There’s something… heavy about the way Dawn is looking at me from behind the bars. Before I even realise it, my eyes have locked onto hers, trying to read whatever lies beyond them. I feel a hint of anxiety as I recall the ambiguous way we parted yesterday. I don’t know what to think… at that moment, she didn’t help me. Then again, it’s also true that the conditions weren’t right for it. In a situation like that, expecting support from a stranger would have been irrational.

  Still, I can’t help but wonder what Dawn saw in me back then… and whether, just like the others, she somehow identified me as a threat, thus leaving me to my fate.

  And now she’s here… and I’m trying, without success, to figure out what she’s feeling. A curious fact: as direct as my gaze may be… she doesn’t look away in the slightest. She shows no trace of fear.

  “I’m sorry about what you’re going through.”

  That’s how the young woman begins, breaking the brief silence that followed her greeting. Her words catch me somewhat by surprise… and at the same time, they partly ease my worries.

  “Ah… well…” I say. “I suppose it can’t be helped. Not that I understand much about all of this…”

  Dawn doesn’t reply, so after a short pause I comment:

  “From what you’re saying, I should gather that you don’t think I’m a spy?”

  “I don’t suspect you like the others do,” she answers. “But you’re in a tough spot. Given the circumstances, it’s easy to see you as an enemy. Even though I don’t get that feeling from you…”

  I can’t help but smile. Even if the girl’s remarks do little to change my situation, at least it means I’m not regarded with suspicion by everyone. Dawn’s trust—can I call it that?—is in some way reassuring.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t help you, but there’s not much I can do… and the investigation has to run its course if we want to save my father,” she explains.

  “Of course,” I nod, feeling a twinge of discomfort as I sense a sudden sadness in Dawn’s voice. “You’re right… since I’m a suspect, you need to find out whether I’m responsible for the attack and for your father’s capture. But I’ll find a way to prove I’m not a spy.”

  She looks at me with an expression that’s hard to decipher, then responds:

  “However… if you talk about those strange things regarding coming from a world with no fragments, you’ll make your situation worse.”

  “Oh… you heard about that?” I ask.

  “I witnessed your interrogation.”

  “Right… you were behind the mirror.”

  Dawn nods.

  “I’ll prove that, too,” I say simply. “I just need to figure out how.”

  “Why not tell the truth instead? Any information will help, and in any case we’ll avoid wasting time… and you’ll be able to get out of here.”

  I try not to feel hurt by that reply: I can imagine what the young woman is going through. But the fact that she doesn’t believe me…

  Ignore it, I tell myself. It’s not her fault.

  It’s not so simple. Even though my head assures me that the way she sees things is perfectly natural, and that I shouldn’t take it personally, I’m aware that my oversensitive emotions aren’t so easily convinced. If I’m not careful, I might start harbouring feelings of resentment that Dawn doesn’t deserve.

  Calm down, Ethan, I try to reassure myself, as much as such self-encouragement can help. It’s all right.

  A prolonged silence follows, during which I search for a good response to give her. I can’t find one, and in the end she looks away.

  “I have to go,” she announces. “Think about what I said.”

  “Okay,” I reply, not knowing what else to say.

  Then the young woman leaves, walking slowly down the corridor. She leaves me there, once more alone with Jim.

  “Wow,” he breaks the silence. “Doing all right for yourself!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s a pretty girl.”

  I don’t comment. For one thing, I’m not fond of that kind of talk, and for another, I have more pressing concerns at the moment.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Apparently, Dawn’s words have struck me harder than I anticipated. Now I feel even more anxious to prove my origins. I don’t want to come across as the one responsible for Cyrus Sanders’ capture, nor as someone insensitive who refuses to help find out where he’s being held.

  How the hell do you prove you come from a different world?

  Hours go by, but despite my efforts, I can’t think of any good way to accomplish my goal.

  “Would you repeat the ingredients for that powder without smoke you were talking about yesterday?” Jim asks at one point.

  “The smokeless powder? Nitrocellulose, ether, and alcohol.”

  “Wait, wait…”

  Jim grabs a sheet of paper and a pencil, jotting down the substances I’ve listed. Finally, he nods and says:

  “Not that I’m getting my hopes up, but a powder that leaves less residue would be handy.”

  “I thought you considered those things the realm of… um…”

  “… natural philosophers?” Jim finishes. “Well, we’ve got loads of philosophers on the Epos. There’s bound to be someone who understands this stuff.”

  When midday comes, the kid’s shift ends, leaving me once again with the taciturn man from last night. That gets me down a bit: as different as Jim’s personality is from mine, once the ice was broken, I didn’t mind chatting with him from time to time.

  ???

  Dawn is seated in her cabin when she hears a knock. The girl lifts her head, which until then had been resting on her arms, folded atop a small table.

  “It’s Samuel,” says the person who knocked.

  “Come in.”

  The door opens, and Dawn’s younger brother steps inside.

  “I figured you’d be here,” he remarks.

  She shrugs.

  “You should find a way to unwind when you’re not working,” Samuel observes.

  “I don’t feel like it,” the girl replies.

  “Ah… that’s no good.”

  The young man takes a chair and sits down near the table.

  “You’ll see—we’ll find him,” he says. “The captain is an old friend of Dad’s. He’ll do whatever he can to free him from the Republic.”

  “As if it’s that easy to get a prisoner out of their clutches,” Dawn replies.

  “We don’t necessarily have to storm their prisons. We can still use more diplomatic methods, like prisoner exchanges.”

  “Does the Republic even agree to such arrangements?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Silence. The girl stares at the table with a vacant gaze while Samuel lifts his eyes to the ceiling, searching for some comforting phrase.

  “I want to help,” the young woman finally declares. “Don’t stop me, all right?”

  “I won’t,” Samuel agrees. “But if you’re thinking of plunging into action, right now it’d be pointless. Why not try and see if Ethan knows anything instead?”

  “I’ve already told him to tell the truth. But even if he does, I don’t think he knows anything.”

  “What makes you so sure he’s not a spy? I’m not as suspicious as Antony, but the clues are there.”

  “I don’t know… it’s more of a feeling,” she explains. “He didn’t strike me as someone who’s pretending. All I saw in him was a lost boy who needs help.”

  Though he could have replied, her brother doesn’t.

  Ethan Knight couldn’t have communicated with the Republicans, he ponders. According to what Dawn said, the only chance he had was when he reached the edge of the island. Could he have signalled the aircraft passing by? It’s possible…

  Samuel shakes his head.

  But even if he really were a spy, what could he possibly know about where Dad is now?

  ???

  “Archeos!” Jim calls out.

  The boy is in one of the Epos’s engine rooms. The noise there is tremendous, but it doesn’t bother him much, given how accustomed he is to the racket.

  “Archeos!”

  Finally, among the many people working in the corridor, he manages to make himself heard by the person he wants to speak to. It’s a man past sixty, currently busy jotting down who-knows-what on a sheet of paper. Given the environment, he’s not wearing the usual lab coat so popular with natural philosophers, but rather a coverall like the many artificers bustling about.

  “Jim!” the man says. “What’s going on?”

  Paying no mind to the vibrations coursing through the floor, Jim walks up to the philosopher with a confident stride.

  “I need these substances,” he says, handing him a crumpled piece of paper. “Frankly, I don’t have a clue what some of them are… do you recognize them?”

  Puzzled, Archeos takes the slip of paper and reads its contents through a pair of thick glasses. His brow furrows.

  “But… what do you need them for?”

  “I want to make a gunpowder that leaves less residue,” Jim explains. “Those are the ingredients.”

  “And where did you hear about a powder like that?”

  “There’s a lad in a cell… seems clever, though a bit odd. He said that using these, you can make a… smokeless powder.”

  Archeos studies the piece of paper for a few more seconds. Then…

  “Let’s move away from the machines…” he decides. “It’s impossible to talk in here.”

  ???

  Evening has fallen, and the captain of the Epos, Martin Young, has finished setting the new course with his officers. Now he can finally return to his cabin, where several reports are still waiting for him. It’s like that every day, and he’s used to it. In a way, he feels close to the young ones out in the “field” when he works to support them in their dangerous missions.

  Ready for at least another couple of hours of work, he’s just settling into his chair when there’s a knock on the door.

  “It’s Aimond.”

  “Come in.”

  Natural philosopher Aimond Lacelet, nicknamed Archeos by everyone, enters. As he crosses the threshold, Martin Young notices a tanned young man behind him, whom he recognizes as Jim. Then, the philosopher closes the door, leaving the boy outside, and approaches the desk.

  “How’s it going, Archeos?”

  “Fine, fine… Listen, Martin, I need a favour.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “There’s a young man…” Archeos begins. “Ethan, locked up on suspicion of being a spy. Am I right?”

  “Yes,” confirms the captain, looking puzzled.

  “Well… would you allow me to take him out? I’d like to have a chat with him somewhere a bit more comfortable than a cell.”

  ???

  At long last, I’ve had dinner. Not that what they serve in prison is anything special, but they bring it later than I’m used to, and after a certain hour my hunger really started to gnaw at me.

  I just hope I’ll manage to get some sleep, I tell myself. How many days will I spend thinking of meals and sleep as the highlights of the day? I feel so discouraged…

  I’m about to stretch out on the bunk when I see Jim arrive in front of the cell. He’s rather late: yesterday, he turned up before the evening meal.

  The guy who’s been on guard until now leaves immediately.

  And who’s this? I wonder.

  Jim isn’t alone: he’s accompanied by a man well on in years—at least by the look of him. He appears energetic, yet his skin shows signs of premature aging… or maybe that’s just normal here on Tersain? I have no idea how advanced medicine is in this world.

  “Ethan,” says Jim. “This is Archeos, a natural philosopher.”

  I stare at the elderly philosopher with a questioning look.

  “Good evening,” he greets me.

  He has thick white hair, pronounced sideburns, and a white beard outlining his jaw. His eyes are a particularly bright shade of blue, almost like two little lights set between a large nose and a pair of dense, wild eyebrows.

  “Even though everyone calls me Archeos, my real name is Aimond Lacelet,” he introduces himself. “And you’re Ethan, right?”

  “Yes…” I nod, leaving the bunk and stepping closer to the bars. “Ethan Knight. A pleasure.”

  “The pleasure is mine,” Archeos replies. “So they think you’re a spy? Well, in any case, that’s irrelevant. Jim, could you open up?”

  ahead of Royal Road?

  You can find them on my website:

  See you in the next chapter!

  Tonkipappero) for her wonderful illustrations!