Three thralled souls sat at the table, swaying reflexively. Snapper Jo stood
between her and the kitchen door, sucking meditatively on an old bone.
He caught her glance and grinned. “Nice and clean! Mistress be pleased. Fat lady
make house nice and clean and Mistress wash town!” Overcome with the wit of this
observation, he began to laugh. “Wash all the children away, then Snapper Jo be
fat lady’s boy!”
Gilla clenched her hands in her apron to keep them from closing on the fiend’s
scrawny throat. At home, she would have thrown something-if she had been at home
she would have been throwing things long ago! She felt fury boiling in her
belly; she was a lidded kettle ready to explode. Shaking, she hefted the crate
of shattered crockery and marched toward the door.
“Fat lady not go out-” Snapper Jo began.
“Great Mistress said to clean her house-I’m cleaning, you wart-upholstered
cretin, so get out of my way!” Gilla said between set teeth.
The gray fiend frowned and moved an indecisive half-step, struggling to
reconcile the contradictory ideas and unfamiliar vocabulary. Gilla shouldered
him aside, shifted her weight, and kicked open the door. Watery light filtered
through the shimmering underside of the protective bubble with which Roxane had
warded her domain. Gilla took a deep breath of dank air, tensed, and heaved the
crate outward with all the strength of her rage.
It arced up and outward, trailing a comet’s tail of broken crockery, and burst
through.
Gilla was already turning to send another load after it when she heard a sound