There is a woman sprawled by the village well. A stringy dark mass of hair clumps against her sallow cheeks, shadowing her eyes.

“Hello? Are you okay?”

In response, the woman lifts her head, but not her gaze. She says nothing. Flies or mosquitoes buzz all around her, but she pays them no heed.

The villagers will be angry. It is a long trek to the nearest spring, and it has been a dry summer, with heat that presses and presses until one can no longer breathe. Dirty water is worse than no water.

Besides, they are not fond of strangers. It is difficult to understand their reasoning, but Granny has explained time and time again: outsiders disrupt the peace. Outsiders bring the unknown with them, and thus danger. Some risks cannot be taken.

It makes little sense, but these are the village rules. Granny’s rules. To break them is to betray the trust they have gifted.

Still, something must be done.

One step. Two steps. A rotting stench lingers in the air, intensifies.

Slowly, painfully, the woman holds out a hand. Closer, she beckons. Closer.

“What is it? What do you need?”

Bend down, lean close. The woman’s breath rattles and squelches. Her lips move, but no sound comes from them.

“It’s not good if you stay here! Let me get Granny! She’ll know what to do!”

But the woman grabs on, her bony grip surprisingly strong. Still her eyes are not visible, but her lips move again, forming unvoiced words in the stillness.

“I’m sorry, I can’t understand you! Let me go get help! Just hold on for a bit, okay?”

Break away, running patter slap patter down the streets.

“Granny! Granny! Come here!”

Hurry. They must hurry. Before it is too late.

But by the time they return, the woman is gone.

Where she lay, only a dark imprint remains.

* * *

Intan blinked, then blinked again. Harsh white light flickered overhead. She sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes.

A dream? How strange that she should dream of Granny now, of all times. And that woman... the stranger who had stumbled across the village five years ago. She had forgotten the incident until now. What had happened after that? The villagers had conducted a search, she recalled. But whether they had found the woman in the end, she did not know.

Beyond a door somewhere, voices rose and fell in what sounded like an argument. Intan closed her eyes again, trying to remember what the woman had been trying to say to her in the dream. She had not made very much progress when the door slid open and she looked up to see the Headmistress stalking in, black skirts swirling about her feet.

“You’re awake,” stated the Headmistress.

“Yes, ma’am!” Intan responded immediately, before realizing that she wasn’t in her dorm room or indeed anywhere she recognized.

Then she remembered the Guardian. Eguzki. The botched ceremony.

She scrambled out from under her covers, swinging her feet to the ground. Her whole body felt light and strange.

“Stop.”

Something in the Headmistress’s voice made her obey.

“You are in no state to go anywhere.”

Intan looked down at herself, but neither saw nor felt any sign of injury. She was in her undershirt and her hair was tickling her shoulders, but that was little matter. She had to --

“The others are alive and unhurt. You, on the other hand, have been out of commission for a week.”

“... Oh.”

The Headmistress strode closer, but said nothing further. Intan glanced up again to find the woman studying her with a strange expression.

She squirmed. A sudden wave of dizziness passed over her. She asked, more from a peculiar, unfamiliar sense of obligation rather than any true interest, “And the king? The ceremonies? The rebels? What happened? Is everything all right?”

“His Majesty has shut himself away again. The rebels have been disposed of, for the moment. The Council has been most upset, but I daresay they shall get over themselves soon enough.”

There seemed nothing more to say to that.

Then, quietly, the Headmistress said, “What did you see?”

“Eh?”

“That night. What did you see in the grove?”

“Er... um...”

The Headmistress’s gaze held steady. “Sunagawa spoke of a monstrous beast rising from the waters,” she said. “Dugu spoke of a shadow, a formless creature with a thousand eyes. The Wystan boy spoke of a blazing skull.”

Intan tilted her head. “Then what about Eguzki?”

“He would not tell me.”

Intan considered this for a moment, then said brightly, “What did I see... Hmm... Nothing much, I guess!”

But even as she spoke, she felt a stab of pain in her chest. Her eyes burned. “Well,” she continued hurriedly, “there was the ceremony, I guess, which was pretty neat, and a lot of talking and singing and stuff, and then that injured guy, I guess he was in disguise, he pulled out a knife I think but --”

The Headmistress held up a hand, as if to say, Enough. Intan clamped her mouth shut at once, wondering if perhaps she should have told the truth after all, if perhaps the Headmistress would know, would understand, the way Granny and the villagers back home would understand.

But the Headmistress sighed and turned away. “I did not think they would be so audacious. After all this time, they still have not learned their lesson yet, I see.”

Despite her cool, measured tone, there was a startling undercurrent of anger to her words. Intan shrank back against her pillow, hoping the Headmistress did not notice.

“The doctors will examine you now,” the Headmistress announced then, voice suddenly devoid of emotion once more, and turned away in another rustle of skirts.

As she left, Intan thought she heard her murmur, “I wonder what he saw in you.”

But then the doctors came, and there was no time left to think.

* * *

The doctors fussed and poked and argued and Intan drifted in and out of sleep. Fragments of dreams jumbled around in her mind, all of them nonsensical and fleeting. She did not know how much time had passed when a familiar voice startled her back into awareness.

“Intan! I’m so glad you’re okay! I was so worried!”

“Hadil?” Intan murmured, head still feeling rather fuzzy.

“You’ve been out for a whole week!”

“Mm.”

“We found you lying on the banks, you know -- rushed you here right away -- they couldn’t find anything wrong with you, but you just wouldn’t wake up -- it was scary --”

Intan, puzzled, offered her a sheepish smile. “I’m okay now!”

Hadil stopped and smiled back, but seemed afraid to touch her. “Yep! And you have no idea what’s been going on this past week --”

“Where are we? Where’s everyone else?”

“Oh, we’re at the base -- the campus was too far away, y’know, and the facilities here are better anyway -- everyone else is fine except I guess the attendants. They were just released, actually, but I think they’re still under surveillance, especially Gisela, although I guess they decided she hadn’t been working with the rebels after all, I’m not too sure of the details... It’s really awesome here, by the way! You’ve gotta let me show you around later! I didn’t think I’d ever get to see this place until graduation --”

Hadil continued to chatter away. Intan found her mind slipping again, back to her strange conversation with the Headmistress and the dream, earlier still. In her head the two images seemed to overlap: the Headmistress, cutting a tall, stern figure against the blinding white walls. The woman, gray and tattered, like a baby bird fallen from its nest and forgotten by its parents, though that wasn’t quite right either. An injured bird was lost, pitiful, but the woman had been neither. Rather, she had been a creature Intan suspected the villagers would have found frightening or revolting, whose existence seemed to lie suspended between two discordant states.

Still, what had the woman been trying to say? It had seemed so important at the time. There’d been something familiar about her, too, in the dream -- a familiarity that went beyond simple memory.

That reminded her, then, of the photographs. The Headmistress had been in them, as had the man she called Captain Mok.

And the woman. The faceless woman at the center of it all. The same...?

The door clattered, pulling Intan once more to the present.

“Oh, Sunagawa,” said Hadil, turning. “I thought you’d gone home already.”

Kikue sniffed and folded her arms behind her back. Her uniform looked remarkably crisp and new.

“Did you come to visit too?” Hadil was saying, in a rather mischievous tone.

Kikue looked straight at Hadil, pointedly avoiding Intan’s gaze.

“No,” she replied shortly. “We have a meeting to attend --”

A flash of understanding. A single moment of clarity. Intan saw the woman’s chapped lips struggling to form words in the hazy heat once more.

Again. Again. Again.

So we meet again.

* * *

Irina tapped her foot impatiently as the soldier before her stammered out his report. Nothing she hadn’t already heard from more reliable sources.

“Dismissed,” she said, before the babbling boy could worsen her headache.

At least he was well-disciplined. Unlike Liow’s little pet Dragons.

Yet another soldier poked his head into her office. “General Hsiung, the results are in.”

“Really.” She tried not to look too interested. Damn these little games she had to play.

“Yes, ma’am. Just as the early reports claimed. The girl is all clear. Not even the slightest trace.”

“No chance that her body had already expelled it through natural means?”

“No, ma’am. Not according to the doctors.” He handed her a folded stack of paper. She unfurled the first few pages, skimmed through the indecipherable scrawls, then folded them back into place.

“Thank you. You are dismissed.”

When the soldier was gone, Irina leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. For a moment she could almost believe that she was sitting in the middle of a cockpit again, listening to the comm’s soothing crackle as she flew over the vast seas. Then her chair creaked, and the illusion shattered.

Irina stood, glaring at nothing in particular. She rubbed absently at the scar on her nose, a constant reminder of everything she had given up or lost.

Meddling Council fools. They had grown too arrogant in the king’s absence. At least she had a hold on the Ouyangs now -- that young attendant who had been “accidentally” replaced by a rebel assassin had been confirmed as Lady Ouyang’s agent. Bitch had probably been in a panic all week. Accident or not -- and Irina was quite certain that it had, in fact, been an accident -- the evidence now painted Lady Ouyang as a traitor, a rebel collaborator. It would be quite entertaining to see the insufferable woman weasel her way out of this one.

The trouble lay with the other Clans, now. Rusli and Sunagawa in particular. Sunagawa was an idiot, but he had resources. From what Irina had learned, he had invested the most in the success of this disgusting little secret project of theirs. (It had been no secret for quite some time already, but they didn’t need to know that.) And Rusli... always the worst of the bunch. Irina wouldn’t be surprised if he had arranged the replacement of Ouyang’s agent himself.

Well, too bad for them. Liow’s little pets had thrown yet another wrench into everything. A rather puzzling one, at that -- which was irritating. She’d have to corner a specialist later to make any sort of sense out of the results she’d been given. Just an anomaly, she supposed, but Irina had seen too much to be satisfied with that kind of naive conclusion.

She didn’t have to be a doctor to understand the implications of this particular development.

She couldn’t blame the rebels, really. Stubborn Mok and his noble idealism, far more suited to the poor youngsters he’d managed to drag into his cause. A little late for his conscience to be acting up now, though, after all that had gone down during the war. His division had been right in the middle of it too, if she remembered correctly. She herself had had no part in it, had not even been aware of the truth until the war was long over and those who had been involved in those early experiments were all dead or in hiding -- an irony she felt keenly even now.

If she had known back then, would she have acted as Mok and his followers were now? Or would she have remained silent and cowering as the younger Mok had: unable to object, unable to refuse, obeying every single order without protest like a good little soldier?

She liked to think she was beyond that kind of bullshit these days. But her younger self, her younger self might not have even seen anything wrong with it, might not have even cared as long as she got to fly her Dolls into battle and give her life in service to the royal family.

Then again, if she were twenty years younger, she might have considered deserting along with Mok and the others just for the chance to kick up some trouble. But in these twenty years she had made promises she should have known better than to make, promises that forced her to hide her claws and bide her time in patience... And Irina was not a woman to go back on her word.

It might be more fun this way, anyway.

* * *

Intan and the other two girls walked out into the corridor and headed toward the main hall, Hadil still chatting away, Kikue stubbornly silent. Though she’d been a bit dizzy when she first got out of bed, Intan was beginning to feel a little more like herself at last.

Then they reached the main hall and Intan stopped in her tracks.

The hallway was built entirely from a sturdy see-through material that resembled glass. But there was no way it could be glass.

Outside, a school of fish swarmed past, then darted out of sight. Sunlight filtered down from overhead, creating shadowy patterns on the floor.

Intan shoved past the other people wandering down the hall, almost tripping a few times, and pressed her nose against the cold pane.

“Neat, isn’t it?” said Hadil at her side. “Too bad they didn’t build our dorms like this! Guess they thought it was pointless, since we’re usually not submerged...”

“It’d be better if we were on the coast,” said Kikue then, in a rather grudging tone. “Who wants to stare at some dusty old lakebed all day long?”

Intan wasn’t listening. She was thinking of long-ago summers in the secret cove near the village. Funny things washed up on the shore all the time. Wreckage. Animals. People. Maybe even Dolls, like that one earlier... No, that was more recent. She had been with Kikue.

Besides, the water had tasted... not salty. Kinda gross. Made her tummy ill.

The well had been in the other direction, though? Or was she confusing her memories?

Sunlight and shrapnel. A ring of suns against the vast seas. The smell of blood and rotten fruit.

Her head hurt. It was hard to think. Really really hard.

It was beginning to frighten her.

“Oh, there you are!” exclaimed a woman’s voice from the other end of the hall. “I wondered what was taking you so long!”

It was Miss Singh. But if she was here and the Headmistress was here then the school...?

“Intan? Intan, what’s wrong?”

“Goodness! Whatever is the matter, darling?”

Tears tasted different from sea water. Sea water tasted different from lake water. Lake water tasted different from spring water. Plus there were good springs and bad springs.

Bad spring. Something about a bad spring and something burning and everything was different now, everything had changed, and it was just so sad, so painfully, unbearably sad.

“Should we take her back to the medical wing?”

No.

“No,” mumbled Intan, wiping at her eyes. “No. I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?” demanded Hadil. “Maybe you should rest a bit more... The meeting can’t be all that important, can it?”

People were staring. They had drawn quite an audience.

“Don’t wanna,” said Intan, and took a wobbly step forward. The others looked at her with some concern.

Intan took another step. Then another.

Before she could take her next step, another new voice echoed down the hall from behind her, above the murmur of the uniformed onlookers.

“Singh. Snooping around as usual, I see.”

This time it was Brigadier General Hsiung.

“Why, can’t I be a little concerned over one of my poor dear students?”

“You are not authorized...”

“Come on,” Hadil whispered in Intan’s ear. “Let’s get out of here.”

Intan shook her head. “Meeting?”

“I guess if you insist...”

Someone’s small, callused hand slipped into Intan’s. She looked over. Blinked.

“Kikue?”

The other girl sniffed and looked away, but did not let go.

“That’s... actually not going to help very much, you know,” remarked Hadil with amusement.

“Shut up.”

After some more fussing and readjustment of positions, the girls continued down the hall, leaving the arguing adults behind.

* * *

All seven Dragons aside from Tuyet were present, to Intan’s surprise. Rusli acknowledged their arrival with a nod. Intan and Kikue sat down in empty chairs. Hadil hesitated for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision and plopped down right beside Intan. One of the second-years looked over curiously, eyes sparkling with interest. Kikue glared back.

No one commented.

In fact, one of them -- the last of the first-years, the one with the messy tree sprite hair -- was dozing rather conspicuously in the corner.

Now that Intan was seated, she was beginning to calm again. But her thoughts still refused to behave. She had been on the verge of figuring out something important, she was sure of it.

Softly, slowly, she began to hum a soothing lullaby to herself -- at least she was pretty sure it was a lullaby, for she could no longer remember the words.

Kikue twitched and gave her a funny look, but said nothing. Hadil patted her arm.

In the corner, the first-year boy stirred, but did not wake.

Intan, startled, fell silent.

The door slammed open. In stalked the Brigadier General.

“We have discovered the location of the rebel base,” she said without any preamble whatsoever.

“What, there’s still more of them?” complained the second-year who had looked over earlier.

“Felipe Mok himself is said to be hiding there right now. Once he is disposed of, this will all be over for good.”

“I suppose that shall be our mission this time?” said Rusli doubtfully.

General Hsiung’s lips pulled back in a vicious grin. “No. Not quite yet.”

As the general proceeded to outline their next steps, Intan felt Hadil stiffen at her side. When she looked over, Hadil smiled.

But Intan had already seen her face in the split second before: frozen briefly in an expression of deep and long-standing fear.