As the days tick by to the finals, Silas does not approach me again – at least during the daytime. After sunset, he comes to my chamber for a fresh set of bandages. I change them in silence, and start skipping dinner to get him out faster, which only puts me in a worse mood when he brings leftovers from the Mess Hall.

"Evening," he says conversationally, when I open the door.

"Hurry up." I pull him inside my chamber before someone sees and accidentally close the door over the corner of my skirt. 

He reaches for it, but I knock his hand aside, figuring he would probably tear it in his impatience. It's not lost on me that other mortals have probably lost their lives for doing a lot less to a fae, but I don't think Silas would kill me. At least, not before I finish the other two cave walls.

Then, while Silas eats, I get to work on his back. 

"Hungry?" he asks, gesturing at one of his bread rolls. It's lightly toasted and glazed with butter and salt – the good stuff we coppers are only allowed to make, never touch.

My stomach clenches, but I reach over his plate to grab some more bandages instead. "Am I going to be more in your debt if I eat that? Is there some fine print about accepting food from a fae?"

"No, I just thought you looked hungry."

I squint at him. "So?"

"So I'm trying to get a reaction from you." He turns his head faintly, just enough to be able to see me over his shoulder. "Should I try being cruel, next?"

Was he on edge now that I started pushing back against his orders? Wondering what would get me back in line faster, favors or threats? But I didn't need a reason to be a good scribe. I will draw those cave walls to the best of my abilities so he has no reason to demand more of me or come back knocking on my door.

"You want a reaction?" I say. "Burn a page."

That earns me a dull look. "You're already charging me a page each time I enter your chamber and get my wounds treated. What's next, a page for every word I say?"

"I should charge you for the air you breathe," I mumble darkly, dabbing a wet rag across some more of his dried blood. 

His wounds are still pink and tender, the beast's claws no doubt possessing some magical properties to further slow his healing. 

He won't be able to fight in another month, much less tomorrow's finals.

•••oOo•••

When I reach the kitchen for breakfast, everyone goes silent, like all the air has been sucked out of the chamber. The coppers stare at me, a sea of frigid faces, and we all stand and stare for a three-second time span that feels like it lasts an eternity. 

Madame breaks it, with that cool, sharp voice of hers, ordering everyone but me to leave. On the way out, a silkie calls me a whore on her way out of the kitchen, and two more knock into my shoulder.

If it wasn't clear before, it is now. Madame knows I am the copper that kissed Silas and humiliated her daughter. I thumb the black band on my finger, wondering if I am in enough danger to call Silas.

"You three," Madame says, pointing at the largest three males. One must be half-ogre or giant because his body is wider than I am tall, and his biceps are bigger than my head. "Stay."

Okay, time to call Silas. While I whisper his name under my breath, so quiet that my lips barely move, Madame drops a bucket of water at my feet. Then she smacks a bag of flour off the countertop, and it explodes on the floor in a cloud of white. 

"Clean it."

Just as I glance at the door, ready to run, one of Madame's muscles sets a hand on my shoulder. He must be half-ogre or giant because his palm alone is bigger than my head. With the pinch of his thumb, he could crush my skull like a grape.

"Must I repeat myself?" Madame asks.

Swallowing hard, I turn away from the door to face Madame. Then I get on my hands and knees, dunk a rag into the bucket and sop it along the flour, gathering flour in a soggy grey hill. The work takes longer than it should, for I cannot school my hands. They tremble like leaves in a hurricane.

"This morning, a copper revealed that she witnessed Prince Silas emerging from your chamber in the early hours, his hair mused as if he spent the night."

I keep my eyes pinned on the floor, cleaning with a jerky, stilted rhythm.

"And then a few more come forward with stories of him chasing you down in the halls. And a few more said he stopped the queen from cutting off your hand. Tell me, where does a copper get the gall to whore herself to a prince? You think he gives a damn about you just because you lifted your dress? You are dispensable. You have ruined yourself for a flame that will forget your name tomorrow. That is if he bothered to learn it in the first place."

My throat closes so tightly that when I speak, my protests barely sound like words.

"What?" she demands. "Speak up, rodent."

"I am not a whore," I say loudly. "Nothing of that nature transpired between Prince Silas and I."

"Do not lie."

"I didn't. Speak to the prince yourself if you —"

She jerks the rag out of my hands. I flinch, squeezing my eyes shut and bracing for a strike. When nothing happens, I glance up, to find Madame's brows hiked behind her gold mask. "Did I say you could stop cleaning?" 

I grab the end of my maid's smock to rip a strip of cloth, but Madame catches my wrist. 

"No. With your hands."

And so I resume cleaning, using my hands.

"What transpired between you and Prince Silas last night?"

"Nothing," I answer. "He slept on my bed and I slept on the floor." 

She makes me clean the mold below the counters next. 

Then a cobweb. 

Then the back of her shoes. 

Each time I meet her demands to speak the truth with the truth, she increases my punishment, but it is nothing compared to the treatment I will receive if I confess.

"You have one last chance," she says.

I lower my eyes to the floor, opting to say nothing. Madame turns on her heel and retrieves a boiling pot of stew from the stove. I scramble back as she drops it on the floor, just barely avoiding a burn. 

"What are you waiting for?" Madame says. Her eyes crinkle, drinking up the fear pouring into my eyes. "Clean."

All the blood in my body rushes to my head. I step backward, and all I can think is not my hands. I can't paint without my hands, and I can't breathe without my paints. Before I get far, the muscle clamps a hand around my shoulder and walks me forward, toward the heat. As he pushes me, my feet slide against the floor without getting any traction. 

I am no match for his strength. 

"Wait!" I blurt out, thinking fast. "Not my hands, please! I – I'll do a better job with my face!"

The muscles gape at me. Madame pauses, tilting her head. I surprised her, but she knows a good bargain when she sees it. Lovers value a pretty face over pretty hands. In her eyes, whatever chance I have of continuing a relationship with the prince dies with my face – or at least whatever is visible around my mask.

"Very well," she says.

I jerk my shoulder from the muscle's grip, then get on the ground. On my hands and knees, I crawl over the boiling stew and position my face above its center. With every inch I lower, the heat intensifies and steam floods my mouth. 

A foot away, I stop. I squeeze my eyes shut, taking a moment to gather the strength for what I must do. Then I grit my teeth and shove my head forward — just as someone yanks me off the ground, a millimetre before my face hits the stew.

Back on my feet, I whip around to identify my saviour. Silas' eyes are wide and bewildered. He stares at me as the kitchen door swings open and shut behind him. I seize the front of his shirt, heart pounding. 

I am so desperate that I put aside all sense of dignity or decorum and meet his stare with unfiltered terror, silently begging him to take me from this room. I have no faith in appealing to his mercy, but I am certain he does not want to go through the hassle of finding another scribe. 

Sure enough, his mood shifts in an instant, his surprise melting away and his eyes dulling like coal. He turns to Madame with a dismayed expression, looking terribly displeased. 

She has not moved since he entered the kitchen. Her eyes flicker between Silas and I, perhaps realising she misjudged the bond between prince and copper — or how many drawings he had left to wring from his scribe.

"Would you sneak into my chambers and break one of my possessions?" Silas asks.

"I — I beg your pardon, Your Highness?"

"Would you break one of my possessions?"

"Of course not, Your Highness."

Silas tilts his head, raising his brows. "Then why have you tormented my copper so?"

Madame recoils, all the colour draining from her face. She starts stammering an excuse, but Silas places his hand on the small of my back, steering me out of the kitchen before I can hear it. He locks the door behind me, sealing himself with Madame and her muscle. 

Or, more precisely, sealing Madame and her muscle with him.

All the coppers are waiting in the hall, bunched in a crowd that blocks my only exit. A tree nymph notices my arrival and nudges the nearest copper, and one by one, their conversations gutter out until we are standing on opposite sides of the hall, regarding each other in silence. 

They knew nothing of what happened in the kitchen, only that Silas stepped in, and I stepped out. Who the prince favors more — Madame or me — remains unclear, until a loud crash rattles from the kitchen, followed by the crack of broken plates. 

There is a moment of dead silence, of disbelief and incredulity, of raised brows and exchanged glances. 

Then the coppers part like the red sea, forming a path for my exit.