The journey back to Belsey wasn't what he had expected. He could tell it wasn't what the others or the crew of The Perlen had been hoping for either. Rather than raucous celebrations with the Ember Rum, the mood had been despondent. For the majority of it, people kept to themselves, save for the first night at sea, when they gathered to toast the fallen.

Lewis was glad of the quiet. Arthur and Thomas came and went, along with Clara and occasionally Lillian, but for the rest of the time he was left to himself, with Emily content to keep him company in silence when he didn't feel like talking. Neither of them had mentioned the baby since they had been reunited; somehow, it didn't feel like the right time to talk about new life when below deck were the bodies of their fallen allies and friends.

From Belsey, they had taken carriages back to the city. When they had arrived, there had been a lot of confusion and curiosity among those in the streets. It seemed that the vast majority of the people were unaware that they hadn't been at the castle for the best part of three weeks, and for Lewis, considerably longer. The following days were difficult. The precursors had taken Ingrid amongst themselves to offer their own funeral rights, while Olivia and the other Cimant warriors had set off to return Achak's body to the tribe. That had left him to return Robyn to her brother and mother.

For as long as he lived, he didn't think he would ever forget the look of devastation on their faces. It had been the same for the families of David and Louise; it was even worse that he didn't have their bodies to return. He had promised that as soon as he was able to, he would return to the temple with help to bring them home again.

The garden in the castle had become his refuge for hours at a time. In the weeks since their return to the castle, he had watched the flowers go over and the leaves begin to fall. Even as the autumn rains came and settled the earth over Robyn's grave, he continued to sit there. Accepting that his father had died seemed easier back then; it was so sudden. There had been no body to bury, no real closure.

With Robyn, it had been finite. He still couldn't decide if the conversation he had had with her apparition had been real or not. Either way, her words that it was okay still left him guilt-ridden. It was never far from his mind, and yet he couldn't talk about it, even when he tried. No one had asked him what he had been through while Tristan had held him prisoner, and for that he was grateful. Every night when he went to sleep, he still saw that horrific scene from the office that the shadows had forced him to watch over and over. At first, he had avoided the office subconsciously, but now he made a point of it.

'Lewis, there you are,' Emily said, making him jump as she placed a hand on his shoulder. 'You should come inside or you'll catch a cold.'

'Sorry, I was miles away,' he said as he got to his feet. Until she had spoken, he hadn't even realised that it had been pouring with rain.

'It's okay. I was coming to find you; Anthony is asking to speak to you again,' she said.

Ever since they had returned, there hadn't been a day when he hadn't asked to speak with him. Each time, he had found an excuse to avoid facing him, even when Emily had told him he knew what had become of his father. Right now, he wasn't sure if he could handle grieving another loved one.

'Tomorrow.'

'You say that every time; you'll have to speak to him at some point,' Emily reminded him.

She was right; he knew it, but he chose to stay silent.

'We're all here if you need to talk,' she said.

'Thanks,' he muttered. Every few days, she or Thomas would offer to listen, but he didn't even know where to start. It still felt like he was trying to organise his own thoughts so that he could process them before he could even consider sharing them with anyone else. 'I think I'm going to take a walk for a bit.'

'I can come with you if you like,' she said.

'I'll be alright; there's something I need to do before we gather everyone for the updates,' he said. Ever since their return, Thomas had been scheduling regular updates for all of them from their network of scouts in the hope they would be able to find out more information on what Tristan was planning.

After he had disappeared into the archway, it had been eerily quiet—not even a whisper of his resurrection. He was happy for it to stay that way, but he found himself worrying about what he was planning instead. There had been no sign of Russell since he had disappeared, and when they had left Arcadia, there hadn't been any trace of George either. Lewis had been vaguely aware of his presence when they first arrived at the bunker, but he hadn't seen or heard him after that.

'Don't be too long,' she said, looking slightly perturbed at the rejection of her company but accepting it nonetheless.

He nodded, running a hand through his soaked blonde hair as he wandered back into the castle, heading down the stairs to the entrance hall. On the way, he passed a couple of dozen people, each of them nodding to him, but he wasn't paying much attention to who it was. The castle had become a hive of activity, even more so than it had been in the past. With the addition of the precursors Hagre had helped to free from the prison, most of the rooms on the lower floors were now occupied.

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

Lost in his thoughts, he wound his way out of the castle and through the city streets, no one seeming to pay him much mind. He was grateful to be able to move without all eyes on him for a while as he made his way in the direction of the old Hargrove bakery. The remains of the burned-out building had been left almost untouched since that night, which now felt like a lifetime ago, with the reconstruction of the bakery for Maria taking place several blocks away.

He glanced around, making sure that no one was watching as he slipped inside. The last thing he wanted was for the guard to be called and interrupt him, especially not knowing what he might find. Until the echo of Robyn told him that there might be answers here, he hadn't planned to return. Thankfully, Emily and Clara had mentioned that Charles had been teaching Robyn about alchemy in the basement, which he hadn't even known existed up until that point.

Over the many moons that had passed, the ash had dissipated, turning the once black stone flooring a dull grey. He wandered the shell of the building, going from room to room, remembering how it had once been when he had worked there alongside Robyn. It felt like a lifetime ago and just yesterday at the same time. He could almost hear the pair of them laughing in the wind.

Something clicked beneath his foot, and he stepped back, brushing the thick layer of ashy sludge away with his boot. As he took his weight off it, the stone lifted slightly, revealing a small recess beneath it. He carefully lifted the trapdoor, revealing a narrow stone staircase beneath. Taking one last look around, he stepped down, a pair of vials in candle holders beginning to glow with a dim green light as he moved forward, illuminating the way ahead.

How had he never known about the basement? From what Emily and Clara had told him, even Maria had no idea that Charles had been an alchemist. He had decided against asking her about it; he hadn't mentioned to Emily or Clara that he had been planning to come here ever since Robyn had told him about it. It had all been a case of finding the right moment to slip away from what felt like nonstop meetings to discuss the inevitably coming war.

The stairs came to an end, and the room opened up before him, lined with the same green vials giving off an eerie light. It looked as if it had been ransacked in a hurry, with papers, ingredients and broken vials scattered around. The glass cracked beneath his feet as he moved further into the room. Now he wished he had asked what he should be looking for or where he was supposed to search.

On the far side of the room, a workbench stood with its heavy wooden drawers wide open, one of them lying on the floor nearby. Memories of his father sitting at an identical one at the cabin in Fir Forest flashed back to him from years before. They were vague, snippets here and there. He must have only been seven or eight years old, but he could see his father there now, his blonde hair cut short and brushed back, glasses half way down the bridge of his nose as he scribbled in old ledgers.

Even now, he had no idea what his father had done. If he wasn't out in the forest, he was more often than not tucked away in the tiny study. A memory of him tucking something away under the desk came back to Lewis as he flicked through the loose pages that had been pulled from the open drawers. Curious, late the following night he had snuck into the study to find that there was nothing under the desk.

He crouched down, running his fingers across the underside of the desk. It had never occurred to him as a child that there might be something hidden there. Thankfully, in the time since he had met Emily and their adventures, he had learned that not everything is always as it seems. His fingernail caught on something, and, looking closer, he saw an almost perfectly concealed indent in the wood. Pressing against the surface, it released a small section, about the same size as one of the drawers.

The moment he saw it, he knew that whoever had ransacked the basement must have been looking for this; the contents of the drawer were perfectly untouched. Tucked in beside an old, battered notebook were a pair of wireframe glasses and a single, corked test tube. He lifted the test tube into the dull light. At its centre was a thin, silvery thread that seemed to shimmer and tremble. It was almost like a wire except for the way it moved, seemingly of its own accord.

Clara had told him a bit about alchemy in one of the brief moments when he hadn't been preoccupied with something else. Was this alchemy as well, or was it something different? He rotated it carefully, watching it drift. Picking up the glasses, he recognised them as a pair of Charles'.

As he took the book, a piece of folded paper slipped from between the pages, landing on the desk. Putting the book down, he unfolded it to find Charles' familiar scrawl on it. 'In plain sight I lie, invisible to all but the right eye,' Lewis muttered to himself, glancing around the room. He turned the words over, wishing he had someone like Thomas with him; he was always better at things like this.

At a cursory glance, there was nothing different about the room as far as he could see. He tucked the note along with the test tube into one of his inside pockets and picked up the book once more, flipping it open to a page at random. It was filled with scribbled notes and annotated diagrams of what looked like strange flowers and creatures. On the other side, there were step-by-step instructions with what could be a map spanning the next three pages.

More than ever, he wished Charles or Robyn were there to explain what it meant to him. She had said there were answers here, somewhere. If anything, he had more unanswered questions than when he arrived. Tucking the book inside his jacket, he replaced the concealed compartment before heading for the stairs, yet another mystery left behind by someone he thought he knew.

The thought of a coming war continued to rumble on in the back of his mind as he made his way back in the direction of the castle. Now, even more than before, he found himself wondering who he was and how many more secrets had been hidden from him in the past.

He mulled over the note, getting no further than he had in the basement, before resigning himself to the fact that he would have to share what he had found with the others. Maybe that could wait until tomorrow, though. As for visiting Anthony, perhaps his promise of tomorrow had finally come around, his offer of answers feeling less like a ploy to get his attention.