Chapter 13 

The Ghost in the Rafters

Travel Journal — Day 15

Worked the morning shift. Still weirdly good at it.

Cinder is getting better at being a Quilava.

Owlbert is still better at being Owlbert than either of us are at understanding him.

Tonight was supposed to be simple training. It was not simple training.

I caught a Gastly. He talks.

I need to stop writing that sentence like it will become less strange if I keep looking at it.

- - - - -

By the time Ravina tied the last ribbon on her sleeve, the Mist Pavilion was already awake, but not yet busy.

Morning light filtered through paper screens, catching in the polished floorboards. Thin curls of incense smoke drifted past, turning pale gold. From deeper within the building, water moved quietly through the ornamental channel that crossed the public room.

A Murkrow landed on a railing with a teaspoon in its beak. Ravina watched it. The Murkrow watched her.

"Don't."

The Murkrow tilted its head.

Ravina pointed. "I know exactly what you're doing."

It dropped the spoon. Into the water.

Ravina closed her eyes.

"Progress."

Ravina turned. Chinatsu stood near a low table, long white tail drifting behind her. She held a pipe in one hand, a cup of tea in the other.

Ravina looked back at the spoon. "How is that progress?"

"Yesterday you would have tried to catch it."

"I've learned."

"You've accepted defeat."

"Different thing."

Chinatsu smiled. "Mm."

Ravina adjusted her uniform.

Chinatsu looked down at Ravina's feet. Her expression soured.

"No."

Ravina stopped. "Good morning to you too."

Chinatsu pointed with her pipe. "Those."

Ravina looked down. "My shoes?"

"Your abominations."

"They survived yesterday."

"So do many regrettable things."

Ravina stared at her.

Chinatsu turned to an attendant. "Bring the box."

"There's a box?"

"There has been a box since last night."

Ravina blinked. "…You bought me shoes?"

"I corrected an occupational hazard."

The attendant returned with a box. Ravina tried the shoes on. They were dramatically more comfortable.

"Oh."

Chinatsu smiled. "Yes."

Ravina took another step. "…Oh, these are nice."

"I know."

"How did you know my size?"

Chinatsu took a slow draw from her pipe. "I have eyes."

Ravina looked at her. "That is not how shoe sizing works."

"And yet you are wearing the shoes."

The costume still felt faintly ridiculous. White and pink. Detached sleeves. Short pleated skirt. The elaborate sash at her waist. Fox ears. Fox tail. All carefully assembled to look somewhere between innocent shrine maiden and somebody's extremely commercial interpretation of one.

The first time she'd put it on, she had been painfully aware of every inch.

Today—less so. Still aware. But less. That was probably dangerous.

Chinatsu took a slow sip of tea. "You're settling in."

Ravina looked at her. "That sounded threatening."

"It was praise."

"That's worse."

"Only if you have a guilty conscience."

Ravina glanced away. Chinatsu's smile deepened. "See?"

"I'm going to work now."

"A wise retreat."

- - - - -

The morning shift moved differently than the evening had. Quieter.

Tea mostly. Small breakfast plates. A few travelers who'd heard whispers of the Pavilion at one of Violet's inns, their faces falling when they realized daytime service was precisely as respectable as the rumors claimed.

Ravina found she didn't mind.

Her movements flowed easier today. She knew which table wobbled without testing it first. Which tray leaned heavier on the left side. Which senior attendant preferred drinks passed from that same side. Which regular wanted exactly two spoonfuls of honey and would deny wanting any before asking for more anyway.

Faces were becoming familiar.

Names, sometimes.

Orders, more often.

And the uniform—less costume now, more choice.

That bothered her more than she'd expected.

Not because she disliked it.

Because she didn't.

She caught herself smiling at two older women who'd been coming to the Pavilion for years, still arguing fondly about which of them had first dragged the other there.

Ravina brought them fresh tea.

The first woman's eyes narrowed.

"You're new."

"Temporary."

"Shame."

Ravina's smile widened.

"That's what everyone says until they see my tray-balancing skills."

The second woman laughed.

"Good answer."

Ravina bowed with just enough flourish to earn another laugh before moving on.

From across the room, Chinatsu watched her.

Ravina noticed, but pretended not to as Chinatsu continued watching.

Eventually Ravina mouthed: 'What?'

Chinatsu lifted her cup and said nothing.

Somehow, that felt more suspicious.

- - - - -

By early afternoon, the breakfast crowd thinned to a handful of lingering tea drinkers and one businessman who appeared to have fallen asleep over his paperwork.

Ravina was wiping down a low table when Chinatsu appeared beside her without making enough noise to justify it as Ravina nearly elbowed her.

"Please stop doing that."

"Doing what?" Chinatsu's jade eyes sparkled with innocence.

"Appearing. Like that."

Chinatsu's white ears twitched. "I have been doing that for a very long time."

Ravina looked at her. There were at least three possible questions hidden inside that sentence, but she wisely asked none of them as she straightened.

"I'm only here for another few hours."

"Oh?"

"And I'm going to the Center."

"I know." Chinatsu took a slow draw from her pipe. "For your boys, and then Sprout Tower?" She raised an eyebrow.

Ravina frowned. "How do you know that?"

"Intuition."

"Oh?"

Chinatsu smiled around the stem of her pipe as Ravina narrowed her eyes. "You enjoy that."

"Immensely."

"I changed my mind. I hate working here."

"No, you don't."

Ravina opened her mouth and closed it again.

Chinatsu's expression then softened. "Your Quilava?"

"Still figuring himself out, but he's doing better."

"And the owl?"

Ravina smiled. "Owlbert's getting the evening for training."

"Good."

Ravina blinked. "You approve?"

"I approve of noticing that your companions need different things." Chinatsu took another draw from her pipe. "Many people never manage it."

Ravina glanced toward the screens. "I think I was leaning on Cinder too much."

"Because you trust him?"

"Yeah."

"And because he makes himself easy to understand." Ravina smiled. "He's very expressive."

Chinatsu's tail curled behind her. "And your Hoothoot?"

Ravina thought about Owlbert, the staring, the exact timing, the hoots that sometimes seemed like commentary and sometimes clearly weren't.

"He doesn't need me to fuss over him."

"Perhaps."

"He needs me to be consistent."

Chinatsu nodded. "There you are."

Ravina looked at her. "What?"

"You answered your own problem."

Ravina sighed. "I hate when people do that… I didn't even say I had a problem…"

"I know."

- - - - -

When her shift ended, Ravina found herself standing before the staff changing screen, fingers hovering over the silk ties of her uniform. She looked down at the pink and white fabric, at the new shoes that had somehow become comfortable in just one day, then toward the distant shape of Sprout Tower visible through the window.

The shoes were comfortable. The room was in the opposite direction.

Ravina made a decision of tremendous strategic importance.

"I'm not changing."

Going back to her room would take time. Changing here would take effort. The Tower wasn't far.

She shrugged. "Fine."

One of the attendants passing behind her stopped. Looked at Ravina. Looked at the tail.

"Training?"

"Apparently."

The attendant nodded as though this made perfect sense. Ravina wasn't sure whether that made her feel better.