“Duke Kiraly,” Livia began, keeping her pitch level, “there’s a matter of… remuneration.” Her gaze flickered to the letter crumpled in her lap beneath the napkin, then back to Alarik. “My household. They have encountered unforeseen difficulties. A rather urgent need for an early disbursement on the contract has arisen.” Alarik’s teacup halted midway to his mouth. The porcelain ceased rattling against the saucer as the air chilled. The easy cadence of their conversation over the poet's verses snapped clean away. His features settled into hard slate, knuckles whitening against the delicate handle. “An advance,” he repeated, the word a flat stone dropped into a deep well. “You request an advance on our agreement, Mind-Mender Veszter?” A draft seemed to crawl down Livia’s collar, sharp as winter frost. She cleared her throat twice before the rasp faded enough to speak. “Yes, Duke. My sister, Sorina, would have handled such practicalities directly. But given… the circumstances of my immediate relocation here, it fell to me to convey the urgency.” She tried to imbue her voice with Sorina’s calm authority, but the words felt like dust on her tongue. Alarik set the cup down with a soft *clink* that echoed in the sudden silence. His eyes bore into her, searching, dissecting. Livia felt laid bare, her flimsy disguise peeled away by his relentless scrutiny. He didn’t believe her, not entirely. He offered no explicit rebuttal, only an unblinking appraisal that made her skin prickle. “Of course,” he said, each syllable clipped and precise. “Such an arrangement can be made. My steward will see to the transfer of coin to your kin. Consider it a… necessary operational expense.” He pushed himself upright, his silhouette blotting out the terrace casements. “Now, if you will excuse me. I find myself disinclined to further conversation this evening.” He didn't wait for her reply, simply turned and walked away, his steps silent on the heavy rug. The latch caught with an iron snap, leaving Livia alone beneath the towering bookshelves. The elderflower tea, now stone cold, mocked her from the table. The fragile bridge she had hoped to build, the tiny spark of genuine connection, had been extinguished with a single, transactional word. *Operational expense.* That’s all she was to him now, a necessary function, not a person to be tentatively trusted. She gathered her skirts and hurried into the corridor, her mother’s script burning in her thoughts. The coin would come, warding off the debt collectors, but she had paid for it with the fragile goodwill she had spent days trying to build. Back in her room, the opulent surroundings felt like a cage. She paced, the heavy velvet curtains drawn against the gloom of the Ocskay evening, the Keep’s phantom sorrows seeming to press in on her. A soft knock at her door startled her. It was Jaska, the young footman, his face a picture of nervous deference. He held out a small, intricately carved wooden bird. “A delivery, Mind-Mender. From the city. The… ahem… bird asked specifically for you.” He winked, a surprisingly cheeky gesture for the usually solemn lad. Livia took the bird, a familiar flutter of recognition in her chest. It was Gabor’s signature, a tiny mechanism within its belly containing a tightly rolled parchment. Jaska melted away as silently as he appeared. Livia unlatched the bird, extracted the note, and quickly read Gabor’s frantic scrawl. *Livia, my dearest fraud, bad news. Sorina wasn’t just tracking a *person*. She was after a *thing*. A contraption. I’ve pieced together bits from her notes, cross-referenced with academy archives. It’s called a ‘Resonance Harmonizer’ – sounds innocent, doesn’t it? But it’s designed to focus and amplify a nobleman’s inherent emotional field, turn it into a directed weapon. A highly volatile one. Imagine, Livia, weaponizing a Kiraly’s grief, a Voros’s fury. It’s disguised as an antique music box, ornate, with silver filigree and obsidian inserts. Sorina believed it was being developed by the Griselda Institute, but the trail went cold right before she vanished. And here’s the kicker: I have a very strong suspicion Ferenc has it. He was sniffing around the Institute’s disgraced founder for weeks before his 'visit' to Ocskay. He wants to demonstrate its power, perhaps for a buyer. On Alarik. You need to find that box, Livia. Before he unleashes something catastrophic.* The message ended abruptly, the ink smudged, as if Gabor had been interrupted. A chill settled over her skin. An instrument designed to twist and amplify psychic sorrow into a weapon—and Ferenc had brought his calculating smile directly onto the estate. This ceased being merely a panic over unpaid drafts and stolen credentials. Alarik’s turbulent vapor was volatile enough when undisturbed; forced through such an amplifier, it could drown the cliffs in black madness. Her focus narrowed to a singular purpose: locate that music box before Ferenc could wind its gears. He would keep it concealed somewhere on the peninsula, perhaps secreted in a disused wing. And if Sorina had tracked the contraption this far north, the design likely drew upon Kiraly lore. She required records Sorina had missed. If Alarik kept private notes regarding the lineage's affliction, they would reside in his private sanctum, not the shared reading rooms. Later, under the cloak of deepest night, Livia moved through the silent corridors of Ocskay Keep. Her lamp cast long, dancing shadows, making the very walls seem to breathe. She found the heavy oak door to Alarik’s study unlocked – a small mercy, or perhaps an oversight. The room was austere, masculine, filled with the scent of old paper and something vaguely metallic, like a forgotten key. Books lined the walls, obscuring every surface. A massive desk dominated the center, covered in neat stacks of ledgers and arcane maps. She began her search, methodical and quiet, her gloved fingers tracing the spines of books, feeling for loose panels in the wainscoting. Nothing. Her eyes scanned the desk, moving past the official documents, until they landed on a small, leather-bound volume tucked beneath a stack of old land deeds. It looked unassuming, its cover dark and unadorned, the leather worn smooth with time. It wasn't a ledger, nor a history. It looked too personal. A diary. Or a journal. Her ribs tightened around her breath as she lifted the volume. Livia opened the cover, the dried glue cracking slightly in the quiet. Her gaze fell upon stark, slanted handwriting penned across the opening page, and the breath snagged hard in her throat. “I know she is not Sorina Veszter.”

The Ghost in the Machine