Free The Rose Master by Valentina Cano

My hands pushed against the floor, but I could not budge. I clawed at the grip that held me, but it evaded me. There was nothing pushing me down, and yet, I could not rise. My vision rippled and fogged over, an edge of dark lace tightening around me.
    Then I felt two very real hands suck me back up out of the water, into the loud air bristling with shrieking birds. There was an uncomfortable heat where the hands had been, and my hair was limp and soggy against my eyes. As I took a gasping breath, the air came into my lungs with the sting of alcohol. I collapsed to the ground, coughing, while a set of voices—one high and resonant like sun glinting off a key, the other low and throaty—spoke above me. I could not understand the words, and in any case, I would not have cared to hear what they were saying.
    With one last low chuckle, the dark voice stopped, and with it, the angry bird calls.
    I coughed until my sides knotted up, ignoring everything around me except the wheezing that ripped in and out of my chest. Footsteps padded on the snow, stepping close to my kneeling form. A breeze brushed me as the figure lowered itself down to a crouch. I took some deep breaths, slow and steady, trying to keep the coughing down, and when the spasms released me, I lifted my ashen face.
    There, kneeling before me was the master of Rosewood Manor.

    ELEVEN
    “It was foolish of you to touch the fountain.” His voice was a shadow of what I’d just heard, its light muted. I tried to focus on him to stop the horror I’d felt in the last few moments from overwhelming me. As I began to shiver uncontrollably, my panicked eyes landed on the ones in front of me.
    He was not what I’d expected, although, I wasn’t even sure what I had thought he’d look like. Not so thin, for one thing. He looked like a collection of bones that had agreed to join in locomotion. His cheekbones seemed to rub against his skin. A shiny wave of brown hair wrapped around his head, the lanky locks beaded in dew drops of sweat despite the cold.
    And then his eyes—I’d never seen anything like them. A speckled marble of golds and greens, a mantle of shifting colors. His face looked like something out of a painting, crafted with skill and strange, cold beauty. There was an intelligence to it that belied his youth. He could almost have looked kind, but his eyes gave him away. Too sharp.
    “Make sure you do not come this way again.” He threw me another look and shifted his meager weight to stand.
    “Sir, thank you. I don’t know what happened, but I’d surely be dead if it weren’t for your presence.” Speaking was an effort, every consonant threatening to send me coughing.
    “Yes, you would be dead. Let that be a lesson.”
    I stood, my hands almost grasping the fountain once again, but a look from Lord Grey and I flung them back. He made no attempt to help me stand.
    “But sir, what happened? Who—”
    He didn’t allow me to finish. “You are the new maid,” he said.
    I took a deep breath. “Yes, sir. Anne Tinning, from Caldwell House.”
    I could see his hands, emaciated and bruised, trembling against his sides. In an instant, one of them flew up to his face to cover a cough—a racking, dry sound that hurt me just from listening to it. He shouldn’t have been outside in the cold. Not that the manor’s interior was much better.
    “Sir, are you quite all right?”
    “Of course I am.” His voice was no louder than a murmur, yet lined with knife blades. His whole body seemed to sway, and I feared he would crumple to the snow before me.
    “Anne, is it?”
    I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
    “Fine. Now, go inside.” He moved his head in the manor’s direction. “I’m sure there are things to be dusted or scrubbed or whatever it is you maids do.”
    I tried not to rear back at his words. “Yes, sir.” I curtsied.
    His eyes widened, and he began to gasp in quiet laughter. I could do nothing but stand there until he finished.
    “Very amusing. Now, go