The Goblets Immortal by Beth Overmyer (read 50 shades of grey .TXT) 📕

steady on her feet either, which distracted him yet again. Did iron affect her abilities as well?

He had just wondered this when the ladies came to a halt.

“The kitchen is around back. Welcome to Dewhurst Manor.”

“I’m much obliged, I’m sure,” said Slaíne in the same forcedly civilized tongue as their host.

Aidan rolled his eyes at the ground as Lady Dewhurst’s Pull retired inside the house and Slaíne’s moved forward and to the right.

“Stuck-up,” Slaíne said a little too loudly.

Aidan resisted the urge to hush her. He followed her to the back of the house, all the while feeling the repulsion of the metal beneath. Dewhurst must be expecting him someday, why else would he outfit everything with iron? It occurred to him, though, that if the metal affected both him and Slaíne, two so-called ‘Blest’, why wouldn’t it affect the seer, Larkin? She had, after all, been in servitude to Dewhurst for goodness knows how long. Aidan was missing a piece, a vital piece, but he could not wrap his head around the situation. Slaíne’s Pull and the iron’s repulsion proved too much of a distraction, and he could scarce think.

Servants scurried here and there, paying the two strangers little to no mind. Some carried laundry baskets, the contents of which they hung on a line, while others carried dead chickens by the feet, and others still buckets of water and armfuls of wood.

Slaíne led the way to the kitchen with little difficulty. She gave Aidan a look over her shoulder that said, “How do you want to do this?” But he shook his head; he was still making a plan, having not expected to be received at all into Dewhurst Manor, least of all through the kitchen. An idea struck him, however, when one of the maids dropped her share of firewood.

“Oh, blast,” she swore, swiping at her sooty brow.

Aidan took a chance. “Mightn’t I help you with that?” he said, tweaking his dialect yet again to match hers.

The woman, apparently exhausted, nodded. “Just put it by the stove, and make sure to stack it neatly. Cook’ll have yourn hide if’n you don’t.”

Aidan bobbed his head and retrieved the scattered logs from the ground, and the kitchen maid scuttled off on her harried way. Arms full, he nodded at Slaíne, who followed him into the busy kitchen. The cook, or one of the cook’s helpers, was laboring over an enormous iron pot and was too busy to notice two strangers slip into her domain. And to make things even better, the din was extraordinary. Banging pots and pans, sizzling skillets, crackling fires, clacking knives, and the chatter caused quite the racket and masked Aidan’s words to Slaíne. “Stay in the kitchen. If anything goes wrong on my end, I’ll give you a Tug. If anything goes wrong here—”

“I’ll move for the door, and you’ll feel the change in my Pull.”

Aidan nodded.

“What’re you dawdling for? Put the logs where they belong,” barked a matronly woman with a tray of burnt vittles, which she thrust at Slaíne. “I s’pose you’re the wandering woman who expects tea, even though it might be putting us out of ’ouse and ’ome.”

Aidan gave Slaíne a look that he hoped conveyed the message, ‘Behave yourself,’ stacked the wood, and found the servants’ staircase, which he assumed would lead him into a network of other staircases, one of which would hopefully lead him to Dewhurst’s study – wherever that might be.

He met no one on the first stair, which led him to a landing. The landing was occupied by two women who were puffing pipe smoke like dragons and tearing the master of the house to shreds with their tongues. They were dressed well enough for servants, both in black dresses with white aprons. Aidan assumed they would ask him where he was going, they being in a more authoritative position than the woman whose wood he’d carried. If they did stop him, he had an answer ready.

But it turned out that he needed no excuse. The two women spared him but a moment’s glance before going back to their gossip.

Mindful that Slaíne’s Pull remained stationed about where he had left her, Aidan mounted the next staircase, which was to the left and behind him. The stairs were worn from much use, and here he ran into more servants, swearing at him for getting in their way. Still no one stopped him.

He was still on the back side of the house, the servants’ network of stairs and passageways. Dewhurst’s study might be this high up, if Dewhurst were a traditional man and liked to do things fashionably. If not…well, Aidan would check the floors below and the one above as well.

This landing was deserted. He could feel the Pulls and repulsions below, distant tugs at his person, besides Slaíne’s tug at his core, but hers he was growing accustomed to. Aidan reached out and felt for human Pulls on this level of the house. There were none. Then he concentrated and discerned bits of iron repelling him from here and there, nothing larger than a penknife. But he did not allow himself to breathe easy.

Through warped glass windows, he heard busy chattering in the yard. He spared one look through the pane, satisfied himself that no alarm was being sounded, and moved with purpose through a dark, narrow doorway, which led him into the living part of the manor.

The place was resplendent, full of rich and beautiful tapestries, a glass chandelier that extended from the ceiling and down the length of a grand, weaving staircase not five yards ahead. Again he paused, felt for human Pulls and found none but two solitary ones on the floor below him. He’d best tread with a lighter foot than he had done so far.

Aidan ignored the human Pulls for a moment, then reached out and felt for paper, oilskin, and even leather Pulls. The room heaviest with paper Pulls came from the far end of the hall. He would check