Chapter One

Isla sat against a brown brick wall, shivering in the cold. She wrapped a threadbare black scarf more securely over her frostbitten nose in a scant attempt to ward off the constant cold. Her ice-blue eyes looked up at the falling snowflakes as small icicles grew on her long white lashes.

She slowly stood up, shaking the snow that had fallen on her worn out dress and walked out from behind the wall to reveal an ornately decorated mansion. She ignored the huge, wooden double-doors and strode towards a set of old, decrepit stone stairs.

She had been sent outside for what her master had called a "break," but she knew fully well it was just to get her out of the house. To banish her into the cold outside without even the relief of the fire, the fire that she knew would never be hers.

She opened the rusted metal door. It ominously felt like a prison door and, she dismally thought, in many ways it was. She stepped inside, lightly kicking her boots to dispose of the remaining snow still left. She was immediately hit with the warmth of the heat seeping into the servants quarters. Although the heat wouldn't seem much, Isla had learned to be a bit more appreciative then an average person.

However, before she had even basked in the warmth for a minute, she heard a voice. The same voice that followed her wherever she went.

"Isla! Are you finally back from that 'break'? I can't believe you, ungrateful brat! You just leave the rest of us servants in this awful hellhole while you go and enjoy yourself in the fresh air, all while swooning about your life!" A large woman stomped into the dark kitchen, balancing a large, empty plate on her hand. She wore a stained white maid outfit, complete with an old looking maid cap.

"I…I'm sorry!" Isla mumbled as she quickly ran to a huge table, intending to quickly bake a loaf of bread.

Another side door flew open and a scrawny man walked in. He had always hated Isla ever since when she first got hired. "If it isn't little Isla…the favourite servant even though all she does is mess things up...for everyone!" Otis, the head butler of the Lord's house, would always hate her, no matter how kind she was.

Isla bowed her head. An act of submission it would seem, but in reality she just wished they'd all forget about her.

"Now I finally understand why you're always sent outside! It's because Lord Wangchester can't stand your presence!" The maid, Masie, stood beside Otis. A smug smirk turning her bulbous lips upwards.

Isla turned around again to her loaf of bread. She chose to ignore rather than send hateful thoughts towards the other servants. In the back of her mind she wanted to believe that they weren't really bad people, she was sure it had been her fault. But no matter how nice she ever acted it would still be the same…

"Everyone! Get your damn minds together and listen to me!" Isla abruptly turned her head to the gong of a metal pot.

A elderly woman with angry eyes beat the pot with a metal spoon, haughtily.

"Lord Wangchester is having a very important party this night, so will need every servant to be in proper order!" She bellowed the words, her voice throaty and unattractive.

Isla shuddered, every time there was a big event in this mansion, something always ended up going wrong.

"That's great news! Extra work means extra pay!" Masie said, her ugly face wearing a look of greed. "But knowing Isla, she'll probably take all the work from all of us…and mess up everything too!"

Otis snickered at Masie's remark, "I'm sure you're very correct about that. In all my many years of working as a servant, I have never met someone so unlikable and so incapable!"

Isla paid no attention to their comments, said just loud enough so that she could hear and instead, hesitantly raised her hand.

"Um, Ms. Flanch…how can I help with this important dinner?" She said the words in a sweet voice.

Ms. Flanch looked her over, seemingly thinking of something. "You can… Oho! Silly me, you are too go up to Lord Wangchester's office immediately, he says he has an important announcement to make towards you."

"Oh?" Isla's stomach fell. Her being summoned to the lord's office could only mean bad news. She almost never was even allowed to go out of the servants quarters.

Even just an average meeting with Lord Wangchester was enough for her to break out into a cold sweat, he was not a kind man.

"Well? What are you waiting for, you useless brat?" Masie said, with an unusually hopeful expression on her face. This expression could only mean that she was hoping for the best…and in Isla's case, the worst.

"I…apologize. I'll be right there!" Isla scurried out of the dark kitchen, her long, pale hair flying past her face.

She was a young woman, but her life had aged her much faster than any sort of time could. Her eyes had taken on a sort of cold despair that had come over her as soon as she was hired in this mansion. Now, she realized, this day could be her last day here.

She quickly threw away those thoughts. There was no way Lord Wangchester would let her go, that's something that a kind Lord would do…and Lord Wangchester was very far away from that.