Zephyrin knew very well why the Kosmæan faithful trekked to shrines and holy sites. Though the reasons were too many to list individually, certain themes recurred more than others. There were young mothers who, having trouble conceiving or nursing, implored the saint to intercede before the Goddess on their behalf, that she might communicate at least a portion of her perfect nature to supply for their own; many also were the soldiers of base extraction who humbly begged the former shepherdess for an increase of mana, or for transfused knowledge of a spell lost to time before they were called to the front to do battle.

If one were to lend credence to the tales, which Zephyrin had little difficulty doing, Saint Ùwuinaëlle rarely sent her supplicants disappointed, or without an equivalent boon, later revealed when least suspected. Knowing this, however, provided little answer as to why she should suddenly manifest herself right here and now—and before him, of all people, who had already been favored with a gift beyond imagining by the Goddess herself.

Despite his incomprehension, Zephyrin dropped to his knees without delay and Théander was quick to follow. They both watched the diamond-rich reliquary intently as tendrils of mana swirled around it. For the briefest of instants Zephyrin thought he saw the mana coalesce into the diaphanous outline of a female figure, before it just as quickly dispersed again.

Zephyrin couldn’t help but think of the book he had handed over to Roger, and which had so engrossed the boy. On one of his visits to the infirmary, Roger had read out an admittedly striking incident from the author’s life, who claimed to have been favored by a vision of the saint.

“Zephyrin, you have to listen to this! ‘Her countenance was fair as though wrought of moonlight; her hair freely cascaded down her back like a waterfall sown with stars; her robe was of a whiteness excelling any earthly material, and her pure brow adorned with a crown exceeding my feeble powers of speech: in a word, she was as unlike to the men of our present condition as a dying ember is to the sun, and as I beheld her restored humanity, I felt my heart burn with love for the Saint and the Divine Essence, who has reserved such felicity for the chosen.’… isn’t that amazing?! I want to see her too, someday!”

None of those physical characteristics were readily apparent here; at most, Zephyrin could discern a faint, golden shimmering around the shepherdess’s bones—little more than a haze, really. Yet a powerful feeling of warmth seemed to radiate outward with the tomb as their source, and as a softly burning candle flame partakes of the same essence as an ardent fire, so too did this faint glow share a bond with the splendor of the sun.

Zephyrin’s thoughts then turned—irrationally, it seemed to him—to Estrelti, and Rose, and their meandering, whimsical conversations; though why those memories should recur to him now, of all times, he hadn’t the faintest idea. He attempted to still his mind and rein in its discursions, with limited success, while awaiting to see if Ùwuinaëlle would manifest her will more concretely.

He and Théander knelt for some time. At one point the luminous streams of mana approached and swirled around them like eddies in the ocean; then, gradually, they retracted back to the tomb, and dissipated altogether, though not without leaving a residual sense of warmth, and a lingering impression that something of great import had transpired.

Zephyrin raised his hand, shielding his eyes as they readjusted to the glare of unadulterated sunlight. He and Théander hadn’t been in the cathedral long; surely the others couldn’t have gotten far…

But, apparently, they had. There was no sign of their companions on the wide parvis just below the steps leading up to the cathedral, nor even on the adjoining bridge. They had not been separated long, or so it seemed to Zephyrin; how could this be? Taking the panicked Théander’s hand in his own, Zephyrin gently but insistently pulled the boy along, confident that they’d catch up soon.

“Are you sure this is a short cut?” Théander asked nervously, his eyes flicking from one battered storefront to another.

“… Perhaps not. Still, let’s walk to the end and see if this street rejoins the main avenue. If it doesn’t, we’ll simply turn back and retrace our steps.”

Théander nodded, and Zephyrin was relieved that he seemed to be taking the situation in a stride. Drawing a breath, he then scanned their surroundings once more, wary of exacerbating his mistake. Yes, there was no denying they had taken a wrong turn somewhere, for the street bore little resemblance to the higher class district they had navigated earlier with their classmates. The luxurious carriages had disappeared, replaced by goods-laden wagons, and of the powdered hair and cream-caked faces not one remained, replaced instead by a sea of pinched, scowling faces.

The people’s eyes were made narrow by hunger and ill-intent, serving as a stark reminder of the condition of the generality, and it was not long before Zephyrin grew uncomfortably aware that his and Théander’s attire marked them clearly as aristocratic children, something unlikely to endear them to the enervated citizens.

Zephyrin wondered how he had blundered so badly, all the while absentmindedly making note of the multitudinous vendors hawking their wares and assorted services on offer. One scarcely knew where to turn his head; there were hammer-holding braziers and redsmiths all vying for attention, firewood sellers a hairsbreadth from toppling over beneath their loads, fortune tellers, lanternists, knifegrinders, bellows-menders, cobblers… not to mention the feminine counterparts to a great number of the vendors!

Here one saw a milk maid walk by, balancing a jug on her head; there a besomeress, bearing two brooms on her back in an X-shape like a Sinnite’s sheathed scimitars; laundresses and water-carriers were ubiquitous, and represented in great quantities as well were women selling apples, oven-roasted or otherwise, as well as various meat and raisin cakes. Short on time and money, Zephyrin didn’t purchase any of these treats, but nevertheless appreciated them—for their odor, as they provided welcome respite from the omnipresent sewer stench.

More distressing than the pungent smells, however, was the noise. The noise! Zephyrin wanted to clap his hands over his ears. As if the hammering of smiths of all stripes wasn’t enough, the street was populated by a motley assortment of organ-grinders, hurdy-gurdists, and drum-beating street musicians, each apparently possessed of the conviction that the raucous call and response of vendor and customer and cacophonous clattering of coach wheels were not quite up to the task of deafening hapless bystanders, and needed therefore to be supplemented by the caterwauling of their instruments for a truly satisfactory outcome.

The musicians’ playing and their solicitations for donations made them rivals of the shabby vagrants and hobbled soldiers lying idle in the sun, certainly, but these latter did not seem overly troubled whenever an additional coin found its way to a red-faced, organ cranking provincial, and Zephyrin thought he read on their weathered faces a placid, self-assured trust in their maimed wretchedness, as though they had divined—correctly, in his mind—that a mangled limb holds a greater claim on the sympathy of strangers than out of tune, gyratory musicianship.

Wincing as he passed one particularly enthusiastic accordion player, he supposed the scenes playing out before his eyes were quintessentially Lutessian; indeed, the very street could be situated in the present day or a hundred years in the past, for all the difference it would make to its peddlers and beggars. But Zephyrin found it odd that these people, famished for bread one and all, were all offering services, trinkets, and treats to their equally desperate compatriots. Everything was on sale, but nothing could be bought; it was a mode of existence in which each hopes, as Zephyrin recalled one wry author putting it, ‘…for a fair exchange of nothing for naught, in the hopes of bartering them all over again on the morrow.’

“Eau-de-vie! Eau-de-vie!” hollered a stout woman carrying an immense wicker basket under her arm, filled to the rim with a precariously balanced load of cloudy green bottles. “Four lyardes fer th’ glass! Remember th’ ol’ maxim, good people! ‘Wind starts to nip, best have a sip’!”

“Freshly ground coffee from the Colonies, roasted by tamed wrymlings!” bawled a competing vendor, before being drowned out in turn by a shrill chestnut kernel seller; and on the chorus went, rising and falling like the undulation of waves and with the same unceasing repetition of the tides.

Zephyrin stared fixedly ahead, focused on filling in his mental map while Théander looked around wonderingly.

“Stow away yer junk, bronze-beater! This is my spot!”

“Pardon me…” Zephyrin murmured, delicately stepping past the vendor.

“Yer spot?” replied his compatriot hotly. “I’ve been sellin’ me wares ‘ere since ye were tuggin’ on yer mam’s pap!”

Just as Zephyrin was silently congratulating himself on slipping around the pair of disputing vendors before their confrontation devolved into fisticuffs, a broad-chested man boomed into his ear, “Oi, you there!”

Zephyrin whirled around with a sick feeling in his stomach, only to see that the man was addressing—and tightly gripping by the shoulder—an older, tousle-haired boy. In his free hand the youth was gripping a much-abused cloth and a tin of wax polish.

“Watch where your goin’! Run into me again, crudscraper, and it’ll be you that—”

“Beg pardon, beg pardon!” the young man said brightly, before deftly slipping out of the burly man’s grasp and absconding from the scene. The aggrieved party spat near Théander’s shoe, who flinched, then glowered at him and Zephyrin both. “EH? What’re ye two lookin’ at? If yer lookin’ for trouble—”

“Not at all,” Zephyrin said quickly, and pulled a trembling Théander along as the man watched them depart balefully, muttering under his breath all the while.

“Thanks,” Théander whispered to Zephyrin, who simply shook his head. “Don’t thank me; it’s my fault we wound up here,” he murmured, examining what remained of the human obstacle course. “We had better retrace our steps. I don’t think we’ll have much success—”

“Say, can I interest you lads in some enchanted windmills?” broke in a vendor of the brightly colored items in a hopeful manner. Zephyrin had mistaken him as a flower merchant from a distance, before recalling the season and coldness. “ Self propelling, if you please—no need for a breeze!—”

“—No, I’m afraid not. However, if we could trouble you for directions—”

“Tsk.” The man clicked his tongue, and so swiftly did he disappear in search of a new target, that Zephyrin thought he might make a better living by offering a vanishing act. “Théander, keep your hands close to your pockets. There could be pickpockets—”

“Hello, dearies! Would a pair of well-brought up sirs such as yerselves ‘ave any int’rest in this ‘ere Life of Saint Ùwuin—”

“Thank you, thank you very much, but we’re just back from visiting her tomb,” Zephyrin said, a tinge of impatience creeping into his tone as he sought to dissuade the elderly colportoress, who bore on her back a towering pile of tomes bound with rope. Nothing daunted, she replied, “Is that so! why, it’d make a fine memento tae ‘elp ye recall yer pilgrimage—”

“Théander, are you all right?” Zephyrin inquired, trying to catch his breath. Finally, they had made it out of the ‘commercial’ district.

“Y-Yes. That was a little scary, but… it was also fun!”

Fun? Zephyrin appraised Théander with a new eye. Perhaps he had misjudged the boy. In any case, they had returned to one of the city’s civilized quarters. Here the buildings were finer, and Zephyrin thought he could make out an elevated, domed structure—an opera house, perhaps. The pedestrians were more prosperous too, and Zephyrin felt emboldened enough to stop a passerby for directions. He selected a well-dressed, respectable looking middle-aged man for that purpose and was on the verge of hailing him, when suddenly a hubbub arose across the street, as a crowd formed near the prestigious-looking building’s entrance.

The man Zephyrin had wanted to address was also heading towards the growing throng, and as Zephyrin and Théander moved to the edge of the roadside, craning their necks in an effort to see what was going on, snatches of conversation between two gawking scullery-maids reached their ears.

“…D’ye s’pose it’s a princess o’ th’ blood? That coach be pretty enough…”

“Nay, can’ be. No coat o’ arms; an’ besides, th’ king ‘ud never allow it.”

“‘Less it’s th’ Elysian wench ‘erself, ‘n this be a secret visit!”

“Eh! Would His Royal Culliness ‘llow such a thing?”

“La, but I hope it be true! Even a glimpse o’ th’ Madame ‘ud be a blessin’ fer me eyes! I’ve ‘eard tell she’s as fair as an angell…”

Feeling he’d soon have a headache coming on if he tried to decipher the nasal prattling of the Lutessian servant women any longer, Zephyrin tapped Théander on the shoulder, then leaned in close to murmur, “We’ll move on once the crowd thins out. It shouldn’t be long.”

As Théander nodded his assent, the object of the ambulatory audience’s attention made a brief appearance. Excited murmurs rippled through the crowd and it surged forward, but all were disappointed as the veiled figure wasted no time hurrying into her gilded vehicle.

Even from the opposite side of the opera house the coach looked very ornate indeed, polished to a mirror-like sheen and trimmed with gold leaf; the coachman and escorts too were resplendent in their green-gold livery. Théander looked highly impressed, while Zephyrin was puzzled by this pomp, which surely undermined the noblewoman’s wish of traveling incognito. Coat of arms or no, the attempt at secrecy would only encourage tongues to wag all the more when her identity was inevitably revealed.

As Zephyrin prepared for the crowd to disperse, Théander startled him by spontaneously crying out in a shrill, choir-practice honed voice: “Look out!” For a split second Zephyrin thought the boy had lost his wits, only to understand as his gaze followed Théander’s outflung arm.

Time did not so much slow as crawl to a halt as Zephyrin saw the blond-bright head of a tiny, three-year-old tot step into the street, chasing after a whirligig; saw the luxurious vehicle’s wheels revolving at—literally—breakneck speed, the green-gold waist-coated driver reacting all too late, and pulling on the reins in desperation; saw the two horses foaming at the mouth, the shrinking distance between their hooves and the fair-haired child, and knew in a flash of perfect insight that he could not get there in time to push him out of harm’s way.

Then, during this unreal, almost dreamlike suspension of temporality, two considerations entered his mind. The first was a memory, of his bout with Corentin, and the spell the prince had cast on his soles, conferring him tremendous alacrity in combat. The second was a single word.

Celerity.

As the incantation emblazoned itself in his mind like the afterimage of a lightning bolt, and for the first time since Ùwuinaëlle’s mana had swirled around and penetrated him as he stood before her tomb, Zephyrin called upon his own. The moment after that, the world changed.

He shot forward like an arrow, his acceleration smoothening the ground below him in an illusory manner. The street’s cobblestones became as smooth as a sea of ink as he hurtled forward; the onlookers melted into indistinct blobs in his peripheral vision; the sky was reduced to a vague smudge of paint overhead, while his target—the child—loomed larger than life as the only moving being in the entire, atemporal painting.

Then Zephyrin’s hand closed around the boy’s upper arm, and time lurched forward once more. Cradling the gaping child to his chest as he flew past the thundering carriage and wildly neighing horses. Zephyrin exulted in his success!…

… until realizing, as a little interior voice correctly murmured, that he had failed to take his momentum into account. It would have been prudent to pair this acceleration spell with a protective ward; elsewise, he might very well find himself dashed to pieces against the unforgiving stone of the opera house…

It was too late for Zephyrin to do anything other than angle his body and hope for the best. Closing his eyes, he skidded into the opposite end of the street and impacted into the connecting point between sodden path and unyielding roadside, the shock running all the way up to his skull. His entire body felt numb, and the world around him had transformed into a dizzying blur.

As he lay in the mud, stunned, Zephyrin felt a pressure against his ribs. Hardly conscious of his actions, he relaxed his tight embrace. The child quickly drew away from him, and Zephyrin stood up in turn—or thought he did, because when he parted his eyes, he found himself still on the ground, assailed by a whirling confusion of colors.

How strange. Why can’t I…?

Zephyrin listened to the drumlike pounding in his ears for what might have been two minutes, or two half-hours, then tried to rise again. His limbs refusing to obey, he simply sank deeper into the mud. Then he dimly heard the braying of horses, followed by the slam of a carriage door.

“Madame, please wait…!” called out a male voice, only to be ignored as a silken beige shoe somehow carried off the remarkable feat of squelching into the mud with poise and dignity. Zephyrin stared dumbly at the shoe for a moment, then weakly craned his neck up.

As he did so, he thought himself in a dream. The milk-white, oval-shaped face looking down at him with deep-seated concern did not have a place in real life, he thought. He would have even instinctively rebelled against a daguerreotype of it; it was a pretty, youthful face, but exceedingly strange to behold in broad daylight, belonging more as a two-dimensional illustration in a history book, or as a portrait in an art gallery.

This first impression was then succeeded by a tangible sense of deja vu; Zephyrin had never seen the woman before in his life, yet he felt as though they were somehow one and the same—that like him, she was also out of her respective time, a stranger to this epoch. More disconcerting still, there was a certain familiarity about her eyes—large, gray, and long-lashed—that seemed to regard him with an intimate affection. Inexplicably, Zephyrin felt as though he should weep as the woman knelt down and touched his shoulder.

Her mouth worked, but he understood nothing of what was said, and the strange sensations faded. His dazed mind then turned to musings apropos of nothing, noting the superabundant frills of the woman’s dress, then reflecting upon the ridiculousness of her vastly proportioned, needlessly elaborate coiffure—as absurd as if a peacock had been caught in her hair, struggled, and expired therein, then was left to display its fantastic plumage in death as an unparalleled fashion statement.

Finally, releasing his tenuous hold on that last, inane thought, his vision being rapidly subsumed by darkness, Zephyrin lapsed into the peaceful oblivion of unconsciousness.