The tavern wasn’t the only place abuzz with the return of Sabline II; the ship docked near the Jumontian ones, looking like one of their younger cousins. Instead of the golden coiled birds that decorated the Jumontian ships, Sabline II bore a golden… raven?

Sabline. Ugh. Only if she was better at names. Natty would know.

‘That ship we saw in the book was Sabline, right?’ Ari asked.

‘The founding ship of Aquilon,’ said Natty. ‘Had to have been more impressive than that.’

~But Sabline II is impressive in its own way.~

The snippets that floated around them explained the reason well enough.

‘They built the ship with a bit of coin from everybody!’ a man was explaining to his friend. ‘Can you believe it? A whole ship that’s owned by people like us putting in our saved moons. Better than hiding it under your pillow, eh?’

‘Yeah, but the Captain could have run off with the gold. It’s got to be safer under your pillow. Not that I have any under mine, see? No one break into my house please.’

‘That’s why you’ve got to go to Madame Lucretia. She always puts in the biggest share. Just listen to her… No, just look at her place. Anyone who’s going to run away with her money had better prepare to be sold off to the Guild of Barbers!’ The man made a swiping motion across his neck; it didn’t look like he was implying a simple beard trim.

A small crowd had formed by the portside, drawn here under the full moon by the scent of newly acquired coin, blocking their way back. Ari pressed her back against the wall to shuffle past, holding onto Natty’s arm, craning her neck to take a better look.

At the centre of the circle was a man manoeuvring two puppets on a small wooden box. A lady puppet’s long pink dress flapped in the wind, like the missing persons poster did behind Ari’s head. The puppeteer channelled a falsetto voice.

‘Even though you’re unrefined–‘

‘Pfft,’ went the man puppet, dressed in a repurposed brown sack.

The crowd fell apart with laughter.

She could see why Fabia had been able to blow people away with her performances, before Natty.

‘Even though…’ The puppeteer took on a singsong voice. ‘… others cannot see you clearly, I can see through the fog of flatulence that no herb in your shop could cure. Your being calls for greatness, and your gut screams for the food of feasts. Above it all… above it all… I can see you… and…’

The man puppet flipped inside out, swapping the sack for a blue velvet cloak.

‘…me! Now! All we have to do is find the crown. Where can it be?!’

A little quilted crown appeared on a stick behind their heads.

‘Behind you!’ cried the crowd.

Of course it was no longer there by the time the puppets turned around. Instead, the crown wriggled petulantly behind a boy watching from the front row, where the puppeteer’s assistant danced among the crowd, crown in one hand and a real-life hat in the other, gathering coins and cheers until, at last, he allowed the lady puppet to snatch the crown with both hands and place it on the man puppet.

‘All hail His Majesty the King!’ cried the puppeteer and his assistant.

‘More! More! More!’ cried the crowd.

Ari rubbed her temples. More for another day.

‘All right. Who wants “The Doom of Ventinon”?’ she heard the puppeteer say as she shuffled past.

A small cheer.

‘Who wants “The Scandals of Lady Oriana”?’

A whoop, a stomp and a cheer. Someone whistled.

‘I want the bit where she uses Baron Somner’s head to crack open a walnut!’

‘Walnut head! Walnut head! Walnut head!’

‘You’ve got to do the bit where she undid her dress in the cathedral and out popped two giant sunflowers!’

‘Sunflower tits! Sunflower tits! Sunflower tits!’

By the time she turned back towards the market square next to the cathedral, she could just about make out the cries for ‘Beaver hat! Beaver hat! Beaver hat!’

Though the moon beckoned still from the eastern skies, lighting their way back to Claribel’s home, the jewellery seller had gone, as had most of the stalls that had livened the square before, leaving a lone lute player slumped under an oversized flat cap. He livened at the sight of Ari and Natty, stood up to lean against the case of his other instrument, a cello perhaps, and plucked away at the strings of his lute to form a haunting yet pleasantly familiar melody.

Footsteps.

Three new figures moved into the square, lurching in their direction: two friends and a nuisance.

‘Friends!’ said the one who was not. ‘Do you want to sink a rival merchant’s ship?’

‘No.’

She rummaged for a handful of barleys to drop into the lute player’s open case, and hurried on, eager to put distance between herself and the nuisance. She knew the sort. Conmen. Her sort of people, but never her thing; you had to be good at talking to people to make money from that, which the current guy was also struggling to do.

‘Think of the wealth that you could–’

‘I just told you no.’

‘But… hear me out, I have the remains of a heretic, and it can be yours for a single, silver moon–’

‘You’re a disgusting graverobber? Got it. Piss off before I punch the daylight out of you.’

Ari eyed the supposed graverobber. There seemed to be more meat to this passing fragment of conversation than the others she’d walked past. On a mission in her own world, she’d have bet on a side quest, but in this world, who could tell? Perhaps the true side quest had been to watch the puppet show until the very end. Perhaps the key to finding Miri was ‘The Doom of Ventinon’.

‘Let me just show you,’ said the man who failed to piss off. He had sunken cheeks, unruly whiskers and a natural glare that’d get him turned away by bouncers. Not a great look to nail a sale. With shaking hands, he untied a makeshift linen pouch from his belt and offered the others a peek. ‘This is top quality stuff, my friends. I’m talking about the remains of Malory, formerly known as Lady Malory of House Taur.’

Side quest. Surely?

~If it really is Mal’s remains…~

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~…buy…~

<…take it from him.>

Two different words spoken in silence at the same time.

~…You can’t just take it. Look at that man’s shoes. The goatskin is worn out and one has even lost its leather laces. How can I take from a man like that?~

~Just ask him to come to Wingshill House and–~

~Look at him. Look at him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Does that look like a seasoned swindler to you? And anyhow, do you really believe that anyone would not know my abode? Lady Claribel stays at Wingshill House. That is simple common knowledge.~

The throbbing in her head was turning into a splitting migraine. Was that the effect of two spirits tearing apart one body? She shut away the pain; it was just another of those useless things.

It was only when Ari had to apply for a job as Becky that she’d written a CV for the first time. After all, the Chief hadn’t required anything other than a stab in the leg to recruit her into the Programme.

Think transferrable skills, the lady at the Jobcentre had explained while clicking, repeatedly, on a frozen link. Successful transfers of possession from another person to herself: she’d had ten years’ worth of experience at that.

‘Did your skills help generate any profit?’

‘Yes. Definitely.’

‘Good! Now… You’ll need to prepare properly for your interview. Here’s a guide to common questions. You might want to take a look.’

What are your strengths? A time to flaunt her Romanian deadlift? Oh no, it was asking for things she was good at, such as keeping the environment clean. Fewer splatters than most.

What are your weaknesses? Like hell she was going to tell someone she couldn’t trust. Next.

Where do you expect to be in the next ten years? Dead.

Despite the pounding in her head, despite her fingers being not wholly hers, this was a walk in the park – though strictly speaking it was a walk down a dark, cobbled street. And on a street like this, it was easy enough to kick up some sticks and stones. She hacked off a piece of linen from her underskirt with the fruit knife and wrapped a handful of rocks, a sprinkle of mud and a selection of twigs into her own makeshift pouch, which she tied with a leather lace from the commoner shoes that Natty had acquired for her.

‘Can you be drunk?’ she asked Natty once she’d finished fashioning the replacement pouch. It looked too white, too clean to be the real pouch, but people seldom truly looked when they knew what they were looking for.

‘Sure thing. Dodgem incoming!’

Lurching through the streets, suddenly drunk on the sea breeze, Natty bumped into the fellow scammer, then smacked with convincing force against the wall of someone’s house.

‘Ugh.’

Ari swept in, a false rescuer, and steadied him on his feet. An arm wrapped around the man’s waist. It only took a second for the pouches to swap places. The lag from the alcohol wasn’t as unpleasant in Claribel’s body.

‘I’m so sorry about my husband,’ said Ari, adding in a good bit of unfocused fidgeting with her hands for occasions like this. ‘He’s had one too many.’

‘Oh, well,’ the man stiffened at the sight of her nettled face. ‘You’d better hold on to him instead. Make sure he gets home safe, you know. You aren’t from these parts, are you? I don’t know what it’s like in Aquilon, but sometimes there are bad sorts around these parts, hangin’ round the port.’

And what would those bad sorts do? Steal, or…

It was hard to know when to stop without guidance from above. Was this enough? Item acquired? Or should she strike him over the temple and let the sideways collision with the wall handle the rest? Splat. Crunch. Simple.

~Stop.~

The rush of victory eluded her grasp, and the man stepped away, unstruck.

~You need to stop. And you can’t just… take it.~

~I said no.~

How could anyone grow up so sheltered from the desperation in the world? All the things she wanted to say tangled together: a knot of thorns.

‘Natty… tell her,’ she beseeched her more eloquent friend.

‘Well… You do tend to veer on the side of paranoia. But then again, that’s why Ari’s still alive, you know. Sometimes you can’t be too careful.’

~And sometimes you can be lucky enough that a risk like this is no risk at all. I have been lucky…~

There was a sadness behind words that should have been thankful.

‘You should never push your luck,’ said Ari.

Even as she said it, she knew that the handle of the fruit knife that she clutched too tightly held the answer. A knot of thorns was no harder to solve than the Gordian Knot, yet being human, as she probably was, the knot offered more comfort than its absence.

What if…

What if she dared think that she was mistaken?

What if she faced the fact that she had been mistaken once already this evening. The man she’d labelled a scammer earlier turned out to be an eccentric nobleman scouting for his school of thought.

What if there was a thing such as being too careful?

Claribel offered no response.

So Ari took out her fruit knife and sliced through the leather death knot where she’d tied the stolen pouch under her cloak.

‘Do you want me to give it back?’ Words she never thought she’d say.

‘Are you serious now?’ Natty hissed.

She shrugged. Wouldn’t it be fun to find out just how much she could take on, handicapped with a headache and Claribel’s untrained body? Natty was by her side. If the scammer were to draw his weapon, he was as good as dead. And if he were merely here to scam? It was hardly her hard-earned blood money.

~I just want you to pay him properly. He is not asking for an outrageous amount for recovering Mal’s remains. It couldn’t have been pleasant work.~

~That is not what he is selling. Mal is gone. Gone to the Fated One. He is just… offering us a chance to say goodbye without us having to pick up the remains ourselves. Tell me true, would you have done it for a moon?~

~You can buy a hen with three moons.~

Ari shook her head. Their head. There was usually a box of paracetamol and ibuprofen tucked into the inside pocket of her leather jacket. She missed it now more than ever.

The scammer was slow, meandering through the streets looking for his next victim, so it didn’t take long to catch up to him on silenced feet, and with the hand that didn’t belong to her, she tapped him on the shoulder, waiting for him to draw a knife.

Instead, he spun around, empty handed, looking gaunt and gormless.

‘You again? Are you after the heretic’s ashes or somethin’? You don’t look like folks who own a merchant ship,’ said the man, rightly suspicious, but wrongly concluding, ‘so you’re here to poison your neighbours’ fields, aren’t you? Tell you what. I’ll sell you a sprinkle for a half-barley. How’s that?’

‘Thing is,’ said Ari, waiting for Natty to get in position and bracing herself for the scammer’s knife to make a late appearance, ‘I already have it.’

‘What?’ said the man. A ragged strand of his whiskers wiggled in the wind, but no flash of steel appeared. Instead, he patted the pouch where he’d kept the remains, still oblivious that it was a different pouch. ‘What do you have? A half-barley? If you can spare a handkerchief, I’ll let you take a solid scoop of the stuff.’

‘No thanks. I’ve taken the whole thing, though I’ve only got a half-barley left,’ said Ari, dropping the small silver coin into the man’s open palm. Open and defenceless. ‘Come to Lady Claribel’s manor at Wingshill House tomorrow. She will pay you the additional moon and double it for your trouble today.’

‘What are you talking about? Are you asking me to turn up at a noble’s house? And Lady Claribel at that? The Lady Claribel? And she wants this pouch, does she? What trouble, and what–’

They left him there, bewildered face lit by the moonlight, patting away at a pouch that contained nothing but sticks and stones; she’d already talked to him too much, made him too real.

*

There was no way to tell if it was Lady Malory’s ashes and bones, but the weight and density of the ribs felt human enough, and the mix of molars, canines and incisors looked like they’d come out of a cremation, cut short.

Funny that the human brain was so resistant to burning. The man who was willing to scrape what looked like lumpy gravy off the stakes was no scammer; he was just pure desperate.

The taste of bile played at the back of her throat.

~I just… Maybe we should burn it a bit more. For luck. Until there’s no more… no more slimy parts.~

‘Do you want to bury her now?’ said Ari. A little grave by the wayside, overlooking the sea. Was that good enough for the sister of a duke? Do titles matter after death, when succession was no longer an option?

~No. Though I was hoping we could just observe Duke Taur from a distance for the purpose of finding your Miri, now that we have what might be Mal’s remains, we will have to engage with him. It is only right that we give her only true family a way to let go.~

She could feel Claribel scrambling for the right words. ~We… used to see each other often, because I taught Mal needlework, but it is difficult for us to meet at the moment.~

Claribel sighed within her head. ~Well. It’s possible to locate him another way. You see… House Taur has no manors near Eirene, so Duke Taur should have been a guest of the Crown, but with Mal’s standing, the Crown refused to allow him into their guest quarters. Other noble houses also turned him down, not wanting to anger the Church. He frequents La Petite Mort but does not stay there, so I think he must be staying with a friend, an untitled man who has little regard for the Church.~

~Hesperus. At Thornsberry Hall.~

That name again… The–

~No, no, no. No genius-related descriptors allowed. Just Hes.~

Hes. The non-genius fire mage. A man who should have been a hero, but was not even a Master in the Guild of Mages.