Milla had always perceived an archive to be somewhere old, full of dust, alphabetically organised, and square. But now, they were being led by the tree-bark-skinned woman, Ingerior, who had changed into a green office suit and a pencil skirt, traversing a long marble bridge towards the centre of a globe. Yes, it was a globe. They were surrounded by rolls of curved shelves from all directions, above their heads, at their eye level, and underneath their feet. Their destination was a circular platform occupying the centre of the sphere. And in the middle of the platform was an obsidian stone, an inverted trapezoidal prism of irregular shape, with silver markings ran across the four visible side faces. Crude, unhewn, except the up-facing facet, which has been polished into a mirror. Ingerior beckoned everyone to circle around the stone, she placed a hand on the glassy surface, and with a surge of vibration, the stone came to life. Keyboard, buttons and levers sprouted out of the black mirror-like grasses after the spring rain. All shared the same incorporeal texture with the bridge ferry. " Watch your steps and try not to look down." Ingerior offered a friendly reminder, the human couple was utterly confused but soon understood the meaning of it. The centre of the platform had detached itself from the rest of the floor and was elevating the group to the height of roughly a two-story house.

"Now boss, where should we start?" The redhead boy Mikhail wiggled and twiddled his fingers

"Start with the account books, bills, and logistic records. Focus on whatever has anything to do with artwork, collections, or gifts."

"Right away, boss!" Mikhail orchestrated buttons and levers on the control panel, projecting a hologram screen vertically in the air.

"And put me through to Dr. Farasun, will you?"

"Anything you say."

A message window sprang out of the lower-left corner of the screen. After two or three dialling beeps, a blurry of a man's face lightened up on the window. He was running, panting. Even with the frenetic movement, the man reminded Milla of a moonlit ocean. With his shoulder-length ashen locks the foaming waves, an unbuttoned white suit a seagull's wings, and a dark teal tie a lashing seaweed. And his eyes, all the depth and darkness of the ocean were held in the two sapphires, one may easily lost themselves in their bottomless blue. 

"Not a very convenient time, my lady, but what may I be of service?" The man wheezed.

"Going out for house calls? I am sorry Fridolin, just a quick question, do you know someone by the name of Friedrich von Luftgraf?"

"No, this name is unknown to me..." The doctor waved an arm and ran towards something. With a leap, he was inside the cabinet of some form of public transportation, maybe a train or a subway.

"Thought so. Danke schön, Fridolin. Get yourself an Uber if you are running late, will you?"

"I am afraid it is not an option for my Nokia."

"Your face should be on Nokia’s business logo. Fine, focus on the traffic, we’d hate to lose our family doctor. Tschüss!"

"Bis bald, my lady."

And the window went black and disappeared. But right away, the group was distracted by a knock, then another, then another, and soon the knocking escalated into a rapid pounding. Milla looked around, the entrance was but a little fluorescent rectangle at the end of the long bridge, banging from that distance won’t be received with such intensity and clarity. Then her attention was drawn to the stone panel.

"Ooooh we are in trouble now." Alinna winced, her finger hesitated on top of one red flashing button. With a sharp inhale, she pressed it down.

"Madame!" Another window lunged itself towards the group, along with a scream and the upper body of a woman. "Have you any idea what time is it? Dinner has been ready for half an hour and not a single soul showed up in the dining hall!" As her wailing progressed, more and more of the woman's body emerged from the hologram, the whole scene can be summarised as Sadako crawling out of the TV. When the woman finally ceased her venting and shouting, she was with the group, physically, in the archives. Milla looked like she had seen a ghost, well, to be honest, she was staring at one, a 100%, genuine, warrantied, ghost. The human woman felt a spin in her head as her legs turned to jelly. Michael had to reach out so he doesn't have to scoop his fiancee from the floor.

"Not like any of us here have a soul, except Mr. Haddson. I do apologise, Madame, we have guests." Alinna gestured towards their human clients, a fanged grin across her pale face. The ghost turned her head but her body remained perfectly still. Her appearance was a classical, almost stereotypical Rococo aristocrat woman. Towering wig dangled with ribbons, pearls, and feathers. Pastel pink and daffodil yellow puffy dress, pearls, bow-knots, ruffs found their way into every possible corner of that fine clothes. It must have been fine, minus the ripped sleeves, tattered hem, torn pearl chains and ruffs, and those ominously suspicious dark red stains.

"Bon soir, Monsieur, Mademoiselle. Pardon my lack of manners, I was not aware of your presence. I am Marquise de Chandour, a pleasure to meet you." A big smile bloomed on the ghost woman's lifeless face. She curtsied, to which Michael returned a wave while Milla stayed pale and non-respondent.

"Madame, it seems like we will be having our dinner down here in the archives. Would you kindly make arrangements? And make something for our guests."

"Qui, Altesse. You could have told me in advance."

"Sorry, Madame. I wish they could have made an appointment." Alinna uttered a sigh of helplessness, one of her eyebrows though, raised inquisitively. "On a side note Madame, you look different today? Was that a new gown?"

"Non, Madame, I am stuck with this one gown, the one I died in, remember?" The joke was not received well at all. The ghost woman let out a bitter hiss and darted a glare at her lady, mistress, employer, whatever the relationship might be.

"Madame, I think your gown is the other way round..."Joel chimed in to save the day. He carefully pointed a finger towards Madame de Chandour’s dress.

Being confused, the spectre matron touched her face then the...middle of her back. She was facing them, without a doubt, but only her head, her body was facing the opposite direction.

"My apologies, Messieurs et Mesdames, the turning of the season is also the cleaning season, I am busy over my head." With that said, Madame de Chandour grabbed hold of the front and back of her head and turned it 180 degrees. Michael caught his fiancee before she hit the floor.

With a few blinks of her eyes, Milla regained her composure. She was in the arms of her dear Michael, the redhead boy was working his technological magic, the rest of the group watching. To the human’s great relief, the ghost woman was nowhere to be seen. Before Milla was able to exhale a sigh, something else stepped on her nerves. It sounded like the patter of tiny feet, echoing and bouncing from wall to wall. Not that she was going to have a baby, a bit too early for that, no. The actual pattering of small footfalls. From their advantageous height, Milla saw movement on the bridge. She blinked and blinked and finally accepted that a column of walking mushrooms was bubbling towards them. They ascended a set of spiral staircases that only became visible on impact, holding trays and dishes of food above their heads. Beef and eggplant lasagne for the humans, lobster themindor for the lady of the house, marsh and pie for the engineer, and a glass of water for the tree-bark-skinned secretary.

"Brownies, Madame de Chandour’s housekeeping team." Joel took his dish as he thanked the mushroom heads, and instructed the dumbfounded guests to follow his lead.

Mikhail threw his plate on the control panel, to which Ingerior frowned and swept the pastry crumble off the surface. Without taking his eyes off the screen, the boy grabbed the pie with one hand, the other danced on the keyboards. Alinna and Joel stood side by side, both holding their plates and eating with the ingenious invention that is called a knork. Ingerior being a Huldra can survive solely on photosynthesis, so water is more than enough for her.

"Hey, boss!" The exclamation of the redhead boy announced that the dinner is over. "I did a quick search on ‘artwork’, ‘dancer’, ‘female’ and ‘statue’, and here’s what we’ve got." A handful of the thumbnails lit up one after another across the hologram screen, some were black-and-white, some were in colour.  

"All right, let us see..." Alinna handed the photo to Mikhail, who slammed it face down on a square of scan glass that is the size of an A3 paper. The image of Jeska Lockehart graced the screen.

"Face-off time!"

Then the blur of motions and flashes took over the screen, it ended with a notification beep. Icons of files stacked on top of each other, forming a pyramid with its tip flickering like the star on top of a Christmas tree.

"Here we go, boss." Mikhail proceeded to click on the highlighted icon. "The record says, you purchased a batch of artwork from a Monsieur Jean-Laurent Lumière in 1972. The artworks include a bone chalice, a painting of an unnamed artist, a skin-bound manuscript, and a dancer's statue. And the statue’s and Miss Lockehart’s faces share a similarity of 97%."

"Jean-Laurent Lumière? Yes, yes, I have memories of him. A French antique dealer of eccentricity, who nearly cost one of our valuable staff."

"Let me guess, Madame de Chandour?"

"Mr. Haddson, my French is as fluent as a Frenchman’s English. I did require an interpreter."Alinna shrugged, then turned her head to the redhead boy and the bark-skinned lady. "What happened next? What did I do with the statue?"
"Yes boss," Ingerior sipped from her glass of water, "I have the logistic record here, it says the batch of artwork was received and cataloged under 'art collections'."
"It is a very broad category, the statue could be anywhere."
"That won't be a problem for you, boss. You are the heart of the castle, a quick scan of the central core will locate even a needle in a haystack."
"Very well, Mikhail, bring up the image of that statue."
"Aye aye, boss." After a few more strokes of the keyboard, the group was staring into one of the finest artwork they had ever seen. A dancer carved out of white marble stood on her toes. Her arms were in the fourth ballet position, one stretched sideways, the other arched over her head. Her neck was slim and curved like a swan, and her body a willow branch in the wind. Her costume had a significant exotic touch. Her tutu was fashioned into a knee-length skirt, and on her head, a long train of veil was secured by a jeweled circlet.   

"This...this is my great great grandma?" Milla’s eyes shot wide open, her jaws nearly hit the back of her feet.

Alinna placed her left hand on the scanner, her right fingers danced from one key to another. With a whooshing sound, the incorporeal ensemble of keyboard, buttons and levers undid themselves. They unravelled themselves into countless will-o-wisps, revolving, circling, waltzing. All of a sudden, at a voiceless command, all of them collapsed into one singular point, and from that point, the universe...a hologram miniature of the entire Castle of Ja-Ṣin (ya-Tsin) to be specific. Alinna grabbed towards the image of the statue and summoned a three-dimensional version on her palm. She placed the image in the centre of the hologram, the image dissolved into a stream of light. Milla swore that she felt a surge radiated from the stone panel, and obsidian walls throbbed at once. The light reconstructed itself as a flickering dot.

"Yeah, it's Castlevania, 100% confirmed." Michael touched his nose and muttered under his breath.

"It is in the Hall of Charites." Declared the lady of the house.
"Hall of Charites? Really Boss? I didn't know we have a room for that." Her human assistant whistled as he raised his eyebrows.
"Neither did I, it seems that there was a time I did enjoy life." Alinna returned with a wide sharp grin, her fangs glittered in the pale light.
"Would that be it? My great great grandma's statue?"
"We shall see."

Alinna selected the flashing dot and with a spread of her fingers, magnified it into a visual-friendly-sized room.

"Venerable staff and guests, I am going to teleport us there. Fasten your seatbelt, and have a sick bag ready if you are prone to motion sickness."
"Wait, what..."

And they were dragged into a vortex. Colours and shapes swirled in front of Milla's eyes, and her head spun with them. The fluid space revolved around her in a frenzied waltz. The floor melted, the ceiling dissolved, the walls bent and blurred. An invisible hand reached into her stomach and squeezed. The young woman brought her hands to her lips, she's going to throw up. Then all of sudden, everything was solid and stable again, the floor was underneath her feet, the ceiling was above her head, and she was standing in the middle of a jewelled chamber.

Milla coughed and retched, Michael caringly brought a paper bag to her mouth. And there went the lasagne dinner. "Here, have some water." The tall dark lady produced a glass and handed it to Milla. 

After a few sips, Milla felt her strength returned, she straightened her back and began to take in their surroundings. Despite being named as a ‘hall’, a magnified jewellery box did it more justice. The first thing Milla noticed was the night sky, a black velvet blanket inlaid with diamond, doming over her head. Flickering, watching, mesmerising. Whether it was an illusion created by a transparent ceiling or a vivid imitation, Milla did not know, or perhaps it was a fragment of the starry vault, being carved out by inhuman power and placed here. The velvety blackness seemed to liquefy at where the ceiling meets the walls. They cascaded down the twelve Ionic pillars, streamed across the marble floor, and all gathered into a round pool situated in the centre of the hall, which’s ripple-less surface a perfect reflection of the above starry night. The rest of the room, walls and floor, were all white, ivory white, alabaster white, simple and elegant, a perfect stage for the real show of this chamber. A wondrous symphony of colours and shapes composed by paintings, statues, busts, and many other nameless works of art.

"Wow..." Michael gave the back of his hand a hard pinch and shook it in pain. "I’m not dreaming, tell me I’m not dreaming ."
"Boss, is that van Gogh?" Joel jerked his head towards a line sketch framed and displayed on the wall.
"Ma'am, you're sure my ancestor's statue is here? Like among the great masters' works?"
"Ms. Hueston, art is art, no matter who made them. Now, let us see."

Alinna summoned the hologram of their target on the mirror device, the group fanned out, covering the floor inch by inch. Then something caught Milla’s attention, a silhouette behind a curtain drip. Swan-like neck, wreath-like arms, willow-like body... Milla could hear her heart pounding, she wanted to audibly alert the group, but her vocal cord failed her, so did her tight throat and dry mouth. Her eyes zoomed in and out of focus. That’s it, the end of her search! With a shaking hand, the human woman reached for the curtain, and behind that was not a statue, but a lyre and a bust, their overlapping forms created a misleading silhouette.

The statue was not here.