Chandra had spent a few days now resting alone in her quarters. The headache was still there, if substantially less, but it had done nothing else to incapacitate her or hinder her thinking. Indeed, she was starting to think that it had broken something loose.

Still, it was unnerving that nobody had come for her. The Lady, she supposed, did not have a use for her until she had a sample of the correct metal to work on. The meals continued to come, and they were shockingly respectable.

What was most important was that Chandra had a few hours each night when she felt safe thinking about herself. Each time, she very slightly, very slowly unwound the shell of absolute terror that had kept her very rigidly following orders to the letter. She still would, because her survival depended on it, but the terror bound her, silenced her mind.

Mind magic, something told her, was not complicated. She didn’t quite understand it, but she knew, somehow. She had to know, instinctively, what was going on, and then she could adapt, and her mind would throw off the enchantment. But she dared not think about what she was doing. That was ...not permitted.

She wasn’t anywhere near strong enough to fight against that.

In the late hours of the night, she wondered how much of her mental battle was superstition, and how much was reasonable. Should she be trying to fight against the enchantment all the time, and not just when everyone was asleep? Should she try to do more? But the master and his group knew more than enough magic. They might sense something if she struggled against it. And if… her thoughts flinched away from something, and she relented, moving on without challenging it.

So she sat and waited, and kept her space clean. She dared to practice a little with the magic essence she’d gained at the factory, but dared not use her other skills where they might be noticed. After all, she had been punished for using them, before, if never precisely forbidden from them. But she had never been ordered to avoid the essence.

This blue essence was not particularly odd; in truth it did about what she expected magic essence to do. With some concentration, she could flit a tiny blue ball around her space, and when she touched it to a pebble, she could pick it up. She didn’t know quite how much essence she had, and only had a vague feeling that it was there at all. Still, some part of her couldn’t stop imagining hair-thick blue needles and blades cutting into flesh--or, she dared sometimes to hope, breaking stone walls.

Eventually, though, the lady returned, and with no more ceremony than last time, she was escorted out. This time she was brought to the master’s study, which was now quite out of order, with dozens of volumes removed from shelves and either stuffed back onto them in another order, or laid in stacks on the ground. Jani took a seat behind the master’s desk and, after making sure that she had an ink pen and paper at the ready, she addressed Chandra.

“The last time we spoke you had a bad reaction. This is fine, and you don’t need to dwell on it. But you must tell me whatever you know of my brother’s wizard.”

Chandra didn’t quite understand the question, but found her heart beating just a bit faster in spite of it. It wasn’t the same violent reaction as before, yet nevertheless, she could not answer. Was this a question that was forbidden? She tried to rouse herself against the question, to see if she could break through the strange mental wall, but only ended up shaking her head. “With respect, lady, I feel I should know the question, but… I do not.”

Jani glanced to something behind Chandra and nodded. Chandra felt, not for the first time, a dirty magic aura slip over her, one that felt corrosive, offensive. Still, she held her ground and waited, knowing that it was not her place to resist spells. After a moment, she felt two bubbles press up against one another inside her, an unpleasant feeling of pressure… and then a soft pop as one of the bubbles yielded to the other.

It didn’t exactly fill her with new information, but dark parts of her mind that had been locked away sat half-open, and through the cracked doors she could sense half an answer. She closed her eyes and tried to grasp at the mental image, but there was no index, no labels upon the unsorted thoughts, only a jumble of doors that should have been locked.

Still, she closed her eyes and focused, and saw a vision, of two men with whips and two with wine. Blood was everywhere, and pain was her, but she understood one thing about the vision: of the four men, only one was not in the livery of the master’s house.

“A tall man… black hair… blue robes with a twisted golden rope hung as a sash. I don’t know, lady, but I remember… he was there at the time.”

“Dennet,” said a voice behind her. “Damn.”

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Chandra tried not to be startled, and tried to keep herself calm. Unsettlingly, she found her deep emotions to be as settled as the appearance she worked so hard to keep. Somehow, she felt the sick, oily feel of that magic covering her, and she shivered.

“I suppose that means it’s not someone in the house, then.” Jani paused. “You know him, of course.”

“Know him? He’s probably the best free enchanter in the three valleys, and a cutthroat businessman. Top class, but he is more than happy to raise his prices until they are too rich for anyone we know. If he doesn’t like the work, or if he doesn’t like you, he just won’t do things for you. Unless he particularly enjoyed…” Jani glared at her father, and Amon paused for a moment, cleared his throat, then moved on. “He and I haven’t gotten along in more than a decade ...maybe two, now. Roan would have to have spent a fair amount of coin to hire him. When you add that to the expenses of his private workshop, it makes even me wonder where he got his money. Filthy rat must have stolen most of it.”

Jani raised a hand, then addressed Chandra directly once more. “What can you tell me about the mixture of essence stones used to create the magi-metal?”

Chandra’s eyes lit up. “Ah… I recall six stones. One he held between his feet, an ash-grey stone that felt amber. One he had in his hand, deep blue like the sky in the Starry Place. One rested against the side of the cauldron, green, but he did not remove it. Three he put inside, and took out again after. These were a lighter blue, and a silver, and one that I never felt the essence of, for it was always completely empty when it was removed.”

“Sounds like the lower six.” Amon’s voice behind Chandra held more curiosity than annoyance. “Did you confirm that the metal was a triple-blend?”

“Yes,” Jani said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “But not now. Did you see the technique? Anything special he was doing?”

Chandra looked away, more aware than usual of the fact that she was holding a bit back. “I… was bid not to look at them. And I did not witness him in the act. But I felt that he passed energy between the stones in an odd way.”

“Between the stones?” Jani’s eyes raised. “I’m not sure that’s what he was doing.”

“With respect, lady, I don’t know. But he moved it around.” Chandra moved her hands in a few looping circles, trying to catch the essence of the pattern, but even she felt that it came out a half-hearted, unguided knot. “And then the whole pattern moved into the center.”

There was a silence as Jani wrote on the paper, and Amon said nothing. After that, Jani asked one more question. “Anything else?”

“Yes, lady. I said the worker made three more after the first. I did not mention that he made them quickly. Whatever he discovered, it is not time consuming.”

“That’s good.” Jani glanced behind Chandra, but focused mostly on her notes. “The pattern… how well do you recall it?”

Chandra took a slow, measured breath. That question was direct enough that it was tricky to evade. “I recall what I felt, lady, but the pattern was… complex. Too complex to put into words.”

“Hardly a problem.” The words, and the low chuckle from behind Chandra, were cold, and together with the oily feel of the dark magic, they chilled her. This caused another start in her, but nothing so innocent as a slap to her mind. The half opened doors in her mind spilled out scenes that her whole body wished would remain buried. Muscles and flesh remembered laughter, and words, and whips, and far worse; hooks and blades and blood and things even her darkness-cursed memory refused to identify.

She managed not to scream or even cry out, but her entire body wracked with a spasm, then many more, and she collapsed on the floor for long moments.

“Father! Damn it. I told you not to speak!” Janinda’s voice was too far away for her to hear, although the words appeared in Chandra’s mind nonetheless.

Chandra picked herself up off the floor, half amazed that someone hadn’t set her upright, only to realize after a moment that she hadn’t been hit and didn’t need to prepare for worse. She only rose into a polite kneeling position, closed her ears and took several deep breaths, trying to calm down. It was far from easy; doors that should have been closed now had labels, and a studious, automatic part of her mind was going around looking in them, turning out drawers full of torture and closets of gore just to say “Ah, I remember now,” while she could only look on, horrified by each recollection.

The dangerous parts of her had subsided at the merest touch of tortured memories, but they recovered quickly, more quickly than she’d expected. In part, she realized, because she wanted them to. That dark oily part of her made it easier for her to fetch her own demons out of the darkness, just as they had made it easier to fetch shattered memories. But along with the presence of her old self, she also felt some wisdom, some analytical part from before giving her advice. Now is not the time, she knew. So she set the thoughts aside and just settled into place, trying to look as calm and submissive as she had been told to be.

When she opened her eyes and ears again, she found Janinda and her guard Kan watching her closely. Chandra, feeling a little flustered, gave a gentle quarter bow. “I apologize, lady. I am better, now.”

“You have some deep scars, child,” said Jani, with naked pity in her voice. “Some days I wonder… no.” She gestured to Kan. “That will be all, for now. Rest. You will be provided with paper and pen. If you can recall anything else about the stones, or pattern, or metals, record it. In as much detail as you can, as thoroughly as you can. Otherwise, rest. You are too valuable to us. Soon we may need you to give us what you can, in a rush. But there is no point in… tiring you out before then.”

Chandra rose to her feet and bowed. The numbness and slick feel of the magic made it easy to conceal the sudden prick of excitement she felt, and she worked hard to keep her tail as still as possible.

These people had no idea what she could do, unsupervised, with magic and a bit of spare paper.