Between one coughing, drowning breath and the next, Pavetta finds herself somewhere else, falling bonelessly and uncoordinatedly down on streets she most assuredly doesn’t know. The last thing she remembers is… a ship. Duny. Their argument. Falling overboard. Drowning. Dying. She’s dead. She’s supposed to be dead. But she very plainly isn’t. No, she’s coughing and breathless but breathing, her dress sodden and clinging to her skin. Breathing,, her heart pounding in her chest. Two things that would be quite absent if she were dead.

Cirilla. At least Cirilla is safe from Duny and his machinations. Safe with Calanthe. No one will keep her daughter safer than her mother will. The Lioness of Cintra will see that no harm comes to her granddaughter. That makes her breathe a little bit easier. Just a bit.

Drawing herself to her feet, she gathers herself. Pavetta isn’t her mother. She’s quiet where Calanthe is forceful, preferring books and music to swords and battle. But she can be every inch as commanding when circumstances call for it. And they do, now. She needs information, to discover where it is she’s found herself. How they’d brought her here.

It takes her no time at all to realise that she does not belong, standing out painfully in her sodden gown in a style that doesn’t resemble any clothes she’s seen here in this place. And she would like to be dry.

Her attention is drawn instead by the library. Clothing can wait. Books have always a love of hers, and what better way to learn of this world? She doesn’t know what it is that she’s looking for, her fingertips trailing along the spines as she peruses the book shelves, but perhaps she’ll know it when she sees it.

She takes her time. So much so that her gown is well on the way to drying before she’s chosen a single book.