There were four different paintings, in four different mediums. And maybe most saliently, there were four different versions of Noué.

  They all wore the same off-white dress with a golden sash, stood in the same pose—one hand brushing her hair, the other pulling the dress into a slight curtsy. They all smiled, yet each smile gave a different impression.

  “...Elenira Lirathel was a true master of her craft,” Naomi said softly. “Every portrait seems as if they're a different person, no?”

  “It still must have been boring painting the same thing over and over,” Ailn muttered.

  If he had to label their smiles, he’d describe them as ‘joyful,’ ‘sorrowful,’ ‘mysterious,’ and ‘caustic’ in turn.

  The joyful portrait was painted in watercolors, and framed in glass. Even though the joyful Noué’s smile was as slight as the others’, the corners of her mouth tugged upward—and her eyes crinkled in a way that suggested delight. The smallest downward nod almost suggested bashfulness.

  But the portrait was warping. The vellum, the watercolors’ medium, had waves running through it, and its colors had started to fade like a memory slipping away.

  Ailn thought back to the crevices he’d seen in the ceiling of the chamber. The fading made sense, if sunlight made it down here occasionally.

  The sorrowful portrait… looked like a fresco. Yet it was on canvas, which suggested Elenira must have painstakingly transferred it from its original plaster. The sorrowful Noué’s smile didn’t quite engage her cheeks. Her eyes were half-lidded, almost sleepy. Her gaze was soft, and that made it feel empty.

  Dark splotches from the cave’s dampness discolored the portrait, some even tinged with green—mold had started to set in. The fresco looked muted and grainy like damaged film.

  The mysterious portrait had likely been painted in tempera. The enigmatic Noué kept a narrowed, almost stern gaze—focused, almost like she was making eye contact with the viewer. She had the barest smile of all, but it was there, her lips thin yet curved upward.

  Yet the portrait had yellowed as if the egg yolks mixed into the pigment had cooked, and its brittle surface was cracking. Paint flaked off all over, and the closer one looked the more cracks seemed to appear—finer and finer, until they covered her like spiderwebs and lace.

  The caustic portrait was, fittingly, painted in encaustic. The caustic Noué’s smile was more of smirk. Frankly, she looked mean. There was an uncomfortable stillness around her eyes, lids heavy with contempt. Yet this cruel expression was captured in such vibrant, luminous colors, the wax giving it all a bright sheen.

  It looked, though, like the waxy surface had softened—even melted a bit, where a streak of gold pigment ran down from her eyes. For all her icy disdain, this Noué’s features had started to droop, as if she couldn’t quite take the heat.

  Ailn wasn’t sure how hot it got down here, but it was certainly possible the painting had met direct sunlight.

  All of them felt authentic, if they were meant to be a reflection of the real Noué.

  The real… Noué.

  Feeling a cold sweat coming on, Ailn stopped in his tracks. His gaze swept over all four portraits again: joyful, sorrowful, enigmatic, and caustic, then swiveled back-and-forth between them and the basin. His stomach began to knot as he went back to speak to the reflection.

  “You’re not gonna tell me the final puzzle is to ‘choose the real Noué’ are you?” Ailn peered into the basin.

  The reflection smiled broadly—almost cheekily—and the colors in the basin took on gentle tones. Noué’s eyes twinkled soft, fluid, and dreamy, and her lips were desperately pressed together, curling like she just hid the car keys somewhere hilarious.

  “...I am,” the reflection said, holding back a snicker.

  Wearily, Kylian walked over, having just overheard the exchange between Ailn and the reflection. He seemed tenser for it, daunted by the sheer caprice of the task.

  “That’s absurd,” he said. The knight spoke more to Ailn than the reflection herself. “We’re to reduce this woman’s entire life and being to a single portrait?”

  The surface seemed to settle, in spite of the continual disturbance from the waterfall above. The colors turned mute, and the golden glow in Noué Areygni’s eyes dulled.

  She knit her brows apologetically.

  “A single portrait’s at least a thousand words, you know,” the voice from the basin murmured.

  Kylian hesitated, giving the basin a wary glance. The gentle curve in the crease of her eyes seemed lonely. And Noué’s golden irises had turned coarse.

  It was becoming increasingly difficult for him to treat her as merely an illusion. His recent water mage companion, having returned from her examination of the portraits, had no such issue, however.

  “If you should spare us the crocodile tears, Miss Areygni, it would be appreciated,” Naomi said coldly. “If you truly wanted friends, you would not have frightened a young girl into nervous affliction.”

  Glancing at the far side of the chamber, Kylian caught a fragment of Safi and Renea’s conversation.

  “...That’s why I bet the sad one would actually beat the mean one in a fight, kinda a surprise curbstomp moment,” Safi concluded.

  “I thought we were talk—talk… sorry my throat. I thought we were talking about our emotions…” Renea said.

  The knight was heartened to hear some of the brightness had returned to her tone, even though she still sounded shaky.

  He had to admit a growing frustration with the surge of strange words and intimations since Safi had joined their acquaintance. Just earlier, Noué’s illusion had mentioned a ‘fantasy world.’ The only reasonable guess Kylian had was that she was referring to this descent into the earth.

  Yet that still seemed off.

  Curbstomp, meme, boomer… the list went on. And now, this illusion of an artist whose life had ended three centuries ago joined in, casually rattling off jargon that Ailn, Renea, and Safi all seemed to understand.

  It was the little mystery nested within the grander one, and yet it was the one Kylian couldn’t help but ponder.

  “...You seem like the type with lots of ‘friends’ who are actually just acquaintances, little miss mage.” The voice in the basin took a sharp turn as it addressed Naomi, cutting Kylian out of his thoughts.

  The colors in the water turned bright, and the lines between them crisp—even the wrinkles on Noué’s face started to show, the contours of the gold in her eyes turning crystalline and jagged. Her expression hadn’t changed much, but now it seemed condescending. “And before you reply—it takes one to know one.”

  Naomi did not reply. And the way her hands clenched and trembled, Kylian almost thought she might whisk all the water out of the basin to try and slap the reflection across the face.

  “Do you… truly not feel anything?” Kylian asked the reflection. He broke into the conversation. “I suppose it doesn’t change anything in the end. And yet—”

  “Elenira is a fantastic artist,” the reflection said. “I’m crafted from memory, just like those paintings.” Then her smile shifted to something more ambiguous. “But remembering your favorite food doesn’t mean you’re eating it, does it?”

  “Don’t you think this was all a bit too cruel, Noué?” Ailn interjected. He’d been silent, staring quietly at the water for a long time. “Asking her to paint those portraits, and to manifest this illusion.”

  The corner of the reflection’s mouth twitched.

  Kylian sighed. It wasn’t as if he had any better ideas. Yet Ailn’s trusted recourse of needling and antagonizing didn’t seem particularly apt to the situation. What use was there in pricking the finger of an emotionally inert image upon the water?

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  Between Ailn and Naomi…

  The knight glanced at the mage. Naomi had been quite silent for a while now, actually. That said, she was currently glaring harshly at the water.

  “She would’ve been the one to find your body. Carried it out of the cave, made sure it reached Varant,” Ailn continued. “...I bet that destroyed her. If you ask me, you spit on the face of someone who cherished you more than the world.”

  The reflection’s smile vanished and her voice turned flat. “If she didn’t want to do it, then she shouldn’t have done it. Don’t lecture me.”

  “And here I thought I was supposed to treat you like a plate of spaghetti,” Ailn said, eyes narrowing.

  “I’m acting like the authentic dish,” the reflection said, her voice taking on a sharper tone.

  “Maybe you should just tell us the answer, if you want to be understood, Noué,” Ailn said. He held his head, looking vexed and exhausted.

  “Maybe you should climb a tall tree and have a happy little accident—”

  “Perhaps arguing with the illusion is not in our best interest,” Kylian interrupted. “It’s clearly quite… volatile.”

  As he said that, the group’s eyes naturally drew to the encaustic painting, with its portrayal of Noué as mean, snide, and frankly a little flammable.

  The reflection seemed to pick up on this.

  “... If that’s your pick, then go ahead and walk through it,” she said, sounding curt.

  “Noué,” Kylian finally addressed the reflection by name. His tone was serious. “You’re clearly a complicated woman. Why are you so determined to be understood in such a simplistic manner?”

  For a long while, the reflection said nothing. The sound of the falling water which had faded into the background gradually returned to their awareness.

  “...I want to be seen. That’s all,” the reflection said. “Walking through the right door means understanding how I felt. It would be a pretty terrible joke if no one could.”

  The colors in the water turned stark, the details coming into focus. The pigments on the surface of the water even seemed to dry, their top layer taking on a powdery texture. Her eyes, nearly clear, glittered like gold dust.

  “The labor of my life was truth,” she said. “I saw it with my divine eyes. And I gave my body freely to its expression. I’ve left more of myself in the world than anyone has any right to.”

  “Okay. Then how did you feel about ‘The Saintess and the Wolf’?” Ailn asked.

  “No questions about specific pieces,” the reflection replied, to Ailn’s noticeable irritation.

  A stern look entered her eyes, and the reflection in the water seemed to come slightly into focus. “If I can’t be seen in my work, then I’ve been invisible. And if I’m unseen, then every truth I’ve ever uttered was unspoken. It would be the final and damning proof that I’d lived my life as an oblivious mute.”

  “Have you considered learning to talk to people?” Ailn asked.

  “Have you considered reviewing the taste of bleach?” the reflection responded, her eyes taking on an ominous glow.

  “A-Ani, why do you…” Renea, who’d returned with Safi, stammered as she came in the middle of a rather tense conversation. Her eyes darted nervously to the reflection, as she sidled behind Ailn to avoid its stare. “Why do you a-always… h-have to make everything angry…?!”

  “She was already kinda angry from the start, though,” Safi frowned. “Your brother’s mad because she was really mean to you.”

  Renea clutched Ailn’s sleeve softly.

  “What’s the puzzle?” Safi asked, tilting her head. She came bounding up to the basin, staring into its depths. “If I squint, I can kinda see myself…? Oops. I forgot to comb my hair today.”

  “We need to pick the portrait that fits her personality best,” Ailn said, glancing at Safi.

  “Huh?” Safi’s gaze remained fixed on the basin for a few seconds, before it snapped toward the encaustic portrait as if she’d been lassoed. “Huh? But that’s so obvious!”

  Safi pointed into the basin, her face a little irate and very perplexed. “She’s mean, right? What else would she be?”

  Naomi’s grip tightened, as she was reminded for the second time today what it felt like to be cut by words.

  Earlier, it had been the reflection’s words.

  It takes one to know one.

  She’d been so bothered by the reflection’s sneer—so fervent in her desire to put the figment of light and water in its place—when suddenly she saw her own visage sneering back.

  But it wasn’t an illusion. Naomi slowly raised her hand to her face, letting her finger trace the curl of her lip.

  It was simply her own reflection.

  She’s mean, right? What else would she be?

  Staring into the basin, Naomi noticed her reflection’s eyes crease together, and sag—suddenly looking quite lonely.

  Ailn massaged the bags under his eyes with the back of his thumb and realized how sore they felt.

  “...Didn’t we have a talk about how things and people aren’t always what they seem?” Ailn asked. He felt a little lame saying it, since he didn’t fully believe it.

  “But she doesn’t just seem mean. She actually was mean,” Safi said, crinkling her brows. “She made Renea break down for fun, and laughed at her. And it made me feel awful ‘cause I told Renea she was nice!”

  Safi crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently, gestures at odds with her usual earnest acceptance of others. She shook her head.

  “And to trick Renea she pretended to cry. So, how can we trust the sad portrait?! How are we supposed to know if she really cried if she fake cried super well? She’s like the boy who cried wolf without the wolf!”

  “...All very valid points,” Ailn admitted. “But who’s gonna call themselves mean in their own puzzle?”

  “But—but if she IS mean, but then she lies about it, then this puzzle’s just stupid! What’s the point?!”

  “Well, I guess—” Ailn scratched his head, not really knowing what to say. “I guess we’re here to shine a light on things.”

  Then, at that very moment, as if responding to Ailn’s words and setting the stage for their investigation into the inner depths of the artist known as Noué Areygni, a narrow sliver of sunlight filtered down into the chamber.

  As that thin ray of light widened into a beam, it encompassed the basin, catching the fine mist spraying off it. The drops of water looked like flecks of gold paint, bouncing off the surface before spilling back into the reflection.

  The group craned their necks upward, mildly surprised. So, sunlight really did reach the chamber. Given that they’d left in the morning, it was likely around noon—the time when the light had the best chance of journeying through the layers of limestone unobstructed.

  Naomi cleared her throat, raising her hand more timidly than Ailn had ever seen her.

  “...If I may, Duke eum-Creid,” Naomi started.

  Ailn raised an eyebrow. “Why are you even asking me for permission?”

  “If. I may. Duke eum-Creid,” Naomi repeated, stifling a scowl, “I have my own conclusions as to the correct door.” Crossing her arms and looking away, the frown on her face and the knit in her brows took on an embarrassed tone. “I—I believe the true vault lies beneath the portrait in tempera.”

  Everyone stared at her—including the reflection, whose colors had started to yellow. When no one said a word, Naomi grew visibly flustered, raising her voice in a vain effort to maintain her poise.

  “There are those…! Ahem. There are those who are as sharp as they are fragile. And perhaps—they often cannot help themselves,” Naomi said. Unconsciously, as her eyes started to flicker toward Safi, she turned even further away. “I will not say she lacks for sadism. Yet she is not unbothered by her own cruelty.”

  “Um,” Safi piped up, “are you saying she’s misunderstood?”

  “Certainly not, no, I would not exonerate her with a sentiment so trite, I merely mean to say that perhaps—perhaps there are layers to this woman,” Naomi flushed. She kept turning her face away, inch by inch—she might’ve spun it all the way around just to avoid Safi, if she could. “She sows carelessly, yet she reaps the consequences knowingly. And the fruit borne has turned sour…”

  The longer Naomi continued to uncharacteristically blather on, the more obvious it became that the water mage was projecting. And the reflection, whose colors had already been yellowing, now looked nearly jaundiced—as if it were literally sickened by Naomi’s sympathy.

  “She is alone, but that does not mean she is lonely, and yet it also doesn’t mean that she would reject company—” Naomi’s eyes seemed to swirl as she lost track of what she was even saying. “And her apology has gone so long unuttered she wonders if it would be more hurtful to dredge up the muck from the riverbed—”

  “...But it was like… twenty minutes ago?” Safi looked utterly confused, glancing at Renea who looked like she was struggling not to roll her eyes.

  “I mean to say—Noué is… Often apologies are—” Naomi started to sputter, completely stripped of what was already an excruciatingly thin metaphor.

  “Ahem,” Kylian lightly coughed to interrupt Naomi, who was clearly cracking from the weight of her own guilt, and the pressure of Safi’s oblivious innocence. “Naomi, at any rate, believes the correct vault is designated by the tempera portrait. I’m inclined to agree.”

  “For real?” Safi’s eyes scrunched in confusion, before suddenly narrowing. “Wait, you’re white knighting her!” She put her hands on her hips. “Just because Naomi started talking a lot all of a sudden, I don’t know why, maybe she hates public speaking? But just because of that, you shouldn’t just side with her, you know, I thought knights signed a hippocratic oath—”

  “I’ve taken no such oath,” Kylian frowned. “...And I’m an Azure Knight. Not a White Knight.”

  “Same thing!”

  “The Order of the White Knights are in Calum, in the duchy of ark-Chelon, while I serve the duchy eum-Creid—”

  “Then you should stand up for your duke!” Safi’s cheeks puffed up. “Fealty… fealty over fillies, mister knight!”

  Ailn watched them with a muted expression, realizing exactly why Safi had thrown the blinders on.

  Then, he suddenly found himself wondering where Cora went. The top of the chamber was now clearly lit, and yet he couldn’t see her.

  Was she just hiding in the culvert? The thought made him uneasy. Not that Cora ever left him with a peaceful feeling.

  “Ailn has yet to even speculate as to the right doorway,” Kylian said, the consternation in his expression reaching a peak. Still, his voice remained patient. “Nor have I given my rationale.”

  “Right, oops,” Safi’s hands covered her mouth, as she realized she’d been rather rude. But quietly, hands still muffling her words, she added, “...You two use first names, though?”

  “We—” Kylian’s brows knit, as if sensing a trap. Hesitating for a moment, he seemed to decide that the best course of action was to carefully tiptoe around it. “While I’ve chosen the same door as Naomi, my reasoning differs in substance.”

  He walked over to the basin, to look into the water and face the reflection directly. It was a sincere act, almost chivalrous in its forthrightness. There was honest regret in his voice, but his words were blunt. “...I don’t believe Noué Areygni truly wished to be understood.”