Minnie drifted through the next two days like a ghost, the name Finist ringing in her mind like persistent windchimes. The weight of it never left her, but neither did the strange, glowing energy it stirred. She barely slept yet didn’t feel tired.

  She rushed back to feed him as soon as she was able. When she emerged from the white room, Herman was waiting in the menagerie, his golden eyes unfocused, as if he’d just surfaced from a deep thought.

  “You’ve changed,” he said, not quite surprised.

  Minnie hesitated, groping for a shape to her feelings. “It feels like…” she began, then stopped, overwhelmed. “Like when it rains hard and you’re cooped inside for days, and then the sun finally comes out. You open the window, and everything’s sharp and clear and… you can see for miles.”

  She exhaled. “It feels like I was meant to meet him. And once I did, I knew I had to help.”

  Herman didn’t look pleased. He didn’t look angry either. Just still, like a rogue who spotted a new trap.

  “I thought so,” he muttered.

  Minnie blinked. “Thought what?”

  “You’re not just some mouse who stumbled in by accident,” he said, voice flat. “You were placed. Most likely by the Grey One.”

  Minnie’s stomach twisted. “What are you talking about?”

  “The Grey Lady. The Wanderer. Goddess of strategy,” Herman said. “This has her fingerprints all over. She couldn’t storm the castle. Couldn’t sneak in a proper spy. So she sends you, plain, powerless, forgettable. No one would see you coming. Literally.”

  Minnie’s mouth curled slightly. “Thanks,” she muttered. Plain and powerless. Really.

  He stretched, claws flexing in and out.

  “The Grey Lady marked you long ago. She made sure you’d be here. Made sure you’d find us. And made sure the moment you heard his name, you’d remember what had been written into your bones. Of course Lady Luck blessed you. It’s the kind of madness she hangs on her wall.”

  Minnie shook her head, half out of instinct. “But that doesn’t make sense. The Wall is sealed. No one comes in or out. I’ve been in Greengrove since I re…”

  She stopped.

  Herman tilted his head. “Since you remember?” he said gently. “Not since you were born?”

  Her breath hitched.

  “Of course I was there since I was born,” she insisted. “I just don’t remember. I was very sick when I was ten and I don’t remember anything before that. I don’t like talking about it because it feels like a different person.”

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  There was a long pause.

  Herman gave a sharp little noise, half chuckle, half warning purr. “Interesting,” he said. “Very interesting.”

  He stretched one paw lazily across the armrest. “Here’s a thought, why don’t you let me read your memories?”

  Minnie stiffened. “Why would I let you into my head?” Her voice wavered, caught between protest and fear. “That’s private.”

  “Well,” Herman said, smooth as velvet, “I know a bit about tricks of the mind. Maybe I can see past that block in your memory, help you regain your childhood.”

  Minnie stared at him, pulse fluttering. The idea of someone rifling through her memories felt uncomfortable, violating in ways she couldn’t name. But what if there was something there? What if the missing piece had been hers all along?

  She sighed. All her secrets were things that he showed her. What was there to protect?

  Only her own fear.

  “Fine,” she whispered. “Go ahead.”

  But she didn’t unclench her fists.

  She sat down on the sofa and closed her eyes, steadying her breath.

  Herman hopped up beside her and placed one paw into her open palm, surprisingly gentle. His claws did not dig in. His touch was precise, deliberate. A signal.

  And then, her life opened.

  It spilled out like pages from a book, familiar, worn, and painfully small.

  Six years of scraped knees and muddy fields. A simple life, full of farm noises and country smells. Cold mornings, itchy wool, the smell of iron stoves and mended clothes. Warm meals and endless chores. The girl who had followed a talking cat to feed a ruined god was nowhere in sight.

  Minnie watched it all unfold with an odd detachment, as if she were standing just outside herself. She had been quiet all her life, she realised. Always cautious. Always waiting.

  And then, nothing.

  A wall of nothing. Towering. Opaque. Absolute.

  Herman couldn’t read past it. He couldn’t even see what it was made of. Magic like this wasn’t just memory suppression, it was obliteration. Precision work. Beautiful, in a terrible way.

  Yet just before the wall, something flickered. A thought. A single phrase, etched into the void like lightning across night sky:

  I will leave it right here. The bees will remember.

  He recoiled gently, drawing his paw back from her hand. He sat still for a moment, eyes distant.

  “That’s… odd,” he said, voice low and unsettled.

  Minnie opened her eyes, blinking rapidly. Her pulse had picked up without her noticing.

  “What is it?” she asked quietly. “What did you find?”

  Herman didn’t answer right away. His gaze flicked toward her, brow furrowed.

  “Nothing,” he said. “And I mean that literally. There’s no origin. No childhood. Just a massive wall of magic. Totally sealed. Nobody gets that kind of thing from an accident.”

  Minnie’s hands curled slightly in her lap. “But you saw something else, didn’t you?”

  He gave a small nod. “A message. One line. Etched right before the wall.”

  Minnie’s heart skipped. “What did it say?”

  He hesitated, as if reluctant to repeat it.

  “‘I will leave it right here. The bees will remember.’”

  She stared at him, blank. Then let out a shaky breath. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I don’t get it either,” Herman said. “It’s not a code. Not a metaphor. It’s… just what it is.”

  Minnie pressed her fingertips to her temple. The words were already echoing there, unsettling and strange. “So there’s a message in my head I didn’t put there, and neither of us knows what it means.”

  “Yet,” Herman added. “Maybe it’s a clue. Maybe it’s a seed. Some things don’t make sense until they sprout.”

  She gave a small, crooked smile. “Curiouser and curiouser.”

  Herman chuckled, dry and thin. “Yeah. For now, we’re back to square one.”

  “Right,” she echoed. “Square one.”

  She stood, still dazed, and left the room.

  Herman remained behind, grooming his shoulder absently. His mind, however, was anything but idle.

  There was something else.

  That kind of construct, something large enough to wall off her entire past, should have triggered every ward in the castle.

  So how did she survive the disinfection?