“If they look spoiled to you, my lady, imagine how they seem to us lowly maids.” Audrina hesitated, eyes wide again. “Begging your pardon, my lady, if I speak out of turn.”

“Of course not.” Akeylah winced. “You’re right, I can’t fathom what it must be like for you here. I can only say I sympathize. My father… Well, he treated me like something even worse than a servant. Like an abomination.”

Audrina flashed her a curious look. “Mine too,” she finally replied. Then she reached for a door. “The baths are through here, my lady.”

Akeylah tailed her into the narrow room. At first, it took a moment for the scene within to make sense. All she saw was billowing steam, thick and humid in the blindingly white room. Then enough steam cleared for her to see, and her heart dropped.

Two figures resolved through the mist. One at the edge of the bath, prone, and the other in the midst of tugging the first from the water.

“Well, don’t just stand there!” the second figure barked, and Akeylah recognized the girl Ren was always feuding with in the dining hall. Sarella.

“Do something,” Sarella snapped, and only then did Akeylah truly process what was happening.

Only then did she see her sister, clad in nothing but a strip of modesty cloth, spiky short hair plastered to her inert face.

Ren.

“Call the menders,” Akeylah ordered to Audrina, whose jaw had gone slack with shock. The shout seemed to rouse her, and Audrina dashed toward the bells that hung along the far wall, like they did in every room of the Keep, there for nobles to summon their maids or to call for help in an emergency.

At the same time, Akeylah dashed toward Ren.

“I came in for a bath.” Sarella was panting. “My damned private tub has sprung a leak, so I’m forced down here like some commoner—”

“What happened?” Akeylah dropped to her knees beside her sister. Her skirts immediately soaked through with the water puddled around Ren’s body.

“I found her floating on her stomach. I managed to pull her out, but…” Sarella gestured helplessly.

Akeylah bent to hold her cheek next to Ren’s mouth while her fingers groped under Ren’s chin. No breath. A pulse, but soft and fading fast.

Akeylah tilted her sister’s head up and back.

“What are you doing?” Sarella asked.

Akeylah had never done this before, but she’d watched sailors perform it enough times. Life in a seaside town with frequent storms meant she’d seen more than her fair share of unlucky trawlers fished out of the port and onto the docks, half-drowned and unresponsive.

Ignoring Sarella’s question, Akeylah pinched her sister’s nose and inhaled. Then she planted her mouth over Ren’s parted lips and blew.

She sat back. Watched. Waited.