Page 42 of The Thirteenth Count

“And you just accept it?”

Willem leaned forward, his green eyes serious. “We survive it, Fern. There’s a difference.”

He nodded at the book. “Cassius is trying to teach you something, you know. He’s not just torturing you with records.”

“Could have fooled me,” she grumbled, taking a bite of the apple. It was crisp, tart. It tasted like real food, not the rich, heavy suppers sent up to her rooms.

“He’s showing you the gears,” Willem said. “Most people look at the Keep and see a castle. Cassius sees a machine. He’s trying to show you how to read the blueprints.”

“Why?”

“Because if you know how a machine works,” Willem said, a strange glint in his eye, “you know where to put the wrench to break it.”

Fern froze mid-chew. She looked at Willem. He was smiling again, that easy, charming smile, but his words hung heavy in the air.

“Eat up,” he said, hopping off the table. “Lina will be wondering where you are. And trust me, you don’t want to worry Lina. She gets… motherly.”

The blue suite was warm when she returned, the fire built high against the night’s chill.

Lina was waiting. She took one look at Fern—at the ink-stained fingers, the slumped shoulders, the hollow look in her eyes—and she didn’t say a word.

She simply guided Fern to the vanity stool and began to unbutton the grey wool dress.

“He kept you late,” Lina murmured, her hands deft and gentle.

“He made me copy the ledgers,” Fern said, her voice dull. “All of them.”

“Ah.” Lina slid the dress off Fern’s shoulders. “The Economy of Pain.”

Fern looked at her reflection in the looking glass. She looked older than she had a week ago. “Is that what you call it?”

“It’s what it is.” Lina picked up a jar of salve—lavender and fat—and took Fern’s hands. She began to rub the balm into the ink-stained skin.

“Does it ever come off?” Fern asked, looking at the black smudges.

“The ink?” Lina asked. “Eventually. If you scrub hard enough.”

“No,” Fern whispered. “The knowledge. Knowing… knowing what this place runs on.”

Lina paused. She looked at Fern’s hands, then met her eyes in the looking glass.

“No,” she said softly. “That stain stays forever.”

Fern closed her eyes, leaning into Lina’s touch. “He called me a deficit. He said I have to prove I’m worth the cost.”

“Then show him,” Lina said fiercely. “Not by their rules, Fern. By yours. They think power is something you take. Show them power is something you are.”

Fern opened her eyes. She looked at her hands: stained, tired, but steady.

“I will,” she whispered.

She would learn their numbers. She would balance their books. And then, when she knew exactly what she was worth to them, she would find a way to make them pay.

There were very few places in Blackwell Keep where Fern could almost breathe. The library had become her haven. Hardly anyone frequented the space, save for a few servants grabbing books, and its silence and solitude were cherished. That is, when a lifetime of learning wasn’t being crammed down her throat each day.

It was the second week of her confinement—she refused to call it a “stay”—and her world had shrunk to the size of Cassius Blackwell’s curriculum. Sanguine Mechanics. The History of the Valley. Etiquette for the Elevated Heart.

“Again,” Cassius said.