky.
Alizeh knew it to be rare for an illegitimate child to be raised in such a noble home, but it was said that the Lojjan ambassador was an unusual man and had cared for Miss Huda alongside his other children in relative equality. Though Alizeh doubted the veracity of this rumor, she did not dwell upon it. She’d never met Miss Huda, and did not think her own uninformed opinions on the matter would make a jot of difference in the facts as they stood now:
Alizeh was lucky to be here.
Miss Huda was as close to high society as her commissions had ever come, and she’d only even been granted the commission via Miss Huda’s lady’s maid, a woman named Bahar, who’d once stopped Alizeh in the square to offer a compliment on the draping of her skirts. Alizeh had seen an opportunity there and had not squandered it; she quickly informed the young woman that she was a seamstress in her spare hours and offered such services at excellent prices. It was not long thereafter that she’d been engaged to fashion the woman a wedding gown, which her mistress, Miss Huda, had then admired at the ceremony.