A house sat a stone’s throw away from Heart Pond, and next to it was a house-sized collection of statues. They looked oddly modern, like a forest of Rodin’s bronze casts of hands, twisting and turning, all severed at the wrists, fused to a blackened, windowless cube.

~That’s it. That’s the House of Giving.~

~…That’s the House of Giving. The one next door that looks more like a standard house is Coell’s School of Thoughts.~

Ari squinted at the House of Giving. It was almost like Levia’s sun arches. There were no visible joints between the hands and the central cube, as if the bronze had been poured into a single, impossibly large cast. Or grown from the ground.

Some of the hands with palms wide open had dried flowers dangling from their fingertips, and those clenched into near-fists had been stuffed with linen scraps: the same scraps that filled the sack that they’ve carried from Claribel’s study; the same scraps that she’d mistaken for paper aeroplanes on the way to see Malory’s burning. A few clutched in those dark bronze hands still retained their shape, loaded with starch, and resembled origami cranes more than aeroplanes.

~Ravens,~ corrected Claribel.

A boy not much older than Tilly and Finn swung down from the other side of the cube, gripping a set of hands on the way, popping another linen raven into his sack.

‘Hello, milady!’ He straightened his pointy forest-green hat, topped with a bell.

‘Thank you for your hard work, Rudy.’

‘I’m so glad you’re here! These wishes are buildin’ up. I counted another hundred just this morning.’ He leapt down and bobbed a bow, grabbing the sack that her guard proffered, then pressed his palm against the cube. A doorway appeared – no sliding doors, no shuddering passageways – as if by magic. Must be by magic. ‘Vix will be pleased! She bet Dance you’d be back today. He’s havin’ to read one of her sacks for her.’

Claribel pressed her forwards – or was it the memory within the body she’d borrowed? – and the doorway disappeared without a single thud or click or… or anything. Another closed door in another inescapable room. Ari reached for the earring that Max had gifted her, and brushed against nothing but the softness of Claribel’s ear.

~Slow down. Breathe. Look around you. You are not burning.~

The breath she took did not scorch her lungs. She looked again. Though the walls glowed golden inside, like the setting sun, there was no flame. Nor did it dance, like the flames in the mana stones that lined Master Clement’s apothecary.

~It’s not fire magic.~

~Not quite. This House was a gift from Lady Una, and not from one of her Eyes. After Krek the Destroyer disturbed Lady Una’s peace, and was destroyed for his impudence, Lady Una spoke to one of his sons. Serk the Strong kneeled in front of the Lady, and she made him her Child. The Lady anointed him with her waters, and gave him the name Clarus the Seer. For the waters desecrated by my ancestors, Lady Una placed a curse upon my family. In order to live in peace after the blood we’d shed, we must pay back a blood debt. Midwinter is Lady Una’s day. On that day, Clarus must be of service to the children of Ventinon, and his children after him, and his children’s children. Upon his death, though he never formally received an Eye, his body blossomed into the House of Giving.~

Ari tried to shake the buzzing numbness inside her head. A cube made from a dead body. A Cube made to house dead bodies.

Claribel wore their body and greeted the other occupants in this cube, all very much alive, all very much hatted and belled, working away, one, two, three, four…

Eight. Dash, Dance, Pran, Vix, Comet, Cue, Dunder, Rudy: names that felt wrong on Claribel’s tongue.

~My House must try.~

~…O-ho-ho-ho…~

<…Less haughty like a rich-noble-woman, more… jolly from the belly?>

~HO-HO-HO! Happy now?~

She took a seat at a table made from molten gold, from solid sunlight, and stared into this tilted world, where familiar things took on an unfamiliar skin. Her, Claribel. Max, Hesperus. Only alike on the surface. False friends, Mrs Hart would say, carving red crosses over their French exams.

What else was she missing? What else had she filled with her own preconceptions? The gauze over her eyes sat heavy; she couldn’t blink it away.

‘We’ve reached a count of thirteen thousand eight hundred and six so far,’ said a helper with a pair of wooden-framed lenses clamped to his nose, and a pair of bushy brows that peeked through the top. ‘That’s exceeded the number from last year already, and there’s still one more day to go for wishes to arrive before they are too late to be granted. I’m sure His Majesty will be pleased about the potential increase in the number of children in Eirene.’

‘Lucky we don’t need to report to him,’ said Rudy, dumping both sacks he was carrying in front of a skinny young man with dark eyes and pale cheeks. ‘All yours. Vix won! By the way, milady, Blix said he saw a new kid with you, playin’ with Hesperus’s kid nearby. Are you trainin’ her up to replace Dash once he’s too old to read? She don’t sound like a reader to me. All scruffy-faced, like, is what Blix said.’

Stolen story; please report.

‘Hey!’ cried the pale young man who must have been Dance. ‘If Blix spotted milady nearby, he’s sure to have told Vix. I call this bet void.’

So Blixen wasn’t missing. Claribel had all nine.

‘Hey, hey, hey! You guys placed the bet last night. It stands. I declare it so!’ cried Rudy.

‘Stop slacking off, Dance,’ a woman with sunlight hair and a night-sky’s worth of freckles grinned at Dance. ‘I get it though. You want me to sort those sacks because I’m faster than you, and my lady prefers my penmanship.’

Dance wrenched open the first sack. ‘Tell you what. I’m calling for a new bet. If I can sort through all of these by sundown, you’re treating me to a meal tonight.’

Vix arched a brow. ‘And if you can’t?’

‘Then I’m treating you, aren’t I?’

‘I’ll shake on it if we’re going to the Hole in the Long Wall. I can really do with a roast tonight.’

Dance grunted, and unfolded a raven. The ink had bled, and he squinted at the message, then dipped his quill and scratched a message on the righthand roll on his desk.

~Time to focus on your own scrolls.~ She, too, had two rows of scrolls laid out in front of her. ~Start with the righthand scrolls. Those are wishes that may be granted. You just need to read through and approve them. I trust my helpers to make the correct judgement, so you can use the cochineal to mark each one with a tick.~

Ari stared at the pot of black and the red next to it, trying to awaken a half-forgotten memory.

~Yes, yes, you’ll like it. It’s made from insects.~

Rolling out the first parchment, she scanned through wishes for food, for toys, for clothing, each logged with a child’s age, name and address, and ticked them one by one.

~I will. Rather, they come out of my household’s budget, but Dash, Dance and Vix will ensure that they are acquired and packaged, and the others will deliver them all the way up to Midwinter.~

~Wait until you get to the left hand scrolls.~

She handed the last of the right-hand scrolls to Dash, who thanked her for doing absolutely nothing useful.

~Often not. You’ll see.~

She grabbed the first one and read, ‘Isabel, 8, Bleche, next to the Frog Bridge. Please bring my father back to life.’

~All the way from Carnell’s lands. She must have convinced a traveller to bring her wish to Eirene. I am afraid that is a wish that I cannot grant. May the Fated One reunite them in their next lives.~

Ari had forgotten. These were children’s wishes. In a world with magic, why shouldn’t they believe the impossible?

~That’s the problem. This wish… might not be impossible. I cannot grant it, but some believe that something similar has been done before.~

Time froze. Tell her the price. She’d pay it.

A summer’s night. Too hot to hold on to another body, radiating unwanted warmth.

She snaked her arms around him anyhow, gliding across his skin, making her his fortress. In truth, he was hers.

Tangled curls crumbled into ashes.

But on that summer’s night, in the quiet afterwards, she’d whispered in his ear, ‘For you, I’d destroy the world.’ Young. Foolish. Complicating things, when three little words would do.

Still, he turned and smiled. ‘I’d rather you didn’t. Instead of the world, can we settle on destroying a full English breakfast with extra hash browns together.’

Tell her. Tell her the price, and they’d celebrate with hash browns after, even though he’d hate her for it.

~It’s not what you’re imagining, and if it can be acquired by brute force, Mother would have done it already. She would have done it to get my grandparents back.~ Claribel shook her ghostly face. ~There have been cases of rebirths with retained memories.~

Ari almost laughed. All this, for that?

~No. It’s real. There are those who retain their memories, and there are also those who can track them. It is very rare, of course, but I have met… Fine! If you don’t want to believe it, just forget it. Do what you actually need to do then. Write back to Isabel.~

~I see that you are capable of repeating my words. Now come up with some of your own and write back to the poor child.~

She was just about to protest when the walls flashed. From the impossibly disappearing door floated two faces, as ghostly as Claribel’s.

‘Ooh! It’s June! My new favourite person! Lord Coell’s made a great choice this time!’ cried Rudy, leaping up to press his palm against the wall again, creating a door a step farther right than where it was before.

A woman strode in, trailed by a hooded man, carrying a loaf of bread in one hand and an earthenware jar in the other.

‘We just wanted to bring you some pickles and freshly baked bread,’ said the woman, pointing at a spot by Rudy’s table for the man to unload the jar. ‘I know how hard you’re all working here for the children.’

It was the pickles rather than the woman’s sun-weathered face that alerted Ari to her identity. There were sure to me many pickle sellers in Eirene, but what were the chances of Coell targeting them as new recruits to his school?

Natty’s words echoed through her head. Something something modern philosophy. She rose from her seat and strode over to the visitors.

The woman stared at her blankly, then bowed her head, as if her deference was learned later in life. An invader from Ari’s world.

But it was the man who was all wrong.

Forced to remove his hood in the name of etiquette, the expression on his face was impossible to hide.

~He has never been fond of me. I am not sure what I’ve done to offend him.~

But it was more than dislike; it was fear. Ari knew it well, knew the smell of it, as they see the shadows shift into human form, see Ari’s amber eyes stare out at them behind the barrel of her gun.

Ari wondered, wondered as Claribel filled her mouth with platitudes, wondered if she’d seen his face before, wondered if he’d acquired a new face upon his arrival into this world. It was a pointless exercise, studying his face, because even if their paths had crossed, she’d not remember him; he wasn’t Cain. Cain would not cower.

‘…grateful. We shall savour it, with the grace of the Fated One, and…’

I won’t savour this moment.

A phrase she hadn’t uttered for… for how long? Time bled, killing and re-killing. The moment when the Chief first presented it to her still burned bright in her mind.

‘You must say the phrase before you shoot them.’

‘But why?’

‘It helps you establish yourself.’

‘But I’m an assassin. I don’t want people to remember me.’

‘It…’ For once, the Chief struggled with his words. ‘It helps them develop a fear of you, and fear is a powerful weapon.’

‘So’s surprise, and I like it better.’

‘Say the phrase, Ari Lee.’

‘But it sounds stupid.’

‘It was nearly “I couldn’t be your saviour”. Be grateful. You’ll only have to put up with it for a few missions. They’ll scrap it soon after.’

‘What?! Who will?!’

‘Whoever’s in charge.’

‘That’s you. Unless you’re saying that the Prime Minister has enough time on his hands to come up with catchphrases for all the Reds before they are sent out into the field. Who else can it be?’

He laughed and rubbed the crease between his brows. ‘You tell me.’

Ari fixed the man with a stare that was more Ari than Claribel, and uttered the long-dead catchphrase.

He paled, clutching his heart, and stumbled back.

She flicked her gaze to the woman – June, as Rudy had called him – just to make sure. As expected, June’s face was blank; quizzical at most.

‘Calm down. I just meant I won’t savour the moment when we finish your bread and pickles. They look very appetising.’ She let Claribel’s smile shine through once more. ‘It seems that this is not the first time you’ve brought food to my helpers. I would like to return your kindness. May I speak with you for a moment in your school, to find out what I can do to help?’

‘There’s no need–’ began June.

‘But I insist.’

‘I understand,’ said the man, gripping his hands tightly together until his knuckles grew white. ‘The lady is full of good intentions. Please, my lady, pave away, and let us see where this road leads.’