‘Nanny Jesse, who’s at the door? Is Hes back? Is it Hes? Is it Hes?’ A child’s voice approached from behind Nanny Jesse’s skirt, followed by a mess of black hair that made the white streak above the boy’s forehead look all the brighter.

He pushed his way to the front and gazed up at Ari, transfixed, just as she was by the half-white lashes that framed his grey eyes. It was as if someone had dipped a brush in bleach and pulled them through at two different spots through both sets of lashes, leaving the edges around the righthand eye black, and half of the outer lashes of the lefthand eye untouched.

He reached Claribel’s chest, which, in trainee Agent terms, would put him around seven or eight, and half broken-in by the Chief. Broken-in. He’d loved that phrase. It made Ari feel like a pair of shoes.

‘This is Lady–’

‘You’re Master Claribel! From House Aquilon! And you’re here!’ he cried.

‘And you are…?’ Ari asked.

The boy was clutching the sides of his face, shouting ‘ahhhhh’ and wobbling through the hall dramatically, too busy to respond.

‘That’s Finn,’ said Nanny Jesse, coming to the rescue. ‘He is… Hesperus’s… boy. But not. I mean… He is a boy, and though he is not Hesperus’s son, he is also not living here as a servant. He is simply here as a child, you see, my lady.’

Finn whizzed to the front once more, adding in three on-the-spot hops for effect. ‘Is Master Claribel coming in? Can I really be in the same room as a legend? Ahhhhhh…’

<… I see why you dislike calling Hesperus a genius now. Being called a legend, even when it’s not actually directed at me, feels properly disgusting.>

‘As I was saying to her, since the owner of the house is absent–’

‘Master Claribel! By the name of the Fated One, it’s you in the flesh!’ Finn squeezed Ari’s hand tight. ‘You must come and see the whole house! And the gardens too. Yes, definitely the gardens! I’ll show you something really amazing. Have you ever seen a flying pig? I made it, but Hes helped too. Just a little bit. I can’t make things fly yet, see? Is it true you can spin whole windmills the size of, like, the biggest windmill ever, in the whole world and beyond?’

~I… try.~

But Finn didn’t really need a response. Ari let the boy pull her into a narrow hallway that led onto the rest of the house through two arched doorways. On the right, Ari peeked through at the kitchens where Nanny Jesse had set down her cleaver next to a wooden chopping board. To her left, a set of curtains made from undyed wool draped over the arch, protecting the rest of the house from the cold draft seeping in through the front door.

Finn held the curtains open for her, spinning it around himself in the process, revealing a cosy-sized room. An open hearth dominated the centre, and four wooden stools formed a ring around it. A table sat to the side, lurking in the background with five pallets of hay.

At the very far end of the room, a ladder dangled down from an attic that looked, at first glance, bare of any furniture.

‘Look, look!’ said Finn, picking up a figure of a man carved from wood. ‘I made this myself. This is Lady Oriana.’

Correction: picking up a figure of a lady carved from wood.

‘Versus… Dum dum-dum! The great hero, Susu!’ The second wooden figure had been made with fully moveable joints, and rode a beautifully carved horse that slotted perfectly under the rider. Finn snatched a tiny, removable helmet from the chair next to him and popped it onto Susu’s head.

‘That’s an interesting match-up.’

‘Hmm. They’re in the finals of the tournament! The great hero Susu just bested Sir Dagon, and Lady Oriana defeated a kraken because she made it stay out of the sea for too long, and it got dried out and turned into a teeny, tiny starfish,’ he squeaked in his highest voice. ‘And now! To the finals! Susu’s just shot Lady Oriana through the heart.’ He reached for a small wooden box under the chair and unlatched it to reveal a wealth of miniature wooden weapons. ‘Ugh. But it’s not the end. You see, that wasn’t the real Lady Oriana. Yah, yah, yah! Here you go. You be the real Lady Oriana.’

Finn passed her a third figure, even more crudely-carved than the first, but wore an old, life-sized red stocking over its head for a dress.

‘Oh no, can you take off his hair?’ he cried.

Ari stared at the wooden figure’s bald, round head and wondered if she’d ever crafted hair out of thin air at Finn’s age. It was so hard to remember anything beyond the one time when she’d imagined the Chief as a snowman, melting away in springtime, leaving just a carrot and a pair of buttons behind.

‘His hair! Let me help you.’ Finn ripped the red stocking from the figure.

‘That… wasn’t the dress?’

‘Oh no. That was Hesperus, but he got knocked out last time, so he’s not taking part in this tournament.’ Finn stuffed the naked and bald figure into her hands, and…

Nanny Jesse finally scrambled through the curtains after them, with now-clean hands, holding a tray of butter biscuits. ‘My lady, since you are staying, you might as well… Oh, by the name of the Fated One! Finn, you cannot ask a lady to crouch down on such a dirty floor. Goodness.’

Though the floor was undecorated with painted tiles, even the hearth had been swept clean, and despite the clutter of toys and pallets around them, the place looked every bit a well-kept house. The only thing that marred it was an unusually thick layer of bird droppings by the front door, as if some poor bird had a secret vendetta against the occupants of this house.

‘Not to worry,’ said Ari. ‘I chose to crouch down myself. In fact…’

Claribel’s spirit focused her mind on something, and nothing happened.

~Come on…~

~Ugh. This is so embarrassing. I thought at least I could have a little control over the wind still… Apart from supplying magic to the black mana-stone bracelet, I can’t do anything!~

~It was supposed to go ‘poof’, and all the dust would have blown out of my dress.~

~Seriously? Seriously! It would have looked amazing.~

Ari patted the front of her dress and dusted herself with the amazing power of hands.

‘In fact,’ she said, popping a butter biscuit in her mouth, ‘this is delicious. Nanny Jesse, did you make it yourself?’

~I thought you didn’t enjoy small talk.~

‘Oh, my lady, you are too kind!’ cried Nanny Jesse.

‘I don’t see a flying pig in here. Weren’t you going to show me one, Finn?’

‘Oh! Yes! I forgot! It’s outside. All right… Here, take the battle plan!’ he said, handing her two scrolls made of peeled silver-birch bark. On them, he’d etched two pictures clearly labelled ‘PLAN I’ and ‘PLAN III’, leaving the missing plan a mystery. The first was… ‘We either go giving sea-dogs golem legs so that they can appear in the middle of the battle and eat the great hero Susu, or…’ He flicked to the third. ‘We are going to use the ultimate flyiiiing pig!’

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

He took her hand once more, and they bounded to the door that led to the next room.

Or not.

There was no other room. The door led straight outside.

~What do you mean?~

~This is Thornsberry Hall…~

~How many beds do you need?~

A Queen who was the main character, at that.

~Where do you live then?~

~Before this. Did you live in a manor with many rooms?~

~Is that so? I thought you were a warrior who served your country well. I thought you’d eliminated a great number of dangerous foes in your years of service.~ said Claribel, anger rising. ~Did they tell you that the pride and meaning in your work is worth more than all the gold in the world? Did they say that the thanks you get for your service shall warm you for a lifetime, through the cold sweats and uncontrollable trembling? The price of the Queen’s life, if you must know, is waiving the tax owed to the Crown from the one-thousand-and-growing mana-stone mines in the Duchy of Auster for the next one hundred years, because that is the price you pay to thank a duke. A commoner like Hes, on the other hand… Give a house a fancy name and that’d be all he can handle. Give him any more than that and he’d start misspending it on frivolous things, like manuscripts. At least this place has land enough for a garden.~

‘Look, Master Claribel! That’s the flying pig!’

The shape of a pig floated above a swing that had been tied between two pine trees, tethered to one of the trees like a helium balloon, except it was covered with pink camellias, blushing in full bloom even as Ari’s breath crystalised in the frosty air.

Ari guessed.

~Looks like wind is Hes’s secondary aspect.~

~All of us have a secondary aspect, but it is more helpful to cultivate your primary aspect most of the time. My primary is wind, and Hes’s is fire. He is a powerful mage though, so it’s not a surprise that he is able to float the flower pig with his secondary aspect. And let’s be honest. If you have wind as a secondary aspect, wouldn’t you want to cultivate it? Wind is the best! Wind mages forever!~

The garden here was not neatly arranged with dyed flowers and trimmed hedges. Instead, stacks of hay tied into bunches arranged the field into maze-like sections. In the farthest one, a chestnut horse – hard to say what type from its gait, as it simply grazed in the field – swung its tail next to a man in a straw hat.

‘I’m afraid I can’t stay long,’ she said, fighting the desire to dally longer. ‘I’ll need to get to a guild meeting shortly, so I’ve got to…’

‘Father! You’re up!’ Finn grinned and waved at the man.

The man looked at them, expressionless, and waved back.

She knew that look. There stood a man whose memories had outstayed their welcome, whose box of useless things had bubbled over. The only thing to do then was to pretend that the box wasn’t his, that none of this was his.

‘Father! Do you want to play with us? Look, it’s Master Claribel!’

Finn’s father bowed his head twice in the distance, swallowed hard and went back to stroking the horse’s mane.

‘Father needs to look after Valour, see,’ Finn said quickly. ‘He’s good at looking after horses because Mother… Mother used to look after them before she died, see, and she taught him loads about horses.’

Was this the true face of pain and grief? No one could look at a man like that and tell him he is heartless at the loss of his loved ones. No one could tell him that he never loved at all.

~You do.~

~You do love him,~ Claribel said, gently. ~No, no. Don’t interrupt me. You do love Max. I know you do. When you first arrived, it was one of the first things that filtered through to me. We just deal with things in different ways. What’s wrong with that?~

Ari shook her head. What’s wrong was that she couldn’t find the strength to say…

‘It’s an important job,’ Finn was still saying. ‘Her Majesty had ridden Valour too! He was in the greatest battle that Eirene had ever seen.’

‘Was your father there too?’ she said, turning back to the boy, blinking away the heat at the back of her eyes. ‘Was he at the battle?’

‘Of course! That’s where Lady Oriana saved his life!’

‘She… did?’

‘You don’t know about it either? Ugh. I don’t know why they always take the weirdest things she does and make plays out of them. She saved my father’s life! When he was surrounded by Duke Lyoness’s evil men, he heard a thundering of hooves, and thwack, thwack, thwack, those evil soldiers fell, one by one, see, under a rain of arrows. Who could it be but the greatest archer in the whole of Ventinon? Let’s do it. Lady Oriana versus the great hero Susu. Lady Oriana’s not going to lose! Actually, I’ll be Lady Oriana and you be Susu.’

He pressed the Susu figure into her hands and snatched the crudely carved Lady Oriana. ‘You’ve got to cross the Haunted Madlands,’ he said, gesturing at the zigzagging piles of bunched-up hay, ‘but you must never step into the Scary Swamp,’ Finn continued, pointing at the ground. ‘If you do, it will eat you and poo you back out,’ which he illustrated with an enthusiastic raspberry, ‘so you’ll have to go back to the beginning. If you manage to get across that, then you must jump on the Loathsome Lily Pads and make it to the… oh. I forgot what the new bit should be. Hes only added it a few days ago. What do you think?’

Ari craned her neck. A field of wagon-wheels, sadly not of the chocolate variety, led to a narrow walkway made from knee-high logs pressed into the ground. Loathsome Lily Pads and the unnamed landscape, she presumed.

‘How about the Bridge of Everlasting Doom?’

‘Oh yeah! That’s the one. I think that’s what Hes called it as well! Watch out for the snappy river-lizards if you fall off the Bridge of Everlasting Doom, because they will eat your breeches...’ Finn brought his hand up to cover his mouth with a gasp. ‘Not your breeches, Master Claribel, just mine… They might eat your… your… shoe. Just one shoe. Not in a rude way, because you’re friends with the Queen, but… they will eat it with table manners.’

‘So they will eat my shoe while saying their thanks to the Fated One, will they?’

‘Yes, yes, that’s it. They will wash their hands first too, because they’re already in the river. Then you’ve got to climb up the Holy Finger and pull on the string that ties down the flying pig to win,’ he said, pointing at the right-hand pine tree that held up the swing, where wooden climbing holds had been sanded into different shapes and nailed to the trunk. ‘Got it? Nanny Jesse can’t play with me though. She’s got a bad leg. Otherwise I’d beat both of you, because when I play against Hes, I almost always win!’

‘Wow, you must be fast.’

‘Uh-huh, so don’t be too sad when you lose.’

A tantalising instinct to jump and climb trickled into Claribel’s body from somewhere deep within Ari’s essence.

~If I was in one of my finest, like yesterday, that might have been a problem, but this gown will be fine. I am supposed to grant children’s wishes. What would it make me if I were unwilling to play with him?~

Ari stretched out her calves and hopped on the spot. Running along those stacks of hay was first on the menu. Those won’t be as steady to step on as wooden logs, so fast and few would do it. Even in this unwieldly gown and untrained body, she could do it in three landings. Then, the wheels…

~You’re… not planning to win, are you?~

But… she did want to have a little fun.

‘Ready? Set? Go!’

She stalked Finn’s footsteps on the mini haystacks, watching the boy pick out the more stable ones, as he must have done time and time before. He giggled every time she landed a hairsbreadth away from him. As they landed on the last haystack, split-seconds apart, she stomped at it around the edges, kicking off two small bundles from the pile, sending the boy squealing.

‘You’re not going to win,’ he cried, ‘because I’m the king of the castle, and you’re the dirty rascal!’

‘I’m a rascal now, am I?’ Ari grinned. This was so much easier than the awkward silences she’d suffered with other children. Not that there had been many. Miri, for one.

~If that’s the way you’re playing it, now is high time to tickle him. Trust me. Children love me.~

~Come on, out of the two of us, you’re the suspicious one.~

She took Claribel’s advice and wiggled her fingers. Finn fell about, laughing, leaping to an escape path along the spinning field of wagon wheels.

‘If you call me a rascal, that’s what I’ll be!’ she called, wobbling along her own pick of wagon wheels.

‘Rascal, rascal, rascal!’

Which she was. As they approached the logs that formed the Bridge of Everlasting Doom, she launched herself in front of the boy, taking the lead. It was one long, thin path from here, and the only way to overtake would be to push her off, which would make Finn–

The fifth log wobbled dangerously.

She hopped onto the next before it thudded sideways to the ground.

‘Hang on. Pause. Pause,’ she said. ‘This isn’t safe. You could seriously twist your ankle if you step on this the wrong way.’

‘Oh. It is new. Hes hasn’t tested it yet.’

‘Maybe it’s just because I’m too heavy,’ she said, jumping down from the makeshift bridge.

Bending her knees and engaging her core, she eased the log back into position. What a perfect workout for a–

‘Arghhh!!!’ Finn stood, trembling, pointing at… nothing?

~Arghhh!!!~

~A woodlouse! And another one! They’re running around!~

~Get it away from me!~

~It should bother everyone. Their little feet, crawling all over… Arghhh!!!~

Good thing she hadn’t used memories from the Cube to wrestle the body back from Claribel last night. Ari pushed aside the other spirit’s rising terror, grabbed a stick and gently swept the little critters away from harm. She might have been whispering ‘you’re just little land prawns, aren’t you’ when she felt a piercing gaze on her back.

She turned.

Hesperus remained unmoved, glaring at her through furrowed brows. No bow. No greeting.

~Why… Honestly, I never did anything to him. Why does he look like he hates me?~

‘Since when,’ said Hesperus, spitting out each word, ‘did Lady Claribel lose her fear of insects?’

Since Ari made a mistake. This was why she was a Red, not a White. One shot and done.

~Wait… No. No…~

‘People change,’ said Ari, scrambling for an out.

‘Sometimes very suddenly. What,’ he said, taking a step closer, ‘might the reason be behind your change, my lady?’