Page 87 of Wings of Destruction

This is a space that screams privilege—similar to what I used to take for granted before I understood what it meant to scrub floors.

Maybe Milkin really did mean this as a punishment.

“Hello? Anyone?” I call.

I don’t want to walk in on something I shouldn’t. The bucket sloshes and water splashes, threatening to dampen those blighted cushions. Will the lye stain velvet?

I really don’t want to find out. I’ll have to scrub this place top to bottom. If the cushions don’t need it…

Groaning, my back already pleading with me for a day off, I cut through the room. The showers wait through a curved arch.

Will there be mold growing along the grout lines?

Or worse, some unknowable thing lurking beneath the drain ready to snatch at ankles? Both will benefit from the caress of stiff bristles over the cracks and crevices.

Cleaning a single bathroom is a half day chore under the best circumstances. Cleaning two private showers in addition to the rest of the locker room and changing area… And I don’t even want to consider what the toilet looks like.

Oh, Ether. Is there more than one? Those will need to be scrubbed within an inch of their lives.

And Milkin made this sound like a favor.

My lips twist south, the frown a permanent part of me now.

I drop the bucket without caring how much more water sloshes. Carefully I pick my way along the tiled floor, the showers to the left and alcoves and hooks opposite.

The showers are pristine, like everything else in this place. Even the grout lines are spotless.

“Thank the Void,” I mutter under my breath. At least I won’t be scrubbing hair clogs and soap scum. Everything here is maintained to an impossible standard—not a water spot on the mirrors, not a single towel out of place. The relief should make me feel better, but the perfection still churns my stomach.

I rest my hand against the cool wall and suck air into my body like I’m slowly suffocating and I’m too silly to notice it. Would I still feel this way if I’d been one of the riders here? Not like I’d ever get to use this bathroom. These facilities aren’t for people like me no matter what my mother does.

“Did, Morgan,” I correct. The sound of my voice brings me back from tears. “What she did. Past tense.”

I set the broom against the wall and consider the rest of the tools I brought. There’s a container of polish for the mirrors, and three types of cleaning cloths. The broom, the dustpan…

My arsenal for maintaining perfection that’s already been achieved.

And all I want to do is sleep.

I crane my neck from side to side, but the stubborn aches remain. The stretching only deepens them until a twinging tendon pulls from the corner of my ear all the way along my shoulder and side.

There are no windows here to judge the day’s passing but I’m pretty sure I can sneak a few winks, if I’m careful.

Even a twenty-minute nap will rejuvenate me. Right?

My wishful thinking sounds as dubious as I feel. But the second the whisper of a promised nap lands inside me, my knees sag.

“Okay, got it,” I tell my body. “You’re rebelling.”

Instead of getting to work, I sniff out a private spot in the small parlor parallel to the showers. There’s a rug here, versus tile, and a chair set in front of a full-length mirror. My bones settle as I sag onto the corner behind the chair, drawing my knees up to my chest and resting my head on them. My cheek presses hard against scratchy fabric.

It’s never going to get any better, either. This will be my existence until I’m worn out and tired, like some of the other maids I’ve seen drifting around the castle like ghosts.

They don’t know they’re already dead.

They think they’re living but what kind of life is this?

I’ve aged a decade since coming here.