The bell tolled at sunset.

Ira Hale turned her head toward the sound. She remained still but for that minute movement, her back against a wall, her hands at her sides.

The sound faded. Ira drummed her fingers over a lacquered floor – once, twice. The third beat was lost under a soft voice picking up a familiar melody.

Ira rose to her feet. Her eyes passed over the bed, the desk, the bookcase by the door. There were books on the shelves, paper and ink in the desk's drawers, spare linens tucked away in an ensuite closet. Everything that ought to be had was at hand.

Ira would feel more at ease in a prison cell.

There was no lock on the door. A crescent atrium lay beyond, bare but for an arrangement of intricate partition screens. They were made of wood, carved masterfully to depict various scenes. Flowers bloomed in a verdant glade on one, beautiful maidens danced joyfully in another, while the moon kissed its reflection in a rippling river upon a third.

Each screen appeared to be a self-contained world. A closer study revealed overlapping details – shared trees and flowers, the curving shape of the river flowing from one screen to another. If one were to walk around the display, they would experience a panoramic view of the scene. The movement lent an illusion of motion to the carving, so that the maidens truly danced and the birds flit from branch to branch, following the viewer. Ira spent a lot of time circling the strange display. It was familiar and not, like an old dream.

The screens were arranged around a low divan. Taking a seat meant losing sight of the room beyond the carved scenery. Ira dared the disorientating experience only once, thereafter focusing her attention on the trap door that accompanied the seat of honor. It opened to a staircase that wound thirty floors, its steps arranged into a narrow spiral spearing toward the heavens. Ira had counted each one during her upward journey.

The Queen's Tower made for an oddly secure prison.

The song soared. Ira cocked her head, listening intently. Seven days had passed since her confinement in this strange place. She was yet to sleep or consume any kind of nourishment. The first was her own doing; the latter could be blamed on her captors, if one ignored the possibility that the daily visits from expressionless Zero soldiers were meant as an invitation of some kind. Ira refused to entertain the thought. Zero's level of danger was well beyond the acceptable threshold. There was no knowing what havoc their blood might wreak, not to mention that feeding upon such senseless creatures struck her as particularly bad taste.

The soft voice soothed Ira's uneasy heart in a manner she found most concerning. She clenched her hands so her nails gouged her palms to blood. The pain cleared her mind, disrupting the comfortable warmth of the songstress' song.

Ira hesitated at the door. Life in the Queen's Tower followed a routine and while she did not allow herself to fall complacent, deviations were nonetheless jarring and as such, easy to spot, no matter how miniscule. The songstress arrived as usual, exactly at sunset. The melody she sang was also familiar, one of a short repertoire of five or six soothing tunes.

The light tremble in her voice struck like a broken chord.

Ira opened the door. There was no light save for what little remained in heaven, seeping through a ceiling made of clear crystal. The wooden screens painted hoary shadows over the walls. A dark mass rose above them, its shape vaguely human. It peered down on the woman hidden behind the screens with a starved focus.

The darkness shifted. Its shadow fell over Ira in an instant, bringing with it an immense pressure that would have snapped Ira's shoulders and broken her legs had she been a second later in falling to her knees. Pain burst where her bones struck the stone floor.

"You dare show disrespect to the Queen?" a voice seethed. It belonged to the shadow and carried a jagged tone, like something fractured in many pieces.

Ira bowed her head. Her thoughts turned on themselves, chasing a spark of familiarity in the deranged words. She had heard this voice before. But where?

The woman behind the screen sang still. The Queen – Ira ground her teeth over a bitter smile. She pressed her head to the stone, accounting for her mistake. Whatever this creature was, its power was undeniable. Provoking it into aggression was a highly unwise course of action.

"I was in the wrong. May your highness forgive me," she said.

The shadow bent low, contorting its body in an impossible way. Its head lay next to Ira's on the floor, as if severed from its neck. Ira felt its gaze like a scalpel over her skin.

"Yevelina?" the shadow asked.

Ira raised her head, eyes startled.

The shadow was no longer a shapeless monstrosity. Its great mass had condensed to a decidedly human form, legs and arms distinct under a long veil that sparkled like the night sky. The creature's face was hidden but Ira found that she could read its general countenance. The question in the veiled gaze was certainly clear, as was its sudden unease.

"No," Ira said after a moment.

The shadow watched her, unmoving. "That is right," it said at last. Its words were slow, the pauses in between heavy, as if speaking required great concentration. "Why did you leave?" she asked. "It would not have come to that if you had remained. Remained just the same."

"I am not her," Ira repeated. "Yevelina Hale is dead."

The shadow nodded, somehow unsure. "She did not. But you did. How could she – why did you leave? It should not have ended that way. If you had only stayed, it would not have ended that way."

Ira did not speak. The creature appeared to be caught in tangled memories, confusing past and present and its own thoughts on matters gone by. She was content to listen to its rambling, quietly piecing together what she could from its disjointed words.

This creature had known her mother. Was this some trick, an orchestrated performance – means to an end? If so, what did the Queen's Court stand to gain by baiting her so?

"Stay," the creature bid, "Listen to Her song. It is good for the child."

The creature raised a hand. Pale fingers stretched from beneath the veil, toward Ira's stomach.

Ira fell back. She managed not to react otherwise, muscles tense with the effort to remain still.

The creature stilled. Its hand retreated, its demeanor somewhat unhappy.

The moon rose in the sky, just enough to peek over the tower's walls. Silver light spilled into the room. The creature's features grew more distinct beneath the veil but no easier to piece into a cohesive whole.

Ira narrowed her eyes. It was not only the creature's voice – she had seen this face, she was certain, disjointed as it appeared.

"Stay," the creature repeated.

An innocuous mirror hung on the wall. The creature stepped up to it – and then slipped within it and disappeared, like water pouring down a well.

Ira rose to her knees. She stared at the mirror in disbelief. Memories of running down a long hallway studded with distorted mirrors, of breaking through a crystal ceiling to the whispers of a faraway voice, rushed in and set her mind ablaze.

The song waned. Ira strode through the cover of the partitions, shedding pretenses of decorum and the caution that had guided her actions in this makeshift prison. She did not stop until she had the songstress in her sight.

A young woman sat behind the screens. She was dressed in an elegant gown, her face hidden behind a veil studded with luminous pearls. Her hands were clasped in her lap. The knuckles were white with tension.

She did not speak. She did not need to.

This woman had appeared every day, precisely at sunset. She would sing until the rooster's first crow and then disappear, to repeat it all anew the following night. Ira had believed the woman's presence and soothing songs meant for her – whether a trap or a gift, she had not been certain.

This was the first night they had received a visitor. Ira understood, now, whose mind the songstress was meant to calm.

Ira nodded in greeting. The woman nodded back, back straight, resolute to keep up her part of the charade despite her fear. Ira retreated, allowing the songstress privacy to put herself back together after her ordeal.

The woman was dedicated to her role, but she could not hope to fool a creature as dangerous as tonight's guest for long. Indeed, Ira wondered how much of the whole ruse was guided by self-delusion rather than any effort on the songstress' part, and whatever parties lay behind her.

Ira had never seen the Queen of Samodevia in person. She was not acquainted with anyone granted such an honor either; stranger yet, she had not considered this an unusual state of matters. Back in her room, the door closed securely and the room scoured for mirrors and reflective surfaces, Ira finally allowed the thought to take shape.

"The Queen is dead," she said softly.

The words rang in the silence, hollow and true.