It was already very late when her father deigned to open the door to Olivia's room. She was tucked up in bed, facing her back to him, her head barely sticking out from under the blanket.

She heard him approaching slowly and felt the weight of his body sitting on the edge of the bed. One hand stroked her hair very lightly as if caressing the finest of silks and then his lips kissed the side of her forehead.

The Count remained still for a few seconds. Then he got up and left the room.

Until that moment, Olivia had held her breath, which caused a painful pressure in her chest. Partly because of her sadness at the betrayal she was about to commit.

But... hadn't he betrayed her too?

At least she was doing it for a noble cause.

She waited a reasonable amount of time before jumping out of bed and beginning to pull from a chest the men's clothing she used for sword and bow training. Under the bed she had hidden the saddlebag that contained a leather flask, some more clothing, the leftovers from her dinner that she had barely touched and a crumpled map that her father had once given her with an unfulfilled promise to take her on a journey around the kingdom.

To think he hadn't even taken her to visit the Blue Dragon Lake that was nothing more than a two-day ride away on horseback. Despite being the heiress to the Guardian of the Circle, little she knew about the world beyond the castle. She should be thankful that she was at least allowed to train, even if her skills were worthless as long as she was kept locked up like a pitiful damsel.

She wanted to put into practice everything she had learned and this was going to be her chance.

Finally, she took the small dagger that Cormac, the captain of the guard, had given her in case of emergencies and brought it to the nape of her neck to cut the heavy braid that immediately fell to the floor.

She shook out her hair and looked at herself in the mirror. If her maid had witnessed that scene, she would have dropped dead. The future princess had vanished. Her fringed, uneven tresses pointed in all directions, as if it were a beast that had been released from its captivity.

She hid the braid among the dresses she would never wear again. Then kept the dagger in the sheath hanging from her belt and put on a thick winter cloak. She hadn't had a chance to retrieve her practice weapons from the armory, but she would have to manage. She hung up her saddlebag, and took a deep breath before resting her fingers on the wall to draw the key to the passageway.

Eldrin had instructed her in the intricate design of the secret routes within the castle that had been created a century ago by the first Count of Shadowrock as an escape route in the event of an invasion. Since the last war they were only used to take shortcuts as the wizard's protective seals were already enough to repel any external attack.

But those were peaceful times and no one expected to be attacked, so her father had ordered to block most of the passages, fearing that his daughter would get lost inside them. It had proved useless in the end because he had never imagined that Eldrin could betray him to such an extent.

The keys were the first seals that the wizard had taught her to draw. First with the quill practicing on sheets of parchment to memorize their shapes, then with her fingers on different surfaces. Someday she would be able to make them appear by her own will, but for now that was more than enough. She entered the long, dark passageway that soon branched off in several directions, all familiar to her, as that had been her favorite playground, especially during her father's long absences as he made his journeys through the Circle. Her only adventure, she thought wistfully.

Blindly and hurriedly, her feet guided her without any stumbling through curves, stairs and gaps, through which she had to crawl until she reached the invisible door of the south tower. She knew that it was behind a bookcase that had to be carefully moved so as not to make noise because there would surely be guards guarding the other entrance.

She drew the key, which consisted in a square inside of which a series of lines and circles intersected, and in front of her appeared the wood of the furniture. For what seemed like an eternity she tried to push it very gently until she opened a gap wide enough for her to squeeze through.

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She was now in the experiment room illuminated only by one of the glowing stones embedded in the wall. Even in the semi-darkness, the chaos was visible.

The bookcase she had pushed was almost empty, while codices and scrolls were scattered in disarray on the various tables and some have even been forgotten on the floor. Artifacts, prisms and containers of all shapes, empty or half-filled, were stacked without any criteria on dozens of shelves. Some had even been tipped over and left to stir some corrosive potion that had left a black stain on the floor as if the stone had caught fire. The work tables were covered with a jumble of shards of glass, stones and plants, and the rest of the furniture was worn or had a broken leg.

In spite of that, the servants were forbidden to enter and they were surely grateful for it because it was very common to hear explosions inside the tower at different times of the day.

In the middle of that mess, she discovered the iron cage. Very small, but surely protected by several seals.

She was about to advance towards it when a powerful growl made her heart skip a beat.

The chimera, she thought. But from her location she could not get a glimpse of the contents of the cage. The growl was heard again and, as she turned her head in its direction, a shiver ran down her spine, as lying on the floor she discovered a jumble of blankets under which lay none other than Leander. He was the one emitting snores that could have rivaled the roar of a dragon. She should have guessed that they wouldn't leave the chimera alone just like that.

On her tiptoes she approached the cage attentively, listening to the rhythm of the wizard's breathing. Several times she had to stop in her tracks between the pauses of each snore, fearing that he might wake up at any moment. Finally, she reached the cage, and tried to move it, but it had been pinned to the table. She raised her trembling hands, and, after a few attempts, managed to make visible the golden seals that covered it. There were so many that their glow illuminated half the room. She looked in Leander's direction, but, fortunately, his face was turned away from the cage.

When she returned her gaze, she found herself face to face with the mouse, whose small eyes glittered like two black drops.

“Ah... Hello?,” she whispered.

The mouse stared at her.

“My name is Olivia. We met... a few hours ago...”

The mouse didn't move or make a sound. Olivia was almost certain that she had read somewhere that chimeras could communicate with humans, but she didn't think it was time to insist.

“Listen. I am to blame for you being caught, and that is why I have come to set you free. I don't have time to explain everything because I must hurry to crack the seals. Just give me a few minutes.”

The mouse stood stiffly while she studied the seals carefully. One by one she read them, and, the further she went, the more disheartened she felt. The wizards had spared no mechanism to keep the chimera captive, no matter how weak it was. Added to this, Leander's snoring was taking away her concentration. Her arms ached, and she was about to cry, when she finished reading the last seal and the astonishment left her breathless.

“It couldn't be.”

The mouse nervously moved its muzzle.

“It can't be", she repeated. “It's illogical, impossible. Who...?”

She read the seal over and over again, thinking that tiredness had misled her, but it could not be otherwise. There was the seal whose riddle she knew pretty well. In fact, it was a very simple mechanism that Eldrin had written for her in her first exercises, when she had just begun to study the Ethereal Codes. And, not only that, but the seal was attached to the rest of the complex sequence that she had so far been unable to decode. If her theory was correct, it would be enough to disable that last seal for the sequence to be reversed.

Could it be that Eldrin...?

She shook her head. That mystery could be solved later.

With her fingertips she traced the shape of the key and, to her disbelief, one by one the seals dissolved into tiny sparks until the last one went out altogether.

Immediately, the cage door clicked open, and the little mouse jumped out of it.

“If you want to live, you must come with me," said Olivia, opening her saddlebag to encourage him to jump into it. “But you must decide right now or....”

It all happened so fast.

Her success had brought her such joy, that she hadn't noticed that the snoring had quieted down, and that a stunned Leander was looking at her from the ground.

The wizard was about to cast a spell on her, but his heavy body had become entangled with the blankets. Olivia barely had time to see the mouse leap into the saddlebag, before she grabbed a stone and tossed it towards the shelves.

The stone knocked over several of the bottles, which then hit the floor, and caused an explosion that filled the entire room with thick yellow smoke.

“Intruder! Intruder! Help! Intruder!” Leander shouted several times, while the guards on the other side opened the door, but could not see anything.

They first stumbled upon the fallen wizard, who kept screaming at the top of his lungs and casting spells left and right. As a result, he ended up petrifying the same men who came to his rescue.

By then, Olivia had already run through the door of the passageway, which closed after a few seconds without the others noticing.