Chapter 1.3

The door to Castle Gramarye’s audience chamber opened.

The windowless hall was lit by a chandelier. Upon each candelabrum flickered wax candles. Above them, a painting covered the dome ceiling. A queen dressed in black robes stood upon a crescent moon. Her hands reached towards the evening sky, where rows of golden stars stretched into the heavens.

The woman who walked into the chamber carried a thin novella beneath her arms. She was dressed plainly in a long coat and navy skirt. She stopped beneath the chandelier and took a moment to adjust her glasses.

“No need to pretend you weren’t here first, Fang Fang,” she said.

Eight ivory ionic pillars stood and formed a circle around the center. Another woman, this one in a maroon qipao and silk brocade shoes emerged from the shadow behind the closest column.

“Nothing ever slips past you,” the woman sighed. “No one but the dead is silent enough for Gentiane, the Librarian Egregore. The others are–”

“Behind me. I know,” Gentiane paused. “Sorry. I know you were simply making conversation. Can you prepare your tea, Fang Fang? I’ve missed it.”

“Anything for you, Gentiane,” Fang Fang smiled. “I’ve even learned some new tricks this year. Would you like me to put on some music?”

“Yes, please.”

Gentiane crossed the room and took a spot by another pillar. A chair materialized from the chamber floor beneath her when she moved to sit down. She tossed one leg over another and unfurled her book to her last saved page.

She heard the sustained sigh of a violin while a porcelain tea set drifted towards her. A flame born of no kindling waxed below a ceramic pot, then faded when steam began to rise from the spout. Gentiane smelled hints of chrysanthemum spotted with notes of osmanthus.

“A personal touch,” Fang Fang arrived beside the tea set. In her hands, she rolled an orange tuile and set it atop the tea, “for your skin.”

“I’ll ignore that last remark,” Gentiane took her cup. “Thank you.”

“Am I early this time? Am I the dignitary this year receiving Fang Fang’s first–oh. It looks like Gentiane wins again. Of course.”

A suntanned witch entered the chamber. Her short, bushy hair was adorned with golden threads. Jeweled bracelets jingled on her wrists. A long, satin cloak flowed behind her heels.

“You don’t even like tea, Khali,” Fang Fang replied.

“You’re right. I just want to see the look on your face,” she grinned, “on the day you have to serve someone other than Gentiane your first brew.”

“I like tea. I’ll have some,” came another new voice.

A young teenager, no older than junior high, stepped into the chamber beside Khali, dressed in ordinary school girl’s clothes. A black cat stood perched on her left shoulder licking its paws.

“Of course, Dahlia,” Fang Fang smiled. “You get to have tea. And what does Maomao want?”

“She ate before coming here. She’ll get fat if you feed her anything else.”

The feline hissed as if protesting, which of course, was silly, because everyone knew cats could not understand human speech.

“That makes four,” Fang Fang counted. “Which means the next one should be…”

The chandelier shifted and swayed above them. It groaned towards the side where a shadow had landed. Candlelight revealed streaks of silver hair.

“There’s no need to show off, Baba Yaga,” Fang Fang frowned. “You’re not the only one who knows how to phase into the castle.”

The Egregore’s newest member leapt off the chandelier and landed in the center of the room.

“But I’m the only one who’s never tried it yet,” Lady Baba Yaga shrugged. “Now that I know it’s not such a big deal, I won’t do it again.”

Baba Yaga’s eyes scanned the audience chamber for the first time. To her, the chamber seemed so… plain. The walls were painted a sickly chrome. The surrounding eight pillars, while simple and elegant in design, were almost the only artifacts aside from that unremarkable painting and…

And yet. Who is that, anyway, Baba Yaga wondered. She gazed at the ceiling again, at the outline of those black robes above when she first materialized inside the castle. She looked away, part embarrassed, part instinct. Something about staring at those bizarre arrangements of stars seemed wrong, Taboo even.

She settled her eyes on Gentiane, who ignored her in favor of her book. The Librarian Egregore sensed Baba Yaga’s eyes and looked up.

“You wanna read?” Gentiane offered the book towards her.

“I’m sorry,” said Lady Baba Yaga. “I only read Russian novels.”

“So?” Khali said. She held up two slips of folded paper. “Did anyone else read Lisa’s letters?”

“Out of an abundance of precaution, I never read anything by her,” Fang Fang chuckled. “I prefer she narrate Stories to me. It’s much safer that way.”

“You, fresh blood!” Khali stared at Lady Baba Yaga. “She mentioned you in her letter. What’s she planning?”

“She wishes to tell a Story,” Baba Yaga said. “But she did not divulge any details to me. She only asked for my Permission.”

“She didn’t request any of our Permissions?” Dahlia asked, nervously. “Miss Everest rarely tells a Story without asking us first. She hates it when we intervene…”

“Maybe she thinks this one will be too good to interrupt,” Fang Fang crossed her arms. “Or maybe…”

“I don’t like it,” Khali growled. “She’s up to something. She’s always been up to something, ever since she became one of us.”

“And what’s so wrong with that?” came a theatrical bellow.

A woman dressed like a witch strutted in. The necessity of this statement seemed rather questionable as, were it not obvious by now, the audience chamber of Castle Gramarye served as a gathering place for the world’s premier witches.

But Lisa Everest’s attire should be especially noted, as she was the only attendee among the Egregore who dared to dress like a witch in its popular imagination, a tall pointy hat, a deep violet dress that exposed her shoulders and collar bone, long curled blond hair, porcelain doll hands, and lace up boots. Lisa Everest even carried with her a wooden staff, though she had no use for it.

The only items that felt perhaps out of place were the shopping bags hanging over her right arm.

“Better to be up to something than nothing, Khali,” Lisa beamed. “Anyway, I’m sorry for being late, everyone. The President wanted to host a farewell party before sending me on my way. I’ve got you all presents, even you Maomao. Should I start handing them out?”

“No,” Gentiane rose from her chair and set her book aside. “Now that you’re here, we should begin to prepare for our descent.”

“Agreed,” Fang Fang nodded. “We’ve made a last minute change of plans. We should ensure that our arrival goes smoothly.”

“Fine,” Lisa sighed. She tapped the air in front of her, and a small fissure in spacetime unfasted like a ziploc bag. She tossed the shopping bags inside. “Remind me to hand you all your gifts later, then. I suppose the first order of business then is…”

Lisa Everest turned to Lady Baba Yaga.

“What is this year’s Question, Baba Yaga?” she asked.

“That is for me to know,” Baba Yaga replied. “You will know the Question when we’ve descended.”

“It’s customary for the newest Egregore to share their first few Questions,” Gentiane said. “Privacy is reserved for your seniors.”

“Then I suggest you abandon your customs,” Baba Yaga snorted. “Nothing about this year’s Question will be customary, after all.”

“Well isn’t that foreboding,” Lisa murmured.

“Lady Baba Yaga, Khali helps to calculate the theoretical imaginarium required of each Question,” Gentiane explained. “If we don’t know what the Question is…”

“The imaginarium will be enough,” Baba Yaga shrugged. “I am here, after all.”

“Let her keep her secrets,” Khali scoffed. “It’s her funeral.”

“I like that the little one is keeping secrets,” Fang Fang grinned. “It has been a while since an Egregore intended to question the Mysteries without our collective Permission.”

“I suppose there’s an excitement to it. Khali’s was so boring,” Lisa moaned. “Like really? You used your ascension to solve one of the Millennium Problems? Did you really need the money or something?”

“Enough,” Gentiane snapped before Khali could respond. “If Baba Yaga does not wish to divulge her Question, then that renders much of our remaining preparations pointless. That being said, there is still the matter of our final Egregore…”

All eyes fell upon the end of the audience chamber. An alabaster throne, simple and undecorated, sat there past the eight other pillars.

“This year too, huh?” Lisa sighed. “Another tea party, another year where our dear missing Egregore may not grace us with her presence.”

“Maybe that’s the little one’s question,” Fang Fang chuckled.

The members of Egregore Seven exited the audience chamber. All save for Baba Yaga, who kept her eyes trained on the throne.

When Fang Fang looked back at her, there was a peculiar emotion in Baba Yaga’s eyes that Fang Fang could not place, a mild mistiness that suggested the lady’s stare masked a second pair of eyes.

Fang Fang always fashioned herself an intelligent reader of people, and for whatever reason, she felt a distinct premonition that the second pair of eyes hiding beneath Lady Baba Yaga’s gaze was not fixed on the throne, but on her.