It didn't take them long to get back, or at least it didn't seem like it took as long as it had to get to the market. Sasha stared at her feet the whole time as they trodded up the cobblestone street toward the palatial mansion.

I maintain that humans are strange things.

Sasha's head whipped around, but she couldn't catch the flashes of black and white that were the crow following him, once again picking the worst possible time to make a nuisance of himself. Her forehead began to heat up. She crossed one arm over her chest and did her best to ignore the creature, concentrating instead on the weight of the basket she carried

Why do you not tell the woman she is bothersome? Is it because your fear she may be correct?

"Go away," she hissed under her breath, eyes darting to the coils of hair on the back of Rosa's head. The woman stopped and turned toward her a bit.

"Did you say something?" she asked, eyebrows cocked, as if she expected an answer Sasha wasn't giving even before she'd had a chance to speak.

"No," Sasha replied. The burn in her forehead crept into her cheeks. Rosa's eyebrows lowered and she let the breath she'd been holding out of her chest. She thought sternly in the crow's direction about roasting him in a stew.

Perhaps that is why you need my help, the animal said, as if it hadn't heard her thoughts at all, though Sasha knew by the poking at the edges of her thoughts that it had. She wanted to shout at it in frustration, but kept her lips sealed instead. She could help herself.

Rosa rolled her eyes in Sasha's general direction as they crossed off the road and onto the dirt walkway that led to the kitchen. Sasha didn't speak. Her face still burned, and her eyes flitted around in an attempt to catch sight of the crow, who had fallen silent. Of course he had.

"Just as a warning, Pirya likes to come down at this hour to harp over my work," Rosa said as she unlocked the back door to the mansion. "Keep your head down and let me do the talking."

Sasha nodded before stepping into the dark hallway and followed her toward the kitchen, careful not to scrape her basket against the walls. She kept her eyes down as instructed and tried not to think about the one-sided conversation they'd had on the way to the market. She didn't think she could bear to look at Rannok, not with Rosa leaning over her like a hawk looking for a meal.

Thankfully, the kitchen was deserted when they stepped inside. Rosa let out an exaggerated sigh of relief from behind her as Sasha's eyes wandered about the room, ears listening carefully for footfalls. There didn't seem to be anyone around after all. She didn't know whether to be relieved or troubled by it.

"That dreadful woman isn't back from whatever it is she does all day," she remarked before placing her own basket on the counter, then beginning to pull items from it. "Peel the potatoes." Her eyes drifted over to Sasha's face. "I don't know where your friend went, if you were wondering."

"I didn't ask," Sasha replied, words slipping off her tongue like a dagger. Heat began to build in her cheeks again. She grabbed a knife and forced it through a potato a little too hard. The edge of the blade dug into her thumb. "Ouch."

Rosa rolled her eyes heavily and set down the chicken she'd picked up to debone. "Don't tell me you've cut yourself already. It's day one, for the Gods' sakes." 

Sasha's eyebrows furrowed as she stuck her thumb in her mouth. A flap of skin hung off the edge of it, and a few drops of blood seeped from the wound. "I'm fine."

"Let me see it," Rosa ordered. She stuck her hand out, palm up, in a way that reminded Sasha of her mother, when she was small. Sasha sighed and held out her hand.

"See?" she said. "It's just a little cut."

"And you are bleeding into the food, therefore wasting it," Rosa remarked. Her eyes darted to the counter. There was a small red stain on one of the potatoes. Sasha grabbed it with her good hand and shoved it into the waste bin.

"I said I'm fine," she said, she held her thumb with her hand to try to staunch the bleeding. She wasn't a child, and she certainly wasn't going to let a woman she'd just met dress her wound as if she was incapable of caring for herself. 

The door clattered open behind her, and Sasha jumped. A small, pale woman with a thin, pointed nose stood in the doorway, eyes fierce, like Sasha had done something wrong without realizing it. Rosa turned away from her and back to the meal.

"When did I authorize new kitchen staff?" the woman demanded, breezing past Sasha as if she weren't even there. Rosa didn't look up from the chicken she was plucking.

"Since I can't get an entire household's worth of food on the table at once, Pirya," she replied, voice as cool as if they'd been discussing what to serve for dinner. Pirya's eyes went to Sasha for a brief moment. They slid down her body as if the woman were appraising a particularly distasteful cart horse.

"Why isn't she working, then?" Pirya demanded. Her arms folded across her chest. "I won't pay a useless servant, you know."

Rosa sighed heavily and threw a handful of feathers into her wastebasket. "She cut her hand. Would you prefer I served your food with human blood all over it, or would you like to wait until she's fixed up before you begin antagonizing her?"

The two women stood, eye-to-eye, for a moment, like two dogs sizing each other up before fighting over a scrap of meat. The air in the room grew tense, and Sasha took a step backwards, closer to the wall. Pirya's eyes widened slightly, then narrowed. "If I see her sitting again I'll fire her myself."

"You'll do no such thing," Rosa said without flinching. She brushed the hair back out of her face and turned back to her work. "Leave me to my job, Pirya, and you can do yours."

The room was silent and tense again for a moment. Pirya sniffed out her nose, then gathered up her cloaks again before leaving back out the way she came. The door slammed behind her, and Rosa set her kitchen knife down.

"Give me your hand," Rosa said. She took a step closer and her voice dropped an octave. Something like fear crawled its way up Sasha's throat. She clamped her hand closer to her chest and took a small step backwards, heart hammering in her throat as her eyes darted for an opening she could fit through, but the door to the kitchen was all the way across the room. 

Rosa's eyebrows rose, the sharp movement almost too subtle for Sasha to notice, before her face softened. She stepped back out of Sasha's space. The air left her lungs in a rush as Rosa picked up a roll of bandages from a basket on one of the shelves and tossed it to her.

"Suit yourself," she said, her voice suddenly much less scary. She turned back to the chicken and sliced her knife deftly through the space where the thigh met the rest of the body. "But you can't bleed on the food. Find something else to do if you can't manage."

A lump rose again in Sasha's throat. Rosa's eyes were unreadable as she continued to work, and a snake of embarrassment stiffened Sasha's spine. It was hard not to feel useless when a loud voice was enough to leave her scrambling for the corner, like a reprimanded dog.

No wonder he won't look at you.

She stuffed the thought down long enough to pick up the roll of bandages so she could wind them around her thumb. The cut was deeper than she'd realized, and the skin underneath shone pink where the knife had sliced through. Blood ran down her hand in a thin stream.

"Ignore Pirya, she has no actual power and she knows it, that's why she's such a shrew," Rosa said over her shoulder, still not looking up. Her shoulders had dropped, and she faced away from Sasha, as if she expected her to bolt like a frightened animal.

"I'm fine," Sasha repeated. Her voice wobbled. She wasn't sure if it was true or not.