Chapter 3 - The Tyrant's Wrath
The next morning, the Astor estate awoke to a brutal frost. The rain had turned to ice, encasing the grounds in a treacherous, glittering shell. Elodie stood in the servant’s lineup at exactly 6:00 AM, her stomach full from the night before, but her nerves frayed to the absolute limit.
Ms. Thorne paced the line like a general inspecting a battalion of condemned soldiers. Her heels clicked sharply against the marble. When she reached Elodie, she stopped. Her pale blue eyes narrowed, scanning Elodie’s face for the exhaustion and despair she so deeply enjoyed inflicting.
Instead, she found Elodie standing slightly taller, a faint hint of color returned to her cheeks.
Ms. Thorne’s lips thinned into a cruel line. She stepped closer, her perfume smelling of cold lilies and antiseptic. "I inspected the West Gallery this morning, Elodie. It was passable. Barely."
"Thank you, ma'am," Elodie said, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the wall ahead.
"However," Ms. Thorne hissed, leaning in so only Elodie could hear. "I do not appreciate defiance. The fact that you managed to finish it without collapsing tells me you have excess energy. The exterior windows in the solarium are frosted over. You will clean them. All of them. From the outside."
A collective, silent gasp rippled through the servant line. It was twenty degrees below freezing outside. Sending a girl out in a thin cotton uniform to scrub ice with water was not a chore; it was torture. It was dangerous.
"Ma'am, the ice..." Elodie started, panic seizing her chest. "I don't have a winter coat."
"Then you had best work quickly to keep your blood pumping," Ms. Thorne smiled, a terrifying, reptilian stretching of her lips. "If there is a single streak on those windows by noon, you will be terminated. Dismissed."
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Ten minutes later, Elodie was outside. The wind howled off the frozen lake, slicing through her thin cotton uniform like a collection of icy razors. Her hands plunged into the bucket of hot water, which was rapidly turning lukewarm, and she began to scrub the massive panes of glass. Within minutes, she couldn't feel her fingers. Her teeth chattered so violently she thought they might crack.
She looked through the glass into the warmth of the solarium. The fire was roaring in the hearth. It felt like a cruel joke, a display of everything she was denied. She scrubbed harder, tears freezing to her cheeks as she thought of Lily, coughing in their damp, drafty apartment. Do it for her, Elodie repeated in her mind like a mantra. Do it for Lily.
