Cerys slammed the front door behind her, causing the worthless tat - precariously balanced on the shelf to her left - to rattle. Ann and Igor both looked to the door, where their daughter stood, brows knotted in a display of her unease. Taking a deep breath and preparing herself for the incoming interrogation, she turned her gaze to her mother.

However, Ann remained silent. Glancing towards the table, she plucked one of the scraps of parchment still laying on its surface, and closed her fist around it. Cerys' brow furrowed, her lips pressed together. Ann avoided eye contact as she turned in her seat and flicked the scrunched up ball of parchment into the flames. Not wanting to be involved in the inevitable argument, Igor redirected his attention back to the drink in his hand.

Cerys found herself speechless, blinking rapidly, as if somehow it might reveal some illusion, and that she would spot the parchment in its rightful place once more. The scene before her did not change. She shook her head, and drew breath to speak, but could not find the words.

"I told you," Ann said, finally meeting her daughter's gaze. "I thought I was very clear. Wasn't I clear, Igor?"

Igor's shoulders tensed as he realised he could not avoid the situation, no matter how much he wished he could just be left alone. Cerys suspected he regretted ever getting married or having a child. She, too, regretted him ever getting married and having a child.

"About what?" he asked, somewhat nervously.

Ann's nostrils flared and her jaw clenched. "About our slob of a daughter cleaning the table," she hissed, before turning her attention back to Cerys. "I told you to clean the table."

Cerys gasped in disbelief. "You…" she half-whispered. Swallowing, she spoke again, this time with more strength in her voice. "You also told me to take a bath, you also told me to do my hair, to change my clothes, to go to a dinner I didn't want to go to, with a man I didn't want to see."

The two women fell into a tense silence, glaring daggers across the room at one another, until Cerys' features fell calm. Her gaze wandered the pot that hung above the fire, and she made her way over to it. Ann watched her, but did nothing to intercept her until it was too late and Cerys was already throwing the wooden spoon from the pot into the flames beneath.

She shot to her feet, gasping in horror. "What is wrong with you?" she shrieked.

"What is wrong with me?" Cerys laughed. "What's wrong with you?" she asked. "I can't tell what you want. I feel like you can't bear the thought of me failing because it would reflect badly upon you, but you're such a narcissistic woman you can't actually bear the thought of me succeeding because it reminds you of your utter failure of a life."

"My failures?" Ann scoffed. "Coming from the girl who lies in 'til midday and… and spends her afternoons arranging pieces of paper on a table," she spat, gesturing wildly at the rest of the scraps upon the table. She shook her head, her lip curling upwards into a sneer.

"As opposed to what? Waking up next to a man whose greatest achievement in life is giving up on his dreams to be a… a foul-smelling pig farmer because he wasn't good enough to do anything else?" she asked. "You cook the same disgusting water every single day, and it tastes just as bad each time you cook it. You'd think it impossible to make water inconsumable, but somehow you manage. I guess you do have a talent after all."

Cerys recoiled as a sharp jolt of pain spread across her cheek. Her mother's hand lingered in the air. She brought her own up to her face, clutching at the warm skin, and remembered Madevic's words about how she hadn't looked good with red cheeks. Her gut twisted.

"At least someone was willing to marry me, Cerys. You chased away the only man who will ever show any interest in you… because you'd rather own a book," Ann said, sourly. Cerys' lips parted as she readied her protest, but Ann cut her off. "Don't try to fool yourself. You might think you did it for us, but if you're as clever as you seem to think you are, you could have found another way to help us. No, you wanted that book, Cerys - and all it's done is drive our family apart."

"You've done that," Cerys whispered. She did her best to ignore the prickling sensation of tears forming in her eyes.

"But she hasn't," Igor said from behind her. "Your mother and I… we work well together, we get on, we enjoy our lives - we understand our place. We like this. You're the one who doesn't try to fit in, Cerys," he said.

Cerys pressed her lips together, her gaze still locked with her mother's until the woman's shape became little more than a watery blur. She lowered her hand from her cheek. Her fingers twitched, and she grabbed a fistful of her skirt.

"I don't get it Cerys," Igor said. "You just act like a child. All the time. All the time."

"Well, you treat me like one."

"Here we go again," Ann said in a sigh. "It's always someone else's fault, isn't Cerys? When are you going to take some responsibility in your life? You want a job? Out there in the big world? With adults? You wouldn't last five minutes, because no one else is going to put up with this," she said. Cerys drew a trembling breath. Ann groaned. "If you're going to cry, can you at least go to your room, first?" she snarled.

Cerys gritted her teeth and scrunched up her nose. "With pleasure," she muttered before adding under her breath, "it'll take a miracle to get me to ever leave again."

She pushed past her mother, and gathered up the remaining scraps upon the table. Turning back around, she stormed up to her bedroom, and dropped them onto the bed, before heading for the window. She pressed her burning cheek to the cool glass and bit down on her tongue.

"Don't… you… dare… cry," she said to herself in a whisper. "Don't you dare."

She remained in place, with her cheek held to the glass until the pain faded and the urge to cry subsided. Pulling herself away from the window, she turned to gaze out of it, but instead found the world outside unfocused; obscured by condensation. She watched, as it began to shrink, and lifted a finger, pressing it to the glass. She drew a crescent moon shape in the centre of the window, surrounded by stars - seven of them - and as she stared at the juvenile masterpiece, she threw herself onto her bed.

She watched until it faded, and then rolled onto her back, and stared at the ceiling, picturing her image above her. Eventually the moon disappeared in her vision, leaving only the stars. Seven stars. Her fingers dug into the bedsheets beneath her. Biting her lip, she pushed herself into an upright position, and took a deep breath before closing her eyes.

"Mystra?" she whispered. "I don't know if you're listening… it seems… impossible given the sheer quantity of people you would have to listen to at once… You'd go insane. Not that I think you're insane. I don't think you're insane, I just… What am I even saying?" She opened her eyes again, jaw tense. The floor beyond her bedroom door creaked and she held her breath. She waited until she heard her parents' door close before lying back down on her bed. "I just want get that job, and move away from this horrible house, and never come back, and never see these people again," she said in a sigh. "I just want to solve the-" she stopped abruptly. Her gut twisted.

Swinging her legs over the side of her bed, she turned around and squatted beside it. Gathering up the parchment, she sorted through the wad, leaving all of the references to fire on her bed, and keeping ahold of each passage about the stone, the ocean, or the forest. Turning, she stood and opened her bedroom door just wide enough to squeeze through, and made her way down the stairs as silently as she could manage. She strode to the hearth and took one final long look at the paper in her hand before casting it into the flames.

The flames licked at the edges of the parchment, blackening them until all that was left was a pale ash that disappeared into the embers. A smirk pulled at the corner of her lips. Brushing her hands together, she turned from the fire and made her way back to her room.

The next morning, Cerys was awake before either of parents. She waited in silence, listening as they moved about their bedroom wordlessly, their movement betrayed only by the creaking floorboards, and squeak of the door as they took themselves downstairs for breakfast. She dressed herself and made her way to the top of the stairs, where she sat, listening to them make idle smalltalk between mouthfuls of their sips of porridge.

She waited until she was certain they'd both left for the field round the side of the cottage before collecting her things and heading downstairs. She threw her boots on and took the laces in her fingers. She remained there for a brief moment as she considered it. She knew it was petty, but she let go of the laces all the same, and stood up, leaving her boots unfastened. Grabbing her shawl from the back of the front door, she headed straight for Diero's cottage.

The edges of the hydrangea petals had turned brown with the season's change. As Cerys stared at them, her mind wandered back to the parchment she had burned only last night, and her stomach churned, concerned as to whether she'd done the right thing or not. Shaking her head, she took a deep breath and steeled herself.

The door opened, though she had not knocked, and Diero stood in the doorway. She turned her head to look at him, and his expression shifted from bewilderment to excitement. "There's that look," he said. "There's the look of a woman about to solve the mystery of the cosmos itself."

Cerys nodded past him, to the hallway, and he stepped aside, allowing her to head past him. She made her way straight for the dining room, and waited for him. It took him a moment longer than she expected, but when he finally wandered into the dining room, he had in each hand a bowl of yoghurt, oats, and fruit.

He placed one bowl in front of her and gave her shoulder an affectionate rub. She shuddered, but nodded gratefully to him, before dropping her bag onto the table.

"If we're going to work together on this, I have some conditions," she said. His eyes narrowed, but she glowered at him. With a coy smile, he raised his free hand in surrender.

"Right, right," he said. "I'd best hear them, then."

"First of all, this is my mystery. You're helping out," she said. He bowed his head in mock-deference, and shovelled a spoonful of yoghurt into his mouth. "Secondly, I am eating here and you are cooking. If I have to eat watered-down water one more time, I'm going to snap."

Diero's eyes narrowed. "I'm sorry - watered-down what?"

"Oh, that's my mother's speciality," she sneered. "Finally… I'm moving in."
"I'm… sorry… what?"

"I can't concentrate there, I have nowhere to work, and I'm absolutely certain you have a spare room. I'm moving in."

Diero blinked a few times. "People will say things, Cerys."

"I couldn't care less what people say. Someone always has something to say about me, and it's rarely positive. I'm sure you'll get used to it. Which do you care more about, solving this? Or avoiding any and all gossip about yourself?" she asked. "Because I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I've already heard a great deal of gossip about you, so you might as well just focus your efforts on the puzzle now."

Diero choked on his words. "Well… I… I… Okay, I suppose. I would need a little time to get the room sorted as currently it's full of…" He hesitated. "Well… stuff."

Cerys snorted. "We've got a barn like that," she said, cocking a brow. Diero smiled, sheepishly. "So… we're in agreement?"

"We're in agreement," he said.

"Great, now. Look at this," she said, and pulled out the translated passages from her bag, spreading them across the table. Diero took a step closer to her to peer over her shoulder. His eyes narrowed.

"Where are the rest?" he asked, gesturing at the array of parchment with his spoon. "There were more than this, weren't there?"

"Yes," Cerys said. "There were passages about a place to do with the ocean, to do with stone, and to do with a forest," she explained. "But I burned them all."

Diero grunted in confusion. "I'm sorry, what?" He looked her up and down, concern taking over his features. Cerys grinned.

"Because they were misleading. I thought there were four places. The ocean, the stone, the forest, and the hells. But I think they were a distraction. I don't think those places exist anymore. I think they were each consumed by the hells. We're looking for places that no longer exist, because they came into contact with the hells," she said.

Diero's eyes narrowed. He placed his bowl down on the table and pushed his glasses further up his nose before resting his hands either side of his bowl. His gaze wandered the mess of parchment, his eyes scanning over each translation.

"Cerys Jones, you are an actual genius… and I know where one of those places is," he said, staring in disbelief. He turned his head to her, and she returned the look, her face lighting up. "This way," he said and collected the passages from the table, before taking his bowl in his free hand and turning towards the door.

He led her further towards the back of the house where there were two more doors - one either side of the stairway that sat at the end of the hallway. Through the ajar door on the left, she could see a kitchen her mother would have killed to so much as stand in. The door to the right was closed. Beneath the polished brass doorknob was a keyhole surrounded by a design carved from bone. Diero produced a large key from his pocket and turned it in the lock.

As the door swung open, the dark hallway was flooded with light. Cerys shielded her eyes for a brief moment, as they adjusted to the light. Blinking a few times, she finally took in the sight before her. It was Diero's study. Complete with the same dark wood and red upholstery as the other rooms, there was a large desk and chair, and an armchair in another corner. Various maps lined the walls, along with aged parchment pressed into frames. But what stood out to Cerys, most of all, were two large bookshelves that reached from the floor to the ceiling. Books sat cover to cover, wedged in tight, and more books lay horizontally atop those, and even more littered the desk and were stacked up on the armchair.

Her jaw dropped, eyes wide. Swallowing she shook her head, and took a deep breath. "Well then, Diero. We'd best get to it."