The heat of a thousand suns. The strength to shatter the earth.

People dreamed about power like that, as if ending a human life really needed that kind of power, as if we were near-immortals who could only stumble upon mortality through a solid wrong turn, when we were really always one step away from the other side. We didn’t need the ocean to drown us; a puddle would do.

But we lived life as if we were immortal. Still. Because that was the only way to live. On.

Ari lay in the magic patch of Claribel’s garden, counting ways to die.

The deadly webcaps by the pine trees lurked, shedding the telltale spiderweb-like strands under their gills as they aged. Tried and tested.

The beads on that chambermaid’s bracelet, ground up and mixed into a stew. Clean and easy.

The tree trunks stood, as they always did, waiting to hit the wrong spot on someone’s skull.

The rocks stood too, as they always would, offering backup.

The cold, seeping into her frayed form, offered to numb her into an eternal slumber.

It calmed her, even when a line of black ants snaked up her fingers. Bead-sized spheres of earth hovered as Ari breathed out, swatting the ants away with what meagre earth magic she could harness.

Here, in the open, one thread glowed brighter: if the man who’d poisoned Thos had done so with the intension to remove a witness for the woman who’d transported Tristram’s body – an if that she had no way to verify – then there must have been more than one person involved in Tristram’s murder. More than one man to lift the body. More than one man to set the scene.

The options floated high above her, white against the wispy clouds, yet she could make out every word. Some were familiar, yet most had shifted and looked weightier than when they’d appeared to her previously.

===Pick a suspect to accuse in front of Sir Edwin. It will seal your fate.===

---Coell and Nanny Jesse.

Motive: companions in debt, neither of whom want their kneecaps broken by Madame Lucretia. They were spotted together at Tristram’s last rites. Had they reached an agreement, or was Nanny Jesse telling the truth?

Opportunity: Coell was spotted at the City Square on the night of Tristram’s death. Nanny Jesse might be educated enough to play the lute.

Means: ???

Ability to move the body: Coell has weak arm strength – see his struggle with the pickle jar – and Nanny Jesse has a bad knee. Both seem religious, so may not want to move the body without a priest giving his blessings. Then again, is moving an unblessed body any worse than killing a man in the eyes of the Fated One? ---

---The Church.

Motive: blame Cardinal Capac’s faction for death of both Malory and Tristram, causing riots in Taur in order to force the inauguration of Archbishop Benedine.

Opportunity: ???

Means: ???

Ability to move the body: easily moved even with the constraints of belief by blessing the body straight away.---

She lifted her head, tried to focus on the writing from another angle, but it was no good; the ‘Question Further’ option had disappeared. Because Thos had run out of time.

It had never felt like this, pulling the trigger on faces she barely knew. Had it? But here she lay, as if a pound of flesh had been ripped out of her own body, as if she was leaking into the earth, back into water and dust.

She hovered over the only two options she had, and–

No. No.

Means. Why did the means sit among question marks? Tristram had been known to frequent La Petite Mort, and was found not far from it. If sleeping in communal halls made carbon monoxide poisoning of a single person unlikely, then where could he have met his end?

She closed her eyes. There it was, a squat brick building behind a line of yew trees, solidly built, away from the hall and the rest of La Petite Mort. Did one of those suspects get Tristram in there, or…? Come think of it, Madame Lucretia and her attendants had certainly delivered the suspicions against Nanny Jesse to her on a silver platter. If anyone was organised, it was them.

---La Petite Mort.

---Motive: ???

---Opportunity: Tristram was a regular.

---Means: Make him sleep by himself in the brick building at the back of the establishment?

---Ability to move the body: ??? Though Madame Lucretia might be willing to stab the Fated One itself with her cane if it meant more gold for her purse.---

===Next: [Investigate La Petite Mort] or [Summon Sir Edwin to Claribel’s Manor]===

~Who are you talking about all of a sudden?~

Ari pointed at the letters in the sky, growing larger with every breath. She heaved herself back to her feet, dusting off the earth from her gown, watching the options descend from the skies, crashing into the ground in front of her.

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~Not for Thos. Sir Edwin is a Royal Coroner. Thos is not someone who’d have properties to distribute, so… What are you doing?~

Trying to squeeze between the brackets, keeping to the safe space between the ‘o’ and the ‘r’.

A statement. A disappointment. Though it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Thinking back on her missions, no one else ever seemed to see her mission texts. Even the Chief, who’d often set them, had always walked through those messages as if they were air, even near the endings, when they’d inevitably solidify.

Yet they imprisoned her within their constraints.

The letters she’d pushed past spun past her and stretched out their arms once more, looming taller than the sycamore trees where she’d first found Natty with a new face.

===Next: [Investigate La Petite Mort] or [Summon Sir Edwin to Claribel’s Manor]===

~Can’t see what?~

Just what? Just a fact of life she’d never questioned. Until now.

Why?

But there was no time for why. The options had formed a ring, sealing her into its centre like a curse.

~We’ll have to go talk to Master Keating before we go back to La Petite Mort, because we have to show some progress on getting them that Silver Guild-Approved status. We’ll need another warden to–~

The ring was tightening around her body, like it had done hundreds of times before. When the options solidified like this, carrying enough weight to make dents in the frosty grass, she’d have no choice but to launch into one of them. Once she touched an option, once an option touched her, the other branch would wither.

~No time to do wh–~

===Next: [Summon Sir Edwin to Claribel’s Manor]===

It had to be the right one. It always was; some part of her had an instinct for survival.

There, breathing hard, winter-cold searing her lungs, [Investigate La Petite Mort] fell around her like snowflakes, twinkling among the frost, fading from the world.

Her chosen path blinked back at her, then snaked back into the sky, leaving only two suspects, sitting on her shoulders, still tendrils, devil and angel, or both there to witness her doom.

---Coell and Nanny Jesse.

---The Church.

~Are we still going to visit Master Keating?~ Claribel peered at her through the curling forms of The Church.

But they’d never get there. Roads would loop, like a symbol of infinity, and they’d find themselves back here, summoning Sir Edwin.

She marched back towards the relative warmth within Claribel’s walls, past three guards, going through the usual motions of their morning training, pinning a boy down and–

‘What’s going on?’ The boy scrambled up, red faced. Even Ari could tell she’d seen him before. He’d been digging up carrots. ‘What has William done?’

‘My lady!’ cried Sten. He searched her face, as if looking for any weakness in her that Thos’s death might have delivered.

~Please just call him Bador, because that’s his name. And no. He just cares about me. About you.~

‘My lady!’ cried Bador. With a sweep of his arms that should have been tinged with hesitation, coloured by the differences between their stations, he draped his cloak around her shoulders and proved Claribel right. ‘You should look after yourself better. No magic outside in the winter. But you already know that, so I’ll save both our breaths…’

‘And tell me what William has done without further ado, I believe? He has always served me well.’

‘Yes, he has served you well, but we’re just teaching him a gentle lesson in minding our own f… errr… own business. We all feel the same way, but His Majesty’s words are, errr, words of a king.’

‘Bador’s always been an eloquent mother… ummm… mother-loving man’ said Badd. ‘That’s why he’s a guard, not a bard.’

‘Bador the Bard has a nice ring to it, now that you mention it.’

‘Unfortunately, I am having to repeat myself. What has he done?’

The guards exchanged a look that she’d often exchanged with Natty when neither wanted to confess their crimes to Mrs Hart. It was the boy, William, who gave them grace. ‘I made a mistake, milady. I… I didn’t do it when I was wearing your raven though! I was just helping out some old friends to… to make some shops look different.’

‘He threw shit over a few stores with “No Khurammians” signs hanging up,’ said the third guard, the youngest out of them, voice soft and eyes sharp. He was the one suspected of having special relations with Claribel, wasn’t he? ‘We are teaching him a lesson because he didn’t know how to identify which of the shops were under Madame Lucretia’s protection. It’s just lucky that none of them were.’

‘More like Madame Lucretia won’t extend her protection to places that have that sign up,’ snorted Badd.

‘More like stop listening to Henny Rockbottom!’ Bador shook his head, ‘Or don’t. Let his words in one ear, and you don’t have to let it out the other. Just let it sit in your heart, but don’t go letting it power our arms! Don’t go making them pick things up and fling them, for all our sakes! You’re going to put us at odds with the king, not to forget some of Duke Auster’s children and a faction of the Church. Her Grace is going to skin you alive and tip the whole salt cellar over you if you do that without her permission.’

‘Speaking of which, Lady Oriana has sent another gift.’

‘What is it this time?’ Claribel’s breath caught in her throat.

‘A dead boar, my lady. We’ve sent it to the kitchens.’

‘Was it decorated?’ Claribel pressed on, ignoring her questions of what and why. Was there a flag for a boar in the Great Hall? Probably. There were so many.

‘There was one dried sunflower in its mouth.’

The shaky breath had hardly warmed in her lungs when a messenger galloped through the gates, crying, ‘A letter for Lady Claribel!’

The wax seal showed a sunflower in full bloom.

Claribel dragged Ari into her study, prised open the seal and read.

‘From a duke to the yet unmarried Lady Claribel,

The only rumour that rings in my ears is your unmarried status, spoken alongside the name of my beloved son, Darien. Let us discuss how to move forward and put this rumour behind us.

Hoping you will be forever my humble friend, as per your own words.

Yours, Auster’

*

The chambermaids scurried around her as soon as she stepped out of the study, burning the letter in the hearth. All she had to do was to surrender herself into their hands, let them scrub her skin warm with rose-scented water, let them turn her tangles into bejewelled braids, let them exchange Bador’s cloak and her frost-dampened gown for clean-pressed silks, pinned to her like plates of armour.

Claribel had fallen silent after reading the letter, but Ari no longer felt like asking her to explain, not even the boar. There, they stayed suspended in a moment, in the calm when her options merely buzzed in her ears. There, they stayed until a boy came and announced, ‘My lady, he’s here.’

‘Sir Edwin?’

He cocked his head. ‘No. Zarto. The musician. He is here early, so Hubert’s asked him to wait. He said he will take a moment to smell the winter roses in the garden, as he takes so much inspiration from nature.’

‘But I told Hubert I’d visit Zarto at his own manor, to view his collection of instruments. Why has he arrived?’

Was this the path that summoning Sir Edwin would deliver to her? Because if she was honest, neither of the remaining two options felt right. She squinted out of the windows and glimpsed a man with a head full of curls, bending down to caress a woad-dyed rose.

This had to be it. A deliverer of clues from her own world, and if she was lucky, a deliverer of new options.

Then a familiar form strode up to Zarto, bent down to the roses, and plucked a petal too.

‘I see Sir Edwin has arrived,’ she heard her own voice ring out. ‘Please dismiss Zarto and summon him instead.’

~But I never summoned Sir Edwin. Why is he here?~

She wanted to tell her. Wanted Claribel to know. But they were too close to an ending. Even the unspoken voice inside her fell, silenced.