Chapter 6: Flour and Knives

Dane left before dawn, and at the door he paid the first of my three terms.

"One true thing," he said, with his boots in his hand. "She has never shifted in front of me."

"Never?"

"Not once in the two years we've been betrothed."

"She says a lady doesn't change in front of a man until the wedding."

"Do you believe that?"

He looked at me for a long moment.

"I haven't decided."

Then he was gone, and I lay in the wreck of the sheets with my whole body humming.

I hated that it hummed.

I got up and pinned my torn dress with a needle from the window sill.

Then I went down to the kitchens.

The tower door wasn't locked.

Rowena didn't think a servant would be stupid enough to wander.

The kitchens ran under the great hall, a long low cave of ovens and copper pots.

At six in the morning they were already full of steam.

Maud stood at the biggest table with her arms in a tub of dough up to the elbow.

"You're up early," she said without turning.

"I couldn't sleep."

"No. I wouldn't expect you to."

She said it flatly.

I felt my face heat.

She tipped her chin toward a stool.

"Sit. Eat."

She put a bowl of barley porridge in front of me with a lump of butter melting in it.

I ate it all without noticing.

The kitchen hound lay under the table, a big grey one with a torn ear.

He thumped his tail against my ankle.

Dogs liked wolves, and wolves liked dogs.

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