My heart stops. Come back when I’m done? What does she mean? Father might not make it through the hour, much less the time it’ll take to scrub the kitchens down.

“But—”

“Out.”

I hesitate, rocking back and forth on my heels. For a moment, my father’s eyes flutter, and I think he might reprimand Clarissa, but then his mouth parts, and it’s only a cough.

There’s that sloshing sound again.

Tears well in my eyes, but I refuse to give Clarissa the satisfaction, so I rush into the hall, slamming the door behind me.

I lean against the wooden doorframe and give myself to the count of ten.

Bruno’s massive shadow hovers over me as I scrub the filthy stove. He knows better than to assist me—at least, overtly. When Clarissa and her daughters moved into my father’s manor, they brought along a few servants of their own to join the staff. At first, Bruno seemed excited about the extra help, but he knows better now.

We have a theory that Clarissa tips her kitchen maids for bringing her ill reports of the rest of the staff.

Still, he whispers suggestions to me. Which soaps best remove grime. How long to let them seep so that the filth falls away from the iron bars.

I’m grateful, but even with Bruno’s tricks, it’s clear this task will take me hours.

I’m not sure my father will make it that long.

Even as the black sludge drips from the oven grates, I see the dark, bloodied mucus smearing his sheets. I hear his cough in every rattle of the iron grates.

By the time I finish my task, grime stains my skirts and my cheeks are just as soiled. But I don’t mind. The oven is clean, and I’m free to return to my father’s side.

I’m at his door, about to burst through, when my stepsister Elegance waltzes out.

She’s two years my senior, with silky brunette hair, smooth, white skin and full lips that never seem to lose their rosy tint.

I fight the urge to pin her to the wall, to ask what she was doing in my father’s room.

She bounces her eyes over my filthy attire in a single fluid motion. “You can’t go in there like that. You’ll give Papa an infection.”

“He’s not your papa,” I hiss, unable to control my tongue. Elegance doesn’t possess a drop of affection for my father, and by the way her pink lips curl, it’s clear she only calls him such to rile me. I make to push past her, but she sidesteps in front of me.

“He’s already ill enough without you making it worse,” she says, her voice so sweet and high that I often wonder if she spends her mornings frantically scribbling down notes as the nightingales sing directly outside her window.

I know that’s where they perch, as the room used to be mine.

“There’s nothing I can do that will make him any worse, and you know that.”

She quirks a perfectly angled brow. “And why do you say that?”

Because he’s dying. But my stepsister already knows this. She just wants me to have to say it aloud.

“Let me make myself clear,” I say, advancing on Elegance. She backs away, clearly less than eager for my grimy clothes to blemish her satin gown. “If you don’t let me through this door, I will kill you. And I’ll take my own sweet time doing it too. That way, you’ll have years of wondering when it’s coming.”

Elegance shudders, and for a moment, I think I might have her truly terrified of me. Perhaps I should coat myself in kitchen grease more often. But then the door behind her opens and out waltzes Clarissa.

“Mother!” Elegance launches herself toward her mother, clinging to her in relief. That nightingale voice—the one that I’m sure Elegance practices to fool potential suitors into thinking she’s older than a mere fourteen—warps into a childish whine, as it always does around her mother. “Blaise said she’s going to…she’s going to…” Elegance sniffles, and she forces her eyelids closed with such intensity, I wonder if she might pop a blood vessel.

A single tear squeezes out.

“She threatened to kill me.”

Her sniffles grate against my ears, but to Clarissa, they might as well be a siren song.

A few moments later, I find myself being dragged back to the kitchens by my hair.

Clarissa makes me clean the waste bin with it.

My black hair reeks of spoiled fruit and rotten eggs by the time I’m finished.

It’s the egg stench that makes me gag. Every time I move or a draft sneaks through the cracked window of the kitchen, the odor rolls through me, making my bones quaver.

It takes me an additional hour bent over the kitchen basin with a pitcher in hand to rinse the filth out of my hair, but no amount of scrubbing keeps the stink from crashing over me in waves, causing my stomach to churn.

I’ve about given up when a shadow appears in the kitchen doorway.

The kitchen itself has been empty since dinner. The task took all afternoon, and Clarissa commanded the staff to leave me be once they were finished prepping tomorrow’s meals.

I flinch, wondering if it’s Clarissa intending to drag me to my bedroom by my hair again.

“Your father still lives. He’s sleeping peacefully.” I recognize Derek’s voice before he steps into the dimly lit kitchen.

My shoulders sag in relief at the news. Clarissa forbade me from visiting him until the morning, and even then, only if I finished my tasks. If Derek’s report was any different, I’d ignore Clarissa’s commands and run to him now, but I fear if I disobey her, she’ll keep me from him when the hour of his death draws near.

“Thank you for checking on him for me.” My voice is hardly a whimper, but I’m truly grateful. Derek steps toward me, and my muscles go rigid. I’m certain that if I move at all, he’ll smell me.

It’s a foolish thought. I’m just a girl, and Derek is practically a man. Twenty-three, to be exact; his birthday was last week, and I slipped a handmade birthday card under his bedroom door, too embarrassed to sign my name.

My cheeks flush hot when he’s around, and I don’t want him to think I stink.

Derek is one of the servants Clarissa brought with her into the marriage, but he’s different from the rest. He’s tall with naturally pale skin that browns in the summer, and his blue eyes are kind. And he doesn’t rat on me to my stepmother.

“Why’s your hair wet?” he asks, advancing and taking a strand of my soaking hair between his fingers.

My heart thuds and my cheeks warm. Half-mortification, half something else entirely.

“Clarissa made me clean out the waste bin with it.”

I wait for him to drop the lock of hair in disgust, but he doesn’t. He only frowns, his forehead wrinkling. “Fates, she’s cruel.”

His gaze flicks to my face, meeting my stare, and he tucks the strand behind my ear, his warm fingers lingering against the bone.

There’s a tingling sensation all over my body. One I sometimes get when Derek smiles at me, but a million times stronger.