The kind of exhale that comes from being trusted enough to be doubted out loud.

The corridor is long and slow, not in the way of time but in the way of old rivers and lullabies. The air has a soft weight to it too, like the dungeon has been holding its breath for centuries and is only now remembering to exhale. The stone underfoot is warm in some places, cold in others but above all else thoughtful all over.

Lighting too drifts in from above in the form of delicate cubes that hover and pulse like they're thinking about something. Xozo herself noticing they are not Motic Resonances not the least because Eileen keeps staring at them. Her hands folded neatly behind her back in the gentle manner the elderly often walk.

Beside her, Xozo keeps pace in the awkward way teenagers do when they're not sure whether to look confident or invisible. Her oversized cloak bunches at her heels and sways like a curtain, and beneath the hood, her snakes whisper among themselves in a language of twitching scales and blinking eyes. Every so often, one of them peeks out with a curious flicker, then retreats again like a thought that hasn't decided if it's safe to speak.

"Tell me about this Countess of yours. What is she like?" asks Eileen.

Xozo skips ahead at behest of the invitation, delighted to speak, though the excitement lands more as reflex than as a motion for clarity. "She's kind of impossible to describe," Xozo says melodramatically. "But like not in a big mystical way, more just that... I've never had the right words to do her justice. She's not like others of the court, she doesn't call herself a Twelve Star Ascendant because she hits every milestone."

"I mean she does... she does hit every milestone... it just that, its not why she has earned the title. She embodies the title because everything that she has accomplished in her synergy business is what everyone else dreams of achieving. There's literally nothing about her that I do not look up too."

She pauses, just for a second, as if surprised by the size of her own admiration now that it's said aloud. The words hang between them, proud and trembling.

Then she exhales and looks forward again, "I mean, she'd know who's this Dawkith Lorth," Xozo says, quieter. "And if she didn't, she'd ask one question and the whole court would open up like a prime catalog to give you the answer you need."

She then slows a step. Her voice following suit.

"I also wanted to apologize…"

She stammers for a moment, "I wanted to apologize on the Quills' behalf. I really thought they would have had an answer for you on finding this Dawkith Lorth. They're supposed to know everything. They should have given you an answer and they didn't and somehow still you don't focus on that one mistake and make me feel like all my other suggestions are worthless."

Eileen tilts her head, smile softening. "I could never see a suggestion from you as worthless, besides..." voice changing to something between curiosity and tea that's been left to steep a few minutes too long. "I thought Grand Dearie was rather persuasive."

Xozo feels a weight lifting off her and she throws her hands up, "Well I mean I'm glad you think so...But I bet it wasn't intentional!"

She twirls on her heel, cloak spinning behind her like punctuation. "The whole thing was just…atmosphere and ominous metaphor. It was like a soft launch for an existential dread product line. I mean beautiful packaging, I'll give them props for that, but no clear instructions. No call to action, no referral code."

Eileen chuckles, the sound like an old envelope being opened carefully. "You sound a little disappointed, love."

"I'm not," Xozo replies too quickly. Then pauses, clearly thinking for a moment, "Okay... maybe a little. I mean, if you're going to make the whole room feel like you're about to sell a prophecy, the least you could do is hand out a brochure."

"Paper would've caught fire," Eileen notes, mild and absent, like she's commenting on the weather. "Too many verbs in the air." But Xozo doesn't laugh.

Instead they pass together beneath several arches of bone chimes, carved thin and crescent-shaped, suspended in delicate clusters like jawbones from some ancient insect order... delicate, alien, and a little too precise. Which of course seems to encourage Xozo who reaches up to flick one with the back of her finger. It sways but doesn't chime. Instead, the hallway responds with a soft compression, the air tightening as if holding a breath, then letting go all at once with a hiccup, like it had been waiting for permission to relax.

Meanwhile Eileen finds herself ducking beneath the rest of the arches, while making small, cautious glances behind her. Not afraid, just alert, like someone sensing a draft from a door that had been locked earlier.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"All I'm saying is the pageantry was just a cover. A very elegant dodge by that sly Quill, to get around answering any of our actual questions. " Xozo continues, her voice rising into performative frustration. "Orrynthal be gone! I was more startled when it ended. I couldn't believe there wasn't a sales pitch. But the quill was persuasive, I'll give them that."

Eileen doesn't answer right away. Her smile remains, but her voice changes, lower, a little closer to her ribs. "Persuasive?" she echoes. "It felt more like a warning." But Xozo doesn't catch that Eileen isn't making a joke this time so Xozo laughs while throwing her hands up again. "Exactly! But I don't think it was on purpose. I think they just make naturally good sales..."

She claps her hands once, her body almost physically jumping in the air, like a sharp eureka moment! "Oh my gods. Oh divine Orrynthal hear my plea... It was all a setup! The map? A diversion. The metaphors? Misdirection. We were meant to leave. That whole room was just a setup, a polite shooing out wrapped in the awe of sales."

Then, as quickly as it arrived, her bravado falters, just a little. One beat, a crack behind the curtain. But she powers forward. "If you think about it like a business... then we were the captive audience, we wanted information from them and they used that attention to awe us into..."

Xozo smacks her forehead with one hand, it is clear to Eileen she would have to spend some time working on Xozo's business skills. "Oh my gosh! I shouldn't have listened to my gut or the stories from the others. I definitely could've signed that faerie into my downline. They had the tone, the branding, the mystique. I mean if I had the chops that Countess Whisperbane had, I would've spun them into purchasing a five tier growth ladder before they even offered tea. If only I had brought my materials with me along with some samples and an example rewards ladder. I could have showed them how to turn all that mystery mojo into a product of transformation, self-possession, and…"

Eileen listens, expression soft and patient, with the kind of interest one offers a confident squirrel on a window ledge. She lets Xozo run on for a few minutes before tenderly interrupting her at a natural pause, "And does your Countess know where she wants to go with her synergy business?"

"Yes! Of course..." Xozo hesitates. Her lips purse, "I mean, do I know exactly where she wants to go? No, but I'm sure she knows, she's very confident."

Eileen's next question isn't loud but t doesn't need to be. It slips into the space like honey into tea. "And are you?"

Xozo slows, her mouth opening, then shutting. She shrugs, looks down at her feet, then at the wall, then anywhere but Eileen. "I know how to sound like I am." Xozo says it defensively.

Eileen doesn't reply right away. Instead, her hand drifts to the basket on her arm. Not to search, just to retrieve. She produces then, a cookie wrapped in waxed paper, oatmeal and nutmeg, warm even through the paper and holds it out, not as a solution, not even as a kindness. Just a presence, something solid, something warm in a place that seems to have forgotten how to be.

Xozo turns toward it, hesitates, then she takes it. "It's not enchanted," Eileen says, her eyes gently teasing. "Unless you count calories."

Xozo stares for a moment, then makes a half hearted attempt to laugh, but it doesn't linger. Still, Eileen sees that something behind her cheekbones considers it for a moment.

Together they continue their walk in silence with Xozo holding the cookie like it might shift weight in her palm if she looks away. She nibbles slowly, not daintily, just cautiously. Like she's learning the flavor of reassurance one bite at a time.

The silence between them though isn't awkward; it's just wide. The kind of silence that makes room for something old to be said without being spoken. One step, then another they continue, the air hushes again, gentle, like it's listening in case anything important gets said on accident.

After a while, Xozo mutters, not to Eileen, not to herself exactly, just to the in between of drifting moments. "I've been in so many broken systems, that I'll always be able to tell when something's just… off." Xozo finally laments.

She doesn't stop walking, but something in her tone shifts, thinner now, like she's not sure if she's speaking aloud or just thinking too loud. "That room… it wasn't just theatrical, it was curated. The Quills wanted the whole room to feel like it meant something, that it was important."

She gestures vaguely now, hands open, like she's trying to catch the shape of the feeling before it disappears. "Maybe they think that's what honesty is. Confusion with good lighting. As if to say that their special object, their illustrious table, doesn't make sense, so therefore it must be profound." Her voice dips, quieter now. "But it didn't do anything. Not really."

"It listened," Eileen says, quietly.

Xozo frowns, finishing the cookie and brushing a crumb from her robe. "Yeah, and?" she says, a flicker of false bravado leaking in. Then she unwraps the wax paper, looks at it... creased, translucent, warmed by her hands... and tosses it behind her like she is trying to make a profound statement.

But she only gets two steps before stopping, then sighs. Turns back, crouches and picks it up. Folding it then into a perfect square, the kind of fold someone makes when they don't know what to say but want their actions to be neat. She tucks it into her sleeve.

Eileen watches but doesn't speak. And Xozo doesn't look up, at least not yet. She just exhales instead and it catches on the edge of something unspoken.

"And sometimes," Eileen adds, "simply listening is the doing."

The words don't echo, but they do land. Not sharp or deep. More like a pebble dropped into a pond already frozen and Xozo nods half heartedly. Before then beginning to walk again, slower.

A few steps later, her voice returns, carrying the shape of something she didn't expect to say. "Sure. But if nothing's asked of us... if we're not held to something... how do we know if we're doing it right?"

She doesn't say it like she's arguing. She says it like she's feeling for a handrail that might not be there. So Eileen slows to match her pace and when she speaks, her voice isn't soft or sharp. It's simply full like it's held this answer for a long, long time while waiting for the right person to need it.

"Who told you anyone needed to ask?" she says. "Or that your path even has to make sense?"

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