Passion

thought she was being whiny. She couldn’t help it. She was inches away from a breakdown.

“I hate this job. I hate this place. I hate this stupid solstice party and this stupid pheasant soufflé —”

“Lucinda will be at the party tonight,” Bill said suddenly. His voice was infuriatingly calm. “She happens to adore the Constances’ pheasant soufflé.” He flitted up to sit cross-legged on the countertop, his head twisting a creepy 360 degrees around his neck to make sure the two of them were alone.

“Lucinda will be there?” Luce dropped the skillet and her scrub brush into the sudsy tub. “I’m going to talk to her. I’m getting out of this kitchen, and I’m going to talk to her.”

Bill nodded, as if this had been the plan all along. “Just remember your position. If a future version of yourself had popped up at some boarding school party of yours and told you—”

“I would have wanted to know,” Luce said. “Whatever it was, I would have insisted on knowing everything. I would have died to know.”

“Mmm-hmm. Well.” Bill shrugged. “Lucinda won’t. I can guarantee you that.”

“That’s impossible.” Luce shook her head. “She’s … me.”

“Nope. She’s a version of you who has been reared by completely different parents in a very different world. You share a soul, but she’s nothing like you. You’ll see.” He gave her a cryptic grin. “Just proceed with caution.” Bill’s eyes shot toward the door at the front of the large kitchen, which swung open abruptly. “Look lively, Luce!”

He plunked his feet into the washtub and let out a raspy, contented sigh just as Miss McGovern entered, pulling Henrietta by the elbow. The head maid was listing the courses for the evening meal.

“After the stewed prunes…,” she droned.

On the other side of the kitchen, Luce whispered to Bill. “We’re not finished with this conversation.”

His stony feet splashed suds onto her apron. “May I advise you to stop talking to your invisible friends while you’re working? People are going to think you’re crazy.”

“I’m beginning to wonder about that myself.” Luce sighed and stood straight, knowing that was all she was going to get out of Bill, at least until the others had left.

“I’ll expect you and Myrtle to be in tip-top shape this evening,” Miss McGovern said loudly to Henrietta, sending a quick glare back at Luce.

Myrtle. The name Bill had made up on her letters of reference.

“Yes, miss,” Luce said flatly.

“Yes, miss!” There was no sarcasm in Henrietta’s reply. Luce liked Henrietta well enough, if she overlooked how badly the girl needed a bath.

Once Miss McGovern had bustled out of the kitchen and the two girls were alone, Henrietta hopped up on the table next to Luce, swinging her black boots to and fro. She had no idea that Bill was sitting right beside her, mimicking her movements.

“Fancy a plum?” Henrietta asked, pulling two ruby-colored spheres from her apron pocket and holding one out to Luce.

What Luce liked most about the girl was that she never did a drop of work unless the boss was in the room. They each took a bite, grinning as the sweet juice trickled from the sides of their mouths.

“Thought I heard you talking to someone else in here before,” Henrietta said. She raised an eyebrow. “Have you got yourself a fellow, Myrtle? Oh, please don’t say it’s Harry from the stables! He’s a rotter, he is.”

Just then, the kitchen door swung open again, making both girls jump, drop their fruit, and pretend to scrub the nearest dish.

Luce was expecting Miss McGovern, but she froze when she saw two girls in beautiful matching white silk dressing gowns, squealing with laughter as they tore through the filthy kitchen.

One of them was Arriane.

The other—it took Luce a moment to place her—was Annabelle. The hot-pink-headed girl Luce had met for just a moment at Parents’ Day, all the way back at Sword & Cross. She’d introduced herself as Arriane’s sister.

Some sister.

Henrietta kept her eyes down, as if this game of tag through the kitchen were a normal occurrence, as if she might get in trouble if she even pretended to see the two girls—who certainly didn’t see either Luce or Henrietta. It was like the servants blended in with the filthy pots and pans.

Or else Arriane and Annabelle were just laughing too hard. As they squeezed past the pastry-making table, Arriane grabbed a fistful of flour from the marble slab and tossed it in Annabelle’s face.

For half a second, Annabelle looked furious; then she started laughing even harder, grabbing a fistful herself and casting it at Arriane.

They were gasping for air by the time they barreled through the back door, out to the small garden, which led to the big garden, where the sun actually shone and where Daniel might be and where Luce was dying to follow.

Luce couldn’t have pinned down what she was feeling if she’d tried—shock or embarrassment, wonder or frustration?

All of it must have shown on her face, because Henrietta eyed her knowingly and leaned in to whisper, “That lot arrived last night. Someone’s cousins from London, in town for the party.” She walked over to the pastry table. “They nearly wrecked the strawberry pie with their antics. Oh, it must be lovely, being rich. Maybe in our next lives, hey, Myrtle?”

“Ha.” It was all Luce could manage.

“I’m off to set the table, sadly,” Henrietta said, cradling a stack of china under her fleshy pink arm. “Why not have a handful of flour ready to toss, just in case those girls come back this way?” She winked at Luce and pushed the door open with her broad behind, then disappeared into the hallway.

Someone else appeared in her place: a boy, also in a servant’s outfit, his face hidden behind a giant box of groceries. He set them down on the table across the kitchen from Luce.

She started at the sight of his face. At least, having just seen Arriane, she was a little more prepared.

“Roland!”

He twitched when he looked up, then collected himself. As he walked toward her, it was her clothes Roland couldn’t stop staring at. He pointed at her apron. “Why are you dressed like that?”

Luce tugged at the tie on her apron, pulling it off. “I’m not who you think I am.”

He stopped in front of her and stared, turning his head first slightly to the left, then to the right. “Well, you’re the spitting image of another girl I know. Since when do the Biscoes go slumming in the scullery?”

“The Biscoes?”

Roland raised an eyebrow at her, amused. “Oh, I get it. You’re playing at being someone else. What are you calling yourself?”

“Myrtle,” Luce said miserably.

“And you are not the Lucinda Biscoe to whom I served that quince tart on the terrace two days ago?”

“No.” Luce didn’t know what to say, how to convince him. She turned to Bill for help, but he had disappeared even from her view. Of course. Roland, fallen angel that he was, would have been able to see Bill.

“What would Miss Biscoe’s father say if he saw his daughter down here, up to her elbows in grease?” Roland smiled. “It’s a fine prank to pull on him.”

“Roland, it is not a—”

“What are you hiding from up there, anyhow?” Roland jerked his head toward the garden.

A tinny rumbling in the pantry at Luce’s feet revealed where Bill had gone. He seemed to be sending her some kind of signal, only she had no idea what it was. Bill probably wanted her to keep her mouth shut, but what was he going to do, come out and stop her?

A sheen of sweat was visible on Roland’s brow. “Are we alone, Lucinda?”

“Absolutely.”

He cocked his head at her and waited. “I don’t feel that we are.”

The only other presence in the room was Bill. How could Roland sense him when Arriane had not?

“Look, I’m really not the girl you think I am,” Luce said again. “I am a Lucinda, but I—I’m here from the future—it’s hard to explain, actually.” She took a deep breath. “I was born in Thunderbolt,