The Tenshukaku, Inazuma City, Inazuma, Teyvat
Earth Time: April 29th, 1941
The visitors of the Empire of Japan stepped into the Great Hall of the Tenshukaku with its polished wood floor that ran the length of the building with its width enough that the lanterns on each side of the walls seemed to different worlds. The ceiling above them was in tiers of dark timber and shadow, while the columns that supported it receded in pairs toward the far end of the hall. High up at the end of the hallway was the Electro mon of Inazuma that filled the wall behind the Throne with its triple swirl rendered in gold on deep blue. The red lanterns flanking the platform below it casting the light upward against the crest and gave almost a golden like appear at certain angles.
Ishida Takeshi had been in many government buildings in his career. He had been in the Diet, in the foreign ministry annexes in Shanghai and Nanking, in the colonial administration offices in Manchukuo where the heating was bad and the politics were worse. The place almost reminded him of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo or Kōkyo. He bowed at the threshold, at the midpoint of the floor, and again at the base of the dais steps. Each bow was calibrated to the correct degree just like he would at the Kōkyo.
Behind him, Owada Noboru did not bow at the midpoint. He bowed once, at the threshold, and then he walked. His eyes moved to the column spacing, then to the gallery level above where Kujou Sara's soldiers stood at intervals then to the ceiling height, then to the side doors and the guards at each, then to the Shogun herself for exactly as long as courtesy required and not a moment longer. After that his gaze moved to the mon on the far wall and stayed there for three seconds, which was long enough to be measuring it and brief enough to appear to be admiring it.
The Fatui liaison entered last and placed himself at the rear left of the delegation without being directed there. His grey coat and mask were unchanged from the evening before and unchanged from the morning of their arrival at the dock.
On the platform, the Raiden Shogun sat in absolute stillness. Her purple eyes rested on the delegation with her expression giving the impression that they were neither welcomed or rejected. To her right and half a step below stood Kujou Sara in full armour with her hand resting on the pommel of her weapon. She had indigo hair into an uneven bob with the most unique aspect of her were the black raven-like wings on her back. On the side of her head lies a red tengue mask that resembles a crows face with white accents on it. On the left, on a low seat drawn back just far enough from the dias sat the Lady Guuji of the Grand Narukami Shrine. She wore her special shrine maiden dress of white and red, thigh-length pink hair, pink fox ears, and red make-up at the corners of her eyes. In her hands, she held a cup of tea that she had not touched yet. However, her expression was of someone that knew the direction that the winds was going to blow and seemed to be looking forward to how it was going to end.
Kamisato Ayato stood near the entrance with his hands folded in his sleeves, which was where he preferred to stand in rooms where other people were doing the talking.
The three of them formed a triangle around the Shogun that was not accidental and that Owada, who had been reading room geometry for twenty years, noted and filed without expression.
Ishida advanced to the base of the dais steps and delivered his final bow.
"Your Excellency," he said, in the measured English that had become the working language of these proceedings, "I bring the warmest regards of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor, whose reign is as the light of heaven that does not diminish, to the Almighty Shogun and to the eternal people of Inazuma. It is the sincere hope of the Imperial government that this audience marks the beginning of a friendship that will endure as long as the islands themselves endure."
The Shogun regarded him.
"You may speak," she said.
Her voice was not loud. In a hall built around the architecture of authority it did not need to be. It occupied its place in that architecture as completely as the mon behind her.
Ishida inclined his head.
"Your Excellency, my government comes in friendship and respect. Our worlds have been brought into contact through circumstances without precedent. The Empire of Japan believes that island nations of ancient dignity may understand one another more readily than continental powers burdened by lesser instincts. The entrance of the Snezhnaya to the Triparti Pact recently has allowed Japan to be able to learn more about the world of Teyvat, when the Emperor learned about Inazuma and how culturally similar it is; The Emperor felt it would be prudent to make contact with the Great Raiden Shogun herself and invite her nation to the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere."
Yae Miko finally lifted her tea and took the smallest possible sip, as if the proposal had improved the flavor through sheer audacity.
"The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere," she repeated pleasantly. "What a very large name. One wonders how much room is left inside it for anyone else."
Ishida bowed slightly toward her.
"Lady Guuji, the Sphere is founded upon mutual advancement, shared security, and the liberation of Asia from Western domination."
Ayato's eyes narrowed by a fraction, "And what is this West that you refer to?"
Ishida held Ayato's gaze for a moment longer than comfort allowed, where he seemed to understand that the question was simple only on its surface.
"The West," he said carefully, "is not merely a compass direction. It is a civilizational condition. The powers of Europe and America that have for centuries divided Asia into possessions, markets, and dependencies. The Co-Prosperity Sphere exists to end that age and replace it with an order in which the peoples of the East determine their own future."
Yae Mike decided to put in her own output with a smile, "How fortunate for the peoples of the East in your world that Japan had volunteered itself as the liberator that gets to determine which future belongs to them."
Ishida's mouth tightened by a degree, "Lady Guuji, liberation requires responsibility. Japan has assumed that responsibility because no other power in Asia possesses the strength, unity, or will to do so."
"How exhausting for Japan," Yae said, "To be so strong, so unified, and so very willing on everyone else's behalf."
Owada's eyes shifted toward her, "Mockery does not alter strategic reality."
"No," Yae replied, setting her tea down. "But it does make the conversation more honest."
The room was silent for a moment, where the Shogun spoke with the quality of the silence changing quickly.
"Strategic reality," she said, "Let us speak of it plainly then, since the Captain prefers plainness."
She looked at Owada with the purple eyes that had been watching everything since the delegation entered and had not changed expression once as she spoke, "Your reconnaissance flight surveyed the western harbor approaches and the Kujou encampment. Your photographer documented the furnace at Tatarsuna. Your observer in the rear of the aircraft spent the third circuit speaking into a communication device."
She paused for a moment as she continue as her eyes glowed for a moment, "You arrived as diplomats and your first act was military intelligence gathering. That is also a strategic reality. Shall we discuss both or only the one that is convenient for your argument?"
Wiselly, Owada did not answer. Ishida bowed before the silence could become the verdict.
"Your Excellency, the incident was regrettable. The pilot was operating in unfamiliar conditions and may have exceeded his instructions."
"May have," Sara repeated.
The words struck like the first tap of a hammer testing glass, while Yae Miko rested her chin lightly on one hand.
"My, how useful uncertainty becomes when someone is caught holding a map."
The Fatui liaison stepped forward half a pace, "Surely, Lady Guuji, no one here benefits from assuming hostile intent where confusion may suffice."
Sara's eyes moved to him, "Inazuma has already suffered once from assuming the Fatui were merely confused."
Then Yea Miko continued, "And if the news about what Snezhnaya is releasing about their intervention in your's world's conflict. I wonder what Japan gets with Fatui supporting its own efforts. Tell me Second Secretary, is your country at war with anyone in your world right now?"
Ishida did not blink, which was enough for Ayato.
"Japan is engaged in a regrettable conflict in China," Ishida said carefully, "A conflict made by instability and provocation by the Chinese nation at the Marco Polo Bridge, and the protection of Japanese interests."
Yae Miko's smile sharpened by a fraction.
"How remarkable," she said. "Your empire seems forever to discover its interests just beyond someone else's border."
Ayato's eyes remained on Ishida.
"And does Snezhnaya now assist you in protecting those interests as well?" he asked mildly. "Or is it only Germany that receives the benefit of this new friendship?"
Ishida chose his next words with visible care, "Japan and Snezhnaya have opened channels of mutual understanding through the Tripartite framework with a new portal in Tokyo recently created just a week ago. It would be premature to characterize that understanding in military terms."
"Premature," Yae repeated. "A charming word. Like 'regrettable.' One begins to see the architecture of your Foreign Ministry."
Owada spoke before Ishida could shape a safer answer.
"In war," he said, "nations learn from their friends."
Sara's gaze snapped to him, "And from their targets."
The silence after that was so complete that Ishida could hear the faint shift of cloth from one of the guards in the gallery. Owada had gone silent again. Ishida bowed before the captain could say anything else and turn the wound into an amputation.
"Your Excellency," he said, "Japan seeks knowledge only so that friendship may be conducted with clear eyes."
Yae Miko's smile became almost tender.
"How lovely. A friendship that begins with binoculars."
Ayato's hands remained folded in his sleeves, "And with an invitation to enter a structure whose purpose Japan has already decided for us."
The Shogun rose as the delegation bowed before her.
"Inazuma does not enter spheres," she said, "If Japan desires trade, it may petition through the Kanjou Commission. If Japan desires cultural exchange, it may speak through the Yashiro Commission. If Japan desires military dialogue, it will first obey the Tenryou Commission's restrictions."
She let her words settle for a moment as the hall held it without difficulty.
"These are not conditions," she said. "They are the existing structure of Inazuma's engagement with the world. They applied before your delegation arrived. They will apply after it departs and are not directed at Japan specifically. Japan is welcome to use them."
Ishida bowed. He had the expression of a man receiving terms he had not expected to be offered.
"Her Excellency is generous," he said.
"Her Excellency is consistent," the Shogun said, "Which is a different thing."
Yae Miko made a sound that was technically a cough.
"One question, if Her Excellency permits," Ishida said.
The Shogun looked at him.
"The Tenryou Commission's restrictions," he said carefully. "If Japan were to seek military dialogue, what would compliance with those restrictions require?"
The Shogun regarded him for a moment, and in that pause Ishida had the distinct impression that he was being weighed less as a diplomat than as a man who had just asked whether a locked gate might explain its hinges.
"Compliance," she said at last, "would require that Japan first understand the distinction between dialogue and reconnaissance."
Ishida bowed.
"Yes, Your Excellency."
"No unsanctioned flights. No private meetings with officers, soldiers, or shipwrights. No approach to foundries, arsenals, shipyards, coastal batteries, or encampments without explicit leave. No copying of maps. No measurements taken. No sketches made of military grounds, matériel, or fortifications. No equipment brought ashore for inspection without declaration. No question asked under diplomatic cover that would be recognized more honestly as intelligence gathering."
Sara stepped forward half a pace.
"And any request concerning military matters," she said, "will be submitted in writing to the Tenryou Commission first. Not to dockmasters, not to local officials, not to soldiers on watch, and certainly not to anyone a clever foreign officer believes may be easier to pressure than the proper chain of authority."
Ayato added, in the mild tone he reserved for the most dangerous observations, "In short, Captain, if Japan wishes to learn anything from Inazuma's military institutions, it must ask. And then accept that the answer may be no."
Yae Miko smiled into her teacup, "Astonishing, really. A nation with borders."
Ishida took the blow on behalf of the room.
"Your Excellency's meaning is clear," he said.
"Good," the Shogun replied.
"Before we depart, Your Excellency, His Majesty the Emperor asked to express to you that he would be interested in the chance to personally visit your nation and have some of the crew of the Katori even perform ceremonies of our culture like Kabuki on Ritou?"
For the first time in several minutes, Yae Miko did not bother to hide her amusement.
"How thoughtful," she said, "An invitation to empire, reconnaissance from the sky, and now a performance."
Ishida kept his eyes on the Shogun and not on the Guuji.
"It is meant sincerely," he said. "His Majesty believes that true understanding between nations is best strengthened not merely by formal discussion, but by the exchange of living culture. Music, drama, ceremony. The cruiser Katori is a vessel of instruction and refinement as much as one of state, and…."
"A warship….." Sara cut off with a glare.
Ishida paused only a fraction.
"A commissioned vessel, yes," he said, "but one that could serve in this case as the bearer of goodwill."
Ayato's eyes narrowed by the smallest degree.
"How efficient," he said, "To transport culture in a hull armored by cannon."
Yae Miko rested one elbow lightly on her knee and looked at Ishida as if he had just offered to improve a shrine festival by parking artillery in the courtyard.
"One wonders," she said, "whether the kabuki is intended to arrive before or after the range-finding."
Ishida absorbed that with visible effort.
"Lady Guuji, Japan's cultural traditions are not a disguise."
"No," Yae replied. "That would require them to hide something. Here they seem to be doing their work in the open."
The Fatui liaison remained very still. He had learned by now that any effort to smooth the room only made it sharper.
The Shogun regarded Ishida for a long moment before answering.
"If the Emperor of Japan wishes to send greetings," she said, "they may be received through proper channels."
Ishida bowed.
"And if he wished to visit personally?"
"A sovereign visit is not a token," the Shogun replied. "It is not arranged as ornament after a failed proposal. Nor is it coupled to the arrival of a foreign warship and described as culture."
The words landed cleanly with no heat or contempt. The answer would be impossible to give, which Ishida tried anyway.
Your Excellency, the suggestion was not intended to bind one matter to the other. Only to indicate the seriousness of Japan's respect."
"Respect," Sara said, "does not usually request shore access for a cruiser whose officers spent their first day in our waters taking measurements."
Owada bowed stiffly.
"General Kujou, the Katori is not here for aggression."
"No," Sara said. "It is here because your delegation wished a visible symbol of national presence. We have seen it."
Ayato turned his head slightly toward Ishida.
"If Japan wishes cultural exchange," he said, "then surely it can send actors rather than sailors."
"The suggestion regarding kabuki was meant as a gesture of goodwill, not as a strategic necessity," Ishida replied.
Yae smiled as she decided to reply, "Then it should be easy to separate it from strategy."
Ishida remained silent for a moment again, but it was the silence of a man who had found all available answers, assessed each of them, and recognized that none improved his position. Eleven years of diplomatic service had given him the professional intelligence to know when a conversation had arrived at its natural terminus, and this one had arrived there with the particular finality of something that had been heading there since the reconnaissance aircraft completed its third circuit over the Kujou encampment.
He silently cursed the military for wanting to get photographic surveillance of the lands of Inazuma. The Naval General Staff wanted the photos to get a better understanding of the geography of Inazuma, its defences, and its production capabilities. The Army General Staff threatened to even topple the current Prime Minister's government if it did not receive detailed information on Inazuma through not only diplomacy but also photographs and spotting information. He explained to Prime Minister Konoe that such a move might not be received well by the Inazumans considering the fact that all-mighty Raiden Shogun had turned a Fatui Harbinger into ashes. Even Admiral Yamamoto issued his own protest against it to the Prime Minister, where he explained that it will destroy any attempt to have the Inazumans welcome the Katori with open arms. The Admiral was even very explicit in saying if the event occurred that it could force Inazuma and the other nations of Teyvat to be more open to the Americans should they somehow make contact with them.
"Then," he said carefully, "Japan will be pleased to submit any such cultural proposal separately, through the Yashiro Commission, and without presuming upon the presence of a naval vessel. His Majesty's thought was offered in sincerity. If the form was ill-chosen, I ask that the intention be judged more kindly than the presentation."
Yae Miko's eyes half-lidded in visible pleasure.
"A diplomat at last," she murmured. "See, Captain? They do manufacture them in your world."
Owada did not answer as he kept his face straight.
The Shogun looked at Ishida for a moment that looked merely to be judgment as she spoke.
"Inazuma does not forbid exchange," she said, "It forbids confusion."
The talks would end for the evening not long afterwards, but the Raiden Shogun of Inazuma gave her definitive answer to the Japanese Empire. It will not join the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere and will not bow to any requests for cooperation from Japan very easily. It is here where historians will argue on what would possibly be the start of Teyvatian defiance against the Axis.
Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia
May 1st, 1941
Pug walked down the pier of the Navy Yard, where the destroyer piers stretched out to his left with the gray shapes of Benson and Gleaves destroyers lined in pairs along the finger docks, their pennant numbers freshly painted, their gangway watches standing in the raw May wind. The four-stackers of Clemson Class Destroyers were further down, older and lower in the water, their four funnels distinguishing them from every other ship in the yard. He arrived to Pier seven, where the old battlewagon USS Texas was berthed with its old fourteen inch guns. He recalled when he had reported to the Texas and now had since changed with its superstructure rebuilt. He walked the gangway, where he was lead inside to the ship. Once he reached a door, a Marine presented arms without looking at him. As Pug entered the office through the door, Admiral Ernest King sat behind a desk. Behind him hung the chart of the Atlantic with bold black letters in one that said "COMMANDER IN CHIEF, ATLANTIC FLEET" He had a long, deeply scored face with high cheekbones. Admiral King looked at Pug and motioned for Henry to a seat.
"Commander Henry," King said with voice dry, "I received a call yesterday from the Chief of Naval Operations that a War Plans Officer would be reporting directly from a meeting with the President. All of it is to be a verbal directive only. Would that be you, correct?"
"Yes, Admiral," Pug replied.
Pug stated where he organized the account before he left Hyde park and the conversation with the President. He explained about the convoy, HX-129, with one hundred twenty ships from Halifax to England to sail in two days. He explained about the cover story of drills and inspections and the creative fiction of cooperative merchant vessels encountered at sea. He explained to King that the judgment of Roosevelt was that the Fatui submarines, if they were operating in the Atlantic at all, would hold fire in the presence of American warships rather than risk the diplomatic consequences.
"So, Commander, you are ready to be the man that brings the country into war against a nation from another world all by yourself?" King said with a raised eyebrow, "That is one way for an obscure individual to go down in history, Commander."
"Admiral, it is the President's judgment that this exercise will go off without incident."
King drew on a cigarette and let the smoke out slowly, "So you said. What do we know about their submarines? Speed. Depth. Armament. Operating range. Crew size. Communications protocols. What do we have?"
Pug kept his face still, "At present, Admiral, nothing confirmed."
"So, Commander Henry," King continued with his expression unchanged, "So I am being asked to send sixteen destroyers and a Coast Guard cutter into the mid-Atlantic to run a screen alongside a British convoy against a submarine threat about which United States Naval Intelligence has no confirmed information of any kind. Not silhouette recognition. Not weapons load. Nothing. We don't even know if these submarines are even out to sea or in our world."
"No, Admiral. We do not."
King grabbed a cigarette and left as he leaned back in chair and for a moment said nothing.
"The German submarines I understand," King said. "We have their silhouettes from British intelligence. We have information on their specifications from observers before the war and the British as well. We have none of that for these Fatui boats, if they are out at sea."
"The President's assessment," Pug said, "is that Fatui will not want to provoke an incident while talks are still ongoing in Hyde Park. It is believed that their communications relay between a wolfpack at sea and Snezhnograd runs through intermediary points. Any boat that finds American escorts in a patrol area will likely hold fire while it waits for guidance from command."
"Likely," King said.
"Yes, sir."
"Suppose that judgement is wrong, these Fatui are showing to be outside the box lately. Suppose that the Fatui Submariners fire a fish at you and god knows what else, Commander. What then?"
"If we're fired on, Admiral, I propose to fire back," Pug said. "That won't start a war unless the Tsaritsa, herself, wants one."
Admiral nodded with a roll of the eyes, "We're already in this war at this point, whether Congress has said so or not. It won't matter how the whistle blows, the Japanese are going to kick it off when it suits them more than us with the Germans doing the same thing. At this point, I suppose if the Ice Bastards themselves feel it, they will attack where it helps them more. What about Bismarck? She is nearly ready to break out to the Atlantic from the Baltic."
"The Bismarck is a concern, Admiral," Pug said, "I hope the Catalinas will give us warning if she's in our area so we can evade."
"In a big ocean, an air patrol can miss the Bismarck without issues," King replied, " If they find HX-129 without warning, your Fatui wolfpack will be the least of your problems. If your convoy encounters Bismarck, the best you can do is screen the Convoy, make smoke, and get the merchants out of there as best you can."
King then picked up the telephone as he spoke to it, "Get me Admiral Bristol."
For a moment the Admiral spoke to him as he waited, "Henry, you got nothing in writing?"
"No , sir," Pug replied.
"Ok, you are to cease all references to the president for this exercise."
"Aye aye, Sir."
A moment passed until the sound of someone answering could be heard, "Admiral, I am sending Commander Victor Henry from War Plans. He will visit your squadron and conduct surprise drills and inspections to include screens on cooperative merchant vessels. He will be regarded as my assistant chief of staff with all the appropriate authority.
The way King said the words 'appropriate authority' sounded more like a mumble.
"Right he will be in your office within the hour."
King replaced the receiver and came back to Pug.
"Commander, I am going to tell you something that will not appear in any document connected with this operation. We are going in blind. Not poorly resourced. Not under-briefed. Blind. We do not know what these Fatui boats look like on the surface or submerged. We do not know what their captains have been authorized to do when they find American warships in their patrol area. God help you if you run into whatever the Snezhnayans have out there."
"I understand, Admiral."
"But I also warn in the event of an incident," King said without emphasis and pointing a finger at Pug, " it will be a hanging party for all hands. That will be all."
"Aye aye, Admiral."
The marine outside the door presented arms without looking at him. Pug walked back through the ship and down the gangway.
Marta's Shop, Berlin
May 3rd, 1941
Marta came up the stairs earlier than she normal does, where Aether heard her on the third step and looked up from the chair where he had spent most of the night not sleeping. Paimon was still curled on the folded blanket near the wall, her breathing slow and even, one hand tucked under her cheek. The lamp had burned low. But outside the window, the light had the particular gray quality of a Berlin morning that had not yet committed to becoming a day. Marta appeared at the top of the stairs and looked at him with grim sadness covering her face.
"Any word on Father Brauer," Aether said but not as a question as her expression had already answered it.
Marta came the rest of the way up and sat in the chair across from him and folded her hands on the table. She had already been downstairs for some time, he could tell. Her hair was done and her apron was on.
"His housekeeper came by early this morning," Marta said. "She does the rounds before the shop opens. She told me that the study was locked from the outside when she arrived yesterday evening. His breviary was on the desk. His hat was on the hook."
"Is the hat important?" Aether asked.
"A priest does not leave his parish without his hat," Marta said,"Especially him, there has not been one sermon or moment in my life that I have never seen him without the hat. According to the House Keeper, he has been gone since yesterday."
"Was he taken?" Aether asked.
"Possibly, the Gestapo are not always loud in taking people," Marta said, "With a bounty like yours, it would have been a matter of time before they started to want to question him further."
"It's my fault that he was taken," Aether said silently.
"No," Marta said sternly looking Aether in the eyes, "He knew that this would happen. He told me once that he had been managing the Gestapo for eight years and that eventually the arithmetic would not work in his favor. He was not surprised by it as a possibility. He simply hoped the possibility would hold off a little longer. If you hadn't saved him on that day, then he would have been arrested on the steps of his church. You gave him more time."
Paimon had pulled herself upright on the blanket and was holding her knees to her chest, looking at a point on the floorboards between herself and the table with the expression she wore when she had understood something fully and was carrying it without knowing where to put it.
"Is there anything we can do?" she asked.
"No," Marta said. "Not from here. Not now."
She paused and looked at the curtain window and looked back as she spoke, "But know this Aether, the last thing that he said to me before he left was that he was grateful to God that a good heart man like you exists. Your arrival and intervention at the church gave him hope that this nightmare over Berlin will see an end. You even renewed his faith in God that had slowly been waning after each year. The House Keeper even said that he seemed to have more energy than she had seen in the past eight years."
Aether looked at the table. He did not have an answer for that and did not try to find one. The lamp between them had burned down to almost nothing and the gray morning light was taking over its work slowly, the way morning light in Berlin always seemed to arrive as a replacement rather than a welcome.
Paimon had not moved from her blanket. She was still holding her knees, still looking at the floorboards, but something in her expression had shifted.
"He renewed his faith," Paimon said quietly, more to herself than to either of them. "Because of us."
"Because of what you did," Marta said, "There is a difference."
Paimon looked up at her. "We knocked two Gestapo officers down some church steps."
"You chose to," Marta said. "There is a phrase that I have started believing ever since 1933 and that 'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.' You have proven that if good men stand up and fight evil, then good can win."
Paimon looked at her for a moment. Then she looked at Aether, and then back at Marta, and something in her expression settled into a quieter place than it had been since she woke up.
"Paimon believes that too," she said. "Paimon has always believed that. It's just harder to remember when you're hiding in a sewing shop in the worst city Paimon has ever been in."
"Yes," Marta said. "It is harder here. That is why it matters more here."
"What will happen to him?" Aether asked silently.
"If they have not shot him," Marta replied sounding as if she did not want to think about it, "They will most likely send him to a concentration camp like Dachau."
"Dachau? What's that?" Paimon asked.
Marta was quiet for a moment. She looked at Paimon with the expression of a woman deciding how much of a true thing to say to someone who has not yet been required to know it.
"It is a camp," she said, "in Bavaria. The first one they built, in 1933, when the party came to power. They send people there who they want to disappear without the inconvenience of a trial. Communists, at first. Then Jews. Then anyone who speaks against them or shelters the wrong people or prays in ways they disapprove of."
Paimon had stopped holding her knees. She had let her feet touch the floor, which she only did when something had pushed the ordinary buoyancy out of her entirely.
"Can people come back from there?" she asked with her voice smaller than usual.
Marta looked at her for a long moment.
"Some do," she said. "The war will end eventually. When it ends, the camps will open. Some of the priests in Dachau have survived years there already. And I hope that when the war ends, they put Hitler through the same conditions of those he had imprisoned."
Paimon absorbed this. She looked at Aether. Aether was looking at the dead lamp on the table with the expression he used when he was holding something very still inside himself so that it did not affect what he needed to do next.
"He helped us," Paimon said to Aether, "He helped us and now he is going to a place like that."
"Yes," Marta said. "And he knew that was a possible consequence when he chose to help you. Father Brauer has been making that calculation for eight years. He has always known what the cost of each choice might be."
She reached into the pocket of her apron and set something on the table. It was a small package in the size of a brown envelope wrapped in brown paper and tied with ordinary twine. The package looked to have recently been opened and resealed where the twine was retied slightly differently from how it had been knotted the first time, which Aether noticed and which Marta did not try to conceal.
"This came last night," she said. "After the channel message about the contact. A different channel. Someone left it at the back door. I read what was in it because anything that comes to my back door in this city I read before I pass on. That is how I have stayed alive."
Aether looked at the package and then at her.
"I am not apologizing for that," Marta said.
"I'm not asking you to," Aether said.
He reached across and unwrapped it. Inside was a folded piece of paper, a small card with an address printed on it in type rather than handwriting for a paper goods shop in a area called Neue Wilhelmstrasse.There was also a single torn page from a book. The torn page was not torn carelessly. It had been removed along the spine with the clean deliberate separation of someone who knew exactly which page they wanted and took only that one. The paper was good quality of heavy, cream-colored, slightly yellowed at the edges. Aether could make out what the text was about as it was in German.
Below the text was two words written in small handwriting:
Bergmann. Montag.
If it been had days ago, Aether would be one hundred percent lost but he started to learn a few words from Marta.
"What does it say?" Paimon asked looking over his shoulder.
"Bergmann. Monday," Aether replied.
Paimon looked at the card with the address and then at the torn page. "So Monday is the meeting. And then we leave Monday night?"
"If the meeting goes the way it should," Aether said.
"And if it doesn't?"
"Then we don't leave Monday night," Aether said.
Paimon absorbed this with the expression she used for answers that were technically complete and practically unsatisfying. She looked at the torn page again, at the two words, and then at Aether.
"Who tears a page out of a book and uses it as a password?" she said.
"Someone who has a book," Marta said from where she stood at the head of the stairs, "and knows that the man he is sending it to is careful enough to match the paper to the spine and not just take anyone at their word."
She turned to Aether for a moment as she continued.
"At the shop on Monday you will ask for correspondence paper, particularly Swedish weave, if he has it. He will quote you a price in Swedish kronor. That is the signal that you have the right man. Then you show him the page. He will have the book. When the page matches, the conversation begins."If he does not quote you a price in Swedish kronor, you buy something ordinary and you leave and you come back here."
She moved down the stairs, "Now. Breakfast. You have until Monday morning and I will not have you face it on an empty stomach."
Paimon and Aether followed behind her as they went down stairs, where Marta had put out bread and hard-boiled eggs and three cups of of ersatz coffee on the table. The coffee was nothing to bring back to Teyvat as it was a mixture of roasted grains, mainly barley, rye, and wheat. Paimon was already seated and looked as if she was deciding if the coffee was some kind of evil mixture meant to destroy her tastebuds.
However, Aether did not focus much on Paimon. There was only one main thing running through his head and that was for the first time in his journey since he lost Lumine to the unknown god, he felt useless and unable to do anything. He wondered about this god that Father Bruarer was one that could do something for a man like the priest that helped Aether and Paimon. He prayed that if this God existed, he might spare a thought for the men who carried his word through cities like this one.
London, England
May 4th, 1941
The window had been open because May in London, even a London that had been burning intermittently since September, occasionally produced an evening mild enough to justify it. Pamela had opened it an hour ago to clear the flat of her father's pipe smoke. Alistair Tudsbury sat in a armchair with considerable bulk arranged around him while he smoked a pipe and had a glass of whiskey. He was examining some writing that he had for his next broadcast. Pamela was at the small desk by the wind with a cup of tea with a fresh cup of tea and a notebook open to a page of shorthand she was transcribing. She had gotten a special pass from Number Eleven Fighter Group for some leave and was helping out her father. Outside, the evening was quiet in the way London evenings had become quiet with no German bombers flying overhead continuously, but the news reported that the Germans were now bringing the Blitz to Belfast in Northern Ireland.
The city now seemed to be more silent in the dark so that it could make sleep easy for her and the other people in London.
Then something fell out of the sky and landed in the window box. The sound that it made was not a bomb, which was the first thing Pamela's nervous system checked for and cleared. However, the sound was something more personal and started to make a human noise. Pamela had already started making way to the window.
In the window box, face-down among the geraniums was looking like a boy at forest sight. He was slight and young looking with short blackish blue hair with short twin braids at the side of his face that at the ends faded into blue. He had on a green bard hat with a feather. In addition, he had on a cape and beneath one arm was somehow an undamaged lyre. He did not move, but was groaning like a drunkard after a hangover.
"Father," Pamela said.
"Not now," Tudsbury said from the armchair.
"Father."
Something in her voice made him look up. He crossed to the window with the rolling gait of a large man in a small flat and looked out and down at the window box.
For a moment neither of them said anything. The boy in the window box groaned again, shifted, and knocked over what turned out to be a wine bottle that had survived the landing wedged between two geranium pots. It rolled to the edge of the window box and stopped there. It was roughly a third full.
Then the boy lifted his head from the geraniums and looked up at them. His eyes were the color of aquamarine and were, despite everything, remarkably alert. He took in the window, the two faces above him.
"Ah," he said in a breathy voice with a brief facial expression of genuine apology, "I had intended a rather more graceful entrance than this."
"I imagine," Pamela said.
The boy extracted himself from the window box with the careful movements where he brushed soil from his cape and tilted his hat back from where the impact had pushed it over one eye. He retrieved the wine bottle from the edge of the window box, checked it, and appeared satisfied by what he found. He looked back up at them with a graceful smile.
"You would not," he said, "happen to have any apple cider?"
Tudsbury's pipe had gone out. He did not appear to notice it at all.
"Who in God's name are you?" he said.
The boy performed a bow with the lyre held at his side. The bow that was simultaneously genuine and theatrical and did not fully commit to being either.
"My name is Venti," he said with a glance at the destroyed geraniums, "I am a bard. I have come from some considerable distance and have had a somewhat difficult final approach."
"Bards do not fall out of the sky," Tudsbury said.
"Most of them do not," Venti agreed pleasantly. "I find it adds to the mystique. Though in this particular instance it was, the music in the air was calling for me to land and bring about the Tales of Teyvat through this bard with a lyre in hand and some nice apple cider."
Tudsbury looked at him for a moment with the expression of a man deciding whether what he has just heard is poetry or nonsense and concluding that the distinction may not matter.
"Tales of Teyvat," he repeated.
"Among other things," Venti said agreeably.
"You mean the world those bloody Fatui are from? The ones that are hurting our boys Greece," Tudsbury exclaimed, "Are you a member of those bloody bastards?"
"I am from that world, but not a Fatus. If anything, ask them about my Gnosis and how they stole it," Venti replied, "But I will say, this is the most work that I have ever done in life time since…..many years."
"If you are from that world, prove it to me," Pamela said, "For all I know, you could be some wildly drunkard from the nearby pub giving us wild stories."
Venti looked at her with the expression of a man who has been called many things across many centuries and finds "wildly drunkard from the nearby pub" a novel addition to the list right up there with the same tier as "Tone-Deaf Bard."
"That is," he said, "a fair request."
He stepped fully out of the window box and set the wine bottle carefully upon the sill with the solemnity of a man safeguarding something of national importance. For a brief moment, nothing happened at all. Then the curtain nearest the open window lifted outward in one smooth motion, not with the uncertain stir of London air but with the deliberate grace of something answering a silent summons. The loose papers on Pamela's desk rustled and trembled, yet none were blown free. Pamela did not move as she didn't dare to at all.
Soil rose from the broken geranium box in a dark soft ribbon. A few torn red petals followed it, circling Venti at shoulder height as if they had forgotten the ordinary business of falling. The room filled at once with a a scent mixed with things like apple blossom, wet grass, leaves after rain, and the clean high smell of wind.
Venti lifted one hand slightly. It was not the gesture of a performer inviting applause, but something lighter and older, as though he were greeting an old companion that had arrived precisely when expected. Around his fingers the air itself became faintly visible, not in color, but in motion, curving and folding over itself like silk being drawn through an unseen ring. His cape stirred. The feather in his cap gave a soft shimmer. Beneath his other arm, the lyre answered with a single bright note though his hand had not touched the strings.
Tudsbury's pipe slipped from his fingers and landed on the carpet without either of them noticing.
Then, as quickly as it had come, the moment gentled with the petals settled, the soil drifted back into the box, and the curtain lowered. The impossible springtime scent thinned beneath the ordinary smells of tea, smoke, whiskey, and the long-used life of a London flat.
Venti looked at them both with mild and almost courteous satisfaction, as if he had merely answered a knock at the door.
"The pub in question," he said, "would have to be quite remarkable."
Pamela was the first to recover.
"That," she said, with unnatural care, "was not a trick."
"No," Tudsbury said.
For a moment, silence was maintained.
"Pamela," Tudsbury said, "please tell me that you have Apple Cider in your cupboard."
Pamela blinked for a moment as she replied, "What?"
"The man asked for some Apple Cider," Tudsbury exclaimed in excitement, "It is only fair that we show him some hospitality unlike the Germans."
Pamela stared at her father as if the second miracle of the evening had just occurred and it was not the one in the window.
"You want to give cider," she said slowly, "to the person who fell out of the sky."
Tudsbury turned toward her with all the injured dignity of a man who felt the question itself was unfair, "My dear girl, I am English, not a barbarian. The fellow asked for apple cider. He then proceeded to produce spring weather in my sitting room without, I may add, blowing the wallpaper off the walls. That puts him ahead of several cabinet ministers already."
Pamela put a hand to her forehead, drew in one long breath, and let it out in a manner that suggested she had accepted that the evening was no longer salvageable by ordinary means.
"We have cider," she said. "Though I am not certain it was purchased for celestial visitors."
"I find local stock preferable," Venti said. "It makes for a more authentic cultural exchange."
"Stay there," Pamela said.
Venti looked mildly wounded and glanced down at the carpet, the windowsill, and the general radius of his own person.
"I was not about to wander."
"That is not reassurance."
She disappeared into the little kitchen beyond the sitting room, and for a moment Tudsbury and Venti regarded one another across the wreckage of the geranium box like two men trying to decide whether the other belonged to religion, politics, or drink.
At last Tudsbury pointed with two fingers toward the chair opposite his own.
"If you must be improbable," he said, "do it from there. I should like to keep at least one piece of furniture from becoming legendary."
Venti stepped away from the window with easy lightness and settled into the chair as though he had been invited to evening tea rather than deposited by fate, wind, or intoxicated providence. He set the lyre across his knees. The feather in his cap caught the lamplight with a soft green sheen.
Tudsbury lowered himself back into his armchair.
For a little while, he said nothing. He only studied the boy in green with a gaze so practiced in sorting nonsense from truth that it had likely ruined many bad speeches before they ever reached a microphone.
"You understand," he said at last, "that if I were to repeat any of this to the wrong man, I might be advised to take a long holiday and not be trusted with the wireless ever again."
Venti folded his hands atop the lyre.
"That depends on which part you repeat."
Tudsberry raised an eyebrow, "The part where a fanciful dress man dropped onto my Daughter's flowerbox, spoke of Teyvat, and made the room smell like spring."
"Yes," Venti said. "That part does sound difficult."
Tudsbury's mouth twitched despite itself., "Good. Then we begin on honest terms. Who are you really?"
The bard tilted his head. Some of the lighter foolishness in his face remained, but the rest settled into something quieter.
"In my own world," he said, "I am called many things. Most of them by people who are either annoyed with me or expect me to solve a problem they have only just finished creating. For the moment, Venti will do."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the one I can offer first."
"And the second?"
Venti looked toward the closed window, though his eyes seemed to be following some current beyond the glass and above the blacked-out rooftops.
"The second," he said, "is that I am not here on behalf of the Fatui, and certainly not on behalf of the Tsaritsa."
Pamela returned from the kitchen with a bottle of cider and a glass and set them on the low table between the chairs. She looked at Venti sitting in the chair that had previously been designated for guests she could explain, sat down on the sofa, and folded her hands.
"Then on whose behalf are you here?" she said.
Venti looked at the bottle as Tudsbury uncorked it with the care of a man handling evidence in a criminal trial. The sharp little scent of apples rose into the room.
"On behalf," Venti said, "of myself, which I realize is not the reassuring answer people usually prefer from unexpected visitors."
"It is not," Pamela agreed.
Tudsbury poured the cider into the glass. The liquid caught the lamplight in warm amber and foam gathered at the top.
Venti accepted it with both hands and took a drink that was so sincerely appreciative it made him look, for one disarming instant, more like a relieved choirboy than anything fallen from a foreign sky.
"Good," he said softly. "Very good. Tart enough to be honest."
Tudsbury settled deeper into his chair.
"You answer like a man who has had practice avoiding questions."
"I answer like a bard," Venti said. "Avoidance is only one of our many gifts."
Pamela did not smile. She sat upright on the sofa with the controlled attention of someone who had spent enough time around airfields and operations rooms to know when foolishness was camouflage and when it was merely foolishness.
"That is not what I asked," she said. "You said you are not here for the Fatui or their Tsaritsa. So who sent you?"
Venti let the glass rest in his hands and replied with a smirk, "You remind me of a little flying friend. But as for who sent me…..well just like all complicated tales in Teyvat, that all starts with a woman named Alice."