The door slammed. Mira held her breath for a full minute after the footsteps faded. Then she slipped out, re-tucked the already-tucked sheets, and carried her basket of linens down to the laundry. There, she palmed a stub of charcoal and wrote on a scrap of cloth:
Mira smiled, a small, dangerous thing, into her washbasin. spy mission a noble's maid guide
She set down the wine pitcher and curtsied, a perfect, forgettable maid. The door slammed
The hunt had begun.
But the real prize came on the twelfth day. There, she palmed a stub of charcoal and
The east wing was Harrow’s private domain. No servants except his personal valet, a man named Finch with a twitchy smile and eyes that watched too closely. The wine cellar had a second entrance behind a false barrel—she’d felt the draft. And the library’s third bookshelf from the window was actually a door, judging by the scuff marks on the floor.
The first week was agony in disguise. Her hands, trained for lockpicks and garrotes, blistered from scrubbing hearths. Her back ached from carrying coal buckets. But pain was an old friend. Each evening, as the other maids collapsed into their narrow cots, Mira would lie awake and build her map.