As the Crow Falls | ✔

Chapter One

Niccola snapped her notebook shut on the map contained therein as a door slammed on the second floor of the Bel Ilan manor. A chandelier in the sitting room tinkled as the heavy footsteps and pitched laughter of Lady Selah ve Marama Bel Ilan's two daughters cascaded down the stairs. Lady Selah huffed in her sitting-room chair.

"Ladies," she said as the staircase discharged Leah and Esther onto the main floor. "You are not elephants."

"That was Esther," said Leah with a simpering smile. "You know I walk quietly, mother."

Safe behind the kitchen wall, Niccola grimaced at the end of her half-hour of peace. She itched to open the notebook again. It would be a welcome distraction from whatever inane conversation was about to fill the sitting room, but the risk of getting caught now surpassed her tolerance threshold. She slid the notebook into a drawer instead. Better to resume the pretense of cooking before either sister breezed through to pillage the biscuit tray on the counter beside her.

Getting to her feet, Niccola dropped a pot beneath the tap and set about pumping water.

"And both of us are quieter than that, see?" she heard Leah say from the sitting room.

Lady Selah's reply was lost over the gush of water. Niccola pushed herself until her arms burned. With a comment like that, it took all her self-control not to make more noise just to take back the situation as it slipped from her fingertips, leaving a bitter sting in its wake. But getting into the Bel Ilan household's bad books would sabotage everything she'd spent three moons building, and she couldn't have that just yet. At least this noise alone might still keep the sisters out of the kitchen.

Her reprieve didn't last long. All too soon, water lapped at the line past which the pot risked boiling over, and Niccola was forced to stop filling it. It was incredible, really, how well one could get to know each pot after three moons in a kitchen. Maybe she should start naming them.

"Boil fast, Joah," she muttered, hauling the pot from the sink to the stovetop. There was a vindictive pleasure in seating Leah's boyfriend on the red-hot stove. The real one would benefit from such a searing.

"What are you laughing about?" said a petulant voice in the doorway.

"The bird in the apple tree," lied Niccola. This distracted Leah immediately, as intended. She wandered to the window with a frown as Niccola retrieved more stovewood from the stack by the back door.

Leah's dismayed voice rang from the kitchen. "Niccola! That's a crow!"

Niccola leaned against the wall with a hand over her face. She had not seen the crow arrive. This was what she got for improvising excuses.

"No, there was also a songbird," she said. She grabbed the wood and returned to the kitchen. "The crow just got here."

Leah glared at her. "Well, then I hope it didn't see you laughing at it."

Niccola wanted so badly to say crows hated shrill voices more than they cared about being laughed at, but that truth would do her no favors, either. Also, she was too tired to argue. It would only give Leah more excuses to make her life miserable anyway. She shrugged and crouched to thrust a fresh log into the stove. Sparks and ash billowed out. Leah beat a hasty retreat with her elaborate skirts clutched close. Niccola almost hoped she was gone when she popped her head in the door again.

"Oh, and Esther made a mess in the painting room again," she said. "We're going shopping, and I don't want crumbs on my new shoes when I try them on later. Go clean it up when you're done. And then I want a red kerchief from Phineas's in the marketplace. If you want to talk to crows, you can go do it outside."