Natty was already warming her hands at Claribel’s hearth by the time the chambermaids unpinned Ari from her gown and jewels.

‘Look at this!’ She lifted her linen underskirt and showed Ari one leg, then the other. ‘Sparkling clean. As soft as a baby’s. You won’t believe the amount of dead skin they exfoliated from this body.’

‘Is that all you did? Bathe all day?’ Sir Edwin’s words came back to her, but there was only one thing she needed to know. She gazed into Natty’s eyes, still sparkling with her usual playful nature, no marks of frenzied fervour or glassy dullness.

‘You won’t believe it. They had, like, food and stuff in the bathhouse!’ Natty sniffed her own armpits. ‘Ugh, I smell so clean. Thyme and sage, baby. I’m almost an alluring roast. Lamb, I reckon.’

‘You should try another bathhouse next time. Sources say it spells trouble.’

‘Why? Does it only have one star for food hygiene? Don’t worry. I won’t go for their dodgy seafood, no matter how freshly fished out of the harbour they’re supposed to be. No warm prawns for me, please and thank you.’

Her answers flew, smooth and convincing, but Natty was a White for a reason; there were no seams in her undercover work, and her lies were often shaped from silenced truths. The best of the best. That was what some liked to call Ari, when they should have been crowning Natty instead. Stable too.

The final task in that day’s group test. Only one of the three would open the box. Two votes for Natty; one for Connor, cast by the boy himself.

Click. The wooden box was an offensive shade of orange, no doubt chosen by Mrs Hart instead of the Chief. Ari examined the chessboard pattern on the lid, hoping for a clue, but there were only squares upon squares, and Natty’s unfathomable face.

‘What does it say?’ said Connor, peeking over Natty’s shoulder.

Natty shrugged. ‘It’s pretty straightforward. Ari’s just got to drink this. Then we’re all done.’

The vial was hot pink. The liquid was toxic green.

She drank it, swallowing the taste of burnt toast and toothpaste.

‘Wait! You can’t just do what Natty says. That’d be stupid and…’ Connor laid his hand on her wrist, and she pushed it away.

‘It’s done.’

‘And you are now dead, Ari Lee,’ announced the Chief.

‘Told you you were being stupid!’ cried Connor.

‘No, I’m being dead. It’s different.’

‘Ugh… Now’s not the time to be pedantic.’

‘High five!’ cried Natty, grinning at Connor. ‘We get unlimited pizza and chips!’

‘You killed off Ari for chips?!’

‘Unlimited! And pizza! And she’s not really dead. It says here, “The test ends when one trainee from your group is dead. If no trainees are dead three minutes from the opening of the box, all trainees in your group are dead. You must not show this message to either of the other two trainees. All dead trainees must complete three circuits of the obstacle course and are barred from entering the dining room at lunchtime.” If either of us had to do three loops on the obstacle course, we’d, like, actually be dead.’

‘And you’re OK with this?’

Ari shrugged. ‘Makes sense.’

‘But…’

‘Even if Natty actually kills me, as long as she’s thought through it, it’d be for a good reason.’

‘But…’

‘To be honest, I like doing the obstacle course. Climbing and jumping are my thing.’

‘She does one every day after she gets up, even when we don’t have to,’ said Natty. ‘She does it for fun. More importantly though, Connie-boy, you know those tracksuits you expanded with floor length pockets? Wear those. Ari will be starving.’

‘You want to…’

‘Yes…? You didn’t think I’d starve her…? The question was always which two out of the three of us can sneak food most easily, and sorry Ari, I love you but you’re shit at it.’

‘See? In Natty we trust.’

She nodded at her friend. ‘If you ever need me to polish off those prawns, remember who has a stomach of steel.’

‘I don’t think you should be offering Claribel’s stomach like that. Also, why did the freshwater prawn cross the river? To get to the other side!’

~I don’t know what is going on, but I would like to say no thank you to prawns. Unfortunately, it does not agree with my aspect. Speaking of which, I have a favour to ask of each of you. Lady Natty, will you please bring Rin to the bathhouse with you? He is one of my guards, and has unfortunate hygiene. I would like him to smell of sage and thyme instead of sweat and tears.~

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

‘Pfft…’

~Please, Lady Natty, even if you are inhabiting Fabia’s body, his body odour is not a matter of jest.~

‘No, no, you called me Lady Natty. I’ve made it! The Chief can shove his OBE dreams up his arse.’

~Oh. Well. I hope that he is careful when placing objects in such a sensitive area. My dear friend Lady Cass from House Henly once… came across, purely accidentally, a young knight with a full sword hilt stuck in that region. The cross-guard had fallen off, making it into quite a situation.~

‘Uh… Right. What was the favour you wanted to ask of me?’ said Ari. ‘To take the young knight to that Master Barber for a spot of surgery?’

~I am speaking of magic!~

‘I wonder if that’s what the young knight was hoping from Lady Cass. But go on.’

~When Percy attacked you in the anchorite–~

‘When who did what?’ cried Natty.

So Ari told her, about the cooked wine and the linen ravens, about the grunt and the schoolgirl. ‘But I wouldn’t really say he attacked me. He waved a knife. A bit of an aggressive hello, I suppose. That was about it.’

~You are insane.~

‘That’s always a possibility. Maybe this is a dream. Better teach me magic before I wake up. I’ve always wanted to control water. Get a back-up job as a plumber. Me and Natty can be a duo. I don’t mind wearing green.’

~Water isn’t something that mere humans can control! That… lies in the realm of the Lady and her Children.~

‘I knew it was off. You’ve only got the three inferior elements? Fire, earth, air?’

~How dare you call them inferior?~

Lucy the chambermaid peeked in. ‘Any last requests for the evening, my lady?’

‘I’d like to teach Fabia a little magic. Just a little may really elevate her performances. Can you please prepare the bucket, the candle, the soil and the feather? Also, send a message to Lonicer that I’d like to use the garden for reflections tomorrow morning.’

‘At once, my lady.’

‘Wait… Are you going to teach me magic too? For real?’ Natty’s eyes shone.

~I don’t see the harm of discovering your aspect, though you should not force your body to do more than it is meant to.~

Lucy truly laid out the items from Claribel’s request at once, wobbling in with a too-full bucket of well water.

~Oh that. That’s for emergencies. You won’t need it. Most likely. Now, let us start our preparations.~

Ari did as Claribel advised and placed the little pot with a scoop of soil inside on a clear patch of the floor, then set down the feather a few feet away. Lastly, she lit the candle from the fire in the hearth and set it in a candlestick holder, creating a triangle between the three items, and took a seat on the floor, cross-legged, in the middle of them all.

Natty joined her, leaning against her back.

~Start gently. I can feel the strength of my magic seeping into the bracelet, but neither of us can grasp it and wield it as we are meant to. Still, if you manage to draw it out all of a sudden, there’d be a hole in the wall. So, gently does it. Focus. Now try to hold all three items in your mind. Then feel yourself being drawn to one of them. Can you feel it?~

Reaching for calm and warmth within, she stretched her spirit in all three directions. She pictured a hole in the soil, deep enough to plant a sunflower seed, and overlayed that with the image of the feather, flying, and little arms forming from the flame, mirroring a memory of Natty dancing to a made-up tune in the dorm they’d once shared.

Nothing happened.

She closed her eyes and let her breath become her. In a world scarce from material things, there was only the familiar susurration of the river… or was it the blood through her veins?

~Anything yet?~ Claribel asked after an eternity.

The truthful answer would have been ‘no’. Instead, Ari said,

Fire had to be her element. Hesperus wielded flames, and like him, she was built for killing. She inched her fingers towards the flame, pushing away thoughts of the flames that had delivered her into this world, thoughts of the flames that had scorched Malory’s body. She willed it to move, to dance in her palm, and–

‘F…’

Ari spun around, searching for a running tap, but found the bucket instead. She swished her smarting fingertips into the cold relief that it offered.

~Still! How could you carry on when you could feel the heat? That’s what Master Keating was talking about! You need to apply heat protection first before you play with fire!~

~That’s because I don’t know how!~ Claribel dabbed the corners of her eyes with the back of her wrist. ~If you’re a fire mage, it should come naturally though. That’s how you feel the pull of the candle… Not just by saying, ‘The candle, maybe.’~

<…> Ari flicked the water at Claribel, but it passed through her incorporeal form and struck Natty instead.

‘Oh come on! How can you dodge without, like, moving at all? You know what? I’m going to try fire as well. Maybe it will dry off these horrible wet patches on my chemise.’ Natty closed her eyes and hummed, even as Ari joined her for a second try.

Wind had to be the answer. This body had been honed to Claribel’s magic, hadn’t it? Why did she even play with fire?

Taking in a deep, windy breath, she hovered both hands over the feather. Claribel leaned closer too, damp fingers forgotten. Ari willed the feather to… to do something. Fly, probably.

Failing that, decompose.

Yes. Failed that.

~It… didn’t even–~

~–twitch…~

Earth. Hadn’t the apothecarist mentioned a change in Claribel’s earth magic? Earth had to be it.

Ari shuffled along, imagining a deluge of earth burying Hesperus and his flames like some sort of powder-type fire extinguisher: effective on wood and petrol.

~A piece of advice. You might want to try and press it down instead of lifting it up. It’d be easier that way.~

~Where?~

~That’s because it wasn’t completely flat to begin with. Soil tends to be that way. Otherwise it’d be – I don’t know – porcelain.~

~It’s the size of an ant. Even mine was deeper than that, and earth is hardly my strongest aspect, but I suppose it is less embarrassing than setting yourself on fire.~

‘Oh my god! I’m doing it!’ cried Natty. ‘Look! I’m moving the flame, aren’t I?’

She was.

The feeble, flickering flame was now a fireball, growing and spinning, a new-born star.

‘That’s amazing!’ Ari grinned, her cloud of fatigue scattered in an instance. Once upon a time, they’d slept under the stars, wishing for a miracle. There it was, in the palm of Natty’s hands.

~Quick! BUCKET!~

The fireball tumbled out of Natty’s control, even as Ari and Claribel both scooped up the bucket and shoved it under its falling path. Make a wish upon a star.

What do you wish for, Ari Lee?

You always scrunch up your face just so when you watch Connor blow out his birthday candles.

And it is not nothing, you useless liar. How are you going to become an Agent with everything written across your face?

What do you wish for?

The future? Or the past?

And the magic melted into a cloud of smoke.