“What’s wrong? Your eyes look serious, like stormclouds weighing on me.” Rexi shrank back, her pale-green hair swaying like willow fronds.

“Nothing.” Lucimia waved a hand, brushing the air like mist; she felt resigned, knowing questions would bring no harvest.

“Fine.” Rexi, breezy as a spring wind, took another swig of wine, then flopped onto the bed like a lazy cat.

“So? Any luck?” Her leg swung like a pendulum, while she asked about Lucimia’s progress.

“No. The trail snapped like a cut kite string.”

Anxious frost pricked her chest, so Lucimia held her tongue about her Duel with Auril, unsure what would crack if Rexi learned she wasn’t herself.

“Is it that hard?” Rexi frowned, ripples crossing a quiet pond. “How about we ask the locals in a village?”

“But you can’t even find a village,” Lucimia replied, her map blank as a winter field.

And doubt pooled like fog; she didn’t know if Yuna’s “Kalan Village” was another memory altered into a paper-thin lie.

“Why? Does that village not exist?” Rexi pecked at the problem like a sparrow, simple and earnest.

“Mm, probably no—wait?” Lucimia’s thought halted like a blade catching on bone.

Wait. Must Kalan Village be false? If the village is a lie, why does Karan City stand like granite? Karan City is solid, stone and street.

Confusion swelled like a tide, and a lantern of suspicion burned: if the original Rexi distrusted the Dark Deity, fearing rot beneath the altar, she made herself forget Yuna’s Devouring to warn me—what I did for Auril and Olivya.

Two stones sat in the stream.

First: would Rexi leave only one breadcrumb? Did she carve a mark inside Yuna’s altered memory?

Yuna’s words were beads on a broken string: no parents, no address; her name is Yuna; she was taken to Kalan Village; black-robed crows seized her; she was sacrificed to Lucimia.

The first bead tells me Yuna’s memory was altered. The second is her name, dull for now. The fourth points to Olivya. The lone remaining bead—Kalan Village—might be the breadcrumb.

Second: how did Rexi warn me so precisely? Did she know Olivya’s followers would ferry Yuna to my shore? Why?

She knew Olivya and Auril were aiming at me, gears grinding behind a veil. But how did she know the target?

By common sense, a “tool” shouldn’t glimpse hidden gears. Auril or Olivya would toss Yuna to Rexi like cargo, chain an order to alter memory, and close the door on Rexi.

So why did Rexi know?

Only one path glints in the rain: she had to know to alter; or, while altering, dye soaked into her—she was forced to learn of Lucimia.

Right—when Rexi warned me that “her Memory Power was being used,” she chose to make me forget Yuna’s Devouring. Why choose Yuna? She could’ve cut many threads to ring the same bell. Why that single star?

What clue is this? What song is she trying to whistle through the reeds?

Frustration raked her; Lucimia’s fingers closed on smoke, heartbeat drumming under her ribs.

“Hoo~”

She drew in air like a tide, exhaled like fog clearing, her mood settling like dust after rain.

“Rexi, let’s hit a library. Or a bookstore. We’ll see where Kalan Village actually lies.”

Resolve set like iron; Lucimia chose the thread. If Kalan Village is the hint, finding it might reveal the loom.

“Mm? Sure.” Rexi shrugged, a drifting leaf on a stream.

They went downstairs, the steps murmuring like a brook, into the first-floor tavern buzzing like bees.

“Hello. Is there a library nearby, or a bookstore?” Lucimia’s voice chimed like a soft bell.

“Library? Bookstore? No.” The server’s head swayed like a wind-blown reed. Then he lit a correction like a lantern. “Not outside. The academy has one.”

“Academy?” Curiosity pricked Rexi like a cat’s whisker. “Which academy?”

“The one here at the port.” His tone steadied like an anchor. “It’s a branch of Karan City’s academy, called the Karan Academy Branch. If you want books, go there. The library’s open to the public; anyone can go in and read.”

“Can non-students enter the campus?” Lucimia tapped the question like knuckles on wood.

“Yes. Just register.” His smile clicked like a door latch.

“Oh. Thanks.” Lucimia nodded, a petal dropping in calm water.

“You’re welcome.” Warmth rose like steam from fresh tea.

The two girls stepped out of the tavern, sunlight breaking over them like koi breaching the surface.

“Academy… That Anliena woman seemed like a professor, right?” Memory snagged Rexi like a thorn. “Annoying thing—her people poked us first, then she had the gall to tell me to surrender. So shameless. I wonder if her academy’s this branch.”

“Mm… leave her be.” Lucimia’s focus narrowed like a lens. “We’ll try the academy library. We’ll look for Lowegar Kingdom’s geography, history, or maps.”

“If that fails, maybe there are scholars in that field.” Rexi’s grin flickered like a fox. “We ask. If they won’t answer, you read their memories.”

A spark hopped in Lucimia’s mind. “Oh right, about reading memory—I almost forgot something.” Her glance struck flint, throwing a small light at Rexi.

“What is it?” Rexi blinked like a deer at dusk, innocent in the half-light.

“I want a code. When I use it, you read my memory. Then you use what’s in my head to help me, mind to mind. You can send what you want to tell me straight into my thoughts.”

“That so? But if you need my Authority Power, you can just say it.” Her words shot like a straight arrow.

“You dummy.” The scold was fond, warm as a cloak. “Sometimes we can’t speak. We need shadowed talk, hidden under sleeves.”

“Makes sense… What’s the code then?” Curiosity curled like smoke.

“Let me think…” Lucimia posed like a thoughtful statue, one arm hugging the other, the free hand propping her chin.

“Best if it’s common, not obvious, yet bright to us like a thread in our weave.”

Her thoughts circled like gulls for two minutes, then the answer fell like rain.

“Got it. When I hug one arm with the other and prop my chin to think, and I sigh long, or breathe deep, you read my memory.”

“It’s natural as a willow’s sway. People won’t notice. I think often, so sighs and deep breaths fit like tides.”

“Oh, oh…” Rexi nodded, a cork bobbing on water, folding the code into her memory like cloth.

Two locks, one key: the gesture—the arm and chin—and the breath—the sigh or deep draw.

“Good! I’ve got it!” Her voice snapped like a flag in wind.

“Great.” Relief warmed Lucimia like sunlight, and she patted Rexi’s shoulder with a soft drum of her palm.