Her hands shook in the cool morning air, the blue and pink light of dawn heralding a beautiful day to come. Tired fingers, slick with grease and grime and blood fumbled with the wire, almost dropping her makeshift window-latch-pick to the flagstones below. Shay cursed under her breath, used one hand to steady the other, slipped the pick between the window frames and slid sideways, heard the latch click open inside. She sighed with relief, pocketed the pick and shoved the window up with a long, painful groan, wood scraping over wood. Her legs burned as she stepped from the roof through the window, her foot landing on a small metal tray set across high-piled, plush carpet with a soft thump. She braced herself, bent to clear the window, and sucked a breath between her teeth as the wound on her side flared with new, hot pain. 

Shay kicked her shoes off onto the tray, clumps of mud and clay and moss collecting in the corners, then staggered over to the bellpull in her room, giving the rope a few sharp, hard pulls. That Herculean task accomplished, she fell heavily into a carved wooden armchair, her eyes half-focused, hair plastered to her face, breath coming in hard, fast pulls. Distantly, she fancied she could hear the bell clatter. She certainly could hear as feet hurried up the wooden steps outside her door, the almost-hesitant knock.

“Come in,” Shay said, her voice more a bark than anything else.

“Miss Haimes!” A maid, surely not yet twenty, and one whose name Shay hadn’t learned said, “My, but you’re in a state. Shall I fetch a doctor from the-“

“No, no,” Shay said, waving one hand. The other wrapped around her side, holding her shirt hard against her ribs, “I need…ah…I need several yards of boiled linen bandage and…mm…” Her eyes squeezed shut, and a fresher stain joined the ones already on that side of her shirt, “A gauze pad, and quite a lot of strong liquor, nothing expensive, but strong as you can find. And you’re not to tell…” She snapped her fingers, then waved her hand again, “Whatever the head of household’s name is, you’re not to tell them why. Make something up if he asks.”

“Miss Haimes, I really don’t think-“ the maid began.

“[i]Now[/i], if you please,” Shay said. She stood with another groan, unwrapped  her arm from her side and started to undo the buttons on her shirt, peeling the sweat-soaked fabric away. She heard the maid dither, even as she turned away, but Shay sighed with relief as the woman stepped back through the door and down the hall. 

Shay’s fingers fumbled as she finished undoing her shirt, and the fabric pulled uncomfortably around the wound in her side as she pulled the garment off. She turned to look at the wound in a mirror, dipping the corner of her shirt in her water basin and using the fabric to dab away some of the grime around the wound. She let out a small sigh of relief - small, shallow, and not very long. Bandages would do - stitches certainly would hurt nothing, but the cut wasn’t in a good position for her to do the job herself, and Shay had no interest in waking the town’s surgeon or having to explain herself. Still, superficial wounds bleed as much as their deeper counterparts and a trail of red already marked her fair skin. She folded her shirt, pressed the bundle against her side, and despite herself, started to pace back and forth across the room, her eyes focused on the middle distance, thoughts racing through her head.

[i]The man had a genuine talent[/i], Shay though as she paced, [i]Why set up the tell-your-fortune-for-a-crown act in the town square? Why pretend to have a different skill? Unless…[/i]

A knock at Shay’s door pulled her mind off the tracks she’d begun to carve, and she walked over to the door, pulling it open a crack. She leaned over, one blue eye peering through, caught the worried face of the maid she’d summoned, a large wooden tray held in front of her with the things she’d asked for. With a sound of relief, Shay pulled the door open, ushered her in. The girl scurried in, and Shay closed the door behind her, the felt-lined doorframe neatly cutting off all sound from the corridor. Shay heard the girl put her tray down on the desk behind her.

“Just as you asked, Ma’am,” the maid said with a curtsy, “I also brought some pins.”

“Good thinking,” Shay said, and peeled her shirt away from the wound on her side. She tossed the bloodied fabric down onto a chair, made her way over to the tray, “Could you arrange to have that burned for me, please?”

“Of…of course,” the maid said, clearly nonplussed, “Miss Haimes, would you like some help?” She continued, as Shay nearly spilled the bottle of spirits.

“I…” Shay replied, then braced herself on the desk, shaking her head, “…Yes, I think…that’s very kind of you.” 

The maid curtsied again, then walked over to the desk. Small, competent hands held the gauze pad over the bottle, upended the liquor, let the liquid soak into the fabric for a moment. She set the bottle down, stepped over to Shay.

“You’ll want to lift your arm,” the maid said, “And this isn’t going to feel very good.”

“Mm,” Shay said, doing as the maid asked, “And what is your name?”

“Anna, ma’am,” the maid replied, shifting a little so that Shay could put put the weight of her arm on her shoulder, “Take a deep breath for me.”

Shay pulled in a breath, then hissed like the mother of all angry cats as Anna pressed the liquor-soaked pad against her side. Her hiss turned into a stream of curse words first in English, then graduating to  German before she ran out of breath, having to pull in another long, slow lungful of air. This made the wound stretch, and as Anna applied a second compression of liquor-soaked gauze, Shay’s cursing switched to the fluid syllables of Arabic. Anna, for her part, blushed a little, but didn’t flinch or back away. Shay decided that she might like this girl.

“That should do for now,” Anna said, then stepped away from Shay, “And it’s stopped bleeding - at least for the moment. Now, you look a fright - you’ll need to have a bath if you don’t want anyone to know what you’ve been up to this evening. And,” Anna said, forestalling Shay’s next question, “We’ll have to do this again. Now, I’ll draw you a bath, and get rid of your shirt while you’re in there, all right?”

Shay nodded, and Anna extricated herself from the older woman’s arm, making her way to the room’s attached bathroom and its huge copper tub. Shay heard water splashing a moment later, then the sound of small bottles being opened. Scents of jasmine and orange blossom drifted on wisps of steam a minute later, and she smiled to herself. Even when tending to someone with a knife wound, Ianus Manor’s staff ensured the baths would smell nice. 

While the tub filled, Shay began to undress, moving carefully. She pulled her socks off, left them piled by the chair she’d sat in earlier, then wrapped one arm around her side, untucking the long strip of silk around her chest from itself, gently unwrapping first one layer, then another. Her small, high breasts had never truly been a liability without more traditional undergarments, but the nights could still be cool, and she preferred the layering. Finally, she shucked out of the trousers she’d worn that evening and noted, with a hint of displeasure, that one knee was very nearly worn through. Another set of clothes ruined, but there was no help for that. She would just have to talk to her dressmaker - and tailor - and have another set made.

The sound of water trickled, then stopped as Shay wrapped a robe around herself. Anna walked back into the room, Shay’s bloody shirt still under one arm.

“You’ll want to be careful, Miss Haimes,” Anna said, “Try not to pull on the wound too much. I’ll come help you do your hair after I’ve gotten rid of this, shall I?” 

“Thank you, Anna, yes,” Shay said. Anna curtsied, then made her way back through the door, closing it quietly behind her.

Shay unwrapped herself from her robe, then stepped into her bath. Steaming water, just on the knife-edge of being too hot, washed over her as she lowered herself, and for a moment she felt as though all her sins were being washed away. She leaned back, resting her head against a towel placed at exactly the right point to cradle her head, and sighed as the water filled her with warmth, stole away some of her tension, relaxed her muscles. And as good as the water felt, the steam smelled just as lovely, and in a flight of fancy Shay wondered if she might arrange to have Anna as her personal attendant. 

Everything in her body protested as she sat up, but Shay knew she couldn’t simply lounge forever. Anna was right, she did look a mess - her hair plastered to her head with sweat and something sticky, her skin blotched with the moss from rooftops, grease from cartwheels, her own blood, her face dirty with ash and streaked with grime. Shay reached over to a small table beside the bath, picked up a bar of soap and a small luffa, and went about scrubbing the evening’s adventures off her body, if not her mind. 

Before she could get entirely wrapped around her own thoughts, Anna knocked, then stepped back into Shay’s room. This time she brought an armload of towels. The girl stepped into Shay’s bathroom, gave a satisfactory nod.

“You look nearly human, Miss Haimes,” Anna said, “But if you want the truth, I saw Mr. Ren coming this way, and he looked like he might be on a mission. We should get you dried off and bandaged and into a nightgown before he gets here, if you want to keep him from being suspicious.” Shay noted that Anna, so far, hadn’t asked [i]why[/i] Shay might not want to arouse the head-of-household’s suspicion, and she decided that she really did like this blonde-haired young woman.

“Are you always so accommodating to your guests?” Shay said, accepting Anna’s help to stand and wrap a dry, fluffy towel around her waist.

Anna just smiled, “Bend forward for me, Miss Haimes. Let’s get your hair drying.”

Shay did as asked, and soon the pair were back in the bedroom. After another round of alcohol-soaked gauze applied to the wound on her side, Anna declared the site satisfactorily clean, and the pair worked in occasionally-awkward movements to wrap linen bandages around the cut, a pair of bright pins holding the bandage in place. The day had brightened almost to full morning as Shay pulled a nightdress over her head and wrapped a light blue robe around herself, not an instant before a polite knock came at the door.

“Ah, Anna,” Ren said as the young woman opened the door, “I hadn’t realized you were calling on Miss Haimes this early.”

“Insomnia,” Shay said from her place a little further in the room, “Anna has been kind enough to draw a bath, bring me warm milk, and tell me fairy stories in an effort to help me sleep. Now, what can I do for you, Mr. Ren?”

The butler looked at the two women, then seemed to shrug without moving a muscle, “The Master should like your attendance at breakfast this morning in the upstairs dining room. At your convenience, but several others from the Society have been asked as well. Shall I tell him you plan to attend?”

“Yes, please,” Shay said, “I’ll be there presently.”

Ren nodded, bowed, and backed out of the door, pulling it tight shut after him. Shay sat in a chair, leaned her head back, ran her hand over her face.

“I suppose I’ll join Ben with that coffee concoction he has the kitchens brew up,” Shay said, “Whatever is in that, you certainly don’t need sleep for a few hours afterward.”

“I’m sure you’ll get a chance to rest tonight,” Anna said, “Now, let’s get you dressed. You shouldn’t keep Mr. Ware waiting.”