John brings her a set of soft suede clothes, the same cut and quality as she has been wearing all this time, with an extra inner layer of light linen dyed red and black.

Leah looks out at the blurry sky as she changes, and finds no moon. She mentally tries to count the days since she last saw the moon, and what phase it was in. It’s getting close to four weeks I’ve been in this world, and my time is running out before I eventually have a period.

A few minutes later John checks to see if she’s ready to go to the dining hall, and Leah nods. She debates asking him, as he’s one of the very few people she can currently reliably communicate with. Nah, not John. I doubt that would be among the words he’d learned.

The dining hall, different from the mess hall, is in a part of the Hold that Leah had never gone to before, marking the third distinct area of the building: Militia, School, and…Private? Near the roof on the southern side, overlooking forest from every window they pass, this area is somehow homier. There are no grand paintings or statues, no barracks, no training halls, no libraries. The floor is carpeted, the ceiling low, and the walls covered with some sort of stucco or plaster, smooth and white.

John leaves her at an open doorway, somewhere around the fifth floor, bright light spilling out from inside. Seffon waits just outside, and smiles at her arrival.

Leah, heart in her throat, enters alongside him.

Areiu is sitting at a low table, making structures out of her utensils. Leah stumbles to a stop, but adjusts quickly. Not a total surprise.

She looks around the rest of the room. Standing at one of the tall many-paned windows is the doctor, Sewheil.

Oh, okay, yeah. Duh. Shoulda seen that coming.

Sewheil is wearing a blue and beige gown, free of decoration, and Areiu is in basic suede leggings and shirt, like what she was wearing to climb, but with a silver bracelet and a red belt. The setting seems suited to this level of dress: far from a Downton Abbey table setting, and more an intimate family dinner with touches of opulence. There are, Leah notes after a confused search, no chairs.

The room is lit with candles in glass flutes, the table covered with clean blue linen with patterns woven in, the dishes a neat yet sturdy stoneware with scalloped edges but no paintings, the cups of undecorated glass, the seats merely thin cushions of green and black fabric. Leah notes this and more, trying to figure out the tone for the evening.

They sit to their meal, with one servant to pour the water and fetch away dishes. The meal is lovely but not much above what she had been served before now: a hot bowl of broth with a poached egg, green onions, and a few spears of something leafy and vaguely like asparagus, accompanied by the by-now classic salad, though with a few more ingredients than she is used to seeing.

Conversation is low and casual while eating, mostly about Leah’s recovery and the state of the school – wrapping up a semester, Leah gathers, although the terms used are different. They avoid any talk of violence or invasion, Leah suspects because of Areiu. Never very at home in formal settings, Leah is doing everything she can not to be palpably uncomfortable. One week ago I was seriously debating whether or not I would end up having to kill this man. Now I have to ask him to pass the pepper. Do I ask him? Do I ask the servant? Do I have the authority to make requests of the servants here? She keeps her eyes fixed on her plate, trying not to let her face betray her thoughts. And is the servant…?

She looks the servant over. He is seldom loitering in the room itself, instead passing through a curtained doorway into a narrow stairwell leading downward. From all she can gather, he seems like a perfectly healthy mid-twenties man, with the standard brown hair and eyes of the locals. Not Nentish. Maybe indentured servants can come from elsewhere, too. They certainly have them in Algi, if other-Leah used to be one – an indentured performer, whatever, same diff. The servant passes by again, and Leah focuses back on the present. Polite. Seems happy. Well-fed, if those leg muscles are anything to go by. God, is he actually making trips up and down five flights of stairs multiple times per night?

I’m distracting myself again. Focus. For god’s sake, don’t tune out of the conversations when they’re mainly about you.

After the final dish is cleared away, they are brought a round of the same sour-milk drink that Leah received early in her stay – sweet, heavy cinnamon, a bit of vanilla, and something that Leah thinks might be fig. While drinking this, conversation picks up.

“Ua es yõ nex ste, fõ fineng ua happen’ teu Ley’s memorys?” Sewheil asks. The question is addressed to both of them, but as it is mostly gibberish to Leah, she lets Seffon answer.

Seffon describes a plan to try a divination spell, to locate if Leah Talesh’s consciousness is anywhere at all in this world, though he doubts this is the case. He does all this with Areiu clambering over his lap and tugging at his sleeve to ask him questions, a wooden toy clutched in one of her hands.

Leah reflects on this image of him, and contrasts it with her first memories of this world. In the violence of her awakening, she was inclined to remember everyone’s face as a little vicious, but even having seen Seffon murder an assailant in front of her, she cannot envision the man sitting across from her to be violent or cruel. Once again, she wishes she could convey all this to the rest of the five, and get them to see the reality behind their orders.

Sewheil suggests an alternative spell, one designed to test the mind for trauma; perhaps there is a physical cause to her condition, not a magical one? Of course some magic must be involved for a totally new consciousness to have arrived, but maybe the cause is mundane.

Seffon translates this for Leah, who eagerly agrees, still curious about the level of scientific knowledge in this world. Although from the sound of it, it might just end up being a magic CT scan or EEG. Which – let’s be real – would also be fucking dope.

Areiu watches this conversation but clearly does not follow the specifics. “Is Shield sick?”

“Shield?” Seffon asks, and Leah doesn’t comment. “No, Leah’s just…she can’t remember right, and she asked us to help.”

Areiu still seems uncertain. Leah smiles reassuringly. “I feel alright, I’m not hurt. I’m just very far away from home, and I can’t figure out how to get back until we’ve sorted out my memory problems.”

“Have you tried writing it down?”

Leah gushes internally at the cuteness of this child – who, now that she knows to look, clearly has some Gllythe traits; namely the long hands, button nose, and pointed ears.

“That’s a good idea, Areiu; journaling often helps people. Thank you,” Leah says.

Sewheil seems humoured and touched by this. Seffon as well, though he is mostly still lost in thought.

They begin discussing more serious matters as Areiu drifts off to sleep. Eventually the child ends up curled on her mother’s lap, Sewheil petting her hair absently.

Sewheil asks what they plan to do if Leah’s mind cannot be restored; if she has a place to go. “Yõ family, õ yõ ʁomelan…?”

“I remember neither,” Leah says, then realises how depressing that sounds. “But I could make a home here, if I had to. I’d worry about the people I left behind, though. It’s a big decision, and one I’d rather not face until I have all the facts – all the options.” The others nod at the sagacity of this.

The meal is apparently over, though refills of the drink seem to be an option – one which Leah is too nervous to accept, even if she did feel like another serving of the oddly alcoholic-tasting dairy. Sewheil gets up to carry Areiu to bed, picking up the dropped toy as she goes. Seffon continues to muse.

“Pinpointing the exact moment might be helpful, if it was an environmental cause,” he says, absently. “After we check for physical causes, perhaps that should be our next track; looking at celestial events, or climatic ones. I don’t remember there being any thunderstorms or eclipses that night, but maybe if something happened in Algi, or some place that holds meaning for her…”

“Could the arrival of the five have done it?” Leah asks.

“Possibly, but none of them are magically inclined, so how could they have done anything? Unless the old Leah was exceptionally close with them – and I suppose, fighting against death alongside someone for years would bring you close…” Seffon suddenly grimaces, and runs a hand through his hair. “I suppose that’s another question we must answer soon.”

“What question?”

He turns to look at her appraisingly, but not unkindly. “What would you do, if the five were sent to try and either save you or harm you? To harm us?”

Leah takes a deep breath. “Seffon, none of us knew that there were families here. All the debriefings…they talked of a military stronghold, not a school, not a home. With all I know of the five, if they knew about Areiu, they would at least stop and listen to your side of things. I can’t guarantee they’d agree, or change sides – probably they wouldn’t – but they’d stop. When I found out about Areiu, suddenly I knew how far in the wrong we had been – ”

“‘Found out about?’” He stills very suddenly, playing over the words in his head. “You knew about her before tonight?”

Leah hesitates. “She found me in the study, a few days ago.”

Seffon thinks. “Are you the one who taught my daughter the phrase ‘educated guess?’”

Leah snickers a bit, just as Sewheil returns and resumes her seat beside Seffon. “So I guess that’s what I’d do. I’d talk to them, try to get them to calm down long enough to listen to the other side of things. They were very kind to me when I was in Valerin…ride-or-die, at times…” Leah smiles forlornly. “I want them safe, but I know that it might not be possible. Just don’t ask me to be the one to fight them off.”

This seems to satisfy Seffon; he does not press the issue further, though Leah suspects he still has questions. A few minutes more of light conversation, and the evening is declared over. Leah realises suddenly that she is nearly out of time to find pads or the local equivalent, and has no-one to ask – except, conveniently enough, a doctor. After Seffon leaves, Leah pulls Sewheil aside and asks where she should go to find…and suddenly she realises she doesn’t know what to call it here.

“Menstrual supplies? Um, period supplies?”

Sewheil’s face is blank. Leah realises that possibly Gllythe do not menstruate. But surely as a doctor, treating humans…

Leah tries again. “Umm…time of the month? Bleeding?”

Sewheil reaches out to Leah’s healed arm, but Leah shakes her head, frustrated and embarrassed. She can feel a little bit of a blush mounting.

Sewheil raises an eyebrow. “Yu ã turneng re.”

Leah is desperate. “So will my pants, soon.”

Sewheil finally understands, and laughs. She promises to bring supplies to Leah’s room, and show her where to clean them afterwards – or so Leah assumes, from careful dissecting of the words.

That done, and on her way back to her room alone, Leah breathes a sigh of relief. Not so hard to navigate this world after all.

*

Breakfast in the mess hall is early, and Leah nearly misses it. Flatbread, scrambled eggs, and fried cubes of sweet potato with gravy. In a very distant and inaccurate way, it reminds her of poutine, and she gets a little homesick.

A servant fetches her in her room after breakfast, to bring her back to the hospital for the check-up and next step. Leah is almost beginning to recognise some of the staff by face, though she is still too ill-at-ease in the language to try asking for their names or talking with them.

Down in the hospital Sewheil is running the show, with Seffon advising. Watching them work, Leah decides that – with little enough else to base it on – they are exceptionally well-matched for each other. Though of different magic styles, they seem to be practiced enough at working together that it does not trip them up to be switching from learned- to born-magic. Most of it happens so fast that Leah cannot begin to study and learn from it – though if we’re being honest, my foundational knowledge is probably patchy enough that I’d only get confused, or worse get a mistaken interpretation. This seems…way beyond beginner stuff.

The check-up confirms that the gash on her ribs is healing well, and the one in her arm is not regressing after whatever magic was used. The next step is the “brain scan,” as it were.

Leah expects there to be a complicated set-up process, like for Seffon’s attempts so far. Instead, Sewheil pulls a thin metal Y out of her pocket and then touches it to Leah’s forehead, with no preamble or muttering.

Immediately, a blue arc of energy forms between the prongs of the Y, twisting like plasma. Leah categorises it at first as a brainwave pattern, but then reflects that the colour may indicate a more esoteric, soul-related meaning. Sewheil considers it, then makes a few hand gestures, fingertips glowing gold. The blue thread twists, ripples, and eventually fades out.

Seffon watches with a frown, apparently understanding the results and not finding much hope in them. Sewheil hides her opinions well, a mildly curious expression the whole time.

“So?” Leah asks.

Seffon translates Sewheil’s rapid and soft explanation. “The test found that your mind has not undergone physical trauma, such as a concussion or stroke, but that there was at one point, not quite a month ago, a moment of partial brain death.” He rubs the fingers of one hand, nervously. “Without cause or apparent consequence, possibly only lasting a few seconds, your higher brain functions very briefly stopped working.”

Is this the afterlife? That makes no sense…wait. Did my body’s brain die too?

Leah hides how uncomfortable this makes her. Both of the others seem shaken. Pushing forward with insincere casualness, Seffon says they will try the divination spell – “Though again, I doubt anything will come of it. Don’t get your hopes up too far.”

My hopes? Up? After hearing that? She keeps her expression as neutral as she can manage, as they walk to the tower. No-one would be hopeful, after getting news like that.

Leah is distracted through the whole affair, even though Seffon pays extra attention to explaining the steps and process, to help her learn the basics of rune-based magic. The spell involves an oak stick and a glass lens, and since it requires sunlight they must perform it in the third floor of the magic tower – Leah finally snaps out of her doldrums on realising that Seffon actually has a magic wizard tower, and smirks at the aptness of this.

The third floor is mainly bookshelves, with a chair and a couch towards the centre and a writing desk off to the side, and every other available surface filled with potted plants. There are a number of small-paned windows to let in light, and a trap door to the ceiling that could be opened to let in even more.

They set up in the sunniest spot, and Seffon uses the sunlight to burn patterns into the dowel of oak. Once done, he takes out the bottle of old-Leah’s mind-imprint, dark red and black. Spilling a single drop on the patterns, they begin to glow red. Seffon sets the rod on a table, and it hums there for a moment, then falls still.

Seffon sighs. “No. She’s not here anymore.”

Leah lets out a held breath. Seffon reaches out to pick up the stick, and Leah asks if she can keep it, to study. This seems to bring him out of his glumness; he encourages her to do so, and then fetches a book from a shelf that deals with the specific patterns used on it – in Olues, but an older variant, closer to Volsti.

“Ask me if you need anything translated specifically.”

Leah grins half-heartedly. “It’s been a long time since I had homework. Feels odd.”

Seffon does not understand but seems to have resigned himself to that.

They part ways, Leah heading out to the garden to study the book. This proves very much difficult to do, as it is very much in a different language, but she can work through the sentences slowly – and there are pictures.

She holds the stick close, running a thumb over the burnt designs – still warm, at first, but they cool down quickly. The weather is fine, but she still feels a bit cold.

The pheasants are out again, scratching through the gardens. She sits on a stone bench and watches them, noticing the various beautiful plumages of the males, their colourful wattles, their iridescence. The gardeners give her a wide berth, but do the same to the other students present, who wander through or occasionally pick herbs for their studies. Leah is nearest the orchids, which seem to be more a culinary crop here, grown near the sweet potato vines and parsley.

An hour into her careful reading of the book, another student passes by and slows down. “You are Leah Talesh,” the girl says, in accented Volsti. She is in her late teens, bookish and lanky, tanned and black-haired with a strong nose.

“More or less,” Leah says, with dry humour. Please don’t be another hero-worshipper…

The girl hesitates. “They took bets.”

Leah looks up from the book. “Bets on what?”

“The other studens. They took bets on whethẽ you’d escape or be killed. They didnau believe your change of heart.”

A tick starts up in Leah’s jaw, but she smothers it. “Interesting.”

“Finally they deci’ tha no-one who bet either way on you being bad could claim to win, after the assassins, an there was only one person who bet tha you wẽ good.”

“Really.” She tries to make it as toneless as possible.

The girl shakes a linen pouch that jingles heavily. “If you need anything from town, I can get e fõ you.”

Her tension dissipates, and Leah allows herself a small grin. “What can one get in town?”

The girl shrugs. “Clothes, alcoʁol, chocle, books, whatevẽ.”

“Chocolate?” Leah asks, perking up.

The girl smiles and nods. “Yeah, choclet.” The pronunciation improves, but only slightly. “I’ll bring you some. You’re en the Harvest wing, right?” She sees Leah’s confusion. “The Green Giver? All the artwor is themed on the harvest goddess?”

“The stone-skinned woman with plants?”

The girl laughs, but seems a little confused. “Yes, tha’s her.”

“Then yeah.”

The girl nods and moves on, and Leah returns to her book. She can vaguely remember mention of a harvest goddess…something Wellen had said. Something about Kimry…

Her eyes start to tear up, and she wipes them before anyone notices, not that anyone is close enough to see.