This isn't where she went to sleep.

Yawn. "Hi, Dream Ky."

"I don't think I'm - oh, you think you're dreaming."

"Yeah?"

"Okay, well, I don't think I'm dreaming so I don't think you are either, so don't do anything weird on account of thinking that." She gets up to explore the room.

If she tries the doors, one of them is locked, and the other unlocked. The walls have patterned wallpaper and the furniture has brocaded upholstery. The small curtains — currently opened — is similar. Red and black are the dominant colors in the decorations with gold and white being secondary. 

On the part of the shelf with the incense holder, there's an assortment of bottles, herbs, and candles.

She can sense some of the titles of the books. Atlas of the Solar System. Medicinal Chemistry, Fourth Edition. Properties of Carrier Media and Fixatives. A lot of them seem to revolve around chemistry, fragrances, history, places, or medicine. It's almost all non-fiction.

If she reads the paperwork, many of them begin with To His Imperial Majesty Hugo, Director of the Cielos consortium, Keeper of the Imperial Formulary, Warden of the Routes of Xiedos. or a variation thereof. The majority of them are expense reports and accounting records presented in neat tables with explanations at the bottom. Some are requests or proposals or updates: one concerning a botanical garden on Xiedos, one about a crop failure in Sirmegunda. There's also an unopened envelope from a Roberta Campurriana with the warm, nutty scent of tonka bean. On the other tray are similar papers, but they have a woody, ambery scent.

The drawers of the desk have stationery: pens, ink, wax seals and candles, so on and so forth. Some of them are locked.

"Iskander, can you read these things?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, first of all, that's not normal in dreams."

"What if a dream figment was like, ah, you can see the color blue, that's not normal in dreams."

"Fair enough but also this is not Scythian."

"See, this is a way where my guess makes more sense, not less."

"You have a point and you're so annoying about it." She peeps through the unlocked door, carefully, in case it's just a long drop with more clouds out there.

It's a corridor! With the same color scheme and aesthetic. No one else is visible.

The locked door opens-

-there's a man in a oxblood waistcoat and jacket and black breeches, standing halfway in the other room and halfway in the study.

"I didn't know I would be assassinated so soon," he says calmly.

"I beg your pardon. We have no idea how we got here. - he has an idea but it's that he's dreaming. We don't know who you are, let alone want you assassinated."

His face changes from careful neutrality to something else. Concern? He's staying in his position between the rooms.

"Did my gr— did Madame Coconut put you up to this? Did she talk to you?"

"I don't know who that is either."

"Huh. Did you talk to any other fairies?"

What are Kybele and Iskander wearing? Are they holding anything — do they have weapons?

Neither of them is holding anything and they are in what look like they might be sleep clothes - simple, no shoes. (Kybele is sort of acting armed, but her hands are empty.)

"I don't know what a fairy is."

How do you not know what a fairy is.

His eyes flick to the door.

The door flings open forcefully. There's an odd-looking woman at the door, with a painted face, reminiscent of a porcelain doll. She has a crown of flowers and loose, gauzy turquoise robes, moving and fluttering in the air in a way that defies gravity. The room fills with the strong, bright fragrance of ylang-ylang and roses. It grabs the attention. She has a sheathed rapier by her hip.

"Good morning!" she says cheerfully. "Is something wrong?"

"Good morning, Madame Coconut. We have visitors."

"Good morning, visitors!"

"...good morning."

"Please do not bother Hugo. It would upset me dearly," she says, closing her eyes for a moment.

"They're not bothering me, ma'am."

"Good!" she says, smiling again, clapping her hands. "Well, if you need anything, I'll be right outside."

"Thank you, ma'am."

Madame Coconut leaves, but her floral scent lingers for a little bit before vanishing.

"Would you and your companion mind answering some questions under Heliotrope's Honesty?"

"I don't know what that is."

"It's a fragrance that makes it obvious if you are being deceptive. It doesn't compel you to speak — you may choose to remain silent for a question or say that you hereby refrain from answering."

"I am not really excited about inhaling drugs where I have only your word to go on about their effects."

What direction to go for...

"It's not a drug. And it doesn't have any mind-affecting effects. The way it works is that the fragrance vanishes if you lie. And I would be under the same effect. It's that candle over there near the incense burner; it should be labeled."

If they look, there will be a candle labeled that! It's a little used. It has a floral, woody scent.

"...I've never heard of anything that works like that."

Huh???????? Not knowing Heliotrope's Honesty is one thing, but this is another.

"It seems to me that you really did get here by accident and I'm offering to do this now so you don't get arrested instead and have answers wrenched out of you. You suddenly appeared in a restricted area. There are confidential documents here — don't try jumping out the window, you'll die." It seemed important to add that for the Very Confused and Ignorant People.

"Do you in fact have the power to prevent us from getting arrested et cetera?"

"Yes, if I say that you are attendants or retainers. And put your names on the manifests. And make up a different story as to how you got here. The difficult part is if you cause a huge stir and I have to publicly announce a pardon. I could attest to what I said with Heliotrope's Honesty but there's no way to light the candle which only causes me to be under the effect and not you — it fills up the whole room.

I'm the Emperor, by the way. Hugo, Director of the Cielos Consortium, Keeper of the Imperial Formulary, Warden of the Routes of Xiedos, and all that."

"Yeah, okay, we can do the candle thing."

"Okay, great." He points to the other smaller table with chairs surrounding it.

He moves to the alcove, eyes unmoving from the pair, and then takes out a tiny metal box from the inside of his jacket. He presses something, and a blue flame comes out of it, which he puts to the candle to light it. Then he closes the box. The smell of heliotrope and oak fills the room, as promised.

"Let's go to the other table because I don't want to risk burning my paperwork." He'll move to the table and put down the candle in the middle of it, and sit on one of the chairs.

Twins cooperate with this.

"I'm going to demonstrate the mechanism of the candle. My name is not Hugo Cielos."

The smell of heliotrope in the air totally disappears, as expected, though the smell of oak remains. Several seconds later, the smell of heliotrope gradually strengthens again.

"There. So, you can tell that I lied." It's a little misleading for him to be presenting it as though it's a binary — you can measure deceit based on how much the heliotrope disappears, but, oh well.

"If you are going to answer a question, please reply by copying the wording of the question in full sentences and not just 'Yes' or 'No' or moving your head — otherwise it won't count."

"Noted."

"Please describe the events that occurred from your perspective just before you appeared in this room."

"I was asleep in my bed at home before that. I believe that is also true of my brother and that we both woke up here."

"Is that true for you too?" he asks her brother.

"I kind of still think that I am dreaming right now but I guess yeah I believe that before the part where I was in that room and also during it I was asleep?"

"Okay. Please tell me your names."

"I'm Kybele, called also the Curator or Gazette."

"I'm Iskander."

"I am pleased to meet you, Kybele and Iskander, such as the circumstances might be. Please describe your occupations."

"I run a library and a newspaper. He does woodcuts for the newspaper and other assistive tasks."

"Please tell me where and when you were born, and where you lived before you came here."

"We were born in a village called Creekfork and live in urban Scythia now."

"On which planet is the city of Scythia located? We can go over to the map if it would help you." He looks in the direction of the large diagram behind the desk.

"I don't actually think the planet has a name?"

Okay. "Were you previously aware of the existence of other planets which contained humans?"

"N- I was not aware of that."

"Apologies, I'll need you to expand the pronoun for surety's sake.

Were you previously aware of the existence of the Cielos Consortium, of Xiedos, of Madame Segatriz, of Sofronio? Were you previously aware of Grejonta, Peregenia, or Chiprasonia?"

"I was not aware of other human-inhabited planets. I have never heard of any of the things you just listed except that I once heard a story about a city named something that might have been or just sounded a lot like Peregenia."

"Have you suffered any head injuries lately? Do you feel that you are missing time or important memories? Can you recall the events of the day before you went to sleep?"

"I have not and do not believe my brother to have suffered any head injuries lately. Apart from the normal amount of insensibility produced by sleep I do not think I am missing time or memories. I can recall yesterday. Iskander -"

"I don't think I'm missing time or memories. I can remember yesterday. We had fish for dinner."

Hugo takes a deep breath in and a deep breath out.

"While we are under Heliotrope's Honesty, are there any other statements you want to attest to? Otherwise, I have no more questions for you that would require it."

"I do not really know what it would be useful to have attested to in this context."

He puts out the candle with a snuffer.

"Here's what I'm going to do. If anyone asks, I'll say that you're a librarian and Iskander is your assistant, and that you're traveling with me to help me with research. I'll have you help with me for some little task so that the both of us will be able to attest to that honestly, in the extreme event it might be necessary.

In a day or two, weather permitting, we are going to land at the Academy of Halaise. I'll want to talk to you again before we do, but you mentioned that you were previously sleeping before you came here. So, I'll set you up in one of the guest rooms and you can nap and eat and change clothes — I will have these provided for you."

Do they seem fine with that?

That seems broadly reasonable to her!

Yawn sure fine.