"Psssst," says Anietta, twirling her feather duster excitedly.
"Ani," Dora says wearily, "I've been on my feet in these heels for hours. I really don't care what Jools said about Marni's hair today—"
"Noooooo," Anietta says excitedly. "There's someone outside the kitchen entrance weeping romantically—"
"I don't care about Marni's boyfriend, either." Dora's feet hurt, she's tired and hungry, and she feels horribly grimy from cleaning — actual cleaning, she's not sure she can get away with slinging a cantrip at it even when nobody's looking.
"Noooooo!" Anietta is practically bouncing. "It's a lady! Weeping about you!"
Dora nearly says something spectacularly vulgar.
"No," she says flatly, instead. "No, I'm sure you're mistaken. I don't know any ladies, and if I did, they wouldn't be weeping for an assignation outside the kitchen."
"She asked for you!" Anietta says excitedly. "And she's got a romantic little picture of you in a silver locket! You never said you had a fancy lover—"
"I most certainly don't," Dora says.
"Ooooooooh," Anietta says, eyes shining and huge. "Did you quarrel? Did you flee, heartbroken? Is that why you took this job?—"
"No," Dora says, "Absolutely no."
"Noooooo," Anietta says. "You can't leave her weeping outside! Pining! Repentant! What if she sweeps you off your feet and takes you away from all this!—"
"She'd better not," Dora mutters; damned if she's wasting all this time wearing a bloody maid's uniform and scrubbing things to case the place.
"Ani! Ani!" Marni hisses from the doorway toward the kitchens. "Are you fetching her? The pretty lady's saying poetry about Dora's eyes!"
Dora grimly shoves her cleaning rag into Annieta's hand. "Fine, I'm coming," she says crossly. "I'll put a stop to that and tell her to clear off before the wizard notices her hanging about."
"Noooooo," Anietta wails.
"What in cold hells do you think you're doing?" Dora hisses, having dragged a theatrically sniffling Elith some distance across the yard, lace kerchief pressed to her eyes, bosom heaving.
"Oh, my celestine dearest!—" Elith says, loud enough to carry to the rapaciously interested heads peering around the kitchen door, voice cracking, then leans their heads together and drops to a murmur. "Checking you haven't got your over-clever perfidious buttocks thrown into a pit of needlejaws, or roasted with fireballs, or strung up by your fucking thumbs," she says, and pantomimes putting a hesitant hand to Dora's waist.
Dora smacks it away, and grimly yanks on the hem of her maid's uniform, as though it'll make it cover any more of her, or protect her nethers better from the evening's cool draughts. "The wizard," she grumbles, "isn't half the problem I thought, seeing how these stupid fucking costumes are less of a prurient ogling interest, and much less of a groping opportunity, and more — aspirational. The wizard spends most of the time at home dressed the same; it's—" she shrugs, one-shouldered and sharp. "Still damned tiresome, mind, wearing this."
Elith pauses, then, squints at her, then swiftly muffles a laugh behind fist and handkerchief. "Oh, well then," she says, shoulders relaxing, and sounding almost herself within her noble lover guise. "But the thing, Dora?"
"Haven't learned a thing," Dora says glumly.
Elith plucks her hand up in both of her own. "See?" she murmurs over it, "you should have let me, instead of doping me with my own powder—"
"A thousand times no," Dora mutters. "The wizard's soft and more harmless to the women employed here than we thought; but we didn't know that. I wouldn't — well, as you see. I didn't allow it."
"You," Elith murmurs, turning her hand over and pressing Dora's palm to her own cheek, simpering, "don't fucking allow me, or forbid me. I'm not to be told what to do, Dora."
Dora shrugs again. "Well, that's how you ended up drugged instead," she says, rough and mutinous, and looks away.
"Dora," the elf says, tone turning soft.
"I'll look harder," Dora says brusquely, trying to tug her hand free.
"Don't," Elith says, hanging onto her. "Leave it. If it's not obvious by now, it won't be; I'd rather not you get in trouble by snooping. There's other approaches."
"You'd have found out, by now," Dora says, eyes prickling, and tugs again, harder. Elith tugs back, sharply, making Dora stumble into her, chest to chest, breath mingling.
"I can't find what's not there to find," Elith says, soft and urgent, "and nor can you. I don't think you're a fool, or helpless, or doing less than I would; I think you've risked enough. I've been leaving well enough alone, to not make things suspicious, but I've been worried about you every minute, Dora. Leave it."
Dora sets her mouth stubbornly. "I'll look harder," she says again.
"I will get on my knees and beg you," Elith says, stern and serious, eyes narrowed. "Give your numbskulls there a real show. I'll do it."
"You've already make this look like I'm stupidly throwing in my job to run away with a rich lover," Dora says grumpily. "Why not make a complete horse's ass of the both of us, into the bargain?"
Elith puts her hands very firmly on Dora's hips, then. "I'll do it," she says, low and dark and threatening, and the wizard gulps.
"No," she says, hurried and feeble. "No, that's — fine, you win. Give me twenty minutes to pack my bag and change out of this stupid outfit."
Elith smiles in the gathering gloom, eyes gleaming with reflected starlight. "You could bring the dress," she suggests silkily, and Dora flushes half at the presumed mockery, and half — some other feeling.
"No," she says firmly.
