Lusius splashed his face with water from his basin. He had hoped it would stir him and sharpen his senses. Instead, it left him dripping, cold, and just as troubled as he'd ever been.

He pushed himself away and turned towards the room. Just as with the banquet, his host provided accommodations far finer than he had anticipated at this barren edge of the world. From finely crafted hardwood furniture to thick carpeting, it was a finer room than even the wealthiest tradesman would enjoy from Lusius' hometown. And yet, he found it impossible to fully appreciate it all. The bed in particular was double-stuffed with goose down, but years of sleeping on rigid barracks cots made it far too soft for his back. When Lusius tested it, he was immediately enveloped by red sheets. It felt as though he were plunging into a crimson sea, and that instinctual feeling of being consumed had him fling himself from the bed and to the ground.

Were he to sleep here, he'd do so on the stone of the floor.

And it was a very conditional act, sleeping here. It was still hard to get any sense of the time without natural light. The Seneschal had yet to return. He had first planned to wait until the dinner bell to rendezvous with Imsin, but the longer that the day crept by—The afternoon? The evening? The night?—the more Lusius realized that he would need to proactive in his search for his commander. The Seneschal had not forbade him to leave. And even if he had, Lusius was an commissioned officer of the Imperial Legion. If anything, he should be able to make commands of civilians, hosts or otherwise. Or so he told himself.

Lusius stepped into the corridor, taking care to close the door as slowly and as quietly as he could behind him. He looked down the hall. He looked up the hall. Empty, save the dancing lights. He turned right and began walking.

He tried to walk softly, but his feet still echoed softly across the walls. His attempts at subtlety slid further when his stomach growled. Lusius was no stranger to hunger from his post on Solsthiem, where you never knew when your next meal would be in the dead of winter. But his time on the ship provided regular meals. His body had adapted, and now demanded that accommodation. It had grown weak, and forgot how to be lean.

A noise up ahead. Some sort of skittering or rustling.

Lusius put his back to the wall.

He was surprised over how nervous he had become. Should he have stayed in his room? No, too late for those thoughts. There was a corner up ahead. Whatever was there must be around it. He took a step forward.

Slowly now. He tilted his head as far as he could to see what he could and be as concealed as he could be.

The hallway was long. But it was not empty.

There, several paces away in the dim, stood a small figure. A girl, it must've been. No older than eight. She was clad in a white dress that seemed to stay bright and clear even when surrounded by the red light of the corridor. So white, in fact, it was hard to make out her features or even skin tone. She seemed, at first glance to be a Dunmer. But, no. No, that wasn't precisely it. There was something more. Something familiar, intimately familiar, and yet indescribable all the same.

She was watching him.

Lusius was grasped by something, deep where the lungs meet the heart, that he had not felt in a long time. A kind of longing, a sort of loss. His breath was caught in his throat. He tried harder to see her as she saw him, to make out her features. He needed to see. Without thinking his foot moved forward. He began to round the corner to walk to her-

"Lusius."

An enormous shock tore him back into full awareness. He turned around abruptly only to find himself face to face with the very person he had presumably been looking for. Imsin the Dreamer. She looked no worse for wear, and was still clad in her uniform. She tipped her chin up and gave him an appraising look. "Something down the hall catch your attention?"

Lusius looked back down the hall. The girl was gone. She must've run off, deeper into Ald Redaynia. He looked back to Imsin. "Did you see her, ma'am?"

That statement caused a reaction he did not, could not, expect. Imsin's expression changed to something he had never quite seen under her command: still guarded, but betraying the slightest hint of curiosity. Of expectation. "Could you hear it?"

Lusius opened his mouth, closed it, and shook his head. "Hear... What, ma'am? The little girl?"

That rare look on Imsin's face subsided back into herself and she frosted back over into her typical detachment. Lusius only then realized that he had some sort of opportunity, now squandered. "Forget it," Imsin said, "Report in, soldier. I do hope you've done some scouting."

Years of military drill took over, and Lusius began speaking in a rediscovered even cadence. "I've been in the hallway for only a little while, and I—" a moment of hesitation that was, almost, impossible to register, "Have not encountered any of the Master of the Tower's household or retinue."

"How long have you been at it?"

"Not very," replied Lusius, "But I find that it's difficult to keep track of the time in the tower. It must be due to the lack of natural light."

Imsin gave a faint and dismissive snort. "Whatever the case, we'll need to keep better track of the time and of each other in this ratnest."

That was an unusual request. Lusius wanted to ask her when she had left during his meal with Drathyn, or why she had forbade him from eating. And yet, try as he might, he couldn't bring himself to do so. He might've asked Captain Carius, back in his old post. But there was something about Imsin, some kind of pressure, that made him feel like a schoolboy in the presence of a iron blooded schoolmaster. He could not ask that of her.

Before he could find some other topic to broach, both heard a sound from deep down the hallway from which they came. Whatever it could be was deep and resounding: like the drone of a gong. It bounced from wall to wall with a weight almost of it own. Lusius felt the bass shimmer in his bones. As the noise faded, Imsin tilted her head around, towards its origin. A lock of blond hair rippled through the still air. "Dinner bell."

And she did not waste any more time. The Dreamer turned, looking deep into Ald Redaynia, and walked forward. And as his commander lead, Lusius followed. Dinner bell or ritual gong, he knew as well as she did that they were being summoned. Perhaps by the Seneschal. Or perhaps by his Master. Either way, they would go forward. It was the only lead that seemed to be available to them. And it was the only way for them to discover the truth at the heart of this tower. All that, and that they would be most ungracious guests indeed were they to miss their Master's splendour.

Dear T—,

As I believe I had previously told you, I met Gérard Townway three times over the course of my prior career.

The final time was a Saturalia dinner in 70, put on by the Fourth Era Pundit, back when they had their offices in Chorrol. Dinner parties in the literary world are, of course, done not for leisure. They are instead hosted to build professional networks and find opportunities. I had expected Townway to be acting in the spirit of that event. And yet he was so different from how I had remembered him. His jocular and confident bravado was altogether gone; in fact, he struck me as distant and sullen. I brought up an anthology of Baloth-Kul's canonical horror I had been editing, and Townway called him "a hack of a fabulist, who uses cheap ghosts as a crutch to make up for the fact he can't write proper human connections."

Needless to say, Townway did not make a good impression on me that night.

It would be some weeks later when I had learned that his father had passed away just the night prior. He had been cajoled into attending by his agent.

As blunt as he was at the party, it wasn't as far removed from his custom as I would've thought. Townway generally shied away from using monsters in his writing, especially spirits. This is true even in some pieces where it wouldn't be unusual to reference undead of various varieties ([REDACTED] in The Worm King's Heir comes immediately to mind). Unfortunately, all I have to buttress this theory are Townway's prior work and his words at the party. I don't have much in the ways of notes or interviews, and those are all L— seems to care about.

Indeed, L— has told me on numerous occasion that he views The Sea of Ghosts as a genre piece falling neatly into the ghost story. The Girl in White is one of his arguments along that line, and while I disagree, I can understand his viewpoint. Phantom children are a cliché so old that they had become common tropes in Reman era fiction, let alone contemporary work. It wouldn't be unheard of for an author under the deadline of a serialized work to use that sort of scare as a quick way to spook his readership and keep the plot moving.

But remember what Townway called the quintessential horror writer, Baloth-Kul? Even after the death of such a close family member, Townway treated typical horror in a somewhat dismissive fashion. Indeed, while he did refer to Ghosts a "scary" story, he never once called it a "ghost" story. And so, despite what seems to be self-evident, I refuse to accept the obvious reading. But that makes things ever so much more complicated. Eliminate the girl as a ghost. Eliminate her as a Daedra. What could she be?

I have my theories, I suppose. But I'm not a god-logician, am I? All I can do is emphasize that Townway was very committed to historical fiction as a matter of artistic principle, and did not want to evoke beasts or spirits he could not discretely prove. And given that he could somehow prove things that you have told me are classified matters of Imperial security, well...

It is honestly frustrating. I feel like a blind woman trying to assemble a puzzle. I can feel the contours of the pieces and can even put some them together: but I just can't see the picture. I can only hope that you and the rest of the team can, and put my labors to good use. That's a piece of myself I bring to you and our shared endeavor. Please, make sure it matters.

With love,

G—