The fear that chased Edda from the chamber did not diminish as she and Marta entered the hallway, stepping over the thin, useless line of salt they had laid the day before. Oil lamps nestled within metal braziers flickered them an unwelcome greeting as the door shut, casting a warm but dim light between pools of shadow.

  Yet, these were not the only sources of light to receive them this night. Bleary-eyed and frightened behind their candlesticks, Cintia and Suzsanna passed hushed murmurs between them, lingering at the threshold of their own rooms. They had been awakened by the screaming, of course, and Marta offered the two some words of reassurance as they passed.

  But Edda could not bring herself even to look at them. Almost unconsciously, she had taken the small bottle of lemon balm with her, and she fingered it now within the folds of her skirt. Guilt and a renewed sense of hopelessness settled itself over her as Marta led the way down the tower steps. Edda followed close behind, hovering enough to brush the other woman as they walked.

  How certain she was, now, that Cachtice Castle had been their coffins. That it would be yet again.

  There had been death, of course, in her time as the Countess, and even before then. Death, after all, is one of life’s only certainties, and even a privileged life such as she had lived could not avoid it. Her mother had died when she was still a girl. Marta had died shortly after they had reached the castle. And others had died, too, in the years that followed; from disease, from conflict, from age, even from execution.

  And yet, those deaths had been different. Perhaps it was the invincibility of her youth that had made them so. Perhaps, her own self-absorption rendered even the passing of those close to her something separate, something distant. Mourning was no stranger to her and yet death had been.

  But it was a stranger no longer. She had died once already. Death, which had been but an abstraction, a far horizon, had rushed toward her. It had not been so long ago that she had longed for death in her dungeon cell, fantasized about it through months of deteriorating sanity and physical decay. And when it had come, crisping her skin and cooking her flesh, she had wished for life instead.

  It was hard not to dwell on it, even with the veil of numbness that had descended upon her. Within that hollow cloak, the fear had dimmed; and yet, its edge could still be felt as Marta led them down a set of corridors Edda had never walked before. She knew it must be the servants’ path toward the kitchens. And yet, they felt like the stone bowels of some great beast; darker and narrower than even the cramped and winding halls in the older parts of the castle. Had the missing servant girls made their way through this place? Was this where they had fled from the monsters that roamed Cachtice Castle?

  The implications of that night’s events simmered low in her mind, just waiting for her attention to bring them to a boil.

  Other servants appeared before them, passing intent about their morning’s early errands. Each pale face seemed tight and withdrawn, even as they exchanged quiet greetings with Marta, even as they looked to Edda with silent concern. Did she imagine it? She did not know. But it was clear to her, now. It did not matter what she thought was imagination. It did not matter whether she had passed a night of black dreams, or a night of hallucinations, or a night of bleak reality. None of that mattered, not really.

  In those dreadful whispers the crow had wished her to hear, in those horrifying apparitions she had endured, she had witnessed a vision of death. A death that had befallen a servant girl, she believed, and one that might befall another of the castle’s young women. A death that, just as easily, might be her own.

  She swallowed, feeling faint and stumbling slightly as they wound their way through the labyrinthine passages. She caught herself on Marta’s warm, solid shoulder, hesitating to release her even after the spell had passed; unwilling to lose contact in this unfamiliar place, afraid that she might lose herself in the dark tenor of her thoughts.

  “Miss Edda?” Marta queried softly, worriedly, glancing back toward her.

  They had paused in a shadowy stretch of corridor, lit only by a melting candle upon a ledge. There was a faint smell of beeswax and of the sanded wood below their feet, the planks creaking as a tired looking older manservant passed them with a polite acknowledgment. When he had passed from sight and ear, Edda asked a question she already knew the answer to. “Marta, how long does one mourn the dead?”

  Marta blinked several times, taken aback by the question. She looked in the direction they were going, before taking Edda’s hand and resuming their journey. “Three moons is customary,” she answered in a low tone. There might have been just a hint of something, some exasperation perhaps, in her voice.

  Edda pressed her lips together, and continued walking. She did not release Marta’s hand.

  The smell of baked bread and savory meats wafted toward them well before they felt the heat of the kitchens. Inexplicably, Edda felt her stomach grumble and twist with hunger, a sensation so pronounced that she clutched at her abdomen with her free hand, stiff and swollen though it still was. The moist warmth of the cookfires had begun to condense on her face by the time they came upon the large but otherwise unadorned wooden doors. They had been left slightly ajar, and Marta swung them open to reveal a cavernous room of white-washed stone.

  It was jarring, indeed, to go from the stark stillness of the hallway to this luminous and abundantly outfitted space. Along one side, wicker baskets and barrels were neatly arranged underneath rows of shelves, upon which countless jars and bowls of spices, pickles, preserves, dried goods, and others rested. At the back wall, a long, recessed space had been carved out of the stone; here, fires burned at a low crackle below heavy pots, steam rising from their mouths. And across from where she and Marta stood, a truly impressive door was open, beyond which Edda caught a glimpse of the courtyard in the dusky morning light.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Edda gaped, momentarily stunned out of her stupor that such a place had existed without her ever having known of it. She had not had reason to visit the kitchens. As guest and later as Countess, food had always been brought to her wherever in Cachtice Castle she happened to desire it. Her stomach cramped sharply at the thought of the many meals she had eaten that had originated here. She was hungry, devastatingly so. In fact, the hunger that now gripped her sent a spike of terrible anxiety through her, for it felt not unlike the first time she had gone without food for days; not unlike the beginning of that time when a hunger so hollow and empty had made its home in her body.

  A handful of aproned older women who were already at work looked up at their entrance; two of them were up to their elbows in flour and dough at one end of a long, central table and at the other end, another two wielded knives upon an assortment of tubers. They smiled, calling good mornings to Marta which she returned with a cheerfulness Edda was certain she did not feel. “I’ll be right there to help, Dora,” Marta said to a woman handling a carrot, “Miss Edda’s with me today; I’ll accompany her out for some air first.”

  There was a focal point to the kitchen’s busyness, a hugely rotund woman who bustled from pot to pot, ladling soup and stew, adding pinches of things into the mix. This woman alone had not turned to look at them, and, still without a glance their way, she boomed, “Lukacs’ll have my neck if he knows one of the ladies was down here, Marta.” Her voice seemed to echo in the chamber, reverberating off the high ceilings.

  Edda could see Marta’s shoulders tighten. “She wasn’t well, Ani.”

  The woman, Ani, turned her rosy face toward them. She glistened, as though coated in a slick of oil. “Then you take her someplace else. This ain’t no place for the ladies, Marta. This ain’t no physician’s quarters.” Marta seemed to bristle, but she was silent. Ani addressed Edda with her eyes, two dark almonds set high above the apples of her cheeks. “No disrespect, Miss. None meant.”

  Edda nodded, and with the movement, dark spots peppered her vision. She swayed, clutching for Marta who made an exclamation of surprise. Even Ani’s plump face, set as it was with displeasure, crumbled quickly into concern. Edda’s stomach folded in on itself, and it was like she had returned to the dungeons again. It was like all she had eaten for weeks were curds of spoiled milk and dried straw.

  And that with the smell of food all around her.

  The other women had stopped what they were doing. Marta now supported her, and Ani had gathered in close, raising her plum-like hands to help. Vaguely, Edda knew that they said her name, but as her sight narrowed further, as her belly wrenched within her, she found herself too weak to hear them, unable to even consider a response. Her lips were too heavy, her throat too constricted to form a scream, but she knew that as soon as the darkness took her, she would awaken in her cell as nothing more than a ravenous existence of bone and pain.

  It closed in.

  At the edge of consciousness, with only a pinprick of light left in her eyes, she was aware of fat fingers prying open her mouth. Something was shoved in, a cube of something hard that, almost immediately, began to spread sweetness upon her tongue. Her terror seemed to dissipate as it dissolved. She sucked on it greedily until it had all but disappeared, and another took its place. And another, and then several more.

  A feeling of coolness against her back was the first sensation she noticed, apart from the blessed taste in her mouth. Gradually, the chalky stone of the high ceiling reappeared above her. They had set her down against a barrel, and when she looked about her, it was as though she were shielded by a curtain of skirts, so crowded in around her the women were. Marta was among them, she was sure. Their words came and went, mentions of healers and physicians. She could not focus well, but she was not in her cell, and that was enough for now.

  A cup was brought to her lips, and cool herbal water entered her, dribbling down her chin before she could swallow it all. She was parched as well as hungry, she realized, raising her hands to take the cup from whomever held it. She downed it with a series of decidedly uncouth gulps; but she needed it. And she needed food.

  “S-something to eat,” she choked out.

  The skirts parted, and Ani’s bulky form filled her field of view. Her voice was loud, but the earlier irritation had gone from it, “I’d knew you’d want for it. I’d seen starving looks before.” The woman bent, surprisingly nimble, and with her proximity came a tray, stacked high with hot bread, and cold meat and butter and cheese.

  Before it had even been placed on her lap, Edda reached for the first thing her fingers found; a slice of cheese that gave pleasantly to her teeth and was sharp on her tongue where before sweetness had lingered. Then, a piece of cured meat, salty but delicious. And finally, a heel of bread so hot that it burnt her fingertips and melted the butter as she dipped it; but it was fluffy and malty and wonderfully solid.

  She ate until the tray was cleared, until every crumb was inside of her and even the traces of butter had been licked from its small dish. And then, Ani wordlessly replaced it with a fresh helping, and Edda ate even more, until her shriveled stomach reinflated, until the gnawing hunger was replaced by uncomfortable fullness. Only then did Ani gently wrangle the tray from her hands, and Edda felt only a momentary regret to see it go.

  By that time, the other women had returned to their workstations—Edda listened as Ani berated them back into place—and only Marta hovered about her, speechless with worry. But words spilled out of her as Ani approached again, words of apology and of gratitude and of self-deprecation, which Ani promptly halted with an upheld hand. “There’ll be none starving under my eye, Marta. I’m no physician, but I’m a cook, and the Miss was hungry. It’ll be alright.”

  Were there tears in Marta’s eyes? Edda could not be sure from this distance. But slowly, Marta nodded, whispering her thanks and allowing Ani to guide her over to one side of the long table where a sack of potatoes were now being handily peeled. With a deep breath, and more than one tense glance Edda’s way, Marta’s hands grew busy and, as they did, the creases on her face began to soften.

  And somehow, someway, Edda felt herself softening as well, in the warm, rhythmic clamor of the kitchens; surrounded by Marta and Ani and the other women who toiled quietly, each of them taking turns to look over at her with far more tenderness and care than she deserved. She felt no hunger or pain or even fear. Not even discomfort plagued her at her seat upon the stone floor, with the curved barrel hard against her back. Now, she was well and truly exhausted, having reached the far ends of what she was capable of handling.

  And, just like that, her head dropped forward, and she slept.