Oh, Milla.
An attendant, seeing Sela weeping on the terrace, rushed to offer a handkerchief, a cool drink, a cucumber sandwich. Anything to calm and please. The conceit was that the patients at Copperine were, in fact, guests at a proper country estate, and the staff all behaved as though this were the case. Many of the patients chose to believe it, and those who didn't, like Sela, saw no reason to spoil the fantasy. It was nice being treated like a lady, even if the lady couldn't leave her estate. It was far better than what she'd grown up with.
The manor house is very large, bigger than anything Sela has ever seen. Bigger than anything she's ever dreamed of.
Mother told her that she was a very lucky girl, that she must do everything that Lord Tanen and his servants told her. She was Lord Tanen's ward now. Sela didn't know what that meant. Mother had said that she would come to visit Sela soon, but later Sela heard Mother and Father whispering in bed, and Father said, "Why did you lie to her? We'll never see her again." And Mother only cried and said, "What can I do?"
A beautiful room in the manor house has been prepared for her. It's so beautiful and fancy that at first she forgets all about Mother and Father, and the farm, and her friends in the village. At night, though, she cries and misses her family.
Lord Tanen calls the three old women "crones." He says that she is to do everything they tell her, and that if she does not, he will come back and punish her.
"Where will you be?" asks Sela.
"I will be in the city," he says. "But I will come to visit from time to time."
Lord Tanen is old, and his skin looks like Father's old saddle. His breath smells sour. She does not like him, so she is glad he is leaving.
"Don't you want to know why I've brought you here?" he asks her.
Sela hasn't thought about it. She doesn't know what a ward is, but she is a good girl and does as she's told.
"Why?" she asks, because he wants her to.
"Because I have searched far and wide for a special girl like you," he says. "Did you know that you were special?"
"No."
"Do you want to know what makes you special?"
"Okay."
"There might be something inside you called a Gift. Do you know what Gifts are?"
"Magic," says Sela. Everyone knows that. "There are twelve Gifts. But children don't have Gifts and, and farmers don't have them, either."
"That is mostly true," says Lord Tanen. "Children do not express their Gifts; they only manifest during puberty. But there are ways of knowing in advance. And while it is true that the lower classes show a far lower rate of manifestation, it is not unheard-of."
Sela doesn't understand what Tanen is saying, and is getting bored. She looks around her bedroom for something to play with.
"May I have a doll?" she asks.
"You won't have time for dolls," he says.
Sela was sitting quietly in the tearoom when Lord Everess stepped through the door, still shaking the rain from his hair. He was the sort who seemed jolly but, upon closer inspection, was anything but. Even with the Accursed Object damping her down, Sela could see it.
"Sela," said Everess with a curt bow, the benevolent recognition of a nobleman to a woman with no status whatsoever. Under normal conditions, it would have been impossible for Everess even to address her, so there was no appropriate greeting.
"Lord Everess," said Sela, rising and curtseying automatically, as she'd been taught since her earliest childhood. Always ready to please. Always ready to obey.
No. This was not Lord Tanen. All lords were not the same. That's what Everess had told her.
She looked him directly in the eye. "How may I be of service to you, Lord?"
Everess cracked a smile. He took a large pipe from the pocket of his voluminous overcoat and lit it, puffing quietly for a moment before speaking.
"Let me ask you a question, miss. How do you like it here?"
If Everess was expecting a polite response, he wasn't going to get one. "I despise it here," she said simply.
Everess laughed out loud. To him, she was a puppy nipping, nothing more. "Brutally honest as ever, yes. This place hasn't drained that out of you."
"I am what I was made to be," Sela said.
Everess watched her, puffing on his pipe, saying nothing. Letting the silence between them grow dense.
Finally, he spoke. "What is it that you want?" he asked.
"Excuse me?"
"For yourself. What is it that you want for yourself?"
"I've never been asked the question before." Sela thought back. No, it was true. At no time in her life had anyone ever asked her what she wanted; not about anything that mattered.
"Well, it's not a complicated question, however novel," Everess huffed. "If you despise Copperine House, as you say, then where is it that you'd prefer to go?"
Sela glared at him. "You of all people should know that I can't answer that question."
Everess smiled. Of course he knew. And he wanted to be sure that she was focused on what she owed him before he made whatever strange request he was about to make of her.
She decided to answer the question anyway. "I want to be useful," she said, crossing her hands on her lap. The muslin of her skirt settled softly. "I want to be ... good. Do good."
"Ah," said Everess. "Meaning what, exactly?"
"I want for my life to ... mean something. I sense the hours and days and years going by, and nothing I do means anything to anyone. I might as well not even exist. Sometimes I wish that I didn't."
Everess dragged a chair toward the love seat where she sat and planted himself in it, leaning forward. He took her cold hands in his, which were warm and meaty. She smelled tobacco and liquor on his breath.
"Sela," he said. "What if I told you I had an opportunity for you to be useful and good? More useful than you can possibly imagine?"
What game was Everess playing? What fancy of his was this? While Sela had been at Copperine, Everess had visited from time to time. They'd played draughts. He'd checked up on her, asked after her health, made sure she was being taken care of and treated properly. But she had never been under the illusion that he loved her or even cared for her as another Fae. She was a duty of his, and though she'd never understood the exact nature of that duty, she knew the reason for it. It was not the same reason that Lord Tanen had raised her, had invested so much in her upbringing, but it was not far different, she felt now.
"You misunderstand me, Lord Everess," Sela said, stiffening. "I did not say I wished to be used. I said I wished to be useful."
Again the smile. Sela could not think of anything she'd ever said to Everess that had wiped that smile off his face. Someday, she found herself thinking, she would find a way.
"I apologize profusely, miss," said Everess, leaning back and releasing her hands. "I did not mean to imply that."
"Then let us stop circling around it," said Sela. "What is it that you want?"
Everess stood and began making a lap around the room, inspecting the mantelpiece, sniffing at the condition of the wallpaper. "How long have you been at Copperine, Sela?"
More circling, then. "Ten years." She could just as easily have told him the number of days.
"Do you know why I brought you here?" he said.
"I have an assumption," said Sela. "At first, I simply assumed you were being kind, knowing so little of kindness as I did. After a time I came to believe that it was because you could simply think of nothing better to do with me. But now I know why."
"And why is that?"
"Because you believed that at some point I would become a valuable asset to you. And now that time has come."
"Well," said Everess, drawing out the word. "All three of your assumptions are true, to a greater or lesser degree. I did and still do feel very warmly toward you, Sela. And at the time, I certainly had no idea what was to be done with you. You don't really belong here, but I could never figure out where you did belong. And as for your being an asset, Sela ..."