The letter was soft and smooth between my fingers, oddly so. Was this vellum? Dark crimson Ink danced and spidered its way across the page.

  Sera stared as if she could blink it back into something less world-ending. She couldn’t. Neither could I.

  “You saw it,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Your father, Ashford, isn’t the Lord.”

  She looked like she was about to faint.

  That would not be helpful. She looked like she was going to hyperventilate. I helped her sit down, should I offer to help loosen her stays or something? But she calmed down and nodded once, looking so small and helpless. The colour hadn’t come back to her cheeks. I felt terrible for her. This was just supposed to be a simple murder mystery quest.

  I turned back to the letter skimming the rest. I had learnt that reading all the print was important. Especially before pressing the big glowing button and blowing everything up. But there were so many letters, was there enough time?

  Now this was interesting, "Sera," I said carefully, “There’s a spell — [Memory Veil]. It doesn’t just make people accept the wrong Lord; it rewrote history.”

  She shut her eyes. "That seems wrong, but it feels possible. I mean I can’t remember a time when my father wasn’t the Lord. I know he became the Lord of these lands when his father died when I was a babe.” Sera began to shake. “But what if that isn’t true?” It was a pleading whisper. "What if those memories aren't really my memories?"

  Dekka hopped up on the bed, sat and leaned her warm shoulder into Sera’s side. Comfort, terrier edition.

  There were more letters. I sat down at Sera’s desk and spread them out. From what I could gather, Bergmann had been an itinerant wizard of only modest ability. But when he showed up at the manor, he had quickly assessed what was going on and began blackmailing Ashford.

  I started stacking them in piles. Blackmailing other court members, blackmailing judges and lawmen, and a final pile blackmailing Ashburn himself. I was reading through one that was from Lord Ashburn to the Chamberlin.

  Oh shit. “Bergmann was going to try to get your father to give you to him in marriage,” I said out loud.

  Sera was stroking Dekka. She shuddered. “He was an odious man. He was unkind to the servants and,” she wrinkled her delicate nose in memory, “he always smelled of strange herbs and sweat. I know we aren't to speak ill of the dead. But he really wasn't very nice.”

  “Gross,” I agreed and kept reading.

  Deeper in the stack I found documents that indicated that this Land was supposed to belong to an Earl. The Earl of Seabrooke. That explained why the manor felt much grander than I would expect for a mere baron. Though I was no historian and I have no idea the liberties this game was taking in regards to actual medieval history. What country were we even supposed to be in?

  Sera eventually calmed enough and got up to start picking up some of the letters. She took the one that held the details of the spell.

  “These glyphs at the bottom of the letter here,” she pointed them to me. There were strange symbols pinched together like they were hiding together at the edge of the letter. “It says if these these are spoke aloud by anyone, the spell is broken.”

  “That’s clever,” I said. Bargain bin wizard, he might have been, but he had shown some real promise in the field of blackmail.

  “What do you mean?” She looked down at me.

  "Well, if he let your father know that the blackmail material was in here, but so was the incantation to break the spell, Lord Ashford isn’t likely going to send people out to find it, is he?”

  “No I guess not, that would be very risky,” She was running her fingers over the page. “Father would never trust anyone for fear of this falling into the wrong hands." Then after a long pause she spoke more confidently "I am going to speak them.”

  That had a nice symetry, but... “Is that wise? You might not be a Lady anymore.” I gestured around her lavishly appointed room. “You might lose everything. I mean, we have no idea who you were.” This might solve the puzzle, but what if it made things worse for the people? Memories of the townspeople came to my mind. I wanted to advance, but I didn’t want to make things worse for people.

  “It might not be wise, but it would be just.”

  Couldn’t argue with that.

  Sera stood up and held the letter out. Taking a deep breath, she spoke. The language wasn’t one I knew. It tugged at my ears the way déjà vu tugs at your heartstrings, when you are standing on a strangely familiar street corner-you’re sure you’ve never been here, and yet your feet know the cracks in the pavement.

  The syllables had weight. They thudded softly into the room and landed on the furniture, briefly denting the fabric. They bounced off the bedposts and wrinkled the lace coverlet. Flower petals in a vase on a small table shook with the power of magic. The air smelled of honey and ash and I felt it in my bones.

  With the last words of the spell the candle flames all around Sera’s room leaned toward her voice, then dimmed.

  [Memory Veil] - REVOKED CONGRATULATIONS! - You have completed the hidden quest - FREE THE PEOPLE +1 to Wis +1 to cha

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  You have received - Ring of Haste + 2 to speed (soul forged)

  Oh that was interesting. Soul forged? Like Dekka?

  Was the spell broken for everyone? “Will everyone—” I started to ask.

  The sounds erupting from the direction of the ballroom answered for me.

  There were shouts, a few crashes, and a woman’s scream.

  I was about to dash out and see what the commotion was about when Sera sagged against the dressing table, one hand gripping the carved wood so hard her knuckles went white. “I remember,” she said. Not to me. To the room, to herself. “My betrothed, James”

  The name dropped from her lips and sent a shockwave through the room. She doubled over, not in pain exactly, more like someone tensing against a memory they aren’t sure they want.

  When she straightened, she was crying in that dignified, ruined way of people who have been trained for poise their whole lives.

  “I was betrothed, not to the Chamberlain,” she said, words careful, like she was speaking the truth back into being. “James, the second son of the Earl of Seabrooke.”

  The second son? What happened to the Earl and the first son?

  “Then the veil,” Sera continued in a whisper. “Everything… shifted. My letters faded from memory, as did James. Father—” The word came out twisted. “Father became the Lord, even the magic couldn’t give him the title he coveted. “ Sera paled.

  “He killed them. Father killed the Earl and his heir. Then when James wouldn’t play along he cast the spell. And James became a scullery servant” She choked back a cry. “I looked through him.”

  That was enough melodrama for me.

  “Ok well sitting here remembering isn’t going to make things better. Let’s go see if that scullery servant remembers he’s the actual boss around here.”

  Dekka flung herself off the bed and bounced off the door and looked back at us as if to chastise us for moving too slowly. We should hurry, there could be snacks or fights!

  I grabbed the box of documents—we might need receipts—and tucked it under my arm.

  We reached the broad passage that led toward the ballroom. The noise was a physical thing here, pushing against us. Light spilled and bucked at the far end—the unnatural glitter of too many candles blown hot and then relit.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  “No,” Sera said honestly. “But yes,” and lifted her chin.

  We stepped into the doorway.

  The ballroom we’d left a few hours ago, calm, choreographed, smooth as a the lie it was— was gone. In its place: a boiling map of human reaction. Courtiers standing around holding jewel rapiers that looked far more like jewlery than weapon. Women were weeping for the dead Earl and his heir.

  From what I could make out of their sobs and snippets of conversation in their memories, it was like it just happened.

  Two gardsmen shouting nose to nose while an elderly servant was trying to pull them apart. It short it was pandemonium.

  And at the foot of that dais, the axis around which the storm spun: Lord Ash—no. The man who had been Ashford in everyone’s head. He stood rigid, jaw iron, eyes flicking with that managerial calculation men get when their company is on fire

  and they are both the arsonist and the spokesperson.

  No one stood by him. He was alone beside the cushion with the fake key. The chaos was all around but no one seemed willing to deal with him yet.

  I guess that was the role of the player.

  “Ashford,” I said loudly and strode out to the empty space. Silence settled out around us in rings. “I figured out who murdered your chamberlain.”

  He turned to face me. His jaw taut and his lips pressed together firmly. Gone was his arrogant manner but he was holding himself together with all the dignity he could find.

  “You! You killed him. You killed him because he wouldn’t stop asking for more and more of you. Threatening to tell people, to break the spell.” This was all a guess, but it was the only thing that made sense. And at this point I doubt a false accusation was going to change anything.

  CONGRATULATIONS - You have completed the Quest - Find the murderer. 30XP + 1 to Wis +2 to Int. You have received a boon from the new Lord.

  Across the room, by a column, a man in plain kitchen livery had gone still. It wasn’t intentionally dramatic; he wasn’t striking a pose. But this was a game, the light from the moons lit him up in their silver light when all else around was awash with golden candle glow.

  He couldn’t have been more obvious than if he was glowing, or had a name hovering over his head. This must be young James.

  He had the stillness of someone who has been running in place for years and when the treadmill had come to an abrupt stop he was flung into the spotlight.

  Though most didn’t notice it. They were yelling. And the thing they were calling out most for was Ashford’s blood.

  Then the young man moved. He walked unnoticed by the crowd until his voice carried and brought order. “Hold,” James said. “By your honor. Hold.”

  Surprisingly, people did.

  Ashford—no title now, just a man with nothing but his attitude and a future narrowing to a pin—raised his hands. He looked around, not pleading, not apologising, measuring. Then he did the smartest thing left to him. He closed his mouth.

  Bailiff Cromstead was standing there looking sticken. I wondered who he had been before the spell. I saw him throw up. Maybe he had been a better person once.

  James, the real Earl was now a commanding presence. He walked up to Ashford.

  “Give me your sword.” He demanded of the guard who was still linked to the key. James did not look at the guard, his eyes on Ashford. He extended his hand as if he expected the guard to fill it with a hilt of steel, and so it was.

  "For the crime of killing my father and brother, I sentence you to death. For what you have done to my people, I sentence you to death. Sadly I can only kill you once."

  Shiiiit Ashford was a murderer. I wondered if he had killed the chamberlain.

  He glanced over at a pair of guards who had come running in and were now standing awkwardly. James nodded at Ashford. “Make him kneel.”

  The guards grabbed Ashford with their thick gloved hands and pushed him to the marble tiles of the ballroom floor without a word.

  James, seeing that Ashford was not a flight risk, turned to Sera. “My dear, you should look away for this.” He waited till she turned around.

  Then in one swoop of the borrowed sword he cleaved the erstwhile lord’s head from his shoulders.

  Lord Ashford’s expression didn’t change as the head rolled till it stopped at the foot of a table. Blood fountained from the body as it slumped over, falling to the floor. Dekka growled at it and backed up as the red puddle grew.

  Sera let out a sob. As terrible as his crimes had been, he had been her father. But I just watched the blood as it found its way running along the grout between the tiles and thought how much work that would be to clean up.

  Then I remembered this wasn’t real. But that didn’t help. The corpse looked real. The fact that I would carry that image in my head forever was real. Sera’s sobbing grief was real, even if she was not.

  Fuck this game.

  James turned to me. It was hard to ever imagine him not being a regal member of the aristocracy. “Thank you, wise traveller, you may ask of me any boon. And if it is within my ability to purvey, it shall be so.

  Anything?

  A horse! A fancy new club? I did need a new club. Though I would lose all those things when I eventually died. But it would be nice not to have to walk everywhere. My luck is he’d give a beautiful white stallion or some such gift, and then the game wouldn’t let me ride it.

  Then I had it. I knew what I would ask for!