Free Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher

asked Rhea. “So Sylvie doesn’t prick herself?”
    Maria shook her head. “Roses have thorns,” she said. “That’s the price of roses. When you start to forget that, that’s when things go wrong.” She set Rhea’s breakfast down in front of her, and Rhea ate it slowly, trying to figure out what that meant and if there was any message in it that she could take away.  
    She eventually decided that there wasn’t. She scraped the last bits of egg yolk up on the side of her fork. “Are there many people here to cook for?”
    Maria shook her head. She was pummeling dough into submission. “No more than you’ve seen. The golem-wife don’t eat and the clock-wife can’t. Himself comes out every few months, and he don’t mind plain cooking while he’s here.”  
    Rhea looked up, startled. “Every few months? Where is he the rest of the time?”
    “In the city, child,” said Maria. Flour rose up in great gusts as she slapped the dough against the board. “He comes out here to do his experiments and play with his magic. There’s little enough here to interest him but solitude.”
    Rhea digested this. Did that mean that if she married him, she would be expected to go into town? Or that she would be staying here, in the house?
    The notion of being in the house with Maria and Ingeth and Sylvie and whatever horrible thing was going on with the tile floor was not terribly appealing.  
    On the other hand, she might be able to go and visit her family for weeks at a time. That wouldn’t be so bad. And a husband who wasn’t there…well, that wouldn’t be that bad…would it?
    If he wasn’t around, he couldn’t expect her to do…things. The sort of things that led to babies. Rhea knew perfectly well what those things entailed, and had a certain intellectual curiosity about them, but had not pictured doing them with an older man who admitted to being a sorcerer.
    It occurred to her that if he had a great many wives, Lord Crevan had possibly done those things with Sylvie and grim Ingeth, and Maria as well.  
    She felt her face get hot, and buried that thought as fastidiously as a cat burying its own droppings.  
    “Is he going to stay away for months this time, do you think?”
    That wouldn’t be so bad. She could stay for a few days, then make her apologies and go home. If not by the white road—well, perhaps there was another way. She was needed at the mill. He hadn’t married her yet. Somebody had to thump the hopper and check for gremlins.  
    “Not hardly,” said Maria. “There’s a bag of sugar and a gallon of cream in the pantry.”
    Rhea raised her eyebrows.
    “We get deliveries regular,” said Maria. “A lad with a cart, and don’t ask me what road he takes to get here, ‘cos I don’t believe it’s a canny one. Still, Himself won’t let us starve out here, though we run a bit low on the luxuries if he’s in town for the season.” She jerked her chin toward the pantry door. “But we’ve been getting the good stuff, and that means he’ll be here for a few weeks. He don’t expect me to produce roast peacock, but he wants white flour and clotted cream, at least.”  
    “Oh,” said Rhea.  
    Her hopes hadn’t risen far enough to dash. She sighed.  
    “There’s dishes in the scullery need washing,” said Maria. “Don’t tell me that you’re one of those fine ladies too good to wash dishes?”
    Rhea shook her head. “My father’s the miller. I can wash dishes. I’m better with milling, though.”
    “No mill out here. We get the flour already ground.” She tossed Rhea an apron. It fell most of the way to the floor and Rhea had to tie it up around herself twice. Maria shook her head. “Well, since you’ll be staying, we’ll see if we can’t sew you up new clothes. Sylvie was a dab hand at it, when she could see, but now…”  
    “It’s okay,” said Rhea. “I’m sure I don’t need them. I mean—not yet.” The notion of getting new clothes filled her with immediate