Petronella watched curiously as Willem looked at her up and down. His immediate reaction had been alarm—she’d seen that on his face as plain as day. She didn’t make any sudden movements. She had merely intended to set the stage for the conversation. If he was as bright as she thought, he would piece things together very quickly.

  “What are you?” Willem asked.

  “You were raised in a household of martial tradition,” Petronella said, her true and regal voice shaking the room. “You should know from sight alone. Your father and I have even crossed one another on the battlefield.” Her hands traced her human stomach. “I bear a token of his esteem.”

  Willem looked to her stomach—there, he saw a familiar sight. A golden scar adorned her immaculately pale flesh, shimmering. He looked back up.

  “Would you believe me if I said you’re the second woman to show me the fact that Tielman sliced and diced them?” He sighed. “She attacked me not long after. Is this going to end similarly?”

  Woman, Petronella noted. What a curious address.

  “We’ll engage in conversation alone, unless you attempt to make things difficult for me. I’ve gone through great lengths to ensure we can speak uninterrupted and unobserved. My magic ensures it.” Petronella’s lumbering lion body laid down, but even prone, she now towered above him. She wrapped her snake’s tail around her body. “As I said, the past has caught up to you. To us both.”

  “Meaning?” Willem relaxed his posture somewhat.

  “You’re a little duller than I expected,” Petronella said in disappointment. “Do you think it would be so easy to run away from the fact that you poisoned your father at Avaria’s behalf?”

  Willem looked minutely annoyed. “I didn’t poison the baron.”

  Petronella’s snake tail hissed, belying her own irritation. “Don’t bother lying. I know everything. I’m of Avaria—why wouldn’t I?”

  Willem only chuckled as if the situation was amusing. “I see now.”

  “All you achieved by flight after the poisoning was delaying the inevitable,” Petronella said condescendingly. “You must’ve known this. Now, they’ve returned. They intend to kill you, your father, and your entire family to make way for the invasion.”

  “Invasion?” Willem repeated.

  “Did I stutter?”

  Willem’s eyes went distant as he fell into thought. “And why in the world are you telling me this?” He crossed his arms. “You said you’re one of them.”

  Petronella knew why she was doing this. Because it was all so tiresome, this game of life. To postpone the inevitable end, doing the bidding of people that she hated. She didn’t want to see Avaria succeed, didn’t want them to disrupt her amusement. And so long as she collaborated with Willem, she might be able to ensure Dorothea’s failure cast none of the blame on her. Petronella was too valuable to simply let die.

  If they did let her die… so be it. For a slave of Avaria, death was the only true freedom.

  “Because I have my own aims,” Petronella said instead. “Your death simply isn’t beneficial to me at present.”

  “It’s very reassuring when you say, ‘at present,’” Willem said sarcastically. “Calms my nerves.”

  “Dorothea Rook,” Petronella carried on, crossing both her talons and her human arms over each other. “I believe you know this name. She’s here with her brother, Arend. They intend on arranging a duel of some kind, during which you’ll likely be sabotaged and killed. I believe it will be easiest to counteract their sabotage, slaughter the poor fool, and have you unravel Dorothea’s scheme on your own.”

  Willem rubbed at his eyes tiredly.

  Petronella nudged the bench he sat on lightly, shifting it backward with ease. “Pay attention. Be grateful for my aid. Without it, you would be like as a fish deprived of the ocean.”

  Willem, a little startled, comported himself. “Since you’ve taken it upon yourself to take off your mask, so to speak, I think I’ll take the time to clear some things up. One: I don’t lie. I haven’t lied in many years, unless you count jokes. Two: I don’t have any idea what you are. Three: I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

  Petronella flexed her talons, in no mood for jokes. “I advise against trying my patience, Willem.”

  “The person that’s trying to save my life is making threats?” Willem shook his head. “I don’t buy it. You said you did magic, right?” He gestured. “Check if I’m lying. That mage back in the barony could. Can you do the same?”

  Petronella pondered if she should genuinely even entertain this notion for more than a few seconds. Still… his insistence brought her pause. Her magic was different from that of men and women, but she could certainly sus out lies.

  “Very well.” She channeled the magic through her beast’s blood, and the sight of truth coursed into her eyes. “Tell me the truth, then. If you speak one falsehood, I will know.”

  Willem brought his arm up on the bench. “Like I was saying…I haven’t told a deliberate lie that wasn’t a joke in fifty years. I didn’t poison Baron Tielman. I don’t know what you are. I don’t know those people you mentioned, and I don’t know anything about Avaria. That’s because I’m not Willem van Brugh, I’m Willem Jansen.”

  Petronella’s talons dug into the floor, nearly splitting it. “Fifty years? You’re barely twenty. You’re speaking absurdity.”

  “But I’m not speaking a lie, am I?” He crossed one leg over the other, seemingly at ease. “Baron Tielman isn’t my father. Viviene Dubois isn’t my mother. I wasn’t adopted or anything of the sort. I’ve been alive in this place for only a few months after I possessed the body you’re seeing now. I don’t know whether I was reincarnated, or if this is some sort of afterlife… and quite frankly, I don’t really care. I’m just having fun doing what I always have. And what am I doing? Minding my own business.”

  The magic faded from Petronella’s eyes, and she was without words. Her brain scrambled for some sort of way to deny what had been said, but Willem’s aura was still and unmoving. Her magic had not failed. That meant that Willem truly believed all that he said. Whether or not it was true…

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  “Some mental illness tends to surface in young adulthood.” She leaned in closer, and grasped his hair firmly. She peered into the depths of his eyes. “But I can see none of the taints of madness, nor any traces of meddling.”

  “You’re a bit close,” Willem said.

  Petronella leaned back, eyeing him with suspicion. “I have neither heard of nor read about one soul possessing the body of another in all my many decades of life.”

  “Cool,” Willem said dispassionately.

  Petronella huffed and released his hair. “I don’t see how you can be so utterly disinterested.”

  “Life was just as much a mystery the first time it happened to me,” Willem said, correcting his hair. “I just do what I want.”

  Petronella didn’t waste her time being absorbed in the man’s apathy. “The fact remains that people are trying to kill you,” she said. “Can you defend yourself?”

  “I know how, sure, but it’s been a while. And I’m used to different weapons.” He raised up his thumb and forefinger, imitating something. She wasn’t sure what the gesture meant.

  She leaned in closer. “Could you defeat a knight in a duel?”

  “I can’t use aura, if that’s what you mean,” Willem said.

  Petronella pulled her body away. To test the veracity of his claim, she sent her snake-like tail lunging forth, teeth outstretched. Willem’s head lurched back in alarm, but his aura did not manifest. That was as much proof as anything. She had heard tales of amnesiacs losing the ability to use aura. This situation seemed different, yet…

  “Who else knows of this fact?” Petronella asked.

  “It’s never come up before now,” Willem said. “You’re the first to know.”

  She leaned in near his face. “If you knew what I am, I would be the last one you tell that you’re powerless.”

  “Again, you’re trying to save me.” Willem tapped his temple. “I pay attention.”

  “If you can’t fight… this is problematic.” Petronella settled back on the rest of her body. “You still have your aura. If you learned to use it well enough, could you win a fight?”

  “The man wants to duel me, you said?” Willem tapped his foot on the ground. “I’m not interested. There’s got to be a different way out of this.”

  “Of course there are other ways,” Petronella said. “But this one is cleanest. Can you learn?”

  “Maybe if it was hand-to-hand. With a sword? Doubtful. Still, I’m not doing it.” Willem looked at her relaxedly. “Not like that, at least. It’s not my way. I’ll think of something else before it comes up.”

  “You’ll do what you’re told if you want to live,” she said firmly, lowering her head to peer into his eyes.

  Willem didn’t flinch. “I’ll do what I want or die where I stand.”

  Petronella wanted to rebuke him as foolish… but in his blue-eyed gaze, she could see her own reflection. Was that not precisely what she was doing? Foregoing a full Rejuvenation of the Fountain for her own desires, her own wants… and her own fatigue. There was something of her own tired attitude in Willem’s eyes.

  In his eyes, she saw her own. The eyes of someone who was too old to compromise anymore.

  “You’re sitting, not standing,” Petronella pointed out condescendingly. “But… very well. I wasn’t expecting you to be such a liability. So very useless. I’ll need some time to figure out how to drag along your deadweight. We’ll speak again tomorrow. I’ll be… markedly less conspicuous.”

  Willem stood. “Why are you bothering with me?”

  “Why are you quibbling?” she asked. “Be happy I deigned to.”

  Willem fixed the cuffs on his shirt. Petronella wondered if he cared whether he lived or died. “How old are you, anyway?”

  Petronella wondered what answer to give. Considering his honesty, she decided to be truthful. “Ninety-eight.”

  Willem nodded. “Interesting. I’m eighty-seven.” He fixed his hair. “And open-minded.”

  Petronella narrowed her brows. “What does that mean?”

  “Think on it.” Willem gave her a smile and a wave, then walked away.

  Petronella did think on it. When she came to what it might be—that the only time he’d expressed any interest in her had been when she was in her true form, and expressed her true age—a certain idea came to her head.

  Perhaps I should simply let him die. Thirty years is thirty years.

  ***

  “Good morning, Dirk,” Willem greeted him as he walked down the stairs. “Did you sleep well?”

  Dirk rubbed at his eyes. “Good morning. You rarely wake up before me… especially not when you return so late. Did something happen last night?”

  “I didn’t sleep. I wrote a letter,” Willem said, holding said letter.

  “A letter?” Dirk repeated. “You always make me write those.”

  “I intend on sending it to the capital,” Willem continued. “But it needs to be discreet.”

  “Why?” Dirk asked. “What, you’re confessing your crimes to the king, begging for amnesty?”

  “What else?” Willem said, spinning it through his fingers. “What’s the point of being rich if you can’t beg the central government for favors?”

  Dirk scoffed, assuming Willem didn’t want to answer. “Couldn’t have taken you all night for one letter, though. Something else happen?”

  “Sure. I spoke to a beautiful ninety-eight-year-old woman. I think I liked her. She opened up to me; it was a very touching scene.” Willem was looking at some papers, but he put them down and glanced at Dirk. “She told me that people collaborating with Avaria were trying to kill me.”

  “So you drank too much?” Dirk guessed. “Great. Want tea?”

  “No thanks.” Willem stood up, stretching. “The way I figure it… you can die anytime you want. But good business deals? If you miss them, they’ll slip right out of your hands. Like a bar of wet soap, Dirk.”

  Dirk sighed as Willem babbled. “I think you’re missing the point of death.”

  “I can’t let a few assassins get in my way of good business,” Willem rolled his shoulders. “I’ve got big plans today. Big plans! And since you don’t have any appointments… you’re coming with me today.”

  “You’re joking about the assassination thing, right?” Dirk asked.

  “Let’s find out.” Willem walked to the door. “Have you ever survived an assassination attempt? I have. Well, it might’ve been a kidnapping attempt so they could ransom me back for major cash. If the battlefield counts, I’ve been through plenty. I guess they’re called ‘ambushes’ there.”

  Given the choice between ambush or assassination, Dirk wasn’t an eager follower… but did he follow.

  “At least let me eat breakfast,” Dirk complained.

  “You think better without breakfast,” Willem countered.

  Dirk reasoned that there was no way Willem could be so cavalier if his comment about assassinations was true. Willem only told lies when he was joking, so he must've been joking. Surely that was it.