Why’d her mind immediately jump to ‘locked in a cupboard?’ Listening to Elenira struggle not to laugh, Renea felt her face grow even hotter.

  “It, ahem, shows you have a kind soul,” Elenira said. Her smile was gentle, and her eyes soft, even if it looked like she was about to wheeze. “There’s no—hah—reason to be ashamed.”

  Her kindness, unfortunately, only made it more embarrassing for Renea, who wanted to move past it.

  “Why—um, how’d you figure it out, Ani?” Renea asked.

  “The house is a bit too tall for a single-story,” Ailn shrugged before beginning his ascent up the stairway.

  The steps were so steep, it almost felt like climbing a ladder, and as they neared the top Renea caught a faint earthy scent. The last few steps creaked, but when they rounded the stairway’s corner into the attic, it was clear how lovingly the space had been maintained.

  The attic was dustless, from wall to corner; even the rafters had been kept pristine, likely with the help of the wooden, freestanding ladder that was set off to the side.

  On the far end of the attic, sunlight streamed in from a dormer window and kept the air from getting too damp. Curtains softened the light, preventing any damage it might have caused to Noué’s artistic keepsakes—an extra, caring step, considering they were already neatly stored far away from the window.

  “I doubt it was kept this nice when she was alive…” Renea said softly, casting a fretful glance toward Elenira. Was it really okay to touch this stuff?

  “Looks like… Noué had to work for her supplies,” Ailn said. Kneeling down to open a small wood crate by the foot of a trestle table, he carefully took out a shoddy booklet. “It must have driven her crazy—being forced to make this from scratch, before she could even draw a stick figure.”

  “From scratch…? Oh.” Renea’s thumb rested against her bottom lip.

  It was sailcloth. She must have taken scraps and made them as uniform as possible with a knife; then, with thick leather as the spine, glued and stitched it all together. The resulting pages were thick, rough, and uneven.

  With their worn edges and tendency to clump, they looked hard to turn, too. Ailn was grimacing with the effort of pinching and pulling gently at the sailcloth without damaging it.

  Renea leaned over Ailn’s shoulder, struggling to make out the nearly faded charcoal sketches in the attic’s dim light. Her eyes slowly adjusted.

  There were lots of plants and boats mostly, with the occasional bird or squirrel. It was all rather… pedestrian, if Renea were being honest. The subjects were boring, and the proportions on so many of them were weird. Not weird in an uncanny or macabre way. Just weird the way a kid would mess them up.

  Towards the back of the book, Noué had started doing anatomy studies—and it was clear she struggled terribly with drawing hands.

  “...What’s wrong with me?” Renea asked. Warmth rushed to her cheeks again, and a knot formed in her stomach once she realized how harshly she was judging a child’s drawing.

  “Here,” Ailn said, interrupting her guilt session. Almost absentmindedly, he handed the booklet to Renea and started knocking on the floorboards near the table, listening for something.

  “What are you even looking for?” Renea asked, making a face.

  “I don’t know.” He kept knocking.

  Feeling an irritation she couldn’t quite explain, Renea’s jaw clenched as she distracted herself with the booklet.

  For some reason, memories of the real Ailn came to Renea’s mind unprompted. He used to carry her everywhere, when she could barely walk. Even before she really played with Sophie, Ailn was there.

  He’d listen to all her nonsense stories—her past life memories confused and mixed with a toddler’s thoughts—and act as if she were the smartest person in the world. And for a little bit, since she’d learned to talk at such a young age, Renea really thought she was.

  In retrospect, she basically cheated. Beyond a brief stint as an early gabbing toddler, Renea ended up being unremarkable.

  But Noué… looking at the effort she put in throughout her childhood, Renea realized it was almost the opposite. She’d been unremarkable when she started out. It was only through her efforts that she’d become such a legendary artist.

  And that stung a bit. Somehow Renea had thought… Noué had brought her past life’s skills with her; that, even if she wasn’t an immediate genius, she got a headstart.

  But as Renea flipped through the booklet’s pages—painstakingly, so as not to tear them—it became increasingly clear that what the young Noué possessed wasn’t some supernatural talent. It was maturity.

  Every bit of space was used. Not every sketch was good, but none of them were doodles and they all had a purpose. The neck was too long on one; the abs too contorted on another. A boat at an oblique angle foreshortened weirdly. There were plenty of mistakes, often repeated, but as Renea kept turning the page, they were slowly and definitively disappearing.

  Seeing the relentless improvement of a driven young girl—knowing just how great she eventually became—filled Renea with sudden resentment, then shame.

  She quietly closed the book.

  “Miss Renea, you look like a kicked puppy all of a sudden,” Elenira said, arching an eyebrow. “Or maybe a brooding cat.”

  “Um…sorry. It was inappropriate,” Renea’s voice was quiet. She bit her lip, wondering just how transparently she’d been showing such ugly envy. Then with a fright, she realized she’d been scrunching the book that was so precious to Elenira. “I’m sorry! S-sometimes I just… I’m really sorry—”

  “Relax,” Elenira sighed. “They’re just drawings. They’re not… her.” She rubbed her forehead for a moment. “Miss Renea, not everyone needs to be like Noué, I hope you realize.”

  Elenira gave a sweet, if pained, smile. “The world would probably be much worse for it.”

  Not quite understanding what Elenira was getting at, Renea blankly nodded. “Sure…”

  Then they both heard Ailn lift a floorboard. He reached around underneath, before pulling out a small pouch—inside of which were copper coins Renea had never even seen.

  “Oh!” Renea gave a quiet, acknowledging gasp. “They look quite old… Noué must have been hiding these coins.”

  Elenira just stared at the pouch with no expression. Then, she slowly smiled. “You really are something else. I never even knew those were there.”

  Despite her smile, her ears were drooping. “For three entire centuries…”

  As Renea watched Elenira try to put on a happy face, she couldn’t help but think that something in Elenira’s demeanor had palpably changed since after… well, after she’d laughed earlier. At Renea’s cupboard faux pas.

  It was as if that little bit of laughter earlier was all she needed to expel the tension from her body. Everything about her softened. And what was left was just a flower in wilt. She looked so sad.

  Watching Ailn discover this remnant of Noué, Elenira just shook her head with a defeated smile.

  “Guess she picked up a job at some point…” Ailn muttered. “I doubt this was for her art. Could that have any relation to the vault…?”

  “Duke eum-Creid,” Elenira said.

  “...Hm? Ailn’s fine,” he turned toward her.

  “You… really might be the one who can open her vault,” Elenira said. She sounded so optimistic—hopeful, even—that this stranger could unravel the mystery of the woman she loved for centuries.

  Thinking back, for all her attempts to hide the house, Elenira had never really tried to hinder them once they’d come here. In fact, they only ever found the house because she’d willingly revealed where she’d seen Safi.

  She’d been easy to talk to, never prickly. She’d taken care of the house for centuries, preserving the hints for anyone who could manage to get in. Renea felt her eyes starting to tear up and blinked them away.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  All these years, Elenira had been tending the garden, not just for Noué, but for the special person who might one day understand her.

  “If I’m being honest, Elenira, I’m feeling a little stumped,” Ailn said, with a shrug. Then he grimaced. “Maybe if I got a smoke—I didn’t bring my pipe out here, though…”

  “You still smoke?” Renea snapped.

  Ailn winced. Then he held his palm against his temple. “I never said I stopped.”

  “If you didn’t feel bad about it, you wouldn’t hide—” Renea stopped herself from launching into a tirade. Ailn… Ani was his own person. “...Nevermind. Just forget I brought it up.”

  She hugged her own arm, and paced towards the sunlit patch of attic. A lot had happened today, and she was getting temperamental. Ever since she watched Safi reunite with her father, there’d been a subtle itch in Renea’s heart, coloring her emotions.

  “Why not take a moment to see things from her perspective?” Elenira asked.

  “Well, if I thought I could quit, I would’ve… probably,” Ailn said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Or… probably not, actually.”

  Looking a little troubled by Ailn’s honesty, Elenira shook her head. “I meant Noué’s perspective.”

  “Pretty sure that’s what I’ve been trying to do,” Ailn sighed. He closed his eyes to think for a moment. Then, opening them, he turned to Renea. “Any guesses?”

  “Sorry?”

  “About the vault.”

  “I mean, no,” Renea said, hugging her arm tighter. “I’m not…”

  Her gaze caught on the dormer window, where the sunlight was streaming in from. It was nearing the end of the day, and this attic seemed like it would get dark even before sunset.

  Idly, she wandered over to take in the view.

  …She was a bit short, actually. The window had a deep and wide sill, set high off the ground, which made it tricky to look through. It was the kind of tucked-away cozy where kids liked to put beds.

  “I wonder if she ever slept up here,” Renea mumbled to herself. She was climbing up before she realized it.

  The window had a nice view of the side channel, but somehow the sight was a little depressing. The steep limestone of the outer bank on the other side actually rose so high it felt like a wall.

  Sometimes even silly things could make you feel trapped. Renea actually hated looking out from the castle’s ramparts, because she’d so often seen Ennieux caught in her own miserable vigil. And when she’d pretended to be a Saintess, Renea had her fill of daunting stone walls.

  Unconsciously, her hand drifted to the perspective finder in her cloak—and when she felt its cool glass she felt a spike of excitement in her heart. Trying to calm herself, and manage her own expectations, she raised it toward her eye with a trembling hand.

  She moved it away from her eye. Then in again.

  “Ani!” Renea shouted.

  Both Ailn and Elenira winced, having instinctively covered their ears. Then, when they relaxed too soon and uncovered them…

  “It’s there!” she shouted even louder.

  “...Ow. The vault?” Ailn asked.

  “Yea—um, I don’t know! It’s the painting! ‘There She Is.’ It’s the same cave—and you need the perspective finder to see it,” Renea said breathlessly. “That has to be it, right?!”

  At the base of the limestone cliffs, just at the edge of what could be seen from this attic, was the cave from the painting, in the painting’s exact perspective. The lines on the perspective finder even framed it in precisely the same way.

  There was a single difference, though. The cave in the painting had a woman looking out.

  “...She’s not there,” Renea said softly.

  Outside, leaning against the house that used to be Noué’s, Ailn let his mind wind down. He needed to, for a moment. He’d been granted a momentary reprieve by some unexpected rain, which delayed their return to the count’s estate. And he took the chance to stare at nothing and listen to the downpour.

  …There were too many different threads. The day brought a flood of answers, but their implications were more exhausting than the original questions.

  Safi could use magic, which meant reincarnators in general could. He couldn’t rule out mages, then.

  Elenira’s golden eyes let her cast illusions, or ‘lies.’ Noué’s golden eyes gave her divine inspiration—and allegedly let her see ‘truth.’

  That might be what the gold shards represented—the facet of the world soul they held. Truth.

  Jewel shards could be inherited. Elenira’s had almost certainly been specifically bequeathed. There could be other ways. Possibly, they required death. Given what the young god said about someone trying to bring together the ruby shards, the future looked ominous.

  That possibly tied to the masked woman with ruby eyes. Dahlia had mentioned she looked greedy for their eyes. The ambushers near Sussuro were definitely hired by her. They’d tried to kidnap Renea.

  And then they had geomisil tunics…

  To top it all off, as if portable miasma in obsidian jars wasn’t enough, now there was another shadow creature he knew nothing about, and an oblivious young woman who seemed to think it was a puppy.

  All in all, Ailn felt like a murder case would’ve been less stressful. So far, the trip to Sussuro was a highly productive nightmare.

  Renea’s discovery—of what Ailn hoped was finally the vault—was one of the only things giving him peace of mind. The vault hunt seemed to be coming to a conclusion. The tricky thing was, now Ailn knew there was a chance for total failure.

  Frankly, he didn’t feel great about his chances. And he was baffled by Elenira’s sudden confidence in him.

  Speak of the devil. Ailn could hear her coming outside, recognizing her unhurried gait. Renea was probably still ‘just resting her eyes’ at the dining table.

  “...You look tired,” Elenira said. Her face wrinkled with skepticism. “Did you come out here to concentrate?”

  “I came out here to stop concentrating,” Ailn said. After a moment, his brows knitted. “Guess I forgot.”

  The rain kept pouring down, though it failed to wash away his thoughts.

  “You should rest,” Elenira said. She stretched out her arms behind her, either feigning relaxation or trying to force it. “For both our sakes.”

  She walked over to the wall, like she was kicking at pebbles. Leaning back against the house, arms still behind her, Elenira looked rather youthful for a moment.

  Normally, even with the physical appearance of someone in their thirties, she carried herself like an old-timer with nothing left to look forward to—not always slow, but never eager to get anywhere.

  But for once, she looked refreshed.

  “What’s the final puzzle, Elenira?” Ailn cut right to the chase. “The one you couldn’t answer.”

  Elenira tilted her head thinking about it, and even started rocking back and forth on her heels—another youthful gesture. “I don’t even think… explaining it would help. If anything, it might throw you off.”

  “There’s nothing you can tell me at all?” Ailn asked.

  Her rocking stopped, and her expression grew more detached. “The final chamber is my greatest work. It relies on my illusions.”

  “You made it,” Ailn blinked. “You made it and you can’t solve it.”

  “I set up the multiple choice question and Noué picked the answer. I don’t have the cheat sheet,” Elenira said.

  For a few minutes, they both just listened to the rain. Then Ailn gave her a serious look.

  “Elenira, what are you going to do if I make a mistake tomorrow?” Ailn asked. “Can you really handle that? If the vault’s crushed?”

  “I’ve been here for three hundred years,” Elenira said. She smiled sadly. “Whether you can open it or not… Life has to go on. Even if it takes three centuries.”

  “...Take a minute to think, then tell me if that’s how you really feel,” Ailn said. Sighing, he patted at his trenchcoat’s inner pocket, as if a pack of cigarettes might suddenly appear. Finding nothing there, he just waited.

  She didn’t need a minute.

  Elenira took a shaky breath, and rested her head against one hand. “...I’d give up.” And with that honest admission, her palm slid down to cover her eyes. “The truth is, I’m putting my life in your hands. So I’m trusting you, Ailn. Please.”

  Ailn didn’t say anything. He thought about it for a long time, and his expression went from troubled to pensive. “I’ll try.”

  That was all he could promise.

  It wasn’t much, but it was enough to bring her anguished expression back to rueful.

  “You know, she…” Elenira shook her head slowly, running the hand that was covering her eyes back through her hair. “She was insane. Getting into the antechamber is almost as hard as opening the vault itself.”

  “There’s more?” Ailn took a deep breath, suddenly feeling the bags under his eyes.

  “There’s a long cave corridor leading up to the vault, and you need to say the right phrase to get into the antechamber.” Elenira paused, meeting his gaze to reassure him. “It won’t collapse. You can stay there all day guessing if you want. It’s just… dumb honestly.”

  Then she gave a sigh so aggravated it became a growl, which then burst into resentful muttering. “I told her over and over it was insane…”

  “So it’s uh, dumb and insane? And hard too,” Ailn said, his brows creasing deeper. “You can’t elaborate on this one, either?”

  “Noué just…ugh!” Elenira covered her face like she’d just watched a child stir chocolate into the spaghetti sauce. The exasperation in her voice turned dead and tired. “If I explain why it’s stupid I’d just have to tell you the answer.”

  Then she let her hands fall limp to her sides again with a sigh. “Noué had this awful habit of ruining beautiful things with stupid jokes,” Elenira said. “That corridor was… her masterpiece. It was her magnum opus.”

  Tilting his head as he was staring at the ground, Ailn tried to work through this new information. “...She hid her greatest work from everyone,” he said slowly. “She was the type who felt her art was as good buried in the ground as stuck in a gallery, then.”

  “No, not quite,” Elenira said. Her voice was still indifferent. “Noué was never that humble. She never finished it.”

  “Because she ran out of vision?” Ailn asked. Then he softened his tone. “Or circumstance?”

  “...Both. She was working on it until the day she died.” Elenira’s face twitched just a little, with what seemed like more irritation. But almost out of nowhere, her breath caught.

  Ailn gave her a moment, before he asked his next question. “How’d she die, Elenira?”

  With just the sound of rain between them, it was a long time before Elenira breathed out. “Well Noué, she…” Her eyes turned hollow. “She died in that cave.”

  “...How?” His tone was softer still.

  Elenira’s gaze searched for something beyond the rain, her mouth opening and closing like a fish as she worked up the will to speak. Her expression stayed blank. There were no tears to warn even herself. But a sob escaped as she answered.

  “She—starved.”