She could feel scorching gazes on her as they entered the Seraglio proper, but she paid the other girls no mind. After Prince Jaeson arrived, her meetings with Tomas would fade from their memory as the real prize strutted before them.

“Ah, Mister Tomas!” said a short-haired girl in green, purposefully putting her body in front of him. A red crab was stitched onto her chest, and Mydea guessed she was from a small house in Nysia judging from that and her brownish complexion. “I’ve been meaning to speak with you, but never quite got the chance. I hope I’m not disturbing—”

“As a matter of fact, you are,” Mydea said. “If you’d excuse us.”

The girl huffed. “You’re quite rude, my lady. I never got your name.”

It was a small slight to pretend she did not know Mydea. After her duel with Lady Miryam at Princess Mirah’s tea party, and having spent so many of her days with Tomas, there could scarcely be a woman serious about Prince Jaeson who didn’t know of her. Mydea continued to walk forward without pause. “I never gave you the honor.”

“Perhaps another time,” Tomas said as he stepped around the girl with a dancer’s grace. “That was harsh even for you,” he said once they were out of earshot, though there was no rebuke in his tone.

“I’d hardly be a very good shield for you if I wasn’t on occasion,” Mydea said.

“As you say.”

When they reached the door of her room, Mydea turned to Tomas.

“Getting cold feet right at the threshold?” Tomas japed. “It is not too late to turn back now.”

“When the diviner arrives, I will speak to her alone,” Mydea said, half-fearing he might take offense. “You may wait out the vultures in my room, but I will be deafening everyone to our conversation.”

“I understand. There are some secrets that cannot be shared,” Tomas said. “I cannot say I am not disappointed to leave without an answer to the secrets of that script, but this is a small matter between you and I in the end.”

“Many thanks for your understanding.” Mydea placed her hand on the door and the hidden locking runes unlocked at her touch. Ida stood at attention as the door swung inwards, and at the sight of Tomas, was quick to prepare refreshments for him. Her tea brewing was now a passable imitation of Mydea’s work after a week of instruction from Troia and a healthy dose of fear.

The maids had the capacity to be good servants. Mydea just needed the right levers to move them. A shame about their loyalties though, she thought. Put in their place, she would not have sold away her integrity so cheaply—at the very least, it was only sensible to let another party bid up the price in order to maximize one’s gains.

She glanced at her vanity, confirming with her own eyes that the soundproof curtains kept anyone from peering into her room through the mirrorplane, before unlocking her trunk. She retrieved a leaf of paper copied from her father’s journal with great care, leaving the original buried deep inside. Since she’d discovered it was cursed, Mydea had made sure that it was not something one of the palace maids could “stumble” upon by happenstance. A servant who did not wear the house livery would never be entrusted to keep her keys.

Scrutiny would fall upon the notebook if others discovered that the onerous measures usually reserved for grimoires were upon it.

As if on cue, there was a light rapping sound. “My lady, I have brought the hystor here,” Troia said through the knobless cherrywood door, observing the proper courtesies in front of their guests by not entering without her express permission.

As a graduate of the athenaeum, Troia was more than capable at magic, and had been keyed into the door. A servant’s role was to make their mistress’ life easier after all, and having Mydea accompany her servants each and every time they needed to return here was hardly that.

But just because one could enter did not mean one should.

“Come in.” Mydea settled into a seat in the corner of her room, tucked away from view by the silk changing screen embroidered with a scene from the Era of the Six Sorcerers. There was a man addressing an assembly of citizens, while some held daggers behind them. There could be no mistaking the most despicable assasination of Symon Shieldbreaker by the leading citizens of the very city he had saved from a sack.

The door swung open audibly. “Greetings, Mister Tomas,” Hystor Kait said with a sensuous, sing-songy voice that Mydea could listen to for hours. If her guess was on the mark, the hystor hailed from the Al-Pyani Heights—a clustering of cities with imperial immediacy to the Empress rather than being sworn to a house eminent.

“Hystor,” Tomas replied in turn. “Lady Mydea is behind there.”

She heard the shuffling of feet. “Might I approach, Lady Mydea?” Kait asked.

“Please do,” Mydea said. She assessed the hystor with a quick glance as she sat across her. Kait was a pale woman in her forties with a forehead of creased lines. She kept her hair up in a simple bun, leaving the twin hexagrams of the scholar-priests plain and proud upon her cheeks. More striking though was the thin band of high silver around her left wrist bearing the star and storm.

“Many thanks for your time, Hystor Kait,” Mydea said as Troia stood behind her. “Might I offer you some refreshments before we begin?”

“Perhaps a glass of warm water if it’s no bother,” Kait said. Troia saw to it without delay. “I’m told you wished to divine the origins of an unknown script?”

Mydea nodded, and called upon the wind to conceal their voices. Her magic was still a tad sluggish from the blood offering to Nomos that gave weight to her vows, but it was getting better by the day. It would be behind her soon enough.

Only when the spell settled fully did she slide over the sheet of paper she’d copied by hand. Judging by how every other line was indented, and the grouping into stanzas, she was almost certain it was a poem of sorts and not some secret spell. There was also the small sketch of her mother lounging on the margins of the page. Father truly missed his calling as an artist.

It might be a tad embarrassing for her father if he ever found out, but hardly dangerous to her and hers.

Kait considered the script for several long moments, mumbling beneath her breath. She took a sip of water that Troia had placed before her, before looking to Mydea once more. “By any chance, is this a copy?”

“It is,” Mydea said.

“And was the copier aware of the language?”

“No,” Mydea said. “Does that have weight?”

Kait bobbed her head. “I’m afraid so. This writing lacks the animating intent behind it; the script without the substance. I cannot divine its origins from this. If you have the original, I may be of more use.”

Ought I let her see the notebook? Mydea thought. While nominally neutral, political realities made true neutrality nearly impossible even for the Six Schools, and it would only be worse here in the heart of the Empire.

The hystor’s platinum bracelet was a gift from the House Imperial, and likely from the Empress herself considering the sum involved to craft such a thing. The question was, who else might the hystor be speaking to?

Does it matter? Mydea thought. The poem is benign. My hesitation here shows I have something to hide. “Wait a moment, if you will.”

“It’s no trouble,” Kait said.

Mydea walked over to her trunk and retrieved the notebook, flipping through the now increasingly familiar pages until she found the poem. Only then did she return to her seat, placing the notebook before the hystor. Her hand never left it. “Be careful with this please,” Mydea said. “It is one of the last mementos I have of my mother, and I could not bear to see the slightest tears on it.”

“I’ve no need to touch it,” Kait said reassuringly, studying the page for a moment. “I will consult with Ro-on again.”

The goddess was not one of the four Great Gods, but still occupied a significant seat within the Pantheon as the deity of scripts and secrets and spoken words. Some hystors even claimed Sybil the Schoolmistress worshiped at her altar daily in ages past, though other learned persons contended it was unlikely for a time when writing was still in its infancy.

Mydea heard murmurs suffuse the air as the goddess made her presence known. A chorus of words from every tongue and tribe, from distant lands and cities lost to time or tides. Between those words were words unspoken, and a silence only the gods grasped.

Then, as it was in the beginning, all was truly quiet.

A perplexed look took hold of Hystor Kait.

“Was the goddess unwilling to help?” Mydea asked after several seconds passed and the hystor made no move to speak.

“No, an answer was provided,” Kait said. “It’s just … Ro-on says this is in the Old Tongue. She refuses to say more on the matter.”

“Ilyosi?” Mydea tilted her head to the side. “But this looks nothing like Ilyosi. Are you certain?” It was not unheard of for a displeased deity to play tricks on their followers, though this seemed different from what she knew of Ro-on’s temperament, limited as that was.

“I am,” Kait said. “It’s likely some kind of code, my lady, though not one I’ve seen before. I have only a rudimentary understanding of ciphers as it relates to my work, and would not know how to begin breaking one. I’m sorry I could not be of more help to you.”

Mydea sighed and stood. The word-tight winds circling them dissipated as she released her iron will over them. “It can’t be helped. I thank you for taking the time out of your day all the same, Hystor Kait. I’ll see you off.”