“Peace, Mary, peace,” said the man. “They’re travelers—foundlings. They came through a door, and this is their first night of three.”
The woman didn’t look reassured. If anything, she looked more concerned. “They’re quite dirty,” she said. “Best give them to me, so’s I can give them a bath, and they don’t disturb your dinner.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “They’re eating with me. Notify the kitchen that I’ll require two plates of whatever it is that children eat.”
“Yes, m’lord,” said Mary, bobbing a quick and anxious curtsey. She was not old, but she was not young either; she looked like one of the neighborhood women who were sometimes hired to watch Jack and Jill during the summer, when their parents had to work. Camp was too messy and loud for Jack, and summer enrichment programs could only fill so many hours of the day. Childcare, distasteful as it was, was sometimes the only option.
(Age was the only thing Mary had in common with those poised and perfect ladies, who always came with credentials and references and carpetbags filled with activities for them to share. Mary’s hair was brown and curly and looked as likely to steal a hairbrush as it was to yield before it. Her eyes were the cloudy gray of used dishwater, and she stood at the sort of rigid attention that spoke of bone-deep exhaustion. Had she shown up on the doorstep seeking work, Serena Wolcott would have turned her away on sight. Jack trusted her instantly. Jill did not.)
Mary gave the girls one last anxious look before heading for the door on the other side of the room. She was almost there when the man cleared his throat, stopping her dead in her tracks.
“Tell Ivan to send for Dr. Bleak,” he said. “I haven’t forgotten our agreement.”
“Yes, m’lord,” she said, and she was gone.
The man turned to Jack and Jill, smiling when he saw how intently they were watching him. “Dinner will be ready soon, and I’m sure that you will find it to your liking,” he said. “Don’t let Mary frighten you. Three days I promised, and three days you’ll have, before you need to fear anything within these walls.”
“What happens when the three days are over?” asked Jill, who had long since learned that games had rules, and that rules needed to be followed.
“Come,” said the man. “Sit.”
He walked to the head of the table, where he settled at the place that had been set for him. Jill sat on his left. Jack moved to sit beside her, and he shook his head, indicating the place on his right.
“If I’m to have a matching pair for three days, I may as well enjoy it,” he said. “Don’t worry. There’s nothing to fear from me.” The word yet seemed to hang, unspoken but implied, over the three of them.
But ah, Jack had seen very few horror movies in her day, and Jill, who might have been better prepared to interpret the signs, was exhausted and overwhelmed and still dizzy with the novelty of spending a day in the company of her sister without fighting. They sat where they were told, and they were still sitting there when Mary returned, followed by two silent, hollow-cheeked men in black tailcoats that hung almost to their knees. Each of the men was carrying a silver-domed plate.
“Ah, good,” said the man. “How were these prepared?”
“The kitchen-witch conjured things that are pleasing to children,” said Mary, voice stiff, chin raised. “She promises their satisfaction.”
“Excellent,” said the man. “Girls? Which will you have?”
“The left, please,” said Jill, remembering every scrap of manners she had ever possessed. Her stomach rumbled loudly, and the man laughed, and everything felt like it was going to be all right. They were safe. There were walls around them, and food was being put in front of them, and the watching eye of the bloody moon was far away, watching the scrubland instead of the sisters.
The men set their trays down in front of the sisters, whisking the silver domes away. In front of Jack, half a rabbit, roasted and served over an assortment of vegetables: plain food, peasant food, the sort of thing she might, given time, have learned to prepare for herself. There was a slice of bread and a square of cheese, and she had been raised to be polite, even when she didn’t want to be; she did not complain about the strange shape of her meat, or the rough skins of the vegetables, which had been cooked perfectly, but in a more rustic manner than she was accustomed to.
In front of Jill, three slices of red roast beef, so rare that it was bleeding into the mashed potatoes and the spinach that surrounded it. No bread, no cheese, but a silver goblet full of fresh milk. The metal was covered in fine drops of condensation, like dew.
“Please,” said the man. “Eat.” Mary reached over and took the silver dome from his food, revealing a plate that looked very much like Jill’s. His goblet matched hers as well, although the contents were darker; wine, perhaps. It looked like the wine their father sometimes drank with dinner.
Jack hoped that it was wine.
Jill began to eat immediately, falling on her food like a starving thing. She might have wrinkled her nose at meat that rare at home, but she hadn’t eaten in more than a day; she would have eaten meat raw if it meant that she was eating something. Jack wanted to be more cautious. She wanted to see whether this stranger drugged her sister, or something worse, before she let her guard down. But she was so hungry, and the food smelled so good, and the man had said they’d be safe in his house for three days. Everything was strange, and they still didn’t know his name—
She stopped in the act of reaching for her fork, turning to look at him with wide eyes while she frantically tried to kick Jill under the table. Her legs were too short and the table was too wide; she missed by more than a foot. “We don’t know your name,” she said, voice a little shrill. “That means you’re a stranger. We’re not even supposed to talk to strangers.”
Mary paled, which Jack would have thought was impossible; the woman had almost no color in her to start with. The two silent servers took a step backward, putting their backs to the wall. And the man, the strange, nameless man in his red-lined cloak, looked amused.
“You don’t know my name because you haven’t earned it, little foundling,” he said. “Most call me ‘Master,’ here. You may call me the same.”
Jack stared at him and held her tongue, unsure of what she could possibly say; unsure of what would be safe to say. It was plain as the moon in the sky that the people who worked for this man were afraid of him. She just didn’t know why, and until she knew why, she didn’t want to say anything at all.
“You should eat,” said the man, not unkindly. “Unless you’d prefer what your sister is having?”