Winter arrived like deadly wings over Argenton’s battlements. It howled through every street and threatened to lift the thatched roofs, but at least in these log houses there were not so much draft and chilliness as within a structure of stone, whose strategically placed murder holes afforded yet another method for one to be frozen to death.

The previous morning Eric had come down with a cold, and Etna, either seeing the opportunity to skip study now that their tutor had returned or had simply caught it from her twin brother, loosed a coughing fit also. As a matter of course, their nurse exiled Cordelia from the children’s room and she found herself free from responsibilities for the rest of the day. Normally she would have dived headlong between the dusty parchments, but there were better things for her to attend that day.

She decided to investigate the inquisitor.

Or so she had intended to. In the end she exhausted herself wandering the castle’s complicated passages. Ever since her first day, she had not explored much of the place and her daily routine had kept her within the boundaries of the tower of her residence, Galilea’s, the library and the dining hall. Nor had she ever been blessed with a good sense of direction. Doubly difficult was the route she must now navigate, having to find a spot overlooking the garden she had only been to once. She dared not risk going through the one passage leading to the sepulcher where even now the inquisitor was conducting his investigation, and yet she could not remember if there had been windows on the towers flanking it.

Cursing her own lacking knowledge of own home ground, Cordelia finally made it to Sir Kamaric library, having given up. She could still make up for this lost opportunity, the fey girl told herself. And mayhap she could dig up some information on how they operate. But the prospect was doubtful. For it was one thing to research ancient lore, another upon an ever-developing real-world entity. Who could say how much the Council of Cardinals had changed over the years? Their stances and modus operandi could have been vastly altered since last they were documented. And who to say that Simon of Timor had no methods of his own? Marching across the rows of shelves, she cursed once more. So much she could have gleaned from observing the inquisitor's investigation. But alas, her lack of preparation and preference for holing up inside reading would seem to be her undoing.

“Don’t curse, you may invoke something foul.”

A sudden voice started her. She turned, then seeing the speaker, all her edges vanished.

“Father Iridel, you’re awake.”

“And you’re without pupils.” The friar shifted languidly in his usual spot at the library’s only window. Betimes Cordelia had wondered if that window had not been fabricated by Kamaric for his usage alone, seeing how featureless the rest of the room was in comparison to its ornate tracery. By now the friar had gotten used to her presence in the library, which was in all but name his second home, where he spent most of his waking hour laboring over his manuscript.

“Etna and Eric are sick,” she said, dropping on the chair at the only other table. Her breathing was heavy after her long hurried trek around the castle. “How’s your progress with the manuscript, Father?”

“Slow and steady, Cordelia, as is the natural course of things. It’s getting there. You yourself can afford to take it easy a little more.” The friar squinted his eyes. It was the nature of his conversations that no one could guess when he would drop off his sentence and descend to the realm of sleep. It had taken no less than five exchanges over that many days for Cordelia to learn that he had been working on House Argenton’s genealogy.

“Sometimes the natural course dictates that we make haste, father.”

“You are one patient girl,” he said easily, “except when you are not. It is as though you can’t decide whether to live your life or do something with it.”

“You were at the dining hall yesterday, Father. You heard Sir Kamaric’s warning of the coming war. No one can quite afford to take it easy now.”

“Ah, that’s you youngsters’ problem, though. I doubt greatly that I will be of any use or of harm. But ah...” the friar groaned as he lifted his ancient body from his seat.

“Take it easy, father.”

“Well,” he exhaled, “as far as this body holds, though that’s a doubtful word, I shall render Lord Kamaric yet a service. God knows how little there is about his house to fill the parchments.”

“I can help you find, Father, what references are you looking for this time?” Cordelia offered.

“Appreciated. But ‘tis not something you can find. I must straighten this back the Lord had bent to humble his servant, and myself go.”

She let him be. Taking to heart the old friar’s advice, Cordelia sat back and lifted her head towards the ceiling, trying to find respite in studying the unlit masonry in opposition to the many plots and ploys of humans and feys that had been plaguing her mind. The respite was scant enough. She jerked her head down almost immediately.

“Father?” she asked. “The books aren’t that way.”

“I’m not senile yet, Cordelia.” the friar said. He had made it to the door at a very, very slow pace. “What I ought to study can’t be found here.”

“The crypt!” Cordelia muttered, and launched from her seat. She rushed after the man, still winded after the exertion, but the man was no speedy walker. “Are you going to see the inquisition investigate the crypt?”

“Hm? Ah, yeah. It’s an opportunity to learn of the family, I think. Normally Lord Kamaric forbids approaching the place. I am only going to observe from above though.”

“That’s fine with me! I mean, I will come with! I was looking for a place to see anyway. What with being free and all.”

“You were looking for a spot overlooking the crypt.”

“Yes! What a coincidence, eh?”

He scoffed. “You live as long as I and you don’t believe in coincidences anymore.”

And so they went. Cordelia’s confidence fluctuates as the old man picks his way across the keep. He made turns with convictions, but betimes would retrace his steps when the path did not match his memory. They crossed the kennel where the wolfhounds barked loudly at their passage. The friar stopped, raising his hand in blessing to the hairy creatures but this failed to allay their clamor, so he shrugged and moved along. Then he came to the kitchen and the single cobwebbed hallway which led to the crypt, but then passed to the next tower, then another, and there went up a floor, through a door with rusty hinges which Cordelia had to push with all her strength, then at length crossed a gallery where a dozen portraits along the walls had gathered dust for a century and perhaps would remain so for a century more, and returned to the previous tower. After several more flights of stairs, the friar stepped into an old storeroom where old furniture of untold years piled ceiling-high.

No windows were there to vent the stilted air long undisturbed. And it was almost wholly dark, the only light being what they had brought from the gallery. Presently Iridiel folded his arms, hiding his hands in the robe’s sleeves. When again he unfolded them, a floating flame was within his right palm, issuing a light warmer and brighter than candles.

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With this new device to illuminate his path, the friar carefully squeezed his belly through a gap between the piled furniture, then passed to the other side of the room, where a door was half hidden behind a dirty standing mirror. Per his instruction, Cordelia pushed it aside, prompting a cascade of dust, and there revealed a door which decades of cobwebs had draped flushed with the wall. It was neither locked nor creaky, but yielded easily to a simple push. The chamber beyond offered a pleasant contrast to the previous. It was smaller, yet afforded more space, for only half of it was occupied by time-worn objects, as though in converting these adjoined rooms into storages, the servants had forgotten about this deeper chamber halfway through. A single unpaned aperture kept the air inside fresh.

“How on earth did you learn of this place?” Cordelia marveled, by now fully covered in dust.

“I served in this castle since I was a wee lad,” he gave a sly smile, “And there were certain things young men and women seek privacy for, but that is neither for a churchman to tell nor for a pure young lass to hear.”

Cordelia wrinkled her nose, but did not remark on it. Suddenly she wanted with all her being to escape the room. But she resolved herself and crossed to the window. And there, not too far below, was the dreadful garden of the crypt.

It was as she remembered, only without the bleakness of being entranced with an invisible darkness or some lurking evil. The willows which flanked the crypt still hung like bent giants and the peeled plaster upon the crypt’s roof was no improvement to its derelict front.

Simon of Timor and two of his aids stood before the ominous structures, staring as though studying the faded carvings. Neither the enormous metal lock nor the chains which bound the entrance had been disturbed.

The friar joined Cordelia’s side. Being shorter, he had to lean over the sill to see what was going on below.

“Do you know what he’s doing?” she asked.

The inquisitor and his aid were filling several wooden bows with water from a bucket and taking turns placing them in front of the entrance.

The friar Iridel squinted his eyes. The window wasn’t too high above ground level, somewhere perhaps between second and third floor, but Cordelia still had to describe what was transpiring below to the friar.

“Ah, he’s testing the divergence.”

“Divergence?”

“You are quite clueless for a witch, aren’t you?” He chuckled meaningfully.

“I’m not a witch, father. That’s just what people say.”

“And people say many things. And often things that are said render realities that were not.”

“You speak in the roundabout manner enough, Father, there’s a chance yet you may weave books out of meager scraps.”

“Touche. Don’t be like that now, lass. I mean well, I say, so long as I’m awake. Though your angered countenance is truly a spectacle.”

“So what’s divergence?” She ignored him.

“That which diverges from laws of nature - or the Lord’s machination, so to speak. See for yourself, mark you something wrong with the man?”

She squinted her eyes. ‘Twas the same cranky man as yesternight, bald with a crooked nose, and if there had been some alterations done to the man then she had not marked it, for all that her senses were heightened to its utmost. She was going to cover her mouth to taste the air, but then realized what the friar was hinting at.

“His clothes, nay, all of their clothes, they sway as though battered by some strong gale! But the bowls of water do not stir!”

“That’s one way to test it,” the friar nodded, “ ‘twas no natural wind but one to frighten the living without disturbing the air nor the leaves, if it is as you say. Fey magic.”

“Is that how it differs from human magic?”

“How the church determine the differences anyway. Druids, mages and wizards more or less borrow their powers from nature, bending it to their will, as some put it. Feys need not involve themselves with nature for they exist without it, or observe a different set of natural laws altogether, as some theorised.”

“I don't really get it.” Cordelia bit her lips.

What did that make her powers then? Were they human or fey magic?

“Think of it this way. You can do some magic, right? No witch, sure, but you can cast a spell, so the fundamentals of it should be easy enough for you to understand. What do you think is simpler: causing a wind to sweep upon everything in that there garden, or commanding one to affect only those people’s clothes.”

“The former, of course.”

“And that’s how the human mind works. But ‘tis not so with feys. They don’t think of the wind as a natural force of nature, where one simply bids it to follow a certain direction: blow there! without altering any of its other aspects. Humans expect a breeze to behave in certain ways and so are only ambitious enough to change one aspect at a time. Not unlike damming a river to change its course. But feys exist without that simple logic. They interfere directly with the fabric of reality instead of navigating it. They say: ‘blow a fierce wind upon these men’s robes’, or, ‘cause their robes to behave as though a fierce wind is upon it’. Any additional clauses would just complicate the matter and effect a waste of effort, so they do not say the same thing with the water in the bowls or the leaves on the ground. They do not dam rivers, they say: ‘let a river be here instead of there.’ And that’s how they work.”

“I think I get it somewhat,” Cordelia mused, “It’s like when one tries to fix a painting, say, to make it so there’s a wind blowing, so one paints a flowing skirt upon the figure, but neglects to change the backgrounds to realistically reflect the windy weather. ‘Tis like their magic comes from another dimension altogether, without a real understanding of the world they affect.”

“Aye, so the simplest way to determine fey presence is by testing such divergences only feys could neglect to notice.”

Without warning, Cordelia shuddered. It took the best of her effort to restrain the fit so as not to alert the friar. She had been a fool. An utter fool. ‘Twas no fey magic the friar was referring to, but specifically the powers granted to the einherjar!

And she had been flaunting them right in front of Kamaric and Esme.

The splinter of the Dark Master’s might was the system that allowed the einherjar to wield the powers of the gods. But they themselves were no god, and so can only trust to the descriptions of their powers when they pushed the mental buttons. They had not the understanding of the involved mechanism, but simply activated it with faith in the system. And while the Dark Master’s power may have been native to this world, the way it was used was assuredly not. And so humans had been aware of the einherjar’s existence all this time, if only unable to differentiate them from natural feys.

“Take a deep breath, Mistress,” Mastema suddenly hissed from her wrist. “You tread dangerous water. Don’t risk losing your sanity now.”

Even the warning did not help with her mental state. It only further recalled one of her previous discoveries of the System’s nature, namely the alignments.

“You are pale,” the friar suddenly said.

There was suspicion in his eyes and in his voice, but she could not tell if it was the spiral of madness or truth reported by her senses.

Her senses? What senses? Senses of an einherjar? An unnatural fey? How could she trust how they work? Senses that did not operate the normal way but judged a person’s abilities with a table of stats? Senses that work how the system wills it? Senses and powers optimized to manifest in a direct manner and present simplified information? What was lost in the translation? What had she done truly when she used those powers for her plans?

“Good grief!” Mastema cried. “Never has an einheri troubled themselves so much with matters beyond themselves! You need only to stop thinking about it! You are acting like somone possessed!”

But she was trembling uncontrollably now. Even the situation at hand was no prettier. Had Kamaric or Esme already noticed? They were both well read and the friar Iridel had treated it as a somewhat common subject, even expecting her to already know it. But how could they tell? The Veil of Semblance and Sedative Miasma were both without clear-cut real-world effects, it was not like they could observe how these powers interact with the environment, since it was a mental thing. And yet magic which directly influenced the mind could be something classified as unnatural magic.

Somewhere beside her, the friar’s voice echoed, “You ought to go to the physician. You look beyond sick.”

But before she could respond, there came from the garden below a deafening and unearthly sound, that of something broken, and the screams of the inquisitor's men.