A smooth, bronze-colored key dropped into Marilou's hand. Having delivered it, the servant didn't linger.
Marilou tucked the key away and pulled the door to. Viya's rooms were some distance from here, and on her way out she collected the dress.
When she reached the young mistress's rooms, she looked up at the plate on the door first, to be certain she hadn't come to the wrong place.
They were called rooms, but the entire building was Viya's. The place Marilou usually lived in was no more than a small bedroom inside the building where Viya worked; Viya's residence rivaled a royal apartment.
It reminded Marilou of the Wh*te House she'd known in her previous life, another building on the scale of a castle, standing as the center of power.
Marilou knocked lightly a few times, waited a short while, and only then remembered the key in her hand.
So she rolled up her sleeve, drew out the key hidden there, and to the click of the lock cylinder turning, the two half-round doors swung slowly open.
She turned and shut them behind her, changed into slippers, and walked toward the room at the inner end of the ground floor.
A scent reached her nose. Marilou noticed a half-open bottle of perfumed oil on the wooden table beside her; that was where it came from.
She drew her eyes away and changed out of what she was wearing. Her coat fell to her feet, and she saw the slippers Viya usually wore, with her own pair of strawberry-bow slippers beside them, a little dusty by now.
She put her own slippers on and stepped into the steam-wreathed bathroom. The wall of water vapor made her shiver, and the floor was slick enough that a careless step would send her sprawling.
To her left was a spout shaped like a goldfish; all the water in the bathroom came out of that one small mouth. Through the drifting steam, Marilou found the little basket that was hers.
Soap, hair cream and the rest were kept here one bottle per person, each set apart. Marilou went up on her toes and reached for the basket sitting further back.
She took out the towel and bath sponge inside and hung them on the drying rail, then carried the basket down into the shallow pool. The bath was a flight of steps; the further in you went, the deeper the water.
At the point where the water rose slowly past her chest, Marilou fished a tray off the surface, set the soap and hair cream on it, then stepped back and sat down on the step she had just come over.
The murmur of running water filled her ears. Marilou lifted one glistening arm, tipped her head back, and noticed the ceiling above her, patterned with a starry sky and hung with several strings of crystal pendants.
When the air moved they gave off a sound like a song. They were said to be the work of the palace's finest craftsmen, and if you came at different hours you would hear different songs.
"Do, la, sol, me, so..."
Marilou hummed the tune quietly. The Temple's lessons had covered some basic music theory. She spread her five fingers and looked at the clean, pale joints of them.
In her time at the Temple she had been extremely well kept. Her skin was a good deal fairer than it used to be, from the little coal ball she once was to something fair and lovely. If she went back to the village now, hardly anyone would recognize her at a glance.
Marilou stood up, then crouched abruptly, soaking her hair in the water. The strands clung to her body, tracing a graceful line. She reached up for a hair tie and split her hair into two bunches.
Holding the tie lightly in her teeth, she twisted her hair into a practiced knot. When she first crossed over, Marilou hadn't quite taken to these girlish habits, but after more than ten years her frame of mind had long since shifted.
Looking down at the shadowed slopes a draught could blow straight through, Marilou patted the water helplessly. She couldn't get the family banquet Viya had mentioned today out of her head.
Why was it that the closer the contract came to ending, the more often something came up?
In her heart of hearts, Marilou didn't want to go to any banquet. Sitting it out in the house until the contract ended would suit her perfectly.
Marilou slid further down, and slowly fell asleep. When she opened her eyes again, there was a blanket over her.
The bathroom under her feet had turned into a soft bed as well.
She startled a little and shook her head, and only then noticed Viya in the distance, reading something.
Sensing movement from Marilou's side of the room, Viya set down her glasses and her book, walked over with the same cold expression as ever, and spoke without warmth or bite.
"Awake?"
"Wasn't I in the bath?"
The corner of Viya's eye twitched. She set a cup of hot milk on the window cabinet. "You have the nerve to ask. I waited for you in the study all evening. I couldn't find you anywhere, and when I came home I discovered you'd fallen asleep in the bath."
That said, Viya tossed a set of clothes over as well.
Something seemed to occur to Marilou. She lifted the corner of the quilt, saw skin still damp with steam, and hurriedly clamped it shut.
She was bare!
Then didn't that mean—?
"Get dressed. I still have something to discuss with you shortly."
Viya had gone back to her book, entirely indifferent to whatever was happening over on the bed.
"These aren't my clothes."
"I sent yours to be washed. Use my nightclothes for now. There's no difference anyway."
"Oh. So you can actually carry me?"
Marilou couldn't recall what had happened; it was as if a reel of her memory had been cut out.
Viya looked down at the expression on Marilou's face, her shadow falling like a rod across those stammering features.
"What exactly goes through your head? And I've told you before: your body is not to be seen by outsiders. From now on you're not permitted to use anyone else's bath. What if you fell asleep again?"
Viya shut the book. The gloom on her face hadn't lifted at all.
"Surely it's fine at my own home, though? A wooden tub is convenient enough."
"No."
Viya took Marilou's chin between her fingers, as though inspecting something.
"Not bad. Much fairer than when you first came."
Her fingers worked slightly, nails pressing into the pale skin.
"You're pinching me. It hurts."
Marilou tried to turn her head, and Viya let go.
"Fine. Get dressed. And you've drunk all that milk. Is it actually doing anything?"
Marilou's hand, still reaching for the clothes, stiffened for a moment. For days now Viya had insisted she drink milk, a cup morning and night, saying it would boost her bewbs.
"Maybe it just doesn't agree with me."
"Here's the thing, Marilou. Once you're out there, you won't be able to drink milk every day."
Viya said it softly, her gaze still fixed hard on Marilou. If Marilou had to find a word for it, she'd say Viya's stare was rather like a pair of pliers.
For three years now, Viya had held herself to a strict standard, and the same rigor she demanded of herself she extended to everyone around her.
When Marilou first arrived, Viya would drill her even in how she walked, kicking her in the shin whenever it offended the eye, and only feeding her once her walk matched the image in Viya's head.
Even now, not one bit of that had changed.
Last week she'd complained that Marilou's bust couldn't fill out the dress she had ordered.
That was certainly Marilou's problem, and absolutely not a problem with her own eye, so she began forcing all sorts of breast-enlarging foods on her.
If that still fell short, she had padding prepared as well. But remaking the dress simply wasn't on the list of options.
Marilou had wanted to refuse at first, but her boss paid far too much. Still, the boss deserved to get a little something out of it.
So she put on a show after all, arranged a look of resistance on her face, and said:
"Actually, I don't like milk."