Chapter 2 – The Maid Who Waited

The door opened before I finished fixing my face.

A girl stepped inside carrying a silver tray. She was small. Maybe my age. Brown hair pulled into a tight braid over one shoulder. Her uniform was black and white and pressed within an inch of its life.

Her grey eyes flicked to the floor the second they found me.

Her hands were shaking.

The tea on the tray rattled in tiny, panicked clinks against the porcelain.

“G-good morning, young master.”

I opened my mouth.

Then I closed it.

Then I tried again.

“Morning.”

The single word landed in the room like a brick through a stained glass window. Her shoulders jumped. Actually jumped. Like I’d shouted at her.

She set the tray down on the side table with the care of someone defusing a bomb. Her braid swung across her shoulder. Her grey eyes stayed glued to the marble floor like the floor owed her money.

“Forgive me, young master. I am Lira. Your morning attendant.”

Lira.

Right. Lira. Background character in chapter four. Two lines of dialogue. Cried once. Disappeared.

In the novel, Alex made her cry by throwing a teacup at the wall. The wiki described the scene as “establishing the protagonist’s villainy.”

Cool. Cool cool cool.

I cleared my throat.

“Lira. You don’t have to—”

She flinched.

I stopped mid-sentence. She had flinched at the sound of her own name. Her shoulders pulled up to her ears. Her knuckles went white around the edge of the tray.

The lavender smell from the hallway suddenly felt very loud.

Okay. New plan. Be nice. Be very nice. Be the nicest version of a guy who has not been nice a single day of his fictional life.

“I just meant. Um. Thanks. For the tea.”

Her head snapped up.

Her grey eyes were enormous. Round. Wet at the corners. She looked at me like I had just spoken a forgotten language. Like the words thanks and for the tea had been classified weapons in this household for several years.

“Y-young master?”

“Yes?”

“Are you… unwell?”

I almost laughed.

“Define unwell.”

She didn’t answer. She just stood there, gripping the empty tray to her chest like a shield. Her braid trembled. Her knees were locked so tight I could practically hear them creak.

I took one step forward.

She took two steps back.

The back of her shoes hit the wardrobe.

“Lira.”

“Yes, young master.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

The room went completely silent.

She blinked at me. Once. Twice. Like the sentence was a math problem she couldn’t quite finish. Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

A single tear rolled down her cheek.

Oh no.

“Wait, no, don’t—”

Another tear. Then another. Her lower lip wobbled. She wiped at her face with the corner of the tray, which did not work, because it was a tray.

“I’m so s-sorry, young master.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“I don’t know!”

Past Alex, I thought, you absolute war crime of a human being.

I dragged a hand down my face. The pinky ring scraped my cheek. The whole room smelled like lavender and old trauma.

“Okay. Lira. Listen.”

She sniffed. Hard. Military grade.

“I am not the same.”

She froze.

“I had a weird night. A weird dream. A weird everything. I am trying. Really trying. To be different.”

Her grey eyes locked onto mine.

For one second, I forgot I was a villain on a three week countdown. I forgot the hero. I forgot the story. I just saw a girl my age who had clearly spent years getting verbally power washed by a guy with my exact face.

“Different.”

“Different.”

Her grip on the tray loosened. Just a little. She lowered it from her chest until it hung at her waist like a normal object held by a normal person.

“Young master. Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?”

I blinked.

“Did you just sass me?”

“No, young master.”

“Because that was sass.”

“That was concern, young master.”

“Sounded like sass.”

A microscopic smile cracked the corner of her mouth. It was there for half a second. Then she squashed it dead, the way you would step on a bug, and her face slid back into professional terror.

But I’d seen it. Tiny progress. The kind of progress you’d need an electron microscope to detect.

I’d take it.

“Okay. Pour the tea. Please.”

She moved to the side table. Her hands were still trembling, but less. The teapot tilted. Hot amber poured into the cup in a thin, careful stream. Steam rose between us like a small ghost.

I sat on the edge of the bed.

She didn’t look at me. She placed the cup on a saucer and held it out at arm’s length, like she was feeding a wolf.

I took it.

Our fingers did not touch. She made absolutely sure of that.

“Lira.”

“Young master.”

“How long have you worked here?”

“Three years.”

Three years of getting yelled at by my predecessor. Three years of teacups against walls. The math made my stomach turn.

I sipped the tea.

It was perfect. Of course it was perfect. She’d probably been making it perfectly for three years and getting screamed at anyway.

“It’s good.”

The tray hit the floor.

Just. Dropped. Out of her hands. Hit the marble with a flat, ugly clang and rolled in a slow, lazy circle at her feet.

She stared at it. Then at me. Then at the tray again. Her face went the color of a stop sign.

“I’m so sorry, young master, I’ll—”

“Lira.”

“I’ll clean it, please don’t—”

“Lira. Calm down.”

It happened in a half-breath.

Two simple words. Calm down. The kind of thing you’d say to a friend before a test. Nothing dramatic. Nothing villainous. Just two normal English words pushed out of a normal human mouth.

Except the air shifted.

A weird, soft warmth bloomed somewhere behind my eyes. Like a low hum I could only feel through my teeth. The pinky ring on my hand grew the tiniest bit warmer. The lavender smell got thicker. My voice, on the way out, picked up something that did not belong to it.

A weight. A pull.

Lira went still.

Her shoulders dropped. The panic drained out of her face in real time, like someone had pulled a plug at the bottom of her. Her grey eyes glazed over for half a second, then sharpened again, focused entirely on me.

The tray sat forgotten at her feet.

Oh.

Oh no.

Hypnosis. I’d just used hypnosis. By accident. Because I told a crying girl to calm down.

“Lira?”

She didn’t blink.

“Lira, are you—”

“Young master.”

Her voice was different.

It wasn’t trembling anymore. It wasn’t apologetic. It was low, and even, and sort of dreamy, like she was reading the sentence off the inside of her own forehead.

“Yes?”

“Could you… say something mean to me?”

The teacup paused halfway to my mouth.

The tea inside it had stopped steaming. The lavender smell had stopped existing. All the air in the room had quietly evacuated through the window.

I lowered the cup.

“I’m sorry. What.”

“Anything will do, young master.”

“…What.”

She took one small step toward the bed.

Then another.

Her cheeks were pink. Not the panicked stop sign red from earlier. A different pink. A soft, glowing, deeply concerning pink. Her grey eyes were bright now. Fully alert. Fully locked on me.

She clasped her hands in front of her apron, very polite.

“I have been waiting three years, young master.”

I set the teacup down very, very slowly.

“Waiting for what.”

She smiled.

It was a small smile. A shy smile. The smile of a girl who had found a twenty dollar bill in an old coat pocket. The smile of someone who had just remembered her favorite song.

It was, easily, the most terrifying smile I had ever seen on a human face.

“For someone to mean it.”

The chandelier above us swayed once.

I did not see anyone touch it.

My pinky ring was still warm.

Somewhere far behind my ribs, a small voice that sounded a lot like Serene started to laugh.