"Unless," she adds delicately, "you're calling Orrynthal a liar."

For a beat, nothing moves.

Then the atrium erupts.

Books lift from their shelves like startled birds, parchment and scroll alike unfurling with feathered grace, catching the light as they spiral into the air. Faeries too launch skyward, their maroon wings flashing, glinting thread trailing in arcs of motion so dense it thickens the air.

Orders begin being barked in languages that crackle like brittle lacquer and additional staff pour from miniature doors, no taller than candlesticks. The press of frantic bodies lifting the temperature around them until the air feels flushed, breathless.

Eileen, calm as ever, steps politely to the side, her hand gently bringing Xozo with her. She does not flinch, she does not frown, she simply makes space for the commotion as if this were some routine ceremony. The same way one leaves a little extra room when the head librarian begins to shout.

Which she does, Mora Relle sweeps into the clearing Eileen leaves behind, sharp with indignation and fluttering authority. Her voice strains to regain control, commands issuing forth like cracked porcelain trying not to show the fractures. Xozo turns then to speak to Eileen, or seems to. It is hard to tell, hidden as she is beneath the folds of her hood. But something about her stillness that reads wide eyed and stunned. Not that Eileen returns the look, for she knows appearance is still everything even amongst the din of chaos.

Instead, she smooths her shawl with slow, practiced hands, the gesture light and almost absentminded, as if brushing flour from a countertop. For the space between disbelief and domesticity is not a chasm for her. It is a thread and she walks it with the quiet grace of someone who always knew it would hold.

'Gaslighting', she thinks. Sometimes that is all you can do to fix a problem, gaslight it until it goes away.

Not out of malice, not to wound but more as a necessity. A gentle reshaping of the story until there is only one version left to believe in, and it just so happens to be yours. Because when a system is built on ritual is mistaken for truth, on ceremony performed so long it becomes law, what other choice is there in response to it.

You cannot argue with reverence. But you can offer pageantry.

Let them demand protocol wrapped up in drama, she would instead give them a performance.

"By Orrynthal's Deathsong," Xozo blurts, stumbling a little over her own voice. "You didn't tell me you were a VIP! Why didn't you say that? That would've made everything so much easier!"

"Just didn't seem appropriate, dear," Eileen replies, mild as steam off tea. "How would it even come up naturally in a conversation? I'd have to be a real High Horse Harry to announce something like that out of the blue. And you were already going through so much, dear Xozo."

Before Xozo can respond, a small faerie neither of them recognizes flutters up. Its movements are tight and clipped, like it is stuck on a loop it does not understand. The wings buzz out of sync with its speech, sometimes a beat ahead, sometimes a beat behind, like a marionette unsure who is pulling the strings but terrified someone will notice it is off script.

It tries to speak, its lips moving silently at first. Then, finally, a sound reverberates forth, "We are sorry for the temporary inconvenience..." Its voice trails off, and a shiver runs visibly through its frame. For half a second, it looks proud of itself, a tiny fist beginning to form in quiet celebration.

But the moment passes. Its voice cracks on the next attempt, the sound thin and brittle, as if the faerie itself is about to break. A tremor runs through its small body and the wings give a final, jerky twitch. Then the faerie drops, just slightly, before recovering, its gaze unfocused.

Quietly, it recites the words again, which hang in the air like something discarded, until the moment is dispelled by a dry, wheezing cough. Then, finally, it is able to speak normally, "We are sorry for the temporary inconvenience. Please know, however, that your satisfaction as a VIP representative within Orrynthal's domain is very important to us."

Eileen smiles and begins to speak, but the faerie continues. "We are sorry for the temporary inconvenience. Please know, however…"

Still holding the pass, Eileen makes a small cutting gesture with her hand, a motion so careful it feels almost ornamental, though its meaning is unmistakably clear. The faerie's voice falters in mid sentence, the words slipping from its lips incomplete. Eileen tilts her head slightly, her tone remaining light and pleasant as she asks, "Oh, a clerical error mixed up the dates, is that it?"

The faerie freezes in place, its eyes wide and locked onto hers, trembling faintly as if the idea alone has triggered some deep internal alarm. It is unmistakably afraid, not of Eileen, but of the implications behind such an accusation. Even the suggestion of an error appears unbearable, as if reporting a misfiled document would bring down consequences far beyond the moment.

Eileen does not press, the point was to keep the Quills on the back foot. Instead, she speaks gently, her voice soft enough to rest on the air. "Don't worry, we can keep this between us. I'm only here to find someone, one person in particular."

The faerie nods, very slowly, its mouth beginning to move again as if trying to resume its lines from an earlier point in the script. It whispers through the same familiar shapes, the same tired words, but they emerge again without sound.

Eileen allows the recitation to play itself out before adding with quiet assurance, "Why don't we start with your name?"

This time, the faerie does not hesitate. Its wings shift as it answers, voice back and more level than before. Steadier somehow, as if something within it has aligned long enough to respond clearly. "Thiminy. You can call me Representative Thiminy."

Eileen offers a smile, the warmth in her expression unforced. "All right, dear Representative Thiminy. Do the Ebony Quills keep a local directory we might reference?"

The faerie glances upward towards the staircase, its gaze then trails downward to Eileen once more. Its lips pull in slightly as it chews the inside of its mouth, and its hands rise to cover its face in a strange and involuntary motion that seem to twitch at it. The tension in its posture suggests an inner argument, a split between compulsion and instinct, and when it finally speaks, the words are ragged at the edges. "Wh… Wh… Why?"

Still holding the pass in one hand, Eileen leans back a little, assessing. She thinks about lifting the pass higher, about reinforcing the performance, but decides not to. Her voice remains calm and anchored. "Thiminy, I need your help in bringing me to the Dawkith Lorth. Can you help me with that?"

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The faerie jolts slightly, as if some hidden mechanism has been reset. With no change in expression, no adjustment in posture, it returns to the default script, its tone hollow and rhythmic like a pre recorded hymn playing in a place that has forgotten why it ever played in the first place. "We are sorry for the temporary inconvenience. Please know, however, that your satisfaction as a VIP representative within Orrynthal's domain is very important to us."

The ending changing to something different, "As a courtesy token toward the satisfaction of the VIP representatives, I can help you with this issue at no additional hassle."

"Lovely," Eileen replies, her voice as pleasant and untroubled as ever. She gives a nod, not quite a bow, more a gesture of courtesy shared between tired bureaucrats. "Lead the way, dear."

The faerie turns at once, shooting forward in a line so quick and direct that the surrounding Ebony Quills instinctively move aside. They do not step away with grace or hospitality, but as if obeying a protocol rooted deep within their bones, the movements too uniform to be conscious, too fluid to be human.

Eileen, Xozo, and their guide begin ascending the marble steps, each one broad and gleaming beneath the amber light of floating lanterns. The world grows quieter as they rise, the chaos of the atrium slipping behind them like steam evaporating through a window. Yet Eileen can feel something strange beginning to happen in the air. The sound around her starts to flicker, coming in and out like an unreliable signal, and she finds herself unable to bear the dissonance without distraction.

"How long has your family served…" she begins, but the words pause in her mouth as she corrects herself inwardly. She had almost said Orrynthal, but she knows better than to assume. The key was never meant for her, not officially. Best then to lean into the narrative. "How long have you served Orrynthal's domain?"

She glances at Xozo beside her, catching just the low edge of her hood. The rest is tipped upward, scanning the arches above with a quiet attentiveness that feels practiced. Not paranoid, but focused. Familiar, perhaps, with whatever waits overhead.

Eileen does not need to be told what that might mean. It is obvious from Xozo's manner that this part of the structure is unfamiliar to her, and yet there is no fear, only that careful tension of someone trained to move through dangerous places. Eileen considers the implications, her thoughts tracing a quiet thread of logic. The Ebony Quills must be known for striking from above, a tactic that is either strategic or habitual, perhaps even a consequence of the Countess losing too many downline distributors.

Regardless the three of them move without external interruption, no one stops them, no one questions their path. The faeries ahead offer no resistance and Thiminy leads without pause, repeating the script in the same cadence, the same measured voice that now feels carved into the air around them like an inscription. "We have served Orrynthal faithfully through the ages, from their ascension on Orivath, to the reclamation of the Solvahn Expanse, and all the way to the destruction of the Xarion Rift."

Eileen listens, but does not speak, the names fall like stones through deep water, ripples spreading through water she does not recognize. The events feel distant, ancient, just close enough to be unsettling, but too far to be understood. So Eileen leaves silence intentionally in the wake,

"We, the Ebony Quills, have faithfully served the Unifier, the Redeemer, the Ascender. We have recorded, with due impartiality, the failed insurgencies of those who refused submission, such as the Starforged Covenant. Though we do not archive their names for long. They fail to stop us, all of them always do. None understand the sacred perfection of Orrynthal's domain or the administration required to govern the vast expanse of territory Orrynthal holds. Or the importance our administration is in uninterrupted execution of the Myria-annum Deathsong."

That word again, Deathsong. It's cadence is lovely, almost gentle, but the implication is anything but. It has the sound of a lullaby laced with finality. "So," Eileen says, her tone still light, as if they were in polite company and not walking into a cathedral of control, "It must have caused quite a ruckus when one of the Ebony Quills filed the paperwork incorrectly."

The faerie's wings falter just slightly in mid air, the shift so minor it might be missed by anyone less observant, but Eileen sees it clearly. The faerie's head turns too with unsettling slowness, eyes fixed briefly on Eileen before then swiveling back again with the stiffness of a figure on a track.

It then collects itself and speaks, but the cadence is different now. The voice rushes forward too quickly, the volume just a little too high. It sounds almost breathless, the lines delivered without pause. "We are sorry for the temporary inconvenience...", "With that being said, the Ebony Quills do not make mistakes. There is absolutely an explanation that will be sufficient for all relevant parties, including the VIP representative, and when that explanation is determined, the proper channels will be notified. With all due haste."

The final words catch, like static in a broadcast. A hiccup in the delivery. Xozo leans close and murmurs, "Yeesh. Someone's getting a performance review."

Eileen adjusts her shawl with a practiced hand and smiles once more at Representative Thiminy, who has fallen silent and is watching her closely again, as if waiting for permission to continue. "Of course, dear," Eileen says, her voice soft and careful, as though she were teaching a child to fold napkins. "Not a mistake, then. Maybe just a temporary reshuffling of priorities. It happens to the best of us."

The faerie begins to tremble again, this time from within, a vibration that runs just beneath the skin as though a thread somewhere inside has been pulled too tight. Its expression stays fixed, but something behind the eyes flickers. It raises its hands slowly and begins to strike its own face with increasing force, a rhythm of compulsion rather than decision, until a thin line of blood emerges across its cheek. The moment the blood appears, the trembling stops. The tension in its wings subsides, its movements becoming still once again.

Without a word, the faerie turns and flies forward, not meandering or gliding but moving in a straight, sharp line that feels more like flight under duress. The path it chooses is unfamiliar, deviating from the one they followed moments ago. Eileen and Xozo exchange no words as they follow, there is no need, something has shifted in the current beneath their feet, something they can both clearly feel.

The route becomes less predictable now and a pair of narrow staircases appears, spiraling over one another like ribbons of iron and ivory. They climb without ceremony, the faerie's wings grow increasingly rigid with each rotation, until at the final turn they barely move at all. The silence deepens until it becomes something more than quiet. It is the absence of quiet. A void that hums behind the eyes and a silence that swallows breath, not through violence, but with an old and practiced ease.

When they reach the landing of the thirteenth floor, the world feels changed. The bookshelves are gone, in their place sit rows of desks, each one occupied by a faerie with folded wings and hunched shoulders, their heads bowed over parchment and crystal, their bodies frozen in poses of work too perfectly aligned to be natural. Each figure is caught in the middle of some small, silent task, a moment preserved without motion. The air is still, not stale, not dead, but suspended, as if sound itself has been politely excused.

Beyond them, staircases emerge again, crisscrossing and overlapping in strange geometries. Their curves intersecting the staircase they just ascended, guiding the eye toward a long red carpet that winds its way into the depths of what can best be described as an archive. Which gleams faintly beneath ever turning lanterns, and the path most lit, is the one the faerie chooses.

For Eileen, the quiet becomes a gift and she allows herself to watch the space around her unfold. To actually observe what the Ebony Quills are when they are not reciting protocol or performing some bureaucratic loop. The architecture around her seems to echo that shift, for here, form has surrendered to meaning. The space far less practical than the floors below, and more symbolic too in that bizarre kind of way, you can't explain. The ceiling above spirals to impossible height, winding in precise, symmetrical arcs like the inner shell of some ancient sea creature trying to remember its geometry. Perhaps there is significance in it, perhaps it is sacred to the Ebony Quills, but to Eileen, it brings only a bizarre awe.

Her gaze falls back down and she realizes she has stopped walking. The carpet now ends just a few steps ahead, curling like a coil at the base of a small arched door. There is no signage, no brass plaque, no title carved above the frame. The wood is plain, but drained of color, pale as parchment left too long in the sun.

"This is where your guidance will continue," Representative Thiminy says. Her voice cutting cleanly through the soundless air, slicing the silence not with volume but with clarity. "Please accept our apologies for the redirection of our original path. Knowledge on the whereabouts of this Dawkith Lorth you seek can be found through here. We hope this humble envoy was sufficient in the resolution of this issue."

She bows, but not deeply, and the movement stops just before it might be called sincere. Then, without waiting for acknowledgement, she turns. Her wings flicking open in a sharp gesture, and she flies away from them with speed that holds no grace.

And she does not flit or hover.

She flees.

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