The moment I stepped out of the bathroom, the house decided that walking horizontally was far too mundane.

  WHOOSH. The world flopped onto its side once again. Gravity changed its settings, and our new "down" was now the right wall. Alexia, who happened to be walking past, didn't have time to process what was happening and, with a short yelp, collapsed onto the wallpaper.

  I simply repositioned my feet, maintaining my balance. I was starting to get used to the local practical jokes.

  "What the hell is this!" the princess hissed, standing up and smoothing her skirts. "This castle is mocking me personally!"

  "There's a secret," I noted lazily, leaning my back against what used to be the ceiling. "Right before gravity does a somersault, a clock in the house starts ticking. Loudly, distinctly. Do you hear anything right now?"

  Alexia froze, listening closely. She walked over to a massive grandfather clock, which was now hanging horizontally, forlornly suspended over the "abyss" of the corridor. "Strange... The pendulum is swinging, the hands are moving, but there's no sound. Complete silence."

  "Exactly. You can relax; we won't be falling off the wall anytime soon."

  Alexia slowly turned toward me. Her gaze turned strange. She took a step forward. Then another. She was approaching with such determination that I instinctively pressed myself into the wall.

  She stepped right up to me. Almost nose to nose. I could see every shade of red in her pupils. Alexia froze and began to sniff. Cautiously at first, then bolder, almost touching my neck.

  "You still smell like sugar, Greg," she whispered. "A very strong scent. Like you yourself are made of caramel."

  I was about to make a joke about being a "sweet guy," but I didn't get the chance. Her palm, warm and soft, habitually dropped onto the crown of my head. Her fingers buried themselves in my hair, massaging the exact spots that turned my brain into cotton candy.

  That was it. Vertical, horizontal—what difference did it make? My eyelids grew heavy, my knees buckled. I felt my consciousness drifting away into a warm, chocolate sea.

  And she didn't stop petting me. With every movement of her hand, the world became quieter and more insignificant.

  "Sleep," I heard her voice, sounding as if it were coming from beneath a thick layer of water.

  And I fell asleep. Right there, on the wall, to the quiet rustle of her fingers. It seemed that in this house, gravity wasn't the only abnormal thing; my ability to resist affection was broken too.

  I woke up. The bed was soft, the ceiling was where it belonged, and gravity had finally figured out its orientation, pinning me to the mattress instead of the wardrobe.

  Someone knocked on the door delicately but persistently. "May I come in?" Alastia's thin voice called out. "Come in," I said, trying to peel my head off the pillow.

  The girl skipped happily into the room. She didn't waste time on greetings or asking how I felt. She marched purposefully right up to the head of my bed, stood on her tiptoes, and... abruptly slapped her palm onto the top of my head.

  She started scratching my hair intensely, perfectly copying Alexia's movements. I lay perfectly still, staring at the wall. One second. Five. Ten. Nothing.

  No "powering down." No blissful fog. I just felt tiny fingers ruffling my hair.

  Alastia stopped, pouting her lips in disappointment. "Why?" she asked, looking into my face. "Why isn't it working?"

  I shifted my gaze to her lazily. "You know the answer yourself, Alastia."

  The girl froze. Her unchildlike mind processed the information instantly. She understood what I myself had only realized recently.

  "Yes..." she said quietly, pulling her hand away. "I understand."

  Her cheerfulness was blown away as if by the wind. She adjusted her little dress and headed for the exit, tossing over her shoulder: "Get dressed, Greg. My parents have arrived. They want to see the guests."

  The door closed. I lay there in the silence. The parents had arrived. That meant the games with chocolate knights and running doors were over. Real diplomacy was about to begin. And that meant I had to put the mask back on and pretend to be "just a servant" again.

  It wasn't about trust. And it wasn't about my feelings. It was about Alastia herself.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  I walked out into the hall. The massive front doors swung open, letting in an icy draft and two people in heavy, gold-embroidered robes. Alastia immediately squealed with delight and jumped in place: "Father!"

  The man threw his arms open, scooped her up, and hugged her tightly. He was smiling, but when his gaze fell upon me, the smile became polite and hollow. Even through my mask, I could feel him scanning me, trying to pierce my defenses.

  Alexia and Lianel introduced themselves according to all the rules of etiquette. The master of the castle nodded and invited everyone to the table.

  Lunch was... strange. We were served "talking soup." As soon as you dipped a spoon into it, the liquid would start hissing and begging in a thin, pitiful voice: "No-o-o... Please... Don't kill me... I haven't even cooled down yet!"

  I ate in silence. Everything in this house was saturated with twisted, excessive magic.

  Soon, the ceremonies concluded. We were escorted back to the carriages. We set off, leaving behind the castle where gravity changed at the snap of a finger.

  Zevlud, sitting opposite us, looked thoughtful. "So, what do you think of Alastia?" he asked, looking out the window.

  I sighed heavily and leaned back. "Zevlud... How long have you known her?" "Well, about a year and a half," the elf shrugged. "We pass through here occasionally. Why?" "Haven't you noticed anything strange? Like the fact that in a year and a half, she hasn't grown a single millimeter? Or that she never, under any circumstances, steps past the threshold of that building?"

  Zevlud frowned. "Umm... no. I never really thought about it. It just worked out that way."

  I looked at the silhouette of the castle fading into the horizon. "Alastia doesn't exist."

  Dead silence hung in the carriage. Zevlud even stopped chewing his apple. "What do you mean—she doesn't exist? Greg, did you overheat? I saw her myself! I talked to her! We felt her touching us!"

  "Alastia died a long time ago," my voice sounded as even as a judge's sentence. "What you saw is her ghost. Or, to be more precise, an incredibly powerful illusion. Her parents could never cope with the grief. They created that world, locked themselves inside it along with the memory of their daughter. They live in a fairy tale they wove out of their own pain."

  Alexia and Lianel grew somber. Alexia involuntarily touched her own arm—right where the girl had held her. "But she was so alive..." the princess whispered. "We felt the warmth of her hands." "It is a very good illusion," I confirmed. "A masterpiece of magical art. Her body lies in the highest room, where time is stopped. And down below, her image runs around. She is an imitation."

  I closed my eyes. "They loved her too much. So much that they couldn't let her go."

  The carriage rolled on. Zevlud stayed silent, Alexia stared at a fixed point, and the trees of the United Nations slowly swayed past the window.

  We rode in absolute, ringing silence for probably thirty minutes. Only the rhythmic clatter of hooves on the road—clack-clack, clack-clack—served as a reminder that time was still moving forward.

  Zevlud never managed to digest what he had heard. He looked as if the ground had suddenly been pulled out from under him. Eventually, he muttered something incomprehensible, jumped out of the carriage, and climbed onto the roof—to get some air and, apparently, to try to process the fact that he had been friends with emptiness for a year and a half.

  I leaned back against the cushions and thoughtfully tapped my fingers on the armrest. "No, but seriously, you have to appreciate the scale," I said, staring into space. "What a freaking incredible illusion, right? That is top-tier mastery. The ghost itself, the tactile feedback... It's all so believable that even I doubted it for a split second. Genius work."

  Lianel abruptly turned to me. Her face was pale, and indignation was boiling in her eyes. "Greg!" she exhaled. "How can you? How can you speak so cheerfully, so casually about such a situation? Those... those people are living in a personal hell, and you're praising the quality of their torture!"

  I looked at her. In her world, death was a tragedy. In her world, feelings held weight. "And what am I supposed to do now?" I shrugged. "Sit around and be sad over trifles?"

  "Trifles?!" Lianel actually leaned forward. "A little girl died, Greg! Her parents went mad from grief!"

  "Lianel," I pronounced her name calmly, almost lazily. "If I mourn every tragedy I come across on my path, I won't even have time for lunch. She is dead. She is gone. And the illusion is just magic. Good, high-quality magic. I appreciate the craftsmanship, not the number of tears shed."

  Alexia stayed silent, her eyes half-closed. It seemed she was the only one who understood that arguing with me about morality was like trying to warm up a glacier by breathing on it.

  "You're just..." Lianel faltered, unable to find the words. "You're just a terrifying person, Greg." "I'm not terrifying," I closed my eyes again, preparing to drift off to sleep. "Sorrow is simply too expensive a luxury."

  Lianel finally fell asleep. Her breathing became even and quiet, and even the dummy in her trunk seemed to have stopped scratching.

  Alexia hadn't moved. She just sat there, staring into the darkness out the window, habitually running her fingers through my hair. Her palm was warm, and her movements were slow, almost lazy.

  "Greg..." her voice sounded so quiet I could barely hear it over the clatter of the wheels. "Do you really think it's a trifle? The death of that girl. The grief of her family. Are you really that... empty?"

  I closed my eyes. Inside me, right where I usually kept that cold "nothing," something shuddered. Cracked.

  "I am afraid to feel those feelings," I whispered. "If I allow myself to mourn one..."

  I felt a heavy, bitter lump rise in my throat. The walls of my "indifference," the ones I had built so meticulously, began to crumble like dry sand. "I can't let myself sink into that. Do you understand? I can't. If I start feeling for real... I will simply break."

  I felt hot, stinging tears welling up in my eyes. Just one more second—and I would snap. I would scream or burst into sobs right here, in her lap, pouring out everything I had hoarded for centuries.

  But Alexia understood everything. She didn't ask any questions. She didn't try to comfort me with words. She simply ran her hand over the crown of my head again.

  Click.

  The darkness began to envelop my mind, erasing the sharp edge of reality. My eyelids grew heavy. The nightmares retreated, driven back into the cellars of my memory.

  "I don't want... to feel this..." I muttered, feeling my consciousness drifting away. "I don't want to be... alive."

  "Sleep, Greg," I heard her whisper. "Sleep."

  And I plunged into sleep. Without images. Without sounds. Without pain. Just another way to escape from myself.