‘I bid you a good morning, my lady,’ Natty waved, jester’s hat nowhere in sight, balancing a large leather bag on her head instead. ‘I heard you’re heading to the apothecary with the girl. May I join you? I am travelling to a spot near the apothecary, and the horses are much faster than me, no matter how fast I move my legs or use other ways to propel myself.’

She made Fabia’s famed raspberry noise and leapt into the carriage. ‘Like, literally best free pass ever,’ she said, making a nest for herself among the cushions, like they’d once done in the dorm they’d shared, building pillow forts and trampling them down. ‘Getting involved in Auster and Queen business, I hear? Ever consider running away and becoming a jester? I think they have them in other countries too. Apparently there’s good food in Jumont.’

~No thank you. Being a jester is a noble profession, but I am needed here, as a lady of Aquilon.~

‘Thought so, but I wasn’t talking to you.’

Ari sighed. ‘Once this is done–’

‘There’s no such thing as done. There’ll always be people who are shit to each other.’ Natty pressed her eyes with the heels of her hand and muttered, ‘No, no such thing as done. Not for either of us.’

‘Where are you going anyway?’

‘Never mind that.’ She cut Ari short, a little too fast. Natty’s true face would have disguised it better. ‘Since we’re not going to Jumont, there’s something we need to talk about. It’s been bothering me ever since we met Tristram’s cousin.’

~First cousin once removed. Lord Coell… I mean the current Duke Taur’s grandfather was the previous Duke Taur’s uncle, even though the current Duke Taur is older than the previous one. May he find peace with the Fated One.~

‘Sometimes I’m glad I have no family,’ said Ari. ‘But yes, it bothered me too that he was out and about the very evening of Malory’s burning, and we now know that Tristram was killed around then.’

‘That too. But this is not about him. Do you remember the lady selling pickles?’

‘…Yes? Vaguely?’

‘Lady Claribel, what did you think of her questioning if, like, different people observe colours differently?’

~It was…very odd. To be honest, I’m not sure I grasped her point around the colours.~

‘Yeah, that’s exactly it. Many things are different about this world and our world – magic, religion, geography – so I wasn’t sure… but Lord Coell seemed impressed, so it kept bothering me. The ideas she was spouting… those were parts of modern philosophy. Like, René Descartes birthed the question that’s plagued a bunch of dudes ever since: can subjective experiences inform us of an objective truth. Thoughts that grew from that have become part of our everyday life, but they shouldn’t have been the same for the pickle lady, if, if she is truly from this world.’

Ari scratched her head, but struck Claribel’s jewelled hairnet and snatched her hand away.

‘Are you talking about the guy you’d stuck on your wall next to your Seven Husbands from Hell? The “I think therefore I am” guy with the uneven fringe?’

~You had seven husbands?!~

‘If I’m honest,’ said Natty, ‘that’s the kind of stuff that’s missing from your world. Here, the art is often more disappointing than the real thing. If you draw a man, at least make him good-looking. The last half-decent guy I’ve seen in a painting was pointing at a worm that had gorged through his thigh. I mean, like, no thanks. It’s not all about the face. But… Look, what I’m trying to say is, I think that pickle lady might be from our world. She didn’t feel like Hannah Temple, but maybe she’s Miri? I doubt it, because she didn’t really sound like Miri. That’d be a sad way to transmigrate into a book world, but hey, not everyone can be the main character or the villainess.’

‘Wait. She… didn’t sound like Miri? You…’ That was what she should have asked from the very beginning, but the Chief had always kept the Agents away from his real family. He’d said so, so it didn’t seem possible that Natty would... ‘…know her?’

‘Uhhh, yeah? I mean, we met briefly, so I kind of know her. She ate at our canteen one day. I went and sat with her cos she didn’t seem to know anyone else, so yeah, we had a chat.’

‘What do you know about her then?’

‘This was like, two years ago, so might not be that up-to-date, but yeah… She came to our HQ cos her mum was going to stay at this new guy’s house, but the Chief forgot that she was supposed to be at his that weekend, and him and his ex got into an argument because he wanted Miri to just stay at her mum’s house, but her mum went ballistic because how can you leave a young teen at home by herself for, like, two whole days? She’d have usually gone to her great-grandma’s, who’s apparently amazing, and a hero from the war – knows her way around a Lee Enfield–, but she died.’ The faster she spoke, the more her voice sounded like the old Natty’s, and she sped up as their carriage drove leisurely to the back of Claribel’s manor, to where her farm sat.

‘So yeah, Miri hates her mum because she’s always complaining about how hard it is dating as a single mum, so the new guy doesn’t know she’s got Miri, but she doesn’t think it’s anything serious because her mum is actually dating these other two richer dudes, and one of them Miri absolutely hates because he comes over when she’s at school and uses up all of her favourite mugs and leaves them in the sink afterwards, so the sink is filled with about five different unwashed mugs, all with a sip of undrunk tea at the bottom.

‘Also, she hates her dad because he’s the Chief – you know how he is – but sometimes she feels a bit sorry for him because her mum obviously only went after him because he’s super rich, and now she’s set for life. But then when she does things like tank all her subjects and get a creepy, older boyfriend, when she tells him he doesn’t even say anything other than “hmmm”, so there’s that…

‘Oh, and the boyfriend is, yeah… His name is Adam, I think? Can’t remember. Pretty sure it’s a was now anyway. She doesn’t actually like him at all, but she decided to date him because he’s such a creep and about three years older so it might annoy the Chief. And then, instead of being just a bit of a creep, one day at this house party, he disappeared upstairs and, guess what?’

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‘Did she catch him with her best friend?’ said Ari, gunning for the most likely scenario.

‘Nope. She went upstairs with a friend and found him in his friend’s mum’s office. He was logged into this friend’s mum’s computer, and had this black and white video on. It was the historical footage of the Titanic sailing off to sea. Apparently that was an extremely exciting video for him, so he was attempting to pleasure himself with a tub of margarine and his friend’s sister’s helium balloon that she got for her birthday.’

Ari sat rubbing her temples, trying to process this deluge of information. All from a lunch together.

She’d spent a whole day with Miri. Granted, the girl had only been five at the time, but she could still recall a snippet of their conversation which had gone something like…

‘So… You’re Miri.’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you… five now? Or four?’

‘…’

‘OK…’

‘Five.’

‘That’s great! That’s… a nice age to be.’

‘I won’t be five after my birthday.’

‘No. You’ll be six!’

‘...’

‘That will still be a nice age to be.’

‘Are you going to have your own babies one day?’

‘What?’

‘Are you going to have your own babies one day?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe? Maybe not?’

‘Don’t.’

‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘Don’t. I don’t think you should have babies. Because what’s the point?’

‘Oh. Right. Yes.’

Natty’s new voice chimed on. ‘That’s not the worst part though.’

~It’s… not? I should ask you what a helium balloon is, but I would rather keep company with ignorance in this case.~

‘Wise choice. The worst part is actually to do with the balloon. It was unfortunately shaped like a cow. When everyone at school found out what happened, they started to call him a cow-popper, which I guess is fine, because who the hell uses other people’s computers and other people’s balloons without asking? But then they started calling her a cow-patter because she was going out with him, which then got shortened to Cowpat.’

Ari groaned. No part of this sounded like a life that someone would want to go back to. Was that why she tried to lose herself in a world of fiction? Was that what people could choose to do?

At times like these, she missed him.

He’d know. He’d know what people were really like, know what they’d do, know how they’d push back against a world that pushed them, back against the wall. He’d know the whispers inside their hearts, far beyond the basics that Mrs Hart had taught them, far beyond the textbook methods of manipulation that she’d memorised from her lessons, methods that she could only apply, ham-fisted, on the likes of Lady Jehanne. Max knew, and he knew how to help. An instinct that she didn’t have.

She missed him.

Not just the hall light, left on for when she’d tiptoe in.

No, not just the cupboard, brimming with canned potatoes, tuna, sweetcorn and ham, neatly stacked and seldom touched: the slack that he’d cut her, to let her feel as if she’d never go hungry again.

The life she’d led without him was drifting into her flat in the dark, unwilling to flick the switch, though she never stumbled.

It was a life filled with cans still, though the beans and chickpeas had invaded her wardrobe, standing next to the box that once held a pair of knee-high boots, but had been repurposed for the Lee-Enfield that Connor had swiped for her as a – what? – Halloween party piece, if she should ever want a realistic WWII costume, rifle and all.

She missed him.

Life without him was an empty space under the duvet, a lefthand side always crisp and cold when she slipped in.

She missed him.

Because through knowing him, through talking, to laughing, to sitting silently, side-by-side, a part of her that hadn’t seen the light before flourished. And now it dangled from her body, useless.

A swollen hollow.

Ari swallowed.

Things like that weren’t supposed to be part of her world, so he couldn’t stay. An anomaly, removed. All she needed were… were… were… Task. Quest. Mission. Select, select, select. Accept, accept, accept. Complete, complete, complete. Achievement unlocked. Unlocked.

‘Back to that evening… There’s something bothering me about the lute player as well,’ said Ari, picking her way through an easier path, the path of puzzle pieces that must fit neatly together, not one where intangible feelings might dominate the motive. ‘He was busking in the square. I gave him two barleys, I think. I don’t remember him being there earlier in the night. What was he doing there, busking to an empty square?’

‘You don’t think…’

‘He had a case of some sort. A case for the lute, which he had open, collecting coins, and another one behind him. Big enough to fit in a body. Do you remember the music he was playing though? It sounded familiar, like I’ve heard it hundreds of times before…’

How did it go again? They’d played a different version of it at the dance after Tristram’s remembrance meal.

‘Da dada da dada dadududududududu…’

Natty swore.

~Oh that. That’s a piece by Zarto. He’s just come under Lady Proserpina’s patronage, and he’s making quite a wave in Eirene. He seems to compose one piece of amazing beauty after another. This piece is called ‘For Spring’.~

‘And… what else has he done?’

Claribel sang them Greensleeves.

‘Greensleeves and Pachelbel’s Canon,’ said Natty. ‘It could be a coincidence. It could be that pieces of music are being recycled between our worlds, much like some of the faces, but…’ But. ‘Just so we get this out of the way… You don’t think he’s been given double-rearend hotel room service, right?’

~What, pray tell, is that?~

~It doesn’t help.~

‘Assassinated!’ hissed Natty. ‘Was he assassinated, or just murdered? There’s a difference.’

~But… What?~

~… Joke aside, what difference does it make? Murder or assassination?~

‘Murder is one person, more personal motive: money, fear, love. Assassination is a group. The assassin is just a tool to further the good of the collective. If our suspicions are right, and there were two people from our world wandering about nearby that night, then…’

There was a chance that they’d formed a group. Were a group to start with. Miri and her friends.

Yet another thread.

Zarto. Tristram. Hesperus. Puppets. Puppets. Puppets.

Every time she thought she’d grasped a thread to unroll a spool, it turned out to be nothing but a frayed end. She stood in front of this impossible tangle of yarn: a cat’s toy, for if she were to look beyond, look at the real question...

‘I… Do you remember what happened to the children who dropped out of the programme?’ she let those words take form.

They were like dust, floating past the peripheries of her vision. Every time she tried to focus on the thought, they slipped away, scattered, as if they never existed at all. Hadn’t there been a boy? A boy with eyes the colour of wind and… and… gone. All gone.

Natty would know. Natty knew everyone. Natty would–

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said. ‘No one dropped out. It wouldn’t be allowed.’

‘But… Wasn’t there…’ The space between her eyes throbbed. She rubbed it. It didn’t help. A jumble of faces flickered past, each one nameless, unknown. Had they been other students, people she’d known under her other pseudonyms, or people she’d killed? It all blurred together. A jumble of eyes, mouths, noses with no face to belong to.

‘There was… a boy. There was. He wasn’t… Connor.’

‘No,’ said Natty, as they came to a stop in front of Claribel’s farm, and the carriage door opened to collect Tilly for their visit to the apothecary. ‘Never happened.’