"They're talking about wolves," the little girl whispers.
It is not Maeve's usual habit to speak to little girls, nor is it her usual habit to be sitting in the kitchens, where she feels out of place and a little soiled. It isn't up to her station. But she couldn't very well march the dirty little thing through the front half of the building, so she'd sat her down at the low wooden table and she'd given her a tumbler of watered-down beer and a heel of bread. The former has long since vanished; the latter goes untouched.
"People talk about a lot of things," says Maeve.
In the firelight it is over-warm and oppressive; the girl's bare arms and legs are far better suited than the madame's stiff corsetry and old-fashioned bombazine. Sweat beads on the side of her forehead and she glances to see if Finnavair's coat is yet speckled with foam. The yearling is taut and nervous and she is staring with burning eyes at Spokelse, who is staring right back, and there is a vague sense of recognition drifting between them, the white and the dark. Spokelse towers over Finnavair's slight body; towers over Petra. Nearly towers over Maeve. There is a sense of barely-restrained inevitability in her in the same way that the totem had felt in the palm of her hand months before. And her Chosen has felt it too.
A strange little girl, both too young and too old for herself, deprived of a childhood but nonetheless not quite an adult. Thirteen, perhaps, or fourteen, with a heavy scar on her lip and hands as rough as a sailor's, and wild dark eyes and even wilder dark hair that soaks up the firelight without the faintest hint of a silken gleam.
"But wolves is different," she retorts, after a moment. She lifts the mug to her lips although it was emptied long ago into the silence.
"Are you frightened?"
"No."
"I think you're lying."
"That's for me to know." Her eyes don't leave Maeve's, and they are full of challenge. But terrified.
The little girl has had her Guardian at her side for far longer than Finnavair has existed, perhaps even before Finnavair's totem manifested. They move strangely as though threads bind their bodies: eye to eye, ear to ear, hand to hoof. Maeve feels outmatched by her, and the girl's fear has spread to her. She feels a bead of sweat roll into the high collar of her dress but she does not look away.
"That's our job. The job of the Chosen."
"In the stories, yeah. But I can't hold a sword. I bet you can't, neither. I don't know many people that can."
"I just think it's a bit premature to be so afraid. They are only rumors. And if they are not, this is our destiny."
"I didn't pick it," she says, and Spokelse's ears go flat, a rare show of emotion. Betrayal.
"That's the definition of destiny," snaps Maeve, reaching out to Finnavair, who startles at the touch. They are not by nature affectionate. "None of us are given too heavy a burden to carry."
"I think dying being eaten by a big angry wolf is a ******** heavy burden."
"Language. There is no indication that you will be eaten by a wolf. Don't be ridiculous. There would be... signs. If the wolves returned. Omens. We've had nothing but the idle natterings of traders."
"You read too many books."
"You don't read enough."
"It's not very nice of you to insult a little girl."
"Do not," says Maeve frostily, "attempt to con me into thinking you are an innocent. I am a great reader of people as well as of books, and you do not fool me."
Petra picks up the bread as though to nibble it, but she places it back down with a listless movement of her arm.
"Spokelse is... different. When she sleeps. I don't... I just thought you'd say something useful."
"Rude little thing, aren't you?"
"You started it," the girl snaps. "Calling me a liar. You're the one put up a bunch of posters and they told me what--I read them. Like you're general of an army. I bet you want them to come back. Stuffed away in a little building in the city. You probably ain't never had to fight. You probably don't know what it's like to think you're going to die. You're stupid. You're--"
"Get out of my kitchens." Her voice is flat. And Petra grabs the bread and stuffs it into her pocket, and there are tears in her eyes. She wheels to go, and Spokelse's glance at Finnavair is heavy and sad. Petra swings her bare brown legs off the bench and slams the door behind her.
Maeve sits in the warm kitchens for a long few moments. And then she pours herself a glass of beer and retires, with Finnavair clipping behind her.
It will be months later that the girl in the yellow dress dies. Months later that Petra, cold and shivering, shows up again at Maeve's door.
And this time, Maeve leads her to her own study.
"Sit down," she says. "We have things to discuss." It is strange to address a child like this, like an equal. Spokelse waits in the street below, beautiful and composed; there is only Petra, but this time Maeve does not need the prescence of the Guardian to command her attention.
"Yes," says Petra, pulling her shawl tight. It is warm, here, but her teeth still chatter. "I guess we do, this time."
