The woman speaks first. "I heard you were throwing a huge party at your place. And I must say... Your house is too small, Eryk."

Completely ignoring her words, Eryk scowls. "What do you want, Lora?" Lora...? I recognize that name from somewhere...

"What do I want?" she mimics playfully, while Kathy takes a half step further away from her. "Oh, I don't know, maybe I just wanted to see how you're doing?" Eryk offers absolutely no response to her joke. Then it finally comes back to me. Reena said that Lora is Kathy's sister. Which also makes her Eryk's sister! Why on Loqa do they seem to hate each other so much?!

"Don't be like that, Eryk," she goes on, showing a dangerous smile with her teeth, a lot like Eryk does sometimes. "You have your big plans, and such a pretty little thing at your side now. Wouldn't it be a shame if something happened to her?"

Eryk immediately moves to cover me. "Leave Aria alone, Lora. She's under Liffan protection."

"Ooh, the Liffans, how scary," Lora mocks. What...? How could she not be scared of the nobility? She can't be a noble herself if she's Eryk's sister... What's going on here?

"I don't understand," I speak up, trying to get the big picture.

Lora moves forward, her eyes finally landing on me, and I shiver again. She feels so threatening, but why? Eryk shifts even further in front of me, so I'm peeking around his leg at the woman as she speaks. "What is there to understand? A little girl like you, surrounded on all sides by big, scary adults... How long do you think it'll be before she gets swallowed up? A two years? Three? Could you remind me, Eryk? What's the usual age for concubines?"

There's an instantaneous intake of breath all around us. Eryk doesn't visibly respond, but his expression cracks a little. "Lora, you have a sick sense of humor," he scowls, trying to deflect the accusation.

"Did she not tell you about her dealings with the Varishes?" Lora eggs him on. "And what about the Ordlyns?"

The Ordlyns?

As soon as she says that name, my heart falls into my stomach. How much does she know from the Ordlyns? I catch Eryk turning an eye my way, since he hasn't heard anything about the Ordlyns.

"Who are you?" I ask, trying to hide my nerves about this topic.

"Oh, no one that important-"

"She's a servant to Jared Killian," Eryk speaks over her to explain. Killian, Killian... Frantically spinning in my head to bring back the reference to that name I know is in there somewhere, I finally manage to get it.

Jared Killian is a count. Claire mentioned the name briefly in our lessons on the nobility. More importantly, he's the one those handlers talked about one time. He backed up 'Patrick' on something, siding with him against Quint Varish. There also a count named Patrick Ordlyn, meaning the Killians can choose sides between the two. So they aren't part of either major noble faction. I don't know anything about him beyond that, but if Lora's from a third side that managed to collect information from both Ordlyn and Varish, families she might know everything.

No, that can't be it. She'd be terrified of me if she knew what I am. There's no way she would come here and indicate she actually knows I'm a rail unit if she did. So what is it...?

I narrow my eyes at the woman. "What does Jared Killian want with me?"

"Ooh, so tiny but so serious," Lora coos, then rolls her eyes and says, "no, I'm not here on Killian's orders or anything." Even though she doesn't sound like she's lying, I don't think I can trust a single word this woman says. What in the world could her goal be?

"So why are you here?" I ask her. She's already dodged the question so many times, I doubt I'm going to get a straight answer...

A coy smile plays over her lips as she considers the question this time. "How about this? We each ask each other one question, and we have to answer truthfully. Swear to the gods."

I am not that stupid. "Why would I believe you?"

"Like I said, we swear to the gods."

I frown up at her. "I'm young, but I'm not stupid. The gods wouldn't actually enforce something like that." Her eyebrows shoot up and she looks... amused? I turn to Eryk in disbelief, and he gives a little 'so-so' kind of gesture.

"It's probably just a superstition, but... I have to admit I've heard of bad things happening to people who make swears like that," he admits. "Most people won't do something like that lightly, because you can never be sure." That's... unexpected.

I look back to Lora. "So if we make this swear, you actually won't lie?" I ask, still really skeptical. Then I turn to Eryk again. "Is this a good idea?"

"Hard to say..." Eryk responds with a sour look aimed at his sister.

"Come on, it's no big deal as long as you're willing to tell the truth. What do you have to hide?" she goads me with a wide smile.

Still frowning, I consider things. If she already knows about me, what would she even ask? She has to know something or she wouldn't be here. Can I just refuse? But I have no idea what she knows. Or what Killian knows. I don't think I can let this chance go, but this superstition of swearing to the gods sounds ridiculous. I know how talking to them actually works. Anyone as suspicious as Lora probably wouldn't tell the truth either way.

I reach into my mark to contact Reena. She would know. "Reena, someone is offering to make a swear to the gods to answer a question truthfully. There's no way you guys can actually enforce those, right?"

Her response is immediate. "Don't do it, Aria. Yes it works, and it would reveal you to the other gods immediately."

Oh.

"Thank you for asking first, it could have been a disaster if you hadn't." I can feel her sighing with relief.

"Right, thanks for warning me, Reena." With a small feeling like a nod between us, I pull away.

Speaking up to Lora, I tell her, "I won't swear to the gods. Only to my goddess, Reena." I have no idea how the normal swear works that actually makes a real connection to the gods somehow, but just a spoken swear definitely shouldn't actually do anything. And even if it does, I doubt Reena would even get mad at me for lying to someone like this.

"You're a follower of Reena?" Lora scoffs, followed by immediate jeers from everyone around us. They don't even try to hide it.

Blushing indignantly at their responses, I puff up my chest. "Yeah! I am! You have a problem with that?!" I'm so sick of everyone looking down on her! They're all so, so-!

Eryk's hand squeezing my shoulder stops me. I take a breath through my gritted teeth, working to calm myself down, even as Lora laughs at me outright. "Fine then. We can swear to the powerless goddess," she sneers, eyes shining dangerously.

That look is what makes me realize the problem. There's no way she expects to have to tell the truth if we're only swearing to Reena instead of all the gods. That means this won't actually help me at all. I'm terrible at lying, so she'll get information out of me either way, while she can just keep lying through her teeth.

I'm about to call the whole thing off, when a new voice emerges from the watching crowd. "Wow, this certainly is unique."

Claire?

She steps from between two tall blacksmiths, into the tiny space of floor that has cleared around the five of us. Closer to three of us at this point, since Kathy and Fina have backed off enough to almost completely be swallowed by the surrounding crowd. Entering our little space, Claire is in a beautiful blue dress, form fitting and nearly floor length, with her dark hair hanging loose behind her.

"A swear to the goddess Reena?" Claire asks with a knowing smile. "I don't suppose you know the proper ceremony for that, do you?"

"Ceremony?" I ask, still shocked to see her here.

"A proper swear requires a little bit of ceremony," she explains with an oddly knowing look.

Her expression sour, Lora asks, "And who are you?"

"Just an instructor who happens to believe in the goddess Reena wholeheartedly." The burning in her eyes tells me that Claire is just as mad at people disrespecting Reena as I am.

"Is that so..." Lora replies skeptically.

"Now, you can both follow along with me. Are you ready?"

Claire raises her hands in front of her, and we both mimic her movements as the crowd watches. She slowly brings her hands together, touching just her index fingers together. She follows with her pinkies, before pulling her hands apart again. We all follow the motions slowly and carefully, even as they seem completely random.

Next, she extends her left hand straight upward, and the other out forward. She swings her right over until it's directly sideways, and then up, to point toward the ceiling with her right.

This... feels completely ridiculous. Who came up with such a silly 'ceremony?' It isn't just supposed to make fun of Reena or something, is it? Why doesn't anyone around us looks amused by this though...?

Keeping quiet about all of my doubts, I continue to follow carefully as Claire presses her palms together, but spreads her fingers to keep the tips from touching, before raising them up over head, then down to her waist, back up overhead, and stops there to rotate her left hand forward, and her right hand backward. Then she brings them back down to chest height, and separates them once more.

Holding her hands level with her shoulders and facing inward, she says, "Now repeat after me: 'I swear to Reena.'"

"I swear to Reena," we both speak together.

Claire brings her hands together with some force, like a clap.

When I follow, clapping my hands together, I jolt when I feel something happen.

All at once, there's some change, a connection opening up out of absolutely nowhere, and I can feel Reena on the other end.

How?!

Totally dumbfounded by that complete nonsense somehow having an actual function like magic, all I can do is stare, fighting on reflex to hide my reaction from reaching my face.

"There, that should do it." Claire says. "If anyone else wants to learn the proper ceremony, I'm always happy to teach." The rolled eyes at her offer aren't surprising, but I hardly notice them.

"Umm, what was that exactly? That ceremony?" I ask Claire.

"It's said that the swearing ceremonies were taught to humanity by the gods in the ancient past and passed down ever since," she explains, before shrugging slightly. "It's quite hard to find any written records, so it's anyone's guess how true it is."

"That's why it's probably just superstition," Eryk adds.

Well, now that I know it works despite literally everything I know about magic, I can at least be sure that Reena will enforce this swear. Though, I'm still not sure if I wanted to go through with it in the first place... Too late to back out now...

"Well, with that out of the way, how about we get to the first question?" Lora prompts. "Would you rather ask first, or should I?"

"You go first," I say. If it's not something I'm willing to answer, I can probably refuse. I'm sure Reena will scold me a lot, but it's way better than if I asked first...

"Alright." A sneaky smile spreads over her face as she leans down close and beckons me forward. I follow along. It's probably a good thing if no one hears, given the sort of questions she's likely to ask. Is it about my deals with the nobility? Or something about my identity? It wouldn't be the truth about star metals, right? No one even knew about them before the party...

When we're right next to each other, she asks her question in a whisper. "What is your relationship with Catherine Lundrum and the Lundrum family?"

"Huh?" I blink stupidly. Out of everything she could have asked, why is it that? What about Varish and Ordlyn? Noble stuff and rail unit stuff? I shake my head a little and say it plainly. "I don't have any relation to the Lundrums."

Now it's Lora's turn to be shocked. "Wha- None?" I give another small head shake. "Well... shit." She mouths the words without actually saying them, before she remembers to put her mask back up. "Fine then. Now for your question."

I have to think about it. Her question showed that she thought I was somehow related to the Lundrums. My hair is the obvious reason, but she seemed so surprised, it feels like there was more to it than that. But that can wait. What I really need to know most is how safe my secrets are. I also can't ask something so obvious that it gives something away, the way she revealed information with her own question.

"What... are all of the secrets about me that Jared Killian knows?" I ask in a whisper of my own. This way I won't give anything away, and get me the information I need the most.

However- "I don't know. He hasn't told me what he knows about you." One look at her gloating smile tells me that her answer is truthful. It says she didn't have to lie because I asked the wrong question.

What...?

But...

But then how- How does she know any of what she knows if it isn't from the noble she serves? I open my mouth to ask on reflex, but I know I won't get anything from her now. I've used up my one question.

With my thoughts spinning back over things, I finally see it. She was using Jared Killian as a cover, the same way I've been using Karl Liffan's name today. It's a big, flashy distraction to pull attention away from wherever she did get her information, and I completely fell for it, just like everyone else.

Darn it...

Lora backs off, standing up straight again, and I feel the strange connection to Reena fade out. "Well, it looks like I've used up my time here. Thanks for the information, little Aria. Tata." She gives a playful wiggle of her fingers alongside one last hateful glare at Eryk and Kathy, before disappearing into the crowd, headed straight for the door.

I clench my fists for a moment, angry at myself for missing my chance to find out what secrets of mine might be out there. I still can't beat adults, some of them are just too smart...

With a look down at me, Eryk rubs my head. "Don't worry too much, Aria. There's never any knowing what goes through that awful woman's head. Now, what brings you here, Claire? Didn't you say you were taking a break today?" He directs his question at my instructor who is here for some reason.

"Yes, I did. Unfortunately, I found myself getting bored, so I decided to stop by and see how your party is going. Quite... lively," Claire says with a meaningful look around at the massively over-packed foyer.

"It's been going quite well, wouldn't you say, Aria?" Eryk pulls me in.

"Mm, yeah. So far it's gone really well," I agree, trying to move past my failure. And not think about all the parts of the party where things went... not so well. Like just now.

I just said I'm trying to get past that...

"Well, how about you show me around?" Claire suggests with a smile.

Eryk shrugs and goes along with it. "Sure, why not?" He gives a small wave for us to move with him.