Okay, so this isn't the HongIce I thought I would work on, but it's been a longer time coming. This story owes its existence to Maris (who reviewed on AO3), who asked for a LietBel extension of Not With Haste, and its resolution to andIJDC (who reviewed on ), who wondered what happened to Natalia and Gilbert.

To those of you new to the party: I posted a Nordic-centered story called Not With Haste, but reading it is NOT obligatory to understand what's happening here. The two only intersect in one scene in the second part, and I hope to provide all the context necessary.

The title comes from the song "Never Let You Down" by The Verve Pipe, which was my go-to inspiration song for the past few months as I brainstormed this fic.

Heads up: Lars is the Netherlands, Marie is Belgium, and Lucien is Luxembourg.

NEW: find this work on AO3 under the name snark_sniper.

"That's a very pretty dress, miss."

"I don't see what that has to do with anything."

Toris pauses as he rolls the dough. This girl looked so sweet when she first set foot into the kitchen, but apparently appearances can deceive. It's odd because everybody else Toris has met today has been exactly as he first guessed they would be—Raivis in the gardens stuttered and wouldn't meet his eye, Eduard kept a cool façade to keep up with his butler uniform, and Elizabeta, right here next to Toris in the kitchen, constantly has a smile and something interesting to talk about.

This girl, now that Toris gets a good look at her, still has a sweet face. He can't exactly describe what strikes him as the sweet part, as she has a bit of a glare and a slight haughtiness in her step. All he knows is that his greeting to her was one of his first thoughts, and he's never going to shy away from a compliment. Not on his first day at the job, and not any other day.

Toris and Elizabeta continue to work quietly in the kitchen, Toris kneading dough and Elizabeta washing dishes. The other girl—she looks around ten years old, four years Toris's junior—pokes around methodically in the cabinets and pantry. She appears to be looking for something.

After a few minutes of this, Toris speaks again. "Is there something I can help you find, miss?"

"When will the cookies be finished?"

Toris doesn't know anything about expected cookies. He's preparing bread to accompany that day's lunch, a special recipe that the Braginski family seems to prefer based on how Elizabeta specifically instructed to make it exactly to the recipe's standard. The old cook, it seems, was fired for something along the lines of too many poor meals, making young Elizabeta the head chef and Toris her assistant until they can find someone new.

When Toris takes too much time in responding, the girl turns to face him and eyes him from the ground up. Toris stills again, watching her gaze. It really is quite piercing.

The girl reaches his eyes and raises her eyebrows. "You'll be making them soon," she says in a voice that leaves no room for protest.

Toris blinks. He then smiles lightly at her. "I suppose I will. Miss. What kind of cookies do you—"

"We'll prepare them soon, Mistress Braginski," butts in Elizabeta from the sink, turning and wiping her hands on her apron as she gives a little bow. "The minute we finish our preparations for lunch."

"See that you do," says the girl, and with a rustle of knee-length skirts, she's off.

Toris swivels around to look at Elizabeta, who is examining him with an amused expression. "Mistress Braginski?"

"I thought you knew," says Elizabeta. "She's the youngest daughter. Who did you think she was?"

Toris flushes very slightly and doesn't answer. He turns himself back to the dough, working a little faster so that he can get to whatever cookies Miss—Mistress Braginski wants. He'll have to ask Elizabeta about it, since she seems to know.

When Toris first saw Mistress Braginski, all he thought about her was that she was pretty.


A few months later, Toris has largely got the hang of his job at the Braginski manor. The most important thing for him to remember is to stay out of the way of anyone of higher rank, which narrows it down to five people, give or take a few long-time servants. Foremost is Lord Braginski, who seems only to have hired Toris and the rest of their adolescent staff as a charity project. The idea may have been that of Lady Braginski, the second person of rank, because Toris can't think of the cold, unsmiling, rumbling-voice Lord Braginski as the one to take in orphans and children in poverty.

Then there are the children. Yekaterina, he learns, is the oldest daughter at seventeen years old. She is the only one to smile and thank any of the servants she sees, but Toris hasn't had this luck because she refuses to bother the kitchen servants, and Toris can't often leave the kitchen. The middle child is a thirteen-year-old boy, Ivan. He smiles too, but constantly and vacantly, as if imagining himself somewhere else. He enters the kitchen for bread, and sometimes he likes to sit at one of the staff tables and watch Toris cook, which is slightly unnerving.

Natalia, Toris has already met, and continues to meet with very limited dialogue. She wants tea. She wants a cookie. She wants a slice of the cake only Elizabeta can make.

Most often, she wants a small meal to carry. These are on weekends, Toris has learned, but she appears on the occasional weekday too. The days she requests a meal, she leaves through a small door in the back of the kitchen overlooking the garden and beyond that, the woods. Toris strongly considers making small talk about the occasion, but the look she gives him as he slices bread and cheese for sandwiches silences him.

Today is a Tuesday. Toris is preparing Lady Braginski's favorite soup for the rainy day when the kitchen door swings open with more force than usual. He turns around and smiles, expecting it to be Elizabeta, but instead he makes eye contact with Natalia. No, Mistress Braginski, he has to remind himself.

Mistress Braginski looks at him with disgust, something she hasn't done before. She looks through Toris, mostly, or gives a sharp but small nod of gratitude, but this sneer is new. Before Toris can apologize or avoid eye contact or do anything that won't get him fired, she stomps into the kitchen and to the table they use for meats, where she extracts two cutting knives from a wooden block and stabs the larger one into the cutting board.

Toris stirs the soup in tiny whirlpools, frowning in concern. When Mistress Braginski yanks the knife out and stabs it in the cutting board again, he winces. He'd been wondering where those knife marks came from.

"For all your trips to the woods," he says quietly, "I would imagine you leave more marks in the trees."

He doesn't mean to be heard. He says it absently, murmuring it, but the next thing he knows, the girl is at his back and the tip of a knife—the small one, he realizes when he sees the large one still in the cutting board—tickling the small of his back.

"And what do you know of my trips to the woods?" Mistress Braginski hisses.

Toris gulps. "Not a thing, miss."

She leaves the knife there for a heavy moment, and then withdraws.

"Nor should you," she says as gruffly as a ten-year-old can. "It's not your place."

She makes to move away, but apparently Toris has a death wish, because his mouth betrays him.

"With all due respect, miss, I would think my place and yours don't often overlap."

Mistress Braginski's nostrils flare, and Toris braces himself for the knife's tip to be returned somewhere on his person. He's unprepared for the girl to instead turn back to the cutting board and fling the knife onto it.

"And are you going to tell me to return to my lessons too?" she snaps at him.

Toris slowly turns from the pot to get a proper look at her. One foot is out as if she's just stomped, as if she were throwing a tantrum. Her hands are in fists, already regretting the absence of kitchen knives. The rest of her is unruffled, but the heavy way in which she breathes tells Toris that the knives were in fact necessary for her to calm herself down. It hasn't worked so far.

"I can't tell you to do anything, miss," he says with a bow of his head.

"Then don't."

Toris nods, head still bowed. Mistress Braginski doesn't leave, though she does loosen slightly. One hand reaches up to adjust her bow, already perfectly placed on her head. She picks up her skirts and sits at the small table her brother always sits at. She folds her arms, extends and crosses her legs, and stares down at her feet.

Toris can see that her fingers twitch to grab the knives again, but doesn't understand why she won't take them. The small of his back tingles in gratitude, and slowly, slowly, he turns back to the soup. He and Mistress Braginski spent several quiet minutes in the same room, Toris adding spices and bits of vegetable and Mistress Braginski—well, sitting.

"Do you have words?"

The question comes out of nowhere. Toris doesn't make the mistake of turning and looking her in the eyes; he's been forward enough today. "No, miss—Lord Braginsky had me screened."

"Show me."

Now Toris can't avoid it. He steps away from the soup and rolls up his sleeve to show Mistress Braginski his pale, blank forearm.

She analyzes it for a few moments, then nods. Toris rolls down his sleeve and takes the opportunity to step back to the meat counter, prying the knife from the cutting board it was embedded in to make room for the already-cooked chicken he's about to dice.

He doesn't know what Mistress Braginski was expecting. Commoners like Toris almost never have words—the first words their soulmate will ever say to them, written in that soulmate's handwriting. The words appear on the forearm when one's soulmate has mastered basic reading and writing. Such a privilege, though, lies only with the wealthy, the educated, and others whom the law blesses with the right to read.

Of course Toris doesn't have words. His soulmate could never be of such rank.

"Your soulmate is a commoner."

Toris nods in agreement. "Probably, miss."

"Do you want to meet her?"

Toris smiles slightly, but tries to hide it for propriety's sake. "It would be nice. But I'm busy enough as it is."

"Cooking our food."

"Yes, miss."

"And what if you weren't busy?"

"Then yes, miss."

"I wouldn't."

Toris cocks his head, and risks a glance at Mistress Braginski as he prepares another piece of chicken for cutting.

"Not even if I couldn't be more bored," she confirms. "It's ridiculous."

"I see."

"You don't agree." She says this sharply, as if by extending him the one-time courtesy of conversation, she expects absolute submission to her opinions.

Toris says nothing. He's not sure what will do the trick.

"How could you want to meet something as ridiculous as a soulmate?" Mistress Braginski crows. "How do you even know they exist?"

"I couldn't say, miss."

"No, you couldn't." Mistress Braginski slumps back into her chair and crosses her arms, as if to say "so there."

"…But you're not even a little curious, miss?"

She eyes him. "Not a little. Or else I would be at my writing lesson now."

Toris isn't surprised that she's learning to write at the age of almost eleven; girls learn later than boys, usually, so that they can finish with matters of etiquette before moving onto academia. He is surprised, though, to meet someone who doubts the existence of soulmates when that person comes from nobility, the class in which it's most fashionable and possible to have one. He wonders if she's rejecting the concept of soulmates, or simply the fetishizing way that the noble class treats them.

"And if there were someone who loved you, miss, wouldn't you want to know?" he probes, intentionally looking away.

"Brother loves me. Sister loves me. I don't need anyone else."

"If I'm not mistaken, soulmates aren't a need. Miss."

Silence. Toris turns to find Mistress Braginski raising an eyebrow.

"They're a want. If they were a need, many of us wordless would be dead of deprivation." Toris smiles slightly to himself. "Besides, I can think of no better way to show how much you want someone than to have your handwriting there for them to see."

At this Mistress Braginski is quiet again, but when Toris glances back from his work, he finds her looking at her own cloth-covered forearm and frowning.

"So…if I want Brother, for example, then my handwriting will appear on his forearm?"

Toris blinks. "That, um, isn't—"

But before he can impart his limited knowledge of how soulmate words work, Mistress Braginski is already standing from her chair. "And then he'll see my words," she mutters, "and he'll remember how we used to play together—and he'll make time from his awful lessons and we can walk together in the woods, just as we used to!"

Toris watches as Mistress Braginski hastily exits the kitchen, presumably to track down the tutor who is likely puzzling over her absence. He shakes his head and carries the cutting board to the pot of soup, scraping the chicken bits into the soup. He strongly doubts that Ivan—Master Braginski—is going to end up being Natalia's soulmate, and he doesn't want to be held at knifepoint again when Natalia finds this out. But so long as she remains convinced that she's not doing well enough in her studies for it to work, it's not yet his problem.

He chuckles a little as he stirs the soup. Between love for a soulmate she may meet only years later and love for the brother she seems to look up to so much, at least she has her priorities in order.


Year Two

"You're totally sure this is it?"

"That's what she said—red shutters, tulips at the front."

"It looks too"—Feliks scours the place with his eyes—"clean to be the place."

"Well, and what did you imagine?" Toris says with a low voice, unsure of whether the passerby know what this place is supposed to be.

"I was kind of imagining a black market sort of thing," says Feliks with a shrug. "You know, everyone in dark clothes and hats, people opening up their cloaks to offer what they're selling—"

"Feliks," Toris groans and rubs his forehead.

"What?"

"Just—let's go in, alright?" And keep it down, he begs in his mind. He steps into the small garden in front of the house, and Feliks looks both ways as shiftily as he can before following.

They're a mile or two away from the Braginski manor, at a cottage on the outskirts of the nearby harbor town, on the day off that Toris gets every two weeks. Feliks has been a very good friend to walk all the way from the city to visit Toris on those days, and Toris is grateful. Feliks and Elizabeta have immediately struck up a friendship, for which Toris is even more grateful.

But when Toris woke up a few days ago to find a full sentence on his forearm, and when Elizabeta found him a pale paste to cover the marks from the Braginskis' eyes and told him of a reader—well, in their year and a half of acquaintance Toris was never happier to have known the girl. And never happier to have Feliks accompany him.

Toris still can't quite believe his circumstances, and pulls his left sleeve down nervously as he steps onto the doorstep and knocks. He imagines this is something all the other newly-worded people do, though, so he quits as soon as he realizes he's doing it.

After the sound of some bustling and footsteps, the door opens to reveal a smiling young woman with short blonde hair and an apron that reminds Toris of Natalia—Mistress Braginski—on her more casual days.

"May I help you?" the young woman asks.

"Ah, yes, I—"

"Elizabeta sent us," jumps in Feliks with a grandiose gesture. Normally he's a little shy, but his illusions of a literal black market are apparently still fresh in his mind and make him feel bold. "Told us to look for Lars. You know him?"

"Oh, yes, he's my cousin," the woman says cheerily. "Please, come in."

Toris can't believe how easy this is. They're about to break the law, to come into contact with someone who will read Toris's forearm and not register him or report him to the authorities. It shouldn't be this easy. Nor should the scene of the crime be a quaintly decorated bed-and-breakfast. They're welcomed into a well-lit dining room with wooden chairs and tables with pristine white tablecloths. The girl—Marie, she introduces herself as—shoos them into two seats and informs them that someone will be out with tea.

"Adorable place, huh?" Feliks says.

"No kidding," says Toris, but he's not really looking at the décor now that he's seated. His eyes stray, as they have for the past few days, to his forearm. He only has so many long-sleeved shirts, and they're going to be entering summer once the rainy season ends. He's not sure how ready he is to wear short-sleeve shirts now that he has words, now that he can stare at his own limb and know now—for sure—that someone is promised to him.

The main reason he wants a reader is, of course, for curiosity's sake. Feliks is his friend and therefore his main bulwark in keeping that curiosity alive, or else Toris will worry himself into the poor position of keeping himself ignorant for the sake of bliss and fear. Anyone who knows their own words can be accused of having learned to read and not been registered, or of knowing where the other readers and record smugglers are. But what is the purpose of having words if he doesn't have the meaning behind them?

Speaking of registration, his second reason for taking up Elizabeta's offer of a reader concerns his job. Lord Braginski screens every employee upon their hiring, and depending on whose words Toris has, Lord Braginski may find Toris to be a powerful bargaining tool for another noble family. Or an impediment to the Braginski family's honor, if Lord Braginski appears to be harboring the soulmate of someone being sought out. Both stories are circulated in the rumor mills, and Toris firmly believes in knowing what he's up against.

Even if his mere presence here could have him arrested.

A throat clears, and Toris looks up to find a boy with hair over one eye dressed in a sharp waistcoat, and carrying a tray of tea. Instead of placing the tray on the table, as is custom in the Braginski manor, he hands the tray to Toris. Toris takes it automatically, and one side of the boy's mouth lifts up in a grin.

"A reading, huh?"

Toris realizes that, in the act of reaching up, his sleeve has slipped down slightly to reveal the last word on his arm. He sets the tray down as quickly as he can, making the cups rattle and the teapot spill a little.

"Relax—it's policy," the boy says. "We can't have police around, you understand."

"And like, what if the police have words too?" Feliks asks.

"Based on how jumpy your friend is, I'm going to guess he's not police." The boy shrugs. "But now that we have that established, let's talk prices."

"Ooh!" Feliks straightens in his chair, and then assumes what he thinks is a bargaining face. "Your offer?"

"Ten for the first two words, twenty to have the whole thing read, fifty to be told which noble families have been registered, and two hundred for access to our own archives of unregistered nobles."

Toris is gaping at how high the prices grow. Feliks frowns. "And what if his soulmate is a merchant?"

"We have those records too, but they're incomplete. Seventy-five."

"What? Thirty!"

"It's a big database. More merchants than nobles. But everyone likes to dream big, so of course we offer nobles first."

"And you don't have any sort of two-for—"

"Feliks, please," Toris says. His mind is spinning a little from the possibilities of the identity of his soulmate. "Maybe the words will give me a hint."

"Those are the pre-reading prices," the boy points out. "After the reading, there's a fifteen-percent markup."

"What a scam!" cries out Feliks.

The boy looks amused. "And I'd like to see your smuggled registration records."

Feliks looks ready to be even more indignant for his friend when steps come down the stairs. A loud voice is talking.

"So how many more, then?"

"What, lessons? Five or six, I'd say."

"Alright, but you'd better be serious this time. Grossvati's beginning to notice the money I'm sneaking out of his purse."

"You could always get a job, ya know."

"What, like you did?" The two figures have reached the bottom of the steps, entering the dining area. One is tall with blond hair and a blue and white scarf, and the other has hair so light it looks almost white. The latter is speaking. "Your connections don't count, Lars, unless you're hiring!"

The man with the scarf shrugs. "I'm still not giving you any discounts, Gil. I hear Kirkland's assistants may quit soon. Go bother him if you need money."

"Yeah, well, we'll see. The awesome me will get the money somehow. So I'll see you next week if your prices don't kill me, ja?"

"Ja, ja, goodbye," says the scarf man. Gil shuts the door.

"How are his lessons?" asks the boy from Toris's and Feliks's table.

"Could probably reach basic in four or five," the scarf man reports. "But I'm not going to have him come complaining to me that it's not working when his soulmate doesn't find him and throw herself at his feet. So, one extra." He sees Toris and Feliks. "Next appointment?"

"This one"—the boy points to Toris—"needs a reader."

"No lessons?"

"To read?" Toris gulps. This Gil guy was so brazen about the whole thing. "No, no thank you—just the reading, please. Full sentence."

"Haven't seen a sentence in a while," says the man. "I'll take it from here, Lucien."

"You're the boss," says the boy—Lucien—as he leaves the table.

The scarf man turns to Toris. He looks to be in his late teens or early twenties, but acts much older. Toris instantly believes that this is the guy Elizabeta was talking about, though he finds it hard to believe some of the grittier details about the illegal dealings his merchant family makes, or the bastard background of his two cousins. Apparently Marie's bed-and-breakfast hides a lot more than literacy.

"You're Lars?" Feliks says, but it's quieter, either because his shyness is kicking back in or because the man is staring at them so strongly.

Lars grunts in acknowledgement. He looks at Toris. "Just the reading, huh?"

"Yes, sir."

"Nothing more?"

"That's all I have the money for." And it's true—he'll have to save his wages for a few more months to afford anything more complex. He produces the two silver coins from his pocket and sets them on the table.

"Arm." Lars apparently wastes no time. Toris rolls up his sleeve, his heart beating faster as his fingers trace across his skin.

This is it, he thinks as Lars peers down at the writing. It's a little shaky, but in cursive, so his soulmate is probably of a higher rank for the style of the handwriting. Maybe a low-rank noble family. Maybe a high-rank merchant family with noble ties.

He wonders if his soulmate is beautiful. If she'll recognize him when they first meet, if she'll have a sweet voice or a sweet laugh or—

Lars clears his throat. "'I don't see what that has to do with anything.'"

-or a sweet face.


The next time he hears her voice, he drops a pan of cookies.

She stares at him from the doorway, watching him fumble on his knees for the gooey not-yet-baked shapes before his knee bumps into the pan and it makes an awful clanging sound on the stone floor. His face is red and he can't stand to look up at her.

Ever since he returned to the manor he's locked himself in his closet-sized room in the farthest corner of the Braginski manor, leaving only for work or to take meals with the servants. Elizabeta has had the good grace not to ask how his day off was, but Eduard and Raivis are asking what has him looking so haunted.

He doesn't know why. He knows exactly why. He doesn't know how he feels about having Natalia—Mistress Braginski, Mistress Braginski—as his soulmate, but he absolutely knows that Lord Braginski can't know. Or else Toris will lose his job and be sent back to the harbor, back to where he has no parents and no place to sleep, and he's too old to beg and too young to be employed, and if the Braginskis find him out then of course they'll register him, and then every job he applies for will weigh his political leverage and his every move will be monitored to make sure that he can never bring himself within a hundred miles of—

Alright, maybe best to stop thinking about that.

Mistress Braginski is about to turn twelve years old, and Toris is going on sixteen. He feels gangly and awkward, and even after a year and a half of working for the Braginski manor, he hasn't stopped thinking that Mistress Braginski was pretty. But this soulmate idea has his head spinning, and she's twelve, and all he can do is admire her from afar. Possibly forever.

Which is difficult when it looks like she's due to go out again and needs her lunch.

"A sandwich," she repeats once Toris has collected the majority of the unbaked cookies from the floor. He'll have to remake the batter, but at least he hasn't wasted much time in baking them before dropping the pan.

"Of—of course, Miss Braginski." Toris drops the cookies on the counter and scrambles over to the bread pantry. Mistress Braginski sits in what Toris has deemed the spectator's chair, and watches Toris fumble over meat and cheese and a vegetable or two. He wraps the sandwich in a napkin and turns and—

How is he supposed to give it to her without looking her in the eye?

He makes to hand it to her, but one hand is propping up her chin and the other is firmly in her lap, so she doesn't reach for it. Placing the sandwich in her lap is out of the question. He changes direction in midair and slightly bumps her elbow with the sandwich as he sets it on the table. He then swivels around and starts looking for the flour to remake his cookie batter, only to remember that it's—

Right. At. Her table.

He freezes, and he's certain that his ears and neck are as red as his face, and Natalia probably knows everything by now and he just doesn't want to know how foolish he will look to her, or how upset she will sound when she realizes that her handwriting, meant for her brother's arm only, is instead on his.

He busies his hands with wiping chalky flour off of the counter, regardless that he's just wiping around the cookies and will have to clean the counter again when he throws them away. Behind him, he hears her slowly stand up and walk away. Or rather, walk towards him.

A heavy bag is set by his elbow, and she slips away and out the back door.

Toris lets out a breath. He looks at the bag. She's given him sugar, not flour. Well, he thinks with a shaky chuckle, he needs that too.

And then he reexamines the bag. And looks out the back door, where he can see her retreating form cutting through the garden.

She likes cookies, doesn't she?


"What is this?"

"Your lunch, miss." Toris has gone back to using "miss" and not her family name. He just doesn't know how to say the full name every single time.

"…It's not a sandwich."

"It is, miss. Just with a few extra things."

Natalia—Mistress Braginski—opens the small bag to find her usual napkin-wrapped sandwich, plus an apple and something else wrapped in linen. She reaches in to find two small cookies. One is her favorite flavor, but the other—

"I've been experimenting with flavors. I hope you like it."

And Toris hopes she does. He's not trying to buy her affection, he swears it. But he'd be lying if he said he wants to be interchangeable with Elizabeta.

Mistress Braginski closes the napkin and places the cookies back into the bag, nestled next to the apple. With a brief glance at him, she steps to the back door and out.

"She's addicted to oatmeal raisin, you know," calls Elizabeta from the stove. "That's probably going to end up on the forest floor."

"Even if it does," says Toris as he returns to dish duty, "I'll be happy I gave it."

Elizabeta smirks.


Year Three

Natalia comes in smelling of horses. "I want chicken," she announces.

Toris quickly stashes the bagged sandwich he prepared for her. "Of course, miss."

He sets about cutting up pieces of chicken and preheats the oil on the stove, and turns to notice that Natalia has pulled out a book. He smiles slightly to himself. And she thought she didn't want to learn to read. He hopes it's interesting. Lars offered to teach him to read, citing the borrowing of novels as a popular reason for servants, but Toris isn't about to tempt fate more than he is just by living in this manor day after day.

He confesses that it's worth it to see her in this kitchen as he works, on the days where she's not frustrated over something or another. She frowns as she concentrates, and her eyes crinkle in a way that Toris suspects is similar to her smiling.

Toris sets a plate of chicken, mashed potatoes, and broccoli on the table just behind her book. She doesn't acknowledge it at first, but as he returns to preparations for Lady Braginski's lunch, he sees her snatching morsels of food from the plate with her fork as she reads.

He knew he'd been right to dice the chicken.


Year Four

"Make cake next time," Natalia says. Normally when she comes back from her afternoons in the woods, she leaves the linens that once held sandwiches and snacks on the table to be washed and reused. Now she lingers in her returns, if only to leave comments or orders.

"Yes, miss," Toris says, and he risks a slight smile. Truth be told, he's a little relieved to have some variety to work with—he's baked every sort of portable pastry he can think of until he knows the recipes by heart, and tried at least five different sorts of bread for her sandwiches. So far he hasn't been able to discern which were her favorites, but he hopes to read something in the way she returns and leaves her mess to be cleaned.

Natalia looks ready to leave, but stops in the doorway. "Chocolate, if you can," she instructs.

Toris's small smile grows wider. "I'll see what I can do."

Once Natalia has left and Toris has entered the period between lunch's clean-up and dinner's preparation, he sits down with a cookbook. No, he can't read it, but the images often give him ideas, and the numbers and drawings of ingredients are usually sufficient instruction for him. Cakes aren't so complicated, and the rest he can learn by collaborating with Elizabeta—who, he remarks, is being summoned remarkably often by the elder Mistress Braginski.

Toris isn't about to pry, just like Elizabeta isn't about to offer him more than a playful jab or two concerning the younger mistress. He knows that the elder mistress is making her family tense with her failure to marry, and he can't begrudge her for wanting the company of even a younger kitchen servant.

It hasn't been for lack of trying that Miss Yekaterina hasn't married; the family has been combing the registrations for her soulmate's handwriting, hoping to keep up with the tradition of matching "proper" soulmates with one another. The logic goes that two noble families whose children have each other's writing are more "fit" for their titles than those whose children have the writing of lesser nobles or worse, commoners.

After so much scouring of the records, though, the Braginskis have turned to matchmakers and their services. Toris hopes that Miss Yekaterina won't have to face any of those eastern inks which permanently imprint words where none were before. Equally unfortunate would be a staging, but as Miss Yekaterina lacks words herself, no one would be able to say her words to force a bond.

Toris doesn't realize he's lost in thought until the middle Braginski child wanders into the kitchen. Master Braginski eyes him. He's rather husky for a fifteen-year-old, and his daydreaming eyes have gained some sharpness.

"You are not going to run away like Raivis, are you?" he asks, as if speaking of the weather.

Toris knows Raivis and his fear of that unending gaze. Toris isn't fond of it either, but he's at least going to be polite about it. As the elder, at almost seventeen, he ought to be. To say nothing of his lower status.

"Of course not," he says as he starts to stand. "Please, sit."

"Da, I will." Master Braginski settles himself in what Toris has come to think of as Natalia's chair. Toris knows he can't just rest while a master of the house is present, so he decides to take inventory of things he will need for tomorrow's cake.

"Sisters are very strange," says Master Braginski.

Toris can recognize a need for a listening ear when he sees one. "Oh?"

"The sister I wish would stay has to leave the house to get married," says Master Braginski, "and the one whom I wish would marry is trying to stay here."

Toris feels a twinge of defensiveness for Natalia. "We all have our duties," he says as neutrally as he can. "And they both love you."

"Da, but that is the strange part. They both say they are doing these things because they love me."

Toris isn't sure why, after three years of intermittently sharing the same kitchen, he needs to be privy to this information now. He says nothing, and Master Braginski continues.

"Natalia especially is very worrying. She checks my arm every day for her writing, and when it is not there, she becomes angry. Then she disappears."

She comes here, Toris thinks, to play with the knives. At least sometimes she takes them outside, though I do need them from time to time to make dinner. From the look of the marks on the cutting board, her aim is vastly improving.

"Does she scare you?" asks Master Braginski.

Toris decides to keep the conversation focused on the young master. "I think Miss Natalia isn't very familiar with how to express her feelings, Master Braginski. She doesn't mean to frighten you."

"Yes, but she does."

"She can't help it, Master Braginski, not unless you let her know. When you look past how she is when she's angry, you may find that she's—"

This winter, he thinks, when she brought in three pinecones and a ball of string and asked for molasses and seeds to feed the birds, and

Last spring, he thinks, when she came in as we were cleaning the dishes from that night's ball and nearly fell asleep at the table as she waited for a biscuit and some milk, and

Yesterday, he thinks, when she said "please" for the first time since we've met

"—sweet."

He can tell Master Braginski doesn't quite believe him.

"If you say so," he says. "Maybe she is different for servants, da?"

Toris kind of hopes so.


Year Five

Feliks groans as he bites into another pastry. "God, and Toris, you made this?"

Toris is a little amused. "I did, yes."

"With what, angel dust?"

"No, just—some flour, and some sugar, and maybe some cinnam—"

"Shh, no, don't ruin it for me, you totally genius chef."

Toris laughs a little. "Well, I'm glad you like it."

They're sitting in a small woods at the side of the manor, under the shelter of a drooping tree where the snow isn't as deep. Feliks has been unfailing in visiting Toris for nearly every day off that Toris has had at the manor. For the occasion of his eighteenth birthday—or about when he guesses it to be—Toris has used a few scraps of the Braginski supplies to prepare some cakes for himself, the staff, and Feliks to share.

"So, I'm gonna guess this isn't the first time you've made this?" Feliks asks.

"Oh, no," says Toris.

Feliks looks a little thoughtful. "I totally shouldn't be surprised," he says. "But don't you want to, like, try something new for your birthday? For yourself?"

"But—no." Toris shakes his head. "Everything I make is for me, anyway. For me to see if she likes it."

"You're hopeless," says Feliks, pushing Toris on the shoulder. "It's been years, hasn't it?"

"Four," replies Toris.

"And what's happened in all that time?"

"What do you expect me to say? She's not about to go swooning into my arms."

"Then why are you doing—this?" Feliks waves the half-finished pastry. "I haven't even had my words, but you don't see me sitting around waiting for anyone."

"You wouldn't know who you were waiting for, Feliks."

"And you're waiting for something that—" Feliks cuts himself off.

Toris looks at his friend.

"…That might not even happen," Feliks sighs.

Toris sits back, leaning against the tree they're sitting under. He stares out at the snow-covered grounds, and their footprints that have led them here. He knows Mistress Braginski is somewhere deeper in the woods. He knows she's started eating his chocolate pastries first. He knows she'll pick out the eggplant of any sandwich he prepares. He knows that when Elizabeta hands her the lunches, on those rare occasions where he's simply too pressed, Natalia doesn't say anything, but for him she has a comment, whether she intends to or not.

He also knows that the marriage of the elder Mistress Braginski has Natalia in the woods more often than ever, and she's avoiding lessons again, and she sends back her dinner untouched on the nights that Eduard reports the topic of Natalia's marriage has been raised. He knows that Master Braginski, now more occupied than ever with his own balls and get-togethers and lessons, will no longer request that his sister accompany him, and he knows how much it breaks her heart from the way she no longer makes birdfeeders or steals stale bread for the squirrels when she thinks he isn't looking.

He knows that sometimes the portable meals he prepares are the only meals she eats all day.

"I know," says Toris. "I know I don't have a chance."

"Toris," says Feliks, "I didn't mean it like that—"

"No, Feliks, you're right. She can't look anywhere but at herself and her family. But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop looking after her, even if I can't look at her. Even if she were older, even if she warmed up to the idea of marriage or soulmates or anything else to do with me."

Feliks pauses. And then scoffs. "You're such a hopeless romantic, Toris."

Toris grins slightly. "I can't help it."

"It's the words' fault, you know," says Feliks. "But, like, if you ever stop looking at your own forearm and your little princess and all—"

"She's not my—"

"Listen. I've been thinking—we're eighteen now. We're old enough that we can make our own work. So like, what if we were to start a business or something?"

Toris furrows his brow. "A business?"

"Yeah! Like a bakery—because god, Toris, have you tasted these things you're making for that girl?"

Toris frowns. "And what would you do?"

"Oh, I'd be marketing and sales, definitely."

"Sure. You and your shyness of strangers."

"What? I love people! And I already have a few people in town whom I've told about your cooking. And there's this really cute place near the ports, and—"

Toris realizes Feliks has thought about this more than he was expecting. "Feliks, neither of us know how to write. How are we supposed to read the documents you need to start a business, or do the finances or the inventory?"

"Isn't that what you're always doing in the Braginski kitchens? Come on, Toris—you have to admit it'll be a nice change!" And Feliks is looking at him with eyes he hasn't pulled out since they were children on the streets, when Feliks was asking for protection and a bit of warmth and Toris didn't know how to say no. These were the same eyes Toris faced when he informed Feliks of his new live-in job, when Toris first had to deny him so he could save enough money for them both.

He's been loyal in sharing whatever pay he earns with Feliks, and with that and the odd jobs that Feliks has had while Toris has been at work, Feliks probably has the money as well as the vision for this bakery of his. And now Toris realizes that he faces the same choice he did years ago, sitting in front of Feliks and trying to explain what he wants for both of them, what he wants for himself.

But as Feliks has just said, Toris is unlikely to get what he wants, what he allows himself to dream of late in the night when he can't fall asleep easily.

Toris has taught himself to want smaller things.

"Just…let me think about it, alright?" asks Toris.

Feliks's face falls.

"Just until I know she's okay," Toris continues. "It's rough for her now."

"And you're going to, what, bake her better?"

Toris's expression hardens slightly. "If that's what it takes."

Feliks slumps. "I never could talk you out of doing crazy things. First for me, now for her, I guess. So." He hoists himself up from the ground, then turns and offers a hand to Toris. Like so many times in their lives, Toris takes it. "I can see I'm going to have to step up my game. How about I buy that place downtown?"

"That's not exactly what I—"

"No, Toris, just trust me on this one. You'll see, it'll be great. By the time you arrive, it'll be all ready for you, and we'll have the best business ever!" Feliks has talked himself into ecstasy, and Toris rolls his eyes and smiles. They reach the side of the manor, near where the stables are. Feliks and the other guests of servants have to leave this way.

"Let me know, then, I suppose," says Toris. "Oh, and here." He takes out a few cookies from his pocket, wrapped in a shabby but clean linen that the Braginskis were going to throw out. "For the road back."

"Ah, Toris, you're the greatest." Feliks swallows him in a hug, and Toris pats him on the back. They break apart, and Feliks leaves with a final "Happy birthday!"

Toris stands there for a few moments, just waving. He wonders if Feliks really is going to buy a bakery. Toris's own participation remains to be seen, but this is the most determined he's seen Feliks in a while.

"Who was that?"

Toris nearly jumps, and turns around to see Natalia emerging from the woods near the stables, in a more southern direction than where he and Feliks came from.

"Oh! It's—he's an old friend."

Natalia eyes him. "I see him here from time to time."

Toris nods. "On my days off, miss." Or at least, he hopes. He loves Feliks, but he will strangle him if Feliks is trying to visit when he shouldn't.

Natalia looks at him as if considering something. Toris stands there, unsure of what she wants. At fourteen, she is starting to grow into her full height, which appears to be half a head shorter than Toris. Her form remains lithe but sturdy, and her skirts are becoming longer but don't hide her certain step. He can't imagine her growing more graceful.

"I hope you were not giving him the chocolate chip cookies."

This is what's on her mind? "No, miss," he says uncertainly. "Only sugar." And then he winces. What if she's angry that he's using Braginski family property to make food for his friends? He debated buying his own supplies, but with the banquets that have been arranged to celebrate the elder Mistress Braginski's upcoming marriage, Toris didn't have the time to go to market.

Natalia nods sharply. "The chocolate chip cookies are for me."

Toris is so startled he laughs very slightly. Natalia looks at him with a strange expression as he agrees. "Yes, miss. Only for you."

Her possession of cookie flavors assured, Natalia makes to walk back into the house via the stables. Toris is about to trek back to the kitchen entrance, when he sees Natalia stop herself at the doorway. He pauses too, wondering if she's going to place her order for lunch.

"Happy birthday. Toris."

It takes Toris ten full seconds to summon the breath for any response at all, but in those ten seconds, she is gone.


Year Six

"Marriage is still awful."

Natalia opens her monologue as Toris is preparing that night's dessert. He looks up and makes eye contact, but otherwise remains silent as a gesture for her to go on.

"I am talking with Sister for the first time after her wedding, and she says everything is fine, but she and her husband are simply too—sweet." She spits out the word.

"Something wrong with sweet, miss?"

"I don't believe it. This Matthew—he shouldn't be so polite. Let alone to his wife."

"Oh?"

"He is her husband. He should be strong for her. Not kind."

Toris's hand slips a little at this, and he has to dab off the last trail of frosting he was applying.

"Husbands are for support. And Sister is weak, she needs support, but all Father does is find another simpering man to marry her!"

"Are—are the Williams not a high-rank family?" asks Toris. From all the food he and Elizabeta were asked to prepare, one would think Yekaterina Braginski was marrying a king.

"Oh, they are high enough for the firstborn daughter of a Braginski. But it is not the family, it is that man, if I can call him such. Too weak!"

Toris decides his hands are not going to be stable enough for decorating right now. He decides to take some water, and boils some too in case Natalia wants tea.

He has been lapsing. She is Mistress Braginski, fifteen years old, and her brother is coming of age, and two more Braginski marriages are being discussed. Toris is nineteen and past the age where it matters whether he's an orphan, and Feliks is reminding him of this, reminding him that they have options, reminding him that Toris said this job would last until he could get another, reminding him that Feliks has another for him—

Toris takes a shuddering breath. Another job, at the cost of leaving this one. Natalia's—Mistress Braginski's—rants in the kitchen have become more common, and Elizabeta has found ways to keep her distance. This suits both of them, as Toris handles the dinners and Mistress Braginski's company so that Elizabeta can slip away to town to search.

Words have appeared on Elizabeta's arm. They appeared before Yekaterina's wedding, when the two women would spend hours of every night together under the pretense of Elizabeta serving tea. With Yekaterina married, Elizabeta has begun to pursue her own destiny. Toris knows he should logically disapprove, but he can't imagine how tough it must be to have words but not a face attached. So he covers for her.

This arrangement leaves him alone with Mistress Braginski, and if she notices Elizabeta's absence, she says nothing, instead choosing to rant about the evils of marriage and the false conception of soulmates. She threatens many times to marry her own brother before letting a soulmate enter her life, although she seems to have dropped the childhood conception that her brother is her soulmate.

On one hand, Toris is flattered to be her listening ear. On the other, he wonders how much of her attention is due to the limited number of people she encounters each day. Or—and these are the thoughts that keep him awake at night, now more than the image of her face—despite the paste on his arm, despite the sleeves he tries to keep bound to his wrists, she has seen the writing on his forearm and she knows and she's trying to tell him she's not interested.

Toris has had to actively calm himself these days, to stop stirring the soup or chopping the vegetables to calm his racing thoughts.

He sips his water and stares after Mistress Braginski. Her elbows are on the table and she's hunched over, glaring at the pattern on the tablecloth while muttering about weakness and husbands.

Toris catches one interesting sentence: "And he isn't even her soulmate."

"He isn't?" Toris asks before he can think of a more polite way to say it. He shouldn't be surprised by this; he had just hoped that the lengthy search period for Yekaterina's soulmate had ended up fruitful.

Natalia looks up at him. "No. His words appeared during courtship. Father almost had a fit because he thought Sister and Matthew had already spoken to each other, but then Mother reminded him that only he and Lord Williams spoke during the dinner."

Toris knows the basic steps of staging. One or both soulmates have words already present, but not in the handwriting of the intended. Even if the phrases don't make sense when put together, the two say the words as their first to each other, in place of greetings. It creates an artificial bond that breaks the relationships that either had with their first soulmates.

Toris thinks of the smiling, gracious Mistress Braginski, lacking words herself and saying the words of another. He wonders if she felt anything, when the staging happened. He wonders if her soulmate saw his words—the words in Yekaterina Braginski's handwriting—disappear from his forearm and ask himself if she had no choice.

"That poor man," murmurs Toris as he takes another sip of water.

Natalia's eyes focus on him. "Matthew?"

"No—her soulmate. I mean, Mistress Yekaterina's soulmate, miss."

Natalia looks at him as if his head has leaped off his body. "And so what?" she says. "He is probably just a commoner. He could never have met my sister, or been enough to take care of her. She is better off away from him."

Toris pales.

"And she, with her blank arm—at least she had her choice of soulmates to replace him with. Father could have tattooed her, but he did not. She had only to say Matthew's words, and now they can act as disgusting as they wish together."

Toris is leaning against the counter, but at these words, he does the unthinkable. He sits in the chair across from Natalia, like an equal. His arms—his telltale arm, separated only from her eyes by fabric and pale paste—rest on his knees, and he clasps his hands together, staring at the floor and thinking.

To what will later be his astonishment, Natalia talks on as if this seating arrangement were completely natural.


Year Seven

Elizabeta is gone, fired, and Toris feels the kitchen walls closing in.

Eduard finally has a moment to slip away during the second day that Toris is working alone in the kitchen, to tell Toris the news. Lord Braginski saw Elizabeta's words as she was helping serve breakfast yesterday, and flew into an outrage. He hires servants assuming they will remain wordless, he said, as if it is Elizabeta's fault that her soulmate has become literate only in recent years. Elizabeta has been fired, and the rest of the staff will be examined for words over the next few hours.

Eduard leaves once he shares the news, sparing a worrying glance at his coworker who has gone still in the middle of the kitchen. For the next minutes—hours—whatever amount of time, Toris stands there.

They're going to find him. He need not bake any bread today, no cookies today, because they will find him, and if Elizabeta can be fired after so many years of her utmost service, then Toris will not be spared a second glance. The only option Toris has is to find Feliks, run and start his damn bakery because Feliks has finally bought the shop after a year and a half of negotiation and hired readers and license applications, but if Toris is found then he will be registered, and if he is registered then Feliks will have to reapply for everything, and lose so much time and money because he cannot have a registered co-owner or even a registered employee without countless assurances that Toris will be kept away from the Braginskis, that no other noble family can claim him as collateral for a deal with the Braginskis, assuming that Natalia even chooses to fight for him and—

And Natalia, Natalia who claims that her sister's husband is weak, who wears her blank arm like a badge of pride, like a choice, like a symbol that she is not claimed, not bound, and Toris has been doing all he can not to claim her even in his thoughts, but it's just not enough and if he leaves will she even know, will they tell her why, will she even remember that she's been talking to him, eating his food, sharing her thoughts, saying his name on the best days, and—

How is he supposed to go on knowing that the one person he could ever miss is away from him, is choosing to be away from him, is spurning his advances even when he makes no advances, even when there's nothing to spurn, and his love for her is ruining everything, everything for him and Natalia and Feliks and probably the other servants too because now they will be watched for the smallest sign and it will be all his fault and—

The door closes. Toris barely hears it over his own beating heart. Everything sounds fuzzy, distant, like he's submerged underwater. He's heard of heart attacks, seen old men on the streets clench their chests and grit their teeth and fall over, their eyes not to reopen. His detached mind wonders if this is a heart attack.

Footsteps come closer. Someone comes in his field of view. She's sixteen and he's twenty, and she's still half a head shorter than him.

He tries his hardest to level out his breathing. He can do nothing about his heartbeat, which beats twice as fast as usual and pounds between his ears and against his chest.

"Toris?"

He lets out a shuddering breath that sounds as if he's been crying. He might start, but he doesn't feel enough in control of his body to summon tears.

"Look at me."

His eyes snap to hers. They are impatient, and icier than usual.

"What is happening."

She is back to issuing demands, but Toris can't voice a "yes, miss" or an "I don't know, miss" or even her name, if he wanted, if he dared.

Her movements are much sharper than his. She takes him by the wrist and sits him in the spectator's chair—her chair, and Ivan's when he visits. Toris feels her grasp belatedly, feels like his arms take extra effort to lift, as if they have to move through piles of cotton and can easily collapse down to where they came from. When she lets go of his wrist, it falls in his lap, and he sits still.

He sees her open one cabinet, and then a second. She comes out with a teacup and fills it with water. She yanks the second chair from across the table from Toris, and drags it with a loud sound to rest next to where Toris is, facing him. She slams herself in the chair and the water on the table, where his hand can easily lift to reach it.

"Drink."

Toris stares at her. It's only the second time they've sat at the same level, and never so close.

"It is not a question. Drink."

Toris lifts his arm. It's still difficult to do, but less so than a moment ago. He can notice something besides his heartrate. It's the taste of water.

He swallows three times before looking back at Natalia.

She is staring at him, her hands in her lap and her ankles crossed. She looks at him as if he's an exhibit, something to be examined and figured out.

"I saw a starling today," she says.

It's Toris's turn to stare.

"It had a very small tuft on its chest," she continues. "It's young. I knew its mother last spring, but I haven't caught her feeding it yet. Her nest is in a part of the woods that is filled with aspen trees. The trees are white, but the nest hides among the brown stripes of the trees. In winter, it feels like I am walking in a cloud."

Toris closes his eyes and accepts this imagery. He takes another sip of water.

"On the path there, there is a large willow tree. There I usually eat your sandwiches. The oak across the stream is where I practice my knives. I used to practice on a smaller tree on the other side, but my accuracy is so good that now I am working on distance. The birds make noise at the willow tree, but not at the oak."

"I can't imagine why," responds Toris. His voice is small, very small, and he can't quite smile. But it's a start.

"Ivan and I carved our names in the oak tree," Natalia says, matching his tone. "He tells me he misses it. That is why I only practice on one side of the tree. The other should be for him."

Toris nods. He can take deeper breaths now.

He and Natalia both sit still, lost in Natalia's images of the woods. Toris feels his heartrate fall, the weight come off his chest. He tries very hard not to think of the thoughts that brought him so far into himself and his fears. He's with Natalia, and she was the one who made him sit.

Just as Toris is thinking of getting up and pouring himself some more water, he sees Natalia's fingers rub against each other. He then looks at his sleeve. It's slightly pulled up, and the paste that normally coats his arm is smudged. He can see black script underneath.

So can Natalia.

"When I asked you years ago if you had words—" she begins.

"I didn't then," says Toris.

"When, then?" she asks.

"Shortly after. A few months."

"Show me."

She doesn't say this unkindly, but Toris can't see a way to deny her. He takes a cleaning cloth from the table, dampens it with what's left of the water, and wipes at his arm. With every scrub, his heartrate elevates back to his heart—panic—whatever-attack levels.

He knows exactly when she can read the words on his arm.

Toris stares with her, his arm resting on the table like a foreign object for them both to inspect. Her handwriting has improved, he realizes. He hasn't let himself see it much, wearing long sleeves to bed and the paste every time he has to work. It can normally withstand a day of washing and sweating—anything longer-lasting would be out of his price range—but yesterday he fell asleep too early to reapply it, exhausted from doing the work of two and wondering why Elizabeta wasn't there.

"Go."

The single syllable yanks Toris fully from the momentary peace they'd shared. He knows better than to try to defend himself, or to bring it back.

He stands, but apparently he can't do so fast enough.

"Go," Natalia says, more forcefully. "Go! And don't ever come back here."

Toris thinks back to the things in his room. They aren't many—some clothes, a few trinkets Feliks has brought for him over the years. Maybe he can ask Feliks to return on his behalf, come through the back door and talk Raivis or Eduard into retrieving them. He decides this more out of self-defense than practicality.

For once, he takes Natalia's route, the back door leading into the garden. He hears shuffling behind him, but he knows he won't be strong enough to look back. He's weak, like she said. The minute the door closes, Toris hears a sick thwack of a knife on wood separating the blade from his head, and he knows that the walls aren't closing in anymore—they've moaned and then fully collapsed.

I headcanon Toris as struggling with anxiety and anxiety attacks, and I am so sorry.

I hope to have the second part posted within the next few days. I wanted to post it all at once, but the second part needs more time, and posting this is a promise to myself to finish.