The Invisible Servant nodded rapidly.
Bernadette blinked. Hadn't it been seven days?
Did the two worlds run at different speeds?
After a moment she said, "Tell me everything you saw over those three days."
"Squeak!"
The creature launched into an animated recounting, from the arrival in the city — the police taking her to the poorhouse, huddling with vagrants, using glass to cut off her hair, sleeping in parks and alleyways and graveyards, stealing bread off the street while police chased her, sunbathing with vagrants — down to what had just happened.
Bernadette's expression darkened steadily with every word. Surrounded by official personnel. Over stolen food.
Truly an education.
After a long moment, she summoned her magic mirror and looked at herself — then thought of the image of that man bolting down the street with bread tucked under his arm, eating on the run — and a snort of laughter escaped before she could stop it.
Because she'd spent these seven days doing something remarkably similar. She could only imagine the man on the other side was feeling much the same way she did right now.
Bernadette pressed two fingers to the Invisible Servant and wiped its memory of everything it had seen. "Off you go."
"Squeak!"
It departed at speed.
Bernadette stepped forward, crossing through the spirit realm with its bizarre, vivid colours, and emerged in the captain's cabin of the Dawn. What greeted her was disorder — things moved, arrangements disturbed.
No need to guess who was responsible. She'd done the same to his room, in all likelihood.
She shook her head, stripped off her sour-smelling clothes, scattered a cleansing powder and used sorcery to clean herself, then changed into fresh clothing. She still felt grimy and stale.
She knew it was psychological. Knowing didn't help.
She pressed her lips together and pushed open the cabin door.
Outside, silence. Not a soul visible — the entire Dawn felt like a ghost ship.
Bernadette's blue eyes, deep as still water, shifted with a faint ripple. Then thick green pea vines burst from every direction at once, surging outward to engulf the surrounding deck.
"Ahh—!"
Figures materialised from nowhere, swept up and suspended in the air by the vines, a whole cluster of them — and nearest among them, First Mate Crouch and Second Mate Stefan.
Bernadette regarded them all without expression. "Stefan's idea again? What were you planning?"
"Ah — a surprise, Your Majesty."
"..."
The vines retracted. Everyone dropped at once, hitting the deck in an irregular chorus of thumps and cursing. Second Mate Stefan was first up, spreading his arms wide in an exaggerated welcoming gesture. "Oh, my most venerable Queen, you have retur — ow!"
Crouch had kicked him in the thigh. Stefan stumbled sideways. Crouch placed a hand over his chest and bowed. "Good afternoon, Your Majesty. Stefan is having one of his episodes."
Stefan, rubbing his thigh: "Who's having an episode? I just wanted to make sure Her Majesty was—"
Crouch's eyes curved behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. "Hmm?"
Stefan made a zipping gesture across his lips.
Bernadette looked between them. "Any progress while I was gone?"
"None." Crouch shook his head. "Once it became clear you wouldn't be back quickly, I had the Dawn withdraw from the God War Ruins."
She glanced around the deck and gave a faint nod. "The original plan is postponed. I have something more pressing."
"Understood." / "What is it?"
Both officers spoke at once. Stefan immediately received an elbow to the chest from Crouch and doubled over, aggrieved.
Bernadette noticed a fresh scar at Stefan's throat — a cut from something sharp. "How did that happen?"
Stefan checked with Crouch first this time, then said: "Your Majesty — do you truly not remember what happened three days ago?"
"..."
She went quiet. That was the man — controlling my body.
After a moment she opened a hidden compartment and tossed him a small medicine vial. "It seems my 'Mystery Recurrence' still has significant problems to work out," she said, offhandedly.
The two officers exchanged a look of sudden understanding.
"I need time to recover. You're free to move as you like in the meantime. Send word through the Invisible Servants if anything comes up."
"Understood."
As she turned, her silhouette dissolved into the cascade of jade vines falling from above.
She stepped back through the spirit realm and emerged in her own palace — Emerald City, on Rasha Island, in the Fog Sea.
The moment she was inside, she dropped into the enormous bath. She poured various perfumes into the water, then sank in and unwound the bedsheet from her chest. The relief was immediate.
But then she thought about it — those bedsheets had been wrapped by a man's hands. Her hands, technically, but the soul steering them had been male.
Who knew if he'd taken the opportunity to do something unpleasant.
She submerged her entire head.
When she surfaced, she'd recovered her composure. The body swap was the real question now: one-off coincidence, or an ongoing pattern?
If it was a coincidence, all the better. But if it was going to keep happening — the next swap could come in as little as three days.
The thought of her body being occupied by that man again gave her a headache. She'd been completely powerless in that other world.
This time he'd managed to embed himself with vagrants. Who knew what he'd come up with next.
Right. Before the next swap, I'll stay in Emerald City. Prepare enough food. Then when he takes over, all he can do is sit here quietly and eat.
The thought had barely formed when a small frown replaced it. "Wait. The swap started while I was aboard the Dawn — so why did I come back in that town?"
"According to the Invisible Servant, he couldn't use my Beyonder abilities at all. Otherwise he wouldn't have been living so miserably. So how did he get from the God War Ruins to the interior of Ruen in three days?"
"I should try scrying on myself later."
She had no great confidence in whether scrying could reach the memories of the past three days — she'd be looking into her own soul, but the soul that had operated her body during that time had been someone else's entirely.
"If the swap happens again in three days, the first priority is still communication. No matter how much I prepare, it's meaningless if we can't talk."
She thought of leaving a message.
The man couldn't understand or read her world's language. But a single language-type scroll or charm could give anyone fluent reading, writing, and speaking comprehension of a language within a set period.
The question was how to get him to use it.
If I activate the scroll a few seconds before the swap, would its effect travel with my soul to the other world — or would it work on the man's soul instead?
If the latter — perfect.
If the former —
"Maybe I could have the Invisible Servant apply it for me."
Yes. That should work.
Shhh—
Bernadette emerged from the water. Droplets traced down through her dog-bitten hair and fell onto skin that had returned to its usual white clarity. She found a comfortable position against the edge of the pool, her chest shifting with the movement of the water, and rested her chin on two fingers, thinking.
"Now — what exactly do I say to him?"
To be continued…