Page 69 of The Alien's Cruel Starfrost Domain

While Ramira is distracted by Adefina,Kila wriggles out of my hold to flit over the back of the maid’s neck, and sunlight shimmers across a dusting of glittering motes floating down through the air.

But by the time Ramira raises her hand to the back of her neck and glances up suspiciously, Kila is standing on my shoulder again, her hands on her hips, head tilted.

Ramira regards us narrowly. “You’d best be careful, human.” She says the last word with a disgusted sneer. “His Lordship will turn you out if you’re not careful.”

“Oh, God. I can only hope,” I mutter.

Ramira’s expression turns shocked, as if she cannot imagine anyone wanting to be anywhere but trapped in this frozen hell. And to be fair, she probably can’t.

With matching flounces, the two housemaids turn and head back into the main house.

“That probably wasn’t the smartest thing you’ve ever done,” I say, my glance taking in both Adefina and Kila.

Kila snickers. “She’ll be itching like crazy in about a click.”

Adefina shrugs, unconcerned. “It would take more than the likes of those two to worry me.”

As the cook heads back to work, it occurs to me that I’ve never asked her how she ended up here. Is she a prisoner like Kila and I are, bought by Ivrael for some unfathomable reason? Or is she here of her own volition?

I’m about to open my mouth to quiz her on it when she shoos me away with a tea towel. “You have work to do,” she reminds me, and my chance to ask her is gone.

As I head out to take care of the fireplaces in the duke’s chambers, it occurs to me that if my plan to go to the firelords actually works, there are a lot of things I’ll never get the chance to find out.

Not least of all why, exactly, the duke bought me in the first place. Why he’s kept me here working in his home, Cinderella-style, for almost a year.

I tell myself I don’t care, don’t need to know.

And part of me already knows—at least part of it.

At least, I think I do.

For almost two full Trasqo months—what the Caix call double moon-cycles—after Ivrael had retrieved me from the graveyard, Adefina didn’t allow me to go anywhere alone, always sending one of the housemaids or Fintan or even Kila, still the newest member of the household, with me.

Until the morning I realized Adefina was having trouble with her magic—the same morning I began to realize there was more to my presence in Starfrost Manor than Ivrael’s need for a kitchen drudge.

I had scraped out the fireplace and glanced at the pile of new wood Fintan had already neatly stacked by the fireplace when I woke up that morning. “You know, I can go get firewood all by myself.”

Adefina gave me a sidelong look. “How can I be certain you’re not going to run away?”

“I don’t plan to try that again,” I lied smoothly. “Those cemetery monsters of yours taught me my lesson.”

“Not my cemetery monsters,” Adefina muttered. “The Starcaix know how to keep our dead asleep in the ground where they belong.”

I snorted and went back to getting the fire going again as Adefina began putting together Ivrael’s morning tray. After a moment, though, she huffed out an irritated sigh.

“Not again,” she muttered, passing her hands over the morning’s bread a second and then a third time. The warming spell flickered and died, leaving the loaves cold and hard.

She shot a worried glance at the kitchen door before trying once more.

This time the spell held, but I could see the strain in her face, beads of sweat dotted across her forehead.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She forced a smile. “Just tired, child. The magic takes more effort these days.” She arranged the bread on the duke’sbreakfast tray, her hands trembling slightly. “Time was I could warm fifty loaves with a single gesture. Now three feels like lifting boulders.”

I wanted to ask more, but another look at the exhaustion in her expression convinced me to wait until another time, and I turned back to the fire—a task I could complete without any magic at all.

As soon as the cook’s attention was diverted, Kila flitted over to my shoulder, where she promptly took a seat and leaned in to whisper directly into my ear. “That was a non-truth.”

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