Alice Arvel's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

The summons came three days after the arena. A footman found Alice in the greenhouse, cutting ribbons for a hat she did not need. Her father wanted her in his study. She set down her scissors and studied her own steady hands. Somewhere, word had traveled. Someone had seen Lucy Baldwin at the east gate, wearing the Arvel name. Duke Arthur Arvel sat behind a desk buried in ledgers. His spectacles hung crooked. Dark circles ringed his eyes, the same as always, the mark of a man who did nothing but work. He did not look up when she entered. "You sent a stranger to greet my guests," he said. "A Baldwin girl. In your place." "I did," Alice said. He stood. He crossed the room fast. His hand struck her cheek before she saw it move. The crack echoed off the shelves. Alice's head snapped sideways. Her heels held. She tasted copper. The old her would have wept. This one felt something else rise. Her blood ran hot, feral, a hunger to strike back and keep striking. She let it burn behind her eyes. She did not lift a hand. She turned her face back to his and smiled with a split lip. "You never taught me the duchy," she said. Her voice stayed level. "Not one lesson. Not one ledger. I do not know our grain prices. I do not know our debts. You kept me blind, Father." He stared. His jaw worked. "Lucy Baldwin runs her family's estate," Alice went on. "She studies its accounts at school. She has done it for years. I sent the one person who could speak to your guests without shaming this house. I made a decision with what little you gave me." The study went quiet. Only the clock ticked. Alice watched him weigh it. She saw the exact moment the anger drained and something colder replaced it. Calculation. Respect, even. "That was sound judgment," he said at last. He did not say he was sorry. He returned to his desk and picked up his pen. But he glanced at her once more, and it was a new look. Not at a doll to be summoned. At a mind worth watching. "You will attend me tomorrow," he said. "I will show you the books." Alice curtsied. "Thank you, Father." She walked out with the burn still singing in her veins. Her cheek throbbed. She did not care. She had wanted the ledgers, the debts, the true shape of this duchy, and now he would hand them to her himself. Every secret he had hoarded would soon be hers. In the corridor she pressed her tongue to the cut and swallowed the taste of blood. Knowledge was a weapon. Tomorrow her father would place it in her hand, never guessing she meant to turn the whole house into a blade.