Zahara does everything she can to avoid entering her room.

She's happy to help Giada search for hers first, no matter how eerie it is that her beloved red settee has either been duplicated or transported from her cottage to the citadel. Giada insists that it doesn't bother her, but Zahara is her oldest and closest friend. She can read every line on her face.

Whatever unease Giada feels doesn't stop her from sinking into the tasseled cushions and falling asleep before Zahara is even past the door. Zahara smiles at her sleeping form. It's such a comfort to have someone she knows and adores so well here.

Making her way back down the spiral staircase, she seeks out her brother Dalmar and cousin Araceli in the western wing of the castle. Both have found their rooms in the same hallway, each door engraved with their name.

"Do you need my help with anything?" she asks them. They both decline, claiming they want to unpack the scant bags of belongings they had taken with them. Her older brother frees an arm from his satchel to give her an affectionate one-armed squeeze before disappearing into his room, but Zahara still feels bereft.

She sees a third door farther down the hall and knows instinctively that it's for her, placed considerately near her family. She ignores it.

She will miss her parents, her grandparents, the paint commissions from the city folk that she used to spend her days on. She already knows that those things won't be in her room waiting in the same way that Giada's favorite resting spot was for her. And she doesn't care to see what distorted tricks the castle has conjured up to make her feel at home.

On her way out of the western wing, her thoughts fly leagues eastward, back to her attic room with the soothing green walls and painted birds. She had spent hours upon hours over a period of summer days on those walls, years ago. Giada, who had no artistic bone in her body, had done what she could to help. Her contributions always ended with Zahara laughing and painting over her mistakes. There was a single exception made for a particularly misshapen pink flower, which Zahara had found so funny that she decided to keep it, a dear imperfection that reminded her of her favorite friend.

If the citadel tries to decorate her walls in the same way, she will always look at it and find it false.

Her feet feel weighed down as she continues her lonely way down the hall. She had told Giada she found the castle oddly peaceful, but every hint at the place's otherworldly sentience broke that sense of peace more and more. She's relieved to come across one of the other women staying at the citadel, clearly struggling under the weight of her overstuffed bags.

Zahara recognizes her: Viveka, from the wealthy Diaman merchant family. Though even if she hadn't remembered the name, she would have already been able to tell that Viveka came from a home of riches. The woven belt around her waist is adorned with beading through the woven fabric, and the brooch that keeps her traveling cloak in place is of enamel inlay.

Viveka smiles at her in passing, and Zahara has no doubt that it's genuine, even a little bashful at being seen so visibly struggling with her armload. Zahara takes pity.

Smiling back, she says, "Can I help?"

Viveka thanks her profusely before handing her a bag. Much politer than Tai, Zahara notes. Tai is her only other acquaintance whose family wealth is in the same echelons as the Diamans.

"I didn't even think I was packing so much. In fact, I was close to taking a whole traveling chest along with me too. That would have been a nightmare to drag through the halls." Viveka's eyes catch on the dazzle of Zahara's amulet. "You must be Zahara."

Her voice is bright and earnest, and Zahara wishes she had thought to introduce herself during the long way to the citadel. It was an oversight, but they had all been so caught up in the depths of their thoughts for most of the journey that it's only now properly sinking in that they'll all be living here together for the foreseeable future.

They find Viveka's name on a door in the farther western hall, only a few corners away from Zahara's. With Viveka safely settling down and in no more need of help, Zahara has little choice but to return to her own room.

Reluctantly, she approaches the door bearing her name, halfway hoping it's locked. But even that wouldn't work. There's someone here with a key that can open everything anyway.

Zahara opens the door, and doesn't know what to make of it.

It's blank.

One wall is made almost entirely of windows and the glass doors to a small balcony, which provides barely enough space for two people to stand together. Every other wall is devoid of adornment. There's a wardrobe, a desk and chair, a door likely leading to a washing room, and a large bed with a sizable wooden chest at the end of it.

She had been expecting a poor replication of her room at home, not a place so empty of any beauty or distinction it was like it sought to hide within itself.

Pulling her small bag off of her back and laying it by the door, Zahara goes curiously to the enormous wooden chest.

Lifting the lid, she feels an unwilling smile brighten the corners of her mouth.

Paints. Oil paints, tempera paints, paints from earth-sourced materials. Marigold yellows, rose reds, ultramarines from lapis lazuli. Bottles of powdered pigments meant to be mixed with water or egg yolk before furnishing the end of an eager brush.

The blank walls are not emptiness; they're an opportunity, a promise.

Whatever faraway mind prepared this room for her knows her well.

All through the night, every resident of the citadel grapples with the same struggle as Zahara: delight at a room so meticulously designed to their preference, nervousness at having their likings so fully known by something or someone unknown to them.

When the dawn spreads across the sky, Rian wakes early and is the first one in the kitchen.

Taking the opportunity to explore, he sifts through the kitchen equipment that already lies waiting: pots and pans, wooden cutting boards and sharpened knives. He finds small containers of spices like pepper and cinnamon, a jar of honey (from what bees?  Rian wonders), a small pot of sugar, glass bottles of milk (from what cow?), bags of flour, hanging bundles of fresh sage and rosemary, a large basket of nearly two dozen eggs (really, from what chickens? This is absurd), a shelf with jars of dried apples and raisins. As Jasper found yesterday, there is a bowl of fresh figs on the table, newly replenished by some invisible hand.

Rian also finds a pantry nearly overflowing with pumpkins, squash, leafy greens, pickled cabbage preserved in vinegar, glass containers of sweet jams, loaves of bread, sacks brimming with hazelnuts and walnuts, and nearly every kind of grain he can think of.

He opens every door he finds: one leads into an intimidatingly grandiose dining room that he promptly closes, one to a series of downward steps to a cellar of salted meats and fish, and one to a large garden outside. Before the garden begins in earnest, there's a clear patch of lawn that holds a long wooden table, clearly able to seat over a dozen people wishing to take their meal outside.

The clean-cut chill of early morning October air is still on the side of pleasant. Rian knows he'd prefer to take his breakfast outside. But he'll have to make it for a group of sixteen first.

When he had volunteered to come to the citadel, Rian had explained that he could contribute in areas like the preparation of meals. He hadn't been the only one: both Skander and Araceli, in heartfelt attempts to justify their going along, had said the same. Now the three of them were tasked with the managing of kitchen duties.

Rian is almost overcome at the prospect, not knowing where to begin. He has never seen so much food in one place in his life.

He's relieved when he's joined by Zahara's young cousin, Araceli, who calls out a chipper good morning. He remembers that she worked as a baker, so perhaps she'll be more comfortable in such a large kitchen space. She peeks through the various doors as Rian had done. "If this place went through all the trouble of providing these ingredients, why not just give us the finished meal while it's at it," she says, surveying the pantry.

A man walks in then, wavy black hair pushed back from his face. Even with the early-hour tiredness in his dark eyes and the self-conscious smile he gives them, he's one of the most striking people Rian's ever seen. He guesses the man to be around Edeline's age.

He introduces himself as Skander, visibly softening when he takes in how much younger Rian and Araceli are.

Between the three of them, they divide up breakfast tasks: Rian will lay out plates and cutlery on the long table outside, along with the jars of cherry and raspberry preserves, the bowl of figs and apples, and a little cheese. Araceli will slice and soak the preserved bread in milk to soften it and freshen its taste. Skander will prepare the eggs.

As Rian rifles through the shelves, looking for the jar of cherry preserve he could have sworn he had spotted in there before, Tai walks in.

He is as well-composed as ever, dressed in clothes that look decidedly out of place in a kitchen. His long stubble is carefully maintained, dark hair already washed and combed.

Rian doesn't expect a good morning from him, and receives none. Instead, Tai leans forward to observe Skander mixing eggs, herbs, milk, and a little flour into a bowl, forming a batter.

"You aren't finished yet? It's nearly eight o'clock." He watches Skander a moment longer. "Do you know you have flour on your face?"

Skander shoots him a dark look. "Take a fig to tide yourself over, if you're that hungry. Or help, if you know how."

"I won't be doing that."

"No, please. Go ahead." Skander tilts the handle of the mixing spoon toward Tai before reaching up a hand to surreptitiously wipe at his face, trying to be discreet in brushing the flour off.

Tai gives the spoon a disgusted look, but his pride pushes him to rise to the challenge. He looks at it like a wild thing, giving the mixture painfully slow whirls as Skander places a pan over the open hearth. When he turns back to watch Tai's progress, Rian can tell that he's holding back a laugh.

"Have you ever done this before?" He leans forward over the table to watch, so that both his and Tai's heads are now bent over the bowl. Tai's posture is colored with his usual vain, but Rian can see the tips of his ears turn red. He's found the cherry preserve, but lingers to continue watching the delightfully jarring image of Tai working in a kitchen.

"No, and I can see why. What a waste of time."

"Why are you acting like this is beneath you? You're not even good at it."

Tai's head flies up to fix Skander with a glare. Whatever he was hoping to accomplish with the expression doesn't work, though, because Skander only meets his eyes and laughs outright. He remembers being so nervous the first time he had met Tai: the person in control of how much he would be paid for his work on the clock. He doesn't hold anything over Skander now; he's just a man clearly out of his element.

Still smiling right at him, Skander reaches his hand out. Tai shifts the spoon's handle back into his grip and takes a step back. Skander stirs the batter to completion before pouring some of the mixture onto the pan over the hearth.

After they take their breakfast on the table outside, the Taymons head into one of the gardens to play a game they had invented long years ago. It had been Giada's idea: a familiar thing, in an unfamiliar place.

She ties the painted wooden circles she had brought from home onto the hanging branches of the garden trees. Then, she retreats a safe distance to watch with her brothers and Hilo as Edeline stands with her bow in the center of the newly-adorned trees.

"I'll keep time," Hilo offers.

Giada, Rian, and Fallon then take turns calling out colors. Hilo keeps count of the seconds it takes for Edeline to find the wooden circle with the corresponding color, draw her bow, aim, and fire at the target.

"Blue," Giada calls out, voice strong and sure. Edeline's shot takes four seconds.

"Red," Rian says, tone measured and even. Seven seconds.

"Green," Fallon says in his soft, easy voice, leaning forward with eager eyes to watch his sister aim. Five.

When they've exhausted every color, Hilo tells them the results. "Red and orange took the longest: both were seven seconds. Coincidentally, both were from Rian's turns."

Rian shrugs his shoulders at Edeline, whose face is flushed and pleased at the exercise. "They blended well into the leaves. I wanted to see how long it'd take for you to find them." She gives him a fond smile. She had already known he would take that approach.

"I was trying to make it a little easier for you," Fallon insists.

"I was just calling out whatever came into my head. Honestly, Edeline, I wasn't thinking about you much," Giada says.

Edeline laughs, at ease.

As they walk back to the interior of the citadel, though, she casts a glance backward at the trees they had played their game at. They were no different than any other trees, unassuming and prepossessing. But she can't help herself. She needs to know that nothing will crawl out of their depths in the same way they had at her family's cottage.

Satisfied for now, she faces forward once more, only to find that Rian had been surveying behind them as well.

They share a knowing look.

Author's Note: Otherwise known as "Slice of Life: The Chapter", ft. our regularly scheduled sense of foreboding right at the end.