Rooksgrave was in mourning.Of the girls, only Cassie had been lost, inhaling too much smoke on her trek to rescue her gentleman. Plenty of others had burns that needed tending or men who were missing somewhere in the bowels of the manor, buried by the fire.
No one seemed to notice me moving in and out of their rooms, building up fires, delivering broth with herbs floating on the surface, changing the water in baths gone stale. The brownies didn't care that I wasn't one of them or that I was their employer's lover. They had work that needed doing and I was managing it.
I had never given much thought to my role in service. It had been my only option, at least in polite society. It was almost reassuring now to return to the role of the maid, to forget that I was one of the manor ladies. That I had possibly lost two of my men in the attack.
"Esther. Esther? What are you doing?"
I'd been dressing a small bed one of the brownies had fashioned with clean linens, my hair braided back and the sleeves of my dress rolled up. I blinked as I straightened, crashing back to the present moment as I found Magdalena in front of me. She was still in her dirty robe, slightly less smudged with soot, but her eyes and nose were red, and the cut on her collarbone looked untended.
"Helping."
"You should rest."
I don't know which of the two of us looked worse, it might've been a tie, but I just shook my head, searching the small room I was in until I found the pitcher of warm water I'd brought up.
"Sit, I'll clean your cut."
"Esther," Magdalena repeated softly, my shoulders rising toward my ears. She sighed and then moved to sit on the trunk at the foot of the small bed.
The room was up on the highest story of the house, and I thought it might've been a child's nursery at one point, the walls dressed in cheery yellow paper with little pink blossoms.
"What a disappointment I've proven to be, hmm?"
The bowl and pitcher in my hands rattled, a little splashing out over the lip. My eyes widened on Magdalena, her slouched form, the sheepish smile that trembled in place.
"You?" I asked, kneeling on the rug in front of her, grabbing a clean rag from my pocket and pouring out the water into the bowl.
"I promised you girls safety. I promised my clients privacy."
"It isn't your fault that Birsha attacked, Magdalena."
"It was my responsibility to protect the house. I don't know if Siobhan was forced to give up the invitation that let those ifrit in or if she did so willingly…" Magdalena's lips pursed, eyes flinching as I started to clean the wound. It was shallow, a bad scratch more than anything. "I'm just a witch. I read auras and find happy pairs. I'm not—"
"Then maybe you need more help," I said, shrugging.
"I think it might be a little late for that, darling girl," Magdalena whispered, eyes welling with tears. "We lost one of our girls. Gentlemen will try and talk theirs away, find somewhere better to hide them from Birsha. That's what he wants anyway. My tools and notes and collections of letters are all burned up now. A lifetime's work."
"I think a monster who wants a nice boy or girl who will appreciate them deserves to have a witch like you help find that person," I said, back straightening. "You aren't useless. If you were, Birsha wouldn't have bothered attacking. How do you think us girls feel? I'm just human, Magdalena, I can't even go back to the manor to search for Aug—" My breath hiccuped and I squeezed my eyes shut, hands fisting at my side and water dripping down to the floor.
"I'm sorry, Esther. I am. I'm sorry, you're right," Magdalena hushed, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. "You're right. The vampire wing below ground is secure, it might be fine, you know? And Mr. MacKenna is an extremely resourceful young man. You shouldn't give up hope."
I wiggled away from Magdalena's embrace, trying to bury more of the sobs that wanted to swallow me up, rubbing any stray tears off on the shoulders of my dress. I blinked at her, my friend or my employer, the pair of us haggard and hopeless and miserable together.
"If I shouldn't, neither should you," I said, falling back to sit on the floor. "So you have a specialty in your magic, you don't need to be ashamed of that. You just need to find someone else to worry about the protection, right? Why should Birsha win?"
Magdalena straightened, eyes glaring over my head. "He shouldn't. Of course not." Her lips curled, eyes dropping to mine. "You're right. As usual, darling."
Something like a laugh fell out of me at the praise.
"Magdalena!" a tight voice called from the hall, a familiar one too.
I rose on weak legs as Jonathon appeared in the doorway, whole body heaving with a great sigh as he found me.
"You're back already?" I asked.
His eyebrows bounced. "It's nearly dawn, love. Why weren't you resting? No, silly question."
"What did you find?" I pressed, staring over his shoulder as if I might see—
"The tunnels to the vampires did cave in, but Booker thinks Ezra made it much farther. And there was another path nearby, so it's possible—"
"But not them," I said softly.
Jonathon slumped and I shook my head, running for him and swinging my arms around his shoulders, the room and the hall blurring.
"But it's good news," I said, nodding against his shoulder. It wasn't what I wanted, but Jonathon and the others had spent the whole night searching. They wanted to find Ezra and Auguste as badly as I did.
"I don't know. I want it to be," Jonathon whispered, arms finally circling my waist and squeezing tight. "There is good news for you if you want it, Magda. Downstairs."
Magda swayed in her seat on the trunk, looking as though good news might have to wait for her to get a few hours of sleep. Then she lurched to her feet and nodded, tidying the robe around her with incredible dignity, even when the hem was singed and frayed. All her pretty silks, her jewelry, that was gone too.
So was mine for that matter, although they had only been presents and I'd barely grown used to them. They were nothing next to what else I was missing after the fire.
Jonathon's forehead rested against mine as Magdalena passed us, heading back for the stairs, "I'm sorry we didn't find—"
I turned my face to his, pressing my mouth there in a firm closed kiss, my arms squeezing a little tighter around him. He answered in kind, leaning into me until my shoulders were against the hall wall.
"I don't think he's gone, Esther. I really don't," Jonathon whispered.