Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1

Seven: Pins

"How long have you been here?"

Nova suppressed a frown and opened her eyes. The otherworld girl crouched by the kitchen fire, staring into the flames. A pile of servant's uniform sat untouched by her feet.

"You're not supposed to talk to me, you know."

There were kinder ways she could have put it, but Grace didn't seem to mind the bluntness. She shifted to sit down cross-legged, still staring.

"Why not?"

It was a simple question and Nova shouldn't have felt so angry about it, but her answer still came out sharper than she intended.

"I'm surprised you can't guess." She flicked her chains to make the point, but Grace wasn't looking this time, either. Her aura was flat, whereas it had been a riot of emotions when Nova had first seen her. The moment her brother had walked out the door was like watching water thrown over a fire; the change was alarming, even Nova had to admit that.

She sighed. "Ten years."

This time the girl glanced over. Her eyes were hazel, unlike the alarmingly vibrant blue of her brother's, and their look was sharp and intelligent. Even the numbness in her aura didn't hide that.

"That's a long time," Grace murmured, and Nova couldn't help but laugh. It had a bitter edge to it.

"You're telling me." She stretched as far as her chains would allow, reaching back to knuckle the gap between her shoulder blades. "I've lived that time. I know how long it is."

"Are you still not changed?"

Grace flinched at Jan's voice, hand falling to the pile of clothes and snatching them up. The housekeeper loomed over them, a hulking shadow with a wild spray of pale hair in the gloom of the kitchen.

"Sorry," she mumbled, "I'll do it now."

"You should have done it an hour ago," Jan said, as Grace staggered to her feet. "Come on, off with you."

Grace nodded and shuffled away, the pile of clothes clutched to her chest. Jan watched her go and then sighed, glancing at Nova.

"She's going to be trouble, isn't she?"

"My bet's on her brother," Nova said, staring at the place where Grace had been sitting. Plenty of servants had talked to her before realising that it was a bad idea and Grace would be the same. It hadn't ever been a particular source of bother for her, but for some reason it bothered her now. No one had ever asked her why they shouldn't talk to her. They usually simply stopped.

"You think so?" Jan said. "I heard he was a drip in the Assembly hall."

Nova said nothing. The flash of green in the boy's eyes had given it all away; even if he was a coward, life as one of the Gifted would beat that out of him sure enough. Unspoken tended to find trouble whether they meant to or not.

What Yddris thought it might achieve to keep that inevitability from even the boy himself, she wasn't sure, but he would have his reasons. He always did.

"Well," Jan said heavily. "We'll see, won't we? Come over here, girl, you've tied it wrong."

Grace emerged from behind the wall in the dark brown maid's dress, holding the strands of her apron in her hands. She looked smaller in it than she had in her otherworld clothes, which were strange and bulky and garishly coloured. She offered the halter to Jan, but the housekeeper simply turned her around in one brisk movement and untied the whole thing.

"Right over left, round the front, back again, tie," she muttered, and then grabbed the two strands left loose. "These go around your neck nice and tight." She tugged at the loose fabric left around Grace's waist. "Kiel's beard, you're thin, girl. This is going to need pinning."