Duke Aquilon proposed a continuation of his training session with the knights, which Ari accepted more enthusiastically than the poor knights themselves. She pushed down the itch of testing out a real medieval two-handed tuck sword, though she’d rather have done a push-down for the good of her triceps. A tuck could pierce through armour and stab through boars: a marriage between a sword and a lance, a rival to axes and maces, the most beautiful relationship imaginable.

Never mind the perfection of those polished blades. She’d grab the chance to speak with Natty with both hands, much like how you’d grab a tuck.

Claribel’s chambermaids walked with Ari and Natty towards the terrace, where the yellow brick walls were awash with candy-floss blue climbing roses: a variant that did not exist in the real world.

‘They are such a beautiful colour,’ she said to Lucy.

‘Indeed, my lady. Lonicer and his boys have been watering them with woad every day. They have turned out beautifully.’

A dye. Current count of magical plants that were unseen in the real world: zero.

From the far end of the garden, two servants in the usual sky-blue tunics and aprons of a darker sea-blue rested on their shovels. The older of the two spotted them and greeted them with a wave and a bow. Ari waved back, and waited for the chambermaids to open the doors back into the manor.

Lucy shifted uncomfortably. ‘Will my lady not be doing your rounds today before…?’

Her Glock had fifteen. Not here. Not now.

‘Maybe… later?’ said Ari. ‘Please just give me an hour of rest.’

‘…Of course, my lady. I will let Hubert know at once,’ Lucy replied, as if understanding something unspoken. Turning to Wini and Patricia, she ordered, ‘Go get some turmeric tea at once. Shall we bring it to your solar, my lady, or would you prefer to rest in your library?’

‘The library, if you please.’ It sounded more useful to explore than a solar.

The two chambermaids bobbed their heads and rushed inside, turning left from the door that left them at the entrance to the Great Hall.

Claribel’s room, if she remembered correctly, was up another set of winding stairs towards where the chambermaids had turned. But where was the library?

Ari prodded the other spirit inside the body.

~My apologies. I was lost in thought.~

Thoughts that Ari couldn’t read.

~You can get to my library via either set of stairs, though you may find the route to the left more scenic.~

Ari took the left-hand path and sniffed the air. The promise of roast pork for lunch grew stronger with every step. The voices of the servants drifted across what must have been their quarters, mingling with the clanging of pots and pans and the shuffling of feet. Only a few fragments of conversation filtered through.

‘… feeling unwell again…’

‘…His Grace… suddenly… Lady Oriana… be feeling…’

Jingle, jingle, jingle, went the bells on Natty’s hat.

Click, click, clack, went their footsteps.

Click, click. Clack.

Did Natty feel what she felt? Her eyes lingered for a moment on the walls by the staircase. The wood-lined hallway was only decorated with one tapestry here, where thread-formed flowers reached for the gold-specked skies, and ravens watched, perched from trees and castles with their silver-sewn eyes.

She could almost feel Claribel holding her breath.

Old habits die hard. She looked up in spite of herself. Nothing. Her head throbbed. What was this place? How could anyone know whether they were headed in the right direction, closer to completing the missions they were meant to complete, or at least levelling up a skill that’d allow them to do what needed to be done?

Up they went from a spot she must revisit another time, and there was no one to note it down for her. Ari clung to the narrow wooden banister that jutted out from the wall; Claribel’s dress made it impossible to watch her step. Did many ladies fall to their deaths, splatting a fresh coat of red, Jackson-Pollock-style, over the tapestries?

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The path straight ahead would lead to the room she’d found herself in this morning. As for the library…

~Behind you. Through the hallway. Look at the windows when you walk through.~

The hallway was only wide enough to comfortably fit one person, so Natty fell one step behind, as she’d always done, before they were lady and fool, before they were agents Red and White. Six small arched windows with a criss-cross pattern overlooked the patchy winter fields, neatly divided into rectangles, that stretched beyond the manor’s garden where Sir Beren and Dagon jogged towards Duke Aquilon with pails of water on their heads. The Duke, now dressed in full plate armour, motioned them to stop and watch. One of the servants led a spotted grey horse towards him, and without so much of a foot on the stirrup, Duke Aquilon took two steps towards the horse and launched himself into the saddle.

‘Holy shit,’ said Natty. ‘Can you do that?’

‘Without the armour, just about,’ said Ari. ‘But with it? Not unless I grow a pair of wings.’

~Look around the windows, not through it!~

The servant now led another horse towards Duke Aquilon, this time with a glossy chestnut coat, and with a shout from the Duke, both horses broke into a gallop. The Duke nudged the grey horse towards the chestnut, and at the moment that both horses drew parallel to each other, he launched himself into the air as if he was wearing helium balloons instead of plate armour and landed on the chestnut horse.

‘Holy… wow.’ Natty pressed her face so close to the window that one of the bells tinkled against the glass.

He trotted the horse back to where the two knights stood, and removed his helm, shaking out his mane of silky silver hair. The knights shook their heads at him emphatically.

~I said, look around the windows, not through it!~

If only she could meet him in her own body–

~He is very loyal to my mother.~

Ari could feel the tiniest hint of the other spirit’s anger rising. Bingo. Perhaps it was just some lashing out against false accusations, or perhaps she’d poked a tender spot, but whatever it was, this topic could break through Claribel’s calm façade, and though she couldn’t read Claribel’s thoughts in the same way that Claribel could read some of hers, when her feelings filtered through strongly enough, some residue memories pulled through with it.

Pressing gently into the other spirit, she closed her eyes and saw…

A woman with strawberry-blonde hair and a sparkling smile holding a jug of milk.

The other spirit seemed to turn towards her, so she withdrew and continued with the previous topic of conversation.

It was true. The windowsills and the architraves were lined with colourful pebble-shaped gems that reflected rainbow spots of light onto the walls. She ran her fingers across the gems, which felt like…

~Yes! Produced in Aquilon! And for the final touch, open the door at the end. That’s the library.~

Ari heaved open the oak door with a golden embossed image of a tree, and stood before a floor-length stained glass window. A wooden ship with an oddly wide, square shaped bow and two painted, staring eyes braved the waves, detailed to the last froth of white that played among the blues. Orange-gold sails unfurled under a sky of cobalt-blue, murky clouds and bright yellow moon and stars. On board the ship, men in colourful cloaks waved their steel-grey swords towards golden sands with a scattering of emerald-green trees. Bodies spurting their ruby reds littered the beaches, and among them, one dressed in purple clutched a crown that will no longer serve a purpose for him, because his head had been devoured down to the skull. A raven larger than any of the men towered over his body, wings spread wide, casting a black shadow across this colourful scene. With its beak turned up, it dedicated the dead man’s eye to the skies.

‘That’s… quite a piece of art,’ said Natty. ‘It must be the arrival of the Sabline.’

~Your friend knows Aquilon’s history well.~

No surprises there. Three months was more than enough for Natty to consume a good portion of the tomes in a library like this.

On either side of the stained-glass window, oak shelves were lined with some oddly colourful books that needed investigating, but though the shelves were full, there were only two bookcases, totalling no more than a hundred books. In the middle of it all was a long bench that looked more like a tall-backed pew that’d been lifted from a church. A low table covered with a blue embroidered cloth sat near the bench.

A sheathed silver dagger sat next to the table, perhaps one that was used to slice fruits instead of people, but Ari breathed in and tucked it into her dress.

Next, she tested out the thin cushion atop the bench; it felt as uncomfortable as it looked. She patted the space next to her for Natty to take a seat, almost like things used to be at the Institute, when they were merely trainees.

‘Ugh… Is this thing filled with straw? Something’s poking me in the bum, and it’s not your dagger,’ said Natty. ‘I miss foam cushions.’

‘That must be a benefit of wearing these dresses. There are so many layers between that cushion and my rear end… I can’t feel a thing.’

There was a light rap at the door, and Lucy came in with a bow. She set down a tray with a rusted bludgeoning weapon where the wooden handle had come off, and–

Upon closer inspection, it was actually a teapot shaped from purple clay that lived up to its short-and-stout reputation more than the elegant imagery of a lady’s tea-party. It emanated a spell of turmeric.

Next to it, Lucy set down two cups, a jar of honey, and a plate of butter biscuits.

‘I hope you feel better soon,’ she said. ‘I expect we will receive the summons soon, my lady, so you might want to focus on getting the biscuits down and take only small sips of the tea. The smell of burning always did turn your stomach.’