Queen Of Glass

Book 2 Chapter 17

Celaena Sardothien scowled as she scrubbed the marble floor, her back and ears throbbing. A few feet away worked Cindrillion, humming to herself above the racket that charged down from the second floor. They had been washing the main hall for two hours, and had finally worked their way to the base of the grand staircase.
Unfortunately, the closer the young women got to finishing their work, the louder the noise got.
The Baroness was giving Marghenna and Joline a "music lesson," which mostly consisted of the woman playing the same irksome tune over and over again on the piano while one of the daughters tried to follow the tune on the flute and the other brayed the lyrics like a donkey.
Celaena reached towards her bucket and flinched as the singer hit a high note, the flute whining along in an ear- shattering symphony of misery. She wrung the rag, staring down into the frothy bubbles to see a hundred tiny, distorted versions of her face stare back up at her.
It had been two days since her return from Peregrinno, and things seemed to be back to normal. Her initial reception had been outrageously joyous, filled with tears and laughter—they had assumed that she was dead after hearing the horrifying story of the Baroness and her daughters' escape from the coastal town. Little had been said to Cindrillion: thankfully, Luca thought it wise not to announce Celaena's death until Peregrinno's fate was sealed. Instead, he had repeatedly told the young woman that Celaena was still alive and safe, thus preventing Cindrillion from some sort of mental breakdown.
It was probably because of Luca's constant reassurance that Cindrillion was a bit confused when the other three servants had begun whooping and crying with joy when they saw Celaena walk into the kitchen two days ago. Nonetheless, the befuddled servant girl soon received Celaena with the same warmth, but her knowledge was minimal of the extreme peril that Celaena had miraculously escaped.

Celaena moved from the bucket and washed the first step of the staircase, glancing over at Cindrillion. It was for the best that she didn't know about the horrors of Peregrinno. The assassin had even withheld most of her story from Luca, Stephaenya, and Leighanna, stating that she had only fought alongside the townspeople. She had left her sword in the bushes by the first trees of the driveway, knowing that the questions it would produce and the awful thing it contained would cause much more stress than she needed at the moment.
Her hands felt wrinkly and soggy, and Celaena raised them for examination. They were indeed prune-like and ugly. Frowning, she wondered if this was what they would look like when she was old.
Her face contracted in disgust. She didn't want to get old and look like this! Celaena thought of the Fae, and secretly wished that she had also inherited their immortality from her great-grandmother, Mab. She was surprised that Maeve hadn't summoned her yet, but also slightly relieved. She was in no mood or position to recount the battle of Peregrinno.
She tried her best not to think of it, not to think of the little girl she had seen on the battlements, or of the pyre of Colwir, or of the meaty, twisted face of Adarlan's general. The experience hung in the back of her mind like a dark cloud, and Celaena felt sick every time it shot out lightning bolts of memory into her conscious.
She stared at the marble and resumed washing again, wishing that she could wipe away her memories as easily as the rag vanished the dirt and dust that lined the staircase.
Upstairs, a door suddenly shut, and the music was mercifully muffled. Celaena's ears soon picked up a new, more pleasant noise. From behind her, Cindrillion was singing. It was the same tune that one of the sisters was hollering, but it sounded sweeter, more elegant—probably what the Baroness had hoped to achieve when she had shoved her two daughters into the music room for their lesson.
The assassin ceased her washing and turned to look at the young woman, taking a seat on the marble staircase. Cindrillion washed the floor with ease and grace, and her face was free of any signs of exhaustion or frustration. She wore a beige scarf over her head to hold her golden hair back, and Celaena noticed the beautiful symmetry of her face and neck with appreciation and envy. Even in her dull, brown dress and white apron, Cindrillion's lovely features could not be quenched.
So this is why the Baroness keeps her in such conditions.
As the servant girl's silvery voice rose and fell, Celaena felt very self-conscious—almost ugly. She knew, in the depths of her mind, that she was very pretty and graceful in her own right, but while watching the flowing form of Cindrillion, Celaena felt as thick and clumsy as clay.
Cindrillion reached towards the bucket and pulled forth her rag, a wave of bubbles rising up out of the wooden depths. Celaena stared in wonder as the large bubbles seemed to float around Cindrillion, reflecting her singing form as if they were singing themselves. There were hundreds of them: yellow, red, purple, blue—all sorts of colorful bubbles that sang and washed and looked so perfect and lovely that, were it not for the shabby clothes that each figure wore, Celaena would have mistaken Cindrillion for a Fae Queen.
So transfixed was Celaena by the young woman's beauty that she did not notice the trouble that had rampaged across their hours of handiwork. But Cindrillion did. The young woman suddenly snapped out of her musical daze, her eyes going wide in shock and horror, and all of the bubbles popped in unison, as if they all had really been made of Fae magick.
"Oh, you mean, awful little things!" she exclaimed, and Celaena blinked and looked around.
Lentils and dust had been scattered all over the drying floor, and dozens of pairs of slender-toed feet made nonsensical tracks through the mess. The assassin gaped in open-mouthed dismay at the wreckage, and anger and frustration boiled in her veins as she heard several cackles of wicked glee burst from the front doors of the house.
Three exceptionally fat and blue faeries floated in the air, their black eyes shining with delight as they surveyed the damage that they had caused.
Cindrillion threw her rag on the ground as she stood up and pointed at the mess. "You clean that up!" she ordered, and the faeries laughed harder. "You clean it up this instant!" Cindrillion stamped her foot on the floor.