The room Hathora had provided her was on the third floor of the towering house, up a staircase that turned twice and groaned at every step. Sunflowers everywhere — painted frescos on the walls, dried bouquets on the side table, painted lip on the washbasin, the headboard of the simple bed. The stale air told her she was Hathora's first guest in some time. The roof sloped to a round window of stained glass — small yellow shards arranged around a red and brown centre that was unmistakably a sunflower.

Bertha came up with bread and poultry, and Hjordis had devoured it all in five minutes, washed her face and propped the sword against the water basin where she could see it. Blew out the flame of the single candle and slept better in this soft bed than she’d ever done in Arable. 

Mads had a room on the second floor. She’d heard him pacing it for a long time after they’d said goodnight, floorboards creaking, marking circuits from window to bed and back.

Morning came with the unmistakable smell of bacon and Bertha’s cheerful clattering below. The table held smoked fish, blood sausage, fresh bread and fruits Hjordis had no names for. 

She attacked the spread like a starving wolf. Mads picked at cheese and apple, grimacing. 

“Bit sour this.”

Hathora appeared like a specter, already dressed in midnight blue wool. Bertha fussed over her hair, building an elaborate structure of pins and combs that kept falling down.

Mads paced by the door, Trinny’s satchel back over his shoulder.  “We’ll miss his morning session at this rate.”

“Patience,” the lady chided him, though not unfriendly. “Appearance opens doors that merit cannot.”

An hour later, they finally set out. 

Greenlake had transformed with daylight. The market square was packed wall to wall — stalls, bodies, a merchant bellowing about Estan silk, the two Bluecoats from yesterday on horseback, scanning the crowd from their height. A woman in trousers and tailcoat walked past with a ledger and three men at her heels taking orders. The canal ran alongside, narrow boats working the traffic with poles. A barge secured by the walkway, carried heavy crates stamped in foreign script. Smoke from a hundred cook fires and forge fires. Near the tanneries, the haze made her eyes water.

Hjordis stepped in old intestines near the fishmonger’s, grimaced but kept moving. Hathora cut through it all without slowing, practiced hands lifting layers of skirt. 

The gates of the Magistrate’s residence were guarded by tricorn wearing men who’d straightened when they saw her coming. 

“Lady Helmbane.” 

They were through without another word.  

Inside, the air hung thick with ink and sealing wax. Men in powdered wigs bent over ledgers, quills scratching endlessly. A strange contraption in one corner—all brass gears and levers—stamped official seals onto an endless stream of documents. Clerks scurried between desks like ants. Fragments of conversation drifted past: “...third battalion reports heavy losses…”

“...grain shipments delayed again…” 

The room held more men in one place than Hjordis had known was possible. She edged closer to Mads  who caught her eye and smirked. 

An older clerk approached, his bow so deep his powdered wig nearly brushed the floor. “Lady Helmbane. How may we serve?”

“Crowley.” Hathora’s fan appeared from nowhere, snapping open. “Now”

“At once, my lady.”

They followed him down a portrait-lined corridor. Dead men in ruffs and identical golden chains watched their passage with painted eyes. At the end of it, the clerk knocked twice on an oak door carved with the Magistracy seal.

“Enter!”

The door swung wide.

Magistrate Crowley perched behind his desk like an exotic bird, all violet velvet and cascading lace at his throat and sleeves. His powdered face bore three beauty marks arranged in a perfect triangle. The wig sat above his head like a small dead animal. 

“Hathora, darling! Divine timing, though dreadfully inconvenient.“

He swept around the desk, high heels clicking on marble, clasping Hathora's hands. Hjordis stared with wide eyes as he kissed them. A dandy. A real breathing one.

“Really, Archibald. Such theatrics before noon?” Hathora said dryly, but with a hint of a smile. 

“You wound me old friend!” He pressed a hand to his chest. “Someone must maintain standards in these trying times.”

His kholed eyes found Hjordis and Mads. One eyebrow arched — took in the hole in her skirt, the dirt on his arms. 

“And who are these rustic treasures?”

“My niece, Hjordis Helmbane. And young Mads of Arable.”

Crowley’s painted face went slack. “Oskar’s daughter?” He executed an elaborate bow. “My dear child I thought you were a myth! An honour beyond measure!”

"Have you come to grace our humble town permanently? Given recent... unpleasantness?"

"You're already informed?"

Crowley's theatrical manner evaporated completely. He sank into a chair, suddenly looking older beneath the powder.

"Oh, my dear. It's all gone terribly wrong." He gestured them to seats. "First that old goat Tomsun expires. Now our courier returns with talk of another... body."

Hjordis's stomach dropped. Another death? In Arable?

Mads made a strangled sound. Crowley raised a jeweled hand.

"Not a whisper beyond these walls. Even my clerks remain ignorant." He leaned forward. "The body was... unique. Faceless, my dears. As if the features had been peeled away like fruit rind."

Hjordis's breakfast threatened to reappear. Beside her, Mads gripped his chair arms until his knuckles went white.

"Dark magic. I've sent word to Cora. Direct to the High Maester. Likeness of the victim’s face will arrive any— “

“We saw who did it." The words burst from Hjordis. "The woman who called herself Trinny. She tried to stab herself with me father's sword during the eclipse. And she... she changed. Became someone else. A blonde Zyrellian man.“

“Quite striking lad if that’s of any use,” Mads added, bit down on his lip as he regretted admitting that. 

Crowley went paler than his powder. He stood abruptly.

“A Zyrellian? This is graver than I feared. I'm ordering an immediate lockdown. This face-shifting demon may well be within our walls. I must issue a lockdown. Yes. That is precisely what I shall do.” 

He fixed them each with a sharp look. "You'll remain in the Helmbane house pending further questioning. Now, if you'll excuse me, the machinery of state requires oil."

He ushered them out and they agreed without preamble. Back in the main hall, Hathora paused to grip Hjordis’s shoulder. “Crowley's lockdown means we remain within the house. That is, for now, the safest arrangement.“

Hjordis nodded. Mads had been awfully quiet since Crowley's revelation. Sweat beaded his forehead despite the hall's coolness.

Outside, morning sun felt harsh. A cart rumbled past, loaded with cabbages. Normal life continuing while her world tilted sideways.

Murder in Arable. Someone else dead. Someone she might know. The nine, let it not be her mother.

The questions multiplied. Was Trinny still in Arable or here in Greenlake? The faceless body. The eclipse. Her father’s mithril sword. The connections were there. She couldn’t yet see how they joined.

She glanced at Mads, wanting to voice her fears. But his face had closed off, blank as fresh parchment. Hjordis noticed something else; Trinny’s bag still sat secure over Mads’s shoulders. Their reason for even coming here forgotten by the bad news. 

“The bag,” Hjordis pointed, snapping Mads out of his thoughts. He lifted his arms and looked down, mildly surprised it was there.

“Oh, that wee thing.” 

Hathora sighed, turned back and watched as more blue-clad guards filed out of the Magistracy estate, now with metal gorgets and chest plates and proper swords in hand. The battle-ready kind. She sighed and made the decision for them. 

“Let us hold on to that for another day. Crowley has enough on his plate as it is. We better hurry back inside where we’re safest.”

Mads and Hjordis looked at her, uncertain. Her aunt wasn’t very transparent about it. The way she looked at the satchel before turning said enough. Neither of them argued.

“Fine,” Mads said with a shrug as Hathora started walking back through Greenlake's winding streets. Hjordis followed, but felt the weight of it settle in her chest. Whatever was coming had already started.

The curfew became official business by the twelfth hour. Bluecoats patrolled the streets, both gates locked, only people of consequence permitted to move freely. A representative from Crowley's staff came twice for written testimonies, Mads growing tighter with each retelling — jaw set, answers clipped, eyes on the door. 

Hathora never mentioned the satchel. Neither did Mads. Hjordis found it strange, but she trusted her aunt had reasons. Whatever Trinny's bag contained, Hathora had decided the Magistracy shouldn't see it first. Perhaps neither should anyone else.

Cutlery scraped raw against porcelain in Hathora’s small but fine dining room that evening.

The food was extraordinary. Braised partridge, roasted root vegetables with butter and sauce, Bertha’s last batch of bread still warm from the oven.

 Hjordis pushed turnips around her plate to catch the last of the delicious wine sauce, watching Mads from the corner of her eye as he devoured his third helping of biscuits, dusted with sugar. His partridge sat half-eaten, plate pushed aside, the biscuits a different matter entirely His eyes had widened on the initial bite and he’d nearly said something involving the titan Karnak’s anatomy before catching himself. Hathora arched an eyebrow. Hjordis covered it with "he means they're delicious, Aunt," and left it at that.

“Your colour has improved,” Hathora observed, watching him steadily.

“These biscuits ma’am.” He reached for a fourth. “Haven’t had treats like this since—” He stopped. “Ever.” 

Hjordis pressed her foot against his under the table. Mads simply shrugged, chewed, but his eyes kept moving around the room, one leg bouncing.

“Aunt.” Hjordis set down her fork. “Trinny told me Da knew magic. The kind that made paper move. Is this true?” 

Hathora’s knife continued its work. “Hardly the appropriate dinner conversation.”

“Did it get him into trouble with the Magistracy. That’s why ye’ve not mentioned the bag?”

Mads choked on crumbs. Excused himself and reached for his wine rummer. Hathora’s knife stilled. She cast a glance at Bertha’s back, busy clattering with dishes in the adjoining kitchen. Then set her cutlery down, carefully but decisively. 

“Oskar aspired to become a bluecoat knight in his youth. Studied incessantly. But he also learned other disciplines — ones that would have earned him the gallows had it become known to the public.” A pause. “Blood Magic. Estian in origin, passed through on mother’s line. Which is your line too, dear niece. Though I must confess, the official Registry shows no such inheritance. “ Her voice went dry, sardonic. “Magistrate Gray was particularly pointed on that subject after your father died.”

Hjordis said nothing. Mads had gone still, half a cookie forgotten in his hands. Hathora stood gracefully, Bertha already there to pull out the chair like clockwork. “There is something I must show you.”

—

She led them further into the house, to a narrow corridor where the air was cooler, smelling of old wood and the faint sweetness of pressed flowers long dried. At its end stood a door of dark oak, the brass lock green with age.

“Your father’s room. Unchanged since he departed.” Hathora produced a key from beneath her shawl and turned it. The door swung open on silent hinges.

Moonlight came through a small diamond-paned window, dividing the floor in cold rectangles. A narrow bed with its coverlet moth eaten and fraying. Books along every wall, leather spines gleaming dully. The smell of dust and something stale underneath — cedar, ink and something that had no name but Hjordis recognised anyway. 

Then her eyes landed on the desk. 

A dozen paper animals arranged across its surface. A crane mid-flight. Two wolves with heads raised. At the centre, a bear larger than the rest, positioned like a chieftain among his court.

Hjordis reached for the crane without thinking. Skin met the folded paper, and suddenly warmth moved through her — not heat exactly, but something with a pulse. Like holding a living but sleeping thing. 

“Mads,” she whispered, “Come feel this.” 

He’d crossed to the desk already. His eyes had gone to the bear before anything else. He reached out, but his hand stopped a half-inch short. Drew back. 

“It’s all right Mads,” Hjordis said and smiled, “It won’t burn ye. It’s paper not mythril.” 

“Aye.” Flat. “I ken that.”

He stood there with his hands at his side, staring at the bear.

Hathora spoke from the doorway. “Magistrate Gray came demanding I burn these twenty years ago. ‘Unregistered animations’ he said.” Her voice carried no heat on the memory. “I couldn’t do it. He lingers in them. You can feel it, can’t you niece?”

“Aye.” Hjordis pressed the crane closer to her chest. “It’s like—”

The sword at her hip bloomed hot. 

Not warmth — heat. She gasped, dropped the crane, hand going to her belt and the moment her fingers touched metal, the blade lit. Silver fire flooding the room in cold light that threw hard shadows in all the wrong directions. The runes along the blade’s length writhed as if in pain, and the sound it made wasn’t a sound exactly, but a pressure felt behind the eyes.

Mads hit the far wall. Both hands up, one shielding his face. “Put it away — whatever ye do, put it away!”

Hjordis yanked it half from her belt and immediately recoiled. The light hurt to look at. The runes moved like living things, into patterns she couldn’t read.

“What is that?” Her hands shook. The metal burned. “Aunt, what’s happening—?”  

“Remarkable.” Hathora stepped forward. The light carved her face into something ancient. Her eyes moved between the sword and the paper animals. Her voice lifted from excitement. “I have never witnessed mithril respond with such violence.”

“Aunt?” Hjordis squinted against the light. From the wall, Mads hissed through his teeth.

“Your father's magic is still present in this room. His blood is in that blade — Estan lineage forged into mithril, built to recognise its own. It doesn’t like being in proximity to its source, apparently.” Her gaze moved to Mads, still pressed against the wall. It settled on the bears embroidered at his collar, the acorns along his hem. 

“Rather, it has opinions about what else is in this room.”

The light died. All at once, simply gone — leaving the moonlight feeling thin and inadequate by comparison. The blade went cold. Hjordis resheathed it with shaking hands.

She reached again for the crane lying on its side on the desk.

Cold paper. Nothing.

She touched the wolves. The bear. Each animal in turn. All of them ordinary, all of them just folded parchment.