The Blue Room had once been a haven of silk and French wallpaper, a place for favored guests or lovers to pass the night behind a locked door. Now, the walls were sun-bleached and curling, the lace curtains torn where rain had gotten in years ago. The four-poster bed still stood, its velvet canopy stained with time, but Arabella had always liked the room. There was honesty in its decline.
She lit the fireplace herself. The flames crackled to life as Lisette swept in with linens, a chipped porcelain basin, a bottle of brandy, and a small iron brazier for burning the boy's clothes. She did not look at him.
When she left, Arabella stripped the rags from his thin frame. He didn't resist. He didn't blush. He didn't shiver. His skin bore the story of a life she could not yet read: lash marks faded into pale ribbons across his back, wrists rubbed raw, ribs too visible. And on his collarbone the same sigil from earlier, now clearer in the firelight: a circle with a barbed cross in the center. Ancient, precise.
She cleaned the mud from his arms with a damp cloth. He watched her every movement the entire time.
"You're too young for war," she said casually, eyes not meeting his. "Too quiet for a thief and too pale for a field hand. So tell me what are you?"
No answer.
She dipped the cloth in the brandy and began wiping the crusted blood from his jaw., but he didn't flinch not even a little.
"Perhaps you're a dream. A fever of the storm. Or a curse laid by someone who thought I'd make an easy target. But they made you too pretty for a ghost." She said looking at his face.
Still no answer. But something passed over his face then, an almost-smile. Almost.
She sat back on her heels, the cloth now stained pink in her lap.
"I'll not have a servant with no name," she said, smoothing her hair behind one ear. "So if you won't give me one, I'll give you mine."
She looked at him fully now, and for a moment, the room felt too quiet. The storm had faded to a steady hum behind the shutters, like breath through a hollow reed.
"Jonah," she said. "You remind me of the boy swallowed by something vast and merciless in the bible. But unlike him, I doubt you'll be spat back out."
He blinked. Once almost deliberate.
Arabella exhaled through her nose, the closest she ever came to a laugh.
"Jonah it is, then."
She stood, smoothing the wrinkles from her gown.
"I expect you'll be standing when I return. I dislike helpless men."
At the door, she paused. His gaze was still on her. Not watching but carefully studying.
"I'll have Lisette find something for you to wear."
She left him in the glow of the firelight, the door clicking shut behind her.
And inside the Blue Room, Jonah turned slowly toward the mirror across from the bed.
But surprisingly his reflection wasn't moving.