Salt immediately whipped her face as she led Willow down the steps of Keeper House. The lingering bite of winter’s gale reminded Raeia how little true power the Scillas held in the face of nature. It terrified and settled her. They lived on a manicured rock, miles from a remote corner of the westernmost Lernich peninsula, at the mercy of insatiable coastal weather.

Leaving the drab mansion house behind them, she and Willow dashed for the pseudo shelter of the garden plot. The wind still wove through the grove, but when the gusts came from the southwest, it was buffered by the birthing houses and a strong line of ash trees.

‘How are you set for deliveries this month?’ Willow asked while they checked the carrot and parsnip patch.

‘Alright, there are two new titles coming. I’m so excited for the Lyvanian edition of The Solar Scholar’s works.’

‘You can’t read Lyvanian,’ Willow mused.

Raeia shushed her. ‘Well, I can look at the pretty letters. I know their stories inside out anyway.’  

‘This is true. Is your fascination for uncanny creatures the reason you’ve been holed up with the criminal all day?’

Raeia looked up. ‘They have a name.’

‘Yes, the halls have been spouting with theories about that very name. Child of Eric Blake, apparently. The CrëCorp scientist whose entire family went up in smoke a few months ago. Did they tell you that?’

‘No.’ Raeia’s heart lurched. ‘They can’t remember. I called them Blue and they stuck with it.’

‘Pretty.’

You’re a very pretty liar. Blue’s words returned to her mind, clear as though they had just been spoken in the garden.

In a quieter voice, Raeia asked, ‘Did the baby arrive safely?’

Willow’s mirth dried up and she nodded. ‘Last night.’

They did not speak again for a while, going instead through the motions of watering, weeding and tending to stray slugs. The work was comforting for Raeia, same as curating the library. Less painful than the work with the babies.

‘Look,’ Willow said.  

Across the island, High Rector Augustin was scuttling off towards the docks. Janice was with him, which meant Ivan was belowground with Blue again. There were three other ibictors with them, flocking behind Augustin like little ducklings with no guidance but that of their billowing mother. 

From their vantage point, Raeia couldn’t see the steps, so she waited as Augustin and his ibictors stood at the top, peering down at whomever approached from below. 

‘Something has changed,’ Willow murmured. ‘The rectors have been more unstable than usual. They’re afraid.’

‘Augustin is up to something,’ Raeia agreed. ‘Maybe they don’t like this road he’s taking the Scillas down.’

‘If they don’t agree with it, whatever it is must be fanatical. Nothing spooks a rector.’

Six figures crested the cliff. High Rector Augustin bowed his head, silks flaring in the wind. The leader of the new arrivals tipped their head and gestured to the group behind them. A second figure was shuffled forwards, bound at the hands. 

Raeia felt a chill dip below the gale’s sting. 

‘Another prisoner,’ said Willow before Raeia could. She nodded, though Willow’s gaze was to the cliffs. Her eyes had a hyper-fixated stillness about them which told Raeia not to disturb her assessments.

They watched High Rector Augustin step around the prisoner as though observing a sacrificial beast. The prisoner’s physique was broad and tall, nearly a head full head above Augustin, showing none of the frailty Blue had upon their arrival. 

Tassuri’s criminals were bound to the whims of their overseers. Punishments did not always correlate to legal sentences. Blue was extreme proof. Perhaps this person too had received punishment far beyond their crimes. 

‘Theo Kestales,’ said Willow. Her stillness beside Raeia shifted. 

‘Eavesdropper,’ Raeia feigned a scolding and watched the edges of Willow’s lips quirk up. She could hear well enough in comparison to non-Dhaherites, but Willow’s dhaheri was in a league of its own. ‘The prisoner is a Kestales.’

Raeia let the name churn about her mind for a few moments while Willow listened in. Though Raeia had been estranged from mainland politics and entertainment for seven years, the name Kestales had certainly reached her before. Excited whispers between swooning clerics as they discussed bi-monthly Scilla screenings of Kagosae highlights. But Raeia preferred to keep herself removed from a world that had rejected her. Books, however fictitious, were a far better companion than militarised order. 

‘The Tassuri agent is Corina Bain. I’ve heard of her. Ruthless,’ Willow said. 

Raeia’s mind raced. Corina Bain? She’d never heard the name before that morning, but after the soulmaster’s work on Blue, she knew it was of far greater significance than she had imagined. ‘Are any of them temperate?’ she muttered, squinting to try get a better grasp on the agent’s appearance. 

Willow’s hand found hers and squeezed. ‘I will take you from here, I promise.’

Raeia didn’t have the nerve to explain her sudden tension had little to do with her own entrapment. It was the one thing that caused continuous strain between them; what Raeia called a caring nature, Willow called destructive selflessness. ‘To your family?’ she asked instead.

Willow met her gaze. ‘No. Off the map. We’ll disappear entirely.’

‘But your–’

‘My family will only try to change you,’ she said and looked back at the grouping by the cliffs. ‘They will go inside now to settle Kestales,’ Willow continued. ‘You want to intercept them?’ 

Raeia was irritated she couldn’t utilise the chance to press for more details on Willow’s family. Her girlfriend so rarely spoke of them at all, but Raeia’s curiosity was a traitorous thing, and trumped the immediate need for answers. 

‘Alright.’ She stood and braced herself against the wind to catch the entourage at the Keeper House steps. 

Raeia bowed her head to High Rector Augustin and then her gaze was snagged by the Tassuri Agent. Corina Bain had eyes Raeia would never forget in all her life. One brown, hardened from her post, perhaps. One white, mechanical, set deep into her face with hair-thin golden wires that dug into her skin like unruly veins. Raeia’s mind replayed the terrified pleading in Blue’s voice; the touch of ice in the air. 

‘Can we offer any assistance?’ she asked, steady despite the uncanny attention on her, but diverted her gaze to the new prisoner.

‘Yes. You and Miss Adofo can prepare the cell beside your pet project,’ replied Augustin with flat distaste.

Raeia’s face flushed with heat. 

The new prisoner’s eyes were impassive, but Raeia could see a warmth trying to escape through whatever walls of protection were in place. 

‘Blue and Kestales were close associates in Sommersgap. You may have some competition for her affections.’

With an impatient clear of her throat, Corina Bain tugged at the wide-eyed Kestales. ‘Let us get out of this wind,’ she said, an unquestionable demand. 

Raeia followed them inside and replayed the shock in those brown eyes at the mention of Blue. She watched the broad back of the prisoner, who was similar to her in height, but masculine in a way that daunted her. Aside from her fathers, Raeia had few positive experiences in dealing with men. Was this the father of Blue’s child, she wondered. Or had Augustin only planted a seed to unsettle her?

The cell block was silent when they arrived. They had parted ways with the group, who took Theo Kestales to level four, while she and Willow went belowground to the cell blocks. 

Ibictor Ivan was leaning against Blue’s door, looking halfway to sleep when Raeia scuffed her shoe and forced him back to attention. They shared a silent look which was an argument neither could ever win. He questioned Willow about their presence and she diligently explained.  

They prepared a cell beside Blue’s, sweeping dust away and cleaning the toilet. At least Kestales could see and use his hands. The silence from Blue’s cell was disconcerting. There were no jibes at Ivan, no inquiries about the noise beside them. Perhaps they were asleep. Raeia hoped the dream gods were kind to them.