The silence in the galley was complete, deafening. Basile didn’t crack his knuckles; Andersen had abandoned the origami dragon he’d begun with a scrap of paper. Lang’s fork dangled unceremoniously from his right hand.

I thought of Daddy, crouching at my side at the ball to comfort me after Peter’s rejection. He would never be so insensitive. He would never speak to me this way.

I steeled myself, even as I flushed with embarrassment.

“I’m still hungry.” I fixed Perrault with a stare and walked around him and into the galley, where Will was elbow-deep in bread dough. The protocol officer had prepared my plate tonight, and he’d served me a meager helping of food.

I put a small pile of carrots on my plate, my eyes drifting over Will working busily, over the unwashed dishes and carrot tops in the copper sink. Flour smudged the counters, and cold ashes spilled from the oven door onto the protective bricks below.

I took a bite of my carrots, dampened a rag, and began to wipe up the flour.

“Seneschal-elect!” Will blurted out. “What are you doing?”

Perrault’s face was dark over the galley counter. “Yes, what are you doing?”

“Relax,” I said to Will. “There. The counter’s clean.” I turned to Perrault. “I don’t know how you do things in New York. I don’t know what makes a lady, in your eyes. Where I come from, a lady knows how to help people.” I took another bite of my carrots, never taking my eyes off him. “Don’t presume to comment on my food intake again.”

Vishnu began to clap, slow and grand and exaggerated, his handsome face solemn. Deadpan, Jeanne grasped his clasped hands and pressed them to the table.

I took the top plate from the stack in the sink and began to wash it.

The galley door slammed behind Perrault.

Will shook his head at me and sighed. “At least put on an apron.”

The sailors murmured to one another, staring at the door, eyeing me. Lang came to the galley counter. “You can come out. You’ve made your point. We pay people to work on this ship.”

“You’re going to start paying me?” I threw Lang a grin.

A surprised smile broke across his face, and he cocked his head, skeptical.

Lang had seemed old for his age the night I first met him, but his eyes were bright and curious now, the arch of his brows teasing.

He pushed a black-smudged hand through his hair and glanced at the steward, abruptly serious. “She doesn’t use the oven or the stove, Will.”

Will didn’t even pause in his kneading. “No fire. Got it.”