Becky
Rebecka Erring did not like children, and children, she found, did not much like her. Her little brother was the only exception, but most children were not like her little brother. This child in particular must have been malfunctioning. Lyssa Sage had pulled a chair up to her desk, insisting upon helping her organize, and then the little nuisance had learned of her greatest weakness.
Alphabetizing.
“This goes in that pile, Ms. Sage,” Becky said, pointing to the neighboring stack of papers before smoothing out her tight bun.
“Sorry!” Lyssa jumped around as she straightened the stack she was holding and placed them in the opposite pile. “Shall I put them in your desk drawer?” The little girl yanked open the top drawer, and Becky’s set of keys came tumbling out. “Oh, oops!”
She picked them up, handing them over to Becky before waving at the workers passing by. One intern tucked his shirt in when Becky glared at him.
“Why do you have so many keys, Ms. Erring?”
She didn’t have so very many; it was just a matter of organization and safety. “One of the keys is to my cottage, this one is to the cartography closet, this bronze one is to the weapons room, this one to lock the office windows, and this silver one is to the dungeons belowstairs.” She took the key ring from Lyssa’s grip, but the little girl’s eyes caught on the largest one, plated with gold and etched with a small F.
“What about this one?” Lyssa blinked, pointing to it while shoving another lemon tart into her mouth.
Becky didn’t talk about that one. “It’s to a place I no longer go.” Lyssa pulled the key off the ring. “Then should we get rid of it?”
Her pulse sounded in her ears as she ripped the key from Lyssa’s hand. “No!” When she saw the hurt look on the child’s face, the panic was quickly—and irritatingly—replaced by guilt. “I apologize. I do not like when people take liberties with my things.”
Lyssa leaned in, her orange dress swishing about her tiny feet as she whispered, “Evie doesn’t, either. Whenever I touch her stuff, her face gets all red and she looks like an angry tomato.”
Becky resisted the pull of a grin at her lips, biting her tongue to keep from laughing. “I would like to see that.”
The lunch bell tolled, and Becky stood, calling to the workers walking and flying from the room. “Anyone not back at their posts in sixty minutes on the dot will be docked in pay for the week!”
Those who were walking began to run, and Becky felt a hum of satisfaction when she saw a gleam of wonder in Lyssa’s eyes. Seeking validation from a child was not something she wanted to make a habit of; regardless, it made her feel three inches taller.
“Well then, now that that’s cleared up…” She pushed away from her chair and motioned for Lyssa to join her. “Shall we look for your sister’s silly journal?”
Lyssa shook her head, an unreadable emotion passing over the young girl’s face. “Oh, it’s not silly. Our papa gave it to her! She’s probably very worried it’s gone forever.” Her shoe bumped against Becky’s desk. “Sometimes I worry my papa is, too.”
Oh no. No. She was not equipped to deal with a child’s hurt feelings. She could wring Evie’s neck for putting her in this position. “Your father’s not gone, he’s just…uh…”
“In jail.”
Deadlands take her. “I wouldn’t call the dungeons jail.” She straightened her glasses and frowned when she saw Lyssa pull a knit dragon from her dress pocket. “Where did you get that?”
“Blade gave it to me!” Lyssa had an almost dreamy look on her face—the girl had a crush. Well, that made two of them, tragically.
If Blade would just be less charming, if he wouldn’t smile so much in Becky’s direction, if he would just be less everything, she might be able to stand it. Though she supposed she could do without his petty theft.
“That wasn’t his to give—it’s mine. I thought I’d lost it.”
Lyssa handed it over readily, and Becky considered the toy from her
childhood. It had been a gift from her father, who had fully fueled her obsession with the winged beasts when she was herself a little girl. She swallowed the memory, lest she begin to weep; she detested weeping.
Handing it back to Lyssa, she smiled lightly. “Keep it, actually. I don’t have much need for it now.”
Lyssa stared at her, that wistful expression back. “You have a beautiful smile, Ms. Erring! You should do it all the time.”
She had smiled often…before. But Becky had learned a lesson in the past few years that she would carry with her until the day she laid down for her eternal rest. Bending to meet Lyssa at the little girl’s height, she said, “I do not smile when I don’t feel like it.”
Lyssa blinked, surprised. “Why not?”
“Because we are always expected to plaster a grin on our faces even when we don’t wish to. I used to do it so often, I stopped being able to tell when I was smiling for me or for someone else. So now, I don’t smile unless I’m one hundred percent sure it’s something I want to do, not something someone else wants me to do.” She smoothed a lock of hair away from Lyssa Sage’s face. “And you shouldn’t, either.”
She could almost see the words sinking into Lyssa’s spongelike mind, the girl appearing a little sad as they registered. “I think… I think Evie smiles when she doesn’t want to. I think she does it all the time.”
And there it was—that was it. The reason Becky could barely stand the woman: she was in a constant state of fulfilling the needs of others, and it reminded Becky just a smidge too much of a person she no longer knew.
“Ms. Erring! Ms. Erring!” Marvin burst through the now empty office, interrupting them, sweaty and out of breath. “I’m.” He wheezed. “Sorry— the stairs, they…” He wheezed again. Lyssa handed him her canteen, and the front guard smiled at her. Lyssa paused for a second, contemplating, then smiled back.
Good girl.
“What is it, Marvin?” Becky gathered her stacks of paper and straightened them neatly.
Marvin gripped his middle, and Becky’s blood turned to ice when she realized he wasn’t just out of shape—he was out of his mind with terror. “The ward,” he started. “The ward over the manor. It’s broken!”
“What?” Becky dropped the papers, time dilating around her so they fell almost in slow motion. “What do you mean broken?”
“Massacre Manor,” Marvin said gravely. “It’s visible.”
