The entrance hall of the Astranai estate was large enough that Zara's footsteps echoed slightly when she walked too fast
She stopped herself, smoothed the front of her dress, and resumed at a pace that Maria approved of. Composed and Unhurried.
Through the tall window at the end of the hall, the harbor was visible in the morning light. One of the ships that had docked overnight was smaller than the military vessels, a private vessel with pale sails, and Zara had recognized it the moment she spotted it from her bedroom window.
She had been dressed two hours ago just in case. Maria, who had been in the middle of arranging Zara's hair, had spent the remaining time doing what she could with what little cooperation she received.
"Lady Zara, if you would simply—"
"It's fine, Maria."
"Your hair is—"
"It's fine."
It was mostly fine.
Zara reached the entrance and folded her hands in front of her. The doors were already open, letting in the cool salt air from outside.
Two household staff stood at their posts nearby, and down the stone path that led from the estate gates, a carriage had just rolled to a stop.
The door swung open before the footman could reach it. A girl stepped out, looked up at the estate, and broke into a wide smile the moment she spotted Zara waiting at the entrance.
"ZARA!"
Any remaining composure Zara had been maintaining dissolved instantly.
"LISA!"
They met somewhere in the middle of the path, which was not exactly the dignified greeting the entrance hall had been arranged for.
Lisa threw both arms around her and Zara hugged back just as hard, and for a moment neither of them said anything coherent, just the kind of overlapping exclamations and giggles of young girls.
Maria, watching from the doorway, closed her eyes briefly.
"You look wonderful," Lisa announced, pulling back to look at her properly. Her gaze moved immediately to Zara's dress, then her jewelry, with the focused attention of someone conducting a professional assessment. "Oh, this is lovely. Is this new?"
"I've had it for months."
"I've never seen it."
"You haven't visited in months."
Lisa conceded this with a tilt of her head and linked her arm through Zara's as they walked back toward the entrance.
She was a little taller than Zara, with dark hair that she wore differently every time they met, today twisted up with small pins that probably cost less than they looked. Lisa had a talent for that.
"And these," Lisa said, touching the bracelet at Zara's wrist lightly. "Where did you find these?"
"A market in Calrath. Last autumn."
Lisa made a sound of approval. "The clasp is beautiful. I've been thinking about something similar actually—" she reached into the small bag she was carrying and produced a folded piece of paper. "Look."
Zara took it and unfolded it carefully. It was a dress design. Sketched in confident lines, with notes written in small handwriting along the margins about fabric weight and color. The detail was remarkable for something drawn on ordinary paper.
"Lisa, this is—"
"I know." Lisa grinned. "I've done six more. I'll show you the others later."
Zara looked at it a moment longer. The design was strange but genuinely lovely. Zara had bot seen any other nobles wear these kinds of clothes herself included , all formality and expense seemed to be there but still had a unique distinction to it , but in a way that felt considered. Like someone had thought about how it would actually feel to wear.
"I want this made," Zara said.
Lisa stared at her. "What?"
"On my next outing day I'll take this to the town and have it ordered." Zara folded it back along its creases and held it out. "You'll have to tell me exactly what fabric."
Lisa took the paper back slowly. Something in her expression shifted, just for a moment, before the brightness returned. "You don't have to do that."
"I want to." Zara smiled. "Besides, if it turns out as well as the sketch I'll want three more."
They had reached the main hall by then. Zara's mother stood near the corridor that led toward the sitting room, having appeared with the quiet timing she always seemed to manage. Lady Helia Astranai shared her daughter's golden hair and blue eyes in a way that occasionally made visitors do a double take, the difference being that where Zara's expressions moved quickly across her face and a lot younger , where as her mother's arrived and settled with considerably more patience with a mature charm to it .
She smiled when she saw Lisa.
"Lady Lisa. Welcome."
Lisa immediately straightened and performed a curtsy that was considerably more practiced than the one Zara had attempted toward a wooden box the previous night.
"Lady Helia. Thank you for having me."
"Of course." Lady Helia glanced at her daughter for a moment , most of them relating to hair. "I trust you had a comfortable crossing."
"Very comfortable, thank you."
They exchanged a few more pleasantries before Lady Helia excused herself with the same quiet grace with which she had appeared, and Zara led Lisa upstairs toward her room.
---
"She had spoken so little."
The thought arrived without warning somewhere between the second floor landing and her bedroom door. Zara pushed it aside and kept walking.
She had said what she needed to say. She had answered his questions. She had told him the city, told him the recording hadn't cut off.
It had been a perfectly reasonable first message.
"But I could have asked so many things."
"Like where he was. What kind of person he was. Whether he had figured out anything else about the box since his last message. Whether the box had followed him again. Whether—"
"Zara?"
She blinked. Lisa was looking at her from inside the room, having apparently already entered while Zara had stopped in the doorway.
"Sorry." Zara stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind her. "I was thinking."
"About what?"
"Nothing important."
Lisa accepted this and turned her attention immediately to the room, the way she always did, eyes moving across the shelves and the dresser and the window with its harbor view.
She had been in this room many times but always looked at it like she was seeing it fresh.
Her gaze moved to the dresser. Zara's heart gave a small lurch. The box was sitting there. Right beside the jeweled key, exactly where she had left them last night.
She had meant to put them away before Lisa arrived. She had genuinely meant to.
"What's that?" Lisa asked.
"A music box," Zara said immediately.
Lisa tilted her head. "Can I hear it?"
"It's broken."
"Oh."
. "Anyway, let me show you the other designs."
Zara breathed out quietly and moved to sit on the bed.
---
The afternoon passed rather quickly and loudly and with considerably more laughter than Zara usually managed in a week on her own.
Lisa spread her sketches across the floor and explained each one of them . Zara listened and asked questions and occasionally offered opinions that Lisa either accepted immediately or argued against with cheerfully.
Maria brought tea at some point and stayed long enough to be drawn into a conversation about fabric sourcing that she had clearly not anticipated.
Outside the window the harbor light shifted from morning to afternoon to the softer gold of early evening.
"I should have asked his name more carefully."
"Ronan Winston. What kind of place has names like that?"
"I should have asked."
Zara turned her attention back to the sketch Lisa was holding up.
"This one," she said. "Definitely this one."
Lisa beamed.
It was only later, when the sketches had been carefully gathered and the tea things cleared away and the two of them were lying across the bed staring at the ceiling the way they had done since they were small, that Lisa said something that made Zara stop thinking about the box entirely.
"Can I tell you something strange?"
Zara turned her head. Lisa was looking at the ceiling, her expression somewhere between uncertain and curious.
"Of course."
Lisa was quiet for a moment.
"Last week I snuck into Father's study. I needed good paper for the designs and he has the best quality." She paused. "He wasn't supposed to be home."
"Was he there?"
"No. But someone else was."
Zara waited.
"There was a figure standing near his desk." Lisa's voice had gone quieter. "I saw it through the gap in the door before I pushed it open. And it was—" she stopped. "It was strange, Zara. It looked like a person but not quite. Like it was there and not there at the same time. Hazy."
"Hazy," she repeated.
"I thought I imagined it. I closed my eyes and when I looked again there was nothing." Lisa turned her head to look at her. "I didn't tell anyone. Father would say I was being dramatic and Mother would worry, so."
Zara nodded slowly.
"You believe me, don't you?"
"Yes," Zara said. And she meant it entirely.
Lisa seemed to relax slightly at that. "I thought so. You never call me dramatic."
They returned to looking at the ceiling. Outside the window the first lamps of the evening were beginning to appear along the harbor.
Zara's thoughts had gone somewhere else entirely.
" hazy figure. There and not there at the same time."
She couldn't ask Maria. Maria would call it nonsense and then worry about it quietly for weeks. She couldn't ask her mother without explaining how she knew to ask. She couldn't ask her father, who was away, and probably would have told her gently that young ladies didn't need to concern themselves with such things.
But there was someone she could ask.
Someone who had spent part of his day being followed across a city by a wooden box and had described it with the tone of a man who found the world consistently inconvenient rather than frightening.
"Tonight", Zara decided.