ES Chapter 9

And in every corner of it, objects made with an artisan's precise care had been placed—the cumulative effect being that stepping inside felt less like entering a bathroom than walking into a work of art, and inhabiting it.

Slippers had been set out against slipping, though the floor was so utterly dry, so polished, that going without them seemed equally defensible.

Ayesha stepped out of them. Placed one foot carefully on the marble.

Cold. Smooth. It was pleasant.

And come to think of it—nothing here had matched a single expectation. Everything in this manor was a surprise.

Family secrets. Tragedy. A curse.

Hear those words, and the imagination tends to run along familiar lines. A ruined house, gloomy in its neglected corners—and in it, living in isolation, an owner whose mind had gone. A silence thick enough to stop the breath.

Langfield Manor was immaculate. Wherever she looked, light came through clean and even, and the servants' careful attention had reached every surface and every corner.

The servants themselves bore all the marks of rigorous training to the family's standard—moving quietly about their separate tasks throughout the house, and then, the moment Ayesha appeared, withdrawing in perfect unison so as not to be in her way. So swiftly, in fact, that she found herself thinking they needn't have gone quite so far.

After soaking in warm water at her leisure, she went downstairs for breakfast—and came face-to-face with a man sitting alone at a table long enough to seat several dozen.

"Good morning, Ayesha."

A sharp yelp broke from her before she could stifle it.

Ack!

Small. Involuntary.

And it was immediately apparent—from the way the servants began at once bringing out the meal the moment she entered—that he had been here, without eating, waiting for her.

'Oh, for heaven's sake.'

Ayesha thought of the servant assigned to her. House Etheldore had put a woman in charge of her needs—Hana was her name, and she appeared to be in her forties or fifties. 'The age difference was considerable, and she would almost certainly have been told to keep her words careful, so the silence was understandable. But if the master of the house was sitting in the dining room waiting for a guest, shouldn't someone have told me?'

She glanced sideways at the enormous clock on the far wall. The hour was past the point where "morning" could be used with any comfort—a few minutes more and it would have been noon.

'How long had he been sitting there?'

She composed herself. Apologized quickly.

"I'm sorry. I didn't do it on purpose—I had no idea the young master was in the dining room."

"What was it you said just now?"

He asked it at once, the question cutting back before she had finished speaking.

'Had she said something wrong? Or had the whole rush of explanation, the moment she walked in, come across as rude?'

Something lurched in her chest.

She froze.

"...Yes?"

"'Young master.' Did we not agree yesterday to address each other by name?"

'Then you must call me Cyrix as well.'

Right—he had wanted to skip titles and build familiarity quickly. She had forgotten.

Cyrix.

She moved her inner lip, trying to rehearse the name silently.

Her tongue refused.

"That—I'll need a little more time to adjust."

The reason she was keeping the distance was practical: Cyrix was being this warm and easy with her because he believed she was a medium who could solve his problem. If she were found out—or if he changed his mind—she would have been a woman who had treated a nobleman with undue familiarity. That was a genuinely frightening outcome.

"Do not be cross with the maid, please. The instruction not to wake or hurry you—that came from me. You had traveled so far; of course you needed to rest."

Mercifully, Cyrix seemed to hold none of it against her. The embarrassment of having made him wait her very first morning remained, but at least it would compound no further.

"Last night's journey through the rain must have been quite difficult—I asked the kitchen to take particular care with the meal, though I cannot say with any confidence how it has turned out. I do hope it suits you."

That concern, as it turned out, was thoroughly needless.

Every dish the cook brought out suited her exactly.

For someone whose livelihood required eating and sleeping well wherever she found herself, Ayesha was rather particular about food. She did not care for meat with a coarse texture, nor anything strongly-scented; her preference ran to things that were clean and gentle.

The kitchen at Langfield Manor had produced exactly that. Freshly baked white bread, soft from a generous hand of butter. A compote of fruit simmered in sugar, sweet and fresh. The sauce ladled over the fish course she had never seen prepared that way before, but there was nothing difficult or strange in the taste—if anything, it was so exactly right that she found herself wanting to ask what had been combined and how.

The menu had been composed entirely of dishes that required no changing of forks and knives with each course—a consideration, she understood, for her rank. She worked through each plate in turn with unguarded, uncomplicated pleasure.

"Do you primarily use your left hand?"

Cyrix had been watching how she moved. He asked it without particular prelude.

Ayesha paused. The small spoon was still in her left hand, compote half-way to the bread. She looked down at both hands.

"Yes, I'm left-handed. I always sit at the edge of the table for that reason—otherwise my arm knocks into whoever's beside me. I've tried to correct it, but nothing takes. My right hand just doesn't grip properly; I drop things."

Not that the enormous dining table at Langfield Manor presented any such danger—the chairs were spaced generously enough that she could have swung her arm wide without touching anyone.

"Your wrist is weak, perhaps. Or were you ever in an accident?"

"No. I think I was simply born this way. It doesn't interfere with daily life."

"Is the food to your liking?"

"It's wonderful."

Wonderful was rather an understatement—every dish was a genuine discovery—but the man himself seemed indifferent to what was on his plates. He had been without food since before she arrived, yet there was not a trace of hunger in his manner; it seemed, watching him, less like eating than performing the bare minimum of it—chewing and swallowing with the mechanical efficiency of someone completing a necessary task.

'How does he maintain that build, eating this little?'

Out of curiosity, she had been trying to observe him without being seen—glancing sideways, keeping as still as possible.

Her eyes met his, squarely, before she could stop them.

Something clenched in her chest.

Cyrix's eyes were a pure black color—the kind that seemed to absorb all light rather than return any of it. Deep, and darkening past depth into something that could not be measured. What lay beyond them was impossible to guess.

For no reason she could quite identify, they were hard to bear. Eyes one could not hold for long.

A silence settled between them, awkward. Continuing to hold his gaze felt wrong; pulling away sharply would feel rude. She hesitated a moment, then tried to smooth it over with a brief smile—the kind that, naturally, would serve as a mutual signal to look elsewhere.

Cyrix did not look elsewhere.

In the end it was she who looked away first—turning back to her plate, making a show of resuming her meal.

'Why does he stare like that?'

Once she had become aware of it, she found she couldn't stop being aware: she could feel, one by one, where his gaze was resting on her. A moment ago it had been her forehead. Now it had settled on her cheek. Her skin began to glow with a soft heat.

Ah—right. The business. That was why he had been sitting here all morning, waiting.

She had been too absorbed—in the food, in the morning light through the window, in this elegant house and the quietly composed man across from her—none of it bearing the slightest resemblance to the subject he needed to discuss.

A family cursed by a god, wasn't it.

The family's catalogue of tragedies was real enough. But to her ears it still landed somewhere between implausible and preposterous. Her not believing in God was her own affair—but having entered the Etheldore estate under the guise of being a medium, Ayesha was committed to performing the conviction that she could resolve whatever it was Cyrix had brought her here for.

No one with ordinary nerves could have gone on eating pleasantly in this situation.

The food was no longer quite as good as it had been.

Before long, she set down her cutlery.

"We'll bring tea and dessert now that you've finished."

The cook approached and began clearing the plates.

Last to arrive were two cups of hot tea and a full tray of Engadiner Nusstorte. Cyrix made a brief, careless gesture. The cook and all the rest withdrew, leaving the two of them alone in the dining room.

"Ayesha."

At last the moment she had foreseen arrived.