The market square was a vibrant tapestry of life pulsating with the energy of a hundred conversations. Blythe, her ivory skin contrasting sharply against the vibrant hues of the market stalls, navigated the throngs with practiced ease. She was on a mission, clutching tightly in her gloved hand a list of essential travel supplies.
She’d already grabbed a few handy things—herbs and minerals Tarn might need—but her last destination was a small, unassuming tea shop tucked away in a quiet corner, its windows adorned with delicate lace curtains.
Inside, she was soothed by the comforting aroma of freshly brewed tea and warm spices. Nora, her closest friend, sat perched on a stool by the window, a steaming cup of tea clutched in her hands. Ever observant of the comings and goings in her family’s tea shop, she noticed Blythe immediately.
“Blythe!” Nora greeted her, Nora’s face lighting up with a warm smile. “Where have you been hiding? I’d need more fingers to count how long it’s been. And you’ve come with quite the load. You planning to hide away for another long while?”
Blythe sank into the seat opposite Nora, her shoulders slumping with a sigh.
“You look troubled.” Nora waved at one of her sisters and asked them to prepare a fresh pot. “What’s put such an uneasy look on such a pretty face?”
“These are our travel supplies,” Blythe said. “Tarn and I are going to Aragon in a few days.”
Nora’s smile faltered. “Aragon? Does Lord Carriger have some appointment with Argonian nobility or something?”
“If only it were the simple.” Blythe rested her shopping bag under the small table. Her gaze drifted out the window towards the bustling market square. “I can’t say everything. But Tarn was framed for something he didn’t do.”
“That’s surprising,” Nora said, resting her head in her hands. “I’m used to seeing the gossip they print about him, but you’ve always told me the troublemaking is true.”
Blythe smiled weakly. “Usually,” she agreed. “He likes the attention.”
“So he made someone angry in Aragon?”
“Someone in Aragon blamed him for something…” Blythe eyed the other shop customers. She leaned over the table, and Nora matched her. “A certain Isabella has ordered him to investigate.”
“Isa…?” Nora’s eyes narrowed, then widened. “What kind of trouble has that Madcap gotten you into now?”
Blythe shook her head. “It’s not his fault.” She paused, considering the casual way Tarn had listed his personal enemies. “It’s not completely his fault. And it’s not as if I could put distance between us. We’re bound.”
“Not that you would,” Nora teased, a knowing look in her eyes.
“I’ll admit I’ve learned a lot,” Blythe said absently, her eyes drifting towards the window. “Even the Academy’s library is small compared to his collection.”
“Yes, I’ve heard you say his collection is sizable.” Nora waved at her younger sister to bring over a freshly steeped pot and cups. “And so are his other assets.”
Blythe accepted the cup Nora poured. The deep amber liquid was rich, and the strong, malty flavour was already tempting her tongue.
“He’s also…not entirely unpleasant to look at,” Nora added, a sly smile playing on her lips.
Blythe nearly tipped her cup, her cheeks flushing despite the lack of blood. “I don’t know what you’re trying to say, Nora, but I sense it’s a direction I’m not interested in heading.”
Nora rolled her eyes, a gesture of exasperated affection. “So you keep saying. But young ladies our age have to consider their future. And you could do a lot worse than a man who has money, wit, and treats most people with…relative respect. He might spend most of his time with his potions, but that leaves more time for you to do whatever you want. You could even start doing seances again.”
Blythe pushed down the wave of dread that threatened to drown her. She wasn’t ready to return to dark rooms with strangers. But, maybe, there were other ways to rediscover the joy in her gifts.
“Even if I were interested—in anyone in that direction—it wouldn’t matter,” Blythe said, holding her cup aloft. “I’m not…normal.” She took a sip of the aromatic blend.
“Blythe, wait—that’s—” Nora stopped herself, her hand dropping sharply, her cheeks flushing crimson.
Blythe realized what had happened. “Too hot, right?” Blythe guessed, a wry smile playing on her lips. “It can’t hurt me.”
Nora covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes glistening. “I’m so sorry, Blythe.”
Blythe set down the scalding tea and gently took her friend’s hand. “I am grateful to have met you, one of the few people who treats me like a person instead of an experiment. When my sister…” Blythe swallowed the lump in her throat. “You’re the only one I can talk to like this. I can forget I’m…different, for a little while.” A small, genuine smile touched her lips. “And for that, I’ll even admit, Tarn isn’t all that bad of company.”
Nora placed her other hand over hers and squeezed. “You are normal, Blythe. You’re just a special type of normal. And you deserve to feel all that and more. You’re kind, you’re brave, and you have a gift that no one else possesses. You’ve faced death and come back stronger. You can face anything. You also happen to be the best person I know.”
These talks reminded her of late nights with her sister in the academy dormitory. Only she was usually in Nora’s place, reassuring her sister that she was capable of anything. It was one of her sister’s long-held fears that their connection to the ethereal world—girls who spoke to ghosts—meant they were too unusual. Now, her sister had left all ties to their abnormal life behind, and Blythe had crossed a line into a new level of oddity.
“It took a while to feel comfortable leaving the Madcap Shop,” Blythe confessed quietly. “I didn’t want anyone to see me. I didn’t want anyone to look at me like…” Like her sister had—horrified. “Like I’m a toy. Created just to be looked at and tested.”
Nora raised a hand and pointed hard. “You let me at whoever tries it. My brother married a girl from the bad side of town, and she taught me a few things. Things that will drain the blue blood from their prim little faces.”
Blythe laughed, surprised at the sound. Nora grinned, and they both laughed. Blythe had never had a friend as compassionate and loyal in all her life, even before her night of tragedy. Her schoolmates at the academy had been too concerned with competing with the gifted Desoto sisters to befriend her or Beatrice. They’d been polite, putting on their demure smiles and pretending to encourage each other. But she’d never sat in comfortable silence until after her death—sipping tea with Nora or reading in the workshop with Tarn.
“Promise me you’ll be careful,” Nora said, her tone soft but firm, worry creasing her brow.
“I will,” she promised.
“And if things get dangerous, let Lord Carriger go first.”
Blythe rolled her eyes, a playful smile tugging at her lips. “As much as that would inflate his already monumental ego, I’m the one who can’t feel pain. I can’t die.”
“You think you can’t die,” Nora corrected sharply. “You’re brilliant, Blythe, but even you don’t know the consequences of…losing your connection to your body.”
“Tarn has three backup bodies ready,” Blythe said, a slight tremor in her voice. “We’ve made progress. The last one lasted eight days before…disintegrating.” She winced, the memory of Tarn’s experiment—a stark reminder of her fragile existence—a cold knot in her chest. “A new record.”
“Maybe he should focus less on records and more on making it permanent,” Nora said, drawing back to take a long sip of her cooled tea. “He’d benefit just as much from you having a real body, wouldn’t he?” A playful smile tugged at the corners of her lips.
“He’s trying to help,” Blythe said, her voice carefully neutral, though a hint of defensiveness crept in. “He might be eccentric, but he feels responsible.”
“Oh, I’m sure his strong sense of duty is his sole motivation,” Nora teased, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “Nothing at all to do with the captivating, brilliant, strong-willed woman trapped inside.”
Blythe’s ivory cheeks flushed with a delicate rose tint. “He’s not interested. And we’re…fundamentally incompatible.”
Nora raised a skeptical eyebrow, a silent challenge. “Incompatible?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Blythe stammered, the blush deepening, her composure faltering.
Nora smirked. “I never said it was.”
“And I’ll never tell you,” Blythe retorted, a hint of playful defiance in her voice.
They settled into a comfortable silence, savouring their tea and listening to the clinking of teacups. Blythe would never admit to Nora the awkwardness of concealing the trapped tea within her ivory body—the quiet sloshing a constant, if subtle, reminder of her artificiality. The small pleasure of Nora’s company—and the familiar aroma of Earl Grey—was worth the minor inconvenience.
Tarn’s illusions made her appear convincingly human—pale, perhaps, and unnervingly still, but human nonetheless. Sometimes, she forgot to pretend to breathe. Already, she was forgetting so many tastes and touches, the weight of a hand on her skin, the warmth of a genuine embrace. There were too many things she’d never had time to experience, too many sensations she’d only read about or shared in hushed whispers.
More than anything from her old life, she longed to feel human again. But that dream was a dangerous, fragile thing.
🜁🜃🜂🜄
Blythe returned to the townhouse, the familiar scent of arcane ingredients and dust a strange comfort, and immediately began packing her supplies. It wasn’t until after sunset that a raven, its obsidian feathers gleaming in the fading light, tapped insistently at their door, carrying a letter. She always felt a strange, unsettling kinship with these artificial birds. They were both constructs of whalebone and sigils. Like her, they were human-made dolls, but where her body housed a soul, the Empress’ ravens were mere echoes, moving only at the whim of their creator.
The raven, its mission complete, flew off without waiting for a reply. Whatever Lady Barnes had sent, she expected Tarn to comply with no questions.
Blythe found Tarn hunched over his desk, his shoulders tense, his lips dry and cracked, his eyes red-rimmed. A cloud of lemon-scented smoke swirling from a powdered concoction. He’d spent the day obsessively crafting a reversal agent for the bronze incensor’s formula, a pre-emptive strike against any future misuse of his twist work.
Gently, Blythe placed a hand on his back, stirring him from his intense concentration. For a moment, his eyes remained unfocused, glazed over with the residue of his mental exertion. He waved a hand over the billowing bowl, halting the reaction, and then turned to her, his gaze finally settling on the letter she held out.
“Perhaps a break before diving into this?” she suggested, her voice soft.
Tarn exhaled heavily, his head tilting back slightly. “I’d rather just be done with it.”
She handed him the letter. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, a sign of his sleepless night. She’d heard him pacing before dawn and brought him chamomile tea, a remedy Nora swore by. For Tarn, it only amplified his restlessness. He’d humoured her with a few sips, then returned to his work with renewed fervour.
He tore at the paper, abandoning his usual meticulousness in his eagerness. The careless motion cost him a sharp slice along his finger. Blythe swiftly retrieved a handkerchief, preventing the crimson droplets from staining his cluttered desk.
“Damn,” he muttered, “the exquisite agony of a paper cut.”
“I remember,” Blythe said quietly.
“One of the few upsides,” he replied, a flicker of a smile touching his lips.
Blythe held the handkerchief until the blood clotted, then carefully pulled the cloth away. Before she could retreat, Tarn grasped her hand.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, his voice weighted with regret. “I didn’t mean…”
She gently pulled her hand free, draping the bloodied cloth over the nearby laundry hamper. “I know what you meant, Tarn,” she said, her gaze lingering on the barely perceptible cut, a tiny smudge of red against his skin. “And I know what you’ve done to help me feel anything at all.”
He hadn’t explicitly told her, but she’d discovered his discarded notes: theories on restoring her sense of touch, drafts of spells to simulate blushes and skin colour, shredded formulas for the elusive gift of taste. Tarn often projected an aura of effortless genius, but she knew the truth—his accomplishments were earned through exhaustive dedication.
“The only one hurting here is you,” she said, fetching a clean cloth to wipe the cut and placing it over the stained one. “Now, let’s read this letter, and then you’re taking a break before you inflict something worse than a paper cut.”
Tarn offered no resistance, opening the letter with deliberate slowness. He set Lady Barnes’ sealed envelope aside. Blythe turned to leave, intending to tend to the bloodied handkerchief, but stopped as Tarn abruptly rose to his feet.
“We’re leaving tomorrow at six o’clock,” he announced, his voice sharp with sudden purpose. “We have a party to attend.”
“Whose party?” Blythe asked, apprehensive.
“Lord Valerius Thorne is hosting a party at his estate in the Aragon capital,” Tarn said. “All the suspects gathered in one conveniently foreign locale—far enough from Her Majesty’s influence to plot freely but not so far we can’t attend on short notice.” He looked down at his wrinkled attire and then looked at Blythe in her plain dress. “We’ll need to prepare something appropriate.”
“Lord Valerius Thorne is hosting a party at his estate in the Aragon capital,” Tarn explained, a glint of strategic calculation in his stormy eyes. “All the suspects, gathered in one conveniently foreign locale—just beyond Her Majesty’s immediate influence, allowing them to plot with relative impunity, yet close enough for us to attend on short notice.” He glanced down at his rumpled attire, then at Blythe’s simple dress. “We’ll need to find something…appropriate.”
“What could possibly be appropriate for this scenario?” Blythe felt a wave of dizziness wash over her. She hadn’t worn formal attire in years, and anything remotely suitable for a gathering of Aragon’s peerage was hopelessly outdated. “You realize he’ll have you ejected the moment he recognizes you—unless Lady Barnes somehow secured an invitation from one of his known allies.”
“We do have an invitation,” Tarn countered, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “For my brother and his wife, which will serve as our…disguise.” He paused, teasing out the moment for her benefit. “My brother avoids Aragonian social events like a plague. And while his current business trip conveniently coincides with this gathering, Lord Thorne is one of the few nobles we both share a…disdain for.”
“So, there will be individuals from your brother’s social circles present,” Blythe deduced. “Won’t they recognize us? You bear a passing resemblance to your brother, but I…I’m not exactly his wife’s doppelgänger.”
“Take that back, my dear,” Tarn chided, a playful edge to his voice. “My brother and I are as alike as a masterpiece sculpted by one of the Four Masters is to a child’s crude clay figurine.”
“Yes, you’re quite beautiful,” Blythe conceded, ignoring the warmth creeping up her neck, “but won’t we still stand out?”
Tarn grinned, leaning back in his chair, hands folded behind his head. “It’s a masquerade, Blythe. Masks, elaborate costumes, and the delightful anonymity they provide.”