Amara spent the next morning watching.
She watched Sally bring breakfast, noting how the woman's eyes lingered on the pillow—the same pillow the note had been under. She watched the other servants move through the house, tracking who spoke to whom, who avoided her gaze, who seemed nervous.
Everyone seemed nervous.
It could be any of them. Or none of them. Someone from outside could have gotten in—a field worker, one of Grimes's men. The house isn't exactly a fortress.
But that didn't feel right. The note had been placed with precision, with knowledge of her routines. Whoever left it knew which room was hers, knew when she'd be away, knew she'd find it at bedtime.
Someone close. Someone who watches me every day.
She thought about confronting Sally directly. Demanding answers. But what would that accomplish? If Sally was the spy, she'd deny it. If she wasn't, Amara would have burned a bridge for nothing.
Play the long game. Watch and wait.
It was exhausting.
Daniel's condition stabilized—barely.
Dr. Mercer was pleased with his own treatments, not knowing that Amara had been diluting the calomel and substituting Jenny's teas. The fever had dropped to a manageable level, and Daniel was sleeping more peacefully, though he was still too weak to leave the bed.
"A few more weeks of rest, and he may recover," Dr. Mercer announced during his afternoon visit. "The bleeding has done its work. The humors are rebalancing."
The bleeding is killing him slower than the mercury. That's not the same as healing.
But Amara nodded and thanked him, playing the grateful wife.
After he left, she sat by Daniel's bedside and watched him sleep.
A few more weeks. Maybe. Or maybe he dies tomorrow, and everything falls apart.
She needed to move faster.
That afternoon, she summoned Breechy to the small study.
He arrived looking wary—the same guarded expression everyone wore around her now. She closed the door and gestured for him to sit.
"I need your help."
"I'm at your service, Mistress."
"No. I mean I actually need your help. Not your obedience—your judgment." She sat across from him, leaning forward. "Someone is working against me. Someone in this house. They're feeding information to Grimes, leaving threats in my bedroom. I need to know who."
Breechy's face remained neutral, but something shifted in his eyes. Calculation.
"You're asking me to spy on the other servants."
"I'm asking you to help me protect everyone. Including yourself."
A long pause. Breechy's hands rested on his knees, perfectly still.
"What makes you think I'm not the spy?"
The question hung in the air. Amara had considered it—of course she had. Breechy was smart, capable, and had access to everything. He could have been playing her from the start.
"You told me about the drunk in Williamsburg," she said. "The man who could be a figurehead overseer. If you were working for Grimes, you'd never have given me that information. It's too dangerous for you."
"Maybe I was testing you. Seeing how far you'd go."
"Maybe." Amara met his eyes. "But I don't think so. I think you've been watching me just like everyone else, trying to figure out if I'm real. And I think—" She paused. "I think you want me to be real. Even if you're afraid to believe it."
Breechy didn't answer. His jaw tightened.
"I can't promise you safety," Amara continued. "I can't promise anything will work. But I can promise you this: I see you. Not as a servant, not as property, not as a tool. As a person. And I'm asking you, person to person, to help me."
The silence stretched. Amara could hear her own heartbeat, loud in the quiet room.
Finally, Breechy spoke.
"Sally isn't your spy."
"What?"
"Sally. I know you suspect her. I've seen you watching her." He shook his head. "She's not the one. She's scared of you—scared of the changes, scared of what happens if things go wrong. But she's not working for Grimes."
"How do you know?"
"Because I know her. She's been here thirty years. She's survived by keeping her head down and doing her job. The last thing she wants is attention from anyone—you, Grimes, anybody. She's not clever enough to be a spy. She's just trying to stay alive."
Then who?
Breechy seemed to read the question in her face. "I don't know. But I have suspicions."
"Tell me."
"There's a man—Josiah. Works in the stables. Grimes brought him in two years ago, from another plantation. Nobody knows him well. He keeps to himself, but he's always around. Always watching."
The stables. Close to the house, close to the overseer's office. Easy to move between without being noticed.
"Has anyone seen him near my room?"
"I'll find out." Breechy paused. "But Mistress—if I do this, I need something in return."
"Name it."
"My daughter. Sookie. She works in the kitchen." His voice was steady, but his hands had clenched on his knees. "Grimes has been... noticing her. She's fourteen. I want her protected."
Amara's stomach turned. Fourteen. He's been "noticing" a fourteen-year-old.
"Consider it done. She'll be assigned to the main house, directly under my supervision. Grimes won't touch her."
Something in Breechy's face cracked—just for a moment. Then the mask slid back into place.
"Thank you, Mistress."
"Thank me when it's actually safe." She stood. "Find out about Josiah. Quietly. And Breechy—" She waited until his eyes met hers. "If you learn anything else. Anything at all. Tell me. Even if you think I won't want to hear it."
"Yes, Mistress."
He left. Amara stood alone in the study, thinking.
Sookie. Fourteen years old. And Grimes has been "noticing" her.
She thought about all the "mulatto" entries in the ledger. All the children with no listed fathers. All the women whose bodies weren't their own.
This is the system. This is what I'm fighting. Not just the whips and the chains—but this. The everyday horror that everyone pretends not to see.
She wanted to burn it all down. Set fire to the house, the fields, the whole rotten structure of colonial Virginia.
But she couldn't.
One step at a time. One person at a time. That's all I can do.
She visited Elias that evening.
The blacksmith shop was at the edge of the working buildings—a rough wooden structure with a forge that glowed orange in the fading light. Elias was at the anvil, hammering something she couldn't identify. Sparks flew with each strike.
He didn't look up when she entered.
"Elias."
The hammering continued. One beat. Two. Three.
"Elias, I need to talk to you."
Finally, he set down the hammer. Turned to face her, his expression unreadable.
"Mistress."
"I want to visit the quarters. The cabins where people live. I want to see the conditions for myself."
Something flickered in his eyes. "Why?"
"Because I can't fix what I don't understand. And I can't understand from account books and secondhand reports."
Elias wiped his hands on his leather apron. The scar on his cheek caught the firelight, livid and angry.
"You want to see how we live."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I told you. I want to—"
"No." He cut her off. "I mean why. Why do you care? What do you get out of it?"
The question hit harder than it should have.
What do I get out of it? Nothing. Everything. I don't know anymore.
"I get to sleep at night," she said finally. "I get to look at myself in the mirror and not hate what I see. I get to feel like maybe—just maybe—I'm doing something that matters."
Elias stared at her. His face was stone.
"That's a white woman's answer."
"Excuse me?"
"You want to feel better. You want to ease your conscience." He stepped closer, and for a moment Amara saw something dangerous in his eyes. "But my people don't exist to make you feel good about yourself. Our suffering isn't here to give you purpose."
The words were like a slap.
He's right. God help me, he's right.
"Then tell me what you need," she said. "Not what I want to do—what you need. What would actually help."
Elias was quiet for a long moment. The forge crackled behind him.
"Food," he said finally. "Real food, not the scraps we get now. Meat. Vegetables. Enough to actually live on, not just survive."
"Done."
"Blankets. Winter's coming. Half the cabins don't have enough to keep warm."
"Done."
"Time." His voice hardened. "Time to rest. Time to be with our families. Time to be human beings instead of machines."
"The Sunday rest is already—"
"One day isn't enough." He stepped closer again. "You want to know what it's like? Imagine working from before sunrise to after dark, six days a week, every week, for your entire life. Imagine being so tired you can't think, can't feel, can't remember what it was like to not be exhausted. And then imagine some white lady showing up and telling you one day off is 'generous.'"
Amara didn't flinch. "What would be enough?"
"Nothing. Nothing would be enough except freedom." His jaw tightened. "But if you're asking what would make things less unbearable—two days. Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Time to grow our own food, to see our children, to remember we're people."
Two days. In my time, that's a normal weekend. Here, it's revolutionary.
"I'll try."
"Try." He laughed—a harsh, bitter sound. "That's all you people ever do. Try."
"It's all I can offer."
Elias studied her face. Whatever he was looking for, he seemed to find it—or not find it. His expression didn't change.
"Fine. You want to see the quarters? I'll show you. Tomorrow morning, before the work starts. Come alone."
"Alone?"
"Grimes sees you with an escort, he'll think you're inspecting. He'll clean things up, hide the worst of it. Come alone, and maybe you'll see the truth."
Come alone to the slave quarters. Where anything could happen to me.
But she understood what he was really saying. Trust me, even though you have no reason to. The way I'm supposed to trust you.
"Tomorrow morning. Before dawn."
Elias nodded once. Then he turned back to his forge, picking up the hammer like she'd already left.
Amara walked back to the house in the gathering dark, her mind spinning.
He doesn't trust me. He might never trust me. But he's willing to give me a chance.
Now I just have to not waste it.
That night, she couldn't sleep.
She lay in the dark, listening to the sounds of the house settling around her. Every creak made her tense. Every shadow seemed to move.
Someone was in this room. Someone put a note under my pillow. They could come back. They could do worse.
She thought about getting up, barricading the door with furniture. But that would be admitting fear. And she couldn't afford to be afraid.
I've faced tenure committees. I've defended dissertations in front of hostile panels. I've navigated academic politics that would make Machiavelli weep.
This is just... higher stakes.
She almost laughed at herself. Almost.
Around midnight, she heard footsteps in the hallway. Soft. Careful. They stopped outside her door.
Amara's hand slid under her pillow, finding the small knife she'd taken from the kitchen. It wasn't much—a paring knife, barely sharp enough to cut vegetables—but it was something.
The footsteps moved on.
She didn't sleep until dawn.
When she went downstairs the next morning, Oney was waiting for her.
"Mistress." The girl's voice was low, urgent. "I need to tell you something."
"What is it?"
Oney glanced around, checking for listeners. "Last night. I saw someone in the hallway. Outside your room."
Amara's heart rate spiked. "Who?"
"I couldn't see their face. It was too dark. But it was a man. Tall. He was just... standing there. Outside your door." Oney's hands were twisting in her apron. "I made a noise—accidentally—and he left. Went toward the back stairs."
The back stairs. Near the kitchen. Near the servants' quarters.
"Did you recognize anything about him? His clothes, the way he moved?"
Oney hesitated. "He walked like someone who knew the house. Someone who's been here a long time."
Not Josiah, then. Josiah is new.
So either there are two people working against me, or Breechy's wrong about who the spy is.
"Thank you for telling me, Oney. I know it was risky."
The girl nodded, still looking scared. "Be careful, Mistress. Please. I don't know what's happening, but—something's wrong. Something's very wrong in this house."
She hurried away before Amara could respond.
Something's very wrong.
Amara stood alone in the hallway, the kitchen knife still hidden in her sleeve.
Yes. Something is very wrong.
And I have maybe weeks to figure out what before Daniel dies and everything falls apart.
She straightened her shoulders and walked toward the back door, heading for the quarters.
Time to see the truth.
[End of Chapter 15]