I hate him. Tesara sat up and stared at her reflection in the window. She was drawn to the points of candlelight floating in the image, candlelight that glowed steadily behind her. She reached out to the cold glass, unlatched it, and pushed it open. The wind rushed in with the smell of the sea behind it. It whipped at Tesara’s hair and touched her lips, cold and wet.
All those little breezes that she made inside the house were a part of this great sea wind. Electricity built up in her fingers and she opened her fingers to let the charge go. The wind reacted with a whirling gust and pushed her back a step.
Oh, no you don’t. Following an instinct, she made two fists and smashed them together. The wind rose with a wintry shriek and blew her off her feet, blowing out all the candles and plunging her into darkness. She landed hard on the floor, her breath knocked out of her. Then, as if changing its mind, the wind suddenly rushed out of her bedroom, leaving the shutter banging crazily in its wake.
A hurricane swamps a sailing ship, a high wave crashing on board the deck, snapping the masts. Ropes snake and lash, and barrels and crates are washed loose from the hold. Water rushes in as the ship heels. Cargo and men slide off the deck and into the sea.
And that was that, she thought, coming back to the present. She had sunk the fleet. The memory was unyielding, stark. For six long years she had tried to deny it, and now for the past half-month, she had tried, unwillingly, to call it back up. She had sunk the fleet and destroyed her family.
The bright sunshine of a Port Saint Frey day dazzled her eyes. Tesara sighed. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the navy of her uniform and she knew that she was in the now, not the past.
You have a choice to make. She could almost hear her sister say the words. You can wallow in your past, as bitter as Alinesse, unable to move forward, or, you can fight it.
She sank the fleet. So be it. Now, the only way to redeem herself was to use those powers to restore her family. If she had learned anything today, working as a housemaid in the house her family had once owned, it was that she had better stop feeling sorry for herself, or this would be her life going forward. And I don’t like it, she thought. I don’t like being a servant one bit.
Tesara gathered herself. She lifted her hands. “Wind,” she said, letting the word slide out between her lips on a breath of air. She waited, struggling for calm, her heart racing all the while. The navy of her dress distracted her; the lemon and oil smell of the furniture polish and ammonia of the cleaning rags clamored for her attention. With an impatient sigh, Tesara opened the windows, letting the wind from the sea come in and sweep all the distractions away.
She closed her eyes. Wind, she thought, more insistently, and then rage overwhelmed her, rage at her predicament and the futility of her position. Wind, you bastard. Wind, I say. I hate you I hate you I hate all of–
Two things happened: a gust of wind blew viciously at Tesara through the open window, slamming the window back against the wall with a bang. And she heard Poll running the carpet sweeper down the hall. With a gasp, Tesara secured the window and fastened it shut. She pushed herself off the window seat, gathered up her cleaning gear, and peeked out of the room. Poll wrestled the carpet sweeper down the stairs. Tesara hurried over to her. “Let me help,” she said, and together they carried the heavy contraption down to the landing.
Poll gave her the stink eye. “What was that bang?”
“Airing the room and a gust of wind caught the window,” Tesara said.
“No one said to do that,” Poll said. Tesara gave her a challenging look back.
“You should, you know. Keeps the mildew from taking hold,” Tesara said, improvising madly.
Poll stood her ground. “Lemon and ammonia rinse takes care of mildew.”
“Stains the baseboards,” Tesara shot back.
To her surprise, Poll blinked. Then she heeled and fired her starboard salvo. “Don’t close the doors behind you,” she said. “I saw you had done that. Master doesn’t like it.”
Fine. Tesara bit back that reply. “All right,” she said, staying calm. It was sickening to be spied on. She wondered if Poll had been told to or if she taken the initiative to keep an eye on the new girl. “Old habit. My last post they didn’t mind.”
“Mmm.” Poll didn’t say anything else, and Tesara ran back upstairs and moved her gear to the next room. Only then did her heart slow enough to consider what had happened. The gust had come out of nowhere. Had she done it? Could she have done it? She had been angry enough, almost as angry as she had been six years ago. Tesara flexed her fingers, and there was something – but it faded before she could capture the feeling.
She could hear servants below her, with Mrs Aristet’s voice in particular floating up the stairs. Tesara walked purposefully toward her father’s study. She knocked on the door just to be sure, and then opened it. It was unoccupied, and she set down her things and looked around. When the room had belonged to her father, it had been cluttered with a merchant’s files. This room was painstakingly organized. There were locked file cabinets and a glass-front bookcase with leather binders. The desk was excruciatingly barren. There was a blotter, a brass inkwell and pen holder, and a squared-off pile of foolscap on the side. Tesara lifted her feather duster and
