Lady Varali led the way through the Vinsingh Manor, the small heels of her beaded beige sandals clicking against the tiles. Her long, gleaming hair bounced where it fell down her back as she acknowledged every servant's bow with a curt nod.

They fluttered about, flashes of blue and bronze straightening elaborate tapestries of men and elephants, centring vases painted with pink lotuses and flattening carpets woven with more colours than there were names for. Esmera wondered if they were always like that or only when their mistress was in the vicinity, her sharp eyes certain to catch the slightest detail that was out of place whether or not she was trying to.

Lady Varali turned, leading Esmera, Tauram and Belaren along a corridor flanked by white stone pillars. It cut across a garden dotted with lily ponds and statues of tigers pouncing, fangs bared. They were as realistically rendered in stone as Belaren's grandfather had been from gold, and just the right size to be dangerous if they were to come to life.

Esmera ducked out of reach of an enormous paw that was too close to her for her liking. Tauram's hand was still on her shoulder as it always seemed to be as if he was afraid she'd get lost in this strange place that was a new and enchanting piece of Milatanur's many cultures. Her eyes may wander, entranced, bewitched, but she wouldn't stray from Tauram's side as long as he was next to her.

Belaren strode ahead of Esmera and Tauram, just a few steps behind his sister, probably as eager as the servants to avoid her cool, unsettling eyes and their disapproval.

Dew still glittered on the blades of grass, a beautiful reminder of how dreadfully early it was.

Esmera often woke up this early for work if she had the first shift, but she had never been this tired on those mornings. Then again, she had never awoken in this part of the world, where the day was a few hours ahead of where it would be in Esmera's home state.

Esmera should be going to bed right about now, looking forward to the day's only hours of peace from the assault of her thoughts and the painful pinch of her circumstances.

Maybe that was the problem. Never had Esmera travelled far enough away from home to suffer from jet lag, this sense of feeling like she was in a different time of day than the one that so clearly dawned all around her. It was new to her, part of the adventure that Milatanur was, but not the most comfortable of experiences.

Lady Varali's shoes clattered onwards as they entered the section of the manor that awaited them at the end of the long passage. Wooden panels held the floor above them over their heads. Within two steps, the ceiling opened, and Esmera was looking up at the green balustrades containing the upper levels of the manor behind them.

Without warning, Lady Varali took a sharp right and started up the flight of stairs dominating the hall with their winding magnificence.

Ahead was another passage, flanked by dark wooden doors. They were interrupted by windows that looked out into the foggy morning settling over the mountain. Chains of bright flowers hung above them, whispering secrets Esmera hurried by too fast to hear. Lady Varali's sandals glimmered in the weak light as she strode onward.

She stopped at the end of the passage, in front of the only set of double doors in sight. They looked like rectangles carved into a slab of chocolate. Esmera had barely had time to admire the craftsmanship before Lady Varali glanced at the two guards on either side of the door, protecting it against anyone who had been able to get past all the layers of security and up to the room deepest in the manor.

At the silent command from their mistress, they stepped together in unison to push the doors open for her and her company.

"Thank you," came her crisp voice.

They inclined their heads as she swept past them, her guests following in her wake.

Unease prickled at the back of Esmera's neck. She thought back to how the atmosphere had changed when Belaren mentioned Ajai, how Lady Varali had blanched. Perhaps the first sign that should've concerned her was the fact that Ajai wasn't at breakfast. The second was that Lady Varali had strolled into his room without knocking.

What if her refusal for him to meet Belaren in the dining hall wasn't so much to spite the brother who had deserted the family when they needed him but because Ajai couldn't come downstairs for some reason?

The door to the chambers closed behind them, sealing them in with a heavy smell of sickness that the windows hadn't managed to funnel out. Lady Varali strode to the bed in the centre of the chamber. Despite the silken curtains draped at the sides of the windows and the line of peacock feather-patterned tiles going around the room like a bow on a present, the bed was what drew her eyes.

The blue and bronze quilted comforter was smooth except where a human form bulged beneath it.

Lady Varali stopped beside the bed. As they had been doing since they left the dining room after her, Esmera, Tauram and Belaren followed her lead.

Belaren gulped loudly enough for everyone—even those without the ability of enhanced auditory perception—to hear when he caught sight of the person beneath the blankets.

It was Belaren's straight nose, his chiselled cheekbones, but this man had long, wavy hair that lay scattered in sweaty, grey-streaked strands over his pillow. His eyes might have possessed that same sharpness as Belaren and Lady Varali's if they were open, but they were closed. Even so, they fluttered, restless as the lips that murmured words Esmera could hear but not comprehend.

When Belaren finally gathered the courage to speak, his voice was rough, quivering with the most emotion Esmera had ever heard in it. "What happened to Ajai?"

Lady Varali's eyes rested on her unconscious brother. "There was a robbery at Aharya Cottage six years ago. Ajai was in Parnakshi for a meeting with the king, but Gauri and Ila were at the residence." She raised her dark, depthless eyes to Belaren. "You remember them, don't you?"

"Don't insult me." Belaren scoffed, but his words lacked their usual sting. "Of course I remember them." His face softened into a gentle smile. "I remember Gauri glowing the day she married Ajai. She was even brighter than the sun shining down on them. And how could I not remember my first niece? Ila is" —he counted the years under his breath— "eleven now."

"She would've been. Just like Rihan," said Varali softly.

Silence settled into the room, lasting only a moment until Belaren drew in a sharp breath. Tauram's hand tightened on Esmera's shoulder.

She swallowed, knowing where the story was going without needing to hear the rest of it.

It was the silence whenever the Finnaz family was mentioned, the sadness that passed over every face that mentioned their name.

"The house was looted. Gauri and Ila were killed in the attack. Ajai rushed to the scene as soon as he heard." Lady Varali's mouth tightened. Tears glittered in her eyes, simultaneously hardening them to glimmering spheres of obsidian and turning them soft, human. "I told him not to." She shook her head. "I told him that there were some things even memory walkers shouldn't see, the deaths of our family being one of them. I tried to convince him to call in someone else to give him the truth he sought, but he insisted on being the one to see who had killed Gauri and Ila for himself." Lady Varali squeezed her eyes closed, shaking her head as if to chase the memory away, as if it was a buzzing fly. "Ajai never got to tell me what he saw. He never got to tell anyone what he saw. The trauma of it was too much for him. He fell into a coma that day and hasn't regained consciousness since. We think he might still be trapped in that moment, watching his wife and his daughter die over and over again."

A sickening bitterness rose into Esmera's mouth at the thought of a group of people who would murder an innocent woman and her little girl, of a tragedy so devastating the man who had lost them had never been able to recover.

That familiar heart-aching sadness clenched at her chest. Jammas must've sensed it too. He fluttered out of the nest he had made in her hair, coming to settle on her shoulder, rubbing his head against her cheek. It was a great comfort.

Jammas had been one of the tragedies Esmera could convert into a happy ending, but there were so many others out of her control, out of the control of anyone else.

She focused her attention on Ajai's murmurs. His face crinkled and uncrinkled. She closed her eyes, and after a few moments of drowning out any sound within range but his mutters, she realised what he was saying.

Gauri. Gauri. Ila. Gauri. Ila.

"I think you're right, Lady Varali. He keeps saying their names." Esmera's voice sounded unnaturally loud compared to the softness of the sounds she heard been tuning into. Even she flinched at it.

Lady Varali stared at Esmera, dark eyes narrowed in confusion.

"Esmera is a śradūgara." Tauram squeezed Esmera's shoulder.

Lady Varali blinked her bemusement away. "Of course. All the Finnaz children were auditory sorcerers, I remember." She studied Esmera with newfound interest, no different from every other person who found out who Esmera was.

Belaren hadn't heard them if the distant look in his eyes as he gazed at his unconscious brother was any indication. "That was how Ajai's responsibilities fell to you."

"Yes." Varali's eyes drifted back to Ajai, glittering with unspoken sadness. Her voice came out muffled by the tears she held back. "After he fell into the coma, I pursued the investigation on his behalf. I hired another memory walker to find the truth. I was tempted to find it out myself, but I knew I wouldn't be able to handle it, and the last thing this family needed was to lose another one of us." She shook her head.

Esmera studied her. It shone through then how intelligent and brave and selfless she was. She had come off cold at first, perhaps even hostile, but maybe that was just her way of protecting the family that had nobody else to do it for them.

Lady Varali took a breath. "I made sure the bandits were prosecuted. The first thing I did once they were sentenced was come to Ajai's room to tell him all about it, hoping that it would bring him back, but it hasn't, not then and not in the five years since."

Belaren shoved his hands into his pockets, but not before Esmera noticed that they were so tightly clenched that the bones of his fingers strained at his skin. "Is there hope?"

Lady Varali sighed. "Not much, but Amma doesn't have the heart to give up on Ajai. As long as he breathes, we will keep him here, hoping that he'll awaken."

Belaren shook his head. "This is not the life Ajai would've wanted." His voice quivered at the end, but he tried to disguise it by clearing his throat.

"I know," said Lady Varali softly. "But to tell you the truth, I couldn't bring myself to give up on him either." Her mouth hardened. It would've turned her back into the woman Esmera had met downstairs if it wasn't for the love and grief shining in her dark eyes. "I couldn't lose another brother."