Flora’s head whirled. She could hardly keep up.
Who is this lady? What is she doing?
“Uh —”
“Perfect.” The Lady plopped down in an unladylike fashion, her fancy kimono billowing around her. She’d wrinkle it, sitting like that. Flora almost laughed. It was such a careless gesture in such a carefully constructed outfit. The Lady began loosening the strings that bound her — not so much that she’d be indecent, but so that she could breathe more comfortably. It was so casual a gesture, so human, that it hardly seemed right coming from an Imperial.
“Corsets are stupid,” she said. Flora coughed a laugh. The Lady smiled appreciatively at her. She’d been testing the waters, Flora realized, to see if they could be honest with each other. Which, of course, they couldn’t be. “I’m glad you agree, Florian.”
Florian. This time the name was less a mask and more a slap. Snap out of it.
Flora cleared her throat. “Yes, milady.”
The casket sat, finally emptied, in the middle of Evelyn’s cabin. The cabin was small, much smaller than Evelyn might have hoped, so the casket dominated the space.
It was made of fine, deep cherrywood, and her family’s crest — a balloon flower — was carved into its lid and inlaid with gold leaf. Her mother was a stickler for maintaining family pride. Even if her daughter had been sold to the highest bidder to cover her husband’s debts, the Lady Hasegawa would not have her daughter look like a pauper.
The sight of the casket made Evelyn’s skin crawl.
Imperial nobles shipped their casket-laden daughters off daily from Nipran’s shore. This was just the way of things. With so many officers in so many colonies, they couldn’t be expected to marry the locals. The Emperor conquered, yes, but his men were still meant to marry nice Imperial girls, not any natives, no matter how exotic or beautiful they may be. It was stupid across all measures, so far as Evelyn could figure. She was sure Finn Callum would likely rather marry some pretty Floating Islands girl with curls down to her waist and thick, fisherman’s arms, and who could blame him? Evelyn surely didn’t.
But then, here she was.
Death and marriage, both so frankly inevitable, both so unavoidable. Mandatory.
She wondered who her parents would have married if they’d had the choice. Certainly not each other. Her father had served the Emperor all over the Known World. There was likely some half sister or brother in Iwei that she’d never meet. Likely in Crandon, too, in all honesty. He was always chasing after other men’s maid staff. As for her mother, Evelyn hardly knew. She didn’t seem terribly fond of her husband, but then she didn’t seem fond of anyone.
Perhaps the dearth of love between them explained their lack of love for their daughter.
Perhaps Evelyn was just trying to make herself feel better.
She’d always told herself that she wouldn’t be like them. That she’d find love, like the love she read about in her novels. But then, she didn’t love Keiko, not the way Keiko loved her. She loved her, but she wasn’t in love with her. And Keiko was lovely and perfect, kind and patient. If she couldn’t love Keiko, maybe there was something wrong with her, something inherited from her loveless parents. Maybe she was born with a broken heart.
She put aside the letter to Keiko she’d been trying — and failing — to write. What was there to say? Sorry, I’m not in love with you and I never was, but kissing you sure was fun? No. So she instead set about planning an introduction to the syllabaries for Florian. She crossed her legs like a child — how her mother would have hated to see her like that, it was such a crass posture — and used the casket as a makeshift table.
Yes, teaching Florian was a worthy purpose. Maybe the only worthy thing Evelyn would do in her life. Marriage and death would come and take her. There was no fighting that. But she could teach this boy to read. How it was he’d grown up in Crandon and never learned to read was something Evelyn despised thinking about. She had grown up with access to tutors and teachers so plentiful that she’d resented it. And she wasn’t even that smart, if all those tutors were to be believed. But Florian was smart. Evelyn could see it, could see his mind churning unceasingly.
If anything good was to come of her wasted life, it’d be spiriting all the knowledge wasted on her into someone who actually deserved it. The fact that he wasn’t Imperial made it all the better. It would rankle her parents to know that after all the money they’d spent on Evelyn’s education, she would give it away for free. She smiled at that and set about making the best lessons she could muster. She was not a creature of courage, but she was one of spite. This one little rebellion would sate that, at least.
There was a knock on the door then, which violently startled Evelyn. She knocked over her inkwell. The ink spilled, and she knew immediately that it would stain her casket.
“Yes?” she called. She frantically tried to sop up the ink with — due to her lack of options — a corner of the fine kimono she wore. It was one of her mother’s favorites anyway. She was glad it was ruined.
A younger girl — the Lady Ayer’s maid, Evelyn was pretty sure — stepped into the cabin and performed a low, respectful bow. The girl’s eyes darted to the spilled ink, and a look of superior distaste washed over her face. A spark of annoyance shot through Evelyn. She knew she looked ridiculous; there was no need to goggle.
“Yes?” she said again, a little tartly.
The girl shook herself from judgment, clearly remembering her place. She bowed again, lower this time — perhaps a little too low, almost sarcastically low — at Evelyn. “My lady, the Lady Ayer wishes to extend her warmest invitation to her cabin tonight, so that, thanks to the Emperor, you may have supper together.” She kissed her fingers and touched her heart.
“Ah.” Evelyn held her hands aloft, both stained with ink. “Any suggestions here? I’m out of my depth.”
The girl looked at her with obvious disdain. “I’ll send your boy along, my lady.”
Evelyn narrowed her eyes at her. “Yes, thank you. Please do send Florian along, and please send the Lady Ayer my regrets tonight. I’m just so very busy, as you can see.”
The girl bowed, her face sour. She obviously didn’t think it was proper for Evelyn to decline the offer. She was right, of course: it wasn’t. But the last thing Evelyn could stand at the moment was making more polite conversation with her mother’s friend. Not this night, the first night of the voyage. She needed more time to be angry.
“What a little —” Evelyn muttered, but she didn’t finish. The girl wasn’t Imperial. That much Evelyn could see straightaway from the spattering of freckles across her nose, the point of her chin. She may have lost her accent — Evelyn suspected Quark — but she could never escape her face. She’d done a great job adopting the judgmental nature of Imperials, though. Evelyn’s mother would have loved her.
Florian was less impressed with the syllabary lesson than Evelyn might have hoped.
Had she misread him? Not his intelligence — that much was obvious. When she could wrangle his attention, he understood things readily enough. But his interest.
“I just don’t see the point,” he admitted finally.