Ederra couldn't make head nor tail of the Kassi National Library sorting system. Books and journals and other resources were thankfully grouped according to the field they belonged to, but that was where logic ended and chaos began. Rather than having related subjects border one another, they had seemingly been placed at random according to the momentary fancies of mentally challenged former librarians, and for the sake of tradition, hadn't been moved to more obvious locations.

So after spending way too much time finding the botany section, Ederra had made quick work of the available books and surmised that none of them contained any mention of gourds whatsoever. The most she could find was an outdated dictionary that seemed to mistake them for pumpkins, and so she next tried her luck at the cooking section, then decorative art, and finally, the history of water containers. That last one was a bit far-fetched, but she was running out of ideas and patience.

She didn't feel like asking any of the assistants roaming the dusty corridors between the bookcases for help, because gourds were enough of an unusual subject to garner unwanted attention, and the last thing she needed were people looking into her activities. She should have been at home, preparing Tahni as best she could for the following confrontation with her ravenous competitors, but one look at the fresh gourd she'd placed on the windowsill of her room had sent her scuttling out of the house. She hadn't even looked at Meyo's research notes, though she'd have to see to them as well.

She moved her finger along the age-worn spines, holding her breath so as not to sneeze at the gently drifting dust. She had had other expectations of this often lauded fountain of wisdom, but she was beginning to suspect that the assistants preferred to engage in anything that was not related to their actual duties. Even now, she spied a cluster of them giggling behind the war chronicles section.

Ederra sighed, realizing she'd already given up on her search. Were she to ransack the entire establishment, chances were she would still not find anything useful. And if she were being honest, she'd much rather be trading silly secrets with the assistant librarians.

She paused, hand hovering above a row of dubious animal husbandry instruction manuals, as it suddenly dawned on her that nothing stopped her from doing just that. Casting furtive glances around, she glided to the next row over, and from there took cover behind a couple of low tables, laden with manuscripts that appeared to be one gentle breeze away from total disintegration. Creeping on her haunches, she approached the huddle of assistants whispering excitedly just a little way away.

"Is this a new trend? Should I ask uncle to do the same with our carriage?"

"Don't be silly, it'll look like a cart."

"Are we sure that wasn't the point?"

"The man's a Councilor, for crying out loud!"

Upon hearing this, Ederra took a sharp breath, and tried to get even closer. A fallen parchment tickled the tip of her nose and she quickly covered her face with her palms.

"I still don't get how he got to the palace on a carriage with two wheels."

An unnatural silence reigned for a few long seconds, and Ederra was beginning to think they'd noticed her, but then a sudden peal of laughter broke out.

"Weren't you listening? They didn't cut his carriage vertically, but horizontally."

"Idiot."

"Who did?"

"The evils! They've been after him for ages. He was just riding along the main square and the top flew off."

"What are you talking about? I thought he was just weird and did it himself."

"And almost took his head off in the process? He may be weird, but he's not stupid."

"Supervisor!"

"Scram!"

Ederra's eyes widened in panic and she froze, nearly flattened against the floor behind the tables. She might have been out of the assistants' direct line of sight, but if anyone approached from the wrong direction and leaned ever so slightly... She wanted to shudder, but couldn't afford to, so she settled to wait, heart pumping furiously, head churning out one implausible excuse after another.

At length, two sets of footsteps approached and stopped by her, as someone reached out for a parchment.

"I couldn't say that I've seen such a person, my lord. People come and go, of course, and we do get the occasional couple seeking a sheltered place, but they usually prefer the back rooms on the first floor."

"I see. Kindly keep me informed of future developments."

At the sound of that second voice, Ederra perked up again. There was something strangely ominous and alluring about it at the same time. It was cutting and unyielding, no doubt belonging to someone who knew what he was doing. Unlike her.

"Those rascals!" spat out the first voice. "I swear, sometimes I can't tell the difference between lusty interlopers and my own assistants. Excuse me."

As the supervisor retreated to chase after the gossiping truants, the other man hovered by the table for a few seconds that for Ederra felt like an agonizing eternity. At last, he turned to leave, his soft steps quickly fading away.

Overtaken by an unusual bout of curiosity, Ederra crept around the table to duck behind the next book section. She caught the faint sound of the stranger's passage and followed along from the other side of the bookcases until she reached one of the main avenues ahead of him and peeked carefully around the corner. Sure enough, she saw him emerge, heading away from her and towards the exit.

Under normal circumstances, she might have remarked upon his tall, graceful frame, the elegant cut of his suit or the absence of any defensive weapons at his side, but what immediately drew her attention now were some of the largest water gourds she had ever seen - very similar to the one Tahni insisted on calling «Meyo Junior», though she couldn't be sure at that distance.

Before she had time to think through her plan, she was scurrying after him, making no particular efforts at disguising her approach. Sure enough, he whirled around at once, and she skidded to a halt in front of him, not taking her eyes off his gourds. She wanted to grab them and feel for the familiar texture, since upon closer inspection, they didn't appear exactly like the one from home.

"Excuse me," she panted. "Where did you get those?"

"What do you mean?"

There it was again, that slithery voice. It made her skin prickle and rise in goosebumps warning of imminent danger were she to get too close. But his face was an entirely different matter. Looking up, she saw that every feature, from the cut of his jaw to the shape of his eyebrows, longed for sharpness, and yet was thwarted by an incongruous puffiness. Albeit almost imperceptible, it gave Ederra the sudden urge to clasp his cheeks and pinch them as she would with her adorable, newly-born half-siblings. Thankfully, his flinty gaze gave her pause, and she swallowed nervously.

"The gourds," she said, in as level a tone as she could manage.

His cold eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"What, if any, did faults the old swine herder had?" he whispered.

There was no hiding her gawking this time, and he sighed.

"The bazaar, Mistress. Every other stall, if you have the patience to look."

He turned and walked away immediately after imparting this priceless morsel of wisdom, and Ederra had to admit she had had that coming. She'd never been accosted by anybody with a strange request before, but that was probably because she had barely stepped foot outside her father's house. In the real world, that must happen quite often, so it was not as if she'd just made a complete fool of herself.

Thinking back to the man's eyes, she could barely suppress a shudder. It was a good thing he had dismissed her the way he had, because something at the back of her mind insisted he was the sort of person to hold a grudge, and actually have the gourds to do something about it.

Gourds. Ederra wanted to groan. She had neither the time, nor the inclination to go wondering around the bazaar looking for natural water containers that resembled her fiancé. Unclenching her fists, she took a deep breath, and started for the exit as well. With a little luck, her absence may have not even been noticed, but she was already running through a list of excuses when she finally emerged out into one of Kassi's busiest thoroughfares.

The library was mercifully close to the upper residential quarters where Minister Sebek had his estate, and within sight of the southern wall of the palace. Ederra gulped when she remembered her duties as newly appointed lady-in-waiting and accessory to theft. She picked up her pace, darting through the throng as nimbly as she could in her dash to get back to Tahni.

Silence had reigned near her friend's room when Ederra had left the women's wing, and she hoped they would be able to make good time on their preparation for tonight's second trial. Ederra quickly recounted the short conversation she'd had with Belis outside the breakfast room, in which Tahni's mother had offered no useful piece of information about this evening's proceedings whatsoever.

"A trifle," she'd scoffed. "They just gather them round and tell some stories."

That, of course, could mean anything. Ederra gritted her teeth, and although her shoes were chafing at yesterday's sores and beads of sweat were pouring off her brow, she forged ahead until she staggered before the Sebek estate entrance. Immediately, she assumed a more dignified position, striding languidly into the yard, acutely aware of the high color of her face and the dubious state of her hair.

No matter. She wouldn't be the one expected to perform tonight.

She hurried inside, and when she passed the open door to the main salon, she caught the malevolent eye of Nazar the housekeeper. Quickly inclining her head so as to hide her splotchy face, she sketched a curtsy and hurried on. A high born unmarried woman could get away with curtsying at the staff if the person in question was of a higher standing and the lady herself was not officially part of the household, but only if one stretched centuries-old rules to their very limit. Still, if the lot of them viewed Ederra as a stickler for propriety, she might stand a better chance of being allowed near Tahni.

When at last she reached her friend's room, Ederra knocked curtly and pushed the door open. Immediately, the sight before her gave her pause, and for an instant she became convinced that she had ventured into the wrong place. It was a bit dark since the heavy curtains were drawn, but the state of the room could not be mistaken.

It was clean. Actually organized, like Ederra kept her own chamber in this house and back at her father's estate. She almost hurried out again, ashamed at disturbing a stranger, but then she spotted the sleeping figure on the bed, one foot sticking out from beneath the covers, hair spilling wildly across the pillow, grinning even in her sleep.

Ederra let out a long-suffering sigh and moved forward to shake the other woman awake.

"It was Steppo," grumbled Tahni, stubbornly refusing to fully awaken. "He'll make a speech or ... something ..."

"Wake up or you'll miss the coronation," whispered Ederra. "They're making you queen!"

Tahni cracked an eye open and peered suspiciously up at her.

"How much is the crown worth?"

Ederra leaned away, allowing Tahni to stretch and yawn to her heart's content. She winced at the smarting limbs from yesterday's brawl and the plethora of fresh bruises hidden beneath her night dress.

"Some day," she murmured wearily, "I'll be free to start the day of my own accord."

"It's way past noon."

"So? My day doesn't begin until I say so."

Tahni moved slowly to a sitting position, and Ederra saw the flash of surprise in her eyes at their surroundings and the changes she herself must have brought on.

"Did you stay up late to clean your room?"

Tahni frowned, then yawned again. Kicking away the covers, she set her feet down onto the floor, but didn't immediately stand.

"Hardly," she said. "I had to move my stuff away. In retrospect, it was silly to keep it here in the first place." She grimaced and bared her teeth as fury briefly flared up in her cheeks. "My idiot brother had too easy an access to it all."

Right. The idiot, not the missing one. Ederra shifted uncomfortably as her thoughts flew back to the lone gourd she'd left in her room.

"I wonder," mused Tahni, "should we bring Meyo Junior with us to the palace tonight? As a token of luck, that is."

Ederra swallowed and dried her suddenly sweaty palms against her dress.

"We don't know that such incidents haven't occurred before," she said. "We would draw too much attention to ourselves."

"You mean more attention than my utter inability to perform their so-called simple tasks? I'll probably need all the luck in the capital."

"If only we were able to gather more information about tonight's trial, we might have enough time to prepare."

Tahni snorted, then finally deigned to stand up, albeit shakily.

"I know what tonight will be," she said confidently. At Ederra's questioning stare, she went on, grinning. "Prime opportunity for inventory acquisitions. So I'll kindly need you to come up with a distraction."

"Me?" asked Ederra incredulously. "Why?"

"Because I'm feeling too guilty to think." Gazing up at the ceiling, she pounded a fist against her chest. "Poor Meyo, taken from us so cruelly!"

"Everything about those circumstances is debatable and we have no way of-"

"Which one do you think is better? The receiving wing or the living quarters? I'm not sure myself..."

Muttering under her breath, Tahni hobbled to her wardrobe as Ederra struggled to hold in her mounting fears. Feeling the bite of her nails against her palms, she blinked back unbidden tears and vowed to keep herself steady.

"I'll see about getting you some food."

When Tahni made no response, absorbed as she was in her quest of finding clean garments in a wardrobe that had clearly been spared from the neat organization of the rest of the room, Ederra turned on her heels and walked out into the corridor. Resisting the urge to head back to her own room and check if Meyo hadn't miraculously returned, she headed for the kitchen instead.

All the way, she had the uncomfortable impression that instead of merely skirting a catastrophic possibility, they were diving in headfirst, but whatever Tahni was getting them into now, Ederra would have to find a way out. Otherwise, they might both just spare everyone the trouble and walk freely into their reserved prison cells.