Despite how long she had wished for freedom, Nori found its presence quite uncomfortable. She had thought that maybe she had attained her freedom when she first broke away from her family and stayed at the Academy, but deep down she knew she was still tethered to that familial expectation and her desire to break away. Everything that she did was done in the context of them. No, her first meeting with freedom was a passing one.

But now? Nori had broken that tether. She had faced her brother. Her family's reputation. Their effects on the people of Khala. And she had done her part to balance the ledger. She rode back to Ambrosia City still bearing disdain but not burden. She had slipped from the grip of her family's misdeeds. She had freedom. True freedom. She could do anything. Be anyone.

That freedom had put her in good spirits for her first week back, and the Ambrosial Summit had kept her busy. But once all the visitors departed, Nori's freedom affected her in strange ways.

Her days grew long. Longer than she knew was possible. Before, her mind had always raced as it found ways to be un-Harper. Now, it meandered through stray, untroubled thoughts. There were no timelines. No agendas. She was wonderfully free from purpose.

And then she grew bored. She was not used to an unoccupied mind, and so she decided to get a headstart on the school year. She fixed up her plot in the greenhouse and practiced her knife work and had Mindy teach her some of the sauces she had learned over the summer.

But much to her displeasure, there was still too much time in the day. She served lunch at The Gift, but more day remained. She realized she needed something recreational. She needed to rediscover a hobby. If she ever even had hobbies. She looked into her past, a time spent bouncing from one assignment to the next. Her parents never left her idle. It was no wonder she struggled with it now. She hated most of the things that had been forced upon her childhood, but there had always been one thing that she couldn't help but to like.

She faced a deep, dark secret that she had kept from her classmates all year. Something that she was embarrassed to admit to herself, let alone anyone else.

Nori loved to study history.

She had nearly managed to forget that passion, but her geopolitical dabbling over the summer had reawakened its flame. She craved stories of border disputes and great people and niche subcultures and innovative discoveries and struggle and triumph and all the individual threads that made up the great tapestry of being human.

And so she found herself in the presence of a vaguely familiar Mr. Hodgens as he guided her around the Ambrosial Archive. She had only ever visited the library on a couple of occasions previously, but something about it felt so familiar and homey. She loved the muted sounds and the dusty wooden floors and the way the bookshelves and pathways were carved from rows of trees, making her feel at one with nature while also enjoying the chance to get out of the hot summer sun.

"So which aspects of history are you most interested in?" Mr. Hodgens asked. His voice was soft and comforting. He must have been in his fifties, but he had the croaky drawl of someone thirty years his senior. He had an old man's mannerisms too, always scrunching his body up and stroking his chin. He even wore two sets of glasses on chains around his neck, swapping them out when reading. He was a healthy weight, but he had a thin presence to him. Unimposing. Even the blue of his Chef's jacket seemed washed out like the brightest blue sky in summer.

"Anything not Urokan," Nori answered. Urokan history was littered with Harpers. She realized at that moment that she didn't love all history, and that perhaps she enjoyed the history of other kingdom's so much because she had always wished that those histories could be hers instead.

"Hm." Mr. Hodgens smiled and nodded. "Would you consider Palm Coast history to be Urokan history?"

"I'm sure you have an entire shelf dedicated to that question."

"Oh-ho-ho," Mr. Hodgens laughed in little coughs. "An entire wing, my dear. The land might be one percent of Ambrosia, but it constitutes a quarter of its bloody history."

Nori walked alongside the bookshelf, unsatisfied by titles like The Battle of the Three Dunes and Palm Coast's Role in the Unification War. "Whether you consider the area Urokan or not, I read about it plenty in my time in Uroko."

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"Yes, but how interesting would it be to see the other side's recounting of the saga? The differences could be quite stimulating. You know as the saying goes, get two historians together and you'll get three versions."

Nori frowned. Parsing different versions of history did not interest her as much as learning entirely new parts of it. "Another time, maybe. What about the history of Ambrosia City? Focused on its people."

Mr. Hodgens chuckled as he switched his glasses. "If you'd give me the luxury of vanity, I have a perfect recommendation." He led Nori up a ramp that had been carved out of a branch to the second level of bookshelves and handed her a tome.

"A Millenium on the Mesa," Nori read. "By Bartuck Hodgens."

"As I said, if you'd allow me the vanity, I believe this gives the best accounting of what life has been like on the mesa since the founding of the city. Although, there's still room for improvement, as my pupil has been keen to point out, so I'm working on a new edition. You might know him, he goes by Sutton."

Nori pressed her lips together and nodded. "Yeah, I know him. We're the same year."

"Oh! Bright kid, isn't he?"

"Definitely. But I, uh…I'd rather he didn't know I was interested in this stuff."

Nori expected resistance or to be asked why, but Mr. Hodgens just smiled. "He's quite loquacious, that one. He'd never stop talking to you about it if he knew."

"Exactly."

"Very well. There are only a few copies of this text, but I trust you'll take good care of it and return it when you're done."

"Of course."

Mr. Hodgens handed her the book and then switched his glasses again. "If you don't mind me asking, why the interest in the Mesans?"

Nori stared at the book's plain red cover as she pondered the question. "I suppose…I want this place to feel like home."

She offered a smile, but Mr. Hodgens did not return it. His brow pinched together and a slight frown formed. "Well, while I'd still encourage you to read—and of course, this is an ironic statement to come from a librarian—I don't think you'll truly feel at home just by knowing a place's history. You have to live outside the page. Live like the Mesans do."

Nori sucked in her bottom lip and bit it. "And how do I do that?"

Mr. Hodgens motioned toward the exit and began escorting Nori out. "Well, another bit of irony. I think that to belong to a place, you must first embrace it as a tourist would. I've lived in the city my whole life, so I've seen the case countless times. Someone moves here for opportunity, and then they do not participate in the novel offerings of the city for fear of being spotted amongst the visitors, and then they end up leaving having never experienced some of the joys of the city."

"And what do tourists do in Ambrosia City?"

"They eat their way across Restaurant Row. Have a coffee on a west rim balcony. Visit the Ambrosial shrines. Get drunk on Northgate—"

"I've done that," Nori interrupted with a grin.

Mr. Hodgens chuckled with approval. "Go to a farmer's market in the Roots. Go to The Serving Bowl in the Trunk. Go tour the royal keep in the Crown."

"They do tours?"

"One of the many eccentricities that Grand King Flambé brought to the throne. He's said that the tours represent his accessibility to the people and their plights."

Nori thought the tour sounded enticing, but she couldn't stomach the thought of willfully spending time so close to Waldorf. "Thanks, Mr. Hodgens. I'll start crossing things off the list."

"Good, good. And do read the book as well. I'd love to know your thoughts."

The first hundred years of Mesan history were littered with words like 'speculated' and 'secondhand accounts' and flew by over the course of an iced lemonade and half of a refill. Nori had wandered upon a little drink shop that was too small for indoor seating, forcing her to drink out in the hot midday sun as she read. But that just made the chilling lemonade all the sweeter.

Wandering upon the shop was very much the point. Nori knew of places already, but that didn't feel like the Mesan way. No, the Mesan way would be to walk aimlessly until something took your fancy. Nori wondered if she looked like a local as she munched on cherries and held her book up so that a passerby might be able to read the title.

It was painfully performative, and Nori knew it. But maybe if she forced it, it would eventually become her reality. She could be a naturalized Mesan. She would know all of the hole-in-the-wall spots to grab a great bite, she'd know the quickest ways through back alleys, she'd know the local slang and seem natural in using it.

She'd have a home.

She sipped her lemonade and started reading about local funeral rites.

Maybe one day.

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