She could never find a good moment to give Hesperus that stupid clasp from the blacksmith’s. Ari let the menu stretch between them, longer than the awkward silence. She affixed her gaze to an item under ‘Wind Mage’, offering ‘Departed Cod’ – cooked in a cream sauce with ground almonds, ginger and saffron –, wondering if her senses had departed. One minute, she’d been holding a basic level of conversation with him. The next, an uneasy fear had taken over her mind, more paralysing than the prospect that Madame Lucretia was an adversary from her world, from her past: what if he could overwrite her memories of Max?

If she watched him too closely, the way that he raised his eyebrows ever so slightly, the way that his mouth twisted when perusing the menu became more and more like the way that Max used to read Janine Chasseguet-Somebody-with-a-surname-starting-with-an-S at the dining table, leaning his elbows on their cornflower and poppy vinyl tablecloth, sighing as his fingers traced the page.

She clutched her head and let out a silent scream, then slammed the sycamore branch and the metal clasp on the table. ‘For you and Finn.’

He raised his eyebrows again, and turned over the branch. ‘Is this your way of telling me I need to shove this up–’

‘No, no, no! That’s for Finn! The clasp is for you, because… Wait, not for Finn to… It’s to carve into a figure, because it’s got a bellybutton. Look!’

From the silent scream on Claribel’s face, that did not go well.

~As if I’d ever say that! I couldn’t even stop you, you fat-kidneyed fool!~

But really, bickering with Claribel now would be a distraction from the real problem. She gripped the sheath of her dagger, wondering if she could cause him just enough head trauma to trigger retrograde amnesia, when a set of footsteps approached, heavier than Bleuet’s.

‘Good day! I’m here at the behest of Master Keating. Always willing to put in a bit of effort for the man.’ In trudged a pink-faced mage with leering eyes. ‘Master Claribel! It’s been years! How have you been!’

He shuffled over to the last cushioned seat and plopped himself down, then mopped his brows as if it was the height of summer outside.

~…~

~I… uhhh… I can’t remember his name.~

~I mean… we weren’t friends, and he wasn’t in my year. I know he’s an earth mage though.~

~All right, all right… Maybe Hes knows him…~

Hesperus was bowing to the man with a quizzical expression on his face.

‘Do you know each other?’ Ari tried.

‘Of course!’ cried the earth mage. ‘We were both friends with Lord Selvan. We used to eat lunch together, remember?’

‘Ye…s?’ Hesperus’s eyes betrayed a deeper confusion. ‘I am not good with people. Can you reintroduce yourself, if you please.’

Ari sent a silent thank-you to him, previous missteps temporarily compartmentalised, to dwell on for another time.

‘Oh, I see.’ A sneer flickered through the earth mage’s good-natured grin. ‘A nobody like me isn’t good enough for a top student like yourself to recall. I am–’

‘That’s not what he said.’ Ari glared back at the earth mage.

‘I… I’m sorry, my lady?’

~Did you have to get involved, just when he was providing valuable source of distraction?~

‘That’s not what he said,’ she repeated. ‘He said he’s not good with people, which I can assure you is true. It is no surprise that he doesn’t remember your name. On that note, I am very good with people, which many can assure you is true – hello Bleuet,’ she turned to wave at the attendant who’d popped in again to deliver the Departed Cod, amongst other items from the mage-adjusted menu, ‘by the way, that necklace becomes you – anyway, as I was saying, I also can’t recall your name, so please do us both a favour and tell me: who are you anyway?’

~Can’t you have put it a nicer way?~

‘I… I am Luden, son of Earl Reddor, my lady.’

‘Of course, you are Lady Proserpina’s third cousin. I must say…’ Claribel left a meaningful pause, ‘…I see absolutely no resemblance.’

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

‘Haha, they do say that she took all the looks and intelligence,’ said Lord Luden.

‘Quite.’

~Lady Proserpina happens to be a dear friend of mine. She has made it quite clear on several occasions that this distant cousin of hers should not be trusted with love or money. I didn’t realise that she was referring to one of my juniors from the Academy. Now that I know, please feel free to let your winning personality shine through.~

Luden merely shrugged off the comment and dug into a porridge-like pudding topped with a white rose. ‘My lady, now that we are friends again, I must bring up an important matter. We are doing a collection for Lord Selvan, you see. Do you remember the dear boy? We really believe he has gone missing. It has been months, and he has not written to any of us. I have appealed to the guards, both those from the Crown and the Church, but I am ashamed to say that my appeals have made very little difference.’

Ari dabbed her mouth, wiping away the saffron sauce, and considered Luden’s unexpected tangent. ‘Then are you the one sticking his portraits around the city?’

‘Oh yes! But I can only afford so many. Sadly, it hasn’t helped at all. They are still missing.’

‘I see.’

‘So… uhh… What I’m saying is, as you were such a good friend to Lord Selvan–’

‘What makes you say he’s missing?’ Had he come to the conclusion the same way she’d done, or could he provide her with other clues for solving this piece of the puzzle once and for all?

‘Uhh… He hasn’t been seen for months. That’s not right. That’s not right at all! Lord Selvan and Lady Mona usually frequent several hunts and feasts, especially during the summer. They just suddenly stopped coming about six months ago. We’ve asked around the city, and none of the tailors or grocers have been summoned to their abode either.’

‘Mayhap they just went on a pilgrimage,’ Claribel joined in, pressing for more.

‘That is my belief,’ said Hesperus. ‘They had a steward, a cook and a chambermaid. They are all gone. It has to be planned: a planned pilgrimage instead of a mysterious disappearance.’

‘But what if there’s been foul play? What if someone actually dismissed their steward, their cook, their – who else did you say? – their milkmaid?’

‘That would have to be someone from their immediate family, or someone they knew well, someone they trust. No servant worth their salt would be willing to leave without a word from the master and mistress of the manor themselves.’

‘Yes, yes, they wouldn’t listen to a distant cousin like myself, so… Uhh… Uhh! Please don’t misunderstand me!’ cried Luden, voice suddenly an octave higher. ‘I am not accusing Marquis Valery at all. And Lord Eleus definitely had nothing to do with it. Definitely.’

The name rang a bell, not just because she’d glimpsed a painting by an artist called Valery on a different mission: ‘Autumn’, depicting two children, one barefoot and sniffling, the other eyes downcast yet far away, treading past splintered trees, across the broken earth. Where had she–

~Two coneys courant. Two hares running. That’s what Tilly was learning. Remember?~

Two dead rabbits, dropped at her feet: a gift from Lady Oriana.

Remember, remember. Lord Eleus. The eligible yet undesirable bachelor that the lady caught dallying with Claribel’s cheating captain had now set her sights on. Eleus. Valery. Two hares running, running, running in circles, as two threads ran into each other. What was behind it all? Coincidence? Conspiracy? Or simply the incestuous nature of the nobility?

‘Don’t you agree, Master Hesperus?’ He fixed Hesperus with a pea-stained smile. ‘Can’t have been a Valery. If we’re talking about friends, then–’

‘I am not a Master, as you well know. Also… I believe you are taking collections?’ He pressed his lips into a thin line and drew out a silver coin. ‘Best I can do at the moment. He was a good man.’

‘The best!’ cried Luden, the talk of Lord Selvan’s friends fast forgotten, fast unnecessary.

Ari stared at Hesperus. Looked closely, like she should have done, much, much earlier.

Wrong.

It was all wrong.

Lord Selvan, Lady Mona, and their derelict house.

The crow. The crow.

Was.

Had been.

The almond in the cod suddenly left a bitter tang. She tugged the menu towards her, crinkled on the righthand edges from the heat at his fingertips when they’d held it between them, and let Claribel draw out a red beeswax seal from her pouch.

For a moment, Ari thought it depicted a bird that’d swallow the moon, but it was merely the familiar raven holding a compass in its beak, pointed skywards towards a silk ribbon that had been encased in molten wax.

‘I am very satisfied with the meal. Every item on the mage menu has been well-tailored to the needs of a wind mage. Any objections from the two of you? No? Good. Now that that’s settled,’ she said, tying the seal to the bottom of the scroll, as if she’d spent her whole life threading silk through parchment instead of staring into infrared scanners that verified her iris, ‘I must be off. People to see. Places to be. So…’

She looked up. Bleuet’s footsteps was the easiest to recognise; Madame Lucretia’s training had imbued her a soldier’s gait, though she still retained her older profession’s smile. The light staccato behind her, on the other hand, must be that of a child.

Expecting Finn, she blinked at the unknown boy a moment too long, allowing him to click his heels together and deliver his message. ‘I am here with word from Quarrin and Rufus, my lady. They’ve arrived at Lord Selvan’s manor with Silver, but will await your arrival to head inside!’

‘I didn’t know you’ve been investigating Lord Selvan’s disappearance as well, my lady.’ There they were, back to the moment in his garden, poking at spiders and webs that shouldn’t be touched. ‘As it happens, I have no one to see, and no place to be. May I accompany you this afternoon?’

‘Of course. After all, he was a good friend of yours, was he not? The best, in fact.’ If only she’d been able to lift more than a speck of mud, she’d ask the earth to open up and swallow the clasp that he’d tucked away. But no matter. Never mind. It was supposed to gain his trust anyway. And she’d live, like she always had. Reset. Restart. Respawn.

*

The door of Lord Selvan and Lady Mona’s house stood ajar, creaking in the wind. It would have been a desolate scene had it not been the pink and orange picnic blanket that Quarrin and Rufus had anchored under the weeping willow.

The symbols of vengeance and mourning, woven from willow branches, now peeked out from under Silver’s paws; he sniffed at them, lolling his tongue.

‘The place is ready for you, my lady! We haven’t gone in yet, as the boy’s probably told you. Lead the way!’ Quarrin wiped the cheese crumbs from his chin and motioned them towards the house.

They hardly questioned Hesperus’s presence. Only Silver ran up to him and pressed the willow branch symbol shaped like a throwing star, like the emblem of the Institute, into his hands. He barked and wagged his tail, as if begging for a game of fetch.

‘Not now.’ She motioned them inside, and watched Silver sniff at the abandoned hearth, leaving zigzagging paw prints on the dusty floor. Nothing.

They looked up. They looked around. They looked everywhere, until there was nowhere else to go. Her body felt filled with lead, though no one had shot at it. Still, the anticipation she’d felt before, when Rufus had first found her Silver, had bled out. Still, she sank towards the wine cellar. The burnt out ends of Sir Edwin’s makeshift rushlights lay discarded at the top of the steps. ‘I just need…’

‘A little light?’ Flames shot out from the palms of his hands, purple like the dragon that he’d once made for Tilly outside the apothecary, cold like the smile that he offered now.

Down they padded, Hesperus, Quarrin, Ari, Rufus and Silver, shadows thrown across the walls, then the too-clean floors.

‘What are we looking for here?’ said Hesperus, even as Silver barked twice and started to run circles around him.