Josh was busy convincing himself not to drop down from the crossbeam he was hiding on, so he could try to open the arcane lock on the chest, and take the key fragment.

One good reason not to was that he might get the sequence wrong. However, he had seen the mage braiding the threads of magic together, and was confident he knew what the order was. Remembering sequences of commands for coding was something he’d learned to do for his university coursework, and this passkey only had six elements. Six was easy. You could chant it in your head in groups of three.

So, okay, opening the lock would be possible.

But what if the gang came back when Josh had the chest open? The mage had gone downstairs, and if anyone came up to the first floor, would he have enough warning to relock the chest? Would he even be able to relock the chest?

It didn’t look complicated. Operating a lock mechanism was the sort of thing a good locksmith would make simple by design. It had taken the mage only a second or two to braid the threads of magic. It wouldn’t take Josh long to redo the braiding and hide in a corner of the room or something.

Besides, from his high vantage point on the cross beam, Josh could see through the window down into the street, where his kidnappers were currently loading a cart by the backdoor. They were busy right now. Distracted. But that wouldn't last long. They would come for the chest soon.

Josh was moving before he’d consciously made the decision, and even as he did, he thought, you stupid idiot. But he was committed by now, and he was curious about the lock. This was his only chance to interact with it.

He crouched down by the chest, and cautiously stretched his hand towards the dial. There were symbols around the face of it, and each one had tiny threads leading from it and vanishing, presumably into the invisible knot. The threads all had a slightly different feel that made it easier to visualize the pattern the mage had braided. It hadn’t been complicated, just a matter of setting an order that would need to be unraveled in reverse.

The outermost thread had been the one with the triangle symbol. Josh reached out and clicked the dial around to the triangle. Next had been the bisected circle. Then the symbol that looked like a squashed Chinese character.

It wasn’t actually a very good lock, now that he thought about it. There were six symbols, and if they all needed to be used, the total possible combinations would be in the hundreds rather than the thousands. You would think that a world that had had gamers arriving from Earth for decades would be better at security, particularly if magic was involved.

He turned the dial to the last symbol. The lock clicked open.

He exhaled in relief, and realized he had been holding his breath. Inside the chest was the key fragment, still bundled up in the cloak. He examined it carefully with his senses, then picked it out cautiously.

Nothing happened. He went to close the lid, then wondered if they would be able to tell the chest was lighter. Neither the glass cage holding fragment nor the cloak were heavy, but he should substitute something of equivalent weight, just in case. He looked around the room. There was a blanket folded at the end of the bed, and the jug on the washstand.

He bundled them up quickly, wrapping the jug in the blanket, then put the bundle in the chest, and closed the lid. Now to test if he could actually relock it. He stretched his hands out for the threads and willed them to move. They lifted gently, coiling towards him like seaweed pulled by a current.

He briefly debated changing the combination, but then, to his horror, he heard footsteps at the bottom of the stairs. His first fumbled attempt failed, and he found his fingers were shaking as he twisted the braid into the same combination the mage had used.

The footsteps were too close! He wasn’t going to finish in time.

Then he heard the person on the stairs stop, and call down a question. It was one of the thugs. Josh completed the braid and made the same pushing motion that the mage had used. The threads sank behind the lock, hidden from sight. He stood up and looked wildly around him. The footsteps on the stairs started up again, so he stepped lightly, setting his feet down at the same time as the thug, and headed for the corner of the room that was behind the door.

Josh made it just as the door opened. He wrapped the fur cloak around the bundle with the key fragment as best he could, and stood stock still, letting the camouflage effect fall over him again.

The thug lumbered into the room, picked up the chest, and lumbered out, without giving Josh’s corner a second glance.

Josh had done it. He had the key fragment. Did it count as stealing if you stole something from thieves? It didn’t seem to him that they had been planning to return it to the library. He contemplated returning to the cross beam, in case they did one more search of the house, but even as he thought that, he heard the sound of voices in the lane.

He crossed quietly to the window, and saw the cart, with the green-eyed man taking the reins, the mage seated next to him, and the two thugs perched uncomfortably in the back. Even as Josh watched, the cart lurched into motion, and disappeared down the street.

A couple of hours later, Josh was at the castle. He’d thought carefully about this step. There was a not insignificant danger that this would get him imprisoned or worse, particularly since he was in possession of an artefact that was supposed to be sitting securely in a vault protected by the Church.

On the other hand, if he returned the key fragment to the authorities, it would no longer be missing and there wouldn’t be any hue and cry for the thief. Unless the very act of returning it put him under suspicion. But he had an idea for that.

“Lady Paleyne will see you now,” Jann the servant said austerely, as if he disapproved.

When Josh advanced, the bundle containing the key fragment in his arms, Jann cleared his throat.

“Without,” he gestured at the bundle and the pack over Josh’s shoulder, “Any of this.” Then he waved a couple of negligent fingers at the knife in Josh’s belt. “And no weapons.”

“Okay,” Josh said. He hoisted the bundle in his arms. “But I need to show her this. It’s a magic item.”

Jann sighed.

“Show me first.”

Josh bit his lip, then cautiously peeled back a corner of the muffling cloak. Icy, numbing magic filled the room. Jann leaned forward for a better look, then recoiled and gave Josh a narrow-eyed glare.

“Is there any reason I shouldn’t have you arrested immediately?” he demanded.

“I rescued it from some thieves!” Josh protested, gripping the bundle defensively. He spoke the next words rapidly. “And there was a plot against Lady Alianne and Lady Paleyne needs to hear about it.”

Shortly afterwards, he was standing in a small sitting room, where Lady Paleyne was seated demurely in a carved wooden chair, with an embroidery hoop, a needle and thread on her lap. He couldn’t help noticing that she was wearing a particularly fine silver amulet about her neck. Was that the one that had the poisoned pearl in it?

The explanation of the day's events came out less coherently than Josh would have preferred, but he was exhausted and running on the lingering fumes of adrenalin. When he mentioned the green-eyed man, Lady Paleyne cried “Ow!” and looked at her finger, which she had accidentally jabbed with the needle. She frowned, and thrust both embroidery hoop and needle at Jann.

“Take this horrid thing away!” she commanded, sucking on her wounded finger. To Josh, she said, “Describe this man for me!”

Josh did so, and then relayed the rest of the encounter. He had left out his adventures in the library, merely saying that he had been walking home late at night from an evening meal in a tavern when he had been abducted.

Lady Paleyne questioned him several times, particularly when tiredness made him lose the thread. She eventually commanded Jann to bring him a cup of wine, which Josh dared not drink, given he had had so little to eat. He had managed to purchase a meat pie on the way to the castle, glad that his money belt and purse had been included in the things he had managed to retrieve, but that had only taken the edge off his appetite.

And he had no desire to be questioned by Lady Paleyne while drunk, or even tipsy. She kept opening her eyes wide in a kittenish way, and saying in a helpless tone of voice, “Oh, but I don’t understand…” and then Josh would have to backtrack and clarify. But he couldn’t help noticing that she picked up a lot of detail along the way, and her questions were always pertinent.

In the end, he had to confess to having the Hide spell, since his escape didn’t make sense without it, but pretended that it was a spell scroll he had just happened to have on his person. Anyone could use spell scrolls with simple effects. It wouldn’t out him as someone with magic.

Lady Paleyne raised her eyebrows, but to his relief she didn’t ask him where he had got it from. Josh didn’t mention the invisibility cloak, or his other spells.

At last he came to the end of his account. Lady Paleyne had given up on her helpless act, and sat there with a furrow between her brows as she thought.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Eventually she raised her head and said to Jann, “Summon Lord Ernheart.”

Ernheart was the lord who owned the castle, and who governed the town of Brackstone and the surrounding area. Lady Paleyne was his guest, but if she was the one summoning him, that indicated just how high her own status was.

Once Lord Ernheart had arrived in the sitting room, and been shown the key fragment, he reacted by staring at it expressionlessly for a moment. Then he turned his head and traded glances with Lady Paleyne. Some swift, unspoken agreement passed between them.

“My dear De Haven,” Lady Paleyne said. “I thank you for your service to Lady Alianne.”

That sounded like a dismissal. Josh stood up. He wasn’t sure how to react, but settled for an awkward bow.

“You must be tired, hungry and thirsty, after your adventures,” Lady Paleyne went on, as a servant girl came into the room. “Bethca here will look after you, and attend to all your needs. Please follow her. I will speak with you when you have eaten and rested.”

The place Bethca led him to was another small sitting room. Josh eyed a chintz-covered couch with plump cushions longingly. However, he was pleased to note that his pack was there too, and a quick check through it showed the contents were still present.

Against one was a table with a tray, upon which was a loaf of bread, some slices of cold chicken, a wedge of cheese, a small earthenware pot of butter, an orange peeled cut into a spiral and sprinkled with sugar, and a bottle of wine. More wine! Were they trying to get him drunk?

“Do you have any water?” he asked Bethca, who gave him a blank look at the request. “Or tea?”

She looked even more astonished, but agreed as how she could procure him a pot of tea. When she came back, bearing a steaming teapot and a little glass cup, he was scarfing his second chicken and cheese sandwich, and beginning to feel more human.

The tea was a delicate, flowery brew, and served without milk. It was exactly the sort of thing that people like Lady Paleyne drank, but it washed the sandwich down beautifully.

It would have been a perfect meal if Bethca hadn’t kept annoying him. She had seated herself beside him after bringing the tea, without asking, and proceeded to address various comments to him which he belatedly realised were attempts at flirting.

She seemed a nice enough girl. She had a round, freckled face, and whenever she breathed in deeply—which she did a lot—it would press her breasts against the tight buttons of her servant’s gown. But her giggle got on Josh’s nerves, and the expression of breathless admiration she adopted came across as fake. She was like a miniature Lady Paleyne.

Maybe she had taken Lady Paleyne as her role model, which was an awful thought. Josh wanted to tell her to find someone else to emulate.

Once he had finished eating, he found his lids growing heavy, so he got up from the table and went over to the couch. To his horror, he found Bethca following him. She wasn’t going to sit next to him, was she?

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said in a firm but polite voice, which strongly suggested it didn’t matter if she minded or not, “But I am going to take a nap now.”

She blinked at him as if, once again, he had said or done something unexpected.

Josh lay down on the couch, rearranged a cushion under his head, and closed his eyes. He heard Bethca moving away to clear the dishes, and then he was out.

When he woke up with a start, some hours later, it was fully dark. He sat up and rubbed his neck, which ached from being in an uncomfortable position. The room was silent, and felt empty of anyone else’s presence. He stumbled around, bumping into furniture until he found his pack, extracted the flint and steel by feel, and then managed to get to the table. There had been a candle on it, he remembered.

Once he lit the candle, he saw was no sign of Bethca, and the tray of food had long since been cleared. Was it merely late evening, or the middle of the night? His bladder indicated that he had been asleep for a good several hours.

He gathered up his things, took hold of the candlestick, and ventured out into the corridor. He found the toilet facilities partially by smell—they consisted of a small wooden closet with a wooden seat over an extremely noisome shaft.

Having taken care of that business, Josh wondered if he should go back to the sitting room and wait some more, or look for Lady Paleyne. He hadn’t been arrested, so presumably she and Lord Ernheart had decided to believe his story.

Looking back at their reactions, he now wondered if he had returned the key fragment to the right people. He had assumed that, because Ernheart was the Lord of Brackstone, that the library would come under his authority. But there was some complicated intrigue going on between Lady Paleyne, Lord Ernheart, the green-eyed man, and the Church. He didn’t understand it well at all, but Lady Paleyne and Lord Ernheart were on one side, and the green-eyed man and potentially the Church were on the other.

Josh didn’t want to get involved, but it looked like he had already thrown his lot in.

He found the door he thought led to the first sitting room, where Lady Paleyne had received him. The castle was confusing. How many sitting rooms did these people need? But when he knocked on the door, there was no answer. Was it so late she had gone to bed?

He turned the handle and peered inside. The room was empty. The candles were lit, although guttering low. He saw the black muffling cloak that had been used to mask the magic effect of the key fragment, and hesitated, then decided that he might as well claim ownership of it. It looked as it had thrown aside without any thought.

Of the key fragment there was no sign. Josh stuffed the cloak in his pack and looked around him.

There was another door at the far end of the room, with a thin strip of light coming from underneath it, and the muffled sound of voices.

He wanted to hear what they were saying. He could go up to the door, and, if he was discovered, he could make it look like he was just about to knock. He trod towards it, but then hesitated as he felt two magic items come into range of his sense. The aura appeared to be coming from two ornaments hanging on the wall, and it felt like they were joined somehow.

It felt similar to his own alarm spell, a sort of one-dimensional twist, although in the shape of a flat wall, rather than the bubble he was familiar with.

How could you get past an alarm spell?

Would his cloak of invisibility work? As far as he had been able to work out, the alarm spell signalled when something physically passed through the barrier. The cloak of invisibility wouldn’t prevent that. Nor would the magic-muffling cloak, and he really needed to find a better name for it.

The alarm spell was attached to two ornaments, Josh realised, which had been set opposite each other on the wall. What would happen if he moved one of the ornaments? Would they notice if one of them was moved away from the wall, and closer to the other, leaving a gap?

He might as well try it, and if it did trigger, all it would do was warn the occupants of the inner room that he had just passed the barrier, and he could hastily replace the ornament before they came to investigate.

The ornament on the left side was some kind of silver angel. Josh carefully slid his fingers underneath it, and hooked it away from the wall. The alarm spell stayed intact. He slipped past, then carefully replaced it.

He trod as quietly as possible to the door, crouched down and laid his ear against the keyhole.

“I don’t understand why him,” came a male voice. Josh thought it sounded like Lord Ernheart, but hadn’t been in his presence for long enough to be able to tell. “You don’t know anything about him!”

“On the contrary, I know a lot.” That was Lady Paleyne.

“How can you possibly…?”

“I am not a fool, Lerit. I have tested him upon every occasion we have met thus far.”

“But how? And why?”

“Because it seemed all too convenient that such a fair young lad, catering to what our enemies know of my tastes, happened to come across the very inn at which I was staying during a mission of such import, and apparently went to some pains to secure an introduction to our party.”

“You should have more care for your reputation!” the man snapped. Josh was pretty sure now that it was Lord Ernheart. “If you didn’t carry on in such a loose way—”

Lady Paleyne interrupted him.

“Don’t be such an imbecile, Lerit, it doesn’t become you. I encourage such rumours! If the northern faction think me vulnerable to such clumsy and obvious ploys, then it is to our advantage, I assure you.” She paused, and then continued in a quieter tone of voice. “As the first test, I caused my maid to drop a jewellery box in front of him. He helped secure the pieces—”

Lord Ernheart snorted.

“A fine way to lose them!”

“Indeed, I made sure there would be an opportunity where he could have safely taken one, thinking no-one would be the wiser.” She paused again. “He did not.”

“Alright, go on.”

“Still, I reserved judgement. If he was not truly an innocent, I needed to know. And if he was, it occurred to me he could be of some use. I knew he was coming to Brackstone, so I paid watchers to send me word of his arrival here, and to follow him. I hid in the stands while he attended the daily arms training, but he did not approach me, and showed no signs of being aware of my presence until I summoned him. I invited myself along with him upon his next errand—”

“Good gods, what possessed you to go jaunting off with a man of whom you had such suspicions?”

“If you think this is the first time I have used this tactic, you have another think coming. Most men are either blindly flattered or despise me for being so obvious. Several have attempted to lure me into taverns, or remote locations, and one even tried to blackmail me.” Lady Paleyne sounded pleased by all this. “Besides, I am not without protections, and this was on a busy street. And do you know how he reacted?” Another pause. “I annoyed him, Lerit. He was irritated by my presence.”

“How refreshing for you,” Lord Ernheart said dryly. “Perhaps his preferences lie in another direction.”

“No. He is not immune to women. Trust me when I say this. But annoyance and irritation are not the reactions of a spy desperately trying to sweet talk his way into my bed.”

Lord Ernheart sighed.

“And last,” Lady Paleyne said triumphantly, “I left him alone with Bethca.”

“Yes, your little understudy,” Ernheart said dryly.

“She said he was unfailingly polite and courteous, never once stared at her breasts, and didn’t touch her.”

There was a silence.

“It’s one thing for a boy of his class to make a pass at a noblewoman. He might well have been intimidated by my station. But a servant girl? There are many towns, many houses, many castles, where no-one could care what he did with her.”

“So he’s a little white knight. He might still intend you ill beyond the obvious, he just hasn’t had the opportunity yet.”

“He had the perfect opportunity today, and didn’t take it, despite the pressure that Orlad brought to bear on him.”

Was Orlad the green-eyed man who had abducted Josh?

“You only have his word for that.”

“Yes. But I know how Orlad works. A double con such as you suppose isn’t his style. He doesn’t think well enough of me to employ tactics any more advanced than the one De Haven described. And, if De Haven was working for Orlad, there is no chance upon this earth that the latter would have allowed his cat's paw to hand us the advantage De Haven gave us today.” Lady Paleyne paused again. “Despite his naivete, De Haven is intelligent and resourceful. Also, I believe I know his secret, and it has nothing to do with our struggle, my friend. Indeed, it can turned to our advantage.”

What? Did Lady Paleyne know that Josh was from Earth? His heart began thumping uncomfortably against his ribs.

“What secret?”

Lady Paleyne said nothing.

“Alright,” Ernheart said at last, reluctantly. “You have made your point.”

At that moment, the door from the corridor to the sitting room opened. Josh immediately jerked away from the inner door, but realised he was standing on the wrong side of the alarm barrier. Jann the servant stood there, his eyebrows raised. After a moment of staring, Jann coughed loudly, which alerted the occupants of the inner room, whereupon the inner door was opened by Lord Ernheart, who stood behind Lady Paleyne. She paused on the threshold as she saw Josh on the wrong side of the alarm spell.

Josh groped for something to say.

“You really need to make it so that the ornaments know what distance apart they are supposed to be,” he said. It was a glaring flaw in the alarm spell. After today, maybe he should pursue a career as a security consultant.

Lady Paleyne’s lips twitched, but she inclined her head gravely.

“I see. How kind of you to test my ward, sir.”

Lord Ernheart, standing beside Lady Palayne, gave an amused grunt.

“I see now what you mean,” he said. “Very well then, he shall go with you.”

Josh blinked at Lady Paleyne. Wait, what? Go where?