In Search of Spring - etherealDesign - 私の推しは悪役令嬢 | Watashi no Oshi wa Akuyaku Reijou (2024)

Chapter 1: 1.1 Love and Money

Chapter Text

Claire François had never known that human lives were bought and sold so cheaply.

It made sense, she supposed; the first step to training dogs was to make oneself essential to them. She imagined that the rest was simple. Claire wouldn’t know—she’d never had a dog. It was probably harder to train a dog than a person, though whoever wanted her dead had figured out how to do just that. It was callous of her to say or think, not to mention terrifying, but she was tired of running from difficult truths. Someone in the great big world wanted her head.

She was alive, but the pawn they’d sent after her wasn’t. They’d buried him earlier. Funerals and perfect days didn’t mix well, but the rains that would have better suited her mood were scarce at this time of year in Euclid. The sky over the ocean was as blue as fire; a perfect, scorching blue that would last for hours yet before burning down like embers come nightfall. She sat on the beach, skirt tucked as neatly as possible beneath her folded legs, and looked along the cliffs towards a home that no longer felt like home.

Above the port city of Euclid stood a narrow headland that rose abruptly from the sea. On that ground lay one of House François’ many estates. Claire had fond memories there, ones that(like all those memories which included her mother) she would never be able to replace. Yesterday a man tried to kill her for the sake of his own mother. As he’d lain dying, Claire had sworn to him that she’d save her in his stead.

Money, he’d said. That was all he’d needed, a bit of money. That man—Louis was his name—had said that the potion that would cure his mother’s cancer would cost a small fortune. So Claire had returned to town, expecting to have to sell or barter one of her possessions, a prized horse or gemstone perhaps, or else go begging to Father. She’d expected to wend her way along the narrow, winding roads towards that big house on the cliff, trying to find the words that would convince Father to help.

To her relief, she didn’t have to face him yet. When she visited an apothecary at the edge of town, she learned that the “fortune” it would cost to save the old woman’s life was in fact a small portion of the stipend that Claire was due each month as a ducal heiress. She’d had enough money on her person, the first time she and Louis met, that nobody would have died if he’d only asked for help. But he had already taken a shadowy contract on her life and been supplied with the weapons that ultimately killed him, all in the hope of killing her.

In this way, the lives of an old peasant woman and the Lady Claire François were both worth precisely the same amount: a number of gold coins that could easily fit within a child’s fist. Until very recently, she would have been insulted. Now she just felt sick.

She’d come down to the beach in an effort to think about anything other than death. So she ran her hands through the hot sand, trying to focus on the way her skin grew taut and parched as it baked. She listened to the waves beat endlessly against the shore, and breathed in the sea breeze so thick with salt that it had a taste more than a scent. Mostly, Claire tried not to look at her companion. It wouldn’t be fair.

She failed. Claire was finding that she failed often these days, especially whenever she matched herself against Rae Taylor. She couldn’t defeat the commoner when they’d begun their new lives at the Academy. She couldn’t scare her away by being petty or mean, couldn’t return to being comfortably lonely. And, God damn it, she couldn’t keep herself from falling in love with her. Even now she couldn’t help herself from wanting to reach out for Rae, to be comforted by her.

She hated it. Rae had buried a friend hours prior, and Claire had nothing to say to her, nothing supportive, nothing true. Even the empty platitudes that came so easily while writing letters—I’m sorry for your loss, or I’m always here if you want to talk—when Claire tried to choke these lame words out, she found that the sounds would not form on her tongue.

Rae was barefoot, ankle deep in the surf, standing like a lighthouse against the sea. She was still in her school uniform, hands at her side, gently lifting her skirt so that the hem was above water. The mixture of care and carelessness more or less worked out for her; she was only occasionally spattered by the breakings of livelier waves. She seemed to be staring intently out at a point somewhere over the horizon. Gusts of wind blew her brown hair into her face but she seemed not to mind. Rae just slowly closed her big red eyes and slowly opened them again once another errant gust had cleared her vision. Idly, Claire followed her gaze out beyond the edge of the world, wondering what the girl was searching for.

Eventually Rae must have noticed that she was being watched, because she turned away from the sea and back towards Claire. Their eyes met, and Claire tried not to flinch. She failed, and turned away, but the damage was done. She glared down at a random spot of sand as if it had wronged her and listened to the soft splashing of approaching footsteps.

“Hey,” Rae said. She’d contorted her body into an L shape, bent at the hip, twisting through the torso, so that her face was parallel to the ground at the same time that it filled the entirety of Claire’s vision. “How are you feeling?”

“That’s entirely too close, thank you.” Claire grabbed her by the shoulders and gently pushed her an arms length away. “And I’m fine. Obviously,” she lied. “We just defended an entire town from the undead. Another laurel for myself, another honor heaped upon so very many others which burnish my family name.”

Rae smiled her easy smile. “Is that right? Great. Hey, I was glad to help.”

A moment passed as they looked into one another’s eyes. Claire had yet to develop a scowl that could make Rae break eye contact, but she didn’t want to be the one to look away first, either. Her gaze wandered down to Rae’s smile, the soft curve of her lips, and she wondered, After everything that’s happened, how can you smile like everything’s okay?

“I heard you: close enough,” she murmured. “You can let go now, Claire. If you want.”

“Wh-what? Ah!” Claire had been holding onto Rae for the better part of a minute. She released her and leapt backwards onto her feet. Had she been starting to pull her back in? It was infuriating the way she behaved in public around Rae now. Claire was beginning to wonder whether the years of studying courtly etiquette had been a waste of time.

“Ahem.” Claire raised her fist to her mouth and turned away as she pretended to cough, trying to hide the color rising to her cheeks. “Moving on, Rae, I’ve been thinking. You knew him, so explain it to me. Louis recognized me. Why wouldn’t he just ask for help?”

“Hmmm…” Rae hummed, turning her back on Claire as she began to pace up and down the beach. “I’ve been wondering about that, of course. Someone, probably part of the Nur Empire, paid him to kill you. Or someone wants us to think the Nur are after you, disguising the real culprit. Either way, I don’t know if he really could have asked. For help, I mean. I don’t think he or Ophelia would’ve been safe if he had.”

“But—but Bauer has vast resources: castles, soldiers, magic!” Claire sputtered. “Surely an entire kingdom can manage to protect one poxy old lady. Why was he willing to throw his life away before he was willing to talk to me?”

Rae tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Maybe he thought the job came from someone within the government of Bauer.”

“Don’t say anything so horrible.”

“Alright, I won’t,” Rae said. “Still, succeed or fail, I don’t think that ‘assassin’ is a job many people get to retire from.”

Rae looked so calm, even as she hypothesized the existence of a treasonous element within their own government. She didn’t make sense. Claire couldn’t figure out where that strength, that certainty, came from. It made her feel at times like the two of them were very far apart from one another. The world felt a bit colder than it had a moment ago.

Her pacing had come to a stop close enough for her to offer a hand to Claire as she spoke. “I suppose that what I meant, Miss Claire, is that you shouldn’t blame yourself for what happened here. You didn’t kill him. He was dead from the moment he drank that potion. In a greater sense, maybe he was from the moment he agreed to assassinate you. It doesn’t matter; he tried to kill you, so you’re allowed to worry about yourself, now. Not him.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Claire took Rae’s hand gently in her own. Just touching like this, in the most chaste way imaginable, was electrifying.

“Yes, well,” she said, “I wasn’t worried about that at all, because—

because you never left my side

—um, because I’m one of the most powerful spellcasters the kingdom has ever seen.” She paused, collecting herself. “With you and Misha by my side, defeating one man with a sword was a trivial task. The outcome was never in doubt.”

Rae didn’t respond. She had apparently decided that the conversation was adjourned for the moment, instead electing to observe Claire. Sometimes, beneath that gaze, Claire felt utterly exposed. Behind Rae’s soft eyes and quick smiles and bad jokes was something else, a face that she hadn’t shown to anyone, and only let slip flashes of when she believed nobody was looking. In many ways she was still a stranger to Claire, but the reverse didn’t seem to be true. When their eyes met, she began to feel that Rae knew her better than anyone else in the world.

Claire didn’t mind being analyzed by her anymore. She just wished Rae would share whatever it was she’d learnt. Although, if Rae hadn’t yet picked up on Claire’s feelings, how good of a judge of character could she be?

“I still don’t get it.” The silence had grown too awkward; Claire’d had to speak up. “Sure, once he’s in with the assassins his life gets harder. Did he really exhaust all of his options before then? He could have left a note with the staff at my villa. It would have made its way to me eventually.”

Rae laughed. “I can’t ever see Louis writing to every noble in the kingdom for aid. Even if it might have worked. I don’t know. We may just be commoners, Miss Claire, but we have our pride as well.”

“Do you? That’s the first I’m hearing of it.”

“Oh, no, I don’t mean me. I would never let something silly like that stand between me and the things I want. But, you know, most people in general, of any class. I think most people can only be treated so poorly for so long, and they aren’t willing to spend their lives begging for help, things like that.” Claire didn’t respond, which Rae took as a sign to continue. “Oh, but don’t worry. None of those things really apply to me. In fact, feel free to treat me worse. I don’t mind being called by my, you know, name, but I do miss when you called me ‘commoner’ instead. If you think that one’s just played out, I can help you workshop some new ideas.”

“Oh, good. Let’s hear them.”

“No, no, no, that’s bad management! You’re the one with the vision. You need to pitch an idea, some other derogatory term you could use—like calling me a dog, for example—and I help you work on it, come up with ways you could improve it, with a meaner tone or by slapping me around a bit.”

Claire laughed, despite herself, at the old-fashioned Rae antics. “I think just calling you Rae will suffice for now.”

“That’s the worst thing you can think of? Me being myself?” Rae grinned. “Ouch! You’re in top form today.”

“I-I didn’t mean it that way at all! Don’t play dumb!” Claire scowled back, feeling her face flush with embarrassment. Rae just smiled on. How irritating.

“You have the most beautiful smile, my lady, but I almost prefer your frown. I’ve missed it, today.”

“What do you mean?” Claire asked.

“You’ve been too sad to be mad at me.”

“...Oh.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Rae said. “Having such empathy for someone you don’t know, someone who tried to hurt you, even—is an amazing thing. But it kills me to see you like this. I’m glad that you look to be feeling a bit better. Are you feeling better?”

They were still holding hands, Claire realized, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“No. Maybe a little,” she admitted, after a pause. “I don’t know. I just saw someone die. Should I really be carrying on like everything is still fine?”

“Sure. You’re still here, after all. What else can you do?”

No hesitation. Claire admired that about her. Sometimes she feared it as well, just a bit, but she needed that strength right now.

So she stepped closer. Only the space that their intertwined hands created was separating them at this point. “It’s been an awful day.”

“It has,” Rae agreed.

The bells began to ring in the hour, the sound cutting through the distant din of Euclid’s streets. Claire had come down to the water to escape that noise, the feeling of unfamiliar faces closing in on her from all sides. It had followed her here, though—she’d just let the waves drown it out. After an hour away from it, the sounds of carriage wheels on stone, of children at play, of coins dropping onto wooden stalls: they began to feel welcoming and familiar again.

“Rae, take me home.”

---

Fighting for one’s life against the undead worked up an appetite. Claire was able to choke down some of the peasant fare she’d been served by the Taylor family, and the two of them retired hastily to Rae’s room after dinner. They’d thrown open the windows to let in the breeze that had picked up around sunset. That breeze, rolling in from the early summer sea, had just a bit of chill left in it. A sharp gust rattled the shutters and made every hair on Claire’s body stand on end.

Relatively well-heeled commoners like the Taylor family seemed to cluster together in a neighborhood on a small hill looking over Euclid’s docks. This meant that from Rae’s room Claire could see, down past the winding medieval streets and the gables of the nearby houses, the docks at the edge of the sea. She’d leaned her aching body against the windowsill and watched the last lonely workers of the day scurry up and down the pier like ants. Even as they basked in the sodium glow of the harbor’s orange lamps, she couldn’t make out a single detail on any of them. They were in another world.

Rae and Claire may as well have been in their own world too. Even as her head and hair leaned half-way over the street, none of the passersby in the streets below had looked up and met her eye. Even if they had, none of them would have been able to see the rest of her body, wholly nude as the two of them washed up. That was for Rae’s eyes only.

Having already wiped down what she could reach, she passed the towel to Rae, who began to make slow, deliberate passes down Claire’s back. She shivered, and not just because of the wind and damp. The sensation of Rae’s touch, of her body being worked by Rae’s hands, was ecstatic. She felt completely exposed in front of the girl, yet completely safe in her arms. She was completely at peace with herself for the first time she could remember, while at the same time a passionate flame was beginning to burn out of control within her. One would think that the two conflicting emotions would cancel each other out like fire and water. But unlike magic, people couldn’t be reduced to four elements.

“All done,” Rae said. She slipped Claire’s silk shirt over her shoulders. She must have been out of it—she hadn’t even registered that she’d been toweled dry already.

Well then, time for Claire to make her move. “Give it here,” she said, motioning towards the washcloth.

Rae instead clutched it tighter to her chest. “It’s fine, really. Neither of us wants a repeat of last night’s fiasco, right?”

“Let’s not talk about that! Besides, there wouldn’t have been a fiasco if you had just behaved.”

Rae still looked reluctant. Claire held her hand out and said nothing, not knowing what else to say.

Moments later, Rae acquiesced. “Good girl,” Claire murmured. “Now, sit. And stop looking at me like that!”

Rae’s cheeks had flushed a furious red. Claire considered it a small victory to have broken her composure just once, even though she wasn’t sure how she’d done it. She dipped the cloth in the bowl of warm water and wrung it out, then knelt behind Rae on the bed. She faltered.

“This is your first time, isn’t it?” Rae asked.

“Wh-what?”

“Your first time helping someone else wash up,” she clarified. “Thanks for helping, I suppose. I really can’t reach my back.”

“Oh! Of course,” Claire said. “Yes, of course it is, why would I ever have done this before? Normally I would have people for this.”

Rae turned her back as she disrobed. “Follow my lead, then.”

Claire got to work, but her mind was elsewhere. God damn it, she thought. Did people get more beautiful after you fell in love with them, or had she never really looked at Rae before? From the elegant curve of her neck to her shoulders and back and down to her abs, every muscle was so defined that they looked like they’d been drawn on. Something about her body conjured up images of statues, cut from marble and left to stand alone in ancient palaces for millenia. A flawless form.

Flawless except for a thin scar running horizontally across the small of her back. The scar she’d gotten because she’d protected Claire. God damn it. She ran her thumb along it and felt Rae shiver beneath her touch.

“Claire…”

Oh. She’d let the hand linger. Suddenly the contact of skin on skin was too much to bear. She resumed awkwardly passing over Rae’s back with the towel. “Why did you do that?” Claire realized that she was on the verge of tears.

“Because,” Rae began, “Getting hurt isn’t as painful to me as seeing you hurt. Besides, I didn’t even really decide to do it. I just moved without thinking.”

“Without thinking?” A bit of bite began to enter Claire’s voice, now. She sensed that if she didn’t yell a bit she’d start crying, and this was slightly more dignified, slightly more controlled. “Shocking, I couldn’t tell. You were the one with the clever plan and the means to carry it out. If you went down, I would have as well either way, you oaf.”

“I’m really touched that you were so worried about me, but it was just a scratch,” Rae said, “and I’ll gladly do it again if I have to. Look, you can see that I healed it easily. It was no problemo. Once I can get in front of a mirror and get a better look at what I’m doing, the scar won’t even be there.”

Sensing that Rae wasn’t going to back down, Claire tried a different argument. “You,” she said, “gave your life to me. So it’s not yours to throw away, right? It’s mine. I’m asking you to treat my stuff with a little bit more respect.”

“Hmm…” Rae hummed as Claire passed her the washcloth and turned away to give her a measure of privacy. “Alright. If it pleases Your Grace.”

Something in Rae’s tone made her wonder if she hadn’t really conceded so much as made a tactical retreat, so to speak, and they’d fight this argument another day. But Claire was tired. Bickering was fun, but it had been a long day, and there’d be time for it in the morning.

She rested her head on the windowsill again, listening to the chirping of crickets from the bushes outside. Something about being in close proximity to this girl in the prior two weeks was making Claire’s mind stop working very well. She’d spent much of her life living without feeling alive, without feeling much of anything at all. Emotions were still there, just… muted, like the colors of a painting that had been left too long in the sun. She’d had anger, though. That always felt real. Sometimes it was the only thing that had; it was a force she’d never understood, something that seemed to come from nowhere and return to nowhere once it had lasted long enough for her to do or say something she regretted.

So Claire had stayed alone. It had been simpler that way. It was easier to surround herself with sycophants, whom she owed nothing but could promise anything, whenever she felt the need of companions amongst her peers.

And then one day this girl had walked right past her defenses and into her life. She’d ignored the abuses piled upon her—actually, Rae had seemed to revel in them. When they’d grown uncomfortably close, close enough to really hurt one another, she had stayed whenever Claire had lashed out. When she’d fought with Manaria over her and lost, Rae had excused herself from Claire’s life. Losing Rae had felt like opening an invisible wound. When Rae had come back to fight Manaria and won, it hadn’t just healed her pain. It had opened up a new part of the human condition to her, let her feel a way she’d never felt before, a way she didn’t think it was possible to feel. She’d almost convinced herself that the great love stories of operas and ballads were just a way to trick people into thinking life was actually worthwhile and beautiful. Surely the great romances of antiquity’s epic poets could no longer exist in the modern era.

But there she was. Rae. Her beautiful, fairy-tale lover was setting up bedding on the floor.

That wouldn’t do. Claire got up. “There’s no need for that.”

“Hm?” Rae said, pausing to acknowledge the light brush of Claire’s hand against her shoulder. “Why not? I suppose I could sleep on the bare wood, if that’s what Your Grace desires, but—

“Don’t be deliberately obtuse. Obviously I meant that I would share your bed.”

“My bed?” she asked, stifling a laugh. “With respect, Miss Claire, you’ve never slept in a bed this small until last night. My bed could start a family and have little bed children, and all of them added together would be smaller than the one in your room at your estate in the capital. We might both fit, strictly speaking, but I don't think it’ll be much fun.”

Well, it was unreasonably small, Claire had to admit. They would probably have to be draped over one another to both fit. And wouldn’t that be a tragedy, Claire mused, before she continued. “Counterpoint: I’m not sleeping on the floor, and I’m also not going to kick you out of your own bed for another night. We’re going to make this work.”

“It’s fine, really. I didn’t mind it at all—” Rae began, before getting cut off by having her own pillow thrown into her face. “Um, ow.”

“Rae, you’re being insubordinate again. You’ll make a fool out of both of us. Get up here.”

After a further moment’s hesitation, Rae sat with her on the bed. As if by instinct, Claire’s hands wrapped themselves around her waist. She rested her chin on Rae’s shoulder and met her gaze as she turned, looking into her pale red eyes.

“Rae, we just saw someone die.”

“...yeah.”

“You just had to bury someone you grew up with. I’m so—I’m sorry. I know it’s not my place to say, but you don’t need to pretend like you aren’t hurt.”

“You really are too kind, Miss Claire,” Rae murmured. “But Louis made his choice. From then on, he was just another person trying to hurt you. I know this’ll sound like empty bravado, but I really don’t have any tears for people like that.”

Something about the easy dismissal of grief bothered Claire. There was something she was missing about Rae and Louis’s relationship, she felt. Now wasn’t the time to pry further, though. If Rae could so firmly say that everything was copacetic, why not believe her? It could be a problem for later. Comforting others in their grief did not come naturally to Claire, so she felt like congratulating herself on a job well done and dropping the matter.

She let herself go limp, falling into the pillow. Rae, surprised, got dragged horizontal with her, but Claire finessed the blankets up and over the both of them before she could react. Figuring that the commoner ought to be able to enjoy the most of her awful tiny little childhood bed, Claire scooted as far over as possible until her back was set against the cool plaster of the wall.

Her arms were still wrapped around Rae. Claire could have let go. Instead she squeezed just a little tighter, her hands pressing against Rae’s collarbone and navel, her face nestling up against the back of Rae’s head. Her hair smelled like an autumn evening before a thunderstorm.

“Claire… this is almost like…” Rae murmured.

Please. Figure it out. Say it for me, Claire pleaded silently. With a flick of her wrist, she dismissed the light she’d summoned earlier. The room was only illuminated by the faintest moonlight. In the pause that followed Rae’s words, it felt as though the world had stopped turning.

“...nevermind,” Rae said. Claire nearly cursed aloud. “Now’s probably not the time to say anything that would make this awkward, huh.”

Claire just sighed. Looking up through the window, she could watch a small patch of the night sky. The stars were brighter here than in the capital. She’d never thought about them much; the poets said they were particularly beautiful and she supposed she would have agreed, but they were just more lights in a world that was already full of them. Rae had changed her world so much that even the stars shone brighter to her these days. She wanted to re-do every experience of her life with Rae at her side, to make the most of this second chance to do everything for the first time once again.

Some amount of time passed quietly. Claire was already dozing off when she heard Rae ask her if she were awake.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I love you.”

“I know.” A grin spread across Claire’s face. In the dark she didn’t have to hide how giddy hearing those words made her now. “You say so constantly.”

“Well,” Rae said, “I couldn’t remember if I’d said it yet today.”

Claire would have swooned if she wasn’t already lying down. Could Rae feel the way her heart was racing? She hoped she could; Claire clutched her ever so slightly closer.

“Good night, Rae.”

I love you.

She tried to say it. She’d actually tried to say it multiple times throughout the afternoon and evening, on the beach, at dinner, in front of others, when they were alone. The desire was there, but something held her back. She felt that something coalesce as into what she thought of as a knot of air, an intangible but very real barrier to her speech, snatching her breath away before she could form it into words.

After all, why should she have to say it? She’d already begged Rae never to leave her side. Why debase herself further? Since Rae had won her from Manaria, Claire had gone everywhere with her except to bed, and even that felt like too many hours of the day to be apart. Did she have to hold her even closer for Rae to see how she felt? It didn’t seem right. Shouldn’t the person who claimed to love her more than anyone understand how Claire felt, at least? Didn’t you have to know someone to love them? Didn’t Claire deserve to have at least one person who truly understood her?

It was alright. I’ll make her see, Claire thought, as she felt her consciousness slip away. Words weren’t the only way to tell someone you loved them. She would enjoy this one-sided romance for as long as it would last.

Chapter 2: 1.2 Before the Storm

Chapter Text

When Claire woke up, she was alone.

She lay insensate beneath the covers and clutched at the space where Rae should have been. Claire never remembered her more pleasant dreams. Her nightmares, though… they stuck to her like drenched clothes.

She’d been at sea, at night, in the rain. Somehow—had she been shipwrecked? She couldn’t remember—she’d arrived on a rocky shoal in the middle of a dark and furious ocean. Unable to run, unable to scream, she could only wait for the waves to rise over her head. She’d had to drown to wake.

In reality she was high and dry in Rae’s bedroom, but the terror of that sunless sea left a chill that the morning light could not burn away.

She had to get up eventually. Once she was able to move again she stood up and began to change back into her school uniform. The motions felt stiff and mechanical. Reality did not yet feel more real than the dream. Claire tried to distract herself by examining the room around her, hoping to find something to pique her interest and help her think about anything else.

She had little success. Rae’s room was extraordinarily plain. Her desk was bare except for a trio of pristine books. Claire picked one up, ran her finger along the spine, and opened it. The crackling noise of the leather and paper told her that the book had never been opened before. She dropped it without learning the title and didn’t look at the others. The floral-print curtains fluttered in a mild breeze. The sounds of the city filtered in through the window, though they were muted here in this residential neighborhood. The walls were unadorned, wood panels and stucco. There was nothing else of note.

It’s just like the inside of Rae’s head, Claire thought. There’s nothing in it except for me.

She laughed at her own joke and immediately felt worse as a result. What right did she have to make fun of Rae, a genuine genius? Rae had fought for her spot at the Academy and at Claire’s side; everything Claire’d ever had was hers by luck or birthright. None of it was earned, especially not Rae’s affection. It had taken the better part of a year for Claire to realize that the girl’s affection was real rather than simply a cynical ploy to get close to a powerful noble. In that time she’d come no closer to understanding why Rae would like her. By any objective measure besides class, Rae was far too good for her.

She held her head in her hands, pacing back and forth for a minute while silently berating herself. Then she headed downstairs, simmering with self-loathing.

As soon as she entered the stairwell she perked up. Wood smoke and the smell of cooked meat wafted up through the house. The sensation of the wood grain of the railing sliding against her skin as she crept downstairs and the familiar groan of oak treads on the stairs beneath her feet helped convince her that the nightmare was over.

Rae hadn’t yet changed out of the clothes she slept in, and so looked faintly ridiculous as she stood over the stovetop and watched two pots simmer.

Claire stepped as lightly as she could across the kitchen floor until she was behind Rae, then laid her hands upon her shoulders and rested her chin on the crook of her neck.

“You’re up early,” she breathed. As much as she wished Rae had been in her arms when she’d woken up, Claire tried very hard not to make the words into an accusation.

Rae gave her a sidelong glance and a gentle smile, then continued looking down at her cooking. She held her wand like a quill and made slow figure-eight motions to stir each pot in turn.

She smelled a bit like vinegar. That was fine. What wasn’t fine was that she had a beautiful lady on her arm but didn’t seem to mind. Instead she remained intensely focused on the three white blobs swirling about in each pot that probably deserved far less attention than Claire did. As much as she trusted Rae’s cooking, whatever this was didn’t look terribly appetizing.

Claire wanted to break her concentration. It would be so easy—and so much fun—to kiss Rae all the way up and down her neck from here, from the collarbone to her hair. Maybe she could sneak a few bites in..?

“They’re done. Pardon me, Your Grace.”

Rae slipped from her grasp, raising her wand and levitating six spheres of water out of the pots, each containing one of whatever she’d been cooking. The blobby things dropped onto the plates that Rae had set up beforehand and the water was disposed of into a shallow stone basin at the side of the room. She’d been cooking eggs, Claire realized; she could just about see the yolk through the egg whites. She didn’t know you could cook those in water. Rae had created three stacks on each plate, each consisting of a toasted slice of baguette, some sort of meat (probably pork?) and the eggs. Finally Claire watched as Rae garnished each with a generous helping of some unfamiliar yellow sauce.

Rae passed Claire a plate with one hand and grabbed a set of cutlery from a cabinet behind her with the other.

“Let’s eat,” she said, setting her plate down and pulling a chair out for Claire. “We should spend the day out on the town, but let’s enjoy being here alone for a bit. Mom’s in the storefront and dad’s gone to the guildhall.”

Rae sat down after her and gently laid her knife and fork across her plate, watching as she borrowed a dry dishcloth and laid it over her lap to substitute as a napkin. Was she going to watch her while she ate? Weird.

“What?” Claire asked, a hint of irritation entering her voice. “Is there something on my face?”

“No,” Rae said, “your face is as perfect as ever. I just like seeing you try new things, it’s cute.”

Claire scoffed. “Hmph. I’ve had ham and eggs before. That’s all this is; ham and eggs on toast, basically?”

“More or less.”

“Hardly a novel idea,” Claire said. Neither of them moved for a few seconds. Claire poked her food with a fork. It jiggled. “...Why does the egg look like that?”

“The answer to that is not interesting and while I explained your food would get cold,” Rae said. She’d lifted her fork and began to tap it very gently against the side of her plate. It wasn’t like her to be visibly impatient. Maybe she was hungrier than she looked. “It’s just another way of cooking an egg, Miss Claire. It will taste like an egg.”

It looked like the only way Rae would stop staring at her and just eat the damn food she’d cooked for herself was for Claire to begin. So she cut into her food. The yolk immediately escaped and ran across the plate.

“Oh, heck,” she swore. She hastily forked a piece and took a bite. It was good, really good—rich without being heavy, the creaminess of the egg countering the assertive smoky flavor of the bacon.

“...It’s excellent, of course,” Claire said. “Now eat. I insist.”

Rae smiled and did as she was told.

A few minutes passed in comfortable silence, only broken by the sounds of silverware.

“Do you want to know a secret, Miss Claire?” Rae asked between mouthfuls.

“Always.” Claire looked up, and was struck by just how happy Rae looked. It was like staring directly into the sun. She caught her breath as she felt her heart skip several beats and waited for the response.

“I tried a lot harder on these than I did on Mom and Dad’s,” Rae said, laughing softly. “They turned out fine, to be fair, but they were a bit ugly and I didn’t worry as much about the plating. I think they liked it though. It’s more important to me that you did, of course.”

A question occurred to Claire. There was a slight incongruity here that had been nagging at her since they’d arrived at Rae’s home. “Where on Earth did you learn to cook? You certainly didn’t inherit any skill from your mother.”

“It just sort of happens when you’ve got a lot of time on your hands and a lot of meals to cook for yourself. I could either waste away or get creative.” She paused, looking unsure about something. As soon as she caught Claire looking, she faked a smile. “I guess I did sort of waste away, anyway. But I became a pretty good cook in the meantime.”

Those words were Claire’s first hint that Rae’d had a less than idyllic childhood. She supposed she understood. Little Rae, left all alone, while mother and father worked for a living.

“I’m surprised they left you alone all day,” Claire said, trying to poke at the issue.

Rae raised an eyebrow at her. She was worried at first that it was her way of telling Claire to drop the subject of her childhood, but after a moment she relented.

“Well, it was obvious since I was a kid that I had a real talent for magic,” Rae said, sounding unusually pensive. “I spent most of my time studying and practicing in order to get admission and scholarships for the Academy. Since I spent so much time pursuing my own ambitions, I wanted to do something for them, to help out. So I cooked.

“You’re a model of filial piety, that’s for sure. Weren’t you interested in the family business?”

“I guess you could say my heart wasn’t in it, no.” Rae half-smiled, like she thought she’d something witty. Perhaps she’d made some commoner joke that Claire was too patrician to understand. Best to ignore it.

“I don’t get it,” Claire said. She squinted at the underside of the latest piece of toast she’d speared. Finding it less browned than she would’ve preferred, she drew her wand and scorched it for a fraction of a second. It became a charred black instantly, and she began to suspect that she’d made a mistake. She bit in and immediately began to cough; it was like biting into ash.

Why did I do that? She wondered, silently accepting Rae’s offered glass of water. It took a minute of painful sips of water to recover from her error. It was as if there’d been a sandstorm inside her mouth.

“I don’t get it,” she continued, once able. “Cooking all the time sounds like a crashing bore, but you really seem to enjoy it. Why? What’s the appeal?”

“Hmm… do you want the clichéd answer or the long, boring one?”

Claire opted for the boring one and found it to be anything but. She hadn’t always really listened whenever Rae spoke to her, and had found herself realizing that she knew so little about her. Rae was an unreasonably powerful mage and she knew more about the history and governance of the country than most of the aristocracy, but those things were also true of Claire. They weren’t what made her special. As Claire gently pried more answers from Rae about her childhood, her hobbies and skills, she began to appreciate the totally mundane brilliance, expressed through her skills and hobbies, that Rae possessed and Claire had always lacked.

They finished eating mid-conversation and began to wash up together. Claire wanted to help but found that she was essentially useless to the effort. She didn’t know what to do, and her magic would have only made the mess worse. She settled for standing around as Rae worked and they chatted, argued and laughed together.

It felt good to laugh and to fight. It felt good just to be alive and to be okay, and—Claire thought—to be together. Just being able to eat together, to speak candidly and know that no one was watching was more than Claire had ever dreamed of. It was like a portrait of marital bliss.

No. No, stop, don’t think about marriage. Don’t get ahead of yourself, you stupid little deviant, she admonished herself. Besides, it's not as if the law would ever allow for that.

That last thought was the only thing that tarnished her sterling mood as they got ready to spend the day out and about in Euclid together.

---

It was another perfect day in Euclid—for now. The horizon promised rain; Claire could see immense thunderheads welling over the ocean, casting black and gold lines of shadow and light across each other. She could almost believe that they were painted onto the world by God just for her to enjoy watching them. But almost anything could look beautiful from a distance. The storms that hit Euclid this time of year were ferocious.

The town was in a heightened state of agitation. The air around them didn’t yet have that peculiar quality it had immediately before a thunderstorm, where you could practically feel the lightning coursing across your skin. But everyone from the salty old fishermen down at the wharf to the well-to-do bankers knew that a storm was coming and were battening down the hatches.

The market was therefore packed with townspeople from every walk of life. Claire didn’t appreciate having to dodge out of their way as they rushed past her, but she did like that the two of them were able to get lost in the crowd. It was its own form of privacy. Their fancy Academy uniforms stood out exactly as much as a man Claire had seen earlier who had been carrying a chicken in both hands and two more on each shoulder—that is, not at all.

Rae was at a stall examining vegetables. Claire didn’t know anything about what made a fresh cucumber good or bad, but she knew Rae’s face, and saw the faint signs of disapproval there well before the vendor did. Rather than let Rae waste another ten minutes of their date figuring out how to end a conversation with an old lady, Claire grabbed her hand and pulled, hard and fast, guiding them down a path that had just opened through the crowd.

“What—Miss Claire, what are you doing!”

“Saving you from yourself.” Claire slowed down once they were safely out of range, but kept a hold on Rae’s hand. “Rae, you’re boring me to tears. Are you going to buy all the heavy groceries first and then walk around with them for the rest of the day?”

“What do you mean, the rest of the day?”

“Rae…” Claire slowly clenched and unclenched her fists. She had to spell this out for her, apparently. “What I mean is that you’re going to show me a nice day out in the town you grew up in. You can do your shopping later, no?”

“Not really…” Rae said. “All the good produce will be gone in an hour or two at this rate, and it’s already not looking great. But! We can drop things off by the house and keep moving.”

“Great! Let’s finish your errands fast then. I’ll pay for everything, of course.”

Rae laughed. “Ha—no, you won’t.”

“There’s that pride of yours, commoner,” Claire said, feeling her irritation return. “Tamp that back down and let me take care of you. Call it noblesse-oblige.”

“No, you don’t understand. I appreciate the gesture, but—look,” Rae said, and motioned to Claire’s purse. Claire fished the first coin she could reach: a gold ducat. Rae looked from her to the coin and back again with an almost pitying expression. “Miss Claire, you’re only carrying solid gold coins. Nobody in town will know what to do with that denomination of currency unless you’re buying a ship or a plot of farmland or something. We can go wait in line all day at a money changer, or you can let me cover you for today. You can pay me back if you insist!”

What a bizarre problem to have. Gold wasn’t worth that much, surely. Claire looked around the market for evidence to prove or disprove Rae’s theory. She watched a woman a few feet away drop a couple small silver coins onto a weaver’s stall, then pick up a beautifully woven rug and walk away with it. At the farmstands back the way they’d come, it didn’t look like money had to be involved in the transactions at all; she saw two men clearly in the process of bartering bottles of wine for crates of eggs.

Claire pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “I feel like I was raised the wrong way as a joke. Do you think I was raised the wrong way as a joke, Rae?”

“Uh… how highly do you value my honesty, Your Grace?”

“...you can say it.”

“Kind of.” Rae said, offering up an apologetic smile.

“I have all this money and status, but the only thing that either of those do for me is prevent me from interacting with people normally. What do you mean it’s too much money…”

“Hey,” Rae said. Claire didn’t feel like getting cheered up, but she’d give Rae a chance to try. “On the bright side—you and the Bauers, the Liliums, Misha, and the rest of the high nobility of the country instead all share these class markers that help you identify and relate to one another. It’s like another language that I’m not really fluent in.”

“Wow!” Claire exclaimed, with as much false cheer as she could manage. Maybe a bit too much—she turned the heads of one or two vendors at a nearby stall. Embarrassed, she lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “And that’s really helped me out in life. I’ve always gotten along so well with the rest of my social class. After all, I’m on vacation with all of my best friends right now.”

“Woo!” Rae pumped her fist in the air. Claire’s nonexistent other friends did not, of course, join in. Those bitches.

“Also, all of those people you mentioned like you a lot more than they like me.” Claire gently slapped the side of her own face once, twice, three times, attempting to interrupt the downward spiral. “Sorry. This isn’t my daily hour of self pity. Forget I said anything. Let’s go have a nice time.”

She tried to head off into the crowd, but forgot that she’d grabbed Rae’s hand earlier, who hadn’t let go all this time. Gently but firmly, Rae kept both of them in place. The crowd rushed around them like a river. Those strangers might as well have been part of the scenery, leaving Rae and Claire the only actresses on stage. She still hadn’t gotten used to the shock of suddenly finding herself staring into Rae’s eyes.

“Miss Claire,” Rae began. As she spoke she seemed to gain conviction in her own words, enough so that Claire almost believed them too. “We’ve only known each other for a year, and look at how far you’ve come. I could always see how badly you wanted to change, but nobody ever let you. Everyone expected you to play the role of villainess, so that’s all you did. But you’re different now, even if I’m the only person who’s noticed yet. The real Claire François shines through, and so do her virtues: her empathy, her warmth, her brilliance.”

“Ergh…” Claire made a weird, choking sound as she tried very hard not to tear up. Sometimes too much praise could be painful in its own way. “Don’t make out with me to be some sort of saint—I mean, don’t make me out to be some sort of saint. I’m not really like this. I’ve just spent too much time around you and I’m picking up your bad habits.”

“Mine?” Rae laughed. It was such a sweet sound. Claire could listen to it forever. “Not at all. I’m basically a self-interested, single-minded person. All of the things I love about you, Miss Claire—they come from here.”

Rae had planted a finger on her chest, aimed at Claire’s heart. In essence, though, Rae was resting her hand on Claire’s breast in public. Claire’s lips parted slightly out of shock. Rae leaned in slightly.

At last, Claire thought. Certain that she was coming in for a kiss, Claire closed her eyes and waited.

She nearly fell over when Rae began pulling her back through the crowd.

“God damn it!” She swore. “Rae! Rae, wait up!”

Chapter 3: 1.3 Class Traitor

Chapter Text

Rae took her on a quick tour of the market, showing that she could shop quickly and avoid getting mired in drawn-out conversations with every old lady she met when she applied herself. After about twenty minutes of concerted effort, they dropped their day’s worth of groceries off at the Taylor’s house and began retracing their steps to the town center. It was still busy enough along the way that they often had to press against the alley walls to pass. Rae looked back periodically to make sure she hadn’t lost Claire in the crowd. The sight of her, smiling serenely, draped in ivy, made Claire’s heart race.

After leaving Rae’s neighborhood the streets widened and they could speak to one another once more without needing to shout. Rae immediately returned to their previous topic.

“Soooo… you asked me about my interest in the Taylor’s family business earlier, Miss Claire,” Rae said. “What about you? What are your thoughts on your own ‘family business,’ if you can call it that?”

“Minister of Finance is an appointed position, as you well know. It’s not like it would just get handed to me. Though I suppose I’m starting to be more interested in how money moves around in the Kingdom. I’m starting to have questions that—and, ah, that wasn’t what you were asking, was it.” She’d begun to ramble, she realized, and saw that Rae had the patient expression of someone who wanted to interject but didn't want to seem rude.

“Let’s put a pin in that for now, yeah,” Rae said. “I was more wondering about how you feel about one day being created duch*ess François of Euclid, among all those other titles you’ll inherit.”

“What do you mean, exactly?” Claire thought she knew what Rae meant. She was mostly buying time to think of an answer. The truth was, she didn’t have one, at least not one she was confident she could put into words. But lying or acting like she didn’t care one way or another was out of the question; her track record of trying to fool Rae was atrocious.

“Well, I can’t tell if you’ve gone through a genuine damascene conversion or if it’s something you’ll lose interest in before too long. But, well…” Rae said, drawing out the word ‘well’ as long as she could before needing to take a breath. “The way you’ve been talking about nobles and commoners in the last few days has started to flip on its head.”

“Is that so wrong? I can’t just forget what’s happened,” Claire said. “Once you know things about how the world works, you can’t just un-know them.”

They rushed across one half of a busy avenue hand in hand before slowing down and navigating carefully through a traffic jam on the far side of the street.

“Maybe you can’t,” Rae said, looking thoughtful. She stepped neatly out of the way of a passing oxcart, and continued speaking once the way was clear. “Some people can. It speaks to your character if you aren’t one of them. I’m not like you, though; I only really care about the people I care about. Those big, structural problems are beyond me, so I’ve learned to close my eyes to them and pretend they aren’t hurting me. I wish I thought about them the way you did.”

“That’s ridiculous. You want to be like me?” Claire laughed bitterly. “Don’t you understand how little I want to be like me?”

Rae’s only response was a sad smile.

“It’s just… I just…” Claire searched. After a few moments, her thoughts came rushing forth, half-formed. “What have I ever actually done that’s ever helped anyone? What will I ever do? I can’t make anything, I don’t have any useful skills. It would be unladylike for me to have useful skills! I’m supposed to go to balls and host parties and get married. That’s it! I’m only in school because it’s fashionable for young ladies of the court to appear educated at the moment, but God knows how long that’ll last. I’m looking at my life stretching out ahead of me and… God, just thinking about it makes me feel so lonely already.”

Well, there. She’d bared her soul to Rae, again, without really intending to do so. She braced herself to be made fun of for it.

“Miss Claire, I’m not going anywhere. You never have to be lonely again.”

Damn. Another defeat for Claire’s insecurities. One would think that those ugly thoughts could only be wrong about Rae so many times before they’d give up and leave Claire be, but that hadn’t happened yet.

Well, Claire didn’t have to let them be in charge. “I know,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Rae. So… thank you.”

“Actual spoken gratitude? These are the moments that make it all worth it. Just kidding! Every moment with you is equally worth it.” Rae said. “Also, you definitely do still want the balls and the salon parties.”

“I do! I really do. But that can’t be all there is to life, can it?”

Rae’s good mood was infectious. Even Claire couldn’t spend an entire day hating herself. She let Rae’s affection warm her like she was soaking up heat from a fire. They continued chatting, moving to less personal matters, as they explored. Claire was falling in love with this place fast. She’d never spent much time in cities before. They’d seemed dirty, imperfect things. In fairness, Euclid was dirty and imperfect, but Claire was learning to cherish things for their faults. Life flourished here, from ordinary people to the ivy growing on the worn, sun-washed walls around her and up to the red tiles of the roofs.

At one point Claire, lured by the exotic smells of a district near the harbor, stumbled into a tiny storefront in an alleyway. There, an ancient, kindly gentleman with a dark complexion and snow-white hair was selling brochettes seasoned with spices from across the sea. Rae bought one for each of them and they ate lunch as they walked. It was delicious, although Claire did suffer through a brief sneezing fit on first contact with the spice. Without thinking, she joked that the old man had almost succeeded in assassinating her where many had failed before. After a moment of stunned silence, Rae began to laugh so hard she wasn’t able to breathe. Claire was genuinely worried for a moment, but they both managed to survive their near-death experiences.

Soon after their recovery they arrived at the town square. They were supposed to pass through on the way to what Rae claimed was the final errand of the day, though the damned things seemed to multiply over time.

It turned out that passing through wouldn’t be simple. Rae noticed the commotion first, from several streets away. It sounded like a parade or fairground, but Rae swore she didn’t remember anything about such an event today. Upon getting closer, it became obvious that the commotion was caused by rage rather than excitement. They began to run, cutting through a small park on the terrace that had a vantage point over the square. Below them lay a town nearing its boiling point.

Euclid Square was bounded on two sides by wealthy commercial districts and on a third by the cathedral. A small group of armed men had their backs up against the bottom of the steep hill on top of which Claire and Rae stood. All but one had weapons at the ready: pikes, clubs, and axes menacing the townspeople who surrounded them. The last was dragging a young woman behind him like livestock. Her clothes were ragged and bloody, and they clearly hadn’t been quality to begin with. She was bound and gagged, still thrashing futilely against her manacles. Every thrash of her wrists against her dress painted more of it crimson. She’d torn her arms bloody fighting the restraints.

“Let her go, you animals!” One massive civilian roared at them. He stood head and shoulders above anyone nearby and looked muscular enough to pick up the soldiers’ horses and throw them around. When he sprinted through the defensive perimeter, bowling over one of the guards in the process, he nearly managed to reach the bound girl.

Another spun his pike around to slam the butt of it into the charging man’s head. To his credit he was able to stop quickly, just shy of the blow whipping past his head, but he’d lost his momentum. He found himself staring down the sharp end of the guard’s pike. Claire was glad to see him back away.

“That’s enough!” One of the armed men shouted, leaping on top of his wagon. He wore an absolutely ridiculous outfit: his entire left sleeve and right pant leg were made of some kind of frill or ruff, and every limb was dyed a different, clashing color. It would have looked more at home in a school play about the middle ages than it did menacing a crowd in the modern day. On any other day Claire would have laughed at him. The fact that his clothes were stained with other people’s blood and he didn’t seem to mind took all the comedy out of the scene.

“I have to say I’m stunned at this town’s willingness to shelter wanted criminals,” the man continued, “but it’s no longer my concern. Count yourself lucky that the bounty doesn’t extend to collaborators. We’ve imposed upon you fine people long enough, so I will bid you all good day.”

Bounty hunters, then. The bounty-hunter-in-chief’s voice had the exact supercilious manner that Claire most hated, and it suggested that he wore his uniform without a hint of irony. His fellows, all of whom wore simple boiled leather rather than adopting their leader’s insane getup, got ready to hoist their captive into the back of the wagon. The crowd, meanwhile, did not look willing to let them leave, even if they weren’t quite ready to attack.

There were only two ways this could end, Claire realized. Option one: these marauders made off with their captive unopposed and the girl was left to her fate. Claire realized that she didn’t really care what she'd stolen or whom she’d wronged. She was Claire’s age, or maybe a bit older. It was hard to tell from a distance. She couldn’t deserve this. Option two? The crowd stopped fearing being struck or stabbed and used the weight of numbers to overwhelm the bounty hunters.

Claire didn’t want to see that happen either. Nobles were taught to fear peasant revolts and mob rule from a young age. Her father had warned her against the dangers of democracy once by recounting the tale of a politician from one of the ruling families of a trade republic in Atlas. He’d ruled and been well liked by the people for four years. In the fifth and final year of his term, a dam broke and flooded the farmland that fed the residents of his city, ruining the harvest. The farmers felt that the man hadn’t done enough to help them in their time of need, and retaliated by breaking into his house and pulling him into the street, where an angry mob tore him limb from limb. Claire had been eleven when she’d been told the story.

Neither option was tolerable to her. In fact, both were offensive to her. There could only be a third way for this to resolve if she decided, for once in her life, to do the right thing.

She tore her gaze away from the crowd to look towards Rae, who quickly noticed she was being watched.

“Your orders?” She asked, raising her voice to be heard over the roar of the crowd below.

“We have to help her,” Claire said.

Rae nodded and pulled out her wand. With a horizontal slicing motion of the wand and a muttered word, the peasant’s restraints broke in half. The sound of steel shearing in two momentarily stunned everyone present. The girl made a run for it, and her pursuers leapt after her—or tried. Hand-like growths had risen from the cobblestones, clutching at their legs. Two men fell awkwardly to the ground, still half-supported by the very thing that had grappled them. One of the two narrowly avoided falling onto his own axe.

That broke the stalemate. At once, several of the gathered townspeople shouted at the others to move forward, and within moments both of the fallen men had been grabbed and pulled into the crowd. Claire recognized the man who’d almost taken the blow from a spear putting the bounty hunter who’d struck at him in a one-armed headlock, holding the dropped axe in his other hand.

“Go!” Claire yelled at Rae. “Go help her! Only you can heal her! I'll figure out how to deal with these guys.”

“Got it!” Rae replied, immediately running and jumping over the railing towards a sheer drop. Before Claire could even gasp, Rae waved her wand, and a narrow ledge jumped out of the cliff face beneath her feet. She surfed down the rock as though it were water, hitting the street at a shallow angle and sprinting down the alleyway after the escapee.

God damn it she’s so cool. I wish I was able to do stuff like that. Wait—focus, Claire!

It was agonizing running down the fifty feet of switchback stairs cut into the hillside like a mere mortal after seeing what Rae could do. Still, it gave her time to plan.

I’ll have to intimidate them, Claire realized after only a few steps. One big problem: she’d never used magic for that before. It was easy to use magic when you knew exactly what you needed to do with it to accomplish your task. But she didn’t know how these people would react. If she couldn’t get them to back off with words and a small display of power, how much further would she have to go? Her fires could melt rock. She could guess what they’d do to human flesh. The only way everyone went home today unharmed was if she could strike a perfect balance of maximum fear and minimum harm.

Time for something unorthodox. Since she wasn’t hoping to actually use the spell for anything besides dramatic effect and a bit of deterrence, it didn’t make sense to do something boring but practical. It was time to put on a show. She vaulted over the railing on the last flight of stairs and drew her wand midair, summoning a mass of flame and shaping it into the vague shape of a sword, with her wand forming the hilt.

She hit the ground hard. Thank goodness she wasn’t in heels or she would’ve broken her ankle. She swore under her breath then raised her voice to shout.

“Everyone, stand back!”

She brandished the flame blade high, swinging it in a slow downward arc over her head until it was parallel to the street and pointed straight at the bounty hunters. Three of them had started to run down the alley that Claire was now blocking, pausing once the weapon was leveled at them. They slowly stepped back. The crowd was beginning to quiet, though only those at the front could see her yet.

It was a good start. She poured more energy into her wand, letting the flames burn brighter and hotter. The blade was almost twice as long as Claire was tall, now. But it wasn’t steel—this sword didn’t have to touch you to hurt you. As she advanced, people who were more than thirty feet from her began to shade their eyes with their hands and back away from the sudden, oppressive heat. With every step, the dense mass of magical energy roiled along the length of the blade and dripped to the street like oil. Stones that the energy touched melted immediately down to slag.

Claire was barely paying attention to how it looked. The spells that most people focused on were the flashy ones and the party tricks. Claire liked those; it wasn’t as if she avoided showing off when given an opportunity. Real magic wasn’t what people saw, though. It was about commanding the world around you. There was no single aspect of spellcraft that Claire had drilled into herself as hard or as long as the very basics, the power to keep herself and the people she cared about safe. The truth was, fire terrified Claire. Nothing was a more powerful tool than fire if treated with respect, but when working magic like this, she was only a single mistake away from tragedy.

So it was second nature by now that the immense forces she was manipulating were directed up and away from her instead of giving her catastrophic burns. When she stepped over molten rock, she lifted her foot again and found it cooled back to its ambient temperature. The air around her shimmered as if she were standing inside a forge, but she still breathed the same cool sea breeze.

That was the true essence of power: control.

“Stand back,” she repeated. “Stand way back.”

For a few heart-pounding moments, neither group moved. The bounty hunters fanned out around her, as close as they dared, though most took cover from the heat behind the wagon, competing for space in the shelter with the draft horses yoked to it. The leader with the outlandish costume still stood defiantly on the cart, as he had when he addressed the crowd earlier. He still held the useless length of shattered chain that had bound the peasant girl as if it would be useful later.

Claire could finally see his face from this angle. He had a piggy little face sandwiched between his outlandish costume and his awful hat. His skin was shiny and slick with sweat and he had visible pit stains that hadn’t been there moments before. Why was he suffering just so that he could posture like he was tough, like he could take the heat? Why wouldn’t he just listen to her?

None of the townspeople had moved either. They didn’t seem to know what to make of her. Claire couldn’t blame them. They’d been protesting and fighting against one of their own being seized by strangers, then a teenage girl with unknown intentions joined the fray while wielding more arcane power than most people ever witnessed in a lifetime. She probably looked deranged. Claire wouldn’t burn down the town, but they wouldn’t necessarily know that.

She’d made a massive mistake. All she’d done was add fuel to the metaphorical fire. Paralyzed by failure and fear, she froze, equally as unsure of what would happen next as the crowd.

She cast her eyes over them, searching for a way forward. It struck Claire just how broad of a coalition had turned out to oppose these marauders. Many looked as though they’d been in church until moments ago. The square was full of everyone from little kids in blazers and dresses that didn’t quite fit them to laborers stuffed into threadbare suits that they wore with pride to the nouveau-riche in attire chosen to show off their wealth. Some looked shocked, afraid, indignant, enraged, but they were all here.

She noticed one young man who had clearly been beaten badly sometime today. His cream-colored shirt was ruined, cut and torn, stained by dirt and a trail of blood running down the front. The awful yellow and purple bruises on his forearms were characteristic of the injuries one got from desperately blocking the strikes of a larger and stronger man. Had he been standing up for the girl?

It was hard to look at him. If his life had gone a bit differently he could have been one of her classmates. He looked at Claire as if he couldn’t decide whether she was an angel or a demon, blood still dripping from a broken nose and tears streaming from his eyes.

Someone came to assist her right when she was ready to run away, someone she would have rather not seen again under any other circ*mstance. Claire wouldn’t turn up her nose at any help offered, even if it came from the mother of the boy who’d tried to kill her. Ophelia wore a black mourning dress and an expression wracked by grief. The fact that she could find the will to go outside and continue living after suffering her loss showed a strength and dignity that Claire couldn’t imagine being strong enough to share.

Ophelia had been told a beautiful lie about her son’s ‘heroism’ because Claire did not know how to tell her the truth. Even the story she’d told should have been enough to make Ophelia hate her for, at the very least, failing to save her son. Yet she tugged on the sleeve of the giant in the crowd, and he—still holding one of the bounty hunters under his good arm like a misbehaving toddler—knelt down for her to whisper into his ear.

When he rose, he began to push the crowd back. He had a genteel accent that surprised Claire and spoke softly enough that she couldn’t really make out what he said from fifty feet away. Something about doing the right thing, she guessed.

Grateful to Ophelia from the bottom of her heart, Claire began to circle around the wagon. She left a short wall of fire behind her like a trail wherever she went. After a minute of this, she’d created a U-shaped barrier between the rival factions. She left the bounty hunters with an escape route, aimed towards the fastest way out of the city center and opposite the direction that their prey had fled.

All that was left was making these men want to escape. She could do this. Without being afraid of any innocents getting hurt, she could raise the tension as high as she had to for their wills to break.

They hadn’t taken their eyes off of her, but hadn’t otherwise moved to attack. Their leader kept his right hand raised, palm extended, motioning for the rest to stay. He lazily spun the length of chain in the other hand. It whistled a malevolent tune as it arced through the air.

She had to try to talk to him. This wasn’t like the dueling grounds at the Academy. If she went too far, there were no barriers dampening the effects of the spells, and no healers standing by to fix things.

“To what,” she asked, “do we owe the pleasure, Monsieur..?”

“Brandt, my lady. Enchanté,” he said, offering a small and mocking bow. He’d dropped the chain, she noticed. “While on any other day I’d be delighted to receive the attention of a beautiful mademoiselle, alas, the day is long and there is much work left to be done. Will you let us pass?”

Disgusting. A man in his forties, making a pass at her? It was enough for her to lose all patience with this little game immediately.

“Let’s drop the pretense”, Claire said. “Leave before you get hurt. You don’t have the right to come into a town and accost random commoners.”

“How curious. Is that not what you’re doing now?”

“Why, yes.” Claire let a cruel smile twist her face. “That’s exactly correct, because unlike you, I do have that right.”

He drew a roll of parchment from a hidden pocket in his stupid clothes. The sweat on his hands immediately soaked through a chunk of it. “Lord Aubanel of Sainte-Laval,” Brandt recited, “Offers a reward of 500 gold ducats to any person or persons who safely return the escaped serf Marie Teissier to his estate.”

Aubanel… Claire knew that name. It wasn’t the time to try and remember who he was or why he mattered, though. She refocused on the parchment, which Brandt now held outstretched. Despite the dampness from his sweat, Claire could see that it was an uncomfortably well-detailed drawing. It certainly looked like the girl.

“This Lord Aubanel can offer as much gold as he likes,” she said. “His authority doesn't apply in this city. Mine does. Leave.”

Brandt forced out a humorless laugh. “That won’t do. Unfortunately—and you may not know this, young lady—my magic counters yours!”

She saw him draw a wand he’d kept hidden until now. Claire instinctively pulled the sword in close, using the flames as a barrier against whatever spell—water magic, apparently—he would throw at her.

All he could manage was a pathetic squirt from the tip of his wand that turned immediately to steam.

“Ah…” Brandt said. His bravado had vanished. His expression morphed into that of a man who suddenly realized he was in a cage with a wild animal. “Well, it is an awfully hot day.”

“Quite,” Claire said. She didn’t really understand what he was talking about. Trying not to be disappointed that she would have no reason to crush him in a duel, she continued, “It’s a good thing you’re impotent. Traditionally a commoner who laid their hand upon a noble could expect to lose that hand.”

He dropped his wand. “Mercy. It was a mistake, I see now, to oppose you. I beg you.”

“I am merciful,” Claire said. “Since I am beyond your reach, I think it would be unsporting to punish you. But my patience has limits; it will expire very soon unless you run. Run now. Run fast. Don’t come back. You won’t get this lucky a second time.”

Hopefully that would be enough. She willed them to take this chance she offered, to just leave in peace. If they didn’t, if they wanted a fight, she might have to make good on her threats. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. What terrified her most of all was that she knew how easily she could.

One of the bounty hunters stepped forward, trying to look brave. “Lucky? You little bitch, maybe we’ll come back at night with a couple of lit torches and see how lucky this town is then.”

God damn it.

Much like the runaway serf—like Marie, she supposed—this boy was also about Claire’s age. He hadn’t yet lost his baby fat and he had the sort of thin, weedy mustache that only a teenage boy would tolerate. His voice chilled her despite the heat of the fires that surrounded her; it was warped by an unchained fury she’d never encountered before. Claire wondered how he’d learn to hate so young.

If violence was the only thing he understood, she had no choice but to respond in kind. Claire dashed forwards two, three steps, then skidded to a halt. He was still over ten feet away from the tip of her flame blade, but that was within the danger zone.

He swayed, then collapsed. She immediately dropped the intensity of the spell, fearing he’d fall forwards. A few feet closer to her could have been a difference in temperature of a thousand degrees. She thanked God when he fell backwards, reeling, but still moving.

Another bounty hunter, an older, bearded man with totally blank eyes, lifted the boy over his shoulder. He then struck him in the stomach, hard. While the boy was gasping for air, the veteran asked, “You getting paid enough to do something about that, kid? I’m not. Get back in the wagon.”

The boy was deposited in the back of the wagon like a sack of potatoes and the other men jumped in behind him. Brandt whipped the horses to get moving and they took off towards the edge of town.

When they were out of range, Claire let the spells drop. It was only her and the crowd, now. Looking around, she saw what was probably the town guard running towards her from the direction that the bounty hunters had left.

“Thanks for the help, gentlemen,” she muttered.

“Um, miss?” someone called after her. Their voice was so thick that it sounded like they were trying to power through a terrible cold. Claire rounded on the speaker, mildly disgusted, then realized that it had been the young man that the bounty hunters had attacked. He wasn’t congested. His mouth was full of blood. “You saved Marie, didn’t you? Thank you. Thank-”

A ragged cheer rose from the crowd, interrupting him. Ophelia, of all people, looked to have helped start it, though others took it up. The tension of the past ten minutes had faded, and they were looking to celebrate a victory. Claire did not share their mood.

With the walls of fire gone, some of the bystanders ran forwards to speak to her.

“My wife escaped from that monster’s estates…”

“...never let them walk all over us again…”

“...like something out of the Dark Ages. Someone had to…

It was more than Claire could bear. None of them had realized yet that she was a part of the same loathsome system that had caused the problem they were celebrating her for solving. Just because she’d decided to save one victim of the machine to spare her own conscience didn’t mean she was a hero. Would they be so quick to offer their gratitude if they understood how worthless and how cruel a person she really was?

I don’t want your praise, she thought. No adoration. No respect. No thanks. I deserve none of it. I’m one of those monsters too.

So she ran. She ran back the way she’d come, searching desperately for Rae. As she left the square, she nearly tumbled on a slick patch of ground. In Euclid, sand filled in the gaps between cobblestones on every street. All that sand her fires had passed over had burned to glass.

Chapter 4: 1.4 Villainess

Chapter Text

“I wondered if you might end up here.”

Claire looked up, startled. Of course she could find me the one time I wanted to be alone.

She’d made it almost to the door of the Taylor’s house before she realized that she didn’t want to go home. She didn’t want to be anywhere at all, but she didn’t have a choice in the matter, so she’d run. She’d run away from the square into the Old Quarter, the old medieval part town that was cut into the cliffside, until she could run no more. Then she’d walked, shaking with exhaustion and barely-suppressed emotion, until she found a switchback road lined with whitewashed houses and draped with vines that flowered a vibrant magenta.

Wasn’t it a bit pathetic that her first instinct, these days, was to run to Rae every time she was upset? What kind of woman would she be if she could never stand on her own? With a head full of these poisonous thoughts, Claire had chosen this spot specifically to prevent Rae from catching her unawares. She could see both entrances to the little street from the stoop she sat on and run towards one if Rae came from the other. That hadn’t worked; she’d been too distracted by trying not to cry that she hadn’t even heard her approach.

“Rae, just… go,” she replied, looking down once more. She didn’t want Rae’s flattery. She was tired of being told that she was a good person. She wasn’t.

“I used to like sitting and looking at this view too,” Rae said, sitting down beside her. “It’s my favorite spot in the whole city. I’ve always thought it was so beautiful. Is it okay if I stay a while?”

Claire didn’t respond, so Rae stayed, scooting closer until Claire could lean against her. Rae wrapped one arm around her for a gentle hug and continued speaking.

“Don’t you love these vines? It’s hard to believe something with this crazy color could exist,” she said. “It’s like a little bit of natural poetry. Things break, and life springs up in the cracks.”

Rae was right. The flowers were stunning. They blanketed some of the more weathered houses, filling in spaces where the white stucco exteriors had broken over the years, then climbing over the cobalt blue arbors that many of the residents had built over top of their homes and the alleyways that wove between them. The houses fit together like pieces of a puzzle, and judging by the chairs and tables that were strewn across the roofs, the locals would spend their evenings outside once their workdays ended. Claire could imagine being here at twilight as the lamps came on, looking down past the people drinking wine and chatting with their neighbors, past the pink, white and blue of the houses, past the sand and stones on the streets, as the last rays of daylight burned across the surface of the sea.

She was with Rae in the daydream too. It was a world she would never belong to. For the first time, she desperately wished that she could. If she were anyone else, maybe she and Rae could run away here after they graduated and fade into a life of comfortable obscurity. But she was a François, and therefore complicit in what had happened today in a way that she could not escape.

They sat in silence for long enough for Claire to notice the shadows begin to lengthen. She hadn’t realized how long they’d spent together in the market; it was almost twilight. The storm they’d been expecting since morning was getting closer.

“How’s Marie?” she asked, once she’d calmed down enough to speak without her voice shaking.

“Oh, you heard her name? I guess that makes sense. She’s fine. Rattled, obviously, but I think she’s handling it better than I would in her situation. I think she was more indignant about it than anything.”

“I… see. I wish I could have done more for her.”

“More?” Rae asked. “What more should you have done? I don’t think you have any clue how much it means to someone to be stood up for. Marie’s never had someone both willing and able to protect her from the whims of the nobility in her life, until you.”

“What about you? Don’t act like you didn’t help.”

“I didn’t, really.” Rae pulled out her wand and began to fiddle with it as she spoke. It always made Claire a bit nervous when she did that. Those things weren’t toys. “She was a bit scraped up but physically fine. I just talked to her for a bit and found her a place to stay and work while she got on her feet.”

“You did all that? How?”

Rae put her index finger to her lips.

“Where is she, anyway?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say, Miss Claire.”

Claire just stared at her. Rae looked tired. The ordeal of helping the escapee might have been almost as emotionally as draining for her as it had been for Claire. Not that they had anything to complain about, by comparison.

“Why won’t you tell me anything about how she is?” Claire asked. She was more aware than usual of the fact that Rae was, in many ways, still a stranger to her. “Don’t you trust me with that? Didn’t I ask you to help her in the first place?”

“Right. You did, that’s true.”

“Actually, forget whether or not you trust me,” Claire said, starting to become annoyed; why was Rae being so difficult? “How am I supposed to trust you when you’re keeping secrets like this?”

Rae wore a fake little smile as she answered, “If I didn’t keep any secrets, I wouldn’t need you to trust me.”

“I just…” Claire said. She didn’t know how to respond to that. After a moment she repeated, weakly, “I just want to know.”

“You might want to, but you don’t need to.” Rae said. She pulled Claire a bit tighter, as if apologizing for dismantling her this way. “Think about it like this. Let’s say your father asked you if you’d heard about the disturbance in town, your role in it, and whether you knew where a supposed criminal had gone. What would you say?”

Good question, Claire thought. She hadn’t thought about him. It wasn’t out of the question that he’d hear about what had happened, that he’d take an interest.

“I’d lie,” she said.

“I’m glad to hear you say so, Miss Claire. That’s the right choice. I just worry, because, you know, you can’t even cheat at cards. How are you going to lie directly to dad? Have you ever done that before?”

“No…” Claire admitted.

“So don’t put yourself in a position where you have to!” Rae said, grinning. “If he asks you, just say you don’t know. It’d be true! And hey, if he asks me, who cares. I don’t mind lying to him. I bet I’d be great at it.”

“Okay.” Claire supposed she had no choice but to accept that. Rae clearly wouldn’t budge, and Claire didn’t want to fight with her. Not now. Besides, she was right.

“Okay? Okay.” Rae relaxed, stretching her arms and legs as far away from her as she could manage, then draped her legs over Claire’s and wrapped both arms around her shoulders until she was almost curled up in Claire’s lap. If she’d been in any other mood, it might have been exciting. As it was, it was simply nice. Claire wished she hadn’t asked her to go away. Thank God that Rae had known she hadn’t meant it.

Rae comforted her in silence for a few more minutes before speaking again. “I didn’t realize things could be that rough out in the countryside. Just goes to show that there are commoners, and then there are commoners. My parents don’t need to put up with what serfs deal with. They didn’t need to ask any lords if they could get married or move around the country. And this Lord Aubanel sounds like a real bastard even compared to the norm. Uh, no offense. Do you know anything about him?

“Yes.”

“Okay. And..?”

“He’s the Count of Sainte-Laval,” Claire said. “It’s in the foothills of the Atlas, a few days northeast of here. And… he’s one of Father’s vassals.”

“Oh. So he’s like the Lord-Mayor of Euclid—for example—one of the lower-ranked lords who collects taxes and corvée from the commoners, and in turn has to pay a share of what they make to the great houses of the realm. And because of all those ancient rights of the nobility that they love to teach us about at the academy, he’s not your servant even though you’re his liege. You and your family have certain obligations towards him as well, so if you acted against him by, say, interfering with how he treats ‘his’ peasants… it could make things complicated for you.”

God knows how Rae could even make an educated guess about anything to do with the politicking of nobles. What a strange girl.

“Of course,” Claire said, momentarily unbalanced by Rae’s words. “Anyway. I’ve had one interaction with him in my entire life. He sent his condolences after Mother’s accident. It was kind of him. It wasn’t anything I wanted to hear at the time, of course, but the idea that there were other people who might have cared whether she lived or died made me feel a bit less alone. And none of that matters, because he’s a monster.”

“You think so? You’re very quick to side against him,” Rae observed. “What if the girl was lying?”

“Come on,” Claire said, scoffing. “We both saw how the high nobility—my peers—handled the commoner’s movement. We’ve seen firsthand how self-destructively stupid and cruel they can be. It’s not a stretch to believe that some of them see peasants as something more like livestock than people.”

Rae laughed. “Not you, though.”

“Not—not anymore,” said Claire, feeling a bit defensive. “Aren’t my views allowed to evolve?”

“Of course! I didn’t mean to grill you over this. Sorry. And to be clear, I’ll support you no matter what you think on this or any other issue. I just always do want to hear what you think.”

Every time Rae insisted she had no real political positions it made Claire’s head spin. It would make more sense if the most talented commoner in the land cared about the plight of the lower classes. Forget about Rae saying that Claire could change the world; Rae could do it herself without help, but didn’t seem interested.

“None of this makes any sense to me,” Claire sighed. “I once asked Father about how he treated the peasants who work our estates. He told me that it’s too easy for peasants to escape and too expensive to track them down, so treating them decently is the only thing that makes sense. And if you do treat people well, runaways will learn that your lands are a better place to live, and your holdings will benefit from the population growth. I mean, we just saw that—what?”

Rae was looking at her like what she was saying was crazy. Claire had always thought that Father’s position made perfect sense.

“Nothing,” Rae said. She clearly made an effort to bring her expression back to something neutral. “Carry on. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Anyway,” Claire continued, “The numbers just don’t work in favor of cruelty, and they definitely don’t make sense for trying to catch people after they run. Why set a bounty for one woman?”

“Oh, Miss Claire. I don’t think Lord Aubanel was willing to pay a bounty for this girl because she was an irreplaceably good farmer. He wanted something else from her.”

Claire nearly asked Rae to explain before the realization—and revulsion—slammed into her like a wave. “Good God. Did she-”

“She’s fine,” Rae interrupted. “Thanks to you. Apparently she met some guy, a young merchant or something from Euclid, and petitioned their lord for the right to marry. Guess Mr. Lord decided he’d rather keep Marie around instead.”

“I met him, I think. It looks like they broke his nose.”

“That’s all?” Rae asked, surprised. “Lucky guy. Those fix themselves eventually.”

Now it was Claire’s turn to look at Rae in horror. “How can you be so blasé about this?”

“Because we won! We worked together for about ten minutes and changed two people’s lives for the better. Don’t you think it’s amazing?”

“No,” Claire whispered.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“No,” she repeated, louder. The wind was beginning to pick up, snatching away her words. The light was fading fast and the sea had turned from a perfect azure to the color of steel. “It’s not enough.”

“Not enough for what?”

“To… atone.”

“Oh, Miss Claire. What’s eating at you?”

“Nothing serious; I’ve just started to see how the world really works in the last few days, and I don’t think I like how it looks.”

“You’ve got it all figured out, huh? Do tell.”

“Don’t make fun of me, I’m being serious.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“When I was a girl,” Claire said, “I was taught that the nobility rule by the grace of God; the peasantry are so grateful for our protection, our strength, and wisdom that they offer up their lives and wealth to us. But that’s not true, is it? It never was. My ancestors weren’t the most suited to lead, they were just the most violent.”

They would have to run, now, to make it home before the storm hit. Great sheets of rain fell across the sea in the distance. A bolt of lightning split the sky, turning the world white for a fragment of a moment. Claire counted in silence, and even though she’d been expecting it, the ferocious crash of the thunder three seconds later was enough to shock her.

Rae wasn’t leaving. Well, Claire wouldn’t be the first. She wasn’t going to run from this—neither from the storm nor the truth.

“How much of what happened today is my fault?”

“None of it,” Rae replied instantly. She sounded shocked; Claire didn’t know if she’d ever heard Rae be shocked before. “You’re not the one who sent goons after Marie, right? Therefore none of it can be your fault.”

“We turn a blind eye to it because he does his job. Who cares whatever sick sh*t he does to people who can’t fight back? He pays his taxes. That’s all that’s supposed to matter. We’re not supposed to look too hard, I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Her voice was shaking, Claire realized. When had that begun? She continued, praying she could make Rae understand before she broke down completely. “How many little harms add up to one murder? If I could figure that out, I could figure out how many people I’ve hurt or killed just by existing. Maybe only a few for now, but I’m young. There’s time. And how many more Maries have there been over the last millennia of the monarchy’s rule? Ten thousand, a hundred? A million?”

“Miss Claire,” Rae said. She looked anguished. Was she beginning to understand? ”That’s insane.”

I guess not.

“How could you be responsible for this?” Rae continued. “We’re children. This system has been in place since the last dark age. Unless you’re a thousand years old, it has nothing to do with you. You’re not a bad person just because you happen to have nice things!”

“Where do the nice things come from, Rae?” Claire asked. She stood, disentangling herself from Rae and walking a few feet to lean against a low wall looking out over the winding alleyways below. The storm filled the entire sky ahead, a wall of rain approaching over the sea and drowning all it touched in darkness. Every word she spoke was almost a shout, now, in an effort to make herself heard over the wind howling through the city streets and tearing at their clothes and hair as it passed.

“When you pour me tea—someone grew the tea, right? Who are they? How did it get here? It must have come both over land and sea, I suppose, so who built the roads, the docks, the ships? Who works on those ships? Who makes the food that those workers eat along the way, or their shoes, or oil for their lamps? Not nobles, because if any of us did, I would have heard and insulted them about it at some point. I could ask the same questions about my dresses, my houses, the gems in our wands, but I think the important thing is that the answer is the same no matter what. Other people work and create, and I get to relax and consume. That doesn’t make me refined, it makes me a parasite."

She looked back at Rae, who hadn’t yet moved from the stoop. Her eyes were wide and uncomprehending, lips slightly parted, and she looked on the verge of tears. Why? Claire wondered. Haven’t you done enough for me? Now you’re going to cry over me too?

Rae looked like she was reaching for one of her sweet little platitudes that she usually had ready the moment she thought that Claire needed to hear them. But this wasn’t something that could be fixed with some secondhand proverb.

“Spare me,” she said, trying to fit every bit of contempt she had for herself into those two words. “It was nice pretending to be a hero for a little while today. But that’s all it was; pretending. I’m just like the rest of them, the type of monster they write books about: a villainess.”

Claire turned away from Rae, spreading her hands wide as she waited for the storm to hit her. The sky fell like a collapsing tower. The rain began to crash across Euclid with the sound of a wave breaking. She flinched as the downpour reached the street below and rushed toward her.

Yet she remained dry. The wind howled around her, little streams began to run through the cobblestones beneath her feet, but something sheltered Claire.

It was Rae. Of course. She’d come close but remained slightly beyond Claire’s reach, holding her wand close to her chest and pointed upwards like a knight’s salute. Its tip glowed a faint blue, suddenly the only light in the world. Water swirled around them like a river current, but Rae’s spell bent the course of the rain around them into a wall of water separating them from the world outside.

“In a better world, I wouldn’t exist,” Claire whispered. The tears she’d been holding back for hours began to fall.

“Would that make things right?” Rae asked. Her voice echoed strangely inside the sanctum she’d conjured. “I’m looking at you and I don’t see a villainess. I see someone brave and kind and funny and smart and, most of all, good. Maybe the world is rotten, but it’ll never get better unless there are more people like you, not less. The world needs Claire François.”

Before Claire could protest Rae had drawn her in close, wiping her tears away with the thumb of her wand hand. Her other gripped Claire’s wrist like a vice as if she was afraid that she would run. She wouldn’t have been able to run fast even if she’d wanted to. Wracking sobs had begun to steal her breath away.

“You have a greater capacity for empathy than anyone I’ve ever met,” Rae sighed. “What a pain. I can’t believe it gives some random bastard the power to make you feel bad, but you know what? I’m going to fix that. I’m not going to let you martyr yourself over someone else’s sins!”

“What do you mean, you won’t let me?!” Claire asked, trying to yell and failing. It hurt simply to speak right now. “What right do you have to permit or deny me anything?”

It would be trivially easy to break free of Rae’s grasp as long as Claire was willing to hurt her. One good knee to her unguarded solar plexus would stagger her, and Claire would be free to be even more miserable and alone than ever. That was something she could never do. She struggled feebly in Rae’s grasp for a minute before giving up.

“You’re wasting your time!” she cried. “Let me go before I drag you down with me!”

“I will not let you go. Never again.” Rae’s wandlight cast a stark blue glow over her face and her determined glare. The hard expression broke into a smile like a sunrise, and she said, “But if you really think suffering a bit will make you feel better, I’m not going to let you suffer alone!”

“What do you—eep!”

Water crashed around them in a great sheet as Rae’s spell ended. Claire cringed at the impact, drawing her shoulders in close as if that would keep her warm and dry for long. The rain began to drum ceaselessly against her like it was making up for lost time.

“Rae!” She yelled. The shock had momentarily stopped her tears. Rae was standing in the downpour like she didn’t notice it. Claire’d lost her train of thought; all she could think of was how upset she would be with herself if Rae caught a cold because of this.

“You’re going to get soaked,” Claire said.

“That ship’s sailed, Miss Claire,” Rae said. “It doesn’t matter, the water’s fine. I actually don’t mind it now and then. What, have you never run through a summer rain just for the hell of it?”

After the initial shock, it was surprisingly warm. Rae was clearly proud of herself, smiling gently despite the water running over her brow, down her cheeks, along her lips. Her clothes and hair were already plastered tight to her body. She was at once smaller and more fragile than Claire had ever seen her while also projecting an aura of complete invulnerability.

“I can’t believe I’m such a mess over this. You must think I’m a very silly woman,” Claire said.

“Not at all,” Rae said. “Sometimes we have to cry. It’s healthy, and because it’s healthy, crying makes you strong, not weak. It’s not an imperfection. Besides, anyone who might shame you for it is gonna stay inside until the rain ends. So whatever pain you’re carrying with you, let it go, and let the rain wash it away. I’m the only one who will see. I hope that’s alright, Miss Claire.”

“...Don’t call me that,” she said. “I’m just Claire.”

“Hmm?”

“I mean—you’ll still have to use the proper titles in public, or else people will talk. But whenever it’s only us, please. Don’t. Just let me be Claire for you.”

Rae released her grip on Claire’s wrists, then pulled her in for a hug. Claire’s arms linked behind Rae’s waist. Had they ever hugged before? They’d come close. Rae had held her on at least one occasion, but those didn’t count; Claire hadn’t reciprocated. Conversely, she had held Rae when they’d slept together, but that was different, at once more and less intimate in ways Claire didn’t know how to articulate.

“As you wish, Claire.”

Rae began to revolve slowly on the spot, leading Claire in what she realized must have been an impromptu dance. She followed by instinct, letting herself be danced through puddles and over the slick stone of the street and trusting that Rae was watching where they were going. She pressed her face into Rae’s neck and let herself cry.

The rain began to let up, transitioning into a steady but gentle shower. Neither storms nor tears could last forever. She caught Rae’s gaze and traced the edge of her body from her waist up until it rested on her face, tips of the fingers right behind her right ear and thumb at the corner of her eye.

“I’m really happy that you found me, Rae. I don’t know how I could bear this alone. And—and I’m really sorry for all the times I was cruel to you, all the times I tried to push you away. I had no right. I wish I’d never hurt you.”

“Claire, you could never hurt me.”

If only that were true. The only way you could really hurt someone was if you were close—but Rae sounded so certain that Claire could almost let herself believe.

“I want to be better,” she said. “I can’t endure being—this. Whatever it is that I am. All I want is to be good. I don’t want to be perfect, I don’t want to be better than you, I just want to be good!”

“Claire,” Rae said, “You’re going to be fantastic.”

She took Claire’s hand—the one which had been on Rae’s waist—and gently lifted it to her face. After waiting half a heartbeat to see if Claire would react, Rae gave her a soft kiss on the back of her hand, almost at the tip of her fingers.

Kiss me on the lips next time, you coward.

“My knight,” she said, not sure if she was being sarcastic or not.

“My love,” Rae said. She hadn’t hesitated, and she wasn’t joking.

Oh. It was so easy to forget that behind her false smiles and inscrutable humor Rae was at her core a serious person. Just because Claire couldn’t accept that she deserved this devotion didn’t give her the right not to take it seriously.

“Oh, Rae,” she said. “You could save the world if you weren’t too busy looking after me.”

“Me? No way,” Rae replied. “It’s impossible to save the world on your own. The best anyone can do is save a few people—maybe only one. If I could save just one person, in my entire life, that would be enough.”

Claire stopped, ending their little dance. She looked at Rae, who waited patiently to see what she would do. Claire parted her lips slightly and sucked in a shallow breath through where her teeth met her bottom lip. Then nothing happened. It was impossible for her to do what she wanted; her body wouldn’t listen to her. Claire couldn’t do it either. She couldn’t kiss the girl.

So she got as close as possible to her and tried to convey through her skin what she was too craven to clearly state. The rain streaming down their faces joined together like tributaries becoming something new. Waist to hips, nuzzling cheekbone to cheek, she held her as closely as her strength would allow and willed Rae to feel the beating of her heart.

“You saved me,” Claire said.

Rae’s response was more beautiful and ominous than any thunderhead.

“No, I haven’t,” she whispered. “Not yet.”

Chapter 5: 2.1 Summertime Haunts

Chapter Text

After going home that stormy day, drying off with the aid of their magic, and spending another night together, she’d decided that it was time to return to the estate and face the music.

While Claire loved her father, she didn’t particularly like him. It was a painful realization. She shouldn’t have expected their relationship to stay unchanged, but it still saddened her a bit. It would be easier if one could learn about the world around oneself and develop one’s own politics without it affecting their personal life. The very nature of nobility made that impossible. Politics was personal for them.

As she’d feared, Father had heard about what happened in town. There was no punishment waiting for her, though. More than anything he seemed affronted. It was, he said, insulting that one of his vassals would try and solve a problem that didn’t need solving in the crudest manner possible in a town that he had no authority over.

Within hours of speaking with Claire, her father had left to visit Sainte-Laval and settle the issue. He’d barely mentioned that he would be traveling, saying only that she should expect to see him again in about a week. He rarely had anything of substance to say to her. She warranted neither praise nor condemnation anymore. She felt, in his eyes, that she was as distant to him as the commoners he ruled were—as far away as a falling star was from the sun.

The dismissal put her into a bad mood for much of the day. Since much of the household staff had followed her father on his journey, Rae was obliged to take on more than her share of the daily chores. For the first time in several days Claire had to figure out how to spend time on her own. Her mind wandered.

Many of her happy memories of the place, it transpired, had spoiled like milk left out in the sun. In every room she unearthed recollections of a simpler time. Even the memories of pleasant days had the comfort ripped out of them by the intervening years.

Claire wondered what Mother would think as she walked through ghosts of her girlhood self running through the halls, reenacting half-forgotten scenes.

Here, little Claire danced in an empty room with her mom, reaching up as far as she could manage just so that they could touch the tips of their fingers. The woman smiled like nothing else mattered and the girl looked up with stars in her eyes as she wondered if she would ever look so beautiful.

There, out a window that overlooked the courtyard garden, that little girl had swung like a pendulum as she hung onto each of her parents’ arms. They’d listened patiently and laughed together as little Claire had told them about how she would run away and become a pirate queen someday, then about the inner lives she’d imagined for her dolls, then repeated jokes her newest maid Lene had told her. It had been spring, then, and it seemed as though it would remain springtime forever.

On that same spot only two years later, in the depths of winter, that same man had drilled that same girl on the fundamentals of magic until she’d cried. He wiped her tears, then bade her continue until she cried again. When she did wrong, there was swift correction. When she’d done something perfectly, she was rewarded only with grim satisfaction and silence. The part of him that knew warmth had already been buried.

He’d grown frustrated with her one winter day, when the sky was as blue as a broken glacier and the wind sliced through the empty air. Tired, willful, her younger self had called further practice stupid. What did it matter, she’d asked, when she was already better than any of her peers?

The reply: better wasn’t good enough. So she’d had her coat taken from her for the infraction. Maybe it was silly to think that her father would have left her to freeze, but even at that age, she’d had her pride, and she desperately craved his respect. How could she ever ask him for mercy? Perhaps he’d relent out of pity, but then what? Pity was only a half-step removed from contempt. His contempt felt deadly too.

The cold awoke in her something primal, a need to live at all costs. Maybe there wasn’t any warmth now, but surely she would find some someday. She put all of herself into mastering her magic, until she could stand in the snow for hours with a fire that would shield her from the cold without burning her. It wasn’t easy. Even now, years later, she could breathe in and smell the burnt hair and feel the charring of her fingertips as if they were burning still.

The worst part was that she couldn’t even blame him. She’d do the same. Cruel? Perhaps, but necessary, and there was little daylight between what was right and what was necessary. Fire wasn’t like the other elements. It brooked no mistakes, no jokes, no carelessness. It was like all forms of power, only more so—a sword without a hilt that would bite the wielder before anyone else. She’d been given that sword too young: a foolish, petty girl given the power to destroy herself. Any amount of pain was worth it to prevent tragedy.

He hadn’t always been that way. Mother’s death had killed a part of both of them. If they’d had the chance to grow up with one another, would they still have been able to love each other? Could she have been proud of Claire despite how much she’d changed? Was there any chance that she had been a decent person? Claire couldn’t know. They’d never had a chance to know one another.

The profundity of the loss deepened. There was more, now, than the childhood ache of wishing for someone to hold her close and whisper that everything would be alright. Questions ran across her tongue and left a bitter taste because they knew they could never be answered. They died on her lips, just another thing that never had the chance to be real.

Let Rae make fun of her for being afraid of ghosts, she’d decided. She couldn’t help it. She was haunted every day by the specter of lives that could have been.

After finishing her chores that day Rae had found her, made some joke about her having an ‘emo phase’ at last, and pulled her by the hand out of those dusty halls and into the summer sun.

The silver lining was obvious the moment Claire was freed from her little depressive episode: a summer for Rae and Claire alone. She was determined to make the most of it. As long as she had the ill-gotten gains of nobility and had no way of giving them away, she might as well share them. Rae, at least, deserved the world. Over the days and weeks, they settled into a comfortable routine.

Whenever Father was home they made themselves scarce. This turned out to only be the case rarely as—unlike schoolgirls—the Minister of Finance didn’t get a summer break. The Taylor household—both Mel and Van Taylor swore—were happy to have her. Perhaps they just wanted more time with their daughter and had quickly sensed that wherever Claire went so too did Rae. Whatever the reason, Rae’s childhood home functioned as their pied-à-terre for a fair portion of the summer.

This was optimal, Claire decided, not least because it was the easiest way to bring Rae into her bed. Yet nothing happened. She couldn’t make herself make anything happen. Meanwhile Rae, who had once been so verbal about her physical attraction to Claire, seemed to have taken a vow of chastity without telling anyone. There were no wandering hands, no stray fingers, no happy accidents, no matter how many times they slept in the same bed.

Rae never strayed beyond what would be tolerable for close—albeit very close—friends. It was maddening. It annoyed Claire less and less as she started treating it more and more like a game. Really, she treated it like a war.

There were two main flashpoints for this conflict, namely Rae’s chest and her legs. While there was a ceasefire for now, any international observer would say that it was only a matter of time before one side abrogated all treaties and the war resumed. For now, though, Claire couldn’t stray one centimeter north or south of the commonly agreed upon armistice line: in other words, Rae’s smallclothes. Claire—the aggressor—really, really needed any of her provocations to work. If Rae slipped up, even for a moment, even once, it would give Claire the casus belli that would justify her… invasion.

As frustrating as it was, she had to respect her adversary’s courage and dignity under months of siege. Claire never got the excuse she needed to escalate, no matter how many times on hot summer nights she batted her eyelashes, accidentally-on-purpose let Rae walk in on her changing, or ran her hands through Rae’s hair until they were behind her neck, ready to pull her close enough that their foreheads touched. Despite her frustrations, on those nights, when they looked into each other’s eyes from the shortest possible distance, all Claire could do was smile. Her vision, her mind, her heart, they were completely full of Rae: always and only Rae.

So that was fun. As nice as her games were, she began to fall in love with Rae’s hometown almost as much as she had with Rae herself. Euclid had a way of drawing her in. Though tiny compared to the capital, the twisting medieval streets split like a fractal tree into ever more branching paths. It wasn’t a place anyone could fully explore even with a lifetime to spend. Once she was familiar with the town enough that she trusted herself to navigate it alone, she slipped out a few times to tour local jewelers and goldsmiths. She had a project she wanted complete by summer’s end. In the meantime, as she traversed that beautiful maze she discovered for the first time that she actually liked being around people. Far more strangely—now that she’d dropped her commitment to being such an awful harpy to every commoner she met—they seemed to like her too.

She started to collect people. She knew the names of the kids who played games out in the street in front of the Taylor’s house, and they knew her—more than once they’d shouted “Sorry, Miss Claire!” in near unison after bouncing a ball off of her unsuspecting head. She knew that Michel, the butcher that the Taylor’s preferred, always erred towards giving her more than she’d paid him for whenever Rae and Claire picked up groceries from him on their way home; he’d seen her stand up to the bounty hunters. Arsène, the older, dark-skinned man they’d bought kebabs from(as she later learned they were called) had lived here his entire life, as had his parents, because his grandfather, a merchant, had been thrown overboard during a storm one day. Only by the grace of God and the good fortune to latch onto a buoyant barrel of spices had his grandfather survived—and he claimed that spice was the secret ingredient in his cooking to this day. She learned to only visit the patissier in the mornings because while she liked Raymond, his wife Katja worked in the afternoons and would always make some disapproving comment about how much of a waste it was that no young man had yet given Claire an engagement ring to wear.

There was nothing like the experience of meeting someone new and being able to pretend she hadn’t existed before entering their line of sight for the first time. It was a chance, every day, to reinvent herself and live completely without reservation. She could smile and laugh without worrying whether it would make her seem improper. She didn’t need to worry about who was listening when she told rude jokes. If something upset her, she didn’t have to pretend she wasn’t upset. Nobody knew who she was ‘supposed’ to be when she was in Euclid; the expectations of her father and peers were very far away.

She didn’t even know who she was supposed to be. It was a strange discovery. It was stupid, so stupid, but there was an ease and comfort to misery. Staying miserable didn’t require any work. Just through inertia, Claire could have stayed bitter and cruel for the rest of her life, hating herself for it all the while. Rae had given her the push she needed to begin that change, and she was only gaining momentum. She felt like she’d taken a leap of faith and hadn’t hit the ground yet, giving up unpleasant security for the joy of flight. She still wasn’t a good person, probably, but maybe she wasn’t that bad. Maybe that could be good enough.

How were you supposed to act in times like this, she wondered, when realizing the things that had once mattered more to her conception of her self than anything didn’t matter at all? Rae couldn’t help her with that. She almost seemed like a universal constant, a person too weird and idiosyncratic to change.

Claire turned to fiction for other examples of similar predicaments and decided very quickly it was a waste of time. When a maiden fair in one of her novels would tearfully exclaim, “I just don’t know who I am anymore!”, or some such bit of histrionics, that was cause for alarm. No matter the book, the solution to the heroine’s crisis was always some variation on the same theme. Somehow, her man—and it was always a man—could make all her problems disappear with a kiss. It turned out, always, that all Miss Heroine ever needed to do was settle down with her husband and let her narrative arc neatly resolve itself through male action.

That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Unfortunately, this was real life. Her love created far more problems than it solved. Mostly, they were good problems to have, like the aforementioned identity crisis—if she could call it a crisis. She tried to focus on the positives, because when she started seriously thinking about how to have a future with Rae where they were safe and secure and together, Claire grew sick with anxiety until she could distract herself somehow.

That anxiety came around more frequently whenever she and Rae spent time at her estate. In Euclid she’d for once found a sense of home and belonging that wasn’t confined to something that her father owned. Back at the estate, under his roof, surrounded by him even when he wasn’t actually in residence, she felt a weight on her shoulders. Everything there was about him: his aesthetics, his pastimes, his memories and dreams. Maybe being able to decorate every one of his houses in exactly the same staid, conservative manner gave him an illusion of control, she decided. Maybe he was modeling his ideal world: perfectly ordered, perfectly dull, perfectly cold.

Sometimes she studied, when Father was home and she wanted to look busy. With his permission she made selections from his unsurprisingly large collection of books on financial theory. Apparently wealthy commoners who fancied themselves men of letters had a habit of sending Father copies of their new books. Most of them languished on his shelves, unopened.

None of them were what she was looking for. Most were written by businessmen arguing that they should have more freedom to make more money and run more of the country. Maybe if they had more money they would spend more money, and everyone would get richer somehow. Surely free trade would increase the volume of currency flowing through the “economy”, as one of the better writers of the bunch had named the sum of the wealth of a nation.

Claire was skeptical. The bourgeois seemed to ape the nobility in everything, from leisure activities to manners to aesthetics—only gaudier and in poorer taste. Why wouldn’t that pattern repeat with oppression?

She could concede some points. It was obvious to her that the primacy of the nobility necessitated the existence of a poor and oppressed mass of peasants. Maybe if the nobles were replaced as a ruling class by the bourgeois things would get better for the poorest classes on average. You could even say that anyone who could rise to riches by only their own tenacity and ability deserved to rule. She could concede that.

That logic only applied to the first generation of the nouveau-riche. What about their idiot children? She’d met plenty at the academy and was impressed by precisely none of them. The Aurousseau heirs came the closest to competence of their peers and, well, that hadn’t ended well for anyone. She’d loved Lene in her own way, of course, but the fact was that when the chips were down she and her brother had tried to kill her. Then their family had been sentenced to death and only managed to avoid execution because Claire interceded on their behalf. A quick rise, fall, death sentence and exile with an ample quantity of incest on the side: the noble experience in miniature.

No one even mentioned the most important, and obvious, problem. Maybe none of the authors had noticed the issue, or maybe none of them wanted to publish seditious literature and risk losing their heads. They hinted at it, saying things like a country’s wealth was in its land and bemoaning the country’s poor financial situation, but stopped short of saying that they felt the nobility—who owned an overwhelming majority of the country’s land—should have that land taken away.

Over the course of the summer Claire came to the dreary realization that there was only one way to find anything on the subject worth reading. She would have to write it herself. A project for another time, maybe.

Rae helped her by gently cutting the pages open with a paper knife so Claire didn’t have to break concentration. Sometimes she dictated notes to her as well. The most helpful thing she did was keep her company and share her pain as Claire suffered through dense subject matters and the most awful prose she’d ever read. She wished she could meet these morons and slap them with a style guide.

When she couldn’t bear to read anymore she escaped with Rae outdoors. Going for walks in the garden was pleasant enough this time of year but it got dull quickly. They needed a way to carve out some freedom for themselves, to go where they wanted when they wanted without permission. To that end she decided that Rae had to learn to ride.

The beginner got the good horse. Claire gave Rae the reins to her field hunter, a mare slightly younger than Claire herself that lacked strong opinions and had a generally sweet disposition. Claire was stuck with the stallion her father was probably too old to ride anymore: not that he could admit that yet. The awful old destrier had only gotten more cantankerous with age, and neither of them had ever respected one another to begin with.

At first it was all Rae could do not to fall off while her hunter did slow, placid laps around the yard. She somehow managed to spook her on their first day of practice—Claire didn’t even know that was possible. Rae held onto the horse’s neck as it ran around the estate grounds and yelled for Claire to save her as she followed, laughing too hard to help.

Justice was swift. Two minutes later Claire was on the ground feeling like her lungs had been crushed after being thrown from the saddle. Rae had been terrified of some grievous wound and run over—God knows how she learned how to dismount—but Claire merely had a bad landing and got the wind knocked out of her. She’d live.

Rae could be taught. It took a few days, but she got comfortable enough on horseback to ride around at a trot. From then on the two of them explored the countryside that surrounded Euclid whenever they had a nice day to spend. They rode to the tops of the hills overlooking town and watched the world move past them. They passed through green woods and golden waves of grain. When Rae started getting cheeky, she challenged Claire to races across the empty white beaches beyond the city limits. She even managed to win one out of a dozen or so, which bothered Claire, though she consoled herself by remembering that the commoner did have the better horse. By summer’s end Rae could even look dashing when she tried, silhouetted against the last rays of twilight.

Sometimes they lost track of time and returned to the house after dark. On those nights Claire would summon an orb of light to guide them and their horses up the ill-maintained country roads. Overkill? Perhaps. It was nice, though, to have her magic be useful, to keep people safe rather than do harm.

In the evenings she helped Rae cook a meal for the two of them. This help consisted mostly of Claire keeping her company and getting in her way. Claire was utterly incompetent at first. She could burn water, as Rae called it when she left vegetables to steam for too long and scorched the bottom of a dry pot. She mentally apologized to Rae’s weirdly young and attractive mom over and over again, despite having taken great pains to never show outward signs of displeasure with the woman’s cooking. Making something edible was really complicated! She’d never known. Rae always made it look easy. With a great deal of patience and more time than should have been necessary, Claire eventually learned how to cook a decent, simple meal. At least, as long as Rae handled the preparation of any raw meat—that was too icky for Claire to touch.

Nights at home were the worst. Claire and Rae went their separate ways when it was time for sleep. Claire couldn’t find an excuse for them to stay together, at least, not one she was willing to put into words. It wouldn’t be safe for either of them to appear too close. They were already raising eyebrows from the help.

When Claire retired to bed, she spent a long time staring at the ceiling, wondering why she couldn’t just tell Rae how she felt. In theory all she’d have to do was walk down the hall to where Rae slept and jump her while everyone else was asleep. But in the dark, alone with her thoughts, that other wing of the house felt very far away.

It was unpleasant, and it hurt, but she realized that all her problems could be personified into a single sin: pride. Pride was pernicious. Her pride had never done anything to help her, she was trying to throw it away, but it ruled her still. It still said that she was weak and foolish for falling in love with her maid. Her pride couldn’t override that love, but it could prevent her from making the first move. That was why she needed to provoke Rae. It would make the whole affair into her fault, rather than Claire’s, and her conscience could be clear.

She lay awake with her thoughts for a long time most nights, staring at the pale white of the moon and her plain blank ceiling. She dreaded sleeping alone, but it was inevitable.

Every night she had bad dreams.

Nightmares were nothing she wasn’t used to. Sometimes she was watched by men without faces. Other nights she got lost in unfamiliar cities with impossible geometries and doors that led to nowhere. Often, she thought she’d woken from a dream—only to hear whispers from outside the window saying things that were almost true and begging her to come out, or else to let them in. She was used to tormenting herself with upsetting and impossible scenarios. They almost felt like they could’ve been real, and had always tormented her at nights when she’d been particularly stressed or lonely or scared. She’d never dealt with them this consistently, though. They terrified her, yes, but more than anything they made her tired.

The nightmares didn’t even go away when she contrived scenarios that led to her and Rae sleeping together. She simply didn’t remember them come morning. How strange, that waking up next to your lover made all your pain and troubles seem smaller and more manageable.

No matter what, they weren’t apart for long. Sometime every morning they’d find one another, and Claire would start to feel human again. This pattern repeated again and again.

In this manner nearly three months passed. Those days—which Claire occasionally thought of as their honeymoon in her sappiest moments—were the happiest she’d had in her life. So, of course, they couldn’t last forever.

---

Neither Father nor Misha joined them for the carriage ride back to the capital. Misha had probably returned already, though Claire didn’t know for sure. It had been impossible to find her all summer, and they only knew she was alive because they ran into one another occasionally in Euclid’s markets. She simply didn’t want to spend much time with them when she didn’t have to. Whatever. Father had gone back a week earlier under orders from the king—as Claire had discovered from a note he’d left on her desk.

It was better this way. This way she had several days of privacy with Rae, with no other obligations, and could mess with her as much as she wanted.

Normally Claire hated the dog days of summer. They’d be back at the Academy shortly, a few days early for the fall semester, but it didn’t feel like fall yet. The entire country was blanketed in a sultry heat. That was good for Claire: it gave her an excuse. As soon as they’d gotten into the carriage that morning she’d taken off her blazer and unbuttoned her blouse far beyond the limits of propriety.

They sat across from one another. Throughout the entire ride Rae kept her gaze so perfectly level that you could balance water on her head. She never once looked below Claire’s collarbone. It was maddening. It wasn’t like it would kill her to take a peek. Worst of all, she clearly knew what Claire was doing, and must have known that Claire knew too. Yet still she was making this difficult for them.

Well, no matter. Rae should’ve been sent to a monastery to teach the ascetics lessons on self-denial. Unfortunately for her chastity, she had no such escape. As soon as Claire could figure out an excuse to rip her clothes off it would all be over.

She had a new trick to try. She rested her book, a dense treatise, on her lap and turned it around until it faced Rae.

“Hey, look at me,” she demanded. Rae obliged. “Now, look down at this. What do you think this means?”

Rae’s eyes unfocused slightly as they passed over Claire’s chest, refocusing on the line that her thumb underlined in the text.

Damn it, she’s good.

“I can’t understand what’s happening there at all,” Rae said. “Sorry! It’s beyond me.”

“Well, maybe if you looked a bit harder, you’d figure it out,” Claire snapped.

She sighed. It was worth a try. She’d known damn well what the author had meant, and couldn’t have cared less about it at this point. Tired from several days of travel and now grumpy, she looked out the window. Over the next hour, she watched the densely settled farmland transition into the outskirts of the city.

Somehow entering the capital proper forced her to confront that the last chapter of her life was over. Whatever the year to come had in store, she’d never have those summer days back. An irrational part of her was berating herself for not doing more with her time. She silenced it as best she could. She’d spent every day with the woman she loved—even if she hadn’t ever managed to say that to her. Every mile through space and every minute through time away from Euclid and the time they’d spent was painful.

She didn’t want to go back to the Royal Academy. That might seem obvious. A teenager, avoiding work and responsibility? What a surprise—but Claire had never minded school. Some part of her had always recognized that very few girls were lucky enough to go. She liked to learn. She didn’t only enjoy it because it let her look smarter than her peers, though that was a strong incentive. There was something excruciating about being unable to understand the world around her. School also got her away from Father.

As she reflected on the year behind her and the year ahead, she decided to get serious for a moment. They didn’t have much time left; they were in the city proper now. The carriage wheels made a regular clicking noise as they passed over newly built(relative to the age of the capital, at least) cobble streets. On either side of them were three and four-story buildings—the first they’d seen since leaving Euclid—apartments built over fashionable shops. Maybe one of them would be a nice place to live one day, settle down.

Pleasant fantasies like that had to be put away and enjoyed later.

She spoke. “Rae.”

“Yes ma’am,” Rae replied, looking down at the book on Claire’s lap. It had been closed for some time.

“Rae, I need a promise,” she said.

“Anything for you.”

Claire’s heart fluttered. She didn’t let it distract her. “Don’t let me go back to being who I was.”

“I don’t think you could if you tried,” Rae said. “Like you said, when you know things, you can’t un-know them. I think you’ll be fine. School might feel a bit weird for you now, right? No chance you stay as free and easy as you were over the summer. You’ll still have the same social constraints as everyone else until we graduate. Maybe you’ll need or want to be, or pretend to be, completely the same as you were a year ago today. But I’ll know the truth, whether or not anyone else does.”

“That’s nice, really, but you still haven’t done what I asked.”

“Fine, fine,” Rae laughed. “I swear to God.”

A moment later, they arrived in front of the wrought iron gates of the academy.

“Excuse me,” Rae said.

She opened the door latch and leapt down onto the carriage block on the curb, offering a hand back towards Claire. Once she’d gotten one hand through the handles of both of their suitcases, Claire took it, stepping down carefully.

“Here.” Claire passed Rae’s leather-bound case back to her, who dropped Claire's hand to take it. That was irritating, but she couldn’t think of an excuse to hold hands again. She’d just have to live with it. They’d have to be less visibly affectionate, Claire supposed, for the sake of her ‘reputation’ or whatever. If there were too many rumors about Claire’s dalliance with her maid, maybe neither of them would ever find a man to marry.

Wouldn’t that be a tragedy.

No, that was a bad way to think. She had to stop daydreaming. Claire wasn’t naïve enough to believe that she could just get what she wanted and have an easy happily ever after. Whatever happened between her and Rae had to stay a secret. She had to be smarter about this.

They chatted idly as they walked to Claire’s room and dropped her luggage on her bed. Mysteriously, no roommate had been found for her, same as last year. She suspected Father’s influence.

Unpacking only took a few minutes; she’d been able to travel light as she’d left clothes in her room before break. Rae did most of the work, humming a catchy tune that Claire didn’t recognize as she hung up Claire’s things. Claire busied herself with her valuables, moving her jewelry into a lockbox in one of the bureau drawers except for two pieces that she slipped into the inside breast pocket of her uniform.

Afterwards, she followed Rae to her room, reluctant to break apart from her. Maybe she could make a habit of keeping her company there this year. They could study together. Maybe that would be nice.

When the door opened, she remembered one of the reasons why she didn’t spend much time at Rae’s. Misha was already there, sitting at her desk in the corner. It looked like she was writing in her journal. They’d caught her as she was dipping the nib of her pen into her inkwell, and she let it drop as she turned to face them. Her hair had grown out over the summer, still straight and smooth enough that it looked like she trimmed it with a scalpel daily. She’d always been less fashionable than fastidious.

“Hey girls—oh dear,” Misha sighed.

Rae had thrown her luggage onto the bed and run over to Misha, hugging her with enough force that she nearly toppled from her chair. “Misha! Misha, I feel like it’s been ages since we’ve talked! How are you..?”

“I’m well. I’m sorry you didn’t see more of me the last few months. I had family obligations,” she said.

They were barely pretending to make the rooms assigned to nobles and commoners look the same, were they? For all the talk about meritocracy within the walls of the Academy and having at least one place where the best could rise to the top, the rooms that the commoners were ‘randomly’ assigned were about half the size of Claire’s, who didn’t have a roommate. They were less lavish, too. Some of the paint on the walls was already chipping. She felt a pang of sympathy for Misha. This was not a lot of space to share when you were sharing it with Rae, who was… so much, all the time.

Claire tried to fix her expression manually. “Pardon my intrusion,” she said, voice soft.

She sat down on Rae’s bed next to the suitcase, trying to keep herself from feeling a bit upset watching Rae show affection to another girl. Rationally, Claire knew it didn’t mean anything, but she wasn’t sure if she was successful. Misha might have caught her glaring at her, because she raised an eyebrow at her.

Rae came to her rescue. “Miiiiiishaaaaaaa! We should go explore the city this week! I bet there’s all kinds of new things to see since the last time we were here.”

“The three of us?” Misha asked.

“Of course!”

“I’ll let you know. I might have other matters to attend to. You two should go, though. Don’t wait for my schedule to line up with yours.”

In other words: don’t make me third wheel. Somehow Misha already seemed to suspect them. She was looking at Claire with a quiet intensity. Usually people were polite enough to drop their gaze, embarrassed, when they were caught staring. Misha just kept doing it, locking eyes with Claire from within Rae’s embrace.

“Darn,” Rae said. “Busy already? How’d that happen? It’s not even the first week back.”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s terribly dull,” Misha said. “Actually, Rae, I forgot to mention. You need to get down to the mailroom when you have a chance. The postmaster was mad enough about all the mail you had over the summer that he started yelling at me when I walked past earlier.”

Rae’s manner changed instantly. She shot up and cursed, “f*ck! I never had it forwarded home!”

“Rae!” Claire yelled, aghast. “Language!”

“Sorry! So sorry, Claire—could you wait here for a sec? I really do need to deal with this.” Without waiting for permission, Rae ran for the door. “Don’t move, you two, I’ll be right back!”

The door slammed. They heard her sprinting down the hall for a few moments before she made it out of earshot.

Misha turned away and looked back down at her notes. “What an excitable girl.”

“She’s never boring,” Claire agreed, absently.

The conversation died.

Neither of them hated the other. They got along fine in group settings. But there was a reason they didn’t speak to one another outside of those environments—they simply had nothing in common. Now they were stuck. There was no elegant way for Claire to leave the situation. Worse, something told her that Misha was about to start talking, and that Claire would like that even less than the uncomfortable silence that had been left in Rae’s wake.

God damn it, she thought.

Chapter 6: 2.2 Your Eyes

Chapter Text

For the next minute, the only sound in the room was the sound of Misha’s quill scratching across the page.

Claire let herself fall back into Rae’s bed until her hair brushed against the wall. The sun was setting. Burning orange light streamed through the window. She was a bit tired, and tried to relax by watching the dappled shadows of individual oak leaves dance across the wall. Maybe if Misha tried to talk to her she could pretend to have fallen asleep.

Claire let her eyes close.

“You have to use your hands.”

Irritated, she tented her hands behind her head and pulled up enough that she could glare through half-lidded eyes at Misha’s back. Though she’d spoken, she was still turned away from Claire, as if she was beneath her notice. The noise of the quill paused as it dipped into the inkwell.

“I beg your pardon?” Claire asked.

“You can’t undress someone with your eyes,” Misha said. “You have to use your hands.”

“Wha—what—I don’t—You—” She sputtered for several seconds. “MISHA!”

“Bullseye, I suppose,” Misha said. She rotated in her seat until she could lean her chin against the back of her chair. She sized Claire up with a glance, who’d shot up in bed hard enough to bang her head into the upper bunk. Misha’s expression was the exact opposite of Claire’s—cool and detached.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said. The lie was at least worth an attempt.

“Yes, you do,” Misha said. So much for that, Claire thought. “Or your reaction wouldn’t have been so… animated. I can’t believe it. Rae actually pulled it off.”

“No. She hasn’t pulled anything off yet,” Claire muttered without thinking.

“Oh?” Misha’s eyebrows raised. “And how does that make you feel?”

“Wait, why am I talking about this with you?” Claire realized that she could actually just leave. This was more than she could endure. She stood and made for the door, trying to ignore the sinking feeling that she’d already given away her secret to the first person she’d spoken to after returning to the Academy. It was going to be a long semester.

“Well, who else are you going to talk to?” Misha asked.

Claire rested her hand on the doorknob. Great point. She’d made friends in Euclid, but they weren’t here. The idea of trying to get advice from Loretta or Penelope was laughable. It would be better if they never knew. Could she actually have a conversation with Rae’s roommate about this? Misha had at least always known, apparently, about Rae’s obsession.

“For what it’s worth, Claire, I’m sorry,” Misha said. She hadn’t moved from her chair, but her unflappable expression had cracked slightly. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Was Misha actually trying to reach a hand out towards her? Claire was a bit ticked off, but forced herself to calm down. There was a charitable read on this situation. Maybe Misha, in her own way, was as weird and antisocial as Claire herself, and had been trying her best to be a person.

Even if she’d been casually cruel by accident, in the way so typical among their peers, Claire should try to smooth this over. From the standpoint of campus politics, Claire couldn’t afford her as an enemy.

Even if Misha was actively malicious, Claire was screwed no matter what. There would be no further harm done by indulging her and letting her take a victory lap. She let her hand drop.

Claire turned around, leaning her back against the door, so she could at least stop the conversation the moment Rae returned.

A tense few moments followed. Neither of them seemed to know what to say. Claire sighed, partially to fill the silence.

A question occurred to her. “What gave it away?”

“Well, I didn’t know for sure until you told me just now,” Misha said.

Claire swore under her breath.

“What was that?” Misha asked. “Actually, who cares.”

“Would it kill you to show just a little bit of respect? You would never speak like this to Prince Rhod or Yuu,” Claire said.

“As a rule,” Misha said, “I show people respect if I think they’ve earned it, or if I think they might kill me if I don’t. So, I respect Rae, because she’s kind and she’s clever, and I respect the Bauers because any of them could be my future sovereign. You won’t be, unless you have some extraordinary plans in the works. Needless to say, I’m not too worried about it. Unless you manage to coup our ruling dynasty you won’t be able to have my head for lèse-majesté, and if you can manage that, I think you’ve earned the right to kill me.”

Claire groaned. “That’s a terrible thought. We like to name the country after the ruling dynasty so… what? François? Francia? France? Moronic names, all of them.”

“That’s right,” Misha said. “That’s the main reason you shouldn’t claim the throne. Can’t think of any others. Anyway. To answer your question, what gave it away was you trailing in here after Rae like a lost puppy, and then looking like you wanted to murder me when Rae said hello. I knew you had a temper, but I’ve never seen you look like that.”

“I’m… really sorry.”

“You apologize now? Interesting,” Misha said. “It’s fine. I know how you feel, so let’s just call it even and move on.”

“Sure. Wait, you know how it feels, huh? Who’s the lucky guy? Or girl?”

“We’re talking about you and Rae right now,” Misha said firmly.

“Why? Why do you care about—whatever is allegedly happening between us?” Claire asked.

“Because Rae is my friend, and I care about her well-being.”

Well, that was fair, Claire supposed. Unfortunately that wasn’t good enough for her.

She forced herself to relax, taking one deep breath, then another. She needed to project a bit of strength and authority, here. Once she was confident she could, Claire said, “I need you to swear to God that you won’t tell anyone about us.”

All Misha did was roll her eyes. “Always looking out for your reputation, first and foremost. I don’t miss being a noble.”

Misha wasn’t taking her seriously yet, apparently. Claire could barely tolerate derisive jokes and callous dismissal when they were directed at her—but this wasn’t about her, not alone. She was properly pissed off now.

“...do you actually believe that I’m worried about myself?” she asked. “This is for her sake. I think the worst thing that could happen to me is I get yelled at, pulled out of school, and immediately sent off to an arranged marriage. That would be the worst day of my life, but I’d probably live. But… I can’t just be worried about myself anymore. If we’re found out, if they do anything to Rae… I don’t know. I don’t know what happens to girls like us when we can’t hide behind noble titles.”

Misha sat up straight, her motions slow and deliberate. She co*cked her head to one side, as if trying to examine Claire from a new angle.

“Maybe I was wrong about you,” she said, quiet and contemplative. “Alright. I swear to God that whatever you say to me, here and now, I’ll take with me to the grave. I thought it went without saying. I don’t know what impression you have of me but I want you to know that there was nothing to be concerned about.”

Part of Claire wanted to ask what exactly Misha thought she’d been wrong about, but she was pretty sure she knew. It didn’t matter, either way. She let herself relax slightly as Misha made her promise.

Now that the fear was gone, awkwardness expanded to fill the void it had left. They were silent once again.

“No more pearls of wisdom for me?” Claire asked after a pause. “Just wanted to make one rude joke, nothing else?”

“I was thinking,” Misha said, voice terse, “About how to phrase the question. Whatever, I’ll just ask. How the hell did this happen, Claire? You spent most of last year telling everyone who would listen about how you couldn’t stand her. The only exception I’m aware of is at the end of the Scales Festival, but that doesn’t seem like enough. People don’t change in a day.”

“No, they don’t,” Claire agreed. “I don’t know. I’m not as eloquent about my feelings as Rae is, but she’s had more practice, so it’s not a fair contest. What do you want me to say? She was kind to me? She was there for me? She’s fun to be around? She’s pretty? Why else do people fall in—in love?”

Claire stumbled over the word ‘love’, but she managed to say it. She never had before. It felt wrong, in a way, for Misha to hear it before Rae did. Yet it was liberating. She’d almost started to think that she had a medical condition that prevented her tongue from forming the word.

“Claire, that’s wonderful.” Misha actually smiled at her. “That’s so sweet. Rae must be over the moon. Maybe she’ll stop bouncing off the walls pursuing you and we’ll all have a bit more peace and—”

“I haven’t told her yet.”

“Oh,” Misha said. “Oh dear. Why on earth not?”

“I’ve been asking myself that same question about a dozen times a day all summer, and all I can say is: I don’t know. I can’t do it!”

Misha put her head in her hands. “Alright, stop,” she said, slightly muffled by speaking through her fingers. “Take this slow. Start from the last time I saw you. When Rae’s friend died.”

“Louis.”

“Right. Louis.”

“Well,” Claire said, “We spent the summer together. We explored the city together. We learned about one another. I feel like I grew up, maybe, a little bit. And she taught me how to cook, I taught her to ride a horse, we laughed, we cried—”

“Stop, stop, I get the point,” Misha said, reaching a hand towards her, palm facing out. “It all sounds very romantic. I’m envious. In short: you’re telling me that you’ve spent every day between then and now with Rae, from dawn till dusk.”

“Right, and sometimes, from dusk until dawn.”

“Argh!” Misha made an odd, strangled noise. It was the most emotional Claire had ever heard her.

She gave Misha a moment to collect herself. She could have spoken, but honestly, Claire was savoring having knocked her off balance.

“You have this—you have this so easy,” Misha muttered, after she’d recovered. “And you’ve still fouled it up like this.”

“I don’t feel like it’s ‘fouled up’, as you say,” Claire said. “We’ve only gotten closer. We’re always together. I love her, and she keeps saying that she loves me. I could be happy with this for the rest of my life. Don’t talk about this like it’s a lost cause, that’s not helpful.”

Misha was pinching the bridge of her nose and slowly rubbing around the edge of her eyes. She looked tired, now.

“Let me get this straight,” she said. “You love each other, you can’t bear to be apart, and, unless I’m mistaking your meaning—”

“You’re not.”

“—you’ve also slept together some nights,” Misha continued. “But you’ve never talked about your feelings or kissed one another.”

“That’s right,” Claire said.

“Explain yourself.”

It felt like Claire was being cross-examined by a very gloomy prosecutor. “What’s there to explain? I’ve made how I feel about her obvious enough that you could size me up in two seconds,” Claire said. “I don’t understand how she hasn’t figured out how I feel yet.”

“Hold on,” Misha said. “That’s not fair to her at all. Why should she have to guess? Call it brave, call it foolish, whatever you like, but she was able to tell you how she felt about you right away. The only thing that’s changed is how you feel.”

It was, Claire realized, a very neat reversal of her own argument. For months, she’d excused her own inability to confess by shifting the burden to Rae. She hadn’t thought about it as much from Rae’s perspective. Doing so now made her feel like scum.

The shadows had grown very long. Misha lit the lamp on her desk as she waited for Claire to speak, but she had nothing to say.

“Look…” Misha said, suddenly in a more conciliatory tone. Maybe some of what Claire was feeling was written on her face. “I’m not saying you were wrong to do so, but you’ve spent a lot of time trying to push her away. You even bullied her a bit at first, though in a pretty mild way that she enjoyed for whatever reason. But you can’t be shocked, now that she’s gotten a bit cautious about you and your feelings. It’s how you taught her to behave. It’s what you asked for.”

“So it’s all my fault,” Claire muttered. “As usual.”

“Spare us the melodrama, please,” Misha said, interrupting her. “If Rae is respecting whatever boundaries you’ve set, that’s a good thing. She’s said everything she has to say to you and it seems like she’s waiting for you to make the next move. So, make it.”

“I wouldn’t even know how to begin, Misha,” Claire said. “That’s the problem! I’ve been trying—”

“Maybe you should begin by apologizing for how you behaved when the Princess of Sousse came to visit.”

“...what?” Claire asked. She’d lost her train of thought again. Misha wouldn’t stop interrupting her.

“Wait, I was joking, I assumed you’d actually already apologized for that,” Misha said. “I didn’t think you and Rae would be on speaking terms otherwise. Claire…”

“There was a lot going on! It slipped my mind! Her childhood friend tried to kill me a few days later, which you know because you were also there.”

“Oh, that cancels it out. No worries then.”

“You think so?”

“NO!” Misha yelled. “Of course it doesn’t! Spirits, grant me strength. Rae fought for you. She did what she thought she was supposed to do, what she thought you wanted, and all she’s gotten for it as far as she knows is a beatdown in front of the entire school. That’s not something a person simply forgets.”

Misha pinched the bridge of her nose and trailed off into what Claire presumed were muttered obscenities. The former noblewoman was still a bit too refined to want anyone to notice that she’d picked up some of the mannerisms of the working class, but it sounded like she could curse with the best of them. Claire thought she heard a few words mixed in with the stream of invectives she’d only heard before when she’d watched a longshoreman drop a heavy crate on his foot.

It would have been kinder of Misha to continue shouting a bit. Maybe Claire could shout back and keep her mind off of a chapter in her life she’d been trying very hard not to think about. An assassination attempt or two had almost been a welcome distraction, by comparison to how she’d acted when Manaria came to stay. She’d known that she’d shamed herself with her conduct. That knowledge gnawed away at her from inside. With all the excitement of the last few months, she’d tried to move on. She didn’t know what else she could have done.

When Manaria began her brief period of enrolment at the Academy, everything had changed. Things just changed when she walked into a room, without any effort on her part. She had this aura of perfection to her. It was almost like a gravitational pull that captured people rather than celestial bodies. If they’d never met before, Claire would have killed to be noticed by her once. The First Princess of Sousse, presumptive heir to the Empire, radiated power and prestige. But Claire didn’t even need to try—after all, hadn’t they always been friends? The two aristocrats could spend as much time together as they wanted. Even if Manaria hadn’t been Claire’s oldest friend, Rae would’ve had an uphill battle to compete with her. Manaria had been the only person to even try and comfort Claire after her mother died. It was nice to fall into her orbit again. It had let Claire focus on someone else for a change instead of the complex feelings she’d developed for Rae that she’d been trying desperately to ignore.

So she’d joked around with her friend and tried to mask her feelings behind casual meanness and detached irony, same as always—ignoring the stab of pain she felt every time she deliberately slighted Rae. What had she been thinking? Trying to make her jealous, trying to provoke her? One line in particular made Claire want to drop dead every time she remembered it—what exactly had she said to Manaria, again? In front of Rae, no less? If I were interested in girls, I’d surely choose you over some commoner.

She’d thought it was a funny thing to say. She hadn’t treated either Rae or Manaria seriously yet, either as possible partners for her or rivals for one another. She hadn’t known.

It took the sight of Rae curled up in the dust of the dueling grounds, coughing up blood, for Claire to realize that none of it had been a game. The entire arena went silent. Manaria and Rae were both well-known to be two of the most powerful mages on the continent, so the stands at the dueling grounds had been packed. It was supposed to be an exhibition match, all in good sport, and it had concluded with bone chilling violence. Nobody moved except for Claire, who’d screamed out Rae’s name before she could stop herself.

In the silence that followed, there was nothing to stop her from memorizing every detail of the scene: Rae laid low, Manaria standing triumphantly over her. Then she’d looked back at Claire. Their eyes met, and Claire wished they hadn’t. She'd seen something she wasn’t supposed to see: Princess Sousse after the mask of humanity she wore most days had fallen away.

It only lasted for a moment, but Claire had seen it: empty eyes, a wolfpack grin, and nothing else. A hollow shell. The soul was gone for the moment, replaced with power, reveling in its ability to take and to dominate just to prove that it could.

The barriers around the arena were supposed to protect them. As far as she knew, nobody had ever drawn blood in a duel before. Manaria’s spell would have been lethal in any other time and place. It was the only way Rae could have been hurt so badly. If, somehow, the barrier had failed at that moment… Rae Taylor’s story would have ended there.

Claire had nearly been sick.

Then Manaria was back. Magnanimous in victory, she’d been the first one to treat Rae, before the nuns who ran the infirmary at the Academy could react. She’d taken Rae under the arm and helped her off the field. Then she’d returned to Claire’s side, wearing the mask of a perfect knight, dedicating her victory to a maiden fair.

They could both play the part of characters from a drama, but their hearts weren’t in it. When Manaria knocked Rae out of her life, Claire had lost two friends, not one. The girl who’d comforted Claire after her mother’s death was gone now. When she’d cried herself to sleep every night between Rae’s duel and their reunion at the Scales Festival, she’d cried alone. It was better than letting Manaria console her. Claire still remembered her true face.

From then on, in her heart, Claire knew the truth; the nobility were not human. Not evil—not always—but not human. Nobody human could do what Manaria had done. No human could watch such cruelty and do nothing.

She could forgive Louis for trying to kill her, but she couldn’t forgive Manaria, or herself, for that.

Rae won Claire back by being better than a fairy tale and the matter was resolved. She’d been too overjoyed by having Rae in her life again, and too distracted by how conflicted that made her feel, to confront Manaria over what had happened. If she was honest with herself, Claire had been afraid to. She hardly recognized her old friend. So she’d tried to play peacemaker once it was all behind them, tried to go along to get along, to avoid rocking the boat…

It was simply a post-hoc rationalization as to why she couldn’t stand up for Rae when it counted. Claire realized she’d been staring into space for some time. She slid slowly down the door until she was sitting in a fetal position, elbows resting on her knees and bent until she could clasp her hands behind her head, hiding her eyes with her arms.

“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” Claire said. Did her voice always sound this flat, this dull? “I just wanted to be left alone. That’s all.”

She curled up tighter. She wished she could fold herself in half an infinite number of times until she disappeared. Claire was an expert in the history of her own self-hatred, and this was a low point even by her own standards.

“Huh,” Misha said. She seemed to have taken a deep breath, relaxed, and realized she didn’t need to shout to make herself heard in such a small room. Claire didn’t look up.

“You really do care,” she continued, after a short pause.

She felt the vibrations before she heard the sound of fast footfalls through the hallway outside. She still only had a moment’s notice before Rae burst through the door.

“Surprise! I’m back~!”

Claire had tucked and rolled to avoid getting pummeled by the door slamming open. A moment afterwards, she heard something heavy land on Rae’s desk. Claire’s eyes were closed as she braced for impact and she turned away, so she didn’t see what it was. It was loud as sin, though—had someone been mailing her gold bullion or something?

“Rae, what on earth…” she heard Misha say.

“What’s crazy is that this is only the first box. Mail guy spent ages lecturing me, sorry to keep you two. I won’t be so long this time. I’ll just grab my stuff and ignore whatever else he has to say. Where’s Cl—Miss Claire!” What are you doing on the floor?”

She’d returned to using a title. It was good to get used to that again, back at the Academy, but it still hurt a bit, still put a bit more distance between them.

“I—”

Rae interrupted her instantly by pulling her up from the floor and leading her back to the bed where she’d been sitting earlier. Luckily for Claire it seemed like she was still too distracted to pay attention to the atmosphere of the room she’d barged into.

“You can sit here, you know,” she said. Then Rae’s voice dropped to a lower, sultrier register, and she murmured, “Here, you can definitely make yourself at home.”

Then she giggled at her own joke and ran back the way she’d come.

Misha sighed and walked over to close the door after her.

It was hard for Claire just to think about Rae being hurt. Claire’s mind had gone to a bad place for a minute or two. She’d almost forgotten that Rae was healthy and happy, now—the image of her covered in her own blood had pushed all other thoughts out of Claire’s head. But she was still okay, still Rae. Seeing her helped bring Claire back to reality.

The only relevant fact was that Rae made her happy in a way that no one else ever had. It was time to stop taking that happiness for granted. Claire had lost people in the past, always before she’d the words to tell them how much they’d mattered to her. It could happen again. The two of them were in a dangerous position, politically. For two girls to be together, in love, in the open wasn’t something this world could accept. If(God forbid) anything happened to either of them tomorrow… Claire would at least want to know that, tonight, she’d been able to open her heart. If only once.

Claire grabbed one of Rae’s pillows and crushed it into her chest, tucking her chin and pressing her face into it. Misha had been talking as she walked without Claire paying much attention. “...she practically propositioned you right in front of me, but you’re still not together. The whole situation irritates me to no end.

“Just tell me what I’m supposed to do, Misha,” she interrupted, slightly muffled by trying to talk through a pillowcase. “Quickly. Rae will be back soon.”

“I don’t know, give her a happy ending?” Misha suggested.

“You are remarkably vulgar, sometimes,” Claire said. “...would that work?”

“That was a joke. Ignore it. Look, maybe I have the wrong read on this. Maybe she’s really not bothered by what happened with Manaria. She definitely likes to pretend like she’s emotionally bulletproof. She’s not. Even you must have figured that out by now.”

“Obviously,” Claire said. “Cut to the chase. Again, the clock’s ticking.”

“What do you want me to tell you, Claire?” Misha asked. “If you really care about her, don’t you think she’s earned the right to hear that? If the word love is what trips you up, say or do something that demonstrates your love for her without saying the word. It’s overrated anyway. Most importantly, you’ve got to prove to her that she isn’t still competing with someone who doesn’t have the normal number of unique great-grandparents.”

“It’s not Manaria’s fault that her ancestors cared more about consolidating dynastic claims than the well-being of their descendants, don’t be mean.”

Misha shrugged. “She hurt my friend, I’ll be as mean to her as I can get away with. Don’t you think you should be more worried about Rae’s feelings right now, though?”

“Right, of course,” Claire said. “I—I suppose there is something I could do that would help. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to give it to her. I didn’t want to do it on any other day, I wanted to make the moment something romantic, something special.”

“The right time was months ago, Claire,” Misha said. “The second-most right time? Now. If you keep waiting for the perfect moment, that moment will never come.”

As she listened, Claire was taking her own necklace out of her pocket and fumbling with the clasp behind her neck. Once she’d secured it she slid the pendant beneath her blouse. Misha watched her but didn’t comment. Claire thought she saw a glimmer of recognition in her eyes. She’d seen it before at least once, after all.

“Alright,” Claire said, once she thought she’d fully tucked it beneath her clothes. She took a deep breath, exhaled. “I haven’t messed up my collar, have I? Do I look presentable?”

“Rae will be happy to see you, no matter what you look like,” Misha said. “But, yes. You look fine.”

“Okay,” Claire muttered. “Time to make this right. I can do that.”

Misha leaned forwards towards Claire. Suddenly they were very close. “I spent the last few minutes we were talking trying to find a less clichéd way to say this, but… be good to her. ”

“I will. I promise,” Claire said. “I lo—I love her, after all. I’ll do my best.”

“Don’t make her wait any longer, either,” Misha said. “Being so close to something you’ve wanted for so long, and still feeling like you’re a world apart… It’s excruciating.”

She was talking about herself, Claire realized. Misha was leaning back, arms behind her, hands resting on the top rail of her chair. The beaten-up piece of dorm furniture tipped slightly towards her. The whole system was very precariously balanced, but Misha made it all look elegant, all while having an expression of pain frozen in place on her face.

As Claire tried to look anywhere else but at Misha’s stricken face, she finally noticed what Rae had thrown onto her desk. Letters. Piles of them. In a soft-sided box that would’ve been big enough for Claire to curl up inside if she really tried, Rae had crammed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of envelopes. And this was only half?

“What the hell is she doing?” Claire wondered. She hadn’t even meant to say so aloud, but it at least broke Misha’s concentration on whatever she was feeling. No wonder the box had made such an awful racket when Rae had dropped it; there was most of a forest’s worth of paper in there.

“I don’t even want to know,” Misha said. “I miss the peace and quiet of Euclid already, although… It’s almost comforting seeing that Rae is up to her usual nonsense. At least she’s never boring.”

Well, on those points they could both agree.

They had nothing else to say to one another. Mercifully, not even half a minute passed before Rae crashed back through the door, holding a smaller(but still substantial) box full of mail. She tossed it from a few feet away onto her desk and Misha and Claire both winced at the din it made upon landing.

“Oh-kaaaaay! I’m back!” Rae announced.

“Evidently,” Misha said.

“What do you two want to do tonight? We ate dinner on the road, Misha, but if anyone’s still hungry we can sneak into the kitchens and I can make something,” Rae said. “Oh! Or cards? We could play cards? Or—”

“Actually, Rae,” Misha said, “I’ve had a bit of a headache all day. Would you two mind chatting somewhere else? We can make plans for another time.”

“That’s a shame, I was looking forward to—it doesn’t matter. Feel better! Now, well…” Rae said, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain. “Maybe I’ll just turn in for the night then. Unless, Claire… did you want to talk a bit longer?”

Behind Rae, she saw Misha jerk her head toward the door and mouth the word, “Go!” at her.

“Let’s give her one last night to herself,” Claire said, standing up and walking to the door. “Coming?”

“Yeah!” Rae’s expression shifted from uncertainty to joy. She clasped her hands over her heart and favored Claire with an electrifying smile that brought her heart to a momentary standstill. “See ya, Misha. I’ll be back before too long, but I’ll try not to wake you!”

“You girls have fun,” Misha said, already turning back towards her book.

“Goodbye for now, Misha,” Claire said, looking at her one last time. “We should talk—

Less, a small, petty part of her thought.

“—more,” she finished instead, and closed the door behind her on the way out.

Chapter 7: 2.3 Synthesize, Kintsugi

Chapter Text

“Sorry about that,” Rae said as she walked down the hallway, a few steps ahead of Claire. “I sort of forgot you two don’t talk much.”

“We get along famously,” Claire muttered. She was a bit distracted by the sway of Rae’s skirt. Pull yourself together, Claire, she told herself. “Um, I just have to ask, what possible reason could there be for you to have approximately a million letters waiting for you after about two months away? I probably won’t have that many correspondences in my life. Are you trying to run one of the signoria in Atlas by mail or something?”

“Ha, no, nothing like that,” Rae said. She’d stuffed her pockets with letters too. Pulling one out of her inside breast pocket on her blazer, she absently crinkled the paper between her fingers. “Yeah… don’t you hate it when you don’t check your work email—I mean, your mail—for a little while and things have piled up?”

“I have literally never had that problem one time, in my entire life,” Claire said.

“Hey, maybe you’ll be Queen one day, and you’ll experience the joys of dozens of people flooding your inbox with trivial bullsh—um, trivial stuff—and spamming you with questions they should already know the answer to.”

“God forbid,” Claire said without thinking. Rae looked back at her over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow.

To forestall the oncoming question Claire faked a laugh and asked, “Really, though. What was all that about? ”

Rae smiled nervously and scratched at her hair behind one ear, but didn’t respond.

“Fan mail from your girls at the other Academies around the country, no doubt,” Claire joked.

The hand stopped moving on the back of Rae’s neck. Her arm was held in such a way that it blocked Claire’s view of her eyes. Rae turned away.

The words almost echoed in the empty hallways. The silence stretched out. Claire quickened her pace as quietly as possible to get a glimpse of her companion’s face. She was obviously hurt, and because she didn’t realize Claire was looking, Rae wasn’t even bothering to hide it.

Why the hell did I say that? Claire asked herself. What is my God damn problem?

“Rae—”

“Ha!” Rae finally noticed she was being watched and burst out into a few short, fake laughs. Claire had faked enough laughs to recognize them anywhere. “Sorry, that startled me. Didn’t mean to space out for a sec. Good one!”

How, after all this time, was Claire so bad at being in love? Could she stop being mean for ten seconds? Rae was walking away from her now.

“Rae, stop. Stop,” Claire said, rushing forwards to catch her. She caught Rae around the waist and spun her around until they faced one another again. Before she recovered from her shock, Claire pulled her close for a hug. They were in the entrance hall, at the top of the grand staircase that connected the wings of the building. She pressed Rae against the bannister and looked out over empty space.

“...Claire?”

“Rae… please believe me. I didn’t mean that. I shouldn’t have said it, but I didn’t mean it, either. I know how you feel about me.”

“Hey, it’s fine!” Rae said, smiling at her. “It’s fine, now. I believe you, Claire.”

Claire didn’t drop her gaze until she was sure the smile was genuine. She broke away from the embrace, stealing a furtive look around to ensure that no one had seen them. They seemed to be fine. Most of the students who’d returned to the Academy early seemed to have retired to their rooms.

“I won’t pry if you ask me not to, Rae. I trust you. But, I’m sorry,” Claire said, laughing softly, “Admit it. You are really God damn weird.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m completely aberrant,” Rae agreed. “Can’t argue with that. Look, I mostly didn’t want to bring it up because it’s really boring, but… here.”

She fumbled with the letter she’d been holding for the last minute, clearly trying hard to open the wax seal gracefully. After a moment she gave up and ripped the paper, then passed the note inside to Claire.

“Your account statement is now ready for viewing…” Claire read. Beneath a bit more legal boilerplate was a matrix of rows and columns for different transactions, described in a shorthand that she couldn’t parse. All she could tell at a glance was that there were awfully large numbers next to each plus and minus. “Rae… this is a lot of money moving around.”

“I know, it’s kind of crazy.” Rae withered a bit under Claire’s unimpressed stare before deciding to explain further. “So, um, basically, I thought that since I know the kids of most of the people who run the big joint-stock companies, if any of them seemed really stupid, I could bet against their companies on the stock market. So I have. With a really high degree of accuracy and success, it turns out.”

“My God, Rae. How much money have you made doing this?” Claire asked, trying not to laugh at the absurdity. It was too much.

“Enough to take care of you into old age!” Rae said. “So far.”

“Old age?” So she’s been thinking about our future together too? Claire thought, before shaking her head. She was getting distracted again. “I appreciate the thought, but I’m already set to inherit a substantial percentage of all the land in the country… Um, also, this is weird: it says here that this account is in the name of Van Taylor.”

“Oh! Of course,” Rae said, gently pulling the note back out of Claire’s hand and tucking it inside her blazer. “What, did you think women could own property? Commoners can’t, at least. Dad just gave me, uh, power of attorney, and I’m the executor of his estate, among other things, so I can basically do what I want. I don’t think the law is supposed to allow me to do this, but I checked, and no law specifically stopped me.”

“You are… so much, Rae,” Claire said. She stopped herself from saying any more—she had a specific goal in mind for the evening, and she’d let herself get distracted from it by Rae's antics. Time to course correct.

“You really do love me,” she said. It was a statement more than a question.

“Of course,” Rae replied, sounding amused.

Claire turned around to check again that they were alone. Once satisfied that the coast was clear, she hooked an arm around Rae’s waist and began to guide her down the grand staircase towards the doors outside.

“...how much?” she asked.

“How much do I love you, you mean? That’s easy: more than everything.” Rae looked back for a moment at the hallway they’d just left, clearly wondering why they were detouring away from Claire’s rooms but not commenting.

“I feel like one would more commonly hear, ‘more than anything’,” Claire said.

“Well, that’s stupid. Anyone who says that doesn’t love like I love,” Rae said. “If it was a choice between everything else and you, I’d pick you.”

Claire blushed. After a moment she recovered and asked, “Now, how do you think I feel about you?”

“Oh, you? You hate me, of course.”

“Ha ha ha. Touché,” Claire said, enunciating each fake laugh as carefully and sarcastically as possible. She’d probably earned that barb. “Please answer me seriously.”

For once Rae didn’t have a little joke or deflection ready. She ran a hand through her hair, rested it at the nape of her neck, massaged a bit.

The silence lasted until they were at the main entrance. She put her hand on the handle and tried it: it turned. Closed, but not locked. She wanted to hear Rae’s reply before she opened it.

A few moments later, Rae finally answered.

“I—I don’t know, Claire,” Rae said. “I’ve asked myself that question, hm… thousands of times, I’d guess, over the last few months, even though I try to stop myself. I don’t want to assume anything, but…”

She trailed off.

“I don’t hate you,” Claire said. Rae smiled uncertainly at her, like she felt she was on shaky ground.

Okay, she thought. She still won’t say it for me. That’s fine.

Claire opened the door.

While apologizing to Rae a minute ago she’d realized she didn’t want to waste one of the last nice nights of summer. Maybe she could search for the words she needed out under the dark sky. This completely arbitrary decision rewarded her with the sight of something miraculous.

The carefully-manicured grasses, bushes and flowers were drenched in a fairy-tale light. The administration had installed lamps in the Academy gardens while the students had been away. It was a good reminder that the school’s primary purpose was dynastic self-aggrandizement—it was more important to the King to look like a beacon of progress than to be one.

In the light of day the new constructions had looked a bit garish. The shine of brushed metal and fresh paint stood out quite rudely from the aesthetics of the rest of the gardens. Claire decided she could forgive the things. At night they were hardly noticeable except for the soft golden light they cast over their surroundings.

She’d pulled Rae from the threshold down a garden path, starstruck. As Claire walked she let her free hand trail a few inches into the top of a waist-high hedge. The leaves caressed her on her way past. In the steamy heat of the late-summer night, every move she made felt languid and relaxed as if she’d just left the bath.

Rae did not seem as impressed. She appeared more excited by Claire’s excitement than by the miracle of science in front of her.

“I can’t believe you,” Claire laughed. “Where is your joie de vivre?”

“Oh, it vanished real quick once I remembered I was back to class in two days,” Rae said. “And… doesn’t it all seem a bit, like, mundane? As if the Aurousseau’s monopoly collapsed so lamps that should’ve been lit with magic got replaced with oil or whatever this is.”

“Mundane? We’ve both been around magic our entire life. Maybe you’ve forgotten that we’re in the very small minority of people who can use it to do anything interesting. For most people it’s a very expensive and useless toy. But this?” Claire gestured around them at the dimly lit gardens. “This could change the world. What if every city in the country had these on every street? You could actually go out and do things at nighttime.”

“As nice as it is to, um, do things at night,” Rae said, “We will have to part ways for the evening eventually.”

Without conscious effort she’d led Rae to the gazebo where they’d spent so much time together last year, Claire realized. It was not on the way to her room from Rae’s in the slightest. Their chairs and tables hadn’t stayed out for the last few months, so Claire took a seat on the stone steps.

“Will we?” she asked. “We haven’t always. Why are you in such a hurry? I’m enjoying a stretch after a whole day spent sitting down.”

“I guess, but…” Rae said, shifting uncomfortably. “The times we’ve… been together, that was just for the sake of practicality, right?”

“Did you hate it?” Claire asked.

“No! No, I loved—uh,” she stopped herself before she finished the sentence. Claire had grabbed one of her hands and pulled her down to a seated position besides her. “It was nice, I mean. Yeah.”

Claire locked eyes with Rae, trying to look deep into her red eyes and discern whatever was happening behind them. Rae seemed a bit more off-balance, a bit less sure, than she did most days. It made sense, Claire supposed. Rae probably had even less of a clue what would happen in the coming year than Claire did.

She shrunk under Claire’s prolonged stare but refused to look away. There were signs of an immense struggle for control playing out across Rae’s thoughts. Maybe those signs had been there every day and Claire had been too focused on herself and the inside of her own head to notice. Was there fear in her eyes? That mix of composure and uncertainty was how Claire would feel trying to navigate a pitch-black room by touch alone. Maybe, emotionally speaking, that’s what Rae was doing.

Well, Claire could spare her some light.

“Rae…” she said, voice soft. “I preferred those nights to being alone.”

God, Claire treasured moments—like now—where she really broke Rae’s composure. Usually Claire was the one who got flustered in conversations like this; instead, Rae was now blushing a deep scarlet. She finally dropped her gaze and turned away.

Her grip on Rae’s hand tightened. Claire wasn’t going to let her run from this.

“Did you never notice that I stopped asking you to leave me?” Claire asked.”Not just those two stupid bets I made with you, either. I don’t want you to leave my side. Ever. I… I hated it, when you lost your duel with Manaria. I didn’t ask you to go. I wish you hadn’t.”

“Not that time, sure, but like you said you did before, so I thought—”

“I missed you!” Claire blurted out. Rae took a half-step back, startled. Claire felt guilty about shouting in her face by accident, but she couldn’t give Rae a chance to wrest control of the conversation away.

“When you were gone I missed you. All the time.” she continued, stumbling over her words a bit.

“You… missed me? Wait,” Rae said, suddenly panicking, “I mean—I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have left—”

“No! Nonononononono,” Claire said, frantically interrupting her. “That’s not what I was trying to say at all! You’re not to blame, so you shouldn’t apologize to me! I’ve—I’ve needed to apologize to you.”

“For..?”

Claire forced herself to take deep breaths until she was back in control. Stay calm, she told herself. It’s only Rae. You can do this.

““My—my conduct towards you has, at times, been shameful,” she said, hating how wooden and stilted she sounded. Why was she getting awkward now? She pressed on. “I’ve heaped abuse after abuse upon you, and I haven’t made it right. So that’s what I’m doing, right now. Rae, I am so, so sorry. You deserve so much better.’

“Oh, Claire,” Rae laughed. She startled—she certainly hadn’t expected Rae to laugh at her. “Claire, you’re so much harder on yourself than anyone else is. I know what it’s like, to get stuck up inside your head, where all of your flaws feel so huge and you can’t get any perspective on them. So here’s some perspective for you: relax!”

“Relax?” Claire asked.

“Yeah! Chill out. Claire, you’re basically fine. I actually have had—what did you call it? Abuse after abuse—I’ve had that heaped on me before. And yeah, it sucks! I’d never mistake that feeling for anything else, or vice versa. So I can tell you with absolute certainty that I’ve never felt like that around you once. So, relax.”

“But—”

“Claire, I forgive you,” Rae said, voice firm. “All I want from you is that you forgive yourself.”

She wanted to protest. Surely her absolution couldn’t come so easily: yet it had. How could she argue with Rae over this? She didn’t deserve it but had no other choice but to accept it.

“Okay,” Claire said. “I’ll try.”

The conversation faltered. Claire looked up from the gardens and into the wide open sky. There should have been more stars out. The capital’s lights were outshining them, changing what should’ve been a pure black tapestry to a deep, dark purple. Sometimes as she stared into the heavens she felt a lurch of vertigo as if the earth had fallen away beneath her. Not now. Claire was perfectly comfortable with exactly where and how she was. She stretched out fully until she could rest her head on the top step of the gazebo. It was just as pleasantly cool as the night air was pleasantly warm.

“Has it been hard for you?” she asked. “You’ve been an amazing friend to me—actually, you’ve been my best friend. But I always knew that you wanted more.”

She’d lost sight of Rae’s face behind a pillar as she’d relaxed. The girl now crept as close as she dared to Claire, reclining into a position that was still more upright than Claire’s was. She wore a serious expression that surprised Claire.

“That’s not right, Claire,” Rae said, her voice quiet but insistent. “You shouldn’t ever feel guilty about not feeling the same way about someone that they feel about you. You don’t owe anyone your heart. Or your body, I guess. Besides, my wants aren’t very important. If my happiness would get in the way of someone else’s, I’d rather yield.”

“It’s not a zero-sum game, Rae.”

“Zero-sum game,” Rae said, slowly testing the words out for herself. “You’ve been reading too much theory. We’ve got to get you away from your work before you sound like an economics textbook. That would be a bad ending, for sure.”

“It’s a useful term!” Claire insisted, embarrassed. “Also, I’m being serious. I don’t want you to put my happiness ahead of your own anymore. I want us to share.”

“To share… happiness? That—”

“To share everything,” Claire said, cutting her off. “All of it. All that we are.”

A mixture of shock, confusion and joy battled across Rae’s face. After a moment, joy won. She clutched Claire’s hand in both of hers and brought them close to her chest, holding on as if to a lifeline, too ecstatic to give words to whatever she was feeling.

It was all Claire needed to see. She’d needed to confirm, one last time, that Rae’s love was true. She’d been so scared for so long that it was a trick, that it could still be snatched away from her.

No one had ever loved Claire as much as she’d wanted. Even before Mother passed away, when she’d had two parents that cared about her, they were too often busy with affairs of state. Claire had always been hungry for more. Then when it was just her and Father in houses that were too big for them, she’d been loved somewhere between ‘not enough’ and ‘not at all’. No one, not Father, not Manaria or Lene, certainly not other friends like Penelope or Loretta, had been able to give her what she wanted: to be fed enough love that she couldn’t take any more.

In truth all she’d done was raise her standards high enough that she should’ve been doomed to disappointment. There shouldn’t have been anyone on the planet who could have actually done what Claire wanted. Perfection wouldn’t have been good enough for her. But Rae Taylor had proven so many times, in so many ways, that she had surpassed perfection.

Everything about her should’ve been wrong. She had a highly abrasive personality. She ignored and defeated Claire’s efforts to push her away. Most importantly, there could never have been anything between them even if one of them had been a boy. Claire could only be more noble if she’d worn a crown, Rae was little more than a peasant. And they were both girls, so whatever Claire was feeling for her was impossible. Utterly impossible, as she’d told herself and Rae over and over, wondering why the words made her sadder and sadder each time.

But… goodness, she was pretty. Claire had noticed it before either of them ever spoke a word to one another. The commoner dozing off on the desk next to hers looked good enough to make Claire jealous. She hadn’t known herself well enough yet to understand what she was really feeling. She just thought that it would be nice if the girl hadn’t suffered the misfortune of being born a commoner. That way, maybe they could have been friends. It would be nice to befriend the one person in the world who smiled at her, who wanted to see her, who needed her.

Eventually Rae had let herself into Claire’s heart. It was inevitable, Claire figured. In truth she’d been obsessed with Rae from the start. All those little obfuscations and regrets barely concealed that Claire couldn’t take her eyes off her, couldn’t take her mind off her. She completely lost control of herself around the commoner. The feelings that ruled her were too big for one body to contain. Claire told herself it was hate. She’d needed it to be hate. It was the only strong emotion she knew how to use.

The word ‘hate’ never felt right, no matter how many times she tried it. It worked less and less well after Rae strong-armed her way into becoming Claire’s maid. At first she simply had a sense of grudging obligation towards her. One should take care of one’s own servant for no other reason than noblesse-oblige, even if Rae was annoying. She didn’t really want to hate her, even if it would’ve been simpler. She very quickly stopped being sure that she did. For one thing, she was fairly certain that no one hated anyone enough to wonder what they tasted like. Yet Claire had spent hours doing exactly that, often while carefully watching Rae cook from across a room. Chocolate, she’d decided, for her silky brown hair, and strawberries for her berry-red eyes. Long before Claire had realized she loved Rae, she’d already daydreamed more than once about places she could put her tongue to find out.

As a year that was in many ways horrible got worse, Claire had a disquieting realization. Whatever Rae meant to her, she was the only bright spot in her life. She realized that she looked forward to seeing her, and it was getting very hard to hide that fact.

After the Scales Festival she’d stopped trying. Nevertheless she couldn’t put how she felt into words. She’d convinced herself that was fine. By the start of summer, she thought she could accept a future with Rae where they were together, but not together.

It was good while it lasted. She’d been hurting, she’d been afraid, she’d been alone, and she’d had Rae, who wanted only to love Claire as much as she was permitted. So Claire permitted it.

Every day in the sun, every cooked meal, every ‘I love you’ Rae had shared with her healed Claire a bit more. Rae let her be utterly selfish. At that time in her life, that had been very important to her. She’d needed time to heal after a difficult year—after several difficult years, if she was honest with herself. But a selfish love was only half a love. Maybe she needed that, for a while. It was not, however, what she wanted.

Claire overflowed with love. She was so full of love that it hurt. It was the sweetest pain imaginable, but it was still pain. In general, pain was something she could tolerate; she’d lived with it for most of her life. But Claire wasn’t living for herself anymore. She lived for Rae, too. Rae, who had given so much, received so little from Claire in return. Claire, who had so much love to give and someone so deserving and so special to give it to had always held herself back.

Maybe she was fine with the status quo, maybe it was excruciating to her. It didn’t change what Claire was going to do. Rae had taken a leap of faith almost a year ago today, and Claire hadn’t caught her yet. She’d trusted everything that she was to Claire, and for that would have what she deserved. She’d been in freefall for long enough. Claire would give her everything she wanted, in defiance of Father, in defiance of the law, maybe even in defiance of God. None of it mattered.

Just not here. They weren’t alone. A few other pairs of students were wandering in the distance, enjoying the night air for themselves. Claire was glad they’d arrived at the Academy early. Far more students would be back in the dorms tomorrow.

She couldn’t do what she had to do with those prying eyes about. Claire stood, pulling insistently on Rae’s hand until she followed. As she rose Rae stumbled forward a bit; Claire caught her in her arms.

“Falling for me, again?” Claire laughed. She let one hand linger on Rae’s lower back for as long as she thought she could get away with. With the other she pulled her lover’s head to her chest for a hug.

Rae’s hands went straight for the back of Claire’s thighs. They only brushed against her skirt for a moment and withdrew the moment Rae noticed what had happened, as if instinct had briefly won over reason. Her hands hung in the air for a moment, unsure of where to go. Then she clutched Claire around the midsection as tight as she ever had, forehead pressing against the gem on Claire’s collar.

So close to the heart, Claire realized. She remembered all the times on summer nights like this where her heart had been beating fast and she’d hoped it would say everything for Claire that she couldn’t say yet.

“Can you feel it?” she asked, stroking Rae’s hair.

“Yes…” she heard Rae whisper. “Always.”

Without thinking Claire brushed her hair aside and kissed her gently on the forehead. She pulled away quickly in case anyone she hadn’t noticed was watching, but she’d done it. Beneath her hands, Rae’s entire body convulsed.

Rae was breathing as heavily as if she’d just run from a pack of wild animals. Claire watched her chest rise and fall with great interest with every shuddering breath. Was she crying? She was shaking like a leaf.

“Oh, no,” Claire said. “Rae…”

Rae pressed her face more fully against Claire’s chest. She could feel the wetness at the corners of her eyes as they traced against Claire’s blouse.

“It’s nothing,” Rae said, letting Claire wipe away her tears with slow, tender brushes of her thumb. “I’m just so, so happy right now. I never thought, I never dared to hope—I don’t know. Can we… can we just stay this way for a little while longer?”

As they held one another, Claire slowly scanned the gardens to make sure nobody got close enough to see them in the faint lamplight. The night was big enough for everyone as long as none of them got closer.

This is what I’ve always wanted, she realized. From the beginning, she’d always wanted to get a reaction out of Rae; she simply hadn’t been as good at it as the commoner had been about provoking her. Rae was so much fun to mess with. The look on her face when she was melting down was beyond parallel. Claire didn’t even have to hate herself for it anymore. Lovers had access to a much more effective set of provocations than the average bully. Having Rae weep tears of joy into Claire’s breasts was far more pleasant and far more satisfying than repeatedly failing to rattle her with feeble insults.

In that way, maybe Claire hadn’t changed as much in the last year as she thought. She was still self absorbed, still emotional, still liked to tease and provoke. Could all of those things work for her, rather than against? Selfishness was only one possible outcome of self-absorption: in moderation it had led to Claire introspecting and learning about herself. Despite the courtly etiquette she’d had beaten into her by her tutors, ‘emotional’ didn’t have to be a dirty word. For a very long time she’d only experienced rage and despair. Now they came rarely and left quickly. Her heart was too full of joy to make any room for them. Most importantly, she could mess with this girl all the time, now; in fact she’d only gotten better at it. No one could stop her except Rae, and Claire was excited to see how she’d eventually counterattack.

She felt like she’d unlocked something, a way of retaking a bit of dignity and control, without compromising on kindness or love; a pleasant synthesis of the old and the new. Maybe she couldn’t fundamentally change past a certain level. Certain traits had already been locked into her personality. But it was entirely up to Claire how those traits were expressed.

As for pride, her most ingrained trait and her greatest enemy: what could she ever be more proud of than this? The most beautiful girl in all the world was in her arms and didn’t want to leave. Claire had never defeated Rae, her greatest rival, even once. Nevertheless, she’d won.

She let Rae enjoy herself for another moment, but a group of silhouettes was starting to move down the path towards their gazebo. She felt compelled to answer.

“No,” Claire said. “I don’t want to stay here. Let’s keep moving, alright?”

Maybe she could forgive Rae for not noticing or not acting on Claire’s advances all summer. She’d shown Claire the way forward and lit her path. Claire had learned how to love by watching her. That ability Rae had, to change Claire and make her better, had to be worth at least as much as her capacity to understand her.

Now it was Claire’s turn to take the lead. She pulled Rae behind her at a brisk pace, happy enough to sing. She’d never make fun of theater kids again. She really would have burst into song if it wouldn’t have alerted every single person in the gardens to her location and to emotions they didn’t deserve to share. Maybe musicals weren’t completely ridiculous.

In silence they moved through the halls like they weren’t supposed to be there. Claire was convinced that her heartbeat was the loudest thing in the building, but they passed without obstruction. It was ridiculous for her to feel this way. They weren’t even doing anything wrong—not yet. Claire had plans.

At her door she fumbled with her key for a moment and dropped it in her haste. After a quiet curse she retrieved it and they made it inside, locking the door behind them. It was almost pitch black. Faint lamplight filtering through the windows barely illuminated the silhouette of Rae’s face and hair.

As much as Claire wanted to take her right then and there, she forced herself to stop. There was one last thing she had to do. With a sigh, she withdrew her wand and waved it at a lamp she knew to be in the corner but couldn’t see. The enchanted stone within flared up, casting a soft orange glow and long shadows over the room.

“Have a seat anywhere,” Claire said, motioning towards her bed.

She looked down for just long enough to reach into a pocket for something fragile and retrieve it with care. When she looked back up Rae was sitting at her desk.

“Not there,” she said, exasperated. “That’s my chair, do you mind?”

Without comment, Rae got up, moved, and gingerly sat on Claire’s bed, the only other spot available.

Claire took her place at Rae’s side. She almost went for her lap, but it would have sent the wrong message. Instead Claire kneeled on the mattress such that she had a bit of a height advantage over her companion.

“It’s not much,” Claire said, “But I wanted you to have this.”

She opened her hand and let the pendant swing out on its chain. Rae watched it dance in front of her with reverence.

When the amulet Rae had given to her on Foundation Day had shattered, Claire had decided she deserved an equal and opposite gift. It had taken her much of the summer to make it perfect: she’d visited every goldsmith in Euclid and only found one up to her standards. The man she ended up working with was a smith with a very low aptitude for earth magic and Claire had initially dismissed him on that basis. On her way out the door, she saw a number of pieces he’d designed in a glass case built into a counter that she’d passed by at first. The intricate floral, fractal, and geometric patterns were a cut above anything she’d seen in the rest of the city, better even than much of the jewelry Claire had inherited from her mother.

So Claire had commissioned the man. Who cared if he was, by her standards, barely a mage? She hadn’t really been looking for one in the first place, and besides, raw power meant nothing compared to control. He understood her artistic vision and she began to feel a sense of kinship with him whenever she watched the level of care and detail he put into his art. He worked on her dual projects all summer. Claire occasionally checked in on his progress to make comments or suggest tweaks. For the most part she trusted his judgment, though, and as a result both pieces were better than Claire ever dared to hope.

The ruby caught the light like the glint of Rae’s eyes seen through a veil of ivy. The tiny gold vines and flowers rolled like a wave around the facets of the stone, asymmetrical but right. That was what Claire had wanted, something that epitomized Rae herself: perfect precisely for her imperfections.

Rae leaned in to look closely at it, scanning every tiny detail with an expression of blank shock. In a daze, she slowly reached towards the pendant.

“Look, don’t touch,” Claire said, drawing her hand away.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I thought you meant it was for me and—”

“Of course it’s for you!” Claire snapped. “I just wanted to put it on you myself.”

Rae stared at her with wide and uncomprehending eyes.

“I… I really don’t know what to say,” she admitted after several seconds passed.

“So say nothing, wear it, and don’t complain!” Claire said. “...unless you think it looks a bit ugly or weird or if there are any alterations you want made? I could take it to a jeweler in the capital—”

“No, no,” Rae waved her off. “It’s… it’s perfect, Claire. Wow. Um. I really… huh. I never imagined I would ever… I don’t even know. It’s far too beautiful for me to wear, I think. But I will, and I’ll cherish it. It’s such a shame that yours broke, or we’d match.”

“Don’t we?” Claire had been waiting for that. At last, Rae fell into her trap. With her free hand, Claire undid her own jabot tie and the top button of her blouse. Hooking her thumb under the secret hidden within, she flicked the pendant free of her clothes. She’d leaned close enough to Rae enough that the chain swung almost into her face.

Rae flinched. Claire smirked and watched her face as she took a closer look, pinpointing the exact moment of realization by when Rae’s jaw dropped.

“I thought for sure you’d left it on the ship when it sank…” Rae murmured. “Why wouldn’t you? It was broken. Useless.”

“It saved me, Rae,” Claire said. “How could I ever throw it away?”

Claire’s own amulet had broken, it was true. The sapphire had shattered during their fight with Louis. Somehow it must have absorbed magical energy and was able to function as a one-time shield to protect the two of them. Claire still didn’t understand how it could have happened. Neither spells nor enchantments were supposed to work that way. It didn’t matter, now.

Apparently absorbing some of the momentum of the blow it had blocked, the pieces of the gemstone launched directly at Claire. She’d therefore caught most and had managed to recover the rest from the timber floor of the captain’s quarters before she’d fled the rising waters.

Each shard had been painstakingly reassembled and bonded back together with gold. Miniscule golden veins spiderwebbed over its surface and through its heart, contrasting with the sapphire’s deep blue and almost making it seem richer by comparison. She’d hated that Rae’s gift was broken, of course, but now that it had been fixed she might have preferred its new look.

“You could have replaced the gem,” Rae was saying, almost to herself. “Nobody but me would have ever noticed."

She looked utterly dumbfounded. Claire still hadn’t let up on the merciless combo she’d begun back in the gardens, never giving Rae a chance to regain her composure. Claire wasn’t even done yet. She had a finishing move for Rae that she was getting more and more excited to show her with each moment.

“I don’t care what anyone thinks of it besides you,” Claire said. “And, sure, I could have. But then it wouldn’t have been my amulet, it would have been partially what you gave me and partially something new and unfamiliar and less important. Who cares that it got damaged? Damage can be repaired.”

“Even though it didn’t work?”

“What do you mean, ‘didn’t work’?”

“Well—I don’t know if I really believed them,” Rae said, rallying a bit to try and answer the question, “But I was told it had a charm that would bring the wearer fortune in love. You haven’t exactly made progress with Prince Thane, unless I’ve missed a flag somewhere.”

Claire laughed. Prince Thane? Rae was still worried about him? Claire hadn’t thought about him once in at least a month.

“Rae,” Claire said, speaking slowly, taking utmost care in every word. “When you… left me, this was all I had. No friends, no family. Only your gift. I cried over it, I yelled at it, I lay awake in bed with it until morning. I put my whole spirit into it for days, wishing, praying, that it would bring you back to me. And it did. You’re here. It worked.”

Claire undid the second button on her blouse to pull the chain back inside and continued to talk. “You didn’t just give me your love. You gave me a second chance at life, at being the person I wanted to be. It’s the greatest gift you could ever give, so I wanted to return the favor.”

Rae was frozen in place like prey. Claire slipped the cord attached to the ruby pendant around Rae’s neck, letting her arms rest on her shoulders. They were very close, now. Claire avoided eye contact as she finished fumbling with the fasten and, feeling bold now, took the pendant in one hand and gently slid it beneath Rae’s shirt, guiding it towards where it would rest over her heart. She felt Rae catch her breath.

“Keep it with you, forever.” Claire tilted her head and stared into Rae’s eyes for any sign of comprehension. The poor girl was still thunderstruck. “Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”

“Yes…” she breathed. Then she shook her head, sharply, obviously trying to return to her senses. “Wait—no. No, Claire. If I guessed and guessed wrong, I’d never forgive myself. If you have something to say, spell it out for me.”

Even now, Rae wouldn’t take the final step. It was just funny to Claire at this point, now that it didn’t matter anymore, now that she’d found her resolve. Rae no longer looked shocked. She seemed afraid, if anything. Maybe Claire hadn’t given her enough credit. Rae probably had noticed every one of her advances over the summer, but had found reasons why the behavior was innocent. One could always trick oneself out of listening to reason, where matters of the heart were concerned; Claire had, from the first moment she felt herself fall for Rae.

Now all of Rae’s delusions would come crashing down, one way or another. Clearly she understood that much. She just didn’t know how those pieces would fall. And how could she? No one had ever loved Rae in the way that Rae had loved Claire. That much was obvious no matter how adamant Rae was to avoid talking about her life before the Academy. If Claire hadn’t been able to be certain that such a powerful love was real, why would Rae?

She’d loved so fiercely, she’d been so brave. Rae had patiently waited for a long time for a love that was worthy of her. She was still scared, still lost, still waiting for someone to tell her that she was safe. Claire decided she’d been waiting long enough.

“As you wish,” Claire whispered. Then she kissed her.

When their lips met, it was nothing like those stolen moments they’d had before, holding hands almost by accident or touching by contrived necessity. Those first moments of contact had been the most extreme. The friction between undeniable attraction and austere self-denial cast off too many sparks to result in anything other than a blaze. There was nothing to be afraid of anymore. They were alone and safe and together. So Claire let herself burn, surrendering herself to her passions. Being here with Rae was the most natural thing in the world, the only thing that had ever mattered, waiting for Claire to discover it.

Rae yielded to her. Claire pressed forward, maneuvering Rae so that she was on her knees, her back to the headboard, then Claire straddled her, pressing her waist against her navel and the rest of their bodies as close as space would allow. Claire ran one hand along Rae’s scalp, thumb on the ear, fingers in her hair, tilting her head back so that she could look down at her. Her lover had relaxed completely, eyes closed, in a position of total surrender to her. Claire passed her other hand across Rae’s chest, loosening her collar, then traced around to the small of Rae’s back and pulled her in close.

She kissed Rae again. It wasn’t enough: this still wasn’t enough for her. Claire was hungry for more. So she took more; she slipped her tongue into Rae’s mouth. Then she did what she’d promised—she spelled it out for her.

I

L

O

V

E

Y

O

U

She drew the letters out with slow, deliberate motions of her tongue, as best she could past Rae’s interference. She hoped Rae wasn’t too preoccupied with having her world rocked to notice all the effort Claire was putting in. It hardly mattered. She didn’t need the words to get the point across.

She kept going. There was no point or intent behind her motions anymore besides the will to somehow get closer to Rae, as if she could deny the basic reality that two different pieces of matter couldn’t coexist in the same space. Rae reacted like she was drowning and trying to steal air from Claire’s mouth.

Everything else disappeared. Claire let her eyes close too.

Then, for the first time in her life, she stopped thinking. The inside of her head had been so full of fear and insecurities for so long. Rae made it all stop for her; no more pain, just two bodies doing what was right, what they had to do.

She couldn’t tell if they stayed this way for minutes or hours. Claire wouldn’t have minded if the moment lasted forever. It ended when Rae tried to maneuver herself on top of her.

Grabbing her around the waist, Claire spun, throwing her back onto the mattress hard enough that she caught air. Rae flailed for a moment as she bounced, then froze after landing.

“No,” Claire purred.

Rae’s skirt had gone askew after being tossed, and it covered far less than it should. The sight of the pale skin of her thighs above her leggings was driving Claire feral.

“Oh—okay. No. I undewshtand.”

Claire had slipped a thumb into Rae’s mouth while she was talking, pressing down on her bottom canine and cupping her fingers under Rae’s chin. She forced her mouth open, as gentle as she could manage. Rae didn’t resist. She was melting at Claire’s touch, looking up at her with soft, half-lidded eyes like she was praying to God.

Claire didn’t even know why she was doing any of the things she was doing, just that she had to do them. She’d never been so certain of anything. Rae didn’t protest—unless her long, low moan was a form of protest. Somehow, Claire didn’t think so.

“I’ll be leading this dance, my love,” Claire whispered.

“Mmmmmhmmmhhhhh…”

“Yeah, you talked a big game,” Claire said, brushing a strand of hair away from Rae’s face so that she had an unobstructed view of her little meltdown. “But you’re pretty pathetic, aren’t you? Falling apart the moment a pretty girl kisses you once or twice.”

Claire pulled her hand away as Rae shook her head, hard, wailing “That’s not fair! Once or twice?! One or two thousand, maybe—those don’t count as one each just because you never let me up to breathe! That would ruin anyone.”

“Wait…” Claire said, self conscious. “Was I too mean, again?”

“No,” Rae assured her and pulled her close in once more, guiding Claire’s hand back to the side of her face. “Keep talking. Hurt me. Make me yours.”

“I don’t want to hurt you. Never again. But I’ll do anything you ask.” Claire said as she pressed her brow against Rae’s and nuzzled against her. Her warm feelings were interrupted by one last demand of practicality, and she continued, “By the way, if you have anything you need to do, if you need to grab water or something, I suggest you do so now. I’m not going to let you go for a while.”

“No. I’m so ready for this.” Rae laughed, eyes sparkling, and bit down on Claire’s thumb. “What haff I dun? Ife crated a monstah.”

“Probably, dear. We’ll see. I need to take out several month’s worth of sexual frustration on you. So, tonight,” she said, pressing firmly against Rae’s thigh and tracing a path upwards, “And tomorrow… and every other moment we can spare, I’m going to avail myself of you.”

“Am yours. Hallways.”

Rae covered Claire’s hand on her face with her own, leaning into it and letting Claire support her weight. Claire pulled her thumb free, ran it along Rae’s teeth until it was clear of her mouth entirely, then drew her in close.

If only she’d let Rae worship her sooner. Claire had wasted so much time for such silly reasons. No matter. Neither of them had to wait any longer.

Utterly at peace, Claire reached inside Rae’s skirt with her free hand. Ever so slowly, savoring every moment, she ran her hand across the top of her stockings and then bare skin. She was finally in uncharted waters, swelling with trepidation and excitement like a mariner sailing off the edge of a map.

She paused.

“Rae,” she murmured. “I… I know what I want to do to you. But I don’t know how.”

“That’s okay,” Rae said. They couldn’t see each other’s faces anymore. She’d moaned directly into Claire’s ear as she took her hand and guided it further in. “I’ll show you.”

Chapter 8: The Dance

Chapter Text

Chapter 9: 3.1 Light of Day

Chapter Text

Claire woke from a dreamless sleep.

Her room glowed a pale blue in the pre-dawn light. It had cooled down enough last night that they’d thrown the windows open, eventually, and now her curtains fluttered in the mild breeze like flowing hair. Sunshine passed through them and sent distorted shadows rippling over the walls and floor of her room, like the seafloor seen through a passing wave.

Despite the mild chill and only being covered by a thin cotton sheet she was warm. She had a little heat source all to herself. A friend. A partner. A Rae.

Rae was prone, lying half on top of Claire and half nestled into a hollow between Claire’s shoulder and right arm. Claire felt her before she saw her. Each of her lover’s slow, steady breaths thrilled her like a familiar song.

As beautiful as that music was, Claire nevertheless felt a powerful urge to bother her. With delicate motions, she lifted the hand from under Rae to place it on her back. After a moment of rest, she slowly, carefully slid her middle and forefinger from Rae’s tailbone all the way up her spine and into her hair.

Rae shivered.

“I guess you’re awake,” she heard Rae say.

Claire looked over, tilting her chin up and slightly straining her neck. Rae was smiling, her eyes still closed. As Claire watched, they opened. She took her time with it. Deliberately, inevitably, like the sun cresting over the horizon, more and more of the iris appeared.

Claire was impatient to bask in her light. She sent both hands down to link behind one of Rae’s thighs and tugged. “Get up here.”

“Waugh!” Rae startled as Claire dragged her about a foot across the covers until they were level, sharing Claire’s pillow. Blushing, she looked over at Claire in alarm, eyes sharp and fully awake.

Claire started giggling and couldn’t stop, not that she tried very hard. Something about Rae was inherently comical. Every reaction and every expression of hers was ever so slightly exaggerated. Or perhaps, Claire reasoned, she’d spent too much time around people who were afraid to be themselves. Maybe everyone was born like this and some simply trained themselves out of it.

After a moment, her laughing fit ended. She pressed herself closer to Rae and spoke into her ear before trailing off.

“You are so…”

“Absurd?” Rae suggested.

“That too,” Claire said. “I wanted to say, right. We—this—is so right.”

“Mmm… are you talking about our relationship? Whatever we are?” Rae asked. Then she grinned, pointing an accusatory finger at Claire. “Or did you mean the specific bit of me you’re holding onto at the moment?”

“Definitely both,” Claire said before she’d parsed the details of what Rae said. “Um, what do you mean, whatever we are? I thought I’d made it clear. I thought that was the first thing I did. You know, the trick with my tongue? Spelling out the words..?”

“Oh, is that what was happening?” Rae asked, laughing softly. “Claire, when you kissed me, for a few minutes there I lost all capacity for language. How could I have ever figured that out?”

“That’s a shame, I was so sure…” Claire said, momentarily sad before realizing just how little it mattered. “Regardless, I’m sure I’ll find another way to write myself into you. Until then I’ll speak plainly. I love you, Rae.”

“I love you… too.” Rae blushed. “Wow—didn’t ever think I’d be able to say it that way.”

“You’ll have so many more chances. I need to catch up to you. You’re probably a thousand or so ‘I love yous’ ahead of me; I promise I’ll narrow that gap. I don’t intend to lose to you, ever again, in any way.”

“Oh, Claire,” Rae said, “Who taught you to speak this way? So romantic. You could cut a broad swathe through the girl’s dorms by the end of the afternoon, if you tried.”

Now that painted a picture. Claire let herself get distracted for a moment by the idea of sneaking through the building in her tuxedo and with a rose stuck between her teeth before she returned to the here and now.

“You taught me how, obviously. And, unfortunately for them, those fair maidens—our classmates—will have to remain un-ravished,” Claire said. “After all, I already have my hands full.”

For emphasis, she let her hands wander, then gave Rae a firm squeeze.

“Eep! Um, okay. Wow, sucks to be all of them right now.” Rae said. She paused. “I’m sorry for nagging you about this, but even though I know how you feel about me, I still don’t know what your plans are for me. I don’t know, maybe you’re just going to have me around as your kept woman? That would be awesome, actually, we can do that; paramour has a nice ring to it. But—”

“Partners,” Claire said, interrupting her. “Equal… partners.”

“Your girlfriend, then?”

“Girlfriend? Ugh,” Claire said with feigned disgust. “It sounds so… juvenile. Too small for whatever this is. But sure, girlfriends, until I think of something better.”

“Any ideas?”

“Hmm…” Claire had in fact invested some thought into that question already. She suggested, “Mon coeur? Mi amore? My little Rae of light?”

“Wow,” Rae said, sounding rather taken aback. She curled up slightly so that she could rest her head on Claire’s chest once more. “When I joked about you coming up with cute nicknames for me a while back… I didn’t expect any of these. I was expecting something funnier, maybe a bit meaner, definitely less serious.”

“Well, too bad, it’s what you’ve got,” Claire said.

Claire looked back at the rest of her room and marked the passing minutes by the shortening of the shadows. Golden light crept across the floor towards her. They’d have to get up soon, and start a new day and a new life together.

Their first night together, the night before last, was more of a brief intermission than the end of one day and the beginning of another. They’d crashed closer to dawn than dusk, and no sooner had Claire awoken than she was all over Rae once more.

That pattern, unfortunately, couldn’t repeat today, but it had been incredible while it lasted. An entire day to make love: life was probably all downhill from here. They’d only taken breaks when their bodies demanded it, and twice they’d snuck off to an empty kitchen during off-hours to cook a simple meal together. It was something they’d done hundreds of times before but it felt utterly ridiculous in this new context. Neither of them were doing anything wrong but they spent the entirety of both outings as tense as traitors. Fortunately, they had a perfect outlet for all that nervous energy.

Before finally ending the day Claire had demanded a bath. While the bathhouse had been locked up by then, Academy Knights were bequeathed the keys to all the major Academy facilities, as well as several bonus mystery keys per keyring that they hadn’t found matches for yet. They’d been nearly silent throughout the entire process, including turning the wrought iron key in the heavy-duty lock of the bath complex. As slowly as they moved, they noticed a wet handprint on the gates, as if someone had very recently left the bath after doing the exact same thing. No fooling around, they’d decided. Get in and get out without getting caught. Predictably they’d failed to hold themselves to that, but only a little, and made it back to the room almost in time for a full night’s sleep.

Would every morning be like this now? Claire didn’t have a roommate and Misha wouldn’t rat out Rae. There was no reason not to stay together. She almost couldn’t wait to go back to bed, just so she could experience this again.

After a few minutes of watching the sun together Rae began to speak. She was quiet, pensive, as if she were speaking to herself more than to Claire.

“I never thought anyone would ever feel about me the same way I felt about them,” she said. “Let alone you. Being here with you… I can’t even begin to explain how completely impossible this should have been. That you liked girls, that you’d like me… it’s all impossible.”

It felt like a cue for Claire to say something, so she did; saying, “You’re right. It was impossible.”

Rae fell silent. Claire didn’t feel like their conversation had reached a natural stopping point. As that silence lengthened she began to suspect she’d said the wrong thing.

She turned towards Rae once more and saw something horrific. All of a sudden, an expression of shock and horror warped her face. She looked like she was barely holding herself back from crying, but she’d been fine up until mere moments ago.

“Wh-what..?”

Oh, hell. How had Claire hurt her this time? She had to stop doing this to her!

“No!” Claire said, close to tears herself as she grabbed Rae’s shoulders. “No, my love. I meant that it was impossible, but that you made it possible. You’re the only one who could have ever loved me for who I am. What did you think I meant?”

Rae teared up. Her only response was a quiet gasp. “Oh.”

Unsure of what to do, of what the problem was, Claire waited for her to speak. After a moment, Rae found words that worked for her.

“There’s a part of me that’s like… ‘hey, Rae, are you actually this stupid, to think you could ever be so happy?’ And it’s been getting louder and louder for months. And—I don’t know. I can’t accept that what’s happening between us is real. It’s too good to be true. It’s so, so silly, but for a moment I really thought you were going to turn to me and tell me that I’d been dreaming for too long and it was time to wake up. I keep waiting to realize I’m alone in my own bed and that it was all—”

Overpowered by a surge of tender emotions, Claire rolled over onto Rae, dragging the sheets with her, until they were both wrapped up together in a cocoon. She was finally being honest. Claire wouldn’t let her regret it.

“Do I feel real to you, Rae?” she asked, lightly grazing the tip of her lover’s nose with her own as she straddled her. “Do I smell real? Do I look real?”

Rae’s gaze softened with Claire’s interruption and she visibly relaxed, the rise and fall of her chest slowing as her breathing stabilized.

“Do I sound real?” Claire moved to Rae’s ear, breathed her words into it, then bit down ever so slightly on her earlobe. Rae squirmed underneath her as Claire nibbled her way back across her face and back to her mouth. Finally, she kissed her once more, deep. “Do I… mmmmmmm… taste real?”

Claire broke away, watching for Rae’s reaction. She gently brushed away a trail of saliva that still linked their lips.

“Of course,” Rae said, the tears flowing faster even as her smile widened. “You’re the only thing that’s ever been real to me.”

As she silently wept, Claire followed the tear tracks down her face, kissing them away. She arched her back and relaxed her arms forward, crossing them behind Rae’s head, until her lover could rest in Claire’s arms.

So Rae hadn’t been okay either. Claire could’ve guessed that, but never before knew what form the damage took. Rae only ever opened her heart enough to let love in and out before. All the ways in which she hurt were hiding somewhere further within.

At least that was something Claire could empathize with. She’d always wanted to keep her internal strife firmly where it belonged: internally. When she’d let something slip around Rae, though, she’d only ever been rewarded for the mistake: those mistakes were the only things that had ever healed her.

She’d thought that her pain had made her stronger. It hadn’t. It had only made her hurt. Did Rae think the same thing, still? She obviously hadn’t meant to let Claire see this part of her, ever: but then again, who did? She might have even managed to keep it hidden if life wasn't so God damn unfair. A few words from Claire could unravel her.

Rae’s heart was far too beautiful and fragile a thing for Claire to fully trust herself with. Nevertheless, it was her responsibility, now. She would figure out what to do in order to keep it safe. Learning the right and wrong words to say was the least she could do, especially since Claire was directly to blame for at least one thing she knew Rae’d been hurt by. Wow, she thought, Rae can’t accept that I would ever love her? Whose fault might that be?

It was time for Claire to try a little bit harder for her.

“This isn’t a dream,” Claire said. “You’re awake. And, until you can accept that, I’ll do my best to make you believe in me.”

They were so close, but there was still so much distance between them. Rae was perfect, for Claire; that didn’t make her flawless. If only it were like the novels and true love’s kiss made every problem disappear. Maybe some people got to have that, but they could never have it so easy.

Rae had once told Claire that she’d saved her. Well, Claire hadn’t. Not yet.

A wordless nod was Rae’s only response, this time. She was beginning to calm down. The tears were drying already. After waiting a minute to see if Rae wanted to talk more about it, Claire accepted that she wasn’t ready yet. There was no need to pry. It would take time, but they had time now. It had taken Claire a year to even begin to change, so she could extend at least that much grace to Rae. For now, she wanted to take Rae’s pain away as Rae had done for her, so she did what Rae would do—deflect, change the subject with a joke.

She injected as much pompousness and ironic severity into her voice as possible as she said, “I do need to stress that I’m a real girl with real problems, dear. I can’t have you turning into some sort of solipsist on me. Father once said that the way to cure someone of that philosophy was to club them repeatedly and ask them why they were hitting themself.”

“Oh, you’re offering to hit me? Promise?”

And Rae was back to normal. Claire sighed at the antics before remembering that they could speak to each other like this now, and she laughed and played along with her jokes for a minute. But… even though they’d just barely escaped from serious discussion, Claire needed to have the last word. She would hate herself if she didn’t.

“Rae,” She said. “When you need me, when you’re ready, I’ll be here. You’ve helped me so much, so just say the word and I’ll figure out how to help you in return. Until then, all I can say is that I’m not going to disappear on you. The next time you wake up back at home in your bed in Euclid, I’ll be there, too.”

She almost kissed Rae again, then paused.

“Alright, this is bad. We probably need to stop or we won’t make it to class,” Claire said, grudgingly, trying and mostly failing to get off the mattress. She groaned. “Ah, God damn it all to hell, class.”

“Fuuuuuuuuuck…” Rae said, drawing the word out as long as possible. A vulgar way of voicing the thought, perhaps, but Claire had to agree with her. f*ck. “So they says to me, they says: Rae, go study at the Academy, Rae. Learn about your magic, Rae. Meet cute girls, Rae. Nobody ever warned me I’d have to wake up for classes. This sucks.”

“At a school? Who’d have thought. It’s a terrible curse,” Claire agreed, still struggling to free herself. “Rae, stop being such a pest. Let me let go of you.”

“NooooooooooooooooooooOuch!” She yelped as Claire pinched her. “What the heck. Okay, fine, let’s get up.”

Swinging her legs off the bed Claire tried to stand. As she did a white-hot spike of pain shot through the left side of Claire’s lower back and tailbone. She nearly doubled over, only staying upright by grabbing the rail of the empty bunk above her own.

“Augh! Rae! Rae, save me, Rae! I’m so sorry for everything, it hurts so muuuuch…” Claire whined.

“Coming to the rescue!” Rae ran around the room with characteristic vigor as she searched for her wand. She pulled it from one of her discarded pieces of uniform lying on the floor, condensed some water out of the air with it, and began to channel a healing spell.

The pain melted away. Claire had no idea there even were muscles that could be pulled through there, but as Rae pointed out to her, her most recent workout had been somewhat atypical. They turned to the project of getting ready for the day.

First things first: getting dressed. They encountered one problem immediately. Rae didn’t have a clean shirt or blouse. There was no point in her making the perilous trek to her room and back to find one and run the risk of being spotted, so Claire lent her one. It was just a bit too short in the waist and too large in the chest. Something about seeing Rae wearing her clothes was incredibly alluring, even if they didn’t quite fit properly.

While Rae was finishing changing, Claire applied a light spray of perfume to her wrists. Then once properly attired, Rae got to work on her hair. This proved to be a sticking point. Claire was being neurotic about it. She couldn’t help herself.

“Are you sure that ringlet is in the right spot?” Claire fretted.

“It’s exactly the same thing I always do,” Rae said. Claire watched her in the mirror. She was concentrating intently on her work, brow furrowed, biting her tongue.

“But are you sure—”

“Claire, I’ve done this a hundred times,” Rae said. Was she getting a bit testy with her? What was her problem? She’d pulled the curling iron from Claire’s hair. “Just sit back and relax, and let me do my job.”

“Don’t dismiss my concerns!” Claire said, raising her voice. “How am I supposed to relax at a time like this?”

“I see. Could you do me a favor and cool this thing down so I can put it on your desk? Thanks,” Rae said, as Claire obliged with a flick of her wand. The heat of the metal dispersed throughout the room. “Now, what is this really about?”

“It’s about my hair, Rae. You have to make sure it’s perfect.”

Rae rested her hands on Claire’s shoulders.

“And hurry up, too! We don’t have much time,” Claire said. It was strange: why was she feeling a bit out of breath? “If there’s a single hair out of place, Rae—people will know. People will talk.”

“Iiiiiiiii see now.” Rae stooped over to give Claire a hug, further risking messing up her hairstyle.

“They’ll know, they’ll talk,” Claire said, muffled by speaking into Rae’s arms. She felt her composure slipping. “Somehow they’ll find a reason to take you away from me.”

“I’ll never allow that to happen, so—”

“I can’t lose anyone else!” Claire shouted.

In the mirror she saw the fear in her own eyes. It gave her perspective, as if she could see a calmer version of herself on the other side of the glass.

Oh, Claire realized; So that’s what I’m upset about.

“Claire, Claire! Stop for a second,” Rae said, standing up straight once more. "Breathe in. Breathe out. In, slowly through the nose, out, slowly, through the mouth. Focus on your breath. Master it. I know you can do it.”

“Oh—okay,” she said, taking a shuddering breath.

“Is it okay if I talk at you for a sec?”

After taking a moment to make sure Rae didn’t have an iron in her hair, she nodded.

“It’s true,” Rae began, “That there are people who won’t want us to live. It’s true. I’d be lying if I told you that’s an easy bit of knowledge to live with. They win if they can isolate you. When you’re in pain, they want you to think that you suffer alone. When you’re happy, they want you to be ashamed of that, as if anything that feels right or good also necessarily makes you wrong. You’re not. Just because people don’t like to talk about anything that breaks from tradition and their ideas of what should be, doesn’t mean we don’t exist. Whether it’s falling in love with others of the same sex, or changing your gender expression to whatever matches how you feel inside; these are normal, healthy things that people have always done and always will.”

Claire looked down at her hands nestled into her skirt as she listened and breathed. She opened her fists to find thin red lines from where her nails had cut into her palms. Slowly, she spread her fingers as wide as they could go on a long inhale, then balled them back up into a fist on the exhale. And repeat.

“The people who don’t want us to be happy are not, themselves, happy. They’re more worthy of contempt than fear. Because they’re unhappy, because they hate change, they don’t recognize happiness or change in others. We just need to be a bit clever about this. We’ll have to wear our masks, move in the shadows, keep our voices low. It might not be safe for us, right now, to live and love in the open. But we can survive in the dark, in the night, in the silence where our enemies won’t ever find us. We can survive—no—we can truly live that way for as long as we have to, but we won’t have to forever. One day, we will win, and we will hold each other in the light of day without fear.

“Aaaaaand done!” Rae exclaimed. Claire started. It had been a minute since she’d seen her reflection. “Voilà! Up to your specifications, Your Grace?”

She turned back towards the mirror and the woman trapped behind the glass. She looked… like herself. A bit taller, a bit more tan, than she’d been before the summer began. Also, for some reason, her eyes were a bit damp. Claire dabbed at them with a handkerchief. But it was still Claire François looking back at her, with Rae Taylor over her shoulder, supporting her. As always. She’d done up Claire’s hair perfectly. As always.

She didn’t know what to say. How was one supposed to respond to getting monologued at? Most people didn’t do that to her. Actually, none of her peers ever had before, not even Rae.

“When did you get so God damn eloquent?” Claire asked.

“Ah, I’ve just had much longer to think about the politics—for lack of a better word—concerning us deviants,” Rae said, turning away to finish cleaning up after herself. “It’s all thanks to my head start. I’m sure you’ll run rhetorical circles around me once you’ve closed that gap.”

“I’m not so sure, dear. Give yourself a bit more credit.”

“No,” Rae said. She smiled. “Can’t make me.”

It was nice that she was back to normal—or at least, back to acting as normally as Rae Taylor would ever act. They’d both spent far too much of the day crying. On some level, though, it was nice to cry. She’d always felt like she was alone in her suffering. The fact that even Rae hurt, cried, and sometimes didn’t know what to do made Claire feel stronger, somehow. Nobody was bulletproof, but one could make oneself stronger for the sake of love.

Rae was putting on her shoes. Claire already had. Their little reprieve from reality was about to end. It ached. On some level, Claire never wanted to see anyone besides Rae ever again, and didn’t want anyone else to see her. The world didn’t work that way. She’d have to make herself legible to others once again. That act, of becoming a person that a stranger could understand, was essential to navigating everyday life. Claire had done so her entire life, but it felt different to do it as Claire François, ducal heiress and daughter to the Minister of Finance, than as Claire François, the young woman who had taken a maid for a mistress.

She hugged her illicit lover from behind as she’d begun moving towards the door. Claire wanted the magic to last just one moment longer.

“Oh, Rae,” she murmured. “Why are we like this? How did we get so hurt so young?”

“Because,” Rae said, raising a finger and adopting a didactic tone, “Being a girl is hard enough if you’re normal, and we’re… not that, so we’re doing the extra special prestige version of growing up.”

“Oh, good,” Claire said. She chuckled, trying not to make the laughter sad. “Let’s make life harder for ourselves, why not. It was such a breeze, before.”

Rae rotated halfway towards her, as much as she could in Claire’s tight grip, to put one arm around her. She leaned slightly so that their foreheads touched.

“Having any regrets yet?” Rae asked.

“No. Don’t hold your breath, either.” Claire shuffled forward just enough that she could run a finger over the coat of paint on the door to her room. It was time to go. But…

“One last thing, Rae,” Claire said. “I’ve shown you who I really am. This person, in your arms? That’s me. But I can’t do this for anyone else besides you. I can’t even do this for you unless we’re alone. I have to hide her, for now. I have to remember how to be someone elseㅡbut don’t forget that it’s someone else. The person I’m about to be is not me. I need you to promise that you won’t forget my true face, and I need you to make sure I don’t forget, either.”

She let Rae stare into her eyes for as long as she needed. Claire wondered what she was looking for. It didn’t matter, as long as Rae was taking her seriously.

After a moment, she had her answer. “Claire, I’ve got you memorized. I swear to God.”

“Okay,” Claire said, fortifying herself for the day to come. “Okay. I’ll see you again soon.”

She let go of Rae and opened the door.

After being in almost constant contact with Rae for about thirty hours and, to a lesser extent, three entire months, letting go of her was like losing a limb. She tried to pretend like the amputation wasn’t excruciating as they headed to class. It was too late for them to get breakfast first. They’d have to suffer until lunch.

They walked together across the Academy grounds, Rae tailing a half-step behind her. Claire marveled at all the… children milling about. And she didn’t just mean the incoming first-years: her classmates seemed so small to her. How many of them had what she had? Real victories, real fears?

She passed them by.

They avoided being late, but only just. Most of their classmates were already seated. She moved through them, passing through dust spinning through sunbeams. Scheduling mathematics as the first class of the first day of a term should’ve been a capital offense. She couldn’t even indignantly ask, ‘but when am I even going to use this?’: she was close to putting ink to paper on the project she’d been researching for months, and had a gloomy feeling that she would need a decent handle on the subject.

Claire passed wordlessly by Misha in the front row, who actually winked at her on their way past but said nothing. The princes Rhod and Yuu were chatting a few rows back while Thane—handsome, handsome Thane—brooded beside them. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

Rae turned at the aisle before Claire did and found her seat. In the ten seconds between Rae sitting and Claire finding her usual place at her side, another girl that Claire had never bothered remembering the name of tried to snipe the spot away from her.

“Don’t even think about it!” Claire snapped, throwing her books on the lacquered wood next to her fingers with the intent to make the loudest bang possible. She yelped and ran off towards the back of the room.

The lecture hall, the same familiar faces, the beat-up desks, the smell of dust, the early morning light… the combination of senses caused Claire to feel a sudden lurch of deja vu. Hadn’t they danced this dance before?

It was exactly like the beginning of last year. It was just another term. If they’d made it through before, they could make it through once again. Most importantly, it meant that there was a way for Claire and her lover to be together in public, and it was for her to do exactly the same thing she’d always done—pretend not to be smitten with Rae Taylor.

“A mere commoner such as you still has the nerve to share a desk with me?” Claire said, trying to remember how to scowl at Rae. “Know your place!”

As for Rae—she didn’t have to change at all. Rae smiled and turned back towards Claire as she said the line that everyone expected of her.

“Aw, but, Miss Claire, I love you!”

Chapter 10: 3.2 Girl Talk

Chapter Text

Another victory for the unconquerable human spirit. They survived mathematics. They even made it through their class on the history of the kingdom as well, though it was only syllabus week. Next time would be harder.

Claire noted a lot of interesting omissions in the history syllabus. The only commoner who bore discussion was Saint Mistral, a woman whose story most of them already knew. The country’s patron saint was not exactly an obscure figure. In almost four hundred years since her martyrdom, though, the only others even mentioned were the Aurousseau who’d refined the first magical stones and the Academy’s own Professor Torrid. Beyond them, it would be an entire semester of learning about how the nobility, and the nobility alone, shaped the country’s history.

When Claire had pointed this out to Rae as they returned to the gardens for afternoon tea, she made some obscure joke about how ‘she’d been infected by the woke mind virus’ about three minutes before falling asleep on her arm.

They’d returned to the gazebo. In the last forty eight or so hours the chairs had been hauled out of wherever they’d been hiding by the groundskeepers. Rae had poured a cup of tea for Claire and then one for herself at Claire’s insistence. After completing this task they’d sat down together and Rae began the tedious process of sorting through some of her mail from the other night.

It clearly wouldn’t last. Rae’s stamina was spent. After tossing about twenty into the trash pile, with zero so far worth keeping, she’d slumped forward nearly into her tea. Claire caught her and let Rae lean on her instead. Either Rae felt comfortable enough around her that Claire’s mere presence was as soothing as a lullaby, or her work was so boring that it could put a person to sleep instantly. Claire tried very hard to believe in the former option.

Claire busied herself with making notes in the margins of one of the books on economics she’d taken from her Father’s library. She’d overcome her natural aversion to vandalizing books once she’d realized the vast majority of these so-called intellectual’s treatises weren’t worth the paper they were printed on.

This particular author was wrong enough that it would have enraged her if not for Rae’s calming presence. He was arguing, in essence, that agricultural production was the only measure of a nation’s wealth. Utterly ridiculous. She was really scraping the barrel, reading this. It wasn’t as if the price of bread was unimportant, but it was only one commodity of dozens that were necessary for daily life. Claire was trying to brainstorm a better commodity to chart economic activity. Maybe yards of cloth? She could probably ask Rae’s parents some questions to get a head start on understanding the industry.

After a few more minutes of this she cast a furtive glance around herself to make sure nobody was watching her. She waited for some older boys to pass her by then dropped her quill and slowly reached over to massage Rae’s shoulders. She was making such cute noises in her sleep. Claire couldn’t resist her.

The girl was absolutely out cold. Rae’s only response to her touch was to murmur a few indistinct words in her sleep. Poor dear; Claire had ridden her into the ground a bit, hadn’t she? It wasn’t as if Claire had been brimming with energy all day—she was plenty exhausted herself—but she was the more athletic of the two by far. Rae’s nap was the first time all day since they’d left her room that she could let Rae touch her without raising eyebrows, so she wasn’t complaining. There was no law against letting your maid rest on you. Claire probably would’ve done the same for Lene if she were here.

Oh, Lene. Wonderful, foolish Lene. Claire wished intensely that she were here. Surely she would understand Claire’s feelings. If Claire could’ve seen the future, was there anything she could’ve done differently? If she’d been less self-absorbed, would she have noticed Lene’s plight, her relationship with her brother, anything at all that could’ve given Claire a clue as to what was happening?

If only. Nobody could see the future, no one could change the past.

At least, thanks to Rae’s foresight and Claire’s combat magic, nobody had died. Even when the mysterious assassin took advantage of the confusion to attack Prince Thane with poisoned blades, nobody had even been permanently maimed as a result of the whole affair. Because Rae had saved his son’s life King l’Ausseil I Bauer had granted them both an audience and a boon.

Rae could have asked the King for anything. Instead she’d joined her voice to Claire’s to beg for clemency for Lene. To say she’d thrown away the opportunity of a lifetime was, frankly, an understatement. Rae could have lived a dozen lives without ever getting that chance again: a chance that she’d spent to save the life of someone she didn’t even love.

Goodness, Claire thought, have I always been such a crybaby? Her eyes were welling up. She let go of Rae with one hand to pull out her handkerchief and dab carefully at her eyes. Well, at least Rae making her emotional was an established pattern that she could explain away if she ever had to, if she were clever.

Rae’s actions on that day gave the lie to Claire’s worries of being manipulated by her—to some degree, at least. For months she’d been maintaining a balance of fear. Claire had been equal parts drawn to the commoner and terrified that every word she spoke was a lie. After all, why would Rae ever love her? She could’ve had at least one of the princes, if not all three. They were all, at the very least, interested in her.

If Rae’s plan had been to betray Claire for her own selfish ends, right then, in front of the king, would have been the moment. Maybe Rae could’ve made a convincing argument that, having saved Thane’s life, she was now entitled to it, and ask for his hand in marriage. Just like that she’d be a few heartbeats away from being Queen. As unlikely as a marriage between a prince and a commoner was, if it would ever happen, it would be with someone like Rae Taylor. Who knew what she would’ve been capable of?

It didn’t happen, though. Rae let the moment pass her by. For the first time, Claire had really, really believed in her. She’d almost kissed Rae right there, in front of her sovereign. That would have been unwise. Claire had spent a lot of time that evening trying to think of innocent explanations for that urge, with little success. Unsurprising, in retrospect.

Better late than never. Claire could grant her a boon or two. Leaning over after checking that the coast was clear, she went to kiss Rae on the neck, then stopped.

She pulled away. She had to be smarter than this.

The Aurousseaus had been blackmailed over their incestuous relationship. It was worth noting that, fairly or not, her society didn’t take any less dim a view on hom*osexuality. All forms of deviancy were equally intolerable. Never mind that what they were doing harmed absolutely no one; from the standpoint of the law, they might as well be cannibals.

Therefore, either of them could be vulnerable to the same sort of manipulation as Lene and Lambert had been. It was yet another reason to be careful around Rae in public that Claire hadn’t considered yet. Maybe the forces at work in the shadows would rather have Claire or Rae as pawns rather than killing them outright.

If that happened, Claire decided, they’d run. They could do it. They were strong. Fight off their pursuers, run to the sea, get aboard the next ship leaving port. See where the tradewinds took them.

It probably wasn’t good that the only person who made her feel right and normal was also, through no fault of her own, the locus of all of Claire’s anxieties at the moment.

Nevertheless her worries calmed somewhat now that she’d thought up a realistic exit strategy. She didn’t really want to quit school but, on the other hand, had always wanted to be a pirate. Claire probably would’ve been great at it. With Rae at her side, what couldn’t she do?

That dream was shelved for later. Releasing Rae, she returned to her dismal book and writing her angry notes.

Another bittersweet memory for her gazebo, then. She’d been hoping to tip the balance in her favor, this year. Claire did love the place. It wasn’t on the way from anything to anything, so to arrive at it one had to actively seek it out. By staking her claim on it early enough last year she’d kept everyone else away. It was a private place, safe for her, where she was in total control of who could enter and leave—with one notable exception.

It was beautiful, especially in fall and spring. She was looking forward to the leaves turning again, when the horizon was a dappled orange and yellow and red. For now verdant greens surrounded her, the decorative trees and hedges still soaking up as much daylight as they could before the seasons turned. An entire rainbow of color sprouting from nearby flowerbeds. She was very close to some of her favorites: hydrangeas were perennial but there were even a few late-blooming lilies that would typically flower in spring.

For every one of her good memories of this place, such as swearing an oath to Rae that she would never, ever give up or lose hope, or quietly conversing over tea with Lene and Rae, or kissing Rae on the forehead the other night—come to think of it, all of her good memories featured Rae centrally—she had another bad memory too. Those also tended to involve Rae, though usually through no fault of her own, and sometimes by omission. Claire could count dozens of examples over the last year of casual cruelty towards Rae that still haunted her when she was trying to sleep, until one day Claire was falling apart in front of Penelope and Loretta because her commoner had gone away.

Penelope and Loretta… oh, hell. Pepi and Loretta. Here they came now. It would be a nightmare keeping track of that girl if not for her bright pink hair. Pepi Barlier could be weirdly stealthy when she tried. If not for her state of heightened nerves Claire might not have noticed her until it were too late. She was holding hands, Claire noted, with a much more striking figure. Loretta looked like she’d gained at least ten pounds of pure muscle in the past three months. She had a great tan too. Claire approved.

Wait—Rae was still dozing on Claire’s arm. She had no idea how to explain that to them—nor did she have any interest in doing so.

Frantically attempting not to seem frantic, Claire shifted Rae over to a position where her head could loll against one of the pillars holding up the gazebo roof, then scooted her own chair away. She winced at the screech of metal on stone.

Once she felt reasonably safe, Claire sighed. Maybe it wasn’t fair to judge the two for habits that Claire had seen no problem with until recently and that she still hadn’t freed herself of. Furthermore, they’d always been following Claire’s lead, trying to figure out what she wanted to do and suggest it first. The fact remained that they’d always wanted to take things a step too far with Rae. Claire’s obsession with her, at first, had been expressed through arguing with her and bothering her in minor ways. Pepi and Loretta wanted to push things further. Claire hid books, her lackeys wanted to burn them. It was a small difference but, she felt, a significant one.

Most of all the two seemed to come from a very different time in her life. Her friendship with the pair, such as it was, had taken place entirely within a period of her life where she was unhappy. Again, not their fault, but it made it hard to associate the two with anything positive. Maybe Claire was overreacting. Maybe it would be comfortable and right speaking with them again as if she hadn’t changed at all. But… that wasn’t what Claire wanted. She didn’t want to slip back into her old role.

Bother, Claire thought. What am I going to do with you two?

An unlikely savior appeared. Claire had been so preoccupied with the sight of pink hair going off like a warning bell in her mind that she hadn’t even noticed his approach. Prince Yuu waltzed across the grass on an intercept course and stopped the two girls about thirty feet away from where Claire and Rae sat.

“Pardon me, ladies,” Yuu said. “I need to have a private conversation with my fellow Academy Knights. I hope you’ll understand.”

His voice was soft and quiet. Claire had the sense that she wouldn’t have been able to make out what he’d said if he hadn’t deliberately projected towards her.

“What do you mean, ‘knights’, plural?” Pepi asked, indignant. “One of them’s in another dimension. Look at her. The commoner’s not waking up. It’s just Miss Claire and we haven’t seen her in months!”

“Forgive me, I misspoke. What I meant to say was: shoo!” Yuu flicked both hands out and away repeatedly like he was splashing water at them. “Avaunt. Away with ye! I’m not kidding. Go. Academy. Knights. Business.”

While Loretta and Pepi fumed, they looked to Claire for direction. It would be impolitic of her not to at least say something to them. She really hadn’t seen them in months. Claire wasn’t hugely invested in keeping their so-called friendship and wouldn’t have minded cutting them loose. However, she certainly didn’t need any new enemies: nor did Rae. She couldn’t afford to alienate them.

“Um, if you wouldn’t mind,” Claire called out to them. “I should see what this is about. I’ll catch up with you two later. I hope you had a pleasant break.”

“But, Miss Claire—”

Claire sighed and brought her hand to cover her forehead as they spoke at her in chorus. “Girls… do as your prince commands.”

Pepi looked like she was about to argue. Loretta tapped gently on her shoulder and led her away by the hand, muttering indistinct but vaguely calming words to mollify her.

That’s a new development, Claire noted. They were probably just better friends now than they’d been before the summer. Maybe they were roommates now.

Yuu walked over to the threshold, so to speak, of the open gazebo, resting a foot on the bottom step but coming no further.

“May I?”

Claire nodded and he stepped up to join her.

“‘As your prince commands,’ huh?” Yuu mused. “Couldn’t have said it better myself. You have such a way with words.”

Something about his affect had always seemed ever so slightly off to her. Maybe Claire was judging him too harshly, but she always worried a bit that he was mocking her. Though generally sweet, he had this ironic manner to his speech at all times, like he was telling the funniest joke in the world just by existing—and weren’t you stupid for not getting it? Inscrutable. That was the word she was looking for.

“Thank you,” Claire said, trying to avoid getting lost in thought. Apparently she was urgently needed. “So what’s wrong? Why are you calling on us already, has something happened?”

“What do you mean? Oh, the knights thing. Yeah, that was a huge lie. You won’t need to worry about that for another day or two, but we’ll call a meeting. I actually just came here to bother you.”

There was that mockery again. Yuu smiled at her and wandered over next to Rae and her teacup. With slight, dainty motions he lifted the cup, humming tunelessly as he inspected the quality of the porcelain—then flicked it over his shoulder. Claire gasped, waiting for the crash of the chinaware breaking, then saw that he’d just emptied it of its tea into the bushes behind him.

Evidently pleased with the reaction he’d provoked, Yuu poured himself a new cup of tea and took a seat across from her without taking any milk or sugar. Claire gritted her teeth but didn’t stop him.

“You could have taken any of the two spare teacups on the tray,” she pointed out as he made himself comfortable. “You didn’t need to take one of mine from me.”

“Correction,” Yuu said, taking a sip. “Mmm… smoky. Delicious. What was I saying? Right. Correction: it was yours. It’s mine now. I’ve requisitioned it for the Crown.”

Watching her with his soft green eyes from over the rim of the cup, he waited for her next move.

Not that Claire was paying any attention to such things anymore, of course, but he looked good. His effortless golden curls always seemed a bit unfair to her. It took her—rather, it took her maid—ages each morning to get her hair done. By contrast, Yuu simply walked around like that, like he was deliberately showing her up.

He was also the only boy at the Academy who actually knew how to shave. Claire had noted with some distaste that both Rhod and Thane had a light scruff in class today. Yuu’s skin was about as soft and clear as her own. It was so unfair.

Most importantly, she realized, his eyes were like Rae’s; soft and kind, yes, but with dark currents moving behind them. They differed in one point only. Rae, Claire was sure, was harmless—to Claire, at least. Yuu, though… she had the distinct impression that his expression would change very little if he were standing over someone with a knife.

“Where’s your man?” Claire asked, realizing that his valet—the one who’d caused that drama last semester, what was his name? Dede, right—was missing.

“I sent him on a merry chase,” Yuu said. “A trick I’ve learned is that you can give someone who wants to please you an impossible task and you’re free of them for a while. It usually buys you a few hours until they realize you were wasting their time. I’d feel bad, but it’s a bit dreadful having him loom over my shoulder all the time. I won’t miss him. You two can defend me if needed, I’m sure.”

“Of course.” Claire found herself at a loss for words. Or, rather, she had plenty of words, such as go away and leave us be that she didn’t feel like saying so bluntly. She took a moment to compose herself, then said the same thing with slightly more tact. “Your Highness, if not on behalf of the Knights, pray tell; to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

Yuu knew exactly what she’d meant, of course, and was thoroughly unbothered. He actually kicked up a leg to rest it on the arm of the last free chair, indicating that she’d have to put up with him for a while.

“Oh, relax,” he said. “Please, no titles. My name will do nicely, for now. I just wanted to indulge myself with a bit of girl talk.”

“Such as..?” Claire asked, losing patience.

“Girl talk, like—hold that thought. What are you wearing?”

“My… uniform?”

“No… obviously not your clothes,” he said with a roll of the eyes. “That scent. I’m getting… a bit of lemon and honey and… something floral? Very crisp. How summery. I approve. That really suits you, so, again, what is it?”

“Just a bit of perfume. It—it was my Mother’s,” Claire said.

Yuu’s smile faltered. He knew enough about her to know that it was a difficult subject, apparently.

Over the summer she’d asked Father if her Mother had worn any. She must have—Claire had a powerful sensory memory of the smell of her early childhood: of the scent of lemon, honey, and violets, in fact. After a moment of consideration, he’d lifted himself out of his office chair with the aid of his cane and stalked through the house. Claire had followed him wordlessly to find that all of Mother’s toiletries still sat, undisturbed, in a bureau desk in the boudoir that connected to Father’s bedroom. He’d never rearranged or replaced a single thing in the years since her passing.

Father had turned the little bottle over in his hand a few times before passing it down to her, saying that it would make Melia happy to see it used. That hesitation before relinquishing it told her that he was trying to convince himself of that fact. It killed Claire to see that pain in him, to know that it was a mirror image of her own, and not be able to say anything. As a rule, the François family did not talk about their feelings. They simply carried on.

She’d given him a wordless hug and went about her day, wondering how she would carry on if the love of her life ever disappeared.

“She sounds like a very lovely woman,” Yuu said. Claire had never realized how light and delicate his voice was. It was… nice. It was a good voice for comforting words. If only he used them more.

Deep breath, Claire, she told herself. Now, exhale.

“Don’t you mean, ‘smells like’?” she joked to try and break free of the pallor she’d cast over the conversation. The Rae Taylor special; she’d learned from the best. It didn’t even hurt that much to say.

“That’s right!” Yuu said, lifting the cup again in a tiny toast to her wit. “You’re so right.”

He set it back down, then leaned over the table towards her. He rested his chin on the surface and crossed his arms in front of him such that he hid his mouth with his elbows. The pose seemed incredibly uncomfortable, but if it was, his face didn’t betray it. At least, not the half of his face that she could see.

At the brief lull in the conversation she took a sip of her tea. Yuu, the little sh*t, had clearly been waiting for that. He chose the exact moment that would maximize the damage.

Barely moving his pinky finger, he pointed between Claire and her snoozing lover. Then, in a voice quiet enough that nobody more than five feet away would hear him at all, he asked “So, you two f*ck nasty yet or…”

Claire erupted. Most of her tea ended up in the closest flowerbed, a fair distance away. The rest made it up and subsequently out of her nose. She was lucky she didn’t choke.

“Quiet now,” Yuu said, as calm as Claire wasn’t. “I’m sure you don’t want to wake her. Also, brava. That was pretty good range: I’d guess ten feet?

“You flatter me, my lord,” Claire said, sullenly wiping tea off of her face with her handkerchief. It had gotten into her sinuses, but she could do nothing about that. “It’s probably closer to five. More importantly: I beg your pardon? This is slander.”

“Oh, no, you’re not going to style this out. I’m not going to sit here and act like I didn’t see that reaction,” Yuu said, raising a hand to hide his mouth. His hand was shaking. Actually, his entire body was shaking as he laughed silently at her. He regained control of himself, then continued by saying, “I should point out: I’ve accused you of nothing. Just asking questions.”

Claire had a ranking system for the princes. Obviously Thane was the best, in her mind. Something about Rhod’s interest in her commoner had always irritated her and she’d put him at the bottom for that reason. Yuu had always seemed sweet, kind, and inoffensive, so he’d gone somewhere in the middle of the ranks. She’d been wrong. Yuu was actually the worst prince.

Every bit of willpower she had was spent resisting the urge to challenge him to some sort of honor duel. It probably wouldn’t help her case, even if it would be both simple and satisfying to dismantle him. Instead she clenched her fists and rested her forehead on her front two knuckles and focused on not screaming in frustration. After all, she didn’t want to wake Rae.

It had all come apart so much faster than she ever could have expected. How had she failed at keeping her secret so spectacularly? At least he had the presence of mind not to make much noise. His voice was barely louder than a whisper. Clearly he wanted all the leverage over Claire for himself.

I guess it’s time to become pirates already, Claire thought. That’s nice.

He was right; she couldn’t ‘style this out’, to use his phrasing. He was a prince. He didn’t actually need proof of any malfeasance for his accusations alone to carry weight. She wouldn’t immediately give up and steal a ship somewhere; she’d try and make this right, or at least see what he wanted. It was time for Claire François to grovel. Her favorite thing to do.

“What do you want for your silence?” Claire asked. “Don’t be shy, now. Name your price.”

Yuu raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t act dumb, please. It demeans us both. Just tell me what you want.”

“Oh, I see. This is all a tragic misunderstanding. You think I’m blackmailing you?” Yuu asked. “Huh. I suppose that’s a fair guess. I’m sorry, let me put your mind at ease. All I wanted, truly, was to see how you two were doing and to mess with you two a bit. I… may have taken things a bit too far.”

“You may have.”

“I’ve always found her inspiring, you know,” Yuu said. “I’ve been rooting for her for about as long as I’ve known her. So, when I saw you two together, obviously still close friends at a bare minimum… I was charmed.”

Inspired by Rae? I guess so, Claire wondered. I’ve certainly been inspired by her before. Why has he, though? She stopped herself from getting too distracted by the conundrum: he'd said something she couldn’t ignore.

“When you saw us, huh?” She massaged her temples with her knuckles, trying to get ahead of the headache she felt developing. “Tell me how long you were watching us for.”

“I saw you about five seconds before your friends did. I wouldn’t have interrupted, but… I know what it’s like, trying to avoid people. I thought I’d give you a way out. Is this conversation worse than what you’d be having with them?”

“Honestly…” Claire considered that for a moment. Could she take him at his word? He didn’t seem malicious, now, simply annoying. Whether or not she believed him was a bit irrelevant. For the moment she was dancing in the palm of his hand. There wasn’t much choice but to accept his civility, whether it was real or faked. She sighed. “Probably not, if only just.”

“Yay! I’m so glad.”

“I wouldn’t mind an actual apology from you, if you feel like continuing to speak with me. For that matter, I’d also like an explanation of what, exactly, you were talking about.”

“I am terribly sorry for my words and deeds, Miss François. How’s that?”

“Now apologize to Rae.”

He turned to the sleeping girl. “Rae, darling, I can’t express the depths of my remorse. I apologize. Can you forgive me?”

Wow, Claire thought. She is completely out. Rae hadn’t stirred once this entire time.

“She says it’s fine,” Claire said. “Now…”

“Right! Your question,” Yuu said. “I don’t know, it was mostly guesswork, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen either of you look as at peace as you have today. I could practically see the cartoon songbirds circling your heads. For the most part, I was saying what I’d hoped was true… in a very vulgar manner that I now deeply regret.”

“Why would you hope that we were together?” Claire said, trying hard to put his choice of diction out of her memory.

“Because you two are more important than you realize,” Yuu said. “To some people.”

Fantastically cryptic, Claire thought to herself. What an utterly bizarre thing to say.

“I don’t follow.”

“Really?” Yuu asked. The audacity—as if what he’d meant had been self-evident. Between sips of tea, he explained, “The way I see it is: if Rae Taylor can get what she wants, maybe I could as well. If Claire François can change, maybe the rest of the nobility have hope, too.”

“Oh.” Maybe she was being flattered, but it was nice to hear regardless, Claire decided. Even though she was hearing it from a very strange source, it was nice to be told that she mattered, that others cared. It still didn’t sit right with her, though. “Have I changed?”

“Well, yes, of course,” Yuu said without hesitation. “I pay very close attention to the people around me. It’s a survival mechanism. Due to how you treated the people around you, I decided you weren’t someone that I would care to know. Then, during that fiasco with the Commoner’s Movement, you changed, and I noticed. Spontaneous empathy shouldn’t be rare enough amongst our peers that it sticks out, but, well… it does. Furthermore, whatever your relationship with Rae might be, you seem to be trying to protect her from me at the moment.”

Was she? Oh. Without conscious thought Claire had moved, interposing herself between the prince and her commoner.

Yuu watched her realize what she’d done for a moment before continuing to speak. “Frankly, Claire, I don’t feel safe around many people. That includes you, but don’t take it personally. I therefore understand how you feel better than you may realize. I’m very sensitive to the fact that I’ve apparently made you feel unsafe around me. It’s just that sometimes I forget how I come across to people. The dangerous, enigmatic, devilishly handsome prince… it’s not really how I see myself.”

Claire was still a bit upset and uncomfortable, but he seemed to be sincere with her for the first time since she’d known him. It could have been feigned vulnerability to get her to lower her guard, but why would he bother? Claire couldn’t think of a reason for him to mess with her like that besides pure malice, and she didn’t feel comfortable assuming that as a motivation. He seemed genuinely contrite for upsetting her. She’d certainly said and done worse things to others before and hadn’t typically apologized. She wanted to change, not just for Rae, not just in private, but for herself. That meant extending the same chance of change to others.

“Yuu, it’s fine. Just don’t speak to me—or to Rae—that way ever again, and I’ll forgive you.” Before he could respond, she kept talking. The sooner the matter was forgotten, the better for both of them. “Let’s move on. How exactly do you see yourself, then? You’ve made me curious.”

“I’m so glad you asked! I love talking about myself. Unfortunately the answer to that question is a state secret,” Yuu said. He could clearly tell that she was exasperated with the non-answer, because he added, “I’m not just being glib. I really ought not to say.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to continue our ‘girl talk’ if you stopped being so God damn cryptic?”

“Well, yes. It would be easier,” he said. “I’m sorry that I’m like this. It’s exhausting.”

“What’s exhausting?”

“Wearing a mask,” Yuu said. “Pretending that we aren’t who we are. Aren’t you tired of it, too?”

Something about him, about the circ*mspect way he was speaking, reminded Claire of herself. Hadn’t she spent months doing much the same, gesturing vaguely at the truth and hoping the right person would understand? Obviously she could empathize, but it was also incredibly frustrating being on the other side of that sort of conversation.

In a way, Yuu wasn’t even speaking to her. It was more like a prayer. The only guarantee anyone had that anyone was listening was blind faith, that she couldn’t answer, because she didn’t understand him. What a punishingly lonely way to live. Still, it was easier than finding the right words to speak the unspeakable.

Yes, she thought. I am tired. However…

“I hate that the only two people I’ve spoken to since returning to the Academy can apparently see right through me,” Claire said. “It’s disheartening.”

“Only two people…” Yuu mused. “Would I be correct in guessing that the other was Miss Jur?”

Claire sighed. Another defeat, then. She triple-checked that they were alone before confessing. “You know what? Yes. Why even bother anymore. I spoke with Rae’s roommate about how best to court her. Since I’m apparently telling on myself with—what, my facial expressions? My body language? Or something—I might as well say it aloud so that there’s no ambiguity.”

“Claire, there’s no need to be upset. You aren’t giving that much away. It was an easy guess, after all, she is your maid’s roommate. Misha and I are very good at these guessing games. There’s no shame in losing to one’s betters. Spend some time around us and you’ll figure out how to identify a sapphic at a glance, too, but as far as I’m aware the four of us are the only ones at the Academy. To the untrained eye or ear, it’s literally impossible to tell gay girls apart from the general population, even when she tells you, unequivocally, what she is,” Yuu said, putting an odd emphasis on the last words. “Case in point.”

He gestured broadly around them.

“...What?”

“See? Literally impossible, even when you should know better,” Yuu said. Claire was lost. She felt a light breeze as whatever point he’d made flew over her head. “Just don’t declare your undying love for Rae in front of the school like you almost did at the Scales Festival and you’ll be fine. Women are allowed a much greater degree of intimacy with one another before people ask questions.”

“I… suppose I wouldn’t know,” Claire said. “I haven’t had male friends, so I have no basis for comparison. I don’t know what it’s like for you guys.”

“Me neither. You know what? Speaking of friendship, let’s be friends,” Yuu suggested. He smiled as if he were quite proud of the idea. “Or allies, if you’d prefer to keep our relationship professional, but I feel like we both need another person in our lives who can be both.”

“I’m not sure I—”

“If we become friends, we can all have a bit more blackmail material on each other, and you won’t need to worry so much about what I know! Mutual blackmail… in other words, close friendships, make for the strongest political bonds.”

“In our country political alliances are typically cemented through marriage,” Claire pointed out. Feeling a bit coquettish, she tried to bat her eyelashes ironically. She didn’t think she achieved the desired effect, though. She could work on it later in the mirror. “Is this a proposal, Your Highness?”

“No. Heavens forfend. I already have someone. Also, I’m engaged,” he said, holding up his hand to more prominently display an engagement ring. “Bigamy isn’t in vogue at the moment, so as lovely as you are, I’ll refrain. It may be a very modern way of thinking, but I think we can work with one another without involving a contract or changing anyone’s name.”

It was worth checking. She’d asked the joke question first, but she had a serious one she’d been meaning to ask for some time.

“The question of marriage aside, do I want to work with you, Yuu? I’m not sure how high of an opinion I have of your political acumen, considering the only scheme of yours I’ve seen has blown up in your face. Quite spectacularly, in fact.”

“But not literally. Really, it blew up in that poor boy Matt Monte’s face, not mine,” Yuu said, sighing. That was a rather dark ‘joke’, in Claire’s opinion. She still remembered his horrific burns. “That’s just the only thing you’ve seen, though your point is taken. I’m not typically so spectacularly sabotaged. I hope it’s obvious, but the involvement of the Aurousseaus had nothing to do with me. My plan was so much better.”

“How did your plan differ from what happened?”

“Let’s be friends, and I can answer questions like that,” Yuu said. He was not letting the matter drop. “All I can say is I was hoping to divert a bit of the energy of the lower classes towards a more constructive end. If you’re going to storm a government building, why choose one where all you can do is mill about aimlessly and make an awful mess? I didn’t succeed, but at least you defused the situation in the end sparing the Aurousseau family. Even if you only did that for personal reasons, it was good politics. I commend you.”

“Speaking of good or bad politics,” Claire said, “It never made sense to me why you bothered speaking with the Movement in the first place. You’re already backed by the Church. Isn’t that enough for you?”

“Put simply, no.” Yuu gave her a moment to process that as he finished off the rest of her teapot. She wouldn’t have finished it anyway but it was still a mild irritation, watching it happen. “The Church looks after its own interests. When those align with mine, that’s swell, but putting one’s life entirely in the hands of a single faction in politics is like going to a casino and betting one’s entire fortune on black. That’s why I tried to get the support of the Movement. I wasn’t simply moved by their idealism and clever rhetoric.”

Betting his life, not feeling safe around people, hoping that the nobility could change… He really wasn’t blackmailing Claire into helping him. He was practically begging her.

She asked, “What are you so afraid of?”

“Claire, there’s a whole constellation of things for me specifically to be afraid of, not all of which I can do anything about. At the moment I’m concerned with the fate of the country.” Yuu fixed her with a level stare as he spoke. It was disorienting having someone begin a conversation with a rude sex joke and then careen into discussing philosophy, identity, and high politics, but Claire supposed this was the sort of company she kept, now. “At this rate, the differences between the nobility and the commoners are irreconcilable, no matter how many technocratic tweaks my father tries to make. In other words, I believe a revolution is inevitable unless we change course. It’s bizarre. It feels so obvious to me but nobody else seems to see it. I feel like I’m standing in the back of a military formation trying to tell the officers that we’re about to get flanked by cavalry, but nobody listens to me.”

“And that would be bad.”

“Well, from a certain point of view, yes. Massive social upheaval will make my life, specifically, more difficult. I like law and order and the slow march of progress and liberalization. It keeps my head where it is, you see.” With a flat hand, he mimed a blade slicing across his neck. “It’s just not enough anymore. Having a bunch of their children endangered was a radicalizing moment for much of the aristocracy, and they’re losing patience with Father’s reforms as a result. What nobody else except you and Thane, to some extent, seemed to grasp is that those guys who invaded the Academy in the spring are all squishy moderates compared to the hooting maniacs they’ll turn into if nothing changes for them.”

“So you’d like my help to change things, somehow. Okay, I can accept that—but why are you only asking me for help now?”

“Our interests have come further into alignment, now that you’re one of us. I’ll speak plainly. Something you’ll notice soon if you haven’t yet is that girls like us—you, me, Misha and Rae—will become very enticing targets. People who’d be too scared of Rhod or Thane to try and take out their anger with the nobility writ large on them might try their luck with us, instead. It’s a big joke because the four of us are much more dangerous than either of them, but misogynists aren’t known to be very bright, so it’s not as if that’ll protect us. The only thing that will protect us is us, standing together.”

“I wish I could just dismiss everything you’re saying to me as paranoia,” Claire admitted. The same sense of disquiet she felt while watching the bounty hunters nearly get attacked in Euclid returned, for the first time in months. An entire city had been on the verge of mob rule, not without cause. Was the country really so close to something similar? “But… I think I’ve seen what you’re talking about. I’m not sure I completely agree with your analysis, but maybe you’re closer to the truth than I’d like.”

“It’s not comforting to think about, is it?” Yuu asked. He smiled sadly. “I’d much rather we didn’t have to, that we could just be happy. But to be happy you first have to be safe.”

“That’s correct. That’s been on my mind as well of late, even if I’ve been thinking on a smaller scale. I can’t even imagine what a full-blown revolution would look like, Yuu. It’s not how I was trained to think.”

“Would you like my opinion? I’ve thought about it more than is healthy, I might as well make myself useful.” When Claire nodded, Yuu continued, “People like to think that history and progress can only move in one direction. It’s a pleasant fantasy, but we know that isn’t true. Just because there hasn’t been a dark age for a thousand years doesn’t mean there can’t be one again, except this time the barbarians will have magic and artillery instead of pointy sticks. Some of them might even wear silk and ermine instead of bear skins, but that doesn’t necessarily make them less brutal. It’s just giving brutality a different face.”

Were these huge thoughts going through Yuu’s mind all the time? No wonder he seemed a bit distant and cold.

“Why haven’t you raised these concerns with anyone else? Why just me? Surely the Church could do something to change the course of national politics. Why can’t you speak with the Queen?”

For just a moment Yuu paused, a dark look passing over his eyes. It was gone fast enough that she almost thought she was imagining it. Just because his mother was alive didn’t necessarily make it a happy topic for him.

“Queen Riche isn’t in the habit of soliciting advice from me. Nor is anyone else, for that matter. That’s why I’m trying very hard to make you consider my… proposal?” Yuu laughed, looking a bit embarrassed. “I can’t think of a better word. Let’s call it a proposal and ignore the connotations of marriage.”

“If I did agree to work with you,” Claire said, “What would you ask of me?”

“I’ll tell you if we become friends first. I have the sense we could both use one,” Yuu said. “One person, no matter how special, isn’t enough to keep a person from feeling terribly alone. We’re social creatures, we crave community.”

Claire sighed. “What would you ask of me, as friends, then?”

“Take me on a double date!” He didn’t hesitate. Clearly this idea had been percolating for a few minutes. “You and I, along with Rae and a fine lady of my choice. Her identity will be revealed to you at a later date, so to speak.”

“Your fiancée, I presume.”

“Well…”

Claire’s headache was returning. He was being insane again. “Yuu, what are you doing? I remember now, you’re engaged to that Lilium girl, right? If you’re so worried about the nobility, don’t provoke the Chancellor. Unbelievable. Making a cuckquean of his daughter before she’s even married, you beast.”

“Please understand, Claire, it’s simply that Miss Lilium is neither a towering intellect nor a scintillating conversationalist, as sweet as she is. You wouldn’t get along. I think both you and Rae would run circles around her and she might find it distressing. The girl I’m planning on asking to accompany me—don’t ask her name, I’ll never kiss and tell—I have a feeling you’d get along better. You’re more evenly matched.”

“You know,” Claire said, pointing at him accusitorily, “If all you wanted to do was mess around with as many different women as possible, I’m sure there are easier ways you could do so. You didn’t have to make up this scary political narrative to justify it.”

Her head properly hurt, now. She was used to conversations zig-zagging between tragedy and farce. That was normal. It was just that, every time she expected Yuu to zig, he zagged. Claire kept massaging her temples and hoping for the best.

Yuu laughed. “Ha, fair enough. Maybe it does seem that way. Whatever. If that were the case, could you blame me? You’re right, though. It would look bad for me to be seen around town like this. I’ll have to be in disguise. Fortunately, I am a master of disguise. As long as I don’t look like Prince Yuu, nobody will notice me. Let’s all get dolled up for a night on the town.”

Obviously he knew by now that Claire and Rae weren’t just friends, even if he was smart enough not to explicitly say so. There was no point maintaining the charade. Claire scooted her chair back towards Rae and, careful not to disturb her, shifted her back into a position where she was resting on Claire’s arm.

Having another person to talk to… it didn’t sound terrible. Maybe she and Rae could blend in with him in the crowd, use him and his mystery companion as a shield so that the two of them stood out less. She could always tell him to disappear from her life if he bothered her again.

Rae began to murmur indistinct words and Claire froze, afraid she’d woken her, but she was only talking in her sleep. Claire thought she might’ve heard her say ‘ice cream’ or something similar in the mix.

“Yes, dear,” Claire said. “We’ll get some.”

She turned back towards Yuu expecting some form of mockery. Instead, he’d clasped both hands as if in prayer and pressed them against his cheek.

“You two are just adorable together,” Yuu said, stars in his eyes. Had his voice gone up an octave? “I think that’s my cue to leave you be for the day. I’ll call upon you soon. For now, though, I wanted to make sure you knew that not everyone in the world is against you, even if it feels that way sometimes. It’s more of a plurality than a majority.”

“...thanks.” Claire finished her tea. It had gotten cold in the time she’d spent speaking with Yuu. It was nice to hear, even if she still didn't fully trust him. “Hmph. Any more lessons for me, Professor Bauer?

“Why, yes, darling. Since you asked.”

Oh, great, Claire thought. The dangers of rhetorical questions.

He continued. “You’ll start having an urge to journal, to write love letters, poems, things of this nature dedicated to her. You should do that. When you’re sure you’re alone, spend some time with your thoughts, get them out of your head and down onto a page. Then, set that page on fire. That last step is the most important. Don’t incriminate yourself. When the only evidence people have against a high-ranking noble is their word, there’s really nothing they can do to them. If they have a love letter, though… dealing with it gets harder.”

Claire didn't know what to say to that. It was the sort of knowledge that only resulted from personal, painful experience. After a moment spent reaching for a useful stock response, she said, “Is that so?”

“It’s so,” Yuu said. Somehow he managed to make his voice sound grave. “Well, I ought to go. Thank you for hearing me out. I wish I’d thought a bit harder about how to open this conversation and not make such an ass of myself, but, alas.”

“It’s fine, now, I suppose. I’m just waiting with bated breath to see what place I have in your next scheme.”

“Schemes, plots, conspiracies, ruses…” Yuu mused. “Some call these things crimes. Me? I call them having fun with my friends. And what’s wrong with that? Anyway, See ya.”

He stepped away from her and back down onto the garden path, then turned back to her suddenly.

“Oh! Also—tell your girl to stop f*cking with the stock market. I have money in there and it’s not funny. She’s making a mess.”

With a slight motion of his hand he waved goodbye. Claire reciprocated but he was already facing away, walking across grass that was burnished by the evening sun.

She’d never spoken to any of the princes so much in her life, even with all the time spent working together for the Knights. Rhod was more interested in her commoner than her. Claire always made a fool of herself around Thane and either spoke too much or not enough or just generally badly. Yuu had seemed generally disinterested in her.

Apparently that wasn’t the case, or else enough about one or both of them had changed that he’d decided she was worth more attention. Despite how their conversation began, she’d actually found herself enjoying it by the end, or at least intrigued. It made her feel a bit less insane and isolated now that she knew she wasn’t the only one among the nobility who no longer found the current state of affairs acceptable.

As for everything he’d said that was less about politics, more about identity? Claire was still mystified. She felt like she was missing the last big piece of his puzzle and was totally unable to continue until she’d found it. What did he have in common with Misha? What did he and Misha have in common with Claire and Rae? She couldn’t figure it out.

What did Claire even have in common with Rae? If Claire could understand that, it could give her a clue. To be frank there wasn’t much that they shared. They were some of the most powerful mages in the country, but that wasn’t relevant to the conversation they’d had at all. It didn't fit. What else was there that he’d know about? All she could think of was that they were both girls and that they were in love with each other regardless. And that didn’t make sense at all, for Yuu and Misha. Unless… unless.

Huh.

No. She dismissed the idea as wishful thinking. She’d read too much into his words. He probably just meant to say that he and Misha were closer than Claire realized and that they both empathized with Claire and Rae’s situation for unrelated reasons.

Now that they were alone she pulled Rae tight. Something about supporting her made Claire feel stronger. She was certainly calmer, now. Her conversation with the Prince could have taken a much darker turn, and she was glad to have survived it wholly intact and, possibly, with a new friend to show for it. The fact remained that it had been enormously stressful. Following Rae’s advice from earlier that day she focused on her breath, focusing on every muscle in her body from her toes to her head and demanding that they relax as she breathed.

She watched what happened to Rae as the light began to turn. Even something as basic as colors seemed completely different to Claire now. As the setting sun began to flood the gardens she watched Rae’s hair turn from a dusty brown to the color of burning bronze. Nobody else changed as she did in the light.

“So pretty,” Claire whispered.

What had she been thinking about? How similar Yuu and Misha were? Right. They shared the trait of being irritatingly perceptive, and—and, oh hell, Rae was stirring, at last. Of course that would be the thing that woke her. Not quite true love’s kiss, but not far off.

God bless her, she was really fighting for it. It was like an evil witch had made Rae’s eyelids heavier in her sleep. She couldn’t quite manage to keep them open.

It was starting to get late. Night would fall in the next few hours, and therefore dinner would be served soon. It wouldn’t do for either of them to miss another meal. Claire would help her along.

“Rae, do I need to find some cold water to splash you with?”

“What… no… I got it…” Claire waited. Rae slapped herself in the face as hard as she could, which, as slowly as she was still moving, was not hard in the slightest. “Claire, where am I?”

Noticing neither appreciable progress towards Rae’s awakening nor a conveniently placed cup of water to throw at her, Claire tried a different approach.

“Hmph.” She pulled one of Rae’s arms over her shoulder and stood, lifting Rae up with her. Claire stepped out of the shadows and brought Rae beneath the evening sun. Rae hissed and flailed her free arm for a moment.

“Nooo! Daystar burnssss… oh! We’re in the gardens.” Fully conscious at last, Rae’s eyes blinked rapidly to acclimate themselves to the light. “I didn’t even realize I’d made it this far, I think I was out on my feet while we were walking over.”

“Goodness knows how you managed to make tea without breaking anything, then.” Claire started cleaning up after themselves. Not typically her job, but perhaps it was best to let Rae finish waking up before asking her to handle delicate porcelain.

“Serving you is my primary function, Claire! I won’t let a little thing like sleepwalking stop me. Though, man, I thought I was gonna get so much work done… oh well.” Rae went to pick up her own cup, then paused, bringing it to her eyes and squinting into it. “Huh. It’s coming back to me, now… I did pour myself some, right? Did I manage to drink tea in my sleep? I’m so talented.”

“Not quite,” Claire said. “Prince Yuu came by and helped himself.”

Rae frowned. “So a guy was just… watching me sleep? I don’t—actually, ignore that! Of course that’s fine. I hope you had a nice chat!”

Claire sensed a mistake, despite Rae’s belated attempts to hide her displeasure.

I probably should have thought a little bit harder about that, Claire thought. She’d spoken with Yuu and decided he wasn’t being creepy. Rae hadn’t had the opportunity to make that choice.

“I’m sorry,” Claire said, reaching for Rae’s wrist. They both stopped what they were doing. Rae turned back to face her, her big, soft eyes catching the evening sun. “Perhaps I should have woken you, but you seemed to need the sleep. I thought it was fine. He was entirely focused on me, if it makes you feel better. Tell me what I should do next time, if there is a next time.”

Rae tried to wave her off. “Do whatever seems best for you. I’m just your maid, after all. If you two want to talk politics I don’t want to get in the way.”

“Rae… you know very well that you aren’t just my maid.” She wished very much that Rae would stop doing this, stop devaluing herself. Claire forced herself not to be irritated. They both had beasts within themselves they had to tame, after all. Claire’s was prideful and cruel; evidently Rae’s was cowardly. That didn’t mean she was allowed to run away, though. Claire asked, “Do you think I let any of the others into my bed?”

“Ha,” Rae laughed softly. She looked properly chagrined. “No, I suppose not. Though maybe you and Lene could have gotten together and saved everyone a lot of trouble.”

Claire frowned like she’d smelled rot. “Ew. No, that’s so wrong, I hate that. Take it back.”

“I’m sorry! I wasn’t thinking. Yeah, that doesn’t work at all. Also, the thing with Yuu really is fine, I shouldn’t have said anything. It was just my first instinct, but I do truly trust you to make decisions for me, Claire. I also know enough about Yuu that I figure he’s basically benign.”

“Do you?” Claire wondered if they’d spent any time together and she hadn’t noticed: how else would Rae have come to that conclusion? It wasn’t impossible, she supposed, though it was strange to think about. “I just spent a fair bit of time talking to him and I feel like I understand him a lot more and a lot less than I did before.”

“Well, that’s interesting,” Rae said, raising an eyebrow. “What the heck did you two talk about?”

How much should she say? Though Yuu hadn’t explicitly said so, that conversation felt like the sort that demanded a bit of discretion. Maybe she was being tested to see what information she could be trusted with. If Yuu wanted Rae to know what Claire knew, he could have woken her. She’d keep it vague, for now.

“Nothing too exciting,” Claire lied, then decided to borrow Yuu’s words. “Just a bit of girl talk.”

Chapter 11: 3.3 Two Fundamental Pillars of Human Nature

Chapter Text

Nobody could escape the past forever. For Claire, the past caught up with her in the form of Loretta and her long, powerful legs.

After class the following day, Rae said something about needing to see a man about a horse and split up with her in the hallway. This was fine, of course, except that it left Claire completely lacking any social shield. She left, pretending not to feel her lackeys’ gaze upon the back of her neck once they noticed they could catch her alone.

So she hustled as quickly as was proper through the school, out of the building and across the lawn in the opposite direction from any of her usual haunts. Every time she rounded a corner and was confident she’d broken line of sight she sprinted as long as she thought was reasonable before returning to a brisk walk when she suspected she might be back in eyeshot.

It didn’t matter. Loretta was inevitable. She ended the charade less than five minutes after it began. Claire was caught on the far side of the dueling grounds from the rest of the campus, on a dusty path that she was sure she was the first student to ever walk on.

“Miss Claire!”

With an easy stride, Loretta rounded the corner at high speed, then skidded neatly to a halt on one leg. She planted both feet in the dirt. “Miss Claire,” she repeated, not even winded, “What are you doing all the way back here?”

“Loretta! Hello! It’s great to see you, how was your break?” Claire asked, trying to reactivate the part of her mind that knew how to please people. “I’m sorry we haven’t had the chance to speak, I’ve been busier since returning to campus than I expected.”

“You were busy back here?” Loretta asked, dubious.

“Oh, ha ha, I was simply perambulating around campus as a break from my work.” Claire gestured around herself at the dead grass, the back side of the stands, and the busy street on the opposite side of the fence that ringed campus. “I missed the beauty and sophistication of the Capital while out in the hinterlands, you see.”

Before Loretta could respond, her companion arrived.

“Miss… hahhh… Miss Claire..!” Penelope rounded the corner from the other side of the arena, moving at a slow trot. The poor dear had run herself ragged from trying to keep up. “We did… a pincer… like you… said… and we… caught her.”

She doubled over, resting one hand on the scaffolding that supported the stands as she panted for breath. Loretta looked concerned, and was not assuaged by Pepi extending a shaky thumbs-up out towards her. Claire felt a bit bad, seeing that. Even if she didn’t want to spend much time with Pepi, she hadn’t been trying to kill her.

“Pepi, it’s lovely seeing you again. No—don’t answer—just breathe. Now, why have you chased me across campus? You’re making me nervous.”

Loretta deflated slightly. Claire hadn’t meant to chastise her, but in fairness, she didn’t like being followed, either. After a moment Loretta rallied, saying, “All we wanted to do is talk to you, Miss Claire, but you’ve been with that commoner since you got back from Euclid!”

“You can talk to me while she’s at my side, you know. She doesn’t bite,” Claire said. Strictly speaking, that wasn’t true, but they didn’t need to know anything about that.

“But you spent the whole summer with her, too!”

Pepi had recovered enough to blurt out a few words and seemed to regret it immediately. It took Claire a moment to understand the implication, though.

“Well, she is my maid, after all. It’s her job to serve me at all times. Wait—” Claire realized, her eyes narrowing, “—how do you know that.”

Their silent, guilty expressions told her everything.

“Girls…” Claire covered her face with a hand, fingers spread out to hide as much of her irritation as possible. “Were you spying on me?”

“Only—only a little, Miss Claire, promise!” Loretta said, eyes downcast.

“The truth, now.”

“It’s true! We were worried about how close the commoner was getting to you and wanted to be sure she wouldn’t get what she wanted, but after the ghost ship incident we gave up. I swear to God.”

Pepi nodded emphatically, clearly not trusting herself to speak more and risk incriminating herself further.

So only a few days, then, Claire thought. That wasn’t so bad, as long as they were being honest before God. Still, she felt the need to reprimand them, to twist the knife a bit.

“Did you have a good time?” She looked between the two of them, fixing each of them in turn with a glare and waiting to see who would break first. “It sounds romantic, sneaking together through the old streets of the city, pulling each other around corners to make sure you haven’t been noticed, maybe watching me together from the terrace of a café… am I near the mark?”

Loretta just looked ashamed. Pepi turned a beet red that clashed quite awfully with her hair. Gotcha, Claire thought. She had identified the weak link and could attack it. Hopefully that weak link would be too flustered to notice that her accusation was almost a confession.

“Wh—what are these allegations, Miss Claire?” Pepi stammered, clearly unraveling. “Where is this coming from?”

“I don’t think you have a leg to stand on, here,” Claire pointed out. Then she borrowed a bit from Yuu, saying “I haven’t actually accused you of anything. I’m simply asking questions.”

Loretta moved to stand by Pepi’s side, at which point she blushed brighter. Loretta seemed not to notice her distress. “Miss Claire,” she said, as she put her hand on Pepi’s shoulder to comfort her, “All we wanted was to make sure that you were safe.”

Claire scoffed. Rae, dangerous to her? The very idea.

“Let me put your fears to rest, then,” she said. “The commoner and I have reached a tentative state of détente. If I’m to be stuck with her until the end of time, I figured I might as well figure out how to get along with her. It’s fine. She treats me with all due respect now, despite still requiring constant reminders. I’ll forgive you both if you pry no further. The details are tedious and explaining will bore me.”

Both of her lackeys sighed with relief and spoke in chorus. “Okay, Miss Claire!”

Claire started walking back towards a less dreadful part of the Academy where passersby couldn’t watch them from beyond the fence. She motioned for them to follow.

“We were wondering, also,” Pepi said once she’d rallied, “What did Prince Yuu want to speak with you about? Was he really talking about the Knights? Were you being courted? That would be so you, Miss Claire, to be courted by a boy who’s already engaged.”

Recognizing a chance to stoke their imaginations, Claire turned her nose up with all the false haughtiness she could scrape together. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to share. His Highness has asked that I keep our conversations in confidence.”

They both gasped, in unison once more. That must have taken a lot of practice. Claire let their chatter and speculation fade into white noise. The duo’s malfeasance had been a real gift to her. It gave them something else to focus on. She’d need to continue finding ways to distract and mislead them from her true relationship with Rae, but they were safe for now. It would be harder if the four of them were ever in the same place, but at least she’d had an easy start and a bit of practice for next time.

After getting seen through immediately by Misha and Yuu, Claire had started to lose confidence in her ability to put up a facade for others. It was good to know that there were still people that she could fool. Few at the Academy knew her better than her lackeys did, so maybe she could repeat her successes lying to them once more if needed.

She felt like she needed to do one more thing to convince the two that she hadn’t changed. What could she do? How should she continue playing the character of Claire François? What would that awful noble girl do next?

They returned to a better-traveled part of the Academy grounds. From a distance, Claire saw Rae looking around, hand shielding her eyes from the sun. As Claire was about to run towards her, she stopped herself. She’d had an idea: a wonderful, awful idea.

“Girls,” she asked, voice sweet as sugar, “Would you care to help me with something?”

---

When the sun rose on the next day, Claire reminded herself that she was basically a genius. The plan worked perfectly.

Claire woke up early to sneak out from beneath her sleeping lover, running to deliver Rae’s bag to the meeting place she’d assigned Loretta and Pepi, then running back to crawl back into bed. Neither Loretta nor Pepi thought to ask her about the specifics of how she’d stolen it. What were they imagining, she wondered—did they see her moving through Rae and Misha’s room as swiftly and silently as a shadow? Did they think she’d broken through the window somehow?

No. It had spent the night on Claire’s desk, the straps tangled up with her own bag. She’d taken a few minutes making sure that there was nothing sensitive kept within that she’d feel bad about misplacing. There were no letters, no keys, nothing of the sort, only the textbooks Rae would need for their classes that day and her athletics uniform. So she took it and told Loretta what to do with it.

Rae had noticed its absence within moments of waking up in Claire's arms. She didn’t even ask any questions once Claire told her to pretend like she was surprised.

Despite Claire’s genius she’d almost let them do something a bit stupid. She noticed it as they were getting dressed. Neither of them had developed a habit of taking their necklaces off—they hadn’t yet found a reason to. They slept in the things, and therefore were still wearing them come morning each day. Reluctantly, she made them both lock them up in her jewelry box. It felt weird, not having it on, but Claire had no interest in explaining her necklace and its obviously storied history to anyone who might see her changing.

It wouldn’t be safe to practice in anyway.

After getting ready they’d walked to their first class of the day together, Self-Defence. Only some sort of monster would schedule anything involving physical activity at the start of a day of school rather than the end, but there was nothing they could do about it. They didn’t make the rules, they just lived in fear of them.

Claire always enjoyed walking together with Rae, but this time was different. She had a surprise waiting for her, and Claire got more and more excited about it as they moved. After a few minutes, they arrived near the former parade grounds where their class would be held.

Rae’s bag dangled from a tree over the path.

As soon as she saw it, Claire feigned astonishment, trying to really sell the emotions for anyone watching. With both hands meeting at the base of the palms under her chin and reaching up along both sides of her face she gasped, then clutched at the gemstone on her tie.

“Shock! Horror! Who would do such a thing?” She raised her voice in a gross self-parody. “What sort of miscreant would dare steal from my maid? The nerve.”

“Wow, would you look at that,” Rae said, peering up at it. “That’s a good… thirty feet off the ground? Someone put in a lot of effort. I’m impressed.”

“Thank you,” Claire whispered, then raised her voice again. “How will this lowly commoner be ready for class now? Without her books? Without a pen? Perhaps if she begged me I could show some charity and allow her to share mine… as a bit of noblesse-oblige.”

Loretta flashed her a thumbs up from behind a nearby bush. Claire returned it, moving a hand behind her back where Rae wouldn’t see. She had no idea where Pepi had gone. One would think her hair would be a clue, but… she had an uncanny understanding of how to hide. She was probably nearby. Claire would put on a show for her regardless.

“I could just…” Rae grinned as she spoke, trailing off. With her right hand palm-up she made slow, gentle upward motions with her ring, middle and pointer fingers crossing over one another. “I could just… get all up in there, like this, and do something that would make both of us happy. I mean, I could lift myself off the ground with earth magic! And then grab my bag, yeah.”

It took Claire a moment to realize that the gesture was downright obscene. When she did she whipped her head away, blushing furiously. Every bit of willpower she had was spent on keeping her voice perfectly flat and level as she said, “The groundskeepers, commoner. Think of your class comrades. Show some solidarity. You wouldn’t make a mess for the poor groundskeepers, surely.”

“You think you’d make—”

“No!” Claire realized her mistake too late. Score two-one, commoner. She frantically pointed at the earth that Rae would be disturbing with the stunt she was so profanely proposing. “The paving stones, the decorative grasses, your magic would ruin them! Stop doing that thing with your hand, this instant!”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“Yes!” Claire exclaimed. She took a deep breath, trying to regain control, then grabbed Rae by her jabot tie. “Now, commoner. Beg, and I may take pity on you.”

Now Rae blushed and looked around frantically. Claire took some time to gloat.

Everything went perfectly, Claire thought, triumphant. Loretta and Pepi’s suspicions have been eased, I get an excuse to be closer to Rae, and I can practice my acting too. I am a virtuoso performer. I can never fail at anything I attempt—

A red and silver blur interrupted her. She’d been too distracted by her soliloquizing that she hadn’t noticed him nearby. In an instant, the man leapt the entire thirty or forty foot distance from a standstill on the ground up to the perch Rae’s bag hung from, then landed gracefully back on the path. In another time and place, Claire would have swooned as Prince Thane stuck the landing. Now all she did was frown as he brought her carefully-laid plan to ruin.

With one hand he waved his wand and dispersed the vortex of air that surrounded his legs, proffering the bag towards them.

“Miss Taylor appears to have had one of her belongings misplaced.”

His cool tone made it very clear who he blamed for the bag’s misplacement. It wasn’t like he was wrong to suspect Claire of masterminding the affair, but was that any of his God damn business? No! Also, how come his voice seemed to have dropped an octave over the last few months, while Yuu’s had definitely risen? Between the two of them the intricacies of male puberty would forever remain a mystery to her.

Thane was, unfortunately, still gorgeous. His long silver locks had grown out a bit since being cut by the assassin’s blade, though they hadn’t regained their full majestic lengths of the prior year. His fine features furrowed into a light frown as he looked at Claire. He still couldn’t quite shave as well as his younger brother; there was a light fuzz on his upper lip that bothered her to look at. Yuu ought to give him lessons.

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Claire said, swiping the bag from him and passing it to Rae, who silently accepted it. “I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”

There must’ve been something wrong with her. She assumed that, since she was now a lesbian or whatever Rae called herself, she wasn’t supposed to feel anything about a man’s appearance one way or the other. How was it possible for her to still find Prince Thane attractive? It was incredibly frustrating.

Maybe he—or she?—was secretly a woman. That was the only answer. Rae had implied that was a thing a person could do. Claire took a moment to pause and think about it. The long hair, the pretty eyelashes… yes, it all made perfect sense. Imagine—Prince Thane, in a dress? Dazzling.

Much to consider.

Alas, it probably wasn’t true. The only reason for her attraction, most likely, was that Claire was still bad at being a ‘lesbian’. She would have to practice as much as possible.

At least she could speak to him more normally—or at least, more irritatedly—than she used to. Those might’ve been the first words she ever spoke to him without stammering. It felt like a small betrayal of Rae that she couldn’t control her physical attraction to him, at least not yet. Claire would try harder next time.

That was all she felt, though. Just attraction. She knew what love felt like, and could tell the difference between that and this. She didn’t want to take him, to claim him, to profess her love for him here and now so that no one would ever mistake how she felt again. Those feelings were for Rae alone.

“Don’t mention it,” Thane said, turning away.

He stalked over to rejoin his party—consisting of his brothers and Dede Murray—heading to the men’s changing rooms. Prince Rhod was laughing as he chatted with Yuu and pulled him close. The blonde wore an uncharacteristically dour expression and was refusing efforts to cheer him up. When he saw Thane returning, Yuu looked from him to Claire and then smiled. Disentangling himself from his brother’s arm, Yuu took his handkerchief from his breast pocket and waved farewell to the girls as they parted ways. Then they rounded the corner out of sight.

Rae took one of her books out and dropped it into Claire’s bag.

“Oh no,” Rae said, her voice quiet and flat, “I can’t find a book I need for class later. I’ll have to convince the awful villainess to share hers with me. However will I manage to do that? What will she ask of me in return?”

Claire looked around before answering. Loretta had wandered off somewhere, presumably annoyed about having all her effort climbing trees early in the morning so totally wasted.

“Thank you, Rae,” she sighed, once sure that the coast was clear. “But it’s not the same.”

“Aw, darn. Don’t be sad, though, you did really well! E for effort,” Rae said, turning to face her with a smile. Then she paused, considering something. “Also, woah, what just happened. Miss Claire, you actually scowled at Prince Thane. I didn’t know you knew how to do that.”

“He thwarted me, Rae. Oh, how I detest being thwarted,” Claire said.

They kept moving. The Academy really was beautiful. It was the sort of thing that she’d understood, academically and aesthetically, last year. She hadn’t really felt it, though. Claire had spent too much of the last year trapped inside her own head. Now, under the bright morning light and wide open sky, with a heart full of love, it looked like a completely new place.

Her mood was only tarnished by two things: that she didn’t have Rae in her arms, and that she was still guilty about her interaction with Thane.

“Rae…” Claire dropped her voice to almost a whisper. They’d headed to class early so that Claire would have more time to gloat, and therefore weren’t yet thronged by other students, but she always had to be careful. “This is really hard to talk about. I don’t know what to say. But I’d feel bad if I didn’t mention it…”

Turning around, she saw Rae watching her with an expression of utter forbearance. “It’s that you still think Prince Thane’s cute, isn’t it.”

“How does this happen every time,” Claire mumbled. “I wish people would stop reading my mind. It’s an invasion of privacy.”

“Oh, come on. It was just the most likely thing for you to be talking about given the context.”

“I’m… really sorry,” Claire said. Her voice sounded a bit more desperate to herself than she’d intended. “I don’t know why I’m still like this. I promise that I only have feelings for you.”

“Okay. I believe you.”

“Just like that?” Claire asked. There was a bit of a tremble in her words, annoyingly. “No questions asked?”

“Well,” Rae said, “What else would I do?”

It wasn’t fair that Claire couldn’t just kiss her now. She hated the rest of the world for existing. The feeling passed after a moment, but it was powerful while it lasted. All of existence should’ve only been the two of them.

She settled for letting her hand brush against Rae’s for as long as she dared. When she broke away, Claire whispered, “Thank you. I’ll give you another demonstration of how I feel about you later tonight. To make sure you understand me perfectly.”

Rae paused. It took Claire a second to realize, but she looked back. Rae looked faint, a flush rising to her cheeks.

“Wow,” she said, voice soft. “That actually took my breath away. That happens? I thought that was a figure of speech.”

“Too much?” Claire asked.

“Maybe? It’s up to you if you want to make me melt into a puddle in public. You’re in charge. Fair warning though—you nearly did just now. My legs stopped working, I just about keeled over.”

“Hmph. I’ll give you a reprieve, for now.” Claire tried to fake a bit of haughtiness. She didn’t think it worked. Her heart was too full. She was, however, still confused about the Thane business. After a moment, she asked again, “I don’t understand how it’s possible, though. I thought we weren’t able to be attracted to men.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Me and you, genius.”

“Oh—Claire—that’s not… look.” Rae stood up a bit straighter and spoke with a bit more confidence, like she was about to deliver a lecture. It created an unusual effect, considering they were still speaking quietly enough not to be overheard. “When people say they’re one sexuality or another you’re just supposed to smile and nod. But you aren’t a lesbian, Claire, you really aren’t.”

“What? Even though I’m with you? How is that possible?”

“You’re bisexual, that’s all. It’s valid.”

“‘Bi’ sexual?” Claire asked, rolling the strange new word around on her tongue. “What on earth are you talking about? We’ve been sexual more than twice.”

Rae pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. Claire almost burst out laughing. She’d never seen such pure exasperation on her face. She must have picked it up from Misha.

“No…” Rae said, collecting herself. “It means you can be attracted to more than one gender. Actually, that definition might not be precisely correct, people always yell at me about it for reasons I don’t understand, but yeah, it’s what you are anyway.”

“That can’t be right,” Claire said. “You made that up to make me feel better.”

“It’s strange, but true,” Rae nodded. Her expression was as grave as if she were delivering a report of battlefield casualties. “It really is possible to be attracted to men, I’m told.”

Claire put her head in her hands. “But… both?” she asked. “Men and women? That’s utter chaos. Insanity. So, what am I, now? Some sort of… sexual anarchist? Oh nooooooooooooo…”

“Wow, that term is the first time anyone’s ever made bisexuality sound remotely appealing to me. Congrats.”

“But I don’t want to be an anarchist, Rae!” Claire insisted. She was joking, but she didn’t really know how much she was joking. “I like hierarchy and structure! I’m at the top of a hierarchy and structure! It’s great!”

“More than one, really,” Rae said, grinning, as she held the side door to the athletics building open for her.

“What?” It took Claire a moment to figure out what the other thing she was on top of was, besides nobility. “Oh, well, yes, that too.”

They walked through a corridor together that was intermittently too gloomy and too bright, lit by intense magical lamps in the ceiling. With great effort, Claire hauled open the door to the changing room. It was unpainted, made of solid(or at least it felt solid) steel. Claire wasn’t sure why it was the only building in the Academy apparently built to withstand sieges.

Rae followed Claire until they found Pepi and Loretta already changing, looking glum. Claire shook her head back at her lover.

“No, commoner,” she said, “You must change elsewhere.”

“What do you—oh! But, Miss Claire, it’s simply an expression of my desire to be closer to you at all times!”

“No, no,” Claire sighed. She pulled Rae by her collar out of the row that she, Loretta, and Pepi were now occupying. Rae went limp like a kitten being picked up by the scruff of her neck. “Enough of that.”

Claire dragged Rae into an unoccupied row and slammed her into a locker. The dull thud resounded through the mostly-empty space, followed by a light bonk as Rae’s head belatedly, gently impacted the metal.

“Good work, Claire,” Rae whispered. “You’re really acting the heck out of the disdain, today.”

“It’s nothing personal—but if I watch you change,” Claire hissed, right into her ear, “I really don’t know if I'll be able to help myself.”

Rae began to hyperventilate. She nodded, though, and Claire released her and walked away.

Her lackeys were none the wiser. She must have really shown the commoner, in their eyes, with that little display, because they perked up a bit and began to speak to her.

“Mission failed, Miss Claire,” said Loretta.

“We’ll get her next time, Miss Claire,” said Pepi.

While Loretta and Pepi commiserated over once again failing to rattle the commoner, Claire remained quiet, trying to memorize every detail of the sound of the commoner’s breath.

Over the course of the next few minutes they finished changing into their athletic uniforms and headed back outside.

The self-defense class had been something of a late addition to the curriculum, after quite a few of the nobles complained about the danger their children had been in during the school’s invasion by the Commoner’s Movement. Claire’s father, in fact, had been one of the agitators in favor of the program, though not out of concern for her safety. He trusted her to take care of herself, at least in that manner. Rather, he simply felt that many of the problems with “today’s youth” could be solved by instilling in them a sense of martial vigor, and told Claire that he expected to see her excel in this arena as well as all others.

As a result of the slightly slapdash addition of this course to their lesson plans, Claire got the sense that nobody quite knew what was happening. Their class milled about aimlessly on the dusty field. In the distance, two Academy staffers she hadn’t seen before and a nun that Claire vaguely recognized conversed. One of them was a man, voice raised, though not loud enough to be intelligible at this distance. The other two may as well have been silent.

Claire took the opportunity to stretch. She sank into a low squat, then extended one leg out straight until it ran almost parallel to the ground. She rocked back and forth, trying to loosen the muscles in her thighs so her footwork wouldn’t suffer from cramps later on.

She watched her classmates. It was immediately obvious which of Claire’s peers were or weren’t prepared for the day to come. A group of what looked like mostly commoners who had no experience with combat sports stood around waiting for instruction. Meanwhile a smaller group of mostly nobles(plus Misha, who counted as a noble in this case as far as Claire was concerned) stretched and did basic drills with one another.

Most, but not all, of the nobility had at least some knowledge of fencing or riding or other sports. Some, like herself, like Loretta, and evidently all three princes based on how they moved, knew a bit more about hand-to-hand combat. It was only natural that her social class would excel here. Nobles were bred for politics and diplomacy and combat. No wonder most of Father’s generation had been in the army at some point. After all, what was war but the continuation of diplomacy by other means?

Girls wouldn’t typically learn anything of the sort—how unladylike, after all—but her Father had become quite paranoid about her safety for a few years and taught her. Those had been difficult lessons. An ex-cavalryman near the prime of his life, trying to learn for the first time how to hold back while simultaneously teaching his young daughter? It hurt. Claire never complained, though. For years training was the only way she ever got to spend time with him.

Next to her, Rae belatedly tried to copy Claire’s movements. For the most part she failed, but it was a start.

“That’s the right instinct, commoner,” Claire said quietly. “Imitate everything I do and perhaps even you can achieve perfection someday.”

She smiled, and Rae responded in kind. At least she seemed to understand what Claire was trying to do. They both hid behind irony in their own ways. Claire slowed down her motions so that she could silently teach her lover what to do and maybe make sure she wouldn’t hurt herself somehow later on.

Whenever she wasn’t making sure Rae was copying her exactly, she glared at the incompetents that surrounded her. Class had started. Why weren’t they getting ready? This was serious.

“What’s up, Miss Claire?”

Obviously Rae had noticed. Claire couldn’t, for the life of her, figure out how—Rae was currently touching her toes and therefore looking in entirely the opposite direction.

Claire sniffed. “I can’t help but feel a bit of contempt towards people who can’t fight.”

“I can’t fight,” Rae said, voice slightly strained. She probably wasn’t used to speaking mid-stretch.

“You can, with magic. That counts as knowing how to fight. Look—all of these losers? They can’t do either.”

“If you say so. But, contempt? Why?”

Claire struggled with that for a moment. It seemed to be such a natural thing to say, at first, that she’d never guess that Rae might not immediately agree. Yet she hadn’t.

After composing her thoughts, she tried, “Because, Rae, it’s a fundamental aspect of the human condition. Love and war, right? We’re born for conflict, too.”

“Love, sure,” Rae said, copying Claire’s shoulder stretches as they stood up fully. “But war? Really? Don’t you think that’s a kinda… Iunno, blinkered, maybe, way to see the world?”

“Well… yes,” Claire admitted. She hadn’t thought about that. It wasn’t really relevant, because, as she began to say, “But it’s never going to change, is it? There’ll always be conflicts, on any scale, from fighting over bread up to full-scale wars. It’s what I was trained for. It’s what the nobility is for, why we deserve to exist, in theory. To lead. What am I supposed to do, cry about it?”

“If you wanted, you could,” Rae said. “I’ve got a question though, if you don’t mind.”

“Ask away, commoner.”

“How does conflict end? Fighting to eat or to survive, that’s one thing. But war? Are nobles supposed to keep fighting wars, forever, over nothing? Moving a border here a bit forward, so that in a few years someone else can push it back?”

“Well, no. Eventually, the prophets say, that’ll all end on Judgement Day.”

Rae’s face fell. Claire didn’t understand why. What use was there in being sad about facts?

“And then what?” Rae asked, barely audible.

“Come on. You’ve read the scriptures.”

“...yes,” Rae said. “But what do they mean, to you?”

“I—I suppose—an end to suffering,” Claire said. Nobody had ever asked her about religion before. She wasn’t a theologist. It was something she was supposed to accept, literally an article of faith. She continued, “It means no more pain, no more sadness, and maybe… maybe one day I’ll get to see Mother again.”

As she said this, Claire watched Rae’s heart break in real time. Rae’s eyes grew misty, then she rubbed at them, trying to banish the tears, and smiled as she put her facade back up. Then the process repeated once or twice more.

Claire hadn’t meant to bring the conversation down like this. She just wanted to insult some people she didn’t care about. That was all.

Rae put her hand on Claire’s shoulder, squeezed tightly. She couldn’t tell whether Rae was trying to comfort her, or comfort herself. A bit of both, maybe.

“Remember, commoner,” Claire said, “We’re being watched.”

“I don’t care.”

Even if it might have been wiser, Claire couldn’t push her away. Turning the words she’d said over in her head, she was surprised at how empty they sounded. Maybe something about being behind the pulpit in a cathedral made it easier to speak eloquently about the hereafter. She’d always thought it beautiful, before. Claire had probably just done a bad job of explaining.

Rae was overreacting. Claire had said something that everyone around her believed as well. It was normal. She tried to say something to ease her concerns, but she could only guess what had upset Rae, so couldn’t tell if she’d been correct.

“Rae, it’s fine,” she said. “It’s not like I’m in a hurry to see her again anymore.”

Instead of appearing eased, Rae instead gripped Claire’s shoulder more tightly. Alright, Claire decided, that’s enough. Taking Rae’s hand in her own, she caressed it for a moment as she pulled it off of her.

“Know your place, commoner,” Claire said, returning to a normal speaking volume. The words hurt a bit more than normal, even though they were still the opposite of what she’d meant.

They fell silent. It was a blessing when, about half a minute later, the Academy staff finally finished their deliberations and approached.

Chapter 12: 3.4 Dueling, Dancing, What's the Difference?

Chapter Text

The class had naturally formed into a loose double-semicircle as they noticed their instructors approach. From in front of her and a bit to the right, Claire saw Loretta bury her head in her hands.

“No, no, no, no,” she was saying. “I didn’t realize it was him. He’s so embarrassing. Why.”

At Loretta’s side, Penelope looked concerned. She looked back at Claire, locking eyes with her, silently pleading for advice. Claire shrugged at her and faced forward, sizing up the new arrivals. Besides the silver-haired nun that Claire had occasionally seen around the Academy stood two more striking figures, one man and one woman.

The gentleman looked like an archetypal career soldier, white-haired and grizzled, with one twist. He had an eclectic sense of fashion. It was like he’d won the lottery and been given unrestricted access to all the Capital’s boutiques. It created a bizarre effect: exquisite leather shoes that were a bit scuffed from use and lack of care, a long and finely tailored midnight blue coat with slightly tattered ends of the arms, none of which distracted from the fact that he had enormous, vascular arms and a bit of a paunch. His beard looked soft and snowy, a bit less than an inch in length but well-maintained, and his hair was even shorter than that on the sides of his head. A bit longer up top, though.

While she heard more than one girl near her mutter about how handsome the old guy looked—at which point Loretta grew more and more mortified—Claire simply wondered whether he and Rhod used the same product to make their hair stand up like that.

The lady was unassuming—at first glance. She wasn’t someone you’d think twice about if you passed her on the street. The details took a moment to process. She was tall for a woman, almost six foot and blade-thin, with longish curly dark brown or black hair tied up into a loose ponytail. She wore a mid-length black leather jacket, and black and gray silk tights and a shirt that would have been indecently form-fitting outside of an athletic context. It wasn’t dissimilar from a fencer’s outfit, though. Her right arm was covered by a black leather glove that was long enough to tuck inside her sleeve, and the left had a scar in the size and shape of the tip of a sword through the palm.

Her large brown eyes surveyed the gathered students from behind thin rectangular-framed spectacles, but her features were otherwise plain, perhaps more handsome than average. Claire wouldn’t have called her pretty. The only truly notable facial feature was a faint coin-sized and coin-shaped scar in the center of her forehead. She was very young to have so many scars. She probably had about ten years on the students, but that made her half the age of the man beside her or less, and therefore the youngest instructor at the Academy that Claire was aware of.

Then the man started to shout. Claire had the sinking feeling she’d have to listen to him do this all year.

“Goooooood morning everyone! It is—” he checked his ornate silver watch “—oh-eight-hundred standard time! Are all you lily-livered swine and puffed-up little fauntleroys awake yet?! Good! If not? You will be!”

It wasn’t eight o’clock. Claire had been precisely punctual. His watch was wrong. Next to the man, the nun was shrinking behind the woman in silk and leather like she could take shelter from his voice. The older woman—Claire was starting to think of her as Scars, for lack of a name—was unperturbed. She crossed her arms and spoke up when she found a chance.

“Sir Kugret, remember that these are not your military cadets.”

Her tone was slightly cool but not otherwise disrespectful, and her accent was difficult to place. It overemphasized the rhotic sounds in the middle of words, and was slightly nasal, but otherwise it was almost perfectly neutral. Claire wasn’t the only person who seemed to find it odd. Rae frowned slightly as she listened to the speech. Claire had only just noticed that Rae moved closer to her when the man began to yell.

“More’s the pity!” The man—Sir Kugret, apparently—shouted, though the volume had dropped slightly. “Today and for the rest of the year, the two of us will be teaching you how to fight, so that the next time some sorry sod tries to break into the Academy you can deal with them personally instead of hiding behind better men!”

Not… really an accurate presentation of what had happened with the Commoner’s Movement, but it wasn’t Claire’s place to correct him. She agreed with some of what he was saying about defending oneself, but wished he knew he didn’t need to scream the point to get the words across.

“Now!” He continued. “I am Sir Kugret. I’ve served this kingdom for my entire life, as has my father before me and as my children will continue to do after I’m gone. Hey Loretta darling, bet you didn’t expect to see your old man here today, did you?”

Oh, so that’s who it was. She’d grown up with Loretta, and while she spoke about him rarely Claire had the sense she saw less of him than Claire saw of her own father. His Majesty asked much of his most competent servants, apparently. Loretta was smiling and nodding, now, in response to his words, but there was little emotion behind the actions. Claire made a note to say something nice to her later.

“This is Madame Stahl!” Sir Kugret pointed at his scarred companion, using every finger on his hand pressed tight like a blade as he made the motion. “Despite her common birth, you are to respect her orders as you respect mine! That is, so long as you are both within the walls of this Academy.”

Stahl did a little wave. She seemed embarrassed by the attention.

“That said! We will be splitting into two groups for the remainder of the year. Obviously I’ll be taking all the men, and Madame Stahl will be taking you girls—that includes you, sorry Loretta, honey-bun, go easy on them. Now, everyone, group yourselves up as is right and proper, over here and over there, and await further orders.”

“And—and Lilly will be here in case anyone gets hurt!”

The nun had spoken up suddenly, stammering a bit. She looked a bit nervous, but earnest, like despite everything she wanted to be here.

“Thank you, Lilly,” Stahl said, sighing a bit and running her hand over her forehead and through her hair. Her ponytail got just a bit messier. “Okay, everyone, you heard the man. Let’s split.”

They did as they were told. Misha had been standing next to Rae, and Yuu had been beside her for some reason. Claire heard a string of muttered invectives as the prince passed by to join the rest of the boys. Who on earth taught him those words? Claire wondered, a bit taken aback. Many of them were new to her, but she could guess what most meant with the aid of context clues.

“This way.” Stahl had already turned away. With her gloved hand she made a motion indicating for them to follow her. Claire, Rae, Loretta and Misha, along with the rest of the girls followed her until there were two different groups on the opposite ends of the dusty parade ground. Sir Kugret was still shouting, but it no longer took up Claire’s entire world.

“I don’t know why we’re doing it this way, but, whatever,” Stahl said. She reached a point that she was comfortable with and stopped, turning to face them. “Let me make this clear before I say anything else. This is stupid. There’s no reason to split up along gendered lines. Some of you might have the impression that because I’m a woman and I don’t have a noble pedigree or the supposed wisdom of old age that you’ll be getting a worse education from me. That’s not true. Maybe I’ve never led a cavalry charge, but you’ll learn from me just as well or better than the boys will learn from him.”

“What kind of experience do you have, then, if not with the military?” Loretta challenged. She was clearly in a bad mood and looking for an outlet. Claire wasn’t sure this was good target selection, though. Something about Stahl radiated… not menace, not exactly. She wasn’t actively threatening. There was a lot of potential threat there, though, like a reservoir that was calm and mirror-smooth until the moment the dam broke.

Silent, she analyzed Loretta for a moment like she was trying to determine what kind of bug had crawled inside her shoe and died. Unconcerned, dispassionate, certainly not thrilled.

“A bit of everything else, really,” Stahl began, at a normal conversational volume, not sounding angry despite the challenge. “I deal with monsters. I guess you could call me a sort of mercenary. Can’t use any magic, but I’m decent with guns, knives, unarmed combat… never really had a chance to master a specific style, though. A bit of everything, I guess.”

“You’re decent,” Loretta repeated, “You know a bit of everything but haven’t mastered anything. How good can you actually be, then?”

Stahl sighed and looked around at them, looking almost weary just from talking. She jerked one hand to her face to push her spectacles slightly further up on her nose.

“You’re all… what, fifteen? Sixteen, just about? Yeah, that sounds right,” she said, almost talking to herself before resuming her address to the crowd. “I’ve been fighting almost non-stop since I was your age and I’m still here. That’s all the expertise I can claim. Take it or leave it.”

For most people merely staying alive wouldn’t be worth boasting about, especially not in their twenties. But this woman, Stahl… Claire could believe it had been a challenge for her. How many scars did she have hiding under all that silk and leather? She didn’t even sound proud or happy about being alive. It was simply a statement of grim reality to her.

Loretta had nothing to say in response, so Stahl continued.

“I’ll keep teaching, then. First day of class is always mostly for housekeeping anyway, right? Right: you’ve probably heard by now why exactly this course has been added to the curriculum. There’s some fantasy that I’ll be able to teach you how to fight, unarmed, without your magic, well enough to fight back a few dozen or a hundred people. That won’t happen. I can teach you how to give yourself a good chance against one person, long enough to go for your wands, for help, anything. You’re children, not soldiers,” Stahl concluded, narrowing her eyes across the field at her co-teacher. “...despite what some would have you believe. Anyway. How many of you have been in a fight before? Raise your hands.”

About half the class did so. Rae didn’t for some reason. Was she not paying attention? Claire sighed and yanked one of her hands skyward.

“What are you—oh, right!” Rae whispered.

Had she actually forgotten about two of the most formative events of their lives? Her mind really did work in mysterious ways.

“Drop them again if you’ve only been in fights while training.” Most of the class let their hands fall. Misha caught Claire’s glance and rolled her eyes, clearly unimpressed with this demonstration.

“Now, drop your hands unless you were fighting for your life.”

Everyone except for Claire, Rae and Misha put their hands down.

“Huh,” Stahl said, tilting her head. “That’s more than I would have thought.”

Claire felt a surge of triumph, like she’d proven herself to this war-weary woman somehow. She met her eyes to gloat.

She didn’t see what she’d expected. Claire didn’t know what she’d expected, really. Praise? Recognition? Irritation? Maybe. She certainly hadn’t expected grief. Stahl stared between her, Rae and Misha with an intensity Claire had never felt before, at least not from a stranger. Most people got embarrassed and turned away when Claire caught them staring. The thought never seemed to cross Stahl’s mind.

Her eyes… Claire spent a lot of time looking at people’s eyes, these days, looking for the thoughts that their owners couldn’t yet speak aloud. She thought she’d gotten good at it, but this woman gave her nothing. Most people Claire couldn’t read seemed a bit vacant to her. Stahl was the opposite. Not vacant—fathomless.

“Hey,” she said, with a tone that was surprisingly earnest and almost… naïve, somehow. “I’m really sorry to hear that, you three. My door’s open if you need to talk about it.”

Without any conscious choice on her part, Claire dropped her gaze to the ground. She was immediately annoyed with herself, like she’d lost something somehow: like she’d lost a staring contest with a very sad dragon.

Misha broke the awkward silence with typical laconic flair. All she did was shrug and say, “It happens.”

“Yeah. It does. Anyway, I need a volunteer from the class to help me demonstrate something to everyone else. Would one of you mind?”

Claire looked up, then left, then right. To her left, Rae still seemed a bit absent, like she was trying to study for a test in her head. Misha, on the other hand, looked more interested in watching the boys that were already drilling nearby. As she watched Misha watch them, she saw Prince Thane get put in some sort of devious grappling hold by his younger brother, struggle for a moment, then tap repeatedly against his leg to indicate that he conceded. Misha smirked.

I guess I’m up, then.

More to break the silence than anything else, Claire took a half-step forward. “Ma’am.”

“Thanks,” Stahl said. She seemed a bit relieved that she wouldn’t have to make anyone help her against their will. “Hold onto this for a moment, please.”

Stahl withdrew a wooden dowel from her jacket and passed it to her. Claire thought she saw where this was going. It was in the rough size and shape of a wand, about as long, the same diameter. The main difference was the lack of any magical gemstones or comfortable grip.

Stahl strode ten paces away. She was tall enough that those few steps covered a fair bit of distance. The class naturally created space for them, spreading out into the shape of spectators at a dueling ground.

“Okay,” Stahl said, turning around. She was unarmed, as far as Claire could tell. She’d said she couldn’t use magic, and Claire wouldn’t be casting any spells with this imitation wand, so she had no idea what would happen next. “Picture this: somehow, you’re sure, I’m trying to hurt you or someone or something that matters to you. When you’re ready, draw your wand, get into your casting stance, and start casting a spell that’ll destroy me before I destroy you. At your leisure.”

Claire breathed in and out, slow, waiting. She almost wished she hadn’t volunteered. This was bringing back memories she wished she could forget. That was pure cowardice, though. Conflict was a part of human nature, as evidenced by the fact it kept finding Claire and Rae. Denying that reality wouldn’t help keep her safe. She’d humor the woman—she brandished her wand forward, imagining a ball of fire leaping from it to sear her teacher.

That was never going to happen. The most obvious reason was that the wand was fake. The second reason was that, if it had been real, it would have been struck from her hand and shattered before the spell completed. The moment Claire had moved, Stahl moved faster. She lashed forwards with her gloved arm and a dark shape spun forward and impacted into the wood just over Claire’s grip. Before she could react, Stahl had crossed the distance between them again, then settled into a relaxed fighting stance barely outside Claire’s reach.

“Now what will you do?” Stahl asked.

Claire froze. That had been a hell of a throw. Had the maniac thrown a knife at her? She shook her head and focused on the question.

What had she done last time? When her magic had been essentially useless, when she was scared, when she thought that either her or Rae might not make it out alive? She’d… moved without thinking in between Louis’s blade and Rae’s body. Claire hadn’t thought about it since, trying to put that day as far from her memory as possible, but she’d done the same thing that she’d once scolded Rae for doing. Just the thought of it angered her, that she hadn’t been able to do more.

Dying for love sounded so lovely on paper, but Claire wasn’t much of a poet and didn’t want a beautiful end. Not yet, at least. She’d really rather live for love, even if that meant fighting for it.

She settled into her stance, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet, a slight bend to her legs, hands and elbows in a high guard to account for her height disadvantage.

“Good girl,” Stahl said, somewhat absently, before wandering over to pick up whatever she’d thrown. Claire flushed. Did she realize how that sounded?

It was a throwing knife, technically, but it appeared to be made of a lacquered wood rather than sharpened steel. If she was accurate enough to knock the wand out of Claire’s hand at ten paces, she could’ve just as easily put it between her eyes instead. Claire wondered how many of the ‘monsters’ she’d ‘dealt’ with had been men.

“We’ll practice disarming drills soon, actually,” Stahl muttered. “That’s important. Anyway! This is all a long way to get back around to a pretty basic point. Power that can be taken away from you isn’t power you can rely on. Whether it's losing your wand in a fight, or the company that makes your neat gadgets disappearing overnight, you may one day find yourselves stripped of the thing that makes you strong. When that happens, I don’t want you to be defenseless. Let’s begin with some basic drills. Sorry to anyone who’s a bit more experienced, but we’re skipping full contact sparring until everyone has a grasp of the basics and after I get the assistant I’ve been begging admin for.”

They were grouped into pairs. Stahl seemed to have gained a bit of respect by being able to nail a target about the size of a bullseye from so far away, and nobody argued with her choices. She was clearly making an effort to pair those with experience with those who lacked it. It might have been a good idea in theory, but it was done with complete disregard for how the social dynamics of the Academy actually worked. Because they were more likely to have experience, a lot of nobles ended up paired with commoners—not a good idea, in general.

Misha got sent to educate some nobody. Claire was paired with Loretta, who looked thrilled. Rae was grouped with Pepi, who did not. For her part, Rae was looking at her pink-haired partner with the sort of total antipathy she generally reserved—quite disrespectfully—for Prince Rhod. A disaster was brewing.

Claire intervened. “This is absurd. Neither of them,” she said, pointing between Pepi and Rae, “Know what they’re doing. Loretta, switch off.”

“But, Miss Claire…” Loretta said, looking down. “You, and that commoner, she’s not even fit to shine your shoes, and certainly not to touch you. You can’t let the plebes entertain ideas above their station.

Loretta’s mild disappointment was outweighed by Rae’s obvious relief and Pepi’s mixed embarrassment and joy. This configuration simply made more sense. It wasn’t as if she wanted to train with the commoner or anything. Wait—she’d slipped back into her old mode of thinking. Claire did want that, very, very much.

She sighed, making it as theatrical as possible. “It truly is the burden of our class, is it not, to shepherd the great unwashed. And how do they thank us? With nothing but scorn and ridicule.”

“That’s not true at all, Miss Claire, I thank you with my eternal devotion—”

“Like I said,” Claire said, covering her face with her hands to hide her blush. Rae was a great scene partner. “Nothing but lies and deceit. I’ll take on this thankless task myself and spare you both. Perhaps I can finally instill in this commoner a bit of discipline. Hope springs eternal.”

“That’s so noble of you, Miss Claire, wow!” Pepi said. Did she actually believe this claptrap? Well, fair enough. It’s how they were taught to behave. The education of the nobility seemed more and more like a farce with every passing day, so maybe Claire shouldn’t be so surprised that she barely had to try in order to caricature it.

“Maybe we can form a group of three and the commoner can shadowbox over there?” Loretta suggested, then snickered. “Hey, maybe she and that nun can practice together.”

She jerked a thumb over to where the young woman was standing at the edge of a field, with what looked like a first aid station set up. How could she bear to be in full habit? The day was starting to get warm.

“Don’t be absurd, Loretta, obviously she can’t fight. I will shoulder this burden,” Claire said, then had an idea. “Besides, someone needs to teach Pepi about her body, and I think that someone should be you.”

“But, Miss Claire, you could do that even better than I could. Someone of your status shouldn’t have to lower yourself to dealing with someone of hers,” Loretta said, pointing at Rae.

While Loretta was speaking, the real meaning of Claire’s words seemed to strike Pepi; she looked ready to die from embarrassment.

“See it this way instead, Loretta,” Claire said, smiling innocently. “You’ve always been more physical than me, and a better fighter. Our dear Pepi deserves your help more than this commoner does, you’re a better match. Even if you’re always around to assist her, she should be able to take care of herself with her own two hands.”

“I can’t,” Rae said, throwing up her hands and taking a few steps away. “I just can’t even.”

“I suppose that’s sensible,” Loretta said, not sparing Rae another look. “Alright, come, Pepi, let me show you what I know.”

Claire turned on her heels and followed Rae, leaving her lackeys to their own devices.

Rae was shaking with barely-suppressed laughter, covering her mouth with both hands.

“Okay, I gotta ask, Miss Claire,” she said, giggling as she momentarily lost control of herself. “How much of that was intentional?”

“Why, commoner, I haven’t the faintest idea what you could mean. Hmph.”

Claire brought her hands up by her head again into a close guard that shielded her face from everyone else’s view. Then she let herself laugh too, quiet enough that only Rae would hear. She was glad Rae’s mood had improved from a few minutes ago.

Actually, I should ask about that.

“Rae,” she asked, “Are you alright?”

“Hmm?”

“You were looking ever so pale until a few minutes ago. Are you feeling well?”

“Oh…” Rae’s smile dropped. Claire wondered if she even realized that her facade was broken. “Some guy I don’t know yelled at me for a few minutes, at way-too-early-in-the-morning-for-this o’clock. Not really how I want to spend my day. I’m, like, fine, though.”

Was she? Claire wasn’t sure. “Rae… are you… uncomfortable around all men, in general?” She asked.

“Mostly I’m uncomfortable getting screamed at, actually—unless it’s by you, of course. Men, though? I’m fine as long as they don’t hit on me or treat me like a zoo animal for being craaazy enough to be vocal about being a lesbian. Anyway! Eyes front, Miss Claire, teach looks like she wants to say something.”

Before Claire could figure out a response to Rae that was more than a platitude, Rae’s prediction turned out to be true. Stahl got everyone’s attention once more and demonstrated with another pair what the class would be doing.

It was a simple guard drill, each partner alternating between throwing straight one-two punches down the middle, and the other catching them with open hands. There was no drill more basic, and it was really beneath her, but she’d endure it for Rae. Some of the other commoners looked a bit nervous, as well they might, paired off with nobles who’d done this before and didn’t have their best interests at heart.

They began. After a minute or so, Stahl walked around to see how Claire and Rae were doing. She frowned, saying, “You’re not in the pairs I assigned. That’s okay, but may I ask why?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Claire responded. Strange how naturally she deferred to her authority. The only commoner who’d managed that before was Professor Torrid, and he was a living legend, while Stahl was an enigma. “While this commoner may have been in fights before, she depends far too much on her magic, and is completely incompetent without it. I’ve therefore decided to instruct her personally.”

Stahl looked between them, completely still except for her eyes.

“Is that so?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah, what she said,'' Rae said, scratching behind one ear. “I’m compleeeeetely useless.”

“Okay, that’s fine. Let me make something clear, though” Stahl said, narrowing her eyes at Claire. “If you use your superior experience to bully her, I will notice, I will assign her a different partner, and I will practice with you instead. You don’t want that.”

“Y-y-yes, ma’am,” Claire said, taken aback.

Her voice was so matter-of-fact. It took a moment for Claire to even parse what she’d said as a threat. Maybe it hadn’t been intended that way, but Claire certainly felt threatened.

Stahl turned away, raising her voice to cover the area the girls had spread out to. “Actually, that goes for the rest of you! If any of you are here to beat up on someone that you think is inferior…”

“Wow,” Rae murmured as Stahl continued her lecture. “They invented a new type of teacher that’s concerned about bullying. What will the boffins dream up next?”

“It’s over.” Claire sighed, trying to joke her way out feeling like her life had been momentarily at risk. “Well, commoner, it’s been fun, but our little games have to end or she’s going to kill me.”

“Nah, no way! You could take her.”

They settled into a routine quickly, where Rae punched limply out towards Claire, who would offer incredibly helpful and insightful tips, and then strike back with perfect form the moment Rae’s hands were back up. Every few minutes, the drill changed from straight punches to hooks to uppercuts.

Rae had a consistent stance problem.

“No, no,” Claire said, “Wrong again.”

“Okay? I still don’t understand why, though,” Rae said. She was a bit too close, not using her reach to her advantage, standing flat-footed with legs straight.

Rather than bore her with all the details once again, Claire tried a new tactic.

“Because, if you’re too close to me, I can do this—”

With a sudden motion, Claire lunged forward and locked her lead leg behind Rae’s and pushed on her chest.

“Waugh!”

Rae toppled, stopping before hitting the ground only because Claire had grabbed her behind the neck to support her with the same hand she’d pushed with.

“—and now what will you do?” Claire finished.

Rae blushed, apparently unable to speak for a moment. It was remarkable how quickly she transformed from an awful little heretic into a blushing maiden the moment Claire touched her. After a moment, she found it in her to respond.

“Kiss you, duh.”

Claire sighed, feeling a bit of genuine frustration as she helped Rae back up. “Would it kill you to take this a bit more seriously? You need these lessons if anyone does.”

“Claire, what you just did was insanely hot, and also made me feel like a princess getting swept off her feet on a ballroom floor. I’ve never had that before. Can you blame me for treating it that way instead of as Very Serious Martial Arts?”

“Yes!” Claire exclaimed. After a moment, she relented. “No. It’s fine. Rae, if you want me to push you around more, you can ask.”

“I’ve been asking for that for a year! You kept running away every time I did!”

The effort of speaking seemed to be a bit greater than normal for Rae. She was breathing heavy after each sentence. They’d gotten about twenty minutes of decent work in, at least, so Claire decided that the beginner could be allowed a bit of respite.

“Well, things are different now. You know what? Rae, go drink some water. I’ll wait.”

Rae smiled, gratefully accepting the break and turning away. She walked off towards the medical station and the nun attending it. Claire suddenly felt rather alone on her patch of ground. They’d migrated far from the center of the girls’ group, and Claire was in general given a wide berth by her classmates, allowing her and Rae to speak somewhat freely.

More for effect than out of actual irritation, Claire yelled after her, “Run, don’t walk!”

Had to keep up appearances, after all.

It was still weird to her that Rae wanted her. It was nice, she couldn’t deny. It never would’ve occurred to Claire before that just being held, for any reason, could make anyone happy. Yet Rae was happy to be around her, even though Claire was so… not worth it. That said, she really thought that this training was important. Anything that could give either of them the slightest edge in a future fight was better than gold. Rae’s mind was elsewhere, obviously. It was a shame, because she could have done so much better if she applied herself.

Claire tried not to blame her. Deserved or not, she and Rae had one another now. She got distracted thinking about that fact too—as evidenced by the fact that she was still thinking about her—so she couldn’t blame Rae for the same. Claire was the one to blame for making her wait so long, after all, for making her think this was impossible.

Claire looked around for something to distract her from her own thoughts. Misha helped. She was nearby, looking bored. Her partner was worn out already, sitting down and holding a cup of water in both hands, taking small sips with the face of someone who’d given up.

Claire decided to approach. No reason for them both to be alone, after all.

It immediately felt like a stupid idea. Misha noticed her and grinned, walking to meet Claire halfway, stopping when she was at an intimate distance where their whispers would be audible to one another.

“Hey there, lover-girl,” Misha said.

“Oh, don’t start,” Claire sighed. “I miss when you were afraid of me.”

Seeing Misha smile like that was deeply alarming. It didn’t seem like a face her face ought to make.

“I’ve been trying to come up with an innocent explanation for my roommate’s four day disappearance,” Misha said. “I’m thinking… Twelve Labors? Have you been making her push a boulder up a hill over and over after you kick it back down to the bottom? Venturing into the Realm of Death to pick up your laundry, or something?”

“Hmph. There’s no number of classical allusions that will spare you from the absolute tedium of your puerile existence.”

Claire turned away, rubbing her eyes with one hand to try and massage away the frustration. What did I expect, really? She immediately regretted it when some sweat on her hands began to sting them.

“I always found it really funny, the way people like you would elevate their diction when they’re embarrassed,” Misha continued, unfazed. “If you want a chance to try out a couple of five or six-syllable insults, I have more myths I could reference. Those really seemed to bother you for some reason. Maybe a bit of scripture, next?”

“I have an alternate proposal. Why don’t you be pleasant, instead?” Claire asked, not thinking much of it.

“Alright.”

“All… right?”

“Oh, so you did hear me the first time. Yes, alright, since you asked politely.”

Misha relaxed, absentmindedly pulling on one elbow with her opposite hand to stretch her shoulders.

Wait, that worked? Claire was baffled. How come nobody ever told me that?

This was weird. Misha was letting this comfortable silence continue, rather than needle Claire for details about what she and Rae had been up to. It was nice. For some reason, it felt nicer than being around Pepi or Loretta, despite the fact that she didn’t know Misha well and had known those two all her life.

What had Yuu said the other day, that thing about masks? He’d been right. Misha was a menace, but Claire wasn’t exactly a charmer either. Trading honest barbs felt better than constantly searching for newer and more pleasant lies.

“Your prince is having a rough morning.”

Misha ruined it by speaking up, rotating her entire body so that she could point without breaking her stretch to do so. Yuu was laughing, helping Thane to his feet. The second prince had the opposite expression on his face. Melancholy marred his handsome features.

“I don’t have a prince,” Claire said, irritated. “If any of them had thought to kiss my hand and play the part of my knight, maybe I would, but someone else had that idea first.”

“Shush. Pay attention, you might learn something.”

No, maybe Pepi and Loretta and Claire’s past self were right about commoners. Don’t ‘shush’ me, peasant, Claire thought. Misha was truly insufferable. Although, she was born a noble..? Claire would have to do some math later to determine just how much each of her various past and current selves were allowed to hate Rae’s roommate, and for what reasons.

They watched together as the younger two princes faced off. The rest of their half of class was doing full contact sparring already. To Claire, this seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. Actually, disasters had already happened. The nun was using water magic to treat a boy’s hand. Maybe he hadn’t known how to punch and had broken his thumb. Other boys were sitting in the dirt nearby, showing clear signs of pain and unwilling to continue.

Thane began by testing Yuu’s guard. He was taller, and looked like he was trying to use his reach to his advantage, doing much the same things Claire had been taught to do: keep your guard up, attack with simple, quick, powerful strikes. He would circle for a moment, then plant his back foot, raising one knee to waist-height, making a split-second decision whether to drop the foot down and keep moving or to try for a kick. Either way, Yuu danced out of reach. The youngest Bauer’s guard was so low that it was actively stupid rather than simply disrespectful.

Even though his hands were down, Thane couldn’t or wouldn’t find an opening for the better part of a minute. Then, on some signal that Claire had missed, he pounced, skipping forward for a head kick with his lead leg.

Then a number of things happened very quickly.

First, Yuu fell over. Or, he looked like he fell over, before Thane had even hit him. The target had disappeared. Then as he fell forward he rolled onto the back of his shoulders, legs up, and tangled one arm and both legs around Thane’s standing leg. Then the blonde’s legs bent fast from fully extended to a right angle, torquing Thane’s downwards. He toppled, and before Claire could blink Yuu, with both legs still locking Thane’s, put both arms over his brother’s foot and began to twist.

With a sharp intake of breath, Claire looked away. Legs weren’t supposed to bend that way.

“It’s fine,” Misha said. “He tapped out.”

Claire looked over again, and Thane was indeed once more being helped to his feet, visibly more upset than last time.

“How on earth did he even do that?” she asked.

“Keep watching and you might see it again, Yuu’s done that takedown a few times already today.”

“I don’t think that’s right,” Claire said with a frown. “Just because he was in a bad mood this morning doesn’t mean he should take it out on someone else.”

Misha’s attention had been somewhere else, despite the fact that she had been the one to tell Claire to pay attention. Maybe that was for the best, since Claire realized the rank hypocrisy of what she’d said the moment it left her mouth.

“Hold on, Claire, she kissed your f*cking hand?” Misha asked, without care for the interruption. “How long after that did it take you to get together properly, again?”

Claire gritted her teeth at being ignored but decided to humor her. She was naturally inclined to boast, after all. Maybe once Misha had this out of her system Claire would finally have someone to whom she could brag about her excellent lover.

“Two months, give or take.”

“You really give useless lesbians everywhere a bad name.” Misha put a hand to her forehead like she had a sudden headache. She really sold exasperation like no one else Claire had ever met. Someone should tell her that she’s a perfect comedic foil. “As someone who understands the role of knight in that knight/princess dynamic, that’s far more… prurient than simply kissing someone on the lips. It’s basically code for ‘use me wherever you want at your convenience’.”

Once again shocked by Misha’s sudden vulgarity, Claire lost her train of thought. In the silence that followed those words she had a moment to think. Misha had just provided her with a crucial bit of context. She acted so cool, but she had a bad habit of speaking very generally when she obviously was talking about herself, specifically.

Knight… Princess… Dynamic..?

Claire only knew one princess: Manaria. Unless she’d been much more distracted during Manaria’s visit than she’d realized, she and Misha had never interacted, let alone done anything lewd. Though Manaria was capable of a great deal of mayhem in very short timespans, Claire was sure she’d have noticed that.

She forced herself to broaden her gaze. Thane? Probably not. Rhod? Definitely not. Yuu..?

Claire thought back over her conversation with Yuu.

Girl talk…

Inspired by Rae…

Even when she tells you, unequivocally, what she is…

Avoiding the company of men. Intimate knowledge of perfumes. Using feminine variants of every noun available. Perfectly clean-shaven. An affected, effeminate tenor. Impeccable etiquette, as if learnt from exactly the same books and tutors that Claire had learned from.

“Oh!” Claire buried her head in her hands. “God damn it! This is why everyone hates me, I’m so dense!”

“What?”

Misha looked over at Claire, and her face fell.

“You—Yuu—You and Yuu—” Claire sputtered. “It was you!”

“What? No, no no no, no no no no no, that’s not fair,” Misha snarled. “You did not just realize that, because of this. Listen to me very carefully. Miss François, you’re dead if you so much as breathe a word whatever you think you’ve figured out—”

Her little tirade got cut short when Claire grabbed her by the wrists. She was only touching the jacket, not bare skin, to make sure she looked a bit less intimate with this particular commoner. Claire had to remember her station, after all. If nobody had been watching, though, Claire would’ve hugged her.

We’re not alone!

Claire and Rae weren’t alone. It was like magic, but real magic, not the things they so hubristically called magic that they could do with their wands. They could keep yelling at one another later—Claire’s natural irascibility has been overpowered by a surge of warm feelings.

“Misha, it’s wonderful,” Claire breathed. “How and when did you get together with hi—with her?”

“Stop.” Misha closed one hand around Claire’s wrist and wrenched it free, at which point Claire dropped her other hand from Misha’s arm. She could’ve simply asked to be released. Misha didn’t move away, though, and still spoke in a whisper. “You’re sh*t at lying but you need to be really, really, really careful about this, or, again, you’re dead. Yuu’s a man, as far as anyone in the Academy knows, besides us two. f*ck up and I kill you. Don’t even tell Rae. It’s not your secret to share.”

Strictly speaking, Misha could catch a death sentence for threatening Claire’s life to her face. The fact that she did so anyway meant she was either not serious or that she really, really was, and the consequences didn’t matter to her. Either way, it was probably best to let it slide.

“It’s fine! It’s fine,” Claire said, “I’m great with secrets.”

Misha looked superbly unimpressed. “I haven’t seen you succeed at anything, ever, in the entire time I’ve known you. I need a bit of reassurance on your acting skills if I’m not going to disappear you to keep her safe.”

A dull, icy chill crept into Claire’s voice, like the first frost of winter arrived too soon. “A-hem. What gives you the right to lecture me, commoner? Stand aside. You’re blocking my light.”

“Better. Okay. You can still be a mean bitch, you haven’t gone soft, that’s good. Just, uh, apply that more productively. If and when you f*ck up with pronouns, yell at whoever you're speaking with until they stop thinking about your weird mistake and remember how much they detest you instead.”

Misha paced, massaging her temples with her knuckles. Claire wished she’d be a bit less God damn mean to her. She hadn’t ever actually done anything to Misha, or to Yuu, for that matter. Whatever. She was most familiar with Claire from how she’d treated Rae early on in their friendship, even though her behavior was somewhat justified, she understood how it looked from the outside. She’d let Misha be a pain to her while she was stressed, so that maybe it’d be out of her system for next time, but the girl did need to relax a bit if they were going to have a meaningful conversation.

“Don’t get in a snit,” Claire said. “Yuu basically told me over and over the other day when—when Yuu saw us together. I think it was h—he—augh. This is terrible.”

“Oh, just she her, before you hurt yourself,” Misha said. “It’s fine, I suppose, if you’re only speaking with me.”

“Thank God. Yuu was saying the four of us should go on a double date. I’m surprised she didn’t mention it to you.”

“It’s not safe for us to spend any time together in the Academy, Claire. At all. I don’t get many chances to speak with her.”

“That’s awful,” Claire said. “I hadn’t realized how lucky Rae and I are, I suppose. Do you… need a hug? Later, when people aren’t watching?”

“No,” Misha said, curt. She reconsidered for a moment. “But… thanks. I appreciate the thought.”

“Misha,” Claire said, “There’s no need to be so defensive. All I’m trying to do is the right thing. I’ve gotten bored of making people mad at me for being pointlessly cruel, except when it’s funny, I guess.”

“And this isn’t funny to you? Even a bit?” Misha asked, one eyebrow raised.

“No. It’s lovely. Why would it be funny?”

“Yuu thinks it’s funny, for what it’s worth, but she has a dark sense of humor and she’s allowed. I don’t think we get to make the same jokes. Anyway. I will say, I’m pleasantly surprised at how understanding you’re being.”

“Understanding? I don’t understand it on any level,” Claire said. “Does that matter? I can try. How does one even figure that out about oneself? I can’t even imagine. And how do you know? What is it like? How does she look in a dress?”

“Okay, okay, stop,” Misha said. “I’m done answering questions. If Yuu thought you were safe to talk to, and presumably Rae as well, that’s fine, but we’ll do it on her terms. I’m sure she has a plan for this date. She always has a plan.”

She had better. She. Weird to think about Yuu that way. But, now that she’d seen it, Claire couldn’t un-see it. Every little mannerism of hers was so perfectly feminine, so perfectly affected and performed. No wonder she was unbeatable in the school’s etiquette classes. She probably had to teach herself how to act like a lady in much the same way as Claire had; from books, without a mother around to teach them.

“That’s good, that’s great,” Claire said, a bit absently. She’d let herself get lost in thought for a moment. “Because you’ve made life about a million times harder for both of yourselves. Yuu can’t really afford making an enemy of the Chancellor, but you certainly can’t.”

Misha’s voice was a bit resigned and quite terse as she replied. “I’m very aware of that. It doesn’t matter. It’s something that she has to do, so I have to help her, no matter what.”

“Awww…”

“Don’t mock me,” Misha muttered.

“I wasn’t, you little pissant. I thought it was sweet.”

“Hahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… sorry.” Misha rubbed at her eyes. “Pardon me if I’m belaboring the point, but, for the last time: you’re now the keeper of a secret that could destroy several people’s lives, including your own. If you make any mistakes, the blowback could be immense. If you don’t care about me, that’s fine, that’s fair, but Yuu, obviously, as well as Rae and yourself could end up as collateral damage too.”

“I’ll do my best. I don’t know why, I don’t know what Yuu’s plan is, but I can’t ignore someone begging me for help, even if I’m not able to do much. Especially not a—a princess, I suppose.”

Their conversation was clearly winding down, so Claire looked around. It only took a moment for her to find Rae. She was on her way back, at last. She’d taken a while, but that was fine. She wasn’t used to working out as far as Claire knew. They’d have to stretch properly after class to make sure she didn’t hate everything in the morning.

“Thanks.”

Claire turned back to Misha, who was already starting to walk away.

“For what?”

“For being decent about this,” Misha said. “I know it’s weird.”

“Decent?” Claire wondered. “I suppose. All I’m doing is trying to be normal.”

“Don’t worry. You’re never going to be normal.” Misha smiled. “Thank God.”

Chapter 13: 3.5 Soteriology

Chapter Text

With Misha’s parting words of dubious encouragement still ringing in her ears, Claire called out to Rae, who was finally within close earshot.

“What on earth took you so long?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Rae said, hands up in a gesture of surrender, after she made it back to Claire’s side. “I got drafted. The boys are dropping like flies, and I couldn’t just let Lilly deal with all those injured kids alone.”

“How saintly.”

Claire looked up into the big blue sky and counted to ten, breathing in and out slowly. She got to about four or five before she couldn’t help herself and had to comment again. Her words felt like they were dipped in acid as they left her mouth.

“Lilly, huh? Already on a first name basis? Wonderful.”

“Yes?” Rae made the word a question. “Should I not have? I kept checking, and you and Misha seemed to be getting along alright, or I’d have rushed back a bit sooner.”

“It’s fine,” Claire said, punctuating the word by kicking a pebble off into the distance. “I’m not upset with you.”

“Ohmigod, are you, like, jelly all of a sudden? Please tell—”

“Yes!” Claire shouted, then winced as she realized she had turned one or two heads. She tried to play it off by gently shoving Rae away from her, then continued in a hushed tone. “Assuming that stupid word you just said is a foreshortening of the word ‘jealous’, then yes, that is what I am!”

“Wait…” Rae froze. “I actually forgot that was literally probably true. I never thought I’d get this far. I’m sorry, Claire! I really was just helping out, our small talk consisted of some dude going, ‘oof ouch hurts so bad’ and one of us making it stop. Jealousy is a great look on you, though, that was super duper cute.”

“Hmph.” Claire turned away, hiding her face. “I’m not cute.”

“Claire, you’re the absolute cutest.”

“N-no…” she flushed. “Rae, I’m gorgeous, obviously, but you’re the cutest.”

Just according to plan. Claire decided there’d been a plan, at least, when those words stunned Rae into silence. Her lover raised one eyebrow, looked around, pointed back at herself with a thumb, and mouthed, ‘me?’

“Yes, you, you dolt! Do we know any other Raes? Now put your hands up and let’s finish class strong.”

While the half of the class led by Sir Kugret looked like they were winding down, already missing a decent chunk of the population, Stahl seemed determined to use every second of their class time. Claire’s estimation of her rose a notch. She’d already taught them her nomenclature for the various basic punches. If Stahl called out a 1 or a 2, that meant a straight jab or cross, respectively. 3 and 4 meant hooks, 5 and 6 were uppercuts, she skipped over 7 and 8, and 9 and 10 were overhead punches. Even numbers were always punches with the lead hand, odds called for a strike with the rear (and typically dominant) hand. Neither of them were ‘southpaws’, as Stahl termed left-dominant boxers, so the combination drills were simplified by Rae and Claire both having their left foot forward and stances square.

During one such combination(a 1-stepforward-1-2-3-6 for the curious) Rae raised a question that Claire had been dreading.

“What’d you two talk about?” Rae asked. She clarified, somewhat unnecessarily, “You and Misha, I mean.”

“Uh.”

Claire paused mid-combo, then resumed with a heavy uppercut to close it out. Rae winced as she caught it in the palm of her hand.

“We, um…” Claire faltered. The truth was best, here, and most of the truth was fine. Some of it was complicated, though. “She saw through us instantly, so I was talking to her. About us. I hope that’s fine. I assumed she already knew how you felt about me.”

“Oh, yeah, despite her best efforts. I talked her ear off about how wonderful you are a few times. Actually, I did that more or less every day. Whoops. That’s fine, of course, Claire, it’s up to your discretion. I’m surprised she had anything to say about it, to be honest.”

“Rae, to be honest, she told me one or two more things. In confidence.”

“Oh?” One of Rae’s eyebrows raised after she finished her somewhat weaker combination. “I didn’t realize you were that close.”

“We aren’t. Well, maybe we are. It’s complex,” Claire said, trying to find the words to explain something without giving away confidential information, then giving up. “I don’t know where to start. You’ll hear about it soon, I just can’t be the one to tell you.”

“Wow!” Rae’s face lit up with a smile, but Claire thought she saw a flash of worry for just a moment before the expression locked in. “Intrigue, mystery, my two best friends keeping an—I assume—totally benign secret. I am so curious now but I’ll drop it if you ask.”

“I do ask, I’m very sorry.” It took Claire a moment to parse that first sentence, but when she realized what Rae had called her, she was unexpectedly moved. “Best… friend?”

“Yeah! On top of everything else, so to speak.”

“Oh. Thank you, Rae,” Claire said, too weak to find words to embellish how she felt.

Rae immediately ruined the sweet moment she’d just created by yawning and groaning in a deliberately annoying manner, “I’m booooredededed.”

“My God.” Claire sighed. “Rae, you’ll live. I’m bored too. Practice is boring sometimes, especially the fundamentals. Just bear with it, we’re nearly done.”

“No, I’d really like to start getting my wuxia on as soon as possible. Like that,” she said, pointing at Yuu.

Yuu, who finally had her guard up, was weathering a vicious flurry of punches, kicks, knees and elbows from Thane. Her brother was striking with perfect range and economy of motion at last, and she couldn’t seem to find a way in. Just when it looked like she was about to drop her guard and take direct hits, she tried a reckless rush forwards, checking Thane with her shoulder and sending him rolling across the ground. Lunging after him, she grabbed onto his back, and the two wrestled for a moment as Thane tried to avoid getting choked out. He was doing a good job of it, Claire thought, until Yuu kicked him in the back of a leg and used that momentary distraction to twist on top of him while torquing his arm in a way that would break or dislocate it in seconds. Claire winced, but Thane was already tapping.

There was a certain cruel elegance to the princess’s movements that Claire hadn’t picked up on before. She hadn’t ever looked for it. To Yuu’s credit, neither she nor her brother had sustained even minor injuries all class, except perhaps to Thane’s pride.

“Let’s stick to striking, for now,” Claire said. “Becoming a grappler is the only thing I can think of that would make you even more obnoxious.”

“Yeahhh… no clue what’s going on there.” Rae scratched her head, looking puzzled. “Honestly, I can’t tell what’s gotten into Yuu. I know he’s hypercompetent, I just didn’t think he wanted anyone else to know that. He must’ve had some off-screen character development.”

Claire bit her tongue, fighting her urge to correct Rae. It was a challenge. It was second nature by now for her to point out anything Rae did wrong, but she’d promised Misha she wouldn’t. This secret-keeping would get annoying very quickly, especially since Rae would probably know better what to do about the princess’s gender trickery than Claire.

“Off…screen?” Claire muttered, trying to distract herself from her secret.

“Uh, whoops. Nevermind that. Hey, Claire, you’re not going to let him outshine you, right? Show me something cool.”

“No,” Claire sighed. “Terrible idea.”

“Come onnnnnnnn…”

“Are you sure?” Claire asked.

“Yeah! How am I supposed to, like, learn to defend myself in real life against someone who’s holding back?”

“I think you fundamentally misunderstand the point of practice. You learn first by having a solid grasp of the basics.”

“Yeah, but we can skip to the end, right? I’m sure you’d be a great teacher. And, surely the great Claire François would never tolerate anything less than perfection from her servants, right? Make me better, faster.”

“Alright. You asked for it.” Claire began to prowl in a circle around Rae, looking for openings. “Remember to keep your hands up by your face, no matter what.”

This would be easy. The only question was what she should do. Elbows, knees, and kicks were right out. Even Loretta, who was better than Claire in general, complained about those strikes, saying that when Claire hit her with them in training it felt like being trampled by a pony. Claire was still somewhat sore about that comparison.

Probably some sort of simple punch combination, then, with a bit of power behind it, so that Rae would stop nagging her. Claire wasn’t going to hit her with a flying knee or anything, even though she had once or twice in the past been aggravated enough to entertain the idea. Maybe a 1-1-10? Get her to lower her guard enough that she could sneak a punch over top, that might convince her to take this more seriously. It was also something Rae could be taught easily for future use.

As she circled, Claire jabbed, hard, once. Rae was a bit taller than her, and Claire had deliberately kept the punch low, to get her to lower her guard despite clear instructions. She half-stepped forwards and to the left to try and maneuver around Rae’s guard again, jabbing a second time the moment her foot hit the ground, and instantly turning on the balls of her feet and twisting her waist, trunk, and shoulders forward as she put everything she had into an overhand strike.

Rae had always outmatched Claire in chess and in magic duels. Somehow, she had an antidote for her constant forward aggression. It took until after she was halfway through the swing for some part of her brain to connect the dots: Rae’s intellectual ability to counter Claire might not hold up in a physical environment. She tried, too late, to pull her punch.

To Rae’s credit, she hadn’t fully dropped her hands as most amateurs would’ve. She followed instructions well. She mostly blocked the punch. However, she hadn’t yet taken Stahl’s lessons or Claire’s nagging to heart, and the shape of her guard was wrong. It was too close to her face and not firm enough so that when Claire’s fist smashed into them like a billiards break, they scattered and slammed back into Rae’s nose.

A thin trickle of blood ran out of one of her nostrils, painted her lips a rich claret, then after a moment began to drip off her chin down to the ground.

“Ha ha. Ouch, thad hurd.” Rae was pinching her nose with one hand and resting the other under her chin in an effort to keep blood off of her clothes. It didn’t stem the flow.

Claire instantly wished she were dead. She was the worst person she knew. How could she have avoided hurting Rae for a year before they were together, and then injure her almost immediately after?

“Oh, no,” she said, hands covering her mouth. “Oh, God—Rae, please, forgive me. I wasn’t thinking, I was being stupid—”

Rae shook her head, carefully.

“Ids fine,” Rae said, “me doo. I did liderally ask for this. Ids not thad bad, id gave me ideas for lader tonight.”

“It’s not okay!” Claire moaned, on the verge of tears. “It’s not funny, either!”

Her lover, the maniac, was smiling, for some reason. She must have had something seriously wrong with her.

“Even dis’s cute, I think. Ids okay. I’ll pig up my wand and—”

A blonde chaos agent interrupted her. Yuu had torn across the field, across the invisible dividing line between the boys and girls. She interposed herself between Claire and Rae before either of them could react.

“Dear God, the humanity,” the secret princess cried. She was clearly having fun with it, barely stifling a grin. “This wicked woman hath assaulted her own maid. Broke her entire nose and face, it seems. Will anyone be brave enough to stand up to her and vindicate the rights of the common people? Oh, that’s right—I will. Avaunt, thou tick!”

She pushed Claire away by the shoulder—gently—and then pulled Rae away in the direction of the nun to be treated. Claire was surprised that Rae didn’t immediately tell Yuu to get lost, as she usually did any time one of the Bauers tried to interact with her, but the theatrics seemed to have shocked her beyond the ability to protest. Nearby, Misha rolled her eyes and smiled.

As Yuu left she winked and whispered to Claire, “Smile, darling, everybody’s watching!”

Oh, right, good point, Claire realized. She could salvage something from this disaster after all.

“Hm—hmph,” Claire said, taking a moment to compose herself. “That’s what you get, commoner, for pushing me to my absolute limit.”

As she watched Rae get pulled along, Claire put all of her focus into keeping a haughty frown on her face and not totally falling apart. At least Madame Stahl hadn’t noticed. Come to think, where was the woman?

“Miss François.”

Claire jumped. There Stahl was, behind her, somehow. How did someone so tall move so stealthily? The gloomy woman in her dark silks and leather was almost brushing up against her. She was almost a full head taller than Claire, so from this distance she had to look almost directly upwards to see the slight frown that creased her face.

“A minute ago,” Stahl said, “We had an even number of students in our class, and I thought that was great. It meant no groups of three, and I could focus on teaching the class instead of one person. Explain why that’s no longer the case.”

She had to resist the urge to cower. Stahl had a formidable glower, despite her neutral tone. There weren’t many options but to come clean. Claire felt guilty enough anyway. She had no real interest in defending her own foolish acts.

She bowed her head. “Ma’am, due to my own irresponsible behavior, Miss Taylor has been injured. I have no excuse. I submit myself to whatever punishment you deem appropriate.”

Stahl scoffed. “Relax. Sorry for giving you the third degree earlier, didn’t mean to spook you. Personal hangups that I thought I was more fully over, you know how it is. I could tell immediately afterwards that you were trying to teach her rather than bother her.”

“I—yes, that’s right.” Claire had almost started arguing against her own case. She would take charity from this woman if offered.

“You’re more upset about it than she is, so as long as you go and apologize to her after class, I’ll drop the issue. Also—” Stahl paused “I don’t know what that blond kid was talking about. That’s not a broken nose, and even if it was, who cares? A quarter of the people at this school have healing powers, it’s unbelievable. You have no idea how good you have it.”

“That kid,” Claire said, her relief that Stahl believed her battling with her annoyance that she so blithely disrespected the monarchy, “is—is His Highness Yuu Bauer.”

Stahl shrugged. “I’m not from here. Get back into your stance.”

As Stahl had predicted, Claire did not enjoy practicing with her. She wasn’t trying to punish her for her mistakes, but she made no real effort to hold back either. It was demoralizing. She was taller, stronger, faster, heavier, more experienced, and most of all, better. She didn’t seem to tire or slow down. The only useful practice Claire got was her frantic defense from the woman’s blows. It was like training with Father all over again.

Mercifully, it didn’t last long. After what seemed like forever but was probably only about a minute or two, Stahl stopped mid-combination.

“Okay,” she said, “That’s enough. You’re too distracted. This is a waste of your time.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Claire said.

“What?” Stahl looked surprised. She raised her hands in a placating gesture. “Oh, no, it’s fine. What I meant to say was… your maid, your friend, whatever she means to you, she’s fine. I promise. But you won’t learn anything like this, and I need to keep my attention on the rest of the class for the last five minutes. Go convince yourself that she’s okay and come back armed with that knowledge next time. You’re dismissed.”

Stahl jerked a thumb over towards where Rae, Yuu and Lilly were congregated. Even if Claire had wished to protest her verdict, she was already walking away. Claire had lost her partner again. She therefore turned her attention towards Rae, who at least wasn’t bleeding anymore. The three of them were using their water magic to finish healing the last of the injured boys.

For lack of any better options, Claire decided to go join them. She weaved between her other classmates on the way back. Based on the haggard sound of their breath as she passed each pair, Stahl had pushed them to their absolute limits. Good. Pepi was on the ground, almost prone, both knees bent and legs skewed, arms twisted in awkward angles to end up behind her back. Claire was worried she’d been hurt too until she heard Loretta trying to persuade her that she could finish class on her feet, and realized that the girl was simply exhausted.

With some trepidation Claire crept up on the impromptu first aid station. Yuu had released Rae by now and was standing with her hands clasped behind her head, elbows out like wings. She winked once more at Claire as she approached, and Claire winked right back, though frowning and shaking her head to show that she was annoyed about it. Until Stahl had reassured her, the thought that she might have broken Rae’s nose had frozen Claire with fear, and Yuu had encouraged that belief. If this had been the thing that finally made Rae hate her like she always should’ve, Claire really didn’t know what she’d do.

Rae was none the worse for wear. She sat, cross-legged, a fair distance away from Yuu and Lilly, a slightly bemused expression on her face. Her nose was fine. Even the blood had been cleaned off of her face. It looked like nothing had ever happened to her. She smiled and waved at Claire who immediately felt thirty pounds lighter, as if she’d been dragging her fears behind her until that moment.

“Oh no!” Yuu called out as Claire went to sit down next to Rae. “She’s back for another shot at the target. Miss Taylor, run away!”

Claire put her head in her hands. “Please, no more.”

“Miss Claire,” Rae said, “The only thing I’m upset about is that you stopped before I said our safeword.

“This is what damnation must feel like,” Claire muttered as her cheeks flushed. She couldn’t believe that Rae was still risking this around the princess and a member of the clergy. “This is the eternal torment that awaits me.”

“Treat our Church’s tenets with respect, infidel!”

Claire jumped. She hadn’t seen who’d spoken—she was covering her eyes until she’d been shouted at—and looked desperately around to discover who’d chastised her. Yuu had one hand flat in front of her mouth, blocking Lilly’s line of sight to her silent laughter. Rae was staring at the nun, nonplussed.

What on earth? The girl didn’t seem big enough to make such a loud noise. She didn’t seem to realize she’d done it at first, either. Lilly blanched, withdrawing into herself, somehow making herself look even tinier than she did already. Reaching up, she tried and mostly failed to pull her wimple in front of her face to hide behind it.

“I’m—um—extremely very sorry,” she said, almost whispering. “That’s not who Lilly is.”

“Let’s pretend that didn’t happen!” Yuu said, smiling serenely, while Rae and Claire exchanged a worried look. It was probably time to evacuate, before she got mad at Claire for another faux pas she didn’t realize she was committing, and this teeny terror tried to take her head off.

The nun ignored Yuu’s hints that it was time to change the subject. “Since we were discussing so-soter-soteriology,” she began, “Lilly doesn’t know you, but she assumes your soul probably isn’t damned for all eternity yet. Although sometimes Lilly wonders if adopting the doctrine of pre-predestination might make worship easier on the laity. We wouldn’t have to guess where we were going after we—um—pass on..”

“You know,” Yuu pointed out, “We did fight a few dozen wars a few hundred years ago due to our insistence that the way we worshiped the Great Spirit was right and the heretics in Sousse had it all wrong. You’re a cardinal. Please stop with that sola fide and predestination and all that nonsense, darling, you’ll incite a second Reformation. It’ll be really irritating to deal with. Bauer has enough problems already.”

“Li-Lilly doesn’t see what politics has to do with her.”

“Oh, darling, I know,” Yuu sighed.

“Uhhhh,” Rae whispered into Claire’s ear, “are we supposed to know what the heck they’re talking about?”

“God, I hope not,” Claire replied under her breath.

Yuu noticed that they were lost and took pity on them. “Darling, please, you’re scaring our guests,” she said, cutting Lilly off as she was about to start a new tangent. “Let’s change topics to something they can participate in more readily.”

It really was amazing that nobody else noticed that she was a woman. She was more effeminate in many ways than Claire herself, thanks to her atypically martial upbringing. It was driving Claire insane that she couldn’t ask Rae something to the effect of, hey, you know everything, what’s the deal with this? or similar, because that would give the game away and then Misha would probably follow through on her threats.

“Oh, that’s right… Lilly apologizes, she didn’t mean to exclude you, Rae, and…”

Lilly looked inquisitively at Claire.

“Ah.” How rude of her. She hadn’t introduced herself. What a blunder. She curtseyed, as much as one could when already sitting down, and said, “Claire François. Charmed, I’m sure.”

“Lilly… Lilium,” the nun said.

Oh. Oh, God damn it. Claire finally put it together. Lilly Lilium, cardinal of the Church, whispered in some circles to be the next pontiff, and Yuu Bauer’s fiancée. Claire froze her smile on her face, trying desperately not to let the expression drop.

This was the girl that Misha was cuckqueaning? Well, fair enough. It seemed like she could hold her own with Yuu conversationally only when discussing theology, which was not exactly thrilling salon chat. Still, Misha was inviting further disaster upon herself and her family by risking the ire of her family. One wasn’t frocked as a cardinal as a child younger than Claire or Rae without being extraordinarily politically connected. Who knew what deals had been made to get her to her office?

This was extremely stupid drama that Claire didn’t want any part in but no longer saw any way to avoid. Time to play nice.

“I’ve heard so much about you, Miss Lilium,” Claire began, before getting utterly thrown off.

She had to take back what she’d thought about Yuu embodying the feminine ideal almost immediately. The princess began to screw around the instant Lilly’s back turned. Was… was she miming? She was—with both pointer fingers extended, she drew two circles in the air, then cut horizontally to indicate rapid movement away from Lilly. Then she walked her right hand across her left forearm as she raised it parallel to the ground, her pointer and middle fingers playing the role of legs. Finally, she clasped her hands together in supplication and mouthed at Claire, please, get me out.

“...right, Yuu?” Oh. Lilly had been speaking that entire time. She started to talk with her hands a bit more, coming out of her shell a bit when nobody interrupted or spoke over her.

“Of course,” Yuu agreed. The moment Lilly turned back to her, she was still and relaxed as if she’d been listening the entire time. Her expression gave nothing away, a beatific smile and closed eyes that barely even looked mocking. Lilly smiled slightly at the affirmation, then looked back at Rae and Claire, which was bad. Claire had completely missed the last minute of conversation. Evidently Rae had as well—she had raised one eyebrow to heretofore unknown heights. Claire had never seen her so fully at a loss for words.

Stahl rescued them, though she hadn’t meant to. Her voice cut across the field like a church bell, calling out, “Class dismissed! Good work today!”

“Ah, that’s our cue,” Claire said, rising somewhat hastily and almost toppling over. Her left leg had fallen asleep. After recovering almost-gracefully, she nodded to Lilly. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“It—it was nice to meet you, Miss François, Rae,” Lilly said, a slight smile on her face despite stuttering through the sentence. Claire felt her blood pressure rise slightly at hearing Lilly speak to her maid so informally. Rae at least had the decency to look embarrassed.

“Now, Your Highness, about that matter you meant to discuss…” Claire trailed off, waiting for the princess to pick up the conversational slack.

“Oh, yes, of course. The Matter,” Yuu darkly intoned. “Tell you what. I’m covered in Thane’s sweat—gross—so I’m going to get changed. We'll have a lot to talk about so let's meet by the fountain when we're done with class for the day. I’ll see you girls in a little while.”

Rae, apparently, had had enough of being left out of the conversation. She spoke up.

“I’m starting to get the sense that y’all’ve been talking, without me, once or twice. I need to be honest, I’m FOMOing hard here, Miss Claire.”

Claire smiled apologetically at her and was beginning to speak when Yuu cut her off.

“Just once, darling,” she said, “and not about anything that concerned you directly at the time. Now it does. I’d appreciate it if you would hear me out; and don’t be upset with your master. I directly asked for her discretion.”

Rae was almost ignoring her. She only acknowledged that Yuu had been speaking by flicking her eyes briefly over to watch her, as if breaking eye contact with Claire had been an accident. What did she want? The searching look in her big red eyes—what was Rae searching for?

Assurances, maybe? It was worth a try.

“Rae,” Claire said, adopting a soothing tone, “it’s nothing bad, and it’s not about us. But, if we hear Yuu out, it might help me do what I’m trying to do. You said you would help me change the world if I asked, right?”

A moment passed. In that time, Rae seemed to have decided something, because when she spoke she said, “Okay. I trust you, and I’ll help you, no matter what.”

Claire smiled. She couldn’t help herself. The words sounded nice, even ignoring their meaning. Maybe she’d needed assurances too. She looked over to see that Yuu had already begun to walk away.

“By the way,” Claire called after her, “I finally figured it out. Sorry about that.”

“I could tell.” Without turning back to face her, Yuu waved a lazy goodbye. “Thank you. Talk soon.

With that the conversation was over. Claire began to drag Rae the opposite direction back towards the women’s changing rooms, finally understanding what had probably put Yuu into a foul mood this morning.

Claire had started walking without looking, though, and as a result accidentally shoulder-checked Lilly. As she scooted past, carrying her first aid kit and wand, the girl was suddenly sent flying. Claire watched the horror unfold as if time was slowing down. Her wimple nearly fell off as she soared through the air. Then, somehow, she recovered, rolling forward effortlessly as she hit the ground and springing back up, snatching every one of the objects launched from her hands before they hit the ground. She looked as shocked that she’d managed the feat as Claire felt, watching it.

“Oops.” Claire didn’t know what else to say.

“Oh! That was Lilly’s fault, she assumes, and is very sorry.” She looked down with disbelief at her wand, which she’d caught (although the tip was facing back towards her) and clumsily flipped it the right way around in her hand. “Oh! Um, excuse me, Miss François?”

“What.”

She wasn’t in the mood to talk to the girl, she wanted to meet with Yuu as soon as possible so that Rae would stop worrying about what she didn’t know. While Lilly quailed under Claire’s most intense glare, she didn’t flee as she’d hoped she might.

“Um… Rae told me she loved you? But also that you were the one who hit her, and, um… I don’t think it’s right to hit someone who loves you.”

Annoying. Obviously Claire agreed, but Rae, who was laughing softly at her side in response to those words, begged her to do so constantly. Claire wasn’t entirely comfortable with Rae’s masochism yet but she was trying to learn to be. This incident hadn’t helped with it—but, it was really none of this kid’s business.

“Yeah?” Claire replied, walking backwards for a few steps while looking Lilly in the eyes. The girl withered, her hands out in front of her face as if to ward off an incoming blow. “What the hell would you know?”

Chapter 14: 3.6 Path of the Martyr

Chapter Text

They changed swiftly. Loretta and Pepi were no help in improving Claire’s bad mood. Neither of them spoke to one another. The only conversation they made was a few short sentences, each directed towards Claire. Whatever Pepi felt for Loretta and however Loretta felt about the surprise appearance of her father had turned the usually chatty girls quiet.

Spending a class in close proximity to one another with no easy distractions had not, it seemed, pushed them together. Well, whatever. That little maneuver, pushing them together, had been the simplest way for Claire to spend time with Rae. She wouldn’t have abandoned her lover to either of them for an entire class, so Claire didn’t feel like she had anything to apologize for. She wasn’t responsible for how they felt.

After leaving the changing rooms, Claire’s mood darkened further when she realized she’d forgotten to say anything comforting to Loretta about her family drama. It wasn’t her first focus at the moment, but she wasn’t happy about making the mistake.

Typically at this point Rae would step in and make some stupid joke or bother Claire in a way that made her feel better, or at least take her mind off of things. For once, Rae failed her. She was uncharacteristically quiet all day, like she was lost in her own little world.

Claire changed up her habits to see if Rae would notice—Rae always noticed details like that—and was stunned that she didn’t get a perceptive comment on it.

While at school Claire never ate. She substituted tea for food at lunchtime. She’d felt that the peasant fare the cafeteria served was beneath her. The only negative was pain and an empty feeling in her stomach, plus a bit of lightheadedness later in the days sometimes. The pain was weaker than her, though, so she always ignored it. But… maybe it was a bit silly, especially after a hard workout, not to eat. So that afternoon, when she went with Rae to get lunch for the first time ever, she got the same mediocre beef bowl Rae always enjoyed. Her lover didn’t notice her monumental shift in habits, just sat down and made insubstantial small talk before returning to class. It bothered Claire more than she thought it might.

Rae kept her hands to herself for the rest of the school day. It was awful. They couldn’t hold hands, couldn’t hug, couldn’t kiss unless they were alone, but at least Rae was typically all over her in a way she could pretend to be annoyed by. Now she wasn’t. How cruel; Claire was beginning to feel neglected by the end of it.

It was difficult to ascribe Rae’s malaise to anything other than nosiness. What she seemed so upset about was (as far as Claire could tell) not being told everything Claire knew the moment she knew it. That wasn’t fair—Rae admitted to not telling Claire everything, and Claire more or less trusted that she had her reasons. Couldn’t Rae extend her the same grace? Yuu’s secret wasn’t even Claire’s to share.

The day progressed slowly and painfully. Their professor for their final class of the day was determined to use every minute of his time reading the syllabus in exacting detail. His unaffected monotone put at least one student Claire could see to sleep. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care. She decided that if she had a chance to get closer to Rae, it would be now. Students were dropping like flies, and everyone still awake had their eyes on the clock or the door.

Claire let her hand creep across the bench they shared towards Rae’s, brushing against it at last. After only a moment’s hesitation Rae layered her own hand on top of Clare’s, interlaced their fingers, and squeezed. The warmth of her skin against the cool wood and the gentle pressure of the fingers woven together against each other convinced Claire that they’d be alright no matter what.

After almost forever, class ended. Claire freed herself from Rae’s grasp. Dropping Rae’s hand hurt less and less each time. The first time they’d been broken apart by school hours and public scrutiny this semester had been utter calamity. Now it was merely an unpleasant but necessary evil. They’d be able to get through this year together, especially if Rae could learn how not to get bent out of shape over nothing.

Together they detoured back to Claire’s room for long enough to drop their bags and change out of their blazers. In theory they were supposed to be in their uniforms at all times on the Academy grounds unless granted special permission otherwise, but outside of class no one would dare enforce this rule against House François or their attendants. They then returned to the fountain near the school gate.

Misha was already at their meeting place. She was sitting on the edge, misted here and there by the occasional errant droplet. Her long unbound hair was slightly tousled in the breeze, and she’d tucked a yellow wildflower behind her left ear. A little leather-bound journal rested on her knee, and she slowly tapped a stick of charcoal against her nose like she was deep in thought. The little smudges it left on her skin didn’t seem to bother her.

She was alert enough to hear them approach, though. Misha turned and, seeing Claire raise an eyebrow at her, smiled.

“Purely coincidental,” Misha said, in response to the unspoken question.

What a liar.

“Hey! It’s a Misha!” Rae called, suddenly full of energy again. “Oh, you have a bit of a…”

She mimed rubbing away a spot on her own nose to indicate that Misha had a spot in the same place to take care of.

“Did I get it?” Misha asked.

“No, the other side. No, not there, either.”

“Hell.” Misha sighed, admitting defeat, and pulled out her handkerchief to wipe away the offending spot. After a moment she put it away and began to focus on her journal once more, tapping her charcoal against the page. “Hey, Rae, what’s a rhyme for winter?”

“Ummmmmmmm…” Rae drew the word out uncomfortably long before providing, “Splinter? Maybe vinter? Wint—oh wait. Forget I said that.”

“Awful. Actually, I figured it out.” Misha scratched at her paper, hastily scrawling a few new words. “Just had the order of the line backwards.”

“You’re welcome? I guess I should stick to prose.”

“Mmhm.” Apparently satisfied, the white-haired girl held the journal open with a firm forefinger and thumb, and with slow careful twists of the other hand tore the page from her journal. When it was free, she closed the book on it, having turned it into a bookmark.

Rae went to sit next to her on the verge of the fountain, her arms wide for a side hug as she sat down. Misha scooted out of the way at the last second and, devoid of her expected support, Rae almost collapsed into the water. Only the simultaneous intervention of Claire and Misha snatching out and grabbing each wrist saved her from getting soaked.

“Whee!” She seemed to be having a good time as she was pulled out of danger. Misha dropped Rae’s hand while Claire sat beside her lover, transitioning her grip on her wrist to clasping her hand, and hiding the gesture of affection within the folds of their skirts. “Miiiishaaaa, why’d you move away?!”

“Force of habit. Be more careful, Rae, or at least warn me next time.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“So.” Claire interrupted, once she’d settled down, “Misha.”

“Present.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Like I said,” Misha said, exasperated, “It’s a stunning coincidence that I found you here. I had this inkling—let’s call it a premonition—that my favorite roommate would be here at some point, and wouldn’t you know it, the prophecy was true.”

“Hooray for prophecy!” Rae pumped one fist into the other. With the other she gently squeezed Claire’s hand. Misha watched Rae’s outburst without comment.

“Indeed,” Misha said after a moment. “Like I said, it’s normal for me to be here.”

“You wove a flower into your hair,” Rae said, pointing. Misha batted her hand away.

“For normal reasons.”

“Okay, come on,” Rae laughed. “Iiiiiii see what’s going on here. You’re here to meet a friend, huh? Who’s the lucky guy?”

“So, so close to the mark, Rae,” Misha sighed.

“Or… lucky lady? Huh.” Rae leaned back, visibly processing that thought. “Huh. Now I’m confused.”

“Confused how?” Claire asked, trying to prompt the realization.

“Confused like… the one who told us to meet here in the first place was Yuu, ri—”

Misha frowned and spoke up to interrupt her. “Why would you say Yuu’s name? We’ve been deliberately speaking around it. I’m really trying to work with you here.”

“Woah.” Rae shied away from her, leaning away and therefore more fully into Claire’s arms, which she didn’t mind at all. “Hold on, Misha, I really thought you two were—”

“Shh!” Misha hushed her. “Not here. Come on, Rae, be clever about this. Think about where you’re standing. Or sitting.”

“Listen, Rae,” Claire tried, faltering as she attempted to put her thoughts together. “The… person we’re waiting for is concerned for… the person’s privacy, and will answer all of your questions, if you just wait patiently… person-self.”

“Your sentence compositions are getting somewhat tortured, Miss Claire.”

“You can drop the honorific, dear, everyone here knows.”

“Oh, right. That’s crazy, right, Misha? Anyway, Claire, you need an editor. ‘Person’ this, ‘person’ that, someone should take those and replace them with personal… pronouns. Huh.” Rae ran one hand nervously through her hair, from one ear to the back of the head, and gathered up a lock like she was going to make a ponytail, then released it before speaking again. “Wait, hold on, there’s no f*cking way, right?”

Claire simply looked at her, waiting for Rae to finish connecting the dots herself.

Misha laughed. She looked as surprised as Claire that she’d done it, like she’d only done so despite herself. Once she’d recovered, she said, “You of all people, Rae, I expected to have it figured out by now.”

Rae didn’t respond. A few beats after Claire expected her lover to speak up, she lifted her eyes from Rae’s legs to look at her face. Whatever she’d been about to say to prod Rae to keep speaking died on her lips.

Claire’s two companions had begun a battle of wills without telling anyone, it seemed. Two sets of red eyes had been locked onto one another for several seconds and counting. They were… not quite glaring at one another. Claire was a person who glared easily and often; neither of them really had the right temperament to, and so the word didn’t fit. Misha studied people, instead. She almost always looked a bit bored, but she was now looking Rae in the eyes with absolute focus, the faintest possible smile on her lips.

There was some tension there that Claire was missing. She didn’t care for it, not one bit.

“When you’ve finished your elaborate mating ritual,” Claire said, once she was too annoyed at being ignored to stay quiet, “Could you explain what all this is about?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Misha said, allowing her smile to widen slightly. “I’m just amused, that's all.”

“Misha, I’m weirded out,” Rae confessed. “What is happening today?”

“Oh, you’re the one weirded out? Well done, Claire, together we’ve finally turned the tables on her.”

“I’m not colluding with you,” Claire said. “It was mostly me. Maybe you helped, a tiny bit.”

She stopped talking. That had been an odd thing to say, hadn’t it? Why had she felt so competitive with Misha? What had there been to compete for? Frustrated with herself and hoping Misha wouldn’t notice and tease her, Claire found herself looking around like she could find somewhere to hide.

Claire had never been so happy to see Yuu. The princess’s seamless wholecut dark-brown leather shoes clicked smartly as she stepped down the flagstone lane. She’d clearly taken her time getting changed. She was wearing high-waisted gray slacks and a gray vest in the same fine pattern, though Claire couldn’t discern which exactly—herringbone, maybe—over a cream button-down. It hadn’t been worth the effort for her to button the shirt all the way up, apparently. The collar was open far beyond what would have been considered scandalous on most women, but, for a whole constellation of reasons, Yuu could get away with it. Rounding out the look was a soft black newsboy cap resting atop her tousled golden hair.

She looked immaculate once again, curse her. The entire ensemble oozed a rakish charm. While Yuu looked more like a child of the capital’s more urbane bourgeoisie families than a royal, that may have been the point. Claire spent a moment fuming and wishing she were wearing her tuxedo instead, just to show her up.

“Hello, Miss François. Punctual as ever, how wonderful.”

Claire wanted to comment on how she’d been a few minutes late but at the last second realized it would’ve been rude. Instead she said, “No, rather, you were right on time, and I was too early. My apologies.”

Yuu laughed, apparently understanding her meaning. “Point taken. Sorry, I had to take care of a few chores. I challenged Rhod to a boxing match, then told Dede he had to be my champion and ran off. He won’t dishonor himself by getting knocked out before… I’d put money on him lasting at least six rounds, so I have at least half an hour to lose him.”

Claire heard a strange noise from her right. She looked over for its source, unable to believe what she thought she’d heard. Had Misha just giggled at Yuu’s words? Like a schoolgirl? There was the barest hint of a blush on her face. To be fair, Misha was literally a schoolgirl, like the rest of them, but somehow she acted with a bit more assurance, like she was above the day to day anxieties that plagued the rest of her peers.

Trying to distract herself from that horrifying noise, Claire lowered her voice to almost a whisper and asked, “Is it alright for you both to be here? I got the impression that you two tried to avoid being seen together…”

“That’s the point of this exercise,” Yuu said in a similarly low register before returning to a conversational volume. “Is it not right and proper for me to confer with someone who might be a vassal of mine in the future? The fact that her maid accompanies her, and that maid’s friend accompanies her, is really beneath my notice. I’m familiar with Miss Jur due to our work together for the Knights but we are not otherwise on speaking terms.”

“Well, I’m convinced!” Rae said.

“Good. Scoot.”

Yuu did a small, dismissive wave of her hand and on instinct Claire obeyed, pulling Rae by the hand just far enough so that Yuu could sit down besides Misha. Only after she’d settled back down did Claire realize she could’ve simply sat next to Misha on the other side of her and nobody would’ve had to get up.

“You’re sitting on something I wrote for you,” Misha murmured.

She was so quiet that Claire could barely hear her over the gentle noise of the fountain. She kept quiet, straining her ears to listen in.

“I’m so excited to read it,” Yuu said. “The key?”

“Echo.”

“So that’s…” Yuu made a series of unintelligible gestures in the air, deep in thought, as she apparently ran through some sort of mnemonic in her head. “I remember. Lovely. We’ll get going, then, and take a few detours. Hang back here for about fifteen then take route A and we’ll arrive at the same time, give or take.”

Rae was looking at Claire, she realized, as lost as she’d ever seen her. Having her friends and acquaintances doing things that she wasn’t aware of and didn’t understand seemed to have a similar emotional effect to leaving a child in the woods alone. She was mouthing something at Claire, a question presumably. It was futile.

“Rae, I can’t read lips,” Claire said.

She was also starting to feel a bit worried now, though. All this secrecy, all this thought put into keeping secret whatever relationship the princess and the ex-noble had, yet still they were afraid. Rae and Claire seemed so, so obvious by comparison.

“Anyway,” Yuu said, as if Claire’s words reminded her that she wasn’t alone. “We really must be off. Take care, Miss Jur. I’ll see you in class.”

As they left Misha behind and walked out the gates, Claire realized the problem she’d created for herself. She might be stuck with those two for the foreseeable future. Rae was still unpredictable, but the ways in which she was unpredictable had become predictable. Claire had a bad feeling that despite seeming like fundamentally rational people, they’d be able to wreak a great deal of havoc if so inclined. Maybe they had a slightly lesser capacity for chaos than her Rae, but there were two of them, and both were totally beyond Claire’s control.

Oh, bother, Claire thought.

Students rarely ventured beyond the Academy walls without a carriage, but there was nothing waiting for them at the curb. Instead Yuu stepped down into the road and crossed the busy boulevard at a brisk pace, speeding up to avoid passing traffic rather than slowing down and waiting for them to pass.

This was the first time Claire had spent any time walking the city despite spending the better part of her life in and around it at various estates. She’d thought Euclid to be a dirty city by comparison to the capital, but in truth the opposite was true. It was hard to notice the grime of the street and of everyday life from within a carriage. Claire hadn’t ever looked.

The Academy was in a busy part of town and, as Yuu explained, they were moving at a busy time of day. The offices and counting houses had decided they were done for the day and disgorged a flood of bankers, traders, and other assorted con artists. Everyone walked at a brisk pace, as if everyone were permanently late. Nobody in Euclid ever moved with such purpose. It helped Claire feel like she could’ve, perhaps, been a part of the same world as them. Not so here; there was no place in these people’s lives for her. Despite being surrounded by the crowd, Claire suddenly felt very alone.

“Almost makes me feel a bit nostalgic.”

At her words, Claire looked back just in time to see Rae shoulder check a bookish-looking twentysomething who had walked into her without looking. Despite her smaller frame, she’d been balanced and moving with purpose, and the man was sent flying to the ground, cursing. He was lost in the throng before he could stand.

That was a good lesson on the importance of maintaining a proper stance, Claire decided. She’d have to mention it to Rae next time they had class with Stahl.

Despite the press of bodies they zig-zagged quickly across town at total random, as far as Claire could tell. Yuu repeatedly checked to make sure they stayed close. A distance of a few feet could feel very far away under these circ*mstances. Just when Claire was starting to feel upset at the tide of bodies so rudely jostling her, they broke out of a narrow street and onto a broad, relatively empty boulevard. Either distance or time had freed them from the rush.

Yuu slowed her pace to match Claire’s as Rae finished catching up. She didn’t look back at them, though; she had pulled Misha’s note to her out of a pocket. After unfolding the paper with great care she brought it to her face, almost close enough to kiss.

“Echo, echo…” Yuu murmured. She leaned up against a lamppost to focus on reading, brow furrowed. Absentmindedly, she scratched at her cheek near one ear where she had a noticeable five o’clock shadow. Claire felt a pang of sympathy for her. No girl should have to deal with that. Nevertheless Yuu broke into a bright smile and for once didn’t seem to care much who saw it. Claire watched her eyes roll diagonally over the page as she apparently read it once more, as if drinking in the secret sentiments contained therein.

“She’s innovating in the field of cryptography and poetry, all at once. What a woman,” Yuu sighed.

“I didn’t know Misha was a poet,” Rae said, voice slow and steady.

“Miss Jur doesn’t like to share her work. She’s bashful. Only I get to see. It’s a tremendous privilege, but…”

Yuu folded the torn page in half and presented it towards Claire.

“Your Highness?” Claire asked, unsure of what she was being asked to do.

It was a poor choice of words. Yuu rolled her eyes and said, “Claire, I am sort of trying to be incognito, here. Can you chill?”

“I… will try.”

“Anyway,” Yuu said, “let me be clear: please set this on fire with your wand.”

“Are you sure?” Claire asked. It seemed so callous. “She seemed to have worked hard on it.”

“Burn after reading, darling. Always.”

Reluctantly, Claire obliged her. With a short flick of her wrist, the corner of the page ignited. The rest caught fast. Yuu let the flames bite her fingers before she hissed with pain, flicking her wrist, and flinging the rest of the paper into a muddy ditch at the side of the road. Despite the energy with which she’d launched it, the paper was light enough to float lazily down the rest of the way to the earth. Yuu watched it fall like she was also sad to see it go before continuing to speak.

“And because she’s a genius, one of the stanzas was about the impermanence of the note, of the medium. Ephemera, that’s the word: like fireworks or ice melting and flowers blooming in spring. But I digress.” The princess stopped herself from continuing down that avenue of thought, instead turning around to address them at last. “How was class, girls? Neither of you look like you’ve been bored to death, but I suppose that looks can be deceiving.”

Yuu was grinning like this was all still terribly witty of her. She was far too pleased with herself, considering all she was doing was hammering the point home.

“We get it,” Claire muttered.

“What was that?”

“Hm? Oh, nothing,” Claire lied. To distract from her gaffe, she motioned for Yuu to continue walking. As she moved as “I wasn’t bored this morning, at least.”

“That’s because you weren’t in our half. Claire? Your house is responsible for the Kugrets, right? Could you… send this one back and bring us a new one? He’s awful.”

“I’m not an Academy administrator. Ask them.”

Yuu sighed. “Better yet, just have that merc teach us. She’s… If I speak I’ll get myself into trouble.”

Rae spoke up. “Do you know anything at all about her, Your Highness?”

Claire was glad to hear her voice once more. She’d seemed lost in thought for several minutes, now, which was strange. Claire had expected her to have so much to say about the princess and her roommate apparently being together without anyone noticing. Perhaps she’d needed time to process it in her own way—she still hadn’t actually addressed the elephant in the room.

“Nope! Only that I… want her to kill me,” Yuu said, then cleared her throat. “Ahem. Anyway, what did you think of her, Rae?”

“I plead the Fifth. Wait, why’d I say that? That’s never applied to me.”

Nevermind, it was stupid of me to be worried, Claire thought, They’re making each other worse. I have to stop this.

Yuu was already speaking before she could intercede.

“Anyway, this Kugret? I don’t know if he didn’t notice or didn’t care that Thane and I weren’t following his instructions, and it might have been better that way,” she said. “At least, following my lesson plan, we both learned something.”

“What did you learn, precisely?” Claire asked.

“Well,” Yuu said, splaying one hand out in front of her and examining her nails, “I learned that some of my new submission holds really work. Thane got to practice avoiding them and recovering from them.”

“Did he know that’s what he’d be doing?”

Yuu chuckled. “Where’d be the fun in that?”

It took Claire some time to respond. She didn’t feel that Prince Thane needed her to stand up for him. He was strong enough to stand on his own. But, despite her instinctive deference to all royalty and to Yuu specifically, the princess’s behavior earlier rankled. She struggled with her indecision for a moment before committing to saying what was on her mind.

“I still don’t think,” Claire tried, “that it was right. That was cruel.”

Yuu’s riposte was swift and merciless.

“A lesson in cruelty, from Professor François?” Yuu placed her hand on her collarbone, mouth open in a perfect o shape, feigning shock. “I’m honored. Should I take notes? Will this be on the test?”

It was like a slap from a mailled hand. Claire had no response. Stunned, she looked at her feet, processing what she’d said. It had been awfully hypocritical of her, hadn’t it? Claire was a bully, after all. She had no place telling someone what was or wasn’t an acceptable way to treat others, even though she’d stopped—

No, Claire realized, that’s not true. I haven’t stopped bullying people at all.

Hadn’t she spent a fair chunk of the day being nasty to her lackeys, and Pepi specifically? If Claire’s intuition was correct and there was anything between her and Loretta, it was pretty despicable to insult her for it. She wouldn’t have even done that to Rae, even when they’d only just met and didn’t get along. In the end she hadn’t changed a bit. Bully Rae or bully her vassals, the motivation was the same: to temporarily displace her own self-hatred onto others rather than letting it rest where it belonged.

Claire had to stop doing this to them; they’d both only ever shown her loyalty, if not true friendship or love. Maybe they didn’t think they could? They were wildly outranked by her, both likely to be her vassals in the future; maybe they hadn’t asked for a chance to get closer to her because they knew she would’ve said no?

She’d stopped walking, she realized. Claire had nothing to say. Yuu was a princess, after all; Claire had forgotten her place.

At last, Rae pulled her in close. Claire didn’t resist. They were far enough from the Academy that it shouldn’t matter. Rae slid one of her hands around Claire’s waist and pulled her forward, while the other grabbed Claire’s hand and squeezed. She shut her eyes and pressed her face into Rae’s shoulder, trusting her lover to lead her forward safely.

“Leave her alone,” Rae said, quiet but firm.

“No, Rae,” Claire mumbled, “It’s fine.”

Holding her hand tight, Claire willed her to drop the matter, trying to convey with a touch what she wasn’t willing to say. Rae’s instinct to stand up for her was nice but misplaced. Yuu had been right.

After a moment passed, Claire heard Yuu speak once more.

“Whoops. Sorry about that. Alright, touchy subject; let’s move on.”

Mercifully, Rae let the conversation progress rather than making a big deal of it.

“Soooooooo…” Rae began, then trailed off. She was likely looking for a more tactful way of organizing her thoughts. Finding none, she simply stated, “You and Misha.”

“Misha and I,” Yuu agreed.

“That’s a thing?”

“Yes,” Yuu said, smiling. “I was going to leave the reveal for a later chapter, but the suspense, darling, it was killing me.”

“Won’t that be a problem between you and your fiancée?”

“In theory. But you’ve met her now. I don’t think she’s noticed, nor am I sure she’d care. It’s something we were forced into.”

“We’ve met her?” Rae asked. “Wait, it’s not—”

“It’s Lilly, dear,” Claire said. She opened her eyes again. “Lilly Lilium.”

She was feeling better enough to speak, at least.

“Woahhh.” Rae blinked a few times in mild surprise. “Yeah, I was thinking she—nevermind.”

Claire knew exactly what would make herself feel better, in fact. Rather than trying to change from sinner to saint in a day, she could simply find better targets for her cruelty. She had plenty to say about the Chancellor.

“Lilly… Lilium,” Claire said, rolling the name over her tongue like she was trying to decide if she liked the taste. “Father always said that the Chancellor was a clever man, but not, apparently, clever enough to come up with more than one name for his daughter. Lilly Lilium… Be realistic. He did not name her the same thing twice, surely.”

Yuu laughed. “Come now, Claire, don’t be mean. Not everyone with a stupid name is blessed with an excuse to change it. It’s not as if it’s something she chose.”

“Oh, of course not. I have nothing against her,” Claire said. Well, that was only half true. She didn’t like how well she and Rae seemed to get along. With the benefit of some hindsight, though, she was trying to convince herself that she was being insane and to put it out of mind. “I do wonder how she ended up as a cardinal. Isn’t she even younger than we are?”

“I know exactly how it happened and I’ll tell you; let’s wait until we’ve gotten where we’re going, though. It’s more private, and better suited to discussing such things. No, this way,” Yuu said, pointing. Claire had started walking with purpose once more, getting slightly ahead of Yuu, and had apparently missed a turn. She scrambled, pulling Rae along to catch up with the princess’s brisk pace. “Anyway, part of why I’m doing what I’m doing is for her sake.”

“Um,” Rae said, “can I ask: what exactly are you doing?”

“Once again, patience!” Yuu chided. “We can talk things out together in a few minutes. So: Lilly. In a better world, she’d be off playing in the sunlight on the grounds of her estate somewhere. She shouldn’t have a job. She certainly shouldn’t have a fiancé, or fiancée, whatever. And that fiancée certainly shouldn’t be me, no thanks.”

“How unsurprising in the end that a social-climbing upstart like Salas Lilium would force such a thing upon his own daughter,” Claire observed. “So young, too. How uncivilized.”

Yuu didn’t respond right away. After a moment, she began to speak, tentatively, like she was trying to make sense of what she was saying as she said it.

“Hold on, Claire. Let me pick what you’ve said apart. Are you saying you don’t like Salas because you think he’s too much like a commoner?” Yuu looked genuinely puzzled. “Claire, I hate him because he’s the perfect exemplar of the nobility. If you and your father, Claire, are what the nobility want to think we are, Salas is our true face, and poor Lilly’s just another victim of that.”

“I don’t appreciate that comparison at all.” Claire frowned. It didn’t sit right with her, she couldn’t just let it lie. “Explain yourself.”

“I mean… if the Minister of Finance asked you to do something for him, to take a job you weren’t ready for or weren’t qualified for, would you do it?”

“Well, yes, of course. I trust his judgment.”

“That’s what a thousand years of good breeding does to us.” Yuu snapped her fingers and pointed, palm up, at Claire. “She has to be coerced into doing things that are bad for her. You’ll do it if the right person asks nicely. That’s all.”

“That’s still ridiculous,” Claire said, pressing on. “I can’t think of a reason for the Chancellor to force that role upon his own daughter besides naked self-interest. Father is a good man; anything he asked of me would serve the common trust. They are not the same. He taught me that we serve the people, the country. Maybe the system is rotten, but there are still people inside it who want to do what’s right: to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land such that the strong shall not harm the weak.”

Yuu laughed, a pure and clear display of derision. “Come on.”

She looked into Claire’s eyes and held her gaze for a moment.

“...Your Highness?”

“Wow,” Yuu murmured, “You actually believe that?”

“...Yes?”

Yuu scratched absentmindedly at the corner of her jaw and under her chin as she said, “Claire, I think you’re the only one who does.”

“Are you saying you don’t?” Claire asked, askance.

“Nope!” Yuu laughed. “I don’t feel great about it, but I’m not ashamed of it either. I’d throw my claims away in a heartbeat if I thought it would give me the chance to be happy, and I suppose I thought you were the same. You aren’t; go figure. I simultaneously understand you a lot more and a lot less, now. Nothing so terrifying as a true believer, huh, Rae?”

Rae didn’t play along, bless her. “I beg to differ! I think you meant, ‘nothing so beautiful’ as a true believer, or as Miss Claire!”

“I don’t know what I expected,” Yuu sighed. “My own fault, really. Anyway. Claire, that’s a really lovely story you just told, and a very pious one, but that’s all it is: a story.”

“Then what is all of this for?” Claire said, shouting slightly and swinging her arms wide. She gestured around her at the wealth of the capital. They were on Place de la Martyre, near the absolute geographical center of the city. It was one of the richest parts as well; they’d passed by Broumet as well as several of Claire’s tailors in the past minute. Now, though, they were entering the wide open parvis in front of the capital’s historic cathedral. Across from the church steps was a colossal U-shaped colonnade, built in the last century as a gift from the country’s nobility to the clerical class. The only color to the stark white marble structure was a vividly painted frieze that ran the entire length of the structure, displaying myths and folklore of Bauer’s early history and its various saints. Every inch probably cost more money to make than most commoners saw in a lifetime. It was breathtakingly beautiful and it served no purpose whatsoever.

“For?” Yuu asked, puzzled. “What do you mean, for? It’s not ‘for’ anything. It’s the point. The system exists to produce this stuff. Everything else is for this.”

They joined the packs of people criss-crossing the square as they headed to the opposite exit, where stood a larger-than-life bronze equestrian statue of Saint Mistral guarding the cathedral that bore her name. The saint looked to be holding tight with one hand to the reins of her horse as it reared back. The other held a sword which pointed forwards, parallel to the ground with the blade flat, towards Yuu, Rae and Claire. The statue felt very alive despite the fact that her skin, armor, and horse were all colored by the same layer of verdigris. Claire had always liked her.

“I simply cannot accept this,” Claire said, dropping her volume somewhat. Yuu patted the statue’s plinth fondly as they passed it by. “I know that our class is, by and large, out for themselves and their own interests. But all people want to be good, deep down.”

“No, Claire, that’s just you,” Yuu said. “If you’re actually worried about whether your actions or inactions are moral or not, whether or not you’re a good person, you aren’t like them at all. I hate to be the one to tell you this. Just about every one of your peers that you’ve ever met either assumes they’re a good person despite all evidence to the contrary, or else simply doesn’t care.”

“They can be led,” Claire said. “I’ll be a duch*ess, you’re—um—best not to say, but, you know. Who else is equipped to try?”

“It’s been tried,” Yuu said, thumb pointing back over her shoulder towards Saint Mistral on her horse. “You’re looking at a statue of a commoner who died because she thought there was something here worth saving. She’s unparalleled. She led armies, won sieges, and is probably responsible for keeping my dynasty on the throne. Maybe if she’d survived the war she would’ve been the one person in history with the power to change things, but why would she bother? If I were her—and, dear God, I wish I were—I wouldn’t have died for this. I don’t think a statue is worth an execution. In her position, I’d also be worried that the artist got my face all wrong.”

“So you’ve given up already?” Claire scoffed. “Isn’t that a bit cowardly?”

“I haven’t given up,” Yuu said, leading them into the old medieval quarter of the city and its thin, winding streets. “I’ve only just begun. But I’m out for myself and the people I love, and I won’t be shamed for that. If that makes me a coward, so what? Cowardice has no moral valence. But I digress; you’ve been uncharacteristically quiet today, Rae. Want to weigh in? I do value your opinion.”

“I think,” Rae said, speaking very slowly, as if she were trying to avoid falling into any rhetorical traps, “that we’re starting to talk about things that I’ve seen happen in my nightmares. Women martyring themselves… hot in theory, but would it be alright if we found a new subject?”

“Nothing hotter than getting burnt at the stake, but fair enough,” Yuu said, chuckling at her own joke. “Well, Claire, as my closing statement, allow me to say that if we try, and if we look out for ourselves first and foremost, I bet we can get a bit further than our patron saint. Probably: I suppose that remains to be seen.”

“Hmph.” Claire had nothing else to say.

Yuu shrugged. She took another moment to look around them, scanning the street behind them, then smiled. “Well, we’ve lost our tail. Let’s move. In here, tout de suite.”

She’d been too engrossed in the conversation to pay much attention to where they were going, but Claire realized they were walking down an alleyway that was wholly deserted. She certainly wouldn’t want to be here at night, alone. Yuu was fiddling with a sturdy brass key, swearing quietly as it repeatedly failed to turn in the keyhole of a heavy windowless wooden door. The lock gave out after a moment with a heavy ker-chunk sound, and Yuu slammed her shoulder into it, charging into the darkness.

“Finally. It always does this,” she complained. “Come in.”

Rae stepped gingerly ahead and was enshrouded in total darkness within a few feet of the door. Reluctant to step in, Claire waited, and was rewarded for her patience by a flash of light. Yuu had struck a match and lit the candle within an old lantern, which she now carried in one hand. Claire finally obeyed her orders, crossing the threshold and closing the door behind her.

As Yuu locked the door, Claire looked around. They were in a storefront that looked like it had been abandoned for at least a decade. With every step, a fine layer of dust crunched underneath her shoes. The far end of the room was entirely covered by a closed wooden shutter. They must have entered the store from the back door. A long bar counter bisected the room before then, cracked and splintered in places where a claw-footed bathtub had fallen through the ceiling from the unit above. The hole had never been repaired, and the light was too dim to illuminate that upper room, so all Claire could see was a dark void that made her slightly uneasy. She reached out for Rae.

“Is it safe to be in here?” Rae wondered aloud, as she let Claire clutch tightly to her hand.

“Probably? Just don’t push too hard on anything that looks structural,” Yuu said. After setting her lantern on the bar, she withdrew a pair of black leather gloves from her back pockets and put them on. Seeing Claire raise an eyebrow at this, Yuu laughed quietly. “What? Why get my hands dirty if I don’t have to?”

With newly begloved hands she bent over and heaved a disgusting old rug across the floor. Beneath it was a trapdoor that, after a mighty effort, Yuu pulled open. The metal frame slammed back down onto the floor as she hopped out of the way, and a low, resonant noise echoed back at them from the pit.

Yuu beckoned them over to a ladder that reached down and out of sight.

“No.” Rae didn’t move, and from the firmness of her grip, wasn’t letting Claire move, either.

“Hmm?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Rae said. “Not until you explain what we’re supposed to be doing here. You were looking for somewhere more private? Well, here we are, so start talking.”

Claire was always appalled at Rae’s manner around the royal family. Yuu didn’t seem to mind, though she did turn it around on her.

“Well, Rae, you’re clever. What do you think has been going on that warrants such secrecy?”

Yuu held up three gloved fingers, near the open lantern shutter. They cast long shadows over the floor.

“Well, you and Misha, obviously,” Rae said, starting to pace. “Adultery isn’t a personal matter where the crown is concerned. I don’t know how together you two are, but there are probably those who’d rather execute her than allow her to produce a royal bastard.”

It was always fascinating when Rae decided to take the world seriously. Her playful demeanor fell away, and she sounded so thoughtful, so philosophical. She clearly hated being perceived that way, and deflected the moment she realized what she’d been doing, but for now Claire got to watch her work.

“That’s one.” Yuu only had two fingers extended now. She brought them just below her chin in a v-shape and smirked. “And that’s not a concern, believe me.”

“How can you be so sure? Contraception is fallible, from what I understand.”

“We don’t need contraception,” Yuu said.

Claire watched the gears turning in Rae’s head for a moment. Then, something clicked.

“Oh—oh my god,” Rae muttered as she rubbed her eyes. “Misha, wow. Girl, that is super advanced lesbianism for the era, if you’re saying what I think you’re saying. Where the f*ck did she even find one?”

“Ask her,” Yuu said, shrugging. “I don’t know where her girl stuff comes from. I don’t exactly need one, myself.”

“Need what?” Claire asked. “What are you two talking about?”

“Um.” Even in the dark, Claire could see that her lover was blushing a deep rosy red. Her hands had wandered near the danger zones of Claire’s skirt over the last few moments. “Claire, I have never meant anything as much as I mean this—I will explain as soon as possible.”

“Anyway, let’s move on,” Yuu said, clapping her hands together once, sharply. The leather gloves dampened the sound enough that the noise didn’t echo. She stuck two fingers out once more. “That’s only one down.”

“Ummm… okay. Sorry, was distracted with gay and hom*osexual thoughts for a sec. Back to intrigue,” Rae said. “You’ve been working on… something? Together? You speak in code, you’re afraid, you’re recruiting us for something, but I have no idea what for. Fighting the monarchy? The nobility, more broadly? Trying to steer the course of the coming revolution?”

“Wow, you catch on quick,” Yuu said. She sounded genuinely impressed. Claire was stunned by the incredible logical leaps that Rae was making, apparently correctly, but didn’t want to interrupt. “Last one. Can she do it?”

“And…” Rae said, hesitated, then pressed forwards. “Reading between the lines… you’re a woman?”

“That’s ri~iiight!” Yuu purred. The last finger curled into her fist. “No matter how I look or what people say to the contrary, I am simply: a girl. I’m tired of pretending I’m not.”

Rae looked more troubled at this revelation than anything else. She leaned against the wall, knuckles pressed against her chin, like an old statue lost in thought.

Is that all? Claire wondered. Nothing kind to say, no words of encouragement? It was bizarre that the woman who’d taught her about the existence of gender nonconformity had nothing more to say to Yuu on the matter, as if it were fascinating academically but not personally interesting to her.

“How long have you known? Within the last year, or..?”

There she goes, speaking like a doctor. She could probably stand to be a bit more supportive.

Yuu didn’t seem to mind talking about herself, though.

“Oh, I’ve always felt this way. It took a while to have an explanation for it, which is more than most get, but, yes, it took me until a few months ago to decide what I was going to do about it.” Yuu sighed, suddenly looking embarrassed. “Since I’m already making a fool of myself by being sincere, Rae, I’ll continue to speak plainly. I was able to make this choice because of you.”

“I don’t understand. How did I have anything to do with this?”

“In short, you inspired me. You inspired us, really, Misha and I,” Yuu said.

“How?” Rae asked again. “Why?”

“Is it really so hard to understand, Rae? You showed us that it was possible to live without fear. Win or lose—and we were pretty sure you’d lose—Misha said you looked happier this past year than you ever had in your life. We wanted that for ourselves.”

She said it like it was all so simple. Claire could understand it, since after all, she’d been inspired by Rae as well—but it seemed to be more than her lover could accept.

“I’m not the role model you think I am,” Rae said, going quiet.

“For God’s sake,” Yuu said, rolling her eyes. “Take the compliment and move on.”

Rae laughed, a little disbelieving noise, but had nothing else to say. After a moment, Yuu pressed onwards.

“Rae, I can tell that you’re scared,” she said. “This isn’t the day you thought you’d have when you woke up. But we need your help. We thought we could do this alone, but we can’t. This has become about more than just the two of us, despite my best efforts. So, I’ve come to ask you, the second-and-third-most powerful and courageous people I know, if you’ll help us. I’m not too proud to beg if I have to.”

The playful smile that always graced Yuu’s features was gone. She was deadly serious. As she said the word beg she knelt, pulling her hat off her hand and clutching it over her heart. Her other fist hit the floor as she bowed her head.

A smart politician would know how to use this gift. The woman third in line for the throne was debasing herself before them, literally hat in hand as she asked for aid. A clever person could use this—but a good one would help without question.

Did Claire want to balance those two virtues, or did she want to choose one? She looked to Rae for help making the decision.

Rae stood, looking uncomfortable. Claire took this to mean that she understood the gravity of Yuu’s gesture. Even if she’d been educated since girlhood in courtly etiquette, there was no protocol for how to respond to this she could’ve learned. Such things simply weren’t done. After a pause, Rae met Claire’s eyes. On instinct, Claire nodded.

“Okay, okay, stand up already,” Rae said, fidgeting with the cuff of her blouse. “We’ll hear you out, I guess. Two more questions before we go, though.”

“Shoot.”

“First, where are we actually going through here?”

“Oh, to Misha’s house.”

“Uh, what?”

“Oh,” Yuu laughed, “Not to Euclid. These tunnels don’t go that far. Within the capital, though? Between the sewers, old cellars, buildings that have been buried by the passage of time, and the catacombs, you can use the whole underground system as a highway. Because I know where I’m going, I can walk from one end of the city to the other without going above ground. Don’t get separated from me, though, and assume all unfamiliar faces—not that we’re likely to meet anyone else—are unfriendly.”

“Alright.” Rae seemed slightly pacified, now that she finally had a few answers. “Second… not a question, now that I think about it, just a statement. Don’t hurt Claire. Don’t let her get hurt. What happens to me doesn’t matter, but don’t let anything happen to her.”

Claire bit her tongue. How could Rae be so sweet and so infuriating? They’d talked about this before. What happened to Rae did, in fact, matter. Now wasn’t the time to argue that point again, though, not while she and Yuu were still having a moment.

“I don’t think I want you as an enemy, Rae, and I know that putting Claire into harm’s way is the quickest way I could turn you into one. So, rest assured, I knew better than to gamble with either of your lives.” Yuu stood, batting with her free hand at the dust that had stuck to her fine gray pants below the knees. Claire wondered why she’d worn anything so nice in the first place, if she’d known this was their destination. “That said, can we go now? I’m one wrong step away from kicking dust into my face and sneezing myself to death. Also, Misha will wonder what’s taking us so long.”

“Uh, sure. If that’s alright with you, Claire..?”

“I’m with the princess on this,” Claire said. She’d started to feel a burning sensation in her sinuses. “I’m not looking forward to moving underground like a mole person but anything beats this dusty room.”

“Very well, then, ladies,” Yuu said, with a sardonic bow.

The princess rested one hand on the trapdoor cover and held the door open for them, the way boys were supposed to but never did. “After you.”

Chapter 15: 3.7 A Ruined House

Chapter Text

The only light below ground was Yuu’s lantern. Sure of stride she led the way. Behind her by a few paces, Claire and Rae struggled to keep up without losing their footing on the uneven ground. The tunnel they’d been using for the last minute or two was small enough that Rae and Yuu had to stoop so as not to hit their heads, as if the diggers had gotten bored and given up when the job was nearly finished. Once or twice the entire party had to stoop so low that they were nearly crawling in order to advance.

Claire was very glad she wasn’t claustrophobic. The walls felt like the inside of a coffin, too damp, too cold, too close. She would have been scared out of her wits if not for Rae at her side. Claire had no doubt that Rae could dig a path to the surface in an instant if Claire asked.

Being close to Rae was good. Unfortunately it was also turning Claire into a much dumber version of herself. She was feeling touch-starved and amorous enough that every light brush of skin-to-skin contact felt like a lightning strike. Because of their close quarters, these moments of contact happened frequently, and not often by accident. She was sure this business that Yuu and Misha had gotten themselves involved with was very important, but they’d have to make their explanation quick. Now that she didn’t have to hide it or pretend to be normal, most of Claire’s attention was on the exact shape of Rae’s rear when they were walking single file, or on the curve of her chest when they walked two abreast.

Had Rae felt like this all last year? Surely not. Claire had to be the weird one, for feeling this way. If Rae had these feelings for an entire year, with no hope of relief, the poor thing would’ve exploded long ago.

While Claire thought about new ways to rip Rae’s clothes off, Yuu droned on, either oblivious to her companion’s antics or pretending not to notice.

This tunnel, Yuu had explained, had been dug by a criminal syndicate that briefly became more influential in this neighborhood than the capital’s gendarmes. They’d run the city for at least a decade, decades ago. When l’Ausseil I Bauer took the throne, one of the first tasks he assigned himself was regaining control of the capital’s streets. The king’s justice was swift. The syndicate had grown complacent, expanded too swiftly, reached too high, and as their hands grasped they were cut off.

Though dead or imprisoned, these criminals left an indelible mark on the geography of the capital. The infrastructure they’d built to expand their operation in the early days yet remained. They’d become powerful enough, shortly before the crackdown, that these tunnels had fallen out of use. The criminals no longer feared daylight or the law. The government therefore never bothered to fill them in or collapse them, merely brick the vacant tunnels up in ways that were easily broken through with magic or a pickaxe.

Even if they had wanted to seal this place away for all time, Yuu claimed, they may not have been able; there were far too many and they were too well hidden. Even she, who it transpired had spent a fair amount of time exploring these underground highways, was sure she had only found a small fraction of what was left to be discovered. The path they were now on had been one of the very first she’d found, and it avoided any of the sewer pathways that sometimes bisected a route. Yuu had avoided these, she said, so as not to offend Claire’s sensibilities—for which Claire was grateful.

Several minutes of silence followed this explanation as they crawled through a gently downward-sloping crosscut no larger than a chimney, broken only by Yuu grumbling about how much easier this was when she’d been shorter and Rae saying that she felt like “the Grinch”.

Returning to tunnels tall enough for an adult to stand without crouching felt like making it to the promised land. Yuu insisted that this route had cut twenty minutes off of their time and avoided the more odorous sections of the underground. Be that as it may, Claire felt much better when she felt less trapped. This new passage was large enough that four of them could have walked abreast if those on each side scraped the tunnel wall. Though none of them were tall, there wasn’t much extra height to spare. Still, Claire could breathe once more.

Yuu led by a few paces. In the candlelight the silhouette of her hair glowed a dim, burnished bronze, and the rest of her silhouette was dark as the candle she held in front to light her way put the rest of her in shadow. The silence ended, at last, as she began to speak.

“When I was a boy,” Yuu murmured, her soft voice echoing strangely in the dark, “Misha and I would run away and go exploring down here. Dede followed me, of course—he’s always following me—but when he was young, he got too scared to continue into the deeper tunnels. We could escape him for hours at a time to be alone together.”

At Claire’s side, Rae’s free hand traced along the hewn rock of the ceiling. This place was quiet enough that the scrape of skin against masonry was audible over their words and footsteps.

Yuu continued to speak, the tone of her voice changing as she did from nostalgia to bitterness,

“The last time we were together as children was down here. I’d known her house was falling, I’d known she wouldn’t be able to stay with me for reasons I didn’t yet fully understand. I don’t think I was old enough yet to really know what it’s like to lose someone for—for forever, it felt like—and I don’t know how I could’ve prepared myself for that. I think that day, with her in this awful place, was the last time I was happy until Foundation Day this year. Well!” Yuu interrupted herself, as if realizing she’d said more than she intended. “Misha’s not the worst person to grow up with, right, Rae?”

“I didn’t realize she’d been such a tomboy. Misha never mentioned any of these interesting bits of lore about you two to me, for obvious reasons,” Rae said. It was hard to make much of her expression in the low light, but from what Claire could tell she was reevaluating her best friend. Then she asked, “Did she know about you being a girl back then?”

“I think she knew better than I did,” Yuu said. “We used to trade clothes—too bad we’re different sizes these days. I didn’t realize I was a girl for a while, because it took me a long time to understand what being a ‘boy’ meant to the people around me. I assumed I must’ve been one if only because I didn’t know that not being a boy was an option. And surely all boys want to wear beautiful dresses and shoes and jewelry and grow their hair out, and, and to be able to speak openly about our feelings without having to freeze them solid and pretend they don’t exist so that nobody can ever hurt you. Everyone wants a new name, a new voice, a new body and new skin, right? Turns out: no. That was only ever me.”

“I’m sorry, Yuu,” Rae said. “Discovering oneself is rarely painless, in my experience. I’m proud of you for making it this far.”

Rae rarely sounded so earnest and unguarded around the Bauers as she did now. Was Yuu easier for her to talk to now that she knew Yuu was a woman? That would be nice. Maybe then the four of them could speak openly to each other, and Claire could discover what it was like to have friends who were her equals and who understood her.

“Aw, thanks,” Yuu laughed. “Sweet of you to say.”

However, this whole set of stories rested on an absolutely absurd foundation—as small children, she and Misha had gone exploring incredibly dangerous parts of the city alone and unsupervised. It sounded more like the set-up to an odd and bad joke than a thing that actually happened. Claire didn’t disbelieve her, per se, but the thought of doing such a thing would’ve never occurred to her in her life. Part of her was envious, wishing for the first time she’d spent less time indoors as a child. It was a very small part.

“Were you never scared?” Claire asked.

“Never.” Yuu said, without hesitation.

“Even though you two were so young, and on your own?”

“She was with me. What was there to fear? I didn’t know that Rae Taylors, Manaria Sousses, and other assorted monsters existed yet. As far as I knew, Misha was the strongest.”

That seemed to Claire a somewhat dubious assertion. “Misha, really?”

“That’s sweet, darling,” Yuu chuckled. “Too focused on trying to dominate your lover here that you failed to notice who else beat you on every single magic test?”

Was that true? Oh. Claire hadn’t kept track. Certainly, when they’d gone head to head on the very first exam, Misha had trounced everyone else in the class in terms of raw power besides her roommate. In any other place and time, Misha’s score would have put her at the top of their generation of magic users, it was true. Everyone forgot about that once Rae broke the scale, though, including Claire. From that point onward, Claire had been strangely invested in her commoner’s successes and failures, and no one else’s. Misha had beaten her every time, hadn’t she? It had never been particularly close.

“Misha really is very good—woah!” Rae stumbled as she was speaking; Claire had been helping her through a narrow gap between two walls with a tug on the wrist, but she’d tripped. As Claire broke her fall, Rae’s free hand struck her in the collarbone and then slid down into her décolletage. Claire flushed at the intimate contact but made no attempt to pull away.

“aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh…s-sorryyyy…”

A tiny scream. How adorable. Was Rae actually still worried about upsetting Claire by touching her, though? It had been lovely when it had happened on the night when Claire confessed her feelings to Rae, and it was lovelier now. If anything, she’d rather Rae do this more.

“Shhhhh…” Claire breathed. “Take your time.”

The close brushes, running their hands against one another’s chest or legs, without any release, was beginning to drive Claire insane. She’d need a treat soon before she could continue with this trying day.

“Anyway!” Rae continued. Her voice was so high and squeaky that soon only dogs would be able to hear it. “I bet you could beat her if you wanted!”

Meanwhile, Yuu was chuckling in response to Rae’s affirmations.

“Highly unlikely,” she said.

Claire’s mood soured immediately. It didn’t get bad enough that she was willing to start an argument with her guide, but it did annoy her enough that she released Rae and kept moving. Instead of bickering she grumbled, “Rae hasn’t yet realized that flattery will get her nowhere.”

“Reallllllllllllyyy?”

She was very close. Claire could feel her breath on her ear and the side of her neck. It was the warmest thing down here. No one was watching them, not even Yuu, who was safe for them to be themselves around. So, Claire seized her opportunity.

“That was a lie,” Claire whispered. Then she pulled Rae close by her hair and her waist and kissed her.

Kissing was the only skill Claire had found where getting worse at it made you better at it. And they were getting worse at kissing. Every time they kissed, it was rougher, messier, more passionate.

Normally this went against Claire’s instincts for order and perfection, but…

mmmmmmmhmmmhhmhmmmgmghhghghmmmRae,,,,,,,,

...she really couldn’t bring herself to care.

They were probably dirty, grimy, and dusty, Claire realized. It was impossible to tell with this light. She was sure that Rae didn’t care whether Claire was a bit gross, but she surprised herself by realizing that she didn’t care what Rae looked like right now either. It was still Rae’s lips, Rae’s tongue. The rest was superficial. Though, when Claire stuck a cheeky hand down the back of Rae’s skirt she was glad to find everything down there exactly how she’d left it. She could still feel her way around in near-total darkness, after all.

Yuu had promised a double date. Claire had the sinking feeling that this excursion, this espionage, had been what she’d meant. But, God damn it, Claire was going to kiss her girl regardless. If Yuu made any snide remarks about that, she would get deleted.

The princess had gotten about thirty paces ahead by the time Claire disengaged. Yuu couldn’t stop herself from letting out a theatrical sigh, but she didn’t turn around, didn’t say anything to them, didn’t stop walking. Moments afterwards, she took it upon herself to fill the awkward silence with more of her backstory.

“By the time Misha and I were separated, I was confident enough in my own magic—and not particularly invested in my own safety—that I kept exploring down here, learning how to make maps and move safely in the dark. Rhod came too sometimes, though not often. It was fun, and we could get away with it so long as we didn’t neglect our studies. That’s one of the ways I spent my leisure hours, all the way through to the present day. Gender roles are weird, though,” Yuu mused, “While I’d always get disciplined for sneaking out and causing trouble, to some degree it was what people thought I was ‘supposed’ to be doing. A boy disappearing for most of a day to explore and get dirty? That’s more or less fine. But there’s hell to pay if she steals some servant girl’s dress and gets caught trying it on. Anyway, we’re here.”

They rounded a corner and were suddenly feet from a heavy wooden door that would’ve looked more at home in, well, somebody’s home. Without breaking stride Yuu drew her wand and aimed. Water coalesced around the keyhole and it froze over. With an audible click, the door unlocked before Yuu had put her lantern down. After she finished hanging it from a pair of metal prongs which protruded from the mortar of the wall, she put her hand on the doorknob and pulled the door open, waving Rae and Claire inside.

“Neat,” Rae said as she passed the threshold.

“I know a few tricks,” Yuu said with a mild tone that almost disguised how proud she was of herself. “I can’t rely on raw power quite as much as the rest of you, so…”

“Where are we?” Claire asked, partially to interrupt her preening. Bright lamplight poured in through a square opening in the ceiling against which was propped a ladder. Though large, the room was cramped. Their movement was restricted by rows of shelves that were either empty, full of splintered wood, or intact barrels, and the whole place smelled of vinegar.

“Wine cellar,” Yuu answered, as she walked forwards and kicked through wooden debris that littered the floor. “Don’t bother looking for a fine vintage down here, though. All the casks have been broken for a long time. We don’t know how there ended up being an entrance from here into the underground, but House Jur hadn’t been particularly well managed in generations. Who knows what sort of mischief their servants might’ve been getting up to with the various syndicates and crime families of the capital’s yesteryear?”

“How on earth didn’t anyone notice?” Claire wondered, looking around. Maybe it had looked different when the place had been less thoroughly ransacked, but the tunnel entrance wasn’t exactly subtle.

“When’s the last time you checked the cellars at any of your estates, Claire?” Yuu asked her.

Claire turned up her nose. “I don’t make a habit of drinking.”

“So if Rae was building a labyrinth under your bedroom, you wouldn’t know.”

“Actually,” Rae said, “she doesn’t roam too far from the beaten track because for some reason the basem*nts and attics of Claire’s houses are the most haunted places in the kingdom—”

“Rae! Stop it stop it stop it it’s not funny!”

“—it’s fine, Claire, we send a team of Shinigami through there every now and then to exorcize them. Of course, they’re also spirits—”

“Nooooooooooo I’m going to have more nightmares tonight…” Claire moaned. “I’ve put quite a bit of effort into not thinking of bugs or rodents or the unquiet dead all day. Please, Rae, no more.”

“If you get scared or lonely I’ll be there for you, Claire; girlfriend hugs and kisses are a miracle cure for bad dreams! Everyone knows that. Just use me as a body pillow!”

“What if one’s partner is deliberately inducing those bad dreams? I think I may be more inclined to exile you to the top bunk for the night rather than use you—ah…”

Yuu had, of course, been watching them the entire time, one eyebrow raised over an unsmiling face.

“If you’re quite finished..?”

“Yes. Of course. My apologies. Rae?”

“What’s u—ow! Yeah I’m sorry too. Mmmmmm… thank you for this delicious gift of pain.”

Claire had stomped on her foot before remembering that Rae would, of course, see it as a reward. She buried her head in her hands, too embarrassed to speak for a moment, and looked through her fingers at Yuu. The princess had already begun to ascend the ladder, turning away and shaking her head.

“You’re a lovely couple, but I hope you’ve gotten this out of your system.” Yuu released the rungs of the ladder near the top, almost falling before grabbing onto the stone slabs that defined the edge of their egress. She dangled there for a moment before tucking both legs to her chest and kicking them forward, out of sight on the floor above. She stood and looked down at them. The whole maneuver had been completely unnecessary. “I was hoping to speak to you about a somewhat weighty subject.”

“Sorry,” Rae said, grimacing and sounding genuinely contrite. Claire followed Yuu up the ladder as she continued speaking. “Today has brought back some painful memories, things I haven’t thought about in a while. I was trying to keep things light in order to distract myself, but it’s really not my place. I’ll speak less and listen more.”

“Don’t worry, Rae, you’re quite alright. I’m thrilled that you’re both indulging my request in the first place.” Yuu finished pulling Claire up through the opening, and she in turn offered a hand back to her lover below. “I’ll tolerate you being annoying about each other if you extend me, and Misha, that same courtesy. Speaking of Misha, this lantern is here, this trapdoor is open, which means she’s been here for at least a few minutes already. She’ll be excited to welcome us—rarely does she have the chance to play hostess. Shall we go greet her?”

“Sure. Should I kick my shoes off at the threshold or leave them on?”

“You’re going to want to have them on.”

As Yuu spoke Claire finished helping Rae onto the ground floor of the Jur’s old manor house. Claire’s focus on deciphering whatever Rae meant by ‘painful memories’ was broken when she stood up properly, looked around, and finally saw the pandemonium surrounding them.

Knives had been punched into the cabinets and ceiling, dishes smashed, glasses shattered. Entire sections of the wall had been broken through in places, leaving only the wooden studs that should’ve been hidden by wallpaper and plaster. Even some of the stone tiles of the floor had been struck with enough force to fragment. As Claire took a slow step forwards, she felt a heavy crunch beneath her heel. Porcelain and crystal had been reduced to little more than sand, lining the floor.

As far as Claire could tell, there had been no reason for this destruction, no purpose. It had made someone feel good for fleeting moments to destroy this place, and that was all.

“I didn’t know Misha partied like that,” Rae said as she looked around.

“Ha—not quite,” Yuu said, with a laugh that was more of a spoken word than genuine amusem*nt. “Turns out you can’t sell a house like this. Everyone who might have the money to buy or maintain it was already a neighbor, and didn’t see the need. So when the House of Jur lay empty, all kinds of people came to take or break whatever was left behind, as is their right.”

“How awful,” Claire said.

Yuu ignored her and walked to one of the doors out of the kitchen, then called out to the ruined halls.

“Honey? I’m ho~ooome!”

Misha’s voice echoed from deeper within the house in response.

“I’m here. We’re alone, I’ve checked. Bring everyone up.”

Yuu clapped twice to get their attention like she was summoning the help. She’d taken off her gloves, and the sharp whiplike cracking noise was enough to make Rae wince. She set off at a brisk pace, Claire and Rae in tow.

She led them from the servant’s quarters through a ballroom, into the foyer and up a grand staircase. Claire didn’t see a single intact piece of furniture along the way. Instead, faint daylight filtered through boarded-up and broken windows that didn’t stop the entrance of the autumn breeze. A long, grand, table lay shattered on the ground, still partially covered by a tablecloth that might’ve once been white. In the foyer, empty bottles of wine and liquor littered the ground. Yuu walked carefully, slowly, on the balls of her feet for a few steps across the dark red rug in a few places to avoid what Claire assumed were spills. She did her best to copy every single foot placement exactly.

After taking a few steps up the last flight of stairs from the landing, Yuu paused.

“My apologies for making yet another burdensome request, but would you two mind waiting just a second?”

“Sure,” Claire and Rae said in unison. Claire glared at her lover for copying her, and she stuck her tongue out for a moment in response.

With a smile, Yuu ran the rest of the way up the stairs. At the top she rounded the newel post at high speed and sprinted down the hallway until she was out of sight. Claire gave Rae a sidelong glance, and she responded with a shrug and a smile.

Claire’s patience expired after maybe ninety seconds.

“I think that counts as ‘a moment’, don’t you?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Rae said, “I kind of need somewhere to sit down ASAP. My legs are killing me, we were on our feet for a while in class.”

Apparently they hadn’t been speaking as quietly as they thought. Misha responded, her voice raised so that it would carry down the hall.

“I’m fine with you two coming up as long as… oh, she says it’s fine. We’re down the hall and on your left.”

They ascended. Now that she was looking more closely, Claire saw that Rae was wincing with every upwards step, so she offered her a hand in support and kept speaking in a quieter tone.

“You didn’t stretch afterwards?”

“You’re supposed to do that?” Rae asked. “I thought that was a before thing.”

“Rae… It’s fine. It’s my fault you didn’t, anyway. You were working so very hard earlier, I didn’t mean to criticize you. You did very well, considering it was your first time.” As Claire said so, Rae beamed at her, shifted her grip on her hand, pulled it against her cheek and nuzzled against it. Claire blushed a bit in response. “...what?”

Rae let Claire pull her up the final step onto the second floor and get led down the hall after Yuu as she spoke. “I really like it when you talk to me like that, that’s all. It makes me happy when you praise me. I like the teasing and degradation so much that I sometimes forget that isn’t all there is.”

“Oh. Right, you’ve said as much before, although I was still trying not to listen or care at the time. In that case, I’ll make a point to do so more often,” Claire said, peering into each open doorway as she passed. Most of the doors had either disappeared completely or hung limply on their hinges, revealing room after room that were so thoroughly ransacked that it was impossible to tell what their original purpose had been.

“Not too much more often, though,” Rae said with a mischievous smile. “Gotta have a good balance of positive and negative energy. That’s the tao or whatever.”

“Whatever you say, dear. Hold on—Rae, are you quite alright? There was a perfectly stupid innuendo that you could’ve made and didn’t.”

“Holy cats, you’re right. Okay let’s see: first time, sore, yeah this'll be easy. How about—”

They finally happened upon the room at the end of the hall that Yuu and Misha occupied. Twilight filtered through the boarded-up window to graze the lovers. Misha’s hair flowed in the light breeze like a river of molten silver as it caught the light. Yuu, normally the taller of the two, had crumpled almost to her knees until she could rest her head against Misha’s collar. It looked as though Misha was supporting most of the princess’s weight; Yuu had both hands on the back of her lover’s shoulders and was clutching on to her as if to a life raft. Misha rested her chin on top of Yuu’s head and gently stroked her hair.

They were radiant together. Claire had never seen Misha smile like that. It faded slightly but didn’t disappear as she caught Claire’s eyes, finally removing her full attention from the girl in her arms.

Rae muttered ‘nevermind’ and fell silent, pausing awkwardly in the threshold. Claire peered in from over her shoulder. This room had either spared the fate of the others or, more likely, had been deliberately cleaned and refurbished by Misha since her return to the capital. The floor was clear of debris and had a mat of woven reeds leaning in one corner next to a folding paper screen. Evidently the place could function as a bedroom if needed. The only major imperfection was a hole where a few floorboards had been pried up with a crowbar to remove a smallish metal safe.

“You can keep standing there gawking or you can come in.”

Misha’s voice, often so stern, was soft and warm instead. She gently pried one of Yuu’s hands off of her back, clasped it in her own, and pulled her skyward. Her back was still turned to them but it was clear that Yuu stood up straight once more only with great reluctance. She was once again the tallest person in the room. Misha pulled what was likely a handkerchief from her Academy blazer and passed it upwards. After a moment or two presumably spent wiping her eyes, Yuu turned around, a sly smile on her face, like nothing was the matter.

“I’m normal now. Anyway: welcome to our humble abode.” Yuu beckoned, and Claire finally pushed Rae by the small of the back in order to get her to walk forwards and into the large, empty bedroom. “Oh, if you were looking for somewhere to sit down, it’s the windowsill, the futon, or nothing.”

“Thank you for having us,” Claire said, doing her best not to sound sarcastic. The two were clearly trying to maintain some semblance of normality. To what end, though? Misha didn’t look at all bothered to be standing in a ruined version of her childhood home. She was clearly not long on sentimentality. Were they just amused by maintaining the performance as long as possible? Either way, Claire wouldn’t be the one to blink first.

After leading Rae over to sit with her back against what was left of the window, Claire took her place at her side, letting Rae kick her legs up and rest them atop her thighs. Claire folded her hands on top of Rae’s knees as she began to murmur into Claire’s ear.

“Sorry for being weird earlier, Claire, and to the rest of you as well. I’m just… hhhhghghghh. It really messed with me, knowing that my friends have secrets but not knowing what they are.”

“It’s an awful feeling, isn’t it, Rae?” Misha interrupted. She’d been listening, obviously—even a whisper might not have been quiet enough for her to overlook. “Believe me, I sympathize.”

“Uh… huh.” Rae blinked a few times, startled. “I’m sorry about that, Misha. Anyway, Claire, you did the right thing by not telling me about Yuu earlier, so thank you and I wish I hadn’t doubted you.”

“It’s quite alright, love, I figured as much. Also: Misha. Yuu. I haven’t had the chance to speak to you both at once before,” Claire said. “Allow me to now extend to you my heartfelt congratulations. I’ve never been close with either of you, so forgive me if I’m overstepping by saying so, but you two seem right together. I wish you both happiness, despite how difficult the road ahead will be.”

“Thank you,” Misha said. “That’s sweet. And since I don’t think I’ve said so yet—same to you two.”

As she said this, Yuu put both arms around her shoulders and pulled her closer. Misha closed her eyes. The girl rarely ever appeared to be bothered, but until now Claire had never seen her truly relaxed, either. Not before today.

“When did you two get together?” Claire asked.

“Foundation day,” Misha said. “This year.”

“You’re joking?” Rae raised an eyebrow. “I’m impressed. Keeping a relationship DL for that long feels basically impossible.”

“It’s terrible,” Misha muttered. “Your constant doomed advances and Claire’s repeated, predictable rejections are such a gift to you two now. You two act like an old married couple in public and no one’s any the wiser. I’d give up a great deal to have what you have.”

“Envy is a disease, Misha,” Claire said, trying to keep her tone playful. “I pray for your swift recovery.”

“You are a truly odious individual.”

She didn’t seem to have appreciated the joke. To distract herself from the sting, Claire asked her, “If it’s not too private to share, I’m curious as to when and how this happened. I’m surprised I missed such a momentous event taking place right in front of me.”

“Of course you missed it,” Misha said. “You were too distracted by the sight of Rae in a suit to notice what was happening around you.”

Claire frowned. “No I wasn’t.”

“Describe any event from that day that didn’t directly relate to her or something she was doing.”

“I… Hm.”

It’s not my fault she looked amazing. So what if Claire had been a little bit enthralled? Everyone fantasized about rescuing people they don’t like, right? She’d simply known that her hapless, gorgeous commoner would offend some noble eventually and need assistance. It was just a way of asserting her… dominance.

Oh, hell. I’ve always been hopeless around her.

“Sooooooooooo…” Rae said, drawing out the vowel sound as long as her breath lasted. “Wanna tell us what happened?”

“Once you two disappeared on your little date,” Yuu said, “I had this great idea; here I was, dressed up as a woman for wholly legitimate and deniable reasons, yet I was wearing no makeup. Shameful. I took a cue from you and when Misha and I had our breaks at the same time I asked if she’d care to help me with it. She led me to her room, I sat down at her desk. She started working on me, getting real close and intimate, but I noticed she’s sort of leaning over me awkwardly in order to reach. I half-joked that it’d be easier if I were on the bed so she could make herself comfortable on top of me and, well, one thing led to another…”

“Hold on!” Rae had realized something. “What the heck! I have the bottom bunk, and there’s no way you’d have had room on Misha’s, don’t tell me—”

Misha put her head in her hands. Claire couldn’t help but start laughing, enjoying being the least embarrassed person in the room for once.

“Ha. Whoops,” Yuu said, looking only slightly chagrined.

“What the hell,” Rae groused. “I do my laundry along with Miss Claire’s—I mean, Claire’s—every day, but still!”

“Relax. All we did was kiss, you maniac,” Misha said.

“You’re not supposed to be on my bed! At all! That violates the roommate agreement we both signed!”

“Rae, do you remember the clause I made you add that allowed either party to exempt themselves from any clause in case of an emergency?”

“Uh..?”

“Well, it’s in there, go check.” Misha, still with one hand shielding her eyes, pointed at Rae. “This was medically necessary for both of us.”

“...fine.”

“Ahem.” Yuu cleared her throat. “This has been very entertaining but I’ve let myself get distracted once more. I actually brought you here so that I could exposit at you for several minutes and explain why I’d like your help and with what, but we’re at risk of losing the plot. No, don’t apologize.”They’d been about to. She continued, “I’d much rather talk about our relationships and get to know one another better. It’s a far more pleasant topic than what I’m about to bring up, which I’m sure will kill the mood. Oh, Misha, you reminded me; would you mind doing my makeup while I talk?”

Misha withdrew a palette and brushes from the inside pocket of her blazer. “What would you like me to do?”

“Just a bit of a contour, a bit of eyeshadow, that sort of thing. Enough to change the shape of my face a bit and not much more. Let me know if I need to stop talking for a moment.” Misha got to work without further comment, pressing Yuu against the wall, who continued speaking with the strange note of someone talking while trying to keep their face as still as possible. “Most people like me wake up one day realizing they were born in the wrong sex, or gender, or body or however you want to describe it. More power to them, but I’m different. God got me right the first time, and then my dear mother intervened.”

Claire covered her mouth with her hands in shock or disgust. Rae looked stunned, like it was the first time she’d heard of a parent hurting their child.

“But why? And how?” she asked.

“To facilitate my ascension to the throne, of course. That does mean something would have to happen to my brothers first, but she doesn’t care. They aren’t her kids. Even if they were,” Yuu said, smirking, “well, I know how she treated me. As for how she did this? The Crosswise Curse.”

“Oh, that makes—hold on.” Rae said, pausing mid sentence. “That doesn’t make sense. You were talking about how you didn’t know, how it took you a while to—”

“No,” Yuu growled. “That’s a myth. Most of the research on us is skewed in extremely interesting ways, and that lie gets repeated as though it were the truth.”

“I thought… huh. Not even during a full moon—”

“Did you think it exciting?” Yuu interrupted her, then fell silent for a moment. She was looking at Rae with only her eyes as Misha finished applying foundation and moved to concealer. “It’s titillating, right? One day each month, something that’s really a boy might become an extra special type of girl just for your enjoyment?”

Rae looked like she was trying to speak but no sound was coming out. Only Manaria’s words had ever visibly hurt her like this before. Yuu wore a bereft expression with the fakest, sharpest smile Claire had ever seen, preparing to say something else that would cut them both.

“That’s enough!” Claire shouted. She’d had to intervene. “You know damn well she didn’t mean that. Apologize this instant, or I’m leaving and taking Rae with me.”

Rae was trying to wave her off like everything was fine. It didn’t work. Even Rae, who had so much practice in pretending she was invincible, couldn’t act like she wasn’t crushed by Yuu’s words. Claire wouldn’t always know how she felt if she didn’t want to tell her, but this she could neither miss nor ignore.

Yuu paused, visibly reconsidering her next words. Looking down at Misha, who was still hard at work, she asked, “Was that uncalled for?”

“A bit, love.”

As Yuu sighed, she relaxed against the wall. She’d been so tense, Claire realized, like a cat about to pounce. It looked exhausting. All of a sudden the princess looked a bit older and a bit more tired.

“I apologize, Rae, that was unfair of me,” Yuu said. “I’m frustrated, though. I’ve spent weeks combing through archives to find anything that might help me understand my condition, only to find a handful of books written by the same guy who was clearly writing them with one hand. It makes me feel ill just to think about what was done to me, let alone to explain it.”

Claire was satisfied with the apology, though the fury of moments earlier hadn’t yet been flushed from her system. Misha turned away from working on Yuu long enough to shoot Rae a conciliatory glance.

For her part Rae let the words hang in the air for a minute before she tried once more to speak. “I know it’s hard to believe, when you’ve had the world against you for a while, including all the people who are supposed to protect you. But… Yuu, I understand how badly it hurts. I promise. I want to help you.”

“It was low of me,” Yuu acknowledged. “I didn’t think any of the things I said were true but I said them anyway, for which I truly am sorry. Moving on: you asked, Rae, how I knew about all of my gender nonsense? The story is simple and boring. I’ve always felt wrong in this skin, and I’ve always seen the guilt in my father’s eyes when he looked at me. One night, wondering if the two were connected, I got him drunk; it’s a classic male bonding ritual. This was almost two years ago. He told me what happened as he cried into his goblet.

“My mother had two children, Rae. Twins: one male, one female. Evidently the wrong one died in childbirth, because he was the one with the right to the throne. She buried him in an unmarked grave on the palace grounds and pretended he never existed—or rather, pretended that I had never existed. Her daughter. Her girl. She poisoned her, by which I of course mean she poisoned me, turning me into this thing, giving me this body, and it’s been getting worse and worse as I get older and as I grow more hair on my body and face and my voice is getting lower even though I work so hard on it and—”

Misha silenced her with a kiss. They had already been so close that she’d barely needed to lean in, just move her makeup brush away from Yuu’s eyes. She pulled back after only a moment.

“Breathe,” Misha said. “You’re in control here.”

It only took one breath. A long, shuddering inhale that sounded most of all like a deathrattle: and then she was done. After a sharp exhale, she opened her eyes once more with the same charming smirk that she wore every other day of her life.

How she must tire of it, Claire thought.

“I’m normal again,” Yuu said. “My apologies. Let me open the floor for questions from the audience. Any takers? You, the blonde girl with the big hair.”

Claire rolled her eyes. She did have a question, though. “If the King knew about this, but felt guilty enough to explain himself to you, why hasn’t he done anything about it?”

“He’s a weak man, Claire.”

“Surely no—”

“Trust me.” Yuu’s smile faded. “As a ruler? Maybe he’s as strong and just as a king can be. His policies don’t affect me, so I couldn’t say. Here’s how I know him: I see a man who knows what his wife is doing to his child and does nothing about it except cry every once in a blue moon. What other conclusion can I draw from this but some sort of moral cowardice?”

“Here’s another question,” Rae said, raising a hand. She still didn’t look fully recovered from Yuu throwing her kindness back in her face. Claire wanted to make that frown of hers disappear, so she tousled Rae’s hair and leaned against her shoulder. That would make her happy, Claire assumed. Rae let one arm drift over Claire’s shoulder as she continued to speak. “Is there any name you’d prefer we called you by?”

“Not yet,” Yuu said, “unless you can convince the Queen to tell you whatever she’d planned on naming me. You can’t, by the way. I’ve already tried that.”

“You don’t know your own name?” Claire asked, shocked.

“Nope. The name’s a hand-me-down. If Yuu’s sister ever had a name, it’s been struck from history.”

The words and their implication hung in the air for some time. Struck from history. It was a loss Claire couldn’t even comprehend. To have such a fundamental part of oneself erased, having to pretend every day like it didn’t hurt—it was beyond her. How was one supposed to live with that, a pain that might have been totally unique throughout all of time? What was she supposed to say to console Yuu?

Yuu began to laugh. “No, no, I misspoke,” she said, giggling. “Struck from herstory. Ah, I’m hysterical. Anyway: maybe it’s stupid thing to fixate on, but I can’t help wanting to know or dreaming that this one piece of information being kept from me would complete me somehow. Alas. ‘Yuu’ will do nicely as a name for now. I’m not attached to it but I don’t hate it too much either.”

Apparently satisfied with her work, Misha pulled Yuu in for a hug before releasing her. Yuu almost didn’t appear to have any makeup on at all, which Claire supposed had been the point. Her features had been slimmed out and sharpened somewhat but little else. A bit of blush helped emphasize the warm green of her eyes. She began to pace now that she was once more free to do so.

“The thing is,” Yuu said, pacing about the room, “I am both the girl that the Queen couldn’t kill and the boy she couldn’t save. She can’t ever accept that. She’s obsessed with making me into the person she wants me to be. I have a bit of a reprieve as long as I’m at the Academy, but the clock’s ticking towards graduation, and she still has her eyes on me. I can feel them. Even this, a bit of makeup, is something I have to hide in Misha’s room at the Academy or here. Anything I do that is perceived as remotely feminine merits punishment, but those are the things that make me feel sane. We cannot coexist. In order to stay safe, in order to stay me, I have to remove one of us or the other from the game board.”

“There’s a way out,” Rae said, speaking up once more. “There are ways to break curses. The Church has an artifact in its possession called—”

“—the Tears of the Moon, yes,” Yuu said, finishing Rae’s sentence for her with slightly terse and clipped words. “I know. I’m curious as to how you know about it since it’s supposed to be a closely guarded secret, but alas. I learned about its existence during my research in the Crown Archives and was briefly excited by the possibility of using it on myself. But if I do that, what do you think the very next thing she’ll do to me will be?”

Rae’s eyes were downcast. “She’ll just curse you again. Damn. Why do people like this even have kids? I’ll never understand it.”

“Why, so that you can have some form of immortality through them, of course. To stroke your own ego, to further your political agenda. You want to treat children like they’re people? Rae, you truly are a strange woman.”

With a cruel smile on her face, Rae laughed along. “Right. I’m sooooo stupid and weird for wanting to make people happy. I always forget that.”

“Mhm. Anyway, that is one option. If I made the fact that I was a woman public, I would of course lose my right to inherit the throne—but that on its own wouldn’t make me safe. In some ways, it would make me less safe, unless I fled the country or went to hide in some mountain monastery or something like a warrior monk.”

“What about becoming a pirate?” Claire suggested.

“Um… interesting and specific suggestion. Sure, or that. That represents one set of options, where I transition into the correct body and then go into hiding for the rest of my life. The other option, of course, is that I stay in the kingdom and fight for what’s mine. She’s decided that the two of us can’t both live happily as long as the other is around, so the only option I have is to break her. All the power she’s worked so hard for all her life, all the influence she has over national politics—I need to destroy it. It won’t be easy. She has powerful allies; but if you two will truly help me, then so will I. So, once more, I ask: will you?”

Rae responded immediately. “I—yes. As long as Claire’s willing to as well, and I think she is. I hope she is. We can talk about it though.”

Yuu looked relieved. Misha raised a finger into the air to indicate that she had something to say.

“It’s rare for you to care at all about anything besides your lady love,” Misha observed. “What makes Yuu’s case different?

“It’s simple. When she says that she needs to do something drastic in order to be safe, I believe her. I can’t keep living at the Academy, seeing you two every day, wondering if one of you wasn’t gonna show up to class tomorrow. Maybe if I can help her it’ll help me exorcize some personal demons. Who knows. At the very least, if I do nothing I won’t be able to sleep at night.”

“I don’t suppose you’re going to explain what you meant by ‘personal demons’?” Misha asked her. She looked like she already knew what the answer would be. It struck Claire as odd that she wouldn’t know. She’d assumed that the two had always been close back in Euclid.

“No. It’s a sad story and it’d bring the mood down.”

“We’re well past that. The mood is already so down, Rae, that it’s damn near subterranean. Try again.”

“Oh, come on, Misha, can’t a girl have some secrets?”

The same tension between them they’d shared earlier at the fountain had returned. As Misha studied Rae, as Rae kept a practiced neutral expression on her face, Yuu caught Rae’s eyes and shrugged.

After a moment Misha said, “Secrets are all you have.”

“Bzzt! Wrong! I have Claire. Everything else is filler.”

Misha sighed. “I should’ve known. Well, thanks for wanting to help regardless. It means a lot to me whatever the motive. Claire?”

Suddenly put on the spot, Claire stuttered for a few moments before finding any useful words. “I—er—um, yes, of course I’d like to help. For your sake, Yuu’s, for Misha’s, for Rae’s. For my own, even. I don’t want to stand idly by knowing someone is being hurt ever again. You’re talking about going against the Queen, though.”

“And the Chancellor, and a fair chunk of the clergy and nobility that supports them,” Yuu pointed out. She clearly knew it wasn’t helping her case, but she got a bit more of Claire’s respect for being honest about it. “Oh, and maybe Nur. There are connections there, but nothing I can prove so far.”

“Yes, of course,” Claire said, processing this new information. “That’s an impressive list of enemies, Yuu. I’ve felt both happy and mostly safe for the first time in my life, these last few weeks. I can be convinced to jeopardize my own safety, but not Rae’s. Not for nothing. I won’t watch her get hurt again. To get me on board, you need to give me an actual plan, a vision. If you’re ready to tell me what you want to do, I’m ready to hear it.”

“Perfectly reasonable,” Yuu conceded. “Let me ask you this: do you think you’ll both be safe, so long as you do nothing?”

“I…”

“Because,” Yuu said, interrupting Claire immediately, “that is a fallacy. The harder you try to stand still, the more the currents of history will pull at you. Will you be like the rest of the nobility and the clergy, whipping the tide for daring to turn without your leave? Or will you learn to swim?”

“That’s a very beautiful and well-practiced piece of rhetoric, Your Highness, but you’re still avoiding my actual question. What do you want us to do?”

“Fine. I want you to help me find out who tried to kill you and Misha back in Euclid.” Yuu paused for a moment, letting her words sink in. Claire hated thinking about the circ*mstances surrounding Louis’s death. It was hard not to blame herself for all of it, as absurd as that was. But yes, someone had funded and equipped the man, someone who had access to Cantarella and a reason to kill her, and she had no clue who it might have been. “I have a great guess, Claire, but I’m not satisfied with guesswork. I have a plan that’ll let me prove it, and more besides.”

“Does this perchance relate to the plan you’d mentioned to me during our ‘girl talk’ the other day?” Claire asked.

“Yes.” Yuu said. “You’re quite astute. I mentioned this to Claire as you slept, Rae: I was going to use the Commoner’s Movement to do my bidding, disrupt my enemy’s plans. Unfortunately those enemies of mine had the same great idea and beat me to it. That man who nearly killed my brother in the chaos is Salas’s pawn, as were the Aurousseaus. The goal? To destabilize every political bloc in the country not directly in his thrall. Look at the results; the left-most elements of the Movement are treated as domestic terrorists, the moderate nobility are seen as impotent and indecisive. Who’s left standing? The Church and the right wing of the nobility. In other words, the Queen’s faction and the Chancellor’s. If they were capable of working together in the long term, it would be a checkmate for us.”

Rae stood, leaving Claire’s side. She paced around the room as she listened, lost in thought. She ignored Claire for the most part as Yuu spoke except for casting furtive glances her way every few moments and then quickly breaking eye contact. For her part, Claire kept one eye on her reactions at all times.

“One simple fact keeps the game afoot—their visions for the future are incompatible. My mother wants me to be the King so that she can rule through me, the most blackmail-able woman in all of history. Salas wants as much power for himself as he can get his grubby little hands on. He wants every part of the King’s faction dead or neutralized: such as little François girls who might end up as Minister of Finance—the wealthiest noblewoman in the country at a bare minimum—or princes and princesses that might keep the Bauer dynasty going for another few generations. I don’t think he has any sense of the fact that he’s a mortal man. It’s all about what he can accomplish within his own lifetime, how high he can rise. That rift will widen, but we don’t need to wait for time to do all the work. We’re going to knock them so far apart from one another that you’d be able to sail a ship through the gap, and then deal with each at our leisure.”

Dread flowed through Claire’s veins like molten lead, settling somewhere around her stomach. It all made too much sense to dismiss as the ramblings of a madwoman.

Misha of course was unsurprised. She was doing little more than watch Rae for her reactions to all of this. And Rae, though individual details here and there caught her attention, was unperturbed. She’d known about the big picture of corruption in the country, within the nobility even, long ago.

How could she have known?

Why wouldn’t she tell me? Why am I always the last to know anything that matters?

It was simple, Claire supposed. Until recently she would’ve refused to believe this, that the current structure of the nation’s nobility was fundamentally flawed. Rae, like Claire, probably preferred to think about how to spend their days together, about how to love each other better. It still stung. She felt, for the first time in a long time, like Rae was still a stranger.

Struck with the sudden urge to stand, to move, to run away from all of this somehow, Claire stood, then froze awkwardly in place after only two steps. There really wasn’t anywhere she could run to. So she clutched her arms and looked away from Rae, whose eyes were now too hard to look at, instead shifting her gaze between Yuu and the floor.

Yuu was on a conversational rampage, clearly enjoying the chance to speak without interruption. The smile had returned to her face, made almost alarming by how genuine it seemed.

“Let’s start with Salas,” she was saying. “I find him the more immediate threat. My mother merely wishes to control me, but he may try to kill me, so I’m sure you understand why he’s my priority. Her power is also wholly legitimate and therefore hard to strike at with illegitimate means, which are currently all I have access to. Not so for Salas. He’s been naughty. He’s been setting up his own intelligence service on the side, a parallel force in the country to rival the Secret Service, all under his direct control. It’s pretty incredible. In short, he either is responsible for your assassination attempt back in Euclid, or he knows who was. I wish I had the funding to do what he’s done: to create an apparatus of state control and repression under my direct control? When someone else makes one and uses it against me and my friends, though? That’s cheating, no fair. We’re going to take that toy away from him. Here’s the beautiful thing: he won’t be able to go crying about whatever we decide to do to him to my Father, because admitting to the existence of this organization is the same as admitting to treason.”

God, she sounded so proud of herself, so sure of herself. How could she have this confidence despite everything? How could she be brave?

Maybe it was because Yuu, unlike Claire, never could’ve had another choice.

“This is what I was trying to use the Commoner’s Movement for,” Yuu explained. “I was trying to feed them the idea to break into a building out of which a conspiracy to surveille and manipulate them operated. If I’d managed it, it would’ve brought Salas’s crimes into the light of day. I didn’t succeed, of course, but I learned a lot from the experience. Mostly this: that I’m tired of waiting for someone else to save me. I’m not delusional, I know I can’t actually do this alone, but I’m only going to ask you two to do the same things that Misha and I have already done. To fight. To win.”

“What you’re suggesting we do to win, to bring this conspiracy to justice, sounds rather treasonous itself,” Claire said. She’d felt the need to point it out, but surprised herself by not being all that bothered by the fact. Someone had to say it, though.

Yuu simply laughed, like she’d known what Claire would say but couldn’t believe it anyway.

“Who said anything about justice? Do you think I’m going to bring either of them to court? Claire, the Chancellor is the one who runs the courts and appoints the judges. I can’t go to the King and beg him for help either. He needs Salas to run the country, whereas I’m the spare heir of a spare heir. He will always, always choose Salas over me, because he doesn’t have any other choice.”

Everything Yuu had said to her in front of the Cathedral finally clicked. Of course Claire seemed absurd for trusting that her father was a good man, or that he would do the right thing. Adults like that, if Yuu’s analysis was correct, were absent from her life.

Yuu took the seat on the windowsill that Claire and Rae had now vacated. The last of daylight was finally fading with one last glorious golden glow. In that light, sitting askew, dusty, disheveled but utterly in her element, Claire could almost see her in a crown. Looking out at the rest of the room, she addressed her subjects.

“They call me a prince, yet I’ve been shut out of the political process. So I’ll find another way to vindicate my rights. I’m done playing fair. I don’t like the hand I was dealt in life, so I’m going to pull a few aces from my sleeve. I think I’m playing at a table of marks, so I’m going to act stupid and lie and bluff, make them bet big, then take everything they have. And I don’t much like the rules. So, I think I’m going to change the game. Here’s how: we’re going to break into Salas’s secret headquarters—and we’ll do it without magic, without giving away our identities. We’re going to learn about all of his favorite secrets, all the names of the people he’s blackmailed and coerced, all the people he’s paid off or done favors for. We’re going to take everything that’s useful to us, and we’re going to use it against him and against the Queen. And then, on the way out?”

Yuu looked directly at Claire, winked, and purred, “We’re going to burn it down.”

Chapter 16: Misha interlude: Monsters

Chapter Text

Rae Taylor was gone. Of that there was no doubt.

This Rae, this Not-Rae, wore the skin of her old friend. It had adopted her voice. It kept all her memories. But it was not her Rae. The friend she’d made who had kept her sane and comforted her in her childhood after being separated from her beloved no longer existed.

Misha had known from the first day, but she’d talked herself out of it. Rae couldn’t have become a different person overnight, surely? No—not even overnight. She’d been normal that morning, one year ago, as they’d gotten ready for their first day of class. They made small talk, as Misha mentally prepared herself for seeing all the people she had hazy memories of from the time that they were children, ready for them to treat her like dirt because the once great Marcher Lords of Jur had fallen from grace.

It was excruciating that she couldn’t remember Rae’s last words to her. Why would she have thought to pay them any mind? Misha had been mostly asleep at the time, but while she hated herself for saying so she had to be honest: they hadn’t been very interesting. Nothing Rae said ever was. Misha had liked that about her, been drawn to her because of it. She was kind, but reserved—brilliant, but disinterested. She had no ego, no flaws. After the tumult of her early years, the chaos and confusion that resulted in her moving across the country, the stress and the constant arguments that she’d been forced to listen to but had been too young to understand? That had been just fine with her.

Then something that wasn’t Rae returned from class and started ranting and raving about the perfection of Her Grace, Lady François. Claire, as they now knew her. To call that change jarring would be a gross understatement. As Misha was pretty sure she’d remarked at the time, it was like she was a different person.

She was. She simply was. For some time, Misha had dreaded sleeping in the same room as her. She’d spent many nights lying awake, staring at the cracking paint of the dorm room ceiling so close to her head, listening to the creature in the bunk below her breathe.

The strangest thing about this fear was how soon it had faded. The new Rae, the Not-Rae, was nothing like the person she’d known. Rae had been remarkable for one thing above all else, moreso even than her absurd magical power or her wits: her emotions, or lack thereof. She never seemed to feel much of anything at all. When they had both been children Rae could always support Misha, and never needed support herself. Nothing could ever hurt her. Misha could be her friend and trust that she would never have to do for Rae what Rae had done for her.

After that first day, after Claire, that dynamic flipped on its head. There were a million different things that gave Misha a clue that Rae was different now. All the things she said that she thought nobody really heard, all the things that she knew that nobody should have known, all the ways in which her priorities had shifted. That was all secondary to the fact that she did not experience emotions in a recognizably human way before, but did now. This Rae was happy, she was sad, she was volatile. She felt with her entire being but tried to hide that fact. Misha had forgotten that people could hurt in that way. Normal people got hurt all the time, and despite her abnormalities this Rae was normal in this way, at last.

So too was Misha. This new Rae needed her, and Misha wanted to be needed. Being needed by Rae was a poor substitute for Yuu, of course, but Misha needed to be needed. She could do anything as long as anyone asked her to, but without others, it was like she stopped existing. Like she had been on hiatus for her entire life in Euclid and only realized that when she was suddenly a hormonal teenager back in the capital, surrounded by familiar faces that had completely changed.

She’d forgotten about heartache. Misha had known it as a young girl, yet she’d forgotten until this new Rae reminded her.

The new Rae. The Not-Rae. Rae. That quiet girl was gone, replaced by something that Misha preferred in every way, except that she was getting bored of the thing lying to her face.

Misha had gotten a bit braver. She’d had to, to help Yuu. She’d decided she was brave enough at last to confront this new being that had entered her life.

She’d let herself zone out. Stretching, Misha interwove her hands behind her head and pushed them up, out and away from herself. It wasn’t enough, she decided. She’d have to elongate her body further until she was as flat as a board. With a kick against the floor, she tipped herself and her chair backwards. After allowing herself an instant of private exhilaration she arrested her fall, running her left hand across the corner of the windowsill across uneven chipping paint and smooth wood, until friction brought her to a stop.

Her feet locked into the slats that ran adjacent to the wall of her room for extra support, and she planted her right hand inside her knee, twisting her entire body and feeling a gentle crackle along her spine as she stretched. Only her hips and shoulders were touching the chair at all, now. At last she relaxed, resting her head on her elbow next to the open window, occasionally brushed by the curtain flitting back and forth in the cool breeze.

With her eyes closed, the morning sun on her face, the cool wind in her hair, she almost felt at peace. She could’ve fallen asleep like this. The Academy was a nice enough backdrop for a nap. She’d almost call this little scene picturesque.

Shame about most of the people here.

It would be a terrible time to fall back asleep. She’d gotten up early today hoping to be productive. With some reluctance, she opened her eyes and looked out over the gardens below. In the last week some of the first trees had begun to turn over to fall foliage. Most of the leaves remained green, but a few intermittent patches had started turning yellow.

That camouflage almost made her miss the two blondest people she’d ever seen walking towards their usual spot at that little garden structure in the distance. Claire, ever the soul of discretion, dragged Rae by the forearm behind her. It was hard to tell from this distance (maybe 50 paces away or more) but Yuu, trailing them by a bit, seemed to be shaking her head just a bit.

Good, Misha thought. Yuu caught up with them.

The lovebirds had been a bit out of sorts since Yuu brought them to Misha’s old bedroom and explained her life story to them. Misha had watched Claire’s heart break a little bit as the poor girl clearly realized just how little Rae was telling her. Misha had no reason to believe that Claire suspected the same things about Rae that Misha suspected, and the noblewoman was trying to spend more time with her commoner now rather than less, so this rift would be fixable. At least, Misha hoped so. The less drama between the four of them, the better it would be for helping Yuu.

Misha was still holding onto a desperate hope that, one day, she wouldn’t need to pay attention to their relationship woes. In their minds, Misha assumed, this must all be terribly romantic, like a story pulled straight from the classics. A noble heiress, permanently altered by the power of true love, determined to pursue it despite all the obstacles in her way? That was a decent concept for a play. Misha would be willing to see it in theaters. However, the story lost its luster when you were living with one of the two female leads. Even the best stories grew tiresome if you were forced to hear about them over and over and over—

With a sigh, Misha interrupted herself. No point continuing further down that line of thought. She was sure that she could be embarrassing and annoying too, but at least she was aware of that and did her best to avoid it. It wasn’t worth thinking about. Instead she glanced at her wand, stuck into the pages of her grimoire where it sat on her desk like a makeshift bookmark. It was out of the light, so the crystal at the tip was dull and lifeless between ancient pages as delicate as gossamer and the leather bounds of the binding.

Wanting to talk to Yuu, Misha leaned forward slightly, expecting physics to do the rest of the work and bring her to the ground. She’d misjudged. Her center of gravity was still too far back. She flailed slightly, teetering, until she was able to press one hand against the wall and throw her chair back down onto all four legs. Grabbing her wand and acting on instinct, she whipped her head around and made sure that she was in fact alone. There was, of course, nobody there.

Good. Nobody saw that.

With a delicate motion, she lifted the pages of the book over until the book was open on the desk, sure to support the spine so it didn’t finish the process of falling apart. What had she been looking at last night? Right: Changelings. She’d gotten frustrated and gone to bed, reading this one. It seemed like it might’ve been something that could explain Rae’s behavior, but none of the details really fit. Nothing else did either. A guardian angel? A dybbuk? Zār? None of these aligned perfectly with Misha’s experience.

It was pointless. She’d ask the thing, ask Rae, herself. Leaning back once more so that she had a line of sight through the window to Yuu once more, Misha cast the spell that connected them.

Telepathy wasn’t hard. She didn’t really see why it was considered such advanced magic. It was easier, even, than using her sound manipulation to throw her voice across great distances, which she’d attempted first. Yuu told her that it had more use as a psychological weapon than as a means of carrying out conversation, which stung for reasons Misha couldn’t articulate. Shortly thereafter, however, she’d figured out how to link their hearts and minds together across empty space.

She did so now.

“My star,” she said.

Most people became quite discomposed at suddenly hearing a voice in their ear louder than their own thoughts. Yuu didn’t even flinch or turn around.

“My world,” Yuu responded. Misha blushed. It still thrilled her that they could talk like this. It felt so intimate. How many other girls could ever experience something so wonderful? The answer: few. Misha’s magic wasn’t one of a kind, but she knew it wasn’t far off. “How did you sleep, love?”

Her voice was different over telepathy, less strained. Misha assumed that was because it wasn’t filtered through her vocal cords and therefore lost the very slight bit of bass that Yuu hadn’t fully trained out of yet. What they hadn’t figured out yet was whether Yuu’s conscious effort or Misha’s deep desires led to that change. Such questions led them into the domain of pure theory quite quickly, which wasn’t her strong suit. It also didn’t matter—what mattered was that, at last, Yuu sounded how she was supposed to sound.

“Quite well, thank you.” Misha said, after a slight delay. She’d been distracted by savoring Yuu’s words. They never bored her. “I see you intercepted our friends. Are they doing alright?”

“Seem to be,” Yuu said. “Rae’s making her mad, but for normal reasons. Normal for them, at least, though absurd to me. I’d almost think they’d sorted their sh*t out, but Claire still looks upset in class or when writing her book just about anytime she thinks Rae isn’t looking. Rae’s still training her ass off. Not sure why, since she’s stronger than all three of us already, and she’ll hurt herself at this pace. I’ll figure out a way to talk to one of ‘em if this continues. They’re only losing an hour or two of each other’s company a day, but Claire is obviously pining and I do not want to hear about it anymore. Oh—here they go again.”

Misha watched Yuu scoot her chair to the side by a foot or two as Rae and Claire began to fight. Before long, Claire had her hands around Rae’s throat, while Rae stuck a thumbs-up into the air rather than break out of the grapple. This caused Claire to release her but only it only agitated her further. Misha could hear her faint squawking all the way over in the dorm room.

“Ugh. Gross,” Misha said.

“Doesn’t it just make you sick?” Yuu agreed.

“Mm. I won’t be really worried until Rae gets kicked back into our dorm overnight. They’ll be alright, I think.”

Misha planted an elbow and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. This felt right. Chatting with her sweetheart, gossiping about their friends behind their backs… it was like a chance to be normal girls. It barely mattered that they couldn’t speak face to face, could barely ever find the time to hold each other. Even this was enough.

“I adore them.”

“So do I, most days,” Misha said. “Oh, I needed to talk to Rae. She’s been spending enough time with her wife that I haven’t really spoken with her since the semester began. Could you send her up? Don’t let Claire wander after her, either.”

“Gladly. How should I go about this?”

“Concoct an entertaining lie. I’m not picky.”

“Sure, I’ve got a few ready to go. This'll be fun! Talk soon.”

Misha terminated the connection and waited. Within a minute, Rae was skipping down the garden path.

Bizarre.

She hadn’t even skipped when they were children. So, so bizarre to do so now, in a maid’s apron.

Right. They were different people. Two different people. Two different things, two different girls. It was so hard to keep track of. It made Misha feel insane just to try, just to keep it to herself.

She watched Rae enter the building, which brought her out of line of sight.

Two minutes, then.

Misha breathed, in and out. Everything started from the breath for her. As long as she mastered her breath, this new Rae wouldn’t know how scared she was, how suspicious, how confused. No one would.

She’d never told Yuu that she was suspicious—nay, that she was certain—that Rae had changed. She hadn’t the heart to. Long before she’d decided for certain that her old Rae must be gone, Yuu had already had an emotional moment where she waxed eloquent about how dearly she wanted what Rae had, to be conquered fully by a love that consumed her, that altered her.

Yuu was probably the strongest person alive, but she shouldn’t have to be. She could survive the revelation that the nice story she’d dreamt up was untrue, but not unscathed. It would bring to a swift end Yuu’s first ever experiment with having friends rather than merely people she used. Misha wanted her to dream her dreams, and let this beautiful lie that Rae had constructed continue to give Yuu hope. They’d both be allowed to have that lie—just as long as Misha was correct in believing that Rae was safe.

Misha wanted Rae to be safe more than almost anything, for her own sake, for Yuu’s, and even for Claire’s. She’d never imagined she’d give a damn about that kid’s wellbeing, and yet, despite herself, Misha did. It surprised her. Few surprises in Misha’s life had ended up pleasant, so it was a nice change of pace. She never would’ve imagined, a year ago, that the strident little noblewoman would not only keep Yuu’s secret but commit to helping her with her plans.

And Misha certainly would have neither been excited about nor expected that she’d have to coax her through her awkward relationship problems. More than once, Claire had been on the verge of tears at Misha’s side after realizing, belatedly, that she’d hurt someone who clearly meant the world to her. Somehow, that always became Misha’s problem.

Though she’d grumbled about it in the past and was sure she would again, Misha didn’t really mind. It was exhausting and she was ill-equipped to comfort others, given her admittedly caustic manner, but she and this Rae did seem right for one another in a very, very bizarre way. That said, on the day that they finally eloped and were no longer her emotional burden, Misha would rejoice, and be able to congratulate herself on a job well done.

She heard the door open. Rae had a light step when she wanted to. Misha could identify most of her friends and acquaintances by the exact character of the sound they made as they passed over the old floorboards of the hallway. This time, Rae made no such sounds.

Stifling her surprise, Misha continued to look out of the window at Yuu’s beautiful face. She’d rotated ever so slightly around the table, bless her, since Rae left her and Claire’s teatime. That exact difference just barely allowed Misha to see her eyes.Though she wasn’t looking back, Misha knew that she knew she was watching, that she wanted to be looked at. The sight of her, even from this distance, made Misha feel a little bit stronger.

“Hey, wow! That’s a perfect LoFi Hiphop Girl impression.”

Misha groaned. That was her first clue that this would be an upsetting conversation. This thing loved to speak in what was functionally a different language, apparently certain that nobody would call her out on it.

She turned around to face her roommate. She looked rather like the old Rae. Same hair, same build, same face. What changed was how it all was used. Whereas Rae had been well-mannered to the point where it made her boring, this Rae was lively, active, and a bit annoying. She was hanging from one hand off of the corner post of their bed, at an awkward angle relative to the ground, swinging herself back and forth a bit. Her eyes, so sharp, cast about the room. There was a bit of apprehension there, though it was well masked. It didn’t matter how well she hid it though. This Rae knew that Misha knew, and they both knew it.

What Misha didn’t know… was what Yuu had told her to get her to come upstairs. She liked leaving a bit of a challenge for herself.

“So, like…” Rae began, a bit unsteady. “About that roommate agreement?”

Misha sighed. Fair play to Yuu. This had evidently worked, but God, she couldn’t believe that Yuu had told so much of that story. She looked over at Rae’s bottom bunk, feeling a flush rise to her face.

sh*t. This wasn’t supposed to go this way. I’m supposed to take control.

With a cough, Misha cleared her throat. “Right. Rae, you’re never here overnight anymore. It’s stupid for me to have to climb up and down from my own bed when yours is empty. Let’s trade off.”

“Yeah, makes sense. Only problem is if Claire ever stays the night here we’d have to—”

“That is never going to happen. Vetoed.”

“Aw.” Rae pretended to pout for a moment, then perked up. “It’s a really nice day, and I just made tea for our favorite people. Claire just tossed a bag at me and told me to brew it so I’m not really sure what it is but I think maybe like a pu’erh, it looked red to me and had that very specific delicate aroma. And then she asked me to pour milk in it, which is probably the worst thing she has ever done, to anyone, to any thing. I redeemed her though, I talked her out of it. World’s saved. I’m still traumatized though. Want to go share with them?”

“Oh, I had another thing I wanted to talk about with you, as roommates.”

“Shoot!”

Misha’s wand had never left her hand. With a flick of her wrist, she enshrouded the room in silence. The rustle of leaves, singing of birds, the hissing of pipes and creak of the floorboards from the room above, all of it fell still. It was like they’d both entered another world under Misha’s control.

“Who the f*ck are you?”

Misha tried to keep all of the accusation, all of the hurt, out of her voice. Control the breath. Perfectly level, perfectly balanced. One simple question, hanging in the air, that they could both process.

Rae’s face fell for a moment before she fixed a smile back onto it and laughed. “I’m, um, your roommate? Your best friend, from back in Euclid, when we were kids?”

Don’t get mad, Misha, you knew this would happen.

She struck from a different angle.

“Do you treat Claire like she’s this stupid or only me?”

Silence. That was an improvement. Rae was speechless for the first time since she’d known her, this version of her. That anger in her eyes, though not much, as well as a bit of fear and a lot of confusion.

Folklore was full of stories about monsters that looked almost like humans, almost like people you knew, but who weren’t quite right. They were stories to frighten children, never involving anyone half as… well, human, as Rae, but Misha couldn’t tear her mind away from them. As she met those eyes a bolt of fear ran through her as she wondered if now was time for the beast to bite.

No. It won’t matter. I’m not the scared girl who fought Louis anymore.

Yuu had kept her busy over the summer. Shortly after the Undead Sending, she’d received a letter from her beloved (via a proxy) by messenger dove. This didn’t surprise her: they’d committed to keeping correspondence with letters written in code. It wasn’t fully safe, they’d already caused problems by writing to one another before they’d figured out their personalized series of encryptions and keys. Once Misha had decrypted the letter, though, she found not a love letter but a set of coordinates and an ominous warning.

In the dead of night, she’d borrowed a horse and rode flat-out along the King’s Highway heading north, stopping only to borrow more horses along the way from roadside inns and trading posts. In the early hours of the morning she’d met Yuu in the capital at the appointed place, one of their subterranean waypoints. Any joy they might’ve had in seeing each other again was swallowed up by the desperate urgency of their mission.

There was a building near the river that living children entered seemingly by choice and left only in body bags. Yuu’s agent, a masked young man with dark blond hair and a smiling voice despite the horrors he was describing, explained that he’d fished one of the bodies from the river and found it mutilated in a manner typical to victims of magical experimentation.

They might never have discovered this place or these crimes if Yuu hadn’t been investigating Salas Lilium’s finances and the series of shell companies through which he owned this building. This was only the second day that Yuu’s agent had been casing the place, and they all wished they had more information before engaging, but a new victim had entered that day. The sounds of her steady breath carried to Misha on the wind, so they knew that she was still alive, but they had no way of knowing how long that would last. There was no more time to waste. The last thing Yuu had told her before the two of them breached through a window with a magically-enhanced jump was this:

No need to treat these people like they’re people.

Neither of them really remembered what happened next. It had been too dark, the smell of sweat and blood and fear too overpowering. After maybe a few seconds that felt like hours, they’d been surrounded. There were too many armed men and there wasn’t enough light, so Misha did the only thing she could. She’d pulled Yuu close and told her not to look, then cast a spell she wasn’t proud of.

Vacuum. She’d discovered it with a slight modification to her Silence spell—such a small change, and in fact less effort, to evacuate the air from an entire area rather than maintain a barrier of wind around that area’s edges. She never would have used it against living things if she’d had any other choice.

Normal human, changeling, demon or angel, it doesn’t matter. Everyone needs to breathe.

Misha had held the spell for several long minutes as she watched grown men drown on dry land, while she and Yuu justified what they’d just done to themselves.

These men had chosen to be here. It was trivial for Misha to tell who was and wasn’t under some sort of mind control curse in the building, and none of the dead had been coerced or controlled into this. They had been the ones to engineer a situation where it was kill-or-be-killed. Would any of them have felt a moment’s remorse over killing two teenagers instead? The answer: no. They’d already killed plenty more.

So Misha didn’t feel remorse, per se, by the time the last of them had stopped moving. She merely wished that she didn’t live in a world that required this of her.

After the hard part of the day was done, Yuu told Misha to rest and calm down and that she’d take care of the evidence. Misha spent much of that morning in a daze, only marking that time had passed by watching daylight slowly roll across the dusty floor.

While Misha’s mind was somewhere far away, Yuu and her manservant returned from the underground with bloody hands. Misha didn’t ask. They’d finally solved the mystery of people entering the building of their own accord: Yuu had found an ampoule of an enchanted chemical that, she said, the Secret Service sometimes used to render individuals highly suggestible. She’d pocketed it for later use.

Salas Lilium’s latest victim woke up from her induced hypnosis shortly thereafter and had run for the door without so much as looking back. With Misha having killed all the people they might have interrogated to find out more information—what a blunder—the three of them had decided it was time for them to leave as well, before reinforcements could arrive. They’d run away, and their crimes hadn’t been discovered, and the disturbance caused by their mission never made its way into the newspaper. The world was slightly better for what they’d done, Yuu was slightly stronger, and Misha had become slightly worse.

In the here and now, Misha realized that her hands were shaking as she gripped her wand. Strange. At first the polished wood of the handle had felt so familiar and made her feel so safe. She was on edge enough that she startled slightly when at last Rae spoke.

“I don’t tell you how to treat Yuu, so as a courtesy, could you not, like, tell me how to treat Claire? I’m doing the best I can for her. Thanks.”

Rae stood up straight, folded her arms, and then leaned slightly against the bed, looking rather affronted.

There’s no monster in the room with me, Misha realized. There’s only me.

Misha forced herself to relax. It wasn’t easy.

I must be going insane.

Minutes ago, she’d been sure Rae was no real threat. That was clearly still true. Why had her mind gone somewhere so dark so quickly? Was that who she was, now? A woman who jumped at shadows, always feeling like prey, always feeling hunted?

It’s fine, she convinced herself. Deep breath, in and out.

It’s for Yuu.

It’s fine if it’s for Yuu.

Misha didn’t let go of her wand. It would break her Silence. But, behind her back, she lowered it to aim at the floor and felt shame like bile course throughout her body.

Maybe it was relief, maybe guilt, but something forced Misha to stop playing games and ask in plain terms for what she wanted.

“Rae. I know,” she said. “I’m not talking about relationships in the abstract. I’m talking about you. I like you, I think you’re a good person even… most likely. But I don’t know who you are.”

“What put this idea into your head?” Rae asked, laughing nervously.

“The fact that every single thing about who you are, your personality, has changed?” Misha was annoyed enough at the stupidity of the question that she couldn’t help but make her response into a question in return. “Rae, honestly, did you think you were keeping this secret from me? I’m a little insulted. Furthermore, you have an uncanny ability to tell the future. You couldn’t have known about the Aurousseau twins’ treachery based on any information the Academy Knights had access to, and you certainly would’ve had no way to know how to neutralize Cantarella. The downfall of the Aurousseau company made you rich, as well. Yuu has been investigating your finances and was very impressed by you betting your entire fortune shorting Aurousseau stock, but she thought of it as a huge gamble that paid off rather than something supernatural or clairvoyant. Finally, your priorities have changed. You weren’t that interested in men, although certainly moreso than you ever showed an interest in women, but you didn’t even look upset when Louis died. You knew him longer than you knew me. I just find it all a bit odd.”

Rae looked like she’d barely been listening. She was pacing, agitated, around the room. A few seconds after Misha stopped talking she seemed to notice the silence in the air, turned to Misha, and spoke.

“If you’re right,” Rae asked, “what happens next?”

“If? Rae, I know I’m right. What happens next is up to you. If you won’t tell me, that’s fine, but it makes me worried. Without some reassurances from you, I’m going to have to share my worries with Yuu and Claire.”

Misha eased herself back into her chair, kicking up one leg onto her desk to convey a level of relaxedness she didn’t truly feel. She waited.

Over the course of the next minute, she watched Rae transform: as people transformed, though, not as mythical beasts did. It was all the more fascinating for how mundane it was.

The smile she tried to keep on her face at all times finally melted away. Her eyes, normally so sharp, dulled and she turned half-away from Misha. She didn’t seem to want to turn her back, but she couldn’t meet her eyes either. She clenched her fists, gathering up a bit of her skirt in her hands as she fretted.

At last, she faced Misha once more and spoke.

“Let me preface everything I’m about to say with this: I know how stupid this sounds, and how far-fetched it is.”

The pitch of her voice had dropped. The excitability was gone.

Misha had seen it happen before, whenever she was wounded, whenever she thought she was alone. Misha knew how important that bluster was to people. The four of them all had their own ways of pretending not to be hurt, pretending to be in control. She felt a momentary pang of guilt for breaking Rae’s guard like this, but enough was enough.

“Promising start,” Misha said, belatedly. “I’m listening.”

She would apologize to Rae for making her uncomfortable with reciprocity; from now on, she would be just as open with Rae as she decided to be with her.

“I… died, I think,” Rae began, sitting down on her bed—no, it was Misha’s bed now—and staring at the floor, head bowed. “Hard to tell what happened. It’s impossible to prove, either way. Here’s what I do know for a fact: I’m from another world. Whether or not I died there or something much weirder happened, I left there and came here.”

Misha scooted her chair away from her desk and towards the window. She would need the sunlight to warm her, she suddenly felt, for what might be a very strange and sad story.

Rae went on.

“There was no delay. One moment I was in my apartment in Japan, feeling cold and hungry and tired but not ready to go to bed yet, and the next I was here, in Bauer. I blinked. That’s all the time it took for the world to change around me, or for me to reincarnate—wow, that sounds much weirder when I say it out loud. And then… I was at my desk with Claire at my side. Claire François. My favorite. She’s… she’s real, I think. All of this is real. It’s not supposed to be.”

Misha frowned, regretting the question before the words even left her mouth. “What does that mean? What do you mean by that?”

“So, like… ugh. This is going to sound bad no matter what,” Rae said, rubbing her eyes. “So, imagine a very complicated book. Or a series of books, that are all the same story, the same characters, told in dozens of different ways. In the world I’m from, we have games like that, where instead of, like, Solitaire—where you’re playing by yourself against a draw and against your wits—you play as the protagonist of a book against the plot, trying to solve things as they do and… hold on, am I making sense so far?”

“Yes,” Misha lied. She forced her expression to remain absolutely neutral. It didn’t quite work. One traitorous eyebrow rose, just barely, above the other. “How does this ‘game’ work? In terms of the way the… pieces? Cards? Whatever you would call each motive part, what causes them to move and interact in any way as a game board might? It seems complicated, so I suppose it must be an advanced form of magic?”

“Oh, magic isn’t real,” Rae said, tilting her head back to stare at the ceiling and kicking her feet. “As far as anyone knows? These games are definitely technology though. We use computers for it.”

“Computers… so named because they compute, solve equations?” Rae nodded, so Misha pressed on. “So you have some sort of machine that functions similarly to… an abacus, or an interlocking system of—does that pluralize as ‘abaci’? I don’t know or care. Whatever—multiple of those, which solve equations. This somehow translates into performing or displaying the story of a book. I can’t visualize this but I don’t think that detail matters. I still don’t know what this has to do with being from another world, but I have a guess, and I’m already not thrilled about it.”

“This world is the setting of one of these video game stories.”

“I was hoping you weren’t going to say that.” Misha shook her head, looking at the floor in something approximating dismay. She rested her head on the back of her chair for a moment, trying not to process the absurdity of it all. “So, everything you know that you shouldn’t… you’ve skipped to the end, so to speak?”

“You can think of it that way if it helps.”

“It does. Alright,” Misha said, taking another long, deep breath. “I think I understand this.”

“You do?”

Rae looked dubious, almost enough to make Misha laugh. That was the first thing that made Misha actually believe that this story was the truth at last. Nothing that could explain Rae’s existence over the last year would ever have made sense, but at least she didn’t seem to understand what was happening either.

“Am I supposed to act discomposed?” Misha asked, a tinge of sarcasm to her voice. “Would that make you feel better?”

“Uh, no it’s fine,” Rae said, scratching awkwardly at the back of her neck. “Normally one would be in your position, according to the shows and manga I’ve watched and read. If you aren't, that's cool too. Man, Misha, there’s being unflappable, and then there’s apparently not giving a sh*t when someone tells you that reality is a simulation. No existential dread? No freakouts? No, like, ‘my whole life was a lie’ type of deal going on? None of that?”

“Existentialism is a philosophy for losers,” Misha said. “I’m a winner. Also, the thing is, Rae, you’ve made a pretty big assumption—that this world is somehow less real than your own. What if you’re the one who was trapped on the wrong side of the looking glass? I’ve been a real person for my entire life. So has everyone I know. You’re the one apparently from somewhere else, so why wouldn’t you be the odd one out?”

“I dunno…” Rae said. Her dialect had become even more informal, a heightened version of the way she sometimes spoke whenever she wasn’t trying to impress Claire. “I’ve had a measurable effect on this world, even before I was reincarnated here.”

That was a bit hard for Misha to wrap her head around, so rather than grapple with it she struck back, “Evidently our world has had a measurable effect on you, since you read a book so hard that you fell into one.”

“Video game.”

“Okay. Right.” Sometimes Misha hated how often she sighed these days—it was quite rude, she knew—but with sh*t like this to deal with, how else was she supposed to react?

Sigh.

After a moment to relax a bit, she tried to resolve the contradiction.

“Of course, maybe both worlds are real in a way, and travel between them is more similar than either of us are aware of.” Misha started to theorize, resting her head on her hand, then froze. Travel between worlds… With a sharp sweep of her arm, she put a palm out towards Rae gesturing for her to be silent. “Wait, stop. Don’t say anything for a moment.”

Rae obeyed. With that same free hand and a great deal of care, Misha closed her grimoire and put it away on the shelves beneath her desk, withdrawing as she did so an old book of childrens’ stories she’d been read to out of as a child. She wasn’t a sentimental person, really, but Mother had stuck it into her bags without looking when she returned to the capital for school and she’d never found cause to send it back.

The Wanderer’s Light.

That little book told the story of an unnamed prince setting off on a quest to save a young girl who was said to have powers that could save his kingdom from the wicked demon that imprisoned her. It was sweet and at times sad but it had a happy ending, the kind where everyone got married and everything was okay. The story had soured for her when she was still fairly young, shortly after moving to Euclid. The story always made her think of Yuu, and thinking about Yuu at all had hurt more than she could bear.

That girl, that protagonist, had strange powers of prophecy and claimed to be from a place inside a painting: in other words, another world. It all sounded very familiar. Of course Rae’s case wouldn’t have had any place in scientific research into monsters. Her story was, by definition, unverifiable. More to the point, she really was human, not a monster.

Misha tapped the faded green letters embossed onto the cover, feeling a surge of triumph, then gently tossed the book onto the bed.

“You’re a Lost Soul,” she said.

“Huh?!”

Oops, she’d stunned Rae with that revelation. It seemed like a bizarre thing to react to, but Rae’s eyes were wide and uncomprehending.

“Huh. You know almost everything, but not that?” Misha asked.

“Let’s be fair: what I know about this world doesn’t extend that far beyond the lives of people at the Academy, the Bauer family, and a short peek into the future. There was nothing in Revolution about this. New lore just dropped.” Rae picked the little book up and turned it over in her hands with an air of reverence about her. She half-smiled, then joked “Are there pictures? I’ll only read it if there are pictures.”

Misha laughed. God damn it, that had gotten her. Rae’s antics could still put her at ease, even now, as strange as this entire relationship felt.

“What?” Rae protested. “I like to look at them!”

She was laughing too, but Misha had let her breeze over something too quickly. She now returned to it, asking, “Revolution?”

“Oh, it’s the name of the game,” Rae said. “Uh, maybe I shouldn’t tell you any of this—”

“Explain now, Rae.”

“Or?”

“I don’t want to threaten you, so ‘or’ nothing, but I do hope that you’ll make the right choice.”

She could say that now, but Misha had already mentioned that she’d start talking to Yuu and, more importantly for Rae, Claire if she didn’t explain herself. The threat was still, just implicit. Misha didn’t want to be doing any of this. She especially didn’t want to follow through on that threat, but Rae was smart. She understood her position, right?

Rae looked into her eyes for a moment, maybe checking for something, testing her resolve.

“Ughhhhghghhh…” she groaned, looking skyward once more and stamping her feet a few times. “Okay. The plot: at the end of our first year of classes at the Academy, Mount Sassal erupts. That eruption beheads the leadership of the country, killing the King and quite a few of the nobility while they’re at their estates in the Sassal Hills. The fallout from the ash ruins the harvest for much of the country. The price of food skyrockets as confidence in the currency plummets, various factions vie for power, blah blah blah, there’s a revolution and the Bauers get deposed. In some of the endings, at least.”

“Some of the endings…?”

“Right: events unfold very differently, depending on the decisions you make and, uh… uh…….. the romance path you choose.”

“Romance paths,” Misha growled.

“Um.” A bead of sweat rolled down from Rae’s forehead. Strange, it wasn’t that warm in here.

“Stop playing dolls with living people, Rae.”

“Okay. I mean I have stopped, because I don’t have a computer here—”

“Just… stop,” Misha said. She waited for her anger to subside before speaking. It probably wasn’t fair. Neither she nor Rae had any real insight into the others’ former lives. She had done plenty of things she’d rather not share. “So, by choosing one ‘path’, one future, you must necessarily foreclose on other futures. What happens in your future with Claire?”

“Oh, I have no f*cking clue, for like a dozen different reasons.”

Misha blinked. Now that was something that was new to her. “How can you not know? This game, this book, you’ve played or read it before, right? Multiple times? When you came here, did you forget some of the details, or—”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Rae said. “It’s just that romancing Claire is impossible. Saving her is… impossible. She doesn’t get to be happy. She never stood a chance.”

With those last words, Rae got very quiet. Her eyes went blank, as distant as if she were back to her old self, and suddenly seemed to be looking at something far away. Misha wanted to ask what she meant, but suddenly felt like she was intruding on something private that she had never been meant to see.

Rae found the strength to continue speaking after thirty seconds of near-total silence. The loudest thing during those long moments was her shifting back and forth on her mattress, pulling at her skirt, the soft rustle of fabric and hair, before she spoke again.

“Claire exists to lose. Nobody is supposed to care about her as a character, and barely anyone in this world cared about her as a person. She’s almost a joke, even; she’s more of an inconvenience than an actual threat. For this crime, minor inconvenience and schoolyard bullying, we’re supposed to believe she deserves to die, or get imprisoned or be exiled. I dunno, I think the idea of taking joy in that is a lot more sickening than anything she ever actually does!”

It almost sounded to Misha like she had given this speech before, like she was trying to sway Misha to her side in an argument that nobody, surely, was having.

“People are awfully cavalier with the lives and feelings of women and girls. It’s bizarre—the entire playerbase was women, so, like, have they forgotten how much being a girl sucked and was terrible, how much everyone was hurting all the time? I don’t know how someone could ever look at Claire and see a person who was okay. I mean, look at her: she’s hurt and nobody has ever taught her how to deal with that so she bottles it up, lashes out, and then feels bad about lashing out, which makes the cycle repeat. This keeps happening over and over until she gives up on trying to be a better person. And like, say what you will about her in-world upbringing—on a more meta level she is literally not to blame. She was written this way, designed to be this way; doomed to fail, doomed to get hurt, over and over. As someone who has felt like their life is a cosmic joke, sometimes, so how could I not empathize with someone for whom that is verifiably true? But she’s so much more than that. I always knew there would be more to her if I ever got the chance to look, and I was right. Even more right than usual, even more than I expected to be, and I could win so many Tumblr argu—I should actually shut up now. Sorry, Misha, I always do this to people.”

Somewhat sheepishly, Rae pressed her hands together in front of her face in some sort of gesture of apology. She’d interrupted herself, but she didn’t have to. It was the first time that getting ranted at about Claire François had been entertaining.

“Not at all,” Misha said, surprising herself with that genuine sentiment. “For the first time, Rae, I understand why you would have ever loved her. I know what it’s like to look at someone and decide that you have to save them even when doing so seems impossible. Say more.”

“How are you able to be so understanding? This is insane.”

“Understanding is a strong word for whatever this is,” Misha said. “I’m just letting your words wash over me. Actually, I’ve had one thought. Rae, this ‘game’ sounds atrocious for you. It’s like picking up, I don’t know, poker as a hobby when all you want to do is play chess, based on the similarities that they both have queens you can hold. You truly had no way of knowing whether or not Claire could be attracted to women, yet you pursued her anyway? Across dimensions? You are far stronger and stranger than I expected.”

“Yeah, trust me when I’m aware of how cosmically stupid it was. I couldn’t help it, though. I loved her. I love her, actually—present tense. I’m gonna keep talking. Feel free to interrupt me at any time if I start rambling.” Rae fidgeted, hands still interlocked, by twiddling her thumbs. “You know what, I was talking about Claire in the context of the character she was to me, the character that I fell in love with from an impossible distance. That’s stupid. It’s like you said, Misha: she’s as real as I am. Claire is everything I knew she would be, only more so. Her cruel smile and wicked laughter are all I would have ever needed. I wasn’t trying to make her fall in love with me first. I didn’t even want to fix her. I only wanted to make her happy. Well, you know how that went. When I did fight for her, I won because I cheated, and I was fine with that but it wasn’t what I’d wanted.”

“The Intertwined Branch, your offering to the Scales,” Misha realized. A puzzle piece fell into place for her. “You knew of a greater offering than the Flower of Flora because you read about it.”

“Yeah, a secret item.” Rae shrugged. “Not really fair to Claire, using knowledge like that, information I shouldn’t have. It was a moment of weakness, and I am weak.”

“Yuu would tell you that if you’re not cheating you’re not trying.” Misha watched Rae shrug again as a darkening expression passed over her face. “You know, Manaria Sousse really helped me figure some things out. You two made a perfect contrast. It’s why I like this version of you, even if you and my old Rae are nothing alike. You’re even less like Her Imperial Majesty, which is the highest compliment I’m willing to give you. I detest people like her.”

“Really?”

“Unbridled power makes nobody happy, not even the person who wields it. She’d be happier if someone did put a bridle on her.”

“Huh. Clashing top energies?” Rae laughed, smiled, and then that smile soured immediately. After a moment, she said, “ I think that’s enough about Manaria, by the way, I’m over it. I basically forgive her.”

“How? She assaulted you in front of the entire Academy!” Misha said. She hadn’t intended for such heat to enter her voice. It wasn’t like her. After a moment spent forcing herself to calm down, she said, “Whatever happened between you two in your duel is probably not my business, but how can you really be fine with her grabbing you like that and trying to steal a kiss from you? You were pretty emphatic in telling her no.”

“I’ve been trying not to think about it like that. Anyway, moving on—”

“My God, Rae, respect yourself.”

“No, people prefer it when I don’t do that, so it’s more convenient for me to be this way. Please, just, drop it.”

Rae stopped talking, eyes downcast, that curdled smile still on her face. Fortunately, Misha was very familiar with what that expression really meant. It wasn’t going to fool her.

Unfortunately, when she talked at times like these around Yuu (via telepathy, typically) she could make things worse. There was only one thing to do; Misha stood from her chair, walked over to sit on her bed to Rae’s left. She reached out to drop what she hoped would be a comforting hand on Rae’s shoulder.

Wait, Misha, she told herself. She might not want to be touched.

Her arm hovered in the air for a moment over Rae’s left shoulder. Nothing happened for several seconds. Then, without any other acknowledgement of what was happening, Rae scooted closer and leaned an inch or two in. Without a word, Misha dropped her hand on Rae’s opposite shoulder in a one-armed hug.

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment. This had never happened before. The old Rae wasn’t shy, per se, but she never seemed to want or need this sort of friendly intimacy.

This… was nice. It was new, and strange, and nice.

“So I tried to tell Claire how I felt about her, in my own words, without any jokes or deflections. And not only did she accept that, she claimed me in return. And we’re spending our lives together, ticking off every sapphic stereotype by moving in together ASAP. And she told me that she loved me, too.” Rae smiled, and for a moment her eyes went unfocused, like she was staring at something far away. “I still can’t believe that wasn’t a dream. I pinch myself now and then to try and confirm it. She’s changed so much, so fast. I’m so proud of her. It’s such a privilege to be in her arms as she realizes what kind of person she wants to be. I can feel her becoming someone new just in the ways that her hands feel on my skin, in her eyes, in the sound of her voice.”

“Ugh.” Misha couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Disgustingly cute. Get away from me.”

“I can’t, you’re hugging me.”

Misha decided to be a bit nicer for a moment and engage with Rae’s passions more constructively.

“It’s interesting seeing you gush about her now that you can finally explain why you care about her in the first place,” she offered.

Rae smiled at her, sweet and genuine at last.

Cute.

Misha could understand why Claire put up with her.

“Hey,” Rae said, “you can gush about Yuu, now, too.”

Misha blushed. “That’s—maybe I’m a prude, but that’s private.”

Mercifully, Rae dropped that line of questioning, saying, “Anyway, from the Scales Arc—I mean, ever since Manaria and I had our contest at Amour’s Scales, nothing has made any sense. It’s like the world is warping around us, like anything that makes Claire happy has to be balanced out by some new way of making her miserable. That stuff with Louis and, I dunno if you heard about it but there was this incident in town—”

“The bounty hunters?” Misha interrupted. Rae nodded a confirmation. “I read about it in the paper. Good work, by the way. Only Claire was named in the article, but I sensed your delicate influence around the edges of the story.”

“Yeah, I wanted her to get all the good press. I’m tired of people assuming my political agenda simply based on status.” Rae chuckled, a dark, irritated noise. “I swear, I shout ‘I am a huge lesbian for Claire François and that’s all I really care about’ into the heavens a few times a day, and barely anyone listens.”

“It took her a while, but she seems to have heard you at last,” Misha said.

“Mmm… hard to believe. Yeah, so none of that happened in the story. That storyline with a runaway peasant girl wasn’t in Revolution, and Louis never would’ve attacked the player—I mean, attacked me. He’s just supposed to be a rival for the male love interests.”

“The fact that you weren’t bothered by what happened to him, beyond how much it affected Claire, made it pretty obvious that you had changed. When we were kids you—the other you, I suppose—used to train with him instead of me. Not much bothered you, but I’m sure his death would’ve, at least a bit.”

Misha hadn’t thought about the way the old Rae had snubbed her repeatedly in some time. It had never felt right that she would waste any amount of her time elevating that boy to sapience instead of practicing with Misha, one of the only people in the world strong enough to actually challenge her. She realized that rejection still stung a bit. Was it fair to still be annoyed about it, considering both people involved were gone one way or another?

Probably not.

“Eh. I tried, I really did: I tried to act upset about him, for the sake of fitting in if nothing else,” Rae said. “Clearly that was a catastrophic failure. Does it make me a bad person if I don’t care much whether men live or die?”

“Eh. Maybe it would if more of them treated us like humans.” Rae turned to her and squinted at her as Misha spoke. Had that been an odd thing to say? She thought they’d been in agreement. “...What?”

“Nothing, except that is a remarkably modern feminist critique that I wasn’t really expecting from you. Anyway, back to the only things that matter: Claire, and our futures,” Rae said. “I can’t really see the future anymore, not with confidence.”

“That sounds bad,” Misha said, not sure of what else she could offer.

“Yeah! It scares the sh*t out of me,” Rae said. “I was so stupid. I really thought I could start changing things and those things wouldn’t change other things. I got butterfly effect-ed. Oops. I still know the broad strokes of what’s happening, and I’m damn sure of a bunch of things that won’t have changed, but if you noticed I was kiiiinda freaking out during that whole thing with Yuu the other day? Yeah—that’s because I had no clue what was happening because even when you, um, nevermind. Yeah, no matter how well you get to know Yuu in the game, there are no dialogue options that get her to talk about any of that, her gender, her plans, her mother, et cetera. It really threw me for a loop because I had no clue what was happening.”

“Did she think you were heterosexual, in the book? In the game? In, whatever the hell it was?” Misha asked. This was starting to give her a headache. She began to massage the muscles around her jaw, working her way up towards her temples.

“Well… yeah.”

“Then she would never have told you anything,” Misha said. “She might have found a way to use you, but she clearly doesn’t feel safe around people who aren’t like her. Actually, that’s a lie. She and Rhod get along well, but he’s a weird exception.”

“Uh… huh. That bit of information makes a lot of sense, I truly do get it, but it recontextualizes a few things for me in a way that makes things seem really dark.”

“Things like what?” Misha narrowed her eyes and stared at Rae, who wilted.

“Uh, truly, do not worry about it. It has to do with possible futures that are extremely very not going to happen in this timeline.”

Misha gave up. “Well, if your prophecies are only half-useful now, I’ll try not to dwell on even less useful ones you might have. Do you have any other information that could help us out?”

“To be honest, Yuu stole my thunder like crazy. One of the big reveals is that Salas Lilium is behind most of what’s wrong in the Kingdom, but I don’t exactly need to tell you that. No clue how, but Yuu’s even found out that he’s working with Nur, and where the evidence of that is. She kind of ate me up, also, stop laughing at me!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Misha said, trying to suppress another giggle and failing. “She’s just so wonderful. You have all this esoteric knowledge and it’s barely enough to keep you on even footing with her. It’s incredible what Yuu’s accomplished since deciding to fight for herself.”

“Yeah…” Rae trailed off. “I’ve been trying to set my head right. I’ve never thought of myself as important or special, but the game constantly reinforces that the protagonist is because, you know, it’s a narrative and they tend to do that. The tension between those two beliefs has been driving me, uh, slightly insane. I’m trying really hard to remember that I’m just another person once again. So, basically, my knowledge of the future is unreliable, especially with regards to Yuu’s plan. That’s why I’m going along with it, by the way; she’s the only person right now who seems to have any answers. Also, I’m a sucker for hidden story routes.”

“Alright,” Misha said. Was that alright? She didn’t know. The headache was getting worse. This conversation would have to end soon. “I’ll be honest, I don’t get most of that, but thank you once more for helping us. It means a—”

“Oh!” Rae exclaimed, like she’d remembered something she’d been trying to think of for several minutes. “This also isn’t the world of Revolution.”

Misha dropped her head into her hands. “What do you mean by that.”

“It’s not really the world of Revolution,” Rae repeated. “It’s an AU.”

“Ayy… yew,” Misha said, rolling the sounds over her tongue. She hated every part of this once more. “Explain.”

“Okay so.” Rae stood up and began to pace back and forth, gesticulating grandly like she was giving a lecture. “There's all kinds of things with this world that are either wrong or I just didn’t know. The map’s wrong, the timeline’s screwy, guns exist, Yuu’s a woman… It’s like I’m in someone’s terrible AU (that means alternate universe btw) because this isn’t the world of Revolution itself. Which is weird, because I’ve read all the fic, and probably would’ve known this one if it existed before. I either argued with or thirsted over all the other authors in the fandom…”

“Rae. Nobody in this entire world knows what you’re talking about, nor do we want to. Don’t pollute our lives with this nonsense. Skip to the important changes. How has my world apparently shifted under your feet?”

Maybe Misha could ask Rae for a bit of healing magic to manage this headache. She was pretty sure it was all stress-induced. Water magic would soothe that right out. She needed that right now.

“So, big one, lotsa stuff about the world map is wrong,” Rae continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “I always thought that the Revo world was kinda… uninspired? Like I’ve drawn fantasy maps before, I can tell when someone half-assed theirs pretty quickly. This looks more like a continent called Europe from my world, and we in Bauer are in a, like, weird France situation… also Mount Sassal should be an active volcano. It’s not.”

“Oh, you mentioned,” Misha said. “I got distracted and let you gloss over that. No, it’s been extinct for centuries.”

“Mhm. It should’ve erupted by this point in the story and it hasn’t. That precipitates the revolution sooooooo… unclear whether that will still be happening.”

“Yuu seems to think it’s inevitable,” Misha offered. “Due to taxes on the poor and rich dropping and rising respectively at the same time that the price of bread is going up. And what she calls ‘a crisis of legitimacy’ within the nobility.”

Rae shrugged. “What else… there’s also that sh*tty assassin original character, the one who poisoned Thane? He’s not from the game’s story or lore at all. Also, you’re further ahead technologically than the game world. I don’t really get it, but whatever. Still a few hundred years behind and from what I can tell a lot of that has stagnated since people are going more into artificery and basic attempts at creating something like magitech.”

“This doesn’t feel like useful information,” Misha pointed out. “I already know what this world is like. I’ve lived here my entire life, you see. Maybe try… I don’t know. What do you mean, ‘other AU’ or other alternate universes? Let’s start there.”

“I still can’t believe I’m talking about this,” Rae muttered. “I’m aware I’m a loser, so there’s no need to make any comments about it. So, like, imagine… a novel or theater show or something, or a game or other forms of art that don’t have an easy analogue to things that exist here. There’s a technology called the internet that allows instantaneous distribution of these works of fiction across any distance so fast it’s essentially instantaneous. There are some limitations on it, like service, but that’s not relevant to explain here. It’s also not, like, entirely for media consumption. It’s not like the printing press. It started out as a U.S. Department of Defense project actually so it also has military applications—not that any new tech doesn’t—and a lot of stuff on it is fully made up information, and yeah.”

“The printing press also enabled a great deal of misinformation, mass hysteria, and wartime propaganda, though,” Misha said. Rae was getting off topic again, but this was interesting enough to listen to that Misha found herself drawn in regardless. “It’s not an unalloyed good.”

“Did it?” Rae stopped her pacing for long enough to process that new information. “Huh, I never thought of it like that, but I suppose it would. And man, if you thought that was bad, the internet could do all that but faster and worse. But it also let me read about girls kissing, so it’s impossible to say whether it’s good or bad.”

“The printing press does that too.”

“Wait, no way.”

“I have some novels I keep safe for Yuu stashed in my desk. I’ll ask if I can loan you some.”

“Wow, in-universe meta yuri. Now we’re living the dream. Anyway, publishing works through the internet became almost ubiquitous, and then communities or fandoms could also spring up around basically any work of art, since those fans didn’t have to be anywhere near each other geographically in order to interact. You don’t need to pay to print an actual book and then put it on a cart if you wanted to share it with a friend across the country or further away. Copying and pasting stuff was essentially free of cost. And with that came community, even for people like me who were sorta outcasts. Queer women, for example, and queer people more broadly. Sometimes we like to write fanfiction as an outlet, as self-therapy, to experience the joys of creation, because we’re horny, or all of the above. What I was referencing, an AU, would be if you somehow altered the world, the setting, to suit your interests. Like, thinking about our lives as a story, if it were for example set in Nur rather than Bauer, that’d make it an AU.”

Thinking about her own life as a story…

“I don’t like the implication that people have probably written this ‘fanfiction’ about me. Anyone writing “fan fiction” from my perspective or about me in any way needs to get their head checked,” Misha said.

“Don’t worry, not many people do.”

Misha frowned. That made her more annoyed, somehow. She dropped her hand from Rae’s shoulder and rested it in her lap, carefully changing her wand between hands. Her arms were getting tired. “What, were they not confident enough to portray me?”

“Probably? I don’t think a lot of people ever really grasped what made you interesting as a character. I always thought you were cool, though, don’t worry.”

“Thank the spirits for that.” Misha’s vision was swimming, suddenly. She blinked a few times to clear it. Had she forgotten to blink for a few minutes? It was a lot to take in. “You know what? I realized I hate thinking about that. It feels voyeuristic and perverse. I didn’t consent to that. Did you ever write stories about me, Rae?”

“Oh, come on, Misha,” Rae laughed. “Surely you know me better than that by now.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking. Of course you wrote about Claire,” Misha sighed. A morbid curiosity drove her onwards. “Dare I ask what they were like?”

“Mostly stuff from her point of view about surviving the revolution and trying to figure out how to live for herself and be happy without her noble status.”

“What, you didn’t write yourself into the story? Hell, isn’t that what you’ve done, in our world? I hate the way you’ve set my mind to work, by the way. Thinking about myself as a character in a somewhat popular book, game, whatever makes me equal parts uncomfortable and egotistical.”

“No, writing Claire PoV was way too much fun. I encourage everyone to try it, sometime. More to the point, I was a pretty self-indulgent writer, but even I wasn’t delusional enough to think she’d ever love someone like me. That would have been so… out of character for her.”

Rae fell silent.

“My God.” Misha spoke up without intending to, immediately wishing she hadn’t. Rae startled, looking at her like a guilty cat. “Rae. Don’t go around coming up with esoteric reasons to hate or doubt yourself, because I cannot counsel you through them. Look at the facts in front of your f*cking face. Claire wants you so bad it makes her look stupid.”

“I—sorry, I was about to argue with you. Um, thanks, Misha. I appreciate it. I don’t think she looks stupid ever though. So like… the closest I ever got to writing something like that was making an OC—sorry, an original character—who was like the me I wished I was. She was exaggerated, larger than life, in the way that a mythic hero might be: every positive and negative trait amplified. Man. I haven’t thought about her in ages. Thinking about writing that fic, even when I couldn’t actually find the time or energy to do it, was sometimes the thing that got me through the day. The idea of being my self-insert instead of being me, someone stronger and braver and more capable than I, somebody that could be wanted, was nice. It was really, really nice. But she’s not me. Even now I can’t really measure up to her.”

“This is so dumb, Rae, that I can’t entertain it any further,” Misha said. Sometimes it was fine to let her aggravation take control. Rae needed to hear this. “If Claire wanted a larger-than-life hero, she’d have let Manaria sweep her off her feet. Yet she remained stubbornly un-swept by everyone except for you.”

“Rationally, I know that. It’s hard, though. The voice in the back of my head telling me I’m not good enough is very loud.”

“So is Claire,” Misha pointed out. “When she gets all shrill she’s hard to ignore. Why don’t you listen to what she says instead of what’s in the back of your head? Presumably she’s told you she loved you once or twice by now.”

“Every night,” Rae admitted.

“Then trust her until you can believe it’s true for yourself,” Misha said. “Speaking of trust: Rae, when are you planning on telling Claire about all of this?”

“Ehhhhhhh…”

“Rae.” Saying her name wasn’t enough to turn her head, so Misha snapped her fingers, a sudden sharp sound that startled her. “Look at me. Claire is dense, but she figures things out eventually, trust me. Over a long enough timeline—such as the rest of your lives, which is your goal, right?—she will demand that you explain yourself. I’m not going to breathe a word of this to either her or Yuu, but I’ll bet you any amount of money, little miss industrialist, that she’s figured out at least a few of the ways you aren’t telling her the truth.”

With that assurance that she wasn’t going to be outed, Rae visibly relaxed. She’d been clutching her skirt, or her blouse, or her blazer or herself, nonstop since she’d been confronted earlier. Misha felt a momentary pang of guilt.

Rae still hemmed and hawed a bit as she spoke, though, saying “I don’t know how. I think she’s a little bit more attached to this world than either of us are. I… probably should’ve thought harder about how to explain this to you. I should’ve known you’d ask, eventually. You’re right. I’ve never really lied to her about this except by omission, but I’ll start figuring out what to say. It won’t be everything I told you, though. I think you and I are maybe similar in that we care more about whether the people we love are happy than the world at large being better. Claire, and Yuu to some degree, definitely do care about the world around them. You handled all of this stuff about how weird the world maybe is remarkably well in a way I kinda doubt they will.”

“Maybe…” Misha conceded. A disillusioned Yuu wouldn’t help anyone. She’d only just started caring about herself and the world around her once again. She also hated baseless speculation and learning about Rae’s sometimes accurate, sometimes incomplete sense of clairvoyance would frustrate and distract her. She didn’t need to hear this.

“Do you think you can trust me, Misha?” Rae asked, after letting a few seconds of dead air pass between them.

Misha considered the question for a moment.

That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? Could Misha trust her? This story was unverifiable, unfalsifiable. Whether or not Misha believed that Rae was telling the truth at last was no more than an article of faith. She could accept this as true, keep Rae and Claire’s friendship, and use their strength and their knowledge for Yuu’s sake. Doing so would make their lives a great deal stranger, but few others were as willing or as capable of helping them. Or, Misha could choose distrust and fear of this girl who had only ever helped others even when her main goal was to be with Claire.

It was a choice about the kind of person Misha wanted to be. Trust, or fear?

She hoped she was making the right choice.

“I’ve trusted you a great deal already,” Misha said at last, “and it hasn’t gotten anyone important hurt so far.”

“Fair. Then I’ll trust you too, to keep my secret.” Rae had a hard and determined look in her eyes as she promised, “I’ll help you protect Yuu if you help me protect Claire.”

“Deal.”

Unspoken was the fact, of which they were both surely aware, that each of their own lovers would always be a higher priority to both of them than the other’s. If it was a choice between Yuu’s life and Claire’s, Misha would choose Yuu every time, and Rae was surely the reverse.

Misha could accept that if Rae could.

“What was her name? Your ‘original character,’ the one you mentioned.” Misha asked, returning to their earlier conversation. It was a roundabout way of getting to the question she really wanted to ask.

“Oh. Same as always. Rae. Why do you think I have this name, Misha? I chose it.”

That… was getting temporally complicated for Misha to grasp. Rae had always been Rae, right? Had reality shifted around her, the day she woke up as herself?

Ugh.

Misha stood, suddenly feeling the urge to reconnect with the outside world, the land of wind and light, and feel something she could be sure was natural and real once more. She walked over to the window, preparing to throw it wide open, then stopped. She wouldn’t be able to feel the wind or hear the sounds of the outside world regardless, unless…

With a sigh, she dropped her wand and the Silence spell she’d been maintaining broke. With a rush, the world felt alive once again. The curtains shimmered in the faint autumn breeze, and she could hear quiet conversation and laughter and love and rage and people once more after heaving the shutter on the window open.

She sat on the windowsill and asked her roommate one last question.

“And your name? Your old name, I mean.”

“Rei.” Rei held out her hand and Misha, a bit confused, reciprocated, only for Rei to grab it and offer an assertive handshake. “Oohashi Rei.”

It was charming, in a way. It reminded Misha of the ways that Yuu sometimes mixed up formal masculine and feminine etiquette when she got flustered, which was an extremely rare occasion.

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Oohashi,” Misha said. Handshake concluded, she transitioned her grip into gently holding her hand and began leading her new friend to the door, to rejoin the rest of the world. “I’m Misha Jur. Might I join you for tea?”

Chapter 17: Pepi interlude: Definitely a Girl Who Exists

Chapter Text

Second-greatest vassals of the second-greatest house in the kingdom… that put the Barliers in, what, fourth place? There were certainly half a dozen dukes and any number of marquesses that held, on paper, richer and more prestigious titles than she could claim. Pfaugh! Pepi had her own calculus, her own priorities, and wouldn’t trade places with any of them for anything. There were neither treasures nor honors that could compare to Miss Claire François’s favor. Anyone would lay down their lives for her sake, if they only knew her.

She’d found an open seat in the library close to Miss Claire’s. Not directly in her line of sight, just in case her presence gave offense, but maybe if she saw Pepi out of the corner of her eye she’d come say hello? Regardless—they were both in a reading room on a balcony overlooking the stacks. It was the best spot to study in the school, and until recently it had been reserved for the nobility alone.

Unfortunately that was no longer the case. Miss Claire could’ve brought her pet in with her, yet it remained curiously absent. Maybe she’d leashed her up outside? In other words, Rae Taylor was not hovering around for once, and her Miss Claire was alone.

So, Pepi wondered, why won’t she turn to look at me?

Since the start of the term Miss Claire’s eyes had passed over her like a gale from a cold winter sky. Like the wind, her disfavoring glances neither concerned itself with nor cried over those they cut. At least Pepi still got to look at her whenever Miss Claire began to speak to her like she was a stranger. Being avoided entirely hurt far more. As often as not these days, they never crossed paths at all.

What would it take for her friends to notice her again, she wondered? Sometimes it was a struggle just to be seen, just to stand out from the rest of her peers in any way. Pepi wasn’t exceptional in any way that mattered. Though she had a few talents, they got her into trouble more frequently than they got her out of it. A year or two ago she’d turned her once-brown hair pink with an illusion spell she’d devised just so people might look at her twice. She hadn’t realized the stupid thing would be permanent—and yet, people still ignored her half the time!

But how Miss Claire had laughed at the mistake. Before long, Pepi and Loretta were laughing together too, and her error didn’t hurt as much.

Miss Claire, and Pepi, and Loretta. The three of them were supposed to be together forever. That’s what they’d been told as children. Pepi never had to fight for attention when it was only them, unlike around all her brothers and sisters. Life was a bit brighter when the three of them seemed like the only people in the world. Except now Miss Claire wasn’t talking to them and things with Loretta were weird and awkward and sheDidn’tKnowWhatToDoAndItWasGettingHardToBreathe—

She bit down hard on her lip. The sharp pain blossoming out from soft tissue centered her, returned her to the here and now. She was here to do something about that, she reminded herself. All she had to do was summon up a little bit of bravery. If she couldn’t do that, well, she wouldn’t be worthy to stand besides her friends anymore anyway.

It took several minutes. As Pepi tried to summon up her nerve, she distracted herself by observing her idol.

What else could she say: Miss Claire looked perfect today. There was nothing new to report, so she continued admiring the things about her that were always the same.

As she did so, Pepi looked at the pink hair in the corner of her vision with some dismay. By contrast Miss Claire’s hair looked like a field of wheat at sunset, a burning gold whose grandeur Pepi would never be able to match no matter what color she cursed her hair to be. Her skin was leagues better than Pepi’s as well. The light flush on her cheeks burned just a bit brighter for the red of her Academy blazer. The gemstone they all wore on their jabots made the blue of her eyes pop in a way that none of their peers could imitate. Nothing about these parts of the uniform had been special before Miss Claire had put them on. It only looked like this for her.

Her eyes—or eye, Pepi could only see the left half of her face from her position—burned with a quiet intensity that Pepi didn’t recognize. Then again, she realized, she never typically watched Miss Claire during her quiet moments. The way her shoulders were raised, and how she hunkered forwards… she was nervous, Pepi realized. Or upset? Or tense? Something like that. No matter what particular emotion plagued her, the upshot was simple; Miss Claire was not at rest. Would talking upset her further? Being responsible for that would be unbearable…

Focus, girl, she reminded herself. Miss Claire knows she can ask you to leave if that’s what she wants. If she wants you to go, she’ll say so. Right?

The opportunity to catch her without her depressing lowborn shadow was too great to pass up. It had been ages since the two had been apart. The only other times that had happened, Miss Claire was in the process of being courted by a prince, and she certainly wasn’t going to get in the way of that. Pepi had to move now or this chance wouldn’t come around again for a long time.

After a few fortifying breaths she stood and pushed her chair back and away so that she could make her move. She winced—it made a sonorous scraping noise of hardwood on hardwood as it ground over the old wooden library floors. A few other students nearby looked up from their work to glare at her. Pissants—it wasn’t actually a quiet section, and people were talking already! It was so unfair of them to single her out. Why, of all times for her to be noticed, did it have to be now? She felt a flush rise to her cheeks.

For her part Miss Claire still hadn’t noticed at all. As Pepi crept over on her tiptoes, she’d leaned back into her chair, bringing them together over her nose and mouth as her eyes closed. It was an unusual public display of weariness, but it didn’t last more than a few seconds. The mask was back a moment later as she returned to her work.

“Miss… Miss Claire?”

After weeks trying to say those damn words, they just slipped out! She wasn’t ready yet and ohGodSheWasLooking—

Miss Claire’s eyes burned a hole right through her. That scorching focus with which she’d been studying was now directed, full blast, at Pepi. She wasn’t glaring. Not quite. But for a moment, as she looked up, Pepi sensed that she and that open book had a great deal in common—they were both merely one more thing in Miss Claire’s life that vexed her.

“Yes?” Miss Claire’s gaze had softened, barely, but her voice hadn’t. Shrill, Pepi thought, not for the first time. It was rude to say, though. She banished the word from her head.

“May I… have the pleasure of your company? I understand you have a busy schedule, but we haven’t spoken in, well…” Pepi trailed off.

Don’t draw attention to that, you imbecile!

Miss Claire’s lips pursed as she considered the request. This took a few nerve-wracking moments. As soon as Pepi had decided to make the most graceful possible exit from the conversation, the chair opposite Miss Claire slid away from the desk.

Had she… pushed the chair towards her with her foot? What terrible etiquette! She felt the commoner’s malign influence even without her presence. And how frustrating—she’d pushed the awful old thing and it still made less noise than she had when she’d tried to gently pull her own away from her table moments ago.

As Pepi stared, Miss Claire gestured towards the chair with the smallest possible motion of her hand. “By all means, take a seat.”

Pepi sat and tried to settle in. It was hard to make herself comfortable without disturbing any of Miss Claire’s work, which remained sprawled over the majority of the table. She made no motion to tidy up, nor was she obligated to, but as a result Pepi had nowhere to rest her restless hands. Instead Pepi tried to read what she’d been working on. She failed. It was immediately apparent that she couldn’t read upside-down, at least not Miss Claire’s handwriting. It was beautiful and precise but embellished in a way that typeface wasn’t. Most of the table was covered by a loosely bound manuscript that she’d been working on since before the start of the term. The page she’d left open was covered in a dense scrawl of slowly drying ink. The rest of the table was covered by three letters, of all things. Pepi looked away. She didn’t have the right to read her lady’s correspondence.

After a moment, Miss Claire sighed and rested the book she’d been reading on the only free space available—her lap. She turned away, resting her chin on her hand and her elbow on the banister, and looked down into the rest of the library. Pepi watched her take a deep breath, exhale. Maybe she was composing what she would say next. That was just fine—Pepi hadn’t the faintest idea how to begin the conversation properly either, so all she did was follow her gaze.

A faint light filtered through the windows down onto the shelves below. The dust in the air gave the sunbeams an almost physical form, like a diaphanous shroud rippling back and forth in her vision. It was beautiful. Pepi was always so relieved that the Commoner’s Movement had been stopped before they trashed this place, even if she hadn’t spent much time here before the event.

Now that she wasn’t focused on Miss Claire’s face to the exclusion of all else, indistinct chatter began to fill Pepi’s awareness. Here and there groups of no more than three students wandered the maze-like shelves below, speaking to one another quietly enough not to draw the librarian’s ire. Much to that cantankerous old man’s dismay, the school administration had implemented a policy whereby low conversation was tolerated in certain parts of the library on certain days to aid studying. Woe betide any who gave him an excuse to enforce his rules of just how low that volume ought to be.

Pepi focused. Was there anyone down there she knew? Ah—one stood out straight away.

The new teacher that Loretta didn’t like had curled up in a little reading nook set into a bay window. She wore her Academy official’s robes, which didn’t suit her. Pepi realized she’d never seen her in the things before, probably because even a commoner like her could tell that they looked positively dreadful on anyone without the gravitas or decrepitude of old age. She’d drawn into herself, joints held at awkward angles, looking for all the world like a spider that had died in the corner of a room and been forgotten—except that she was flipping through a novel with her one ungloved hand.

His Highness, Prince Thane was also down there, wasn’t he—he had so little presence that it was hard to notice him at all unless you happened to have Miss Claire François’s eyes. His sullen face (his face was always sullen) hung over what might’ve been a history textbook, though it was challenging to be sure of anything from this distance. He was her classmate. How strange to think that she could even be in the same room as him or breathe the same air as his brothers. Yet all of those nerves, that wonderful tension that came from being around any of the three men who could inherit the throne paled in comparison to the stress of not knowing whether Pepi was serving her Lady François well.

He’d probably been the one Miss Claire was looking for, Pepi realized. There was no way she’d dropped her obsession with him just because Prince Yuu was showing her his favor now. She turned back to check her expression as she watched him, to maybe say something supportive, only to be taken aback by the sight of total indifference. Miss Claire had already returned to reading her book without saying anything!

What the heck.

Then, hell, she noticed Pepi staring. Her burning blues shone over the top of the leather-bound tome. It didn’t have a title printed on its spine, Pepi noted. Was she reading someone’s journal? OhGodMissClaireWasStillLooking—

“What, um, are you up to, Miss Claire?” Pepi attempted, cursing herself for her mix of hesitation and haste. The look in her eyes had invited the question, right? She wasn’t imagining it. She didn’t think she was, at least.

With great care and little urgency, Miss Claire folded up the book once more, then looked down as she turned it over in her hands end over end. Pepi waited.

“My hands grew weary of the pen, so I found something less strenuous to occupy myself with for a time.”

Her voice was low and smooth, unhurried and unbothered in a way Pepi hadn’t heard her sound in either a year or ever before. Clearly the commoner’s temporary absence was giving her time to collect herself.

It’s like listening to someone read lines for a play, Pepi thought.

“And what would that be, Miss Claire?” Pepi asked. She eyed the book with some apprehension. It wasn’t heavy enough to serve as a doorstop, but it was intimidating nonetheless. It hadn’t even been printed, for one thing. Handwritten letters scrawled across the page, barely constrained by the line rulings. It was likely one of the only two or three copies of itself in existence. Nobody produced books by hand anymore.

“The Principles of Mountain Warfare,” Miss Claire muttered, tracing a finger in a circle on the cover. “It was written by one of the inaugural members of the Royal Army’s general staff. He died last year, in fact. Father attended the funeral. I was, of course, otherwise engaged.”

“That sounds… fun?” Did it? Was that what she was supposed to say?

Miss Claire visibly brightened. Wonderful. Pepi had fallen backwards into the correct dialogue choice. She smiled, took a deep breath, and launched into a long explanation of the implications his theories would have on modern military thinking if proven correct. Pepi made noises of agreement here and there to show that she was listening, but she got lost very early on. There was something in there about dispersal of an army into… branching columns? In order to perform offensives through mountain passes?

Again, Pepi was totally lost.

“...but I digress,” Miss Claire said, eventually. Pepi had been watching the sun slowly set by way of the light’s edge slowly crawling over the top of the bookcases below. Oh! Was she done? Maybe… yes, she was done. She was looking at Pepi, slightly chagrined. “I must sound to you like a crashing bore.”

“No! No, not in the slightest, Miss Claire,” Pepi reassured her, acting on instinct alone. “I think that’s wonderful. Who else but Miss Claire could read such things in their spare time?”

“He’s a decent writer, in fact, it’s not as dense as it sounds,” Miss Claire mused. “An acid wit, carefully targeted, can take one far—if only one is as clever as one thinks themselves to be, which is not so often the case…”

She trailed off. Was she—who was she speaking about here, in these vague terms? Surely not her maid. No one could ever call her witty, though she may have a certain base cunning about her. Was that directed at Pepi herself? The thought… hurt.

This hurt.

She was talking to Miss Claire but they weren’t really talking. Had they ever, really? Pepi didn’t know anymore.

Miss Claire’s arguments with her pet commoner felt more alive than anything Pepi remembered from recent years.

Had this thing, whatever the three of them were, always been so superficial? Maybe they’d stopped being Miss Claire’s favorites somewhere along the way. Pepi could blame Prince Thane or Yuu or Princess Manaria or the commoner for that all she wanted, but at the end of the day the only person to blame was probably herself. Miss Claire wouldn’t have tossed her or her Loretta aside so easily if they’d been worth anything at all.

Her next words came tumbling out of Pepi’s mouth before she could stop herself.

“Forgive my impertinence, ma’am, but will you ever treat us like human beings again?”

There it was. The discursive bomb she hadn’t meant to throw. Whoops. Until she’d spoken, that thought had not yet crystallized into words in Pepi’s mind, but… yes, that was how she felt, wasn’t it? Like she was something less than a person, now.

Miss Claire would have every right to never speak with Pepi ever again after such disrespect, of course. She wasn’t obligated to treat them as friends, but maybe—well. Maybe they could be civil. And if not, Pepi’s life purpose to serve Miss Claire would slip from her grasp in truth. Maybe it already had.

Miss Claire moved as slowly and surely as a glacier. First, she put her book down, balancing it precariously atop the banister. After running a finger across her manuscript to check whether the ink had dried, she closed that too. She stoppered her inkwell and set it aside, then gathered up her letters, lining up their edges by tapping them all together against the side of the desk, folding them up, and returning them to an envelope. The inkwell rested atop as an impromptu paperweight. The two minutes she spent watching this process set Pepi’s nerves on fire. She couldn’t bear the suspense. Then Miss Claire stacked her possessions into a neat pile that, where it rested on the desk, came up nearly to her eyes. She took a deep breath and looked Pepi in the eyes once more.

“What did you mean by that?”

She hadn’t raised her voice. That was the first thing Pepi noticed. Miss Claire’s tone remained conversational and she looked more tired than annoyed. Her eyes were filled with neither red-hot rage nor cold contempt. Pepi might have preferred it if they were. At least she’d know where she stood.

“Is—is it too late to take that back?” Pepi asked.

Of all the times for her courage to fail her, it would have been more useful before she’d talked herself into this mess.

“You can,” Miss Claire conceded. Her voice was soft and small. “Please, don’t.”

She said no more. Pepi had lost her nerve as well, so they fell into an uncomfortable silence. Pepi turned anxiously in her seat to check for listening ears, as if they would say anything worth hiding. The next two desks over in every direction, at least, were vacant. Most students at the Academy gave Miss Claire a wide berth.

As Pepi fidgeted and looked for words that hadn’t even begun stringing themselves together into sentences, Miss Claire waited. Both elbows planted themselves on the desk in front of her and she tented her fingers, staring over them at Pepi with an expression of practiced neutrality.

Just when Pepi was about to let her mouth move and see what words fell out, just to be rid of this terrible silence, Miss Claire saved her from herself.

“I’ve wronged you,” she said.

The words hung in the air.

What?

“I’ve… noticed,” Miss Claire said. She chewed on each word like overcooked meat, like every single one took immense effort to move around, yet she continued. “I’ve noticed, Pepi, that you’ve… had your own struggles. And yet I’ve been too occupied with my own to… support you. As you have supported me. In the past. And so I’ve wronged you. Therefore, I owe you an apology, and, and… I… apologize.”

Silence. Pepi froze, hardly daring to breathe, lest her breath shatter this fragile moment. Miss Claire was looking down at the desk instead of at her. Her hands were folded over in front of her face, hiding it from view. There was nothing Pepi could do except turn her words over again in her mind to try and examine them from every angle.

They couldn’t be right. Miss Claire couldn’t have wronged her. Pepi had fallen short in some way she wasn’t yet aware of, as had Loretta. Those reasons had not been explained because Miss Claire was not obliged to explain herself to anyone except her father and the king himself.

She didn’t want to hear an apology from her. That would imply that Miss Claire could make mistakes: a ridiculous concept. Even briefly entertaining that possibility made Pepi feel unsteady, as if the world were crumbling beneath her feet.

Pepi hadn’t come here for answers. She was here to beg for the pain to stop. What was she supposed to do with an apology?

Eventually she managed to speak again. Miss Claire hadn’t looked her way in all that time.

“Wronged… us? Miss Claire, how…”

Miss Claire cut her off with a laugh. It was a short, dark noise without any humor. “Would you like me to write up an itemized list? I have both ink and stationery right in front of me. Do you have a spare hour? I can have it finished by then.”

She had rested her chin once more atop interlaced fingers, the corners of her mouth pulled back into something that she might’ve intended to resemble a smile. Miss Claire scanned the room without appearing to see anything, as if she were looking within rather than without.

“Allow me to repeat myself, though,” she said. “What did you mean, ‘treat you like human beings?’ I have always treated you as such, even recently.”

“But, since the new term, you’ve…”

Pepi trailed off before she said what she meant:

You’ve been cruel to us.

They deserved it, of course. By definition, those whom Miss Claire decided to target deserved whatever they got.

“I’ve hurt you?” Before she could stop herself, Pepi gave the tiniest nod in response. Miss Claire’s smile—snarl?—widened almost imperceptibly. “Just so. Pepi, dear, that’s what I do to people. You’ve watched it happen time and again. You’ve enabled me to do so. You’re my accomplice.”

That familiar mockery she’d once reserved for commoners and the low nobility crept back into her voice. Pepi had missed it, recently. How strange that she now directed it towards herself. Pepi had never heard of self-effacing self-hatred before, but could find no other easy way to describe it. Well, it wasn’t all self-hatred, per se. Pepi was caught in the blast radius.

“So,” Miss Claire continued, after watching Pepi’s reaction for a moment without comment, “that I’d treat you as poorly as I have always treated others feels inevitable, doesn’t it? I was always going to hurt you too. I’m sure I have, in fact, and simply never noticed.”

Lifting her head from her hands again, Miss Claire splayed first one and then the other out and away from her so that she could examine her nails. She idly picked at little bits of grime or ink while awaiting a response in yet more uncomfortable silence.

After a few moments, Pepi realized that her jaw had dropped. She tried to surreptitiously close it with one hand after realizing that the usual muscles were ignoring her commands.

“I don’t understand. We… alright. Maybe we, I don’t know, took things too far once or twice,” Pepi conceded, less because she believed it and more to get herself inside Miss Claire’s warped perspective. “But only when people really deserved it. Like that commoner who talks to you like she’s your equal. It’s absurd. Someone had to do something about it—who would be better suited than you? We were always proud to help! We were doing the right thing, and we were doing it for you!”

She’d raised her voice a bit, she realized. Heads turned. Following her gaze, Miss Claire saw them, their classmates, daring to gawp at high nobility. Her brows furrowed and her expression darkened like a thunderhead about to strike.

“You would all much rather be somewhere else.”

She didn’t even need to shout. With those words and one uninterrupted murderous glare around the room, several different tables’ worth of students hurriedly packed up their things and left.

Miss Claire spent about a minute watching them go with a mixture of satisfaction and… something else. A deep, deep sadness, of a kind that hadn’t crossed her face since they were children, warped her fine features.

Once they had the room to themselves, Miss Claire began to speak again, no longer in hushed tones. It was strange—these felt like words that wanted to be whispered, regardless.

“You were doing it for me,” she said. “Yes. You’re right. You believed yourselves to be following orders, perhaps. Why did you do that?”

“I—what?”

“Why,” Miss Claire repeated, slowly, like she were talking to explain higher mathematics to a baby, “did you treat my every whim as though it were law? Why didn’t you ever think to stop me?”

“Miss Claire, no! No, I could never presume to tell you anything! I don’t have your judgment, and it’s not my place regardless.”

Why, some distant part in the back of Pepi’s mind asked her, are you taking her side when she isn’t even taking her own?

“So.” She thought, maybe, that Miss Claire’s voice wavered as she said that word. It must have been Pepi’s imagination. “What you’re saying, then, is that you’ve never treated me as an equal.”

“Yes,” Pepi said. She was getting frustrated now as well, and more slowly enunciated every word to match her lady’s pace. “But we aren’t equals, Miss Claire. You’re… you. I’m just me. That’s how it is. That’s how it should be.”

“Then how could we ever have been friends?”

With an upturned hand, Miss Claire pointed towards her as she spoke, like this was merely a bit of well-formed debate floor rhetoric rather than a blow from a million-ton maul.

“What?” Pepi croaked. She didn’t even really speak the word. That would’ve required breathing, and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even think—

“We weren’t friends,” Miss Claire repeated, with the softest cruelest voice in the world. “We grew up together. We were acquainted not by choice but by an accident of birth. That’s… it’s not enough. If I had been a friend to you, I would have treated you better. Like an equal, even. If you had ever been a friend to me… you would have stopped me. Changed me. You—you could have at least tried.”

Pepi’s vision swam. She made an ugly choking noise somewhere in the back of her throat, hating herself for letting her composure fail.

“That’s how you saw us, huh? Acquaintances?” Pepi asked, biting back sobs. “Oh. Oh… that’s… that’s fine.”

“Not at the time,” Miss Claire mused, as though this were all academic to her, as though they were discussing the weather. “I really did enjoy your company. I am so glad to have had you as a companion, growing up. The times we shared: the sweets, the rides in the countryside, singing without words as you two grew into musicians far more talented than I… all of these memories are precious to me, even now.”

“But?” It was seriously hard for her not to break down completely, now. Pepi had to endure this punishment for a few moments longer. If she surrendered to her, Miss Claire would let her go, like she always had to others before. Just let her speak her piece, and this would be over.

“But those are merely memories now,” Miss Claire said without mercy. “They’re far away. They belong to someone else. It’s too late for me to go back, to retrieve them. I need to move forward now. You should do the same. You’re lovely. You deserve true friendship, the type I’ve never been able to give you. There’s much more to living and to love than my pathetic imitations would have you believe.”

There it was. Miss Claire, telling her in plain language to leave her side forever. Pepi had to accept that. She didn’t know how.

How has my life turned out like this?

The bitter chill in Miss Claire’s words had frozen Pepi’s tears before they truly began to fall. For once, she wished she would simply cry. Anything was better than this feeling of strangulation. She felt like she was choking on air.

Miss Claire wouldn’t even look at her anymore. She’d turned towards the curtains of light rippling through the open space of the library below.

Minutes passed. Maybe? She couldn’t tell. Normally she could guess at the passage of time by counting breaths or heartbeats and, uh, those, were, not, really happening right now.

“I’m sorry,” Miss Claire murmured, once more. It was so quiet she could barely hear over the furor of blood rushing in her ears.

“This… it’s about her, isn’t it?” Pepi realized aloud. Did she sound angry? Why? Oh. Maybe she was angry with Miss Claire. That was new, if true. That had never happened before, though perhaps it would explain things. “She did this to you.”

From the look in her eyes, she wouldn’t have to specify which ‘who’ she’d meant. Miss Claire had understood. One of Miss Claire’s eyebrows raised, less in surprise and more for effect.

“My instincts are to protest and to say that she—” Miss Claire layed a heavy emphasis on her not-name “—had nothing to do with this. But I won’t disrespect you by lying to your face. Rae may be an incredibly irritating woman, but she has served me well. She has sometimes done so by ignoring my wishes. I’m trying to tell myself that’s what’s happening right now, she ought to be here assisting me, but… I digress.”

That last sentence had a different tone to it. She was miffed! Genuinely miffed, that the girl they’d spent over a year tormenting—and being tormented by—wasn’t at her side.

What the hell.

“So you want to talk to her, but not to me?”

“Rae is my maid,” Miss Claire retorted. “Despite my best efforts. I don’t have a choice in the matter. I’ve decided to let her befriend me. The alternative was too exhausting to bear.”

“You… gave up?”

“Yes,” Miss Claire said. “I did. I changed teams, so to speak.”

Normally such a thing would be unthinkable for her to admit. She never gave up. Ever. Yet… was it Pepi’s imagination, or did she almost sound proud?

“I’m happier for it,” Miss Claire murmured, a moment later. Then her voice grew stronger. “Pepi, we were awful to her. Didn’t you grow tired of that? I did.”

No, was her first reaction. No more awful to her than she was to us.

Even on the verge of a total meltdown, Pepi sensed that saying so would be impolitic. The conversational tides were pulling in the opposite direction with some force. So she said nothing.

Miss Claire was watching her in silence, one eyebrow still raised. She must have seen something there that Pepi had tried to leave unsaid, because she replied: “I thought not.”

Damn.

How foolish to assume she could hide anything from her lady. Pepi wondered, in the back of her mind and in the butterflies in her stomach, what else she might have noticed in the past.

She had a few more words left in her that she could force out before the tears really began flowing. She took manual control of her breath, trying to extend her composure just a bit further as she spoke.

“If we treat you like you’re our superior and that’s bad, but the commoner treats you like an equal and that’s good, where does that leave us?”

Miss Claire paused. She took only a moment to consider her answer, staring down at her hands, then looked up to meet Pepi’s eyes.

“I don’t know.”

That finally did it: at last, hot tears burned down her face like molten glass. Miss Claire was supposed to have all the answers. Pepi had prepared herself for Miss Claire to tell her that she’d hated her all along. That would be… unbearable, but at least it was something solid she could grab onto. This uncertainty was somehow worse. It was like being abandoned twice; first by Miss Claire, and then by the idea of Miss Claire. Where had that perfect girl gone?

Her composure failed her a second time when words began to fall from her mouth like rain.

“I thought we’d be together forever?” Pepi said. She was probably not coherent. She cared, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t do anything else but this. She couldn’t talk to Miss Claire without melting down, right now, but what would she do if she left? She didn’t know. “Loretta and I would have followed you anywhere. But then you started drifting away and things with Loretta and I have been so—I don’t know. I can’t think it. I can’t say it. You were my best friends. I thought we were friends. I suppose that was silly of me.”

“It wasn’t silly of you, Pepi,” Miss Claire said. Pepi didn’t want to hear it, but still couldn’t bear to interrupt her. “None of us knew how to be people. I didn’t know what I was missing. We were trying our best.”

Pepi seized on those words. They felt like an olive branch, an offering to her, that she had to take. “Exactly! We were trying our best, and we were doing well. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t real friendship somehow. But it made us happy! Why can’t we go back to that for a while and—”

“It made you happy, Pepi? Not me!” Miss Claire hissed, a bit of pique finally showing on her face. “I wasn’t happy a single day in my life from the time Mother passed away until sometime last year! I could never make you take responsibility for my suffering, but you never did more than distract me from my pain! I spent most of my nights for many years lying in my bed awake, dreading that in the morning I would have to wake up and continue being me. I am… was… disgusted by myself. I am sorry, Pepi, that I tried so hard to convince myself that exceptional talent could substitute for joy; I’ve apparently convinced you of this without ever convincing myself! Give up on any hope you have that I will willingly return to that sad state of affairs!”

Pepi lost sight of Miss Claire through her own tears. It should’ve been a beautiful sight, like looking at a statue through a veil of shifting water. It wasn’t. They merely stung her eyes and brought forth ugly sniffles that, when she tried to suppress them, wracked her body with pain. Yet Miss Claire had fallen silent—Pepi had the time, before she spoke once more, to clear her vision.

Once she had, she saw something she’d never expected to see—Miss Claire, visibly damaged. There might as well have been cracks on the face of God. Her posture was terrible, first of all. She’d curled forwards, arms crossed over her chest and each hand gripping opposite shoulders hard enough that Pepi feared one would break the other. Her countenance warped, twisted by a sneer of cold contempt. Before her vision fully resolved, Pepi was sure that all that rage was directed towards her. Yet as the seconds passed, Miss Claire’s gaze only turned further and further inwards.

Maybe some of that was for Pepi. Even five-ish percent would be a lethal dose. As usual, however, Miss Claire had kept the lion’s share for herself.

She looked almost as distraught as Pepi felt. She had to say something, to fix this for Miss Claire, like always. Even if it hurt that she’d never been trusted with this before, what else could she do?

“Miss Claire? Why—why wouldn’t you tell us any of this? Loretta and I, we would have listened to you if we’d known what was happening!”

For a moment, Pepi watched Miss Claire’s face as she teetered between accepting Pepi’s words for what they were and dismissing them for what they weren’t. Her expression hardened once more, though. Pepi had lost the metaphorical coin-flip.

“You wouldn’t have had a choice! Of course you’d have listened—and then what? What would you have told me to do, how would you have suggested I change myself? That’s what I’ve so desperately needed! On the contrary, following your advice, going with the flow, is part of why—” Miss Claire paused, interrupting herself with a fake, affected cough, as color rose to her cheeks. “A-hem. Well. Suffice it to say, even if you could have helped, I didn’t know how to ask you to do so.”

Then Miss Claire breathed in. Just once. She shook each hand away from where they’d guarded her body so closely, then folded them over each other in her lap. Her eyes closed. Then, with a perfect practiced exhale, that selfsame sunny smile dawned first over her eyes and then brought the rest of her face into full bloom. Like any other sun, it hurt to look at directly.

I’ve seen her do that a thousand times, Pepi realized. How had I never noticed what lay just beneath the surface?

The simple answer was that, just as much as Miss Claire never wanted anyone to see what she’d shown Pepi in the last few minutes, Pepi had not wanted to look for it. She never would’ve, unless something—or perhaps someone—had wounded her composure beyond repair. When Pepi got her hands on that little bi—well. It didn’t matter. In a way Miss Claire was still not being honest, but now—but now—her dishonesty gave Pepi hope. There was still a disconnect between her words and deeds. Only Miss Claire could ever ‘give up’ on something so aggressively. Miss Claire would never bother explaining herself to someone who meant nothing to her, no matter how she changed. She would have walked away without another word. Therefore, there must still be something recognizably her in there. Whatever this was, this friendship between them that she now spurned, Miss Claire was still fighting for it in her own way. Pepi could do the same. She could at least try.

This conversation had hurt her. It would likely hurt for some time to come. But she could endure a bit of pain for Miss Claire. Even now, she was worth it. She had to be.

She has to be.

Pepi took a moment to compose herself, to put her thoughts in order. Miss Claire wasn’t the only one who knew a few tricks where that was concerned. She withdrew her handkerchief, dabbed at her eyes, surreptitiously wiped around her mouth and nose where her tears had made a mess, as she composed an argument.

No grief, no bargaining. Miss Claire accepted no bargains and heard no pleas. If she was lost, however, if she truly didn’t know what to do, maybe one of her vassals could shoulder some of her burden and in exchange guide her along her way. All Pepi had to do was summon up the gall required to suggest such a thing.

Miss Claire was still smiling that awful smile, but words seemed to have failed her. Pepi had no way out but to cut through the silence herself. She began to speak.

“Will you listen to me?”

Miss Claire barely even responded with any motion of the eyes. That was… not great, but workable.

Pepi pressed on. “So. I still think we want the same things.”

Miss Claire looked up. Her eyes were slightly blank, like she wasn’t quite there anymore.

“You want ‘real friendship’, something we apparently never gave you before. What I want, what I’m… sure, that Loretta wants, is for the three of us to be together again. Like how we were.”

“No,” Miss Claire swore—Pepi couldn’t find a better word for the utterance than that. She didn’t swear like some baseborn villein that had dropped a bucket on their foot, though. She swore like the nobility swore: like an oath, like a promise. The ferocity, the desperation in her voice only heightened that affect. “We can’t. I can’t go back, not ever.”

However, she’d cut Pepi off. For once, just this once, she allowed herself to be annoyed by that.

“May I finish?”

She almost got snapped at; she could tell by the brief, soundless working of Miss Claire’s jaw—but she was spared, this time. Instead Miss Claire gritted her teeth and said nothing.

“I have to ask a question. Please answer honestly.” Miss Claire nodded in response and looked away. “Did you hate us?”

“Never!” Miss Claire yelped, almost faster than Pepi could finish her sentence. “No, never, I swear it. You’ve done nothing to warrant such feelings. Besides, were I ever wroth with you, you would have been made aware. With haste.”

“So your objection to us is something besides your feelings towards us as individuals.”

“It’s me, Pepi dear,” Miss Claire said. She sounded exhausted far beyond her years. “I’m the objection. I think you think too much of me. Our ‘friendship’... because of me, the whole edifice was constructed on rotten foundations. Such damage can’t be repaired.”

Pepi bit her tongue. Physical pain was easier to manage than the ways those words had cut her. “I don’t know why you’re sure you’ve wronged us. I promise that we only ever saw the best of you. I still do. I want to be your friend. If we’ve fallen short of what you need from us, we’ll do better. We’ll do anything for you if you let us.”

Her voice sounded a bit flat. Trying so hard to control herself, she’d overcorrected, and now she might’ve seemed a bit emotionless. It was easier, being this way. Was it right, though? Would Miss Claire listen better if she were crying?

Probably not.

“It’s more than I can ask of you,” Miss Claire said, quietly, as though there were still others listening in. “I need to be different. I need you to let me change, which might mean that you need to change, too.”

“We’ll change for you, Miss Claire,” Pepi offered. “Teach us how. Guide us.”

“Most days I can barely manage to live up to my own expectations for myself. How am I supposed to manage your expectations of me, while simultaneously pretending to have the wisdom required to offer you any guidance?”

This was good. They were speaking in practical terms, not feelings. Miss Claire sounded like she was reasoning through this, making concrete plans. Pepi held her gaze, set her jaw, trying to convey without words that her resolve would not falter.

Miss Claire ran a hand through her hair, stopping awkwardly when she hit the bow that helped fix the elaborate arrangement in place. That was odd. That wasn’t really a mannerism she’d displayed in the past, no matter how stressed she got.

It was almost evening now. Below, students were vacating the library; that typically meant that the dining halls had opened. With some effort, Pepi tore her mind off of dinner. Getting yelled at and feeling so terribly upset had worked up an appetite.

“You’ll do this for me?” Miss Claire asked, after some time passed. “Even if it means I’ll stop being the person you need me to be?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. That was important.

Miss Claire pursed her lips. “I’m not sure you know what you’re agreeing to. Trying to remake oneself is excruciating, even if I’m sure it’s worth it.”

Oh, so she’s been thinking about this for a while and we haven’t noticed. How much did we miss of her in Euclid?

“It’s fine,” Pepi said, then had a great idea. She’d lighten the mood with a joke. “Maybe we can develop a more… ugh, liberal view of politics. That’s doable. It’s not as though you’re saying we should give up our noble titles or anything.”

Pepi’s laughter died on her lips. She didn’t get the amusem*nt or scorn she’d expected in response. Miss Claire looked pensive, if anything, as if it had been a useful and serious suggestion.

Right. Let’s move this along.

“So, um,” Pepi chuckled nervously, “anyway! Maybe things can’t go back to how they were. If you say so, I believe you. What if we made things better, instead?”

Miss Claire didn’t respond. That was bad. This was Pepi’s last effort. If this didn’t work…

She’d looked down, nervous. Kicking herself for not being able to cultivate the sense of certainty she was sure she’d need, she looked back up and was greeted with the worst thing in the entire universe.

A solitary tear rolled down Miss Claire’s face.

Oh. Oh no. She’d made her cry. Oh God, oh fu—

She’d left one hand lying on the desk, now clear of work. Miss Claire’s hand struck out, lightning-quick, and had hold of Pepi’s before she could flinch away.

God, she’s fast.

For all the violence of the motion, her hand was soft and warm. They hadn’t held hands like this since they were children. This gentle contact sent a ripple all across her body, the hands on her arms standing at attention, a liquid tingling sensation running all up and down her spine. She shivered and tried (failed) not to blush.

For a moment, neither spoke a word. Pepi sensed that she was close. Anything she said could only ruin this beautiful moment.

Then, at last, Miss Claire rescued her from her despair.

“Let’s make things better,” she agreed.

Pepi could’ve kissed her.

The thought took a moment to process.

Huh?

Chapter 18: 4.1 Fall

Chapter Text

Summer fled, and winter threatened.

Claire hated winter. She hated it with a burning passion that did nothing to warm her through the long cold nights. All that hatred had accomplished was to ruin her opinion of autumn. She recognized that the turning of the leaves into a quilt of red and gold was beautiful. Even so, ephemeral beauty always hurt her somehow. The beauty of anything transient would always be tainted by the knowledge it would soon die, fall, and be swept away in the first winter gale.

With Rae at her side she could forget what it was like to be cold. Alas, they saw one another less and less these days. The real world finally demanded their attention. Their little honeymoon could never have lasted forever, that was obvious. Still; Claire couldn’t help but feel bitter about the simple passage of time.

In some ways this little rift of theirs was for the best. Every moment together in public was one more chance for one of them to give the game away. Claire had come close, during her almost-falling-out with Pepi, to saying a bit more of the truth than she felt the girl deserved just yet. Once Pepi figured out how to talk to Loretta again without stammering (or to Claire, for that matter; the girl had been in a state the last few weeks) Claire would have more confidence in sharing dangerous secrets with her. At least the two could share tea together and chat idly once more. It didn’t feel like progress towards a more meaningful relationship. At the very least, Pepi had saved her from ruining whatever she’d actually had with the girl.

Neither Claire nor her lover’s feelings had changed, though. She hoped not, at least; she didn’t want her feelings towards Rae to have cooled. Was it a good thing that she could now go for hours without Rae’s touch and no longer find it hard to breathe? It made her more functional, maybe, but they weren’t supposed to be apart anymore. That’s what the great romances of song and legend had taught her, that she shouldn’t want to learn to live without her for even a moment. And, in fact, she didn’t want that; she merely accepted reality.

They were far busier than ever, in ways that pulled them apart but were nobody’s fault. For one, Rae had gotten it into her head that she wasn’t strong enough to protect Claire anymore. That was a bit absurd, Claire felt; she was a spellcaster without any real peers besides Manaria Sousse. Her Imperial Majesty was busy preparing for her coronation at the moment and therefore unlikely to come back and challenge Rae any time soon. Yet Rae spent many hours practicing alone or occasionally with Misha, Yuu, or Claire herself.

Training together wasn’t exactly quality time, either. Rae was too focused on her new mission. At last she was behaving more seriously and talking to Claire less—everything she’d thought she wanted from the commoner a year ago. The irony was not lost on her. Whenever they trained together, all Claire wanted to do was tell her to go back to her old self.

A voice in the back of her mind tried to convince Claire that Rae had been more interested in pursuing her than actually loving her. Now that she possessed Claire, she needed a new project or else she’d get bored. It was a loud voice that she was doing her best to strangle. Rae was likely stressed too, after all, and was dealing with it in her own way. If only she would talk about it.

After all, Rae had been hurt, rather recently, quite badly and very publicly because she had fought for Claire. The nobility lived and died on their ability to read social situations—it really was a colossal failure for Claire not to have noticed Manaria and Rae’s conflicts and the reason behind them. If Claire had been an iota smarter or more self-aware she could have understood what was happening. She hadn’t been. In a better world she would have ended that whole affair before it began. Yet Claire wasn’t from that better world. She had to live with her mistakes in this one.

Maybe Claire’s failure made Rae feel like she couldn’t speak about whatever was in her heart. Maybe she was hoping that Claire would understand what was happening without needing to ask. That would be incredibly frustrating but understandable in its own way. Maybe being able to understand Rae now could absolve her of her past sins? Maybe that was what Rae wanted from her.

Maybe Rae had developed some sort of complex about losing that battle, even though she’d won the war. It was easy to see why she might, considering they likely had a great deal more battles in their futures. It made sense that Rae would now have new drive towards being the best version of herself.

Despite all her rationalizations she couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a mistake and Rae’s behavior was all Claire’s fault. Since she was most likely to blame for how Rae felt, she didn’t feel as though she had the right to dictate Rae’s behavior. She didn’t know how to tell Rae that she was good enough after a long time spent saying the opposite. So she said nothing.

Besides, she was busy herself. Claire had been possessed. It wasn't the supernatural type of possession (she assumed, at least) that would have her definitely not extremely terrified. No, Claire was possessed by an intense need to write. She found herself losing focus in class, making notes in the margins of her book. Once, she’d almost been foolish enough to mark up a library book in the librarian’s line of sight before she remembered herself. The man was so militant in his cause of preserving places of higher learning—as he should have been, in fairness—that she wasn’t sure being a François would protect her from his wrath.

This authorial impulse never let her rest. She thought about her writing while she was in the bath, though that was partly because it was a useful mental exercise to prevent her from staring a hole straight through Rae’s naked body. Even dreaming offered her no respite. Once, she spent several excruciating hours slowly working her way through a difficult passage—only to wake up and discover she’d dreamt the damn thing, and had to do it again in the waking world. In other words, keeping herself from this task felt like trying to hold back the tide with her hands. So she surrendered.

The work would go faster if she had a better base upon which to stand. Research wasn’t produced in a vacuum, after all, and Claire was sadly limited by the dearth of primary sources. It was a surprise to her. Taming the titanic forces of production unchained by the magical revolution and the birth of heavy industry had been Father’s political project for all of Claire’s life. Even he, a hidebound conservative masquerading as some sort of moderate progressive, could understand that the world had changed. The old feudal model that made House François into what it was today was likely gone forever. Something—no one yet seemed to know what—would have to replace it, and soon. This obvious truth did not correlate to readily available literature addressing this problem. It was tragic. Few of the authors she’d read, Claire realized, had any deeper knowledge of the subject matter at all. Perhaps those in the know were too busy building a new world to write about their efforts. This slowed her down, and she was sure it made her output less thorough and worse overall.

She grit her teeth and forced herself to accept that. It wasn’t like she expected anyone to read what she wrote. This first foray into writing theory was unlikely to be any good. While it would certainly shame the majority of the submental cretins she’d forced herself to read as she researched, that was a low bar. It would be everything she could do, if she published it, just to set herself apart from them.

Claire was brilliant in most ways. She wasn’t delusional enough to think this work had any chance of becoming an instant classic, though. Showing off her genius wasn’t the sole point of her life anymore anyway. She had a unique position and knowledge that might allow her to see and write things no one else could. It felt like a terrible waste to squander those skills. She most likely wouldn’t even publish under her own name, if she was even able to publish at all. It didn’t matter. This stupid little economics treatise was screaming at her from the void of nonbeing that preceded creation, demanding completion, so she had to write it. She’d never know peace again if she didn’t.

Being without Rae as she worked was such a mental drain that planning treason with her was a lighthearted diversion by comparison. The conspirators had earmarked several evenings a week for ‘extracurriculars’, as Yuu referred to their schemes whenever in mixed company. None of them had the heart to tell her just how suspicious and/or suggestive that sounded. The princess was clearly having too much fun with her little allusions.

Misha, by contrast, was an enormous boon to their operational security. They’d been given the keys to the Academy for their work with the Knights. Breaking into unused classrooms was so simple when one was not, strictly speaking, breaking in. All they had to do was not look out of place as they passed through the halls to the day’s meeting place. Once safely ensconced in a room of their own, Misha could keep them safe from idle ears as they talked with her Siren song.

They were relatively efficient. Maybe about two thirds of their time on those nights was spent refining the plan to invade the Chancellor’s little command center. Yuu had the blueprints of the building already, which was a tremendous boon. At least, she had the blueprints to another building on the block. According to the records, they’d all been constructed in the same way by the same architect on the cheap. The story as she told it: a fire had destroyed an entire neighborhood in the capital almost a century ago. The result? A sudden demand for more buildings, fast, rather than anything unique or beautiful. The floorplan might have changed in the intervening decades, but some things—like the fact that every single one of these offices pumped water from an underground cistern that Yuu knew how to access—would not.

Their plan unfolded until they could all recite any part of it on command. That didn’t take all of their time, though. They already had Misha’s magic keeping them safe, they’d reasoned; why not chat for a while? Merely being themselves was a criminal act for all four of them, but that didn’t matter. They were already planning a far greater crime. In for a penny, in for a pound, after all. There would be no further harm in being a bit gay in private.

This limited freedom made a world of difference. Those few hours of daylight where Claire didn’t have to hide who she was kept her sane. Very little else did. She could lean on Rae for support, show and receive affection, while Yuu and Misha did the same. The two were absolutely darling together. Somehow that got Claire’s competitive side acting up. She wouldn’t let herself and Rae appear to be any less in love than the princess and her childhood friend. Even antagonizing one another was pleasant. as long as Misha and Yuu kept each other’s acerbic wits sheathed. Arguing over the details of their plan was important and stressful, but it whet their appetite to bicker over more trivial nonsense later. Claire looked forward to those mean and meaningless arguments more than she’d ever admit.

Those bright afternoons were some of the best she’d ever had. What a strange group of people to share her time with! They made quite a team: three deeply deranged women and also Misha. Yuu, Misha and Rae were the first people who ever felt to Claire like her equals. In no time at all she felt like she’d forgotten how they’d ever lived apart before. She mentally apologized to Pepi whenever that thought occurred to her. It was awful but it was still true. She was working with her (former) lackey on changing that, but progress was slow. She couldn’t yet compare.

The joy of having friends she could laugh with or at without reservation for the first time in her life collided with the high tension caused by keeping multiple crimes secret. These opposite forces in her life ground against one another and sent sparks flying. These sparks, these anxieties, threatened to burn out of control daily. It never quite happened. Rae’s soothing words and touch deserved most of the credit there. She always knew just what to say. No one else could keep Claire’s temper in check on days where she was stressed and snappish. No one else, not even Claire herself, could soothe her worries whenever it felt like all she could do was run and hide from her fears.

She might have still had a complete meltdown regardless under other circ*mstances. Happily, she didn’t find herself growing more stressed as the hour of the raid drew nearer. While every passing day heightened her nerves, as time went on she and Rae also got better about being discreet. The longer they went about their lives without their relationship being discovered the more confident she became. The hard part was over. One source of stress grew larger, and another shrunk. She therefore stayed at a constant high degree of tension, but never in the same way twice. Each day gave her a new way and reason to fret.

The days were getting shorter as well. Claire hated that more than any other part of the turning of the seasons. For the first time, though, there was a silver lining to the longer darker nights. She’d made Rae promise on the first cold day of the season that these nights would always belong to them. Nobody else had a reason to venture outdoors into the darkness. On those evenings the two of them could let themselves hold hands under the clear sky, if only for moments.

It went without saying that they slept together every night. Both Claire and Rae were making up for a year’s worth of lost time, after all. Rae was an innovative lover, of course, but Claire was never willing to be outdone. That mix of true love and incredible tension brought her mind to some new places. Simply recalling these memories in daylight was enough to make her blush.

Rae remained a mystery to her. It didn’t have to matter all the time. Claire could close her eyes, rest her head against Rae’s chest, and pretend. The sound of her breath drowned out everything except their idyllic life. In the space between heartbeats there were no villains, no secrets. She was soft and warm and kind and sometimes those could be the only things in the world that were real.

Not forever, though. Morning would come, they returned to the outside world, they put their masks back on and continued to lie.

In this manner one month passed.

Not for the first time, Claire had needed a way to escape the walls of the Academy for a moment. At these times she liked to venture out to her gazebo in the gardens to stare into space and ponder how she’d gotten herself into this mess. The cool breeze helped sharpen her focus and keep her centered. These moments of calm kept her sane but only just; her head still felt like it was full of blades.

In the distance and dreadfully distinct against the silence a fountain played.

Too much of her day had been spent alone. Claire hated being alone, even when she knew it wouldn’t last. Misha had rescued her, today. The gloomy girl had become a calming presence in her life. Rather than pass Claire by, she’d sat down without a word. All she’d done in the last chilly hour or so was review a book she’d withdrawn from her bag. Even in (especially in) silence, Claire was immensely grateful for the company.

Tomorrow, she decided. She’d confront Rae tomorrow. She’d had that thought many times in the last month, but this time she meant it. These secrets would get one of them hurt. Rae didn’t like to talk about herself, Claire knew, but it was important for her to tell Claire something true. She’d walk up to Rae the first time she could get her alone and press her for information. Would she truly have to push her hard for her to give up and explain exactly why she was hurting? Why did any of this matter? Why couldn't she just talk about her feelings? Rae’d better tell her or… or else. It was an idle threat and she knew it; she couldn’t even think it without being slammed with a wave of anxiety.

Rae still hadn’t told her the truth. Claire had known for a long time that she was more competent than she let on, but this was getting absurd. She’d sat through Yuu’s long explanations of the corruption of the nobility and of Salas Lilium in particular without so much as blinking. None of Yuu’s accusations from that initial foray into the subject at the Jur manor all the way up to present raised an eyebrow. These were things not even Claire, a scion of one of Bauer’s greatest noble houses, had any inkling of.

So how did Rae know? How could she not be surprised? And, most of all, why had this never been brought up before? Would Claire have ever known about the shadowy underworld in which her class operated if Yuu hadn’t told her? Somehow, she couldn’t imagine Rae mentioning it. Claire owed her more grace than Rae could wear through in a lifetime. She could forgive her for what was, if Claire was honest with herself, a small infraction. Still; every time Rae casually referenced a bit of knowledge she shouldn’t have like it was the most obvious thing in the world it grew harder to bite her tongue.

Cold.

Claire wished she’d worn a heavier coat. The blazer wasn’t enough in this weather. Worse still, both of her hands were busy. She couldn’t stuff them into her uniform pockets or keep herself warm with magic without sacrificing all productivity. Instead, she flexed and tensed her hands over and over again. Perhaps the cyclical pain of digging her nails into her palms would give her the focus she needed to continue.

It didn’t.

A leaf fell to the ground in an idle corkscrew pattern, dancing hither and thither upon invisible currents. Claire shivered as she watched it, more due to anticipation than to the autumnal chill. She wanted a sudden breeze to lift the falling leaf skyward once more and out of sight, though she knew not why.

Of course that didn’t happen. It fell like everything else.

Chapter 19: 4.2 Not Here Anymore

Chapter Text

Claire stalked through the undergrowth, wand out.

She could trick herself into thinking for brief moments that this was exciting. A chase. A hunt. Something visceral that would keep her moving forward like something mattered.

It was nothing of the sort. They were merely in class with Torrid. Again.

He was a fantastic instructor, but he dragged a tremendous weight behind him: bad students. The various incompetents and mouthbreathers that polluted her Academy occupied most of his time. Magic could go very wrong very quickly, after all. For this reason he focused more of his efforts on the less skilled students.

The sad result was that he taught for the lowest common denominator. Nor was he wrong to do so. Claire recognized that this was for the greater good. However his classes became a free period at times as a result. For people like Claire, there was no need to spend hours drilling the fundamental theory behind any given new spell. Sometimes she had to try. Today was not one of those days, so she made other plans.

Today, they were back in the woods that lay on the border of the Academy grounds. Their class had been directed to play a sort of magical hide-and-seek. Strong magic, especially of elements aligned or opposed to one’s own, gave off a noticeable signal. A skilled caster could follow that to its source with a little effort. Torrid had them form pairs and take turns seeking one another out.

There was no longer any question who Claire would take as her partner. At least she had an easy excuse, this time. She’d smiled at Loretta when the girl asked her why she was partnering with ‘the commoner again’. Her words. Claire’s response: the day would come when she could hunt Rae for sport. This would be a trial run.

Despite the absurdity of this remark, her lack—her friend appeared mollified, and she’d taken a crimson-red Pepi by the hand to form their own pair.

In theory Claire should have been on a sort of hunt at the moment. In practice, it was another free period. Both she and her lover had both intuited the mechanics of the spell on the first try. They’d split one more time to repeat the drill to be safe. They probably wouldn’t have bothered if Torrid hadn’t happened to check on them after their last meeting. Under his vigilant gaze their eyes met and they wordlessly agreed to look busy in front of him.

Claire’s heart was no longer in the exercise. She expended more energy avoiding tall grasses than on spellcraft. In this gloom, any of them might hide buggy little critters that would pounce on her, suck her blood, and leave her an empty husk. Or something.

She stuck to the clearings when she could. It gave her an opportunity to watch how the morning sun painted the woods. She could kick through fallen leaves and appreciate the way that burning daylight bounced off of them. All the while, the rich fall foliage made Claire feel like she was swimming beneath a blood-red sea. Then the clearing would end and she would be returned to the dark.

It was pretty but, as always, a bit distracting. The woods felt cursed, though not in the sense that they’d been literally desecrated by some hostile entity. Bad luck would be a more apt term for it if it didn’t feel like it minimized the danger. It was perfectly lovely despite the occasional monster attack. The curse she felt existed only within her own mind and memories. She and Rae had more than their fair share of bad ones set here.

She listened to the breaking of waves—no, the rustling of leaves—and tried to relax. She couldn’t. The raid was tonight. Worse, sometime today, she had to confront Rae. She could procrastinate no longer. This was her last chance.

Claire’s mind wandered. That was always a mistake. Almost every time she lost herself in reverie, she found herself visiting memories she wished she could forget.

Case in point: they’d been attacked here by the giant water slime almost a year ago exactly. Being paralyzed by a sonic attack and then captured by the beast had been a rough start to the morning. She hadn’t treated it as mortal peril, though, not at first.

Then it had taken Rae.

She didn’t care about the commoner’s life at all, she’d told herself at the time. The only thing about her death that would matter was the loss of prestige. Losing something that belonged to her would make her seem inept to her peers. The way her heart froze when Rae screamed for Claire to save her—that was simply human weakness. Nobles were supposed to be better than such sentimentality, so she’d tried to burn it out of herself. She’d tried to squash all the fear and empathy and maybe love, maybe even then, she’d felt when she saw her commoner in danger. Her Rae. She’d been too afraid of what they might have meant.

How sickening.

Even this was far better than their fight (break-up?) after Rae’s duel with Manaria. With the benefit of hindsight Claire could see the places where she’d said entirely the wrong thing in the entirely the wrong way. She shared some of the responsibility for the fracture, for the things Rae had said to her…

“It makes you feel good, doesn’t it? Being wanted…”

What Rae had said then, even reduced to a mere memory, still cut Claire to her core. The pain in Rae’s words had punched through her like an arrow loosed from a bow. She wandered back into the path of this memory now and again as they both traveled forwards in time and it pierced her again each time.

She’d been right, of course. Claire had taken love for granted. That was the worst thing. She’d hated every time Rae was correct and she wasn’t, but she could never ignore the truth once it was shoved in front of her face. Claire had been enjoying the soaring feeling of, at long last, being wanted by someone she wanted just as badly.

Not by Manaria Sousse, of course.

By Rae.

Why, she wondered, couldn’t I just say that to her face?

Back in the present, Claire was mentally kicking herself once more. It was a ritual by now; she berated herself a bit each of the tens of thousands of times she dwelled on her failures.

She’d thrown a fit instead and drove Rae away—temporarily, thank God. It had obviously all worked out in the end. Besides, on the day they’d fought, Rae had finally told her the truth.

Pain and truth. Maybe this was the proper venue for a fight after all. Good omens disguised as bad, perhaps.

Claire broke through a particularly pernicious patch of holly, detoured around a tree trunk wider than she was tall, and then there she was.

Rae Taylor.

She was sitting cross-legged on one of several stones breaking the surface of a little woodland pond. A smile creased Claire’s face. It always made her happy to see Rae again even if they’d only been apart for a few minutes. Claire took a deep breath and didn’t exhale. Her movements became much more deliberate. She lightened each step so as to disturb the least possible amount of earth and air. In this manner, walking on the balls of her feet, she approached.

This pond might have been fed by a spring or an invisible stream, Claire couldn’t tell. It burbled away over the top of a little wooden dam in the periphery of her vision and then out of sight. Eventually its course would join the river that bisected the capital, and thence the sea. The body of water was just large enough that she could throw a rock clear from one shore to another as long as she was willing to exert herself.

Rae sat almost at its center. She waved at her, still facing away, before Claire had even reached the water’s edge.

“Damn.” Claire stopped her prowling, returning to a more natural posture, and began to pace by the water’s edge. “I wasn’t casting anything anymore, Rae. What gave me away?”

Rae laughed.

“I have an internal compass that treats you as true north, Claire,” she said. Claire tried to ignore the butterflies those words sent flying in her stomach. “I don’t need a spell to find you.”

Claire craned her head a bit to catch a glimpse of where Rae’s hands rested in her lap.

“You have your wand out,” Claire noted.

“That’s true.” Rae let the words rest for a moment. “What I just said, the compass thing, is true. But yeah… I’ve been practicing. Care to help me test something?”

“Will I need to stand on one of those slippery stones?”

“No.”

“Then yes. Always.”

Rae still hadn’t looked at her. Wait… was she blindfolded? She hadn’t noticed at first behind her hair, but yes, a thin strip of white cloth wound ‘round her face. Turning towards or away from Claire wouldn’t make a difference.

“Hold up any number of fingers behind your back, where you’re sure I can’t see them. I want to see if I can count them for you.”

Now this would be interesting. If she could manage that it would be a genuine feat. Claire didn’t really know she would, though. Her magic was better suited for big flashy attacks and defenses than spellwork like this.

Claire stretched her spine and let herself lean into the tree, knitting together her hands behind her head, hands resting beneath her hair. After a few heartbeats, she extended the middle and forefinger of her right hand.

A pause. Then—

“Two,” Rae said. A few moments later, she continued, “Three. One. Now, four.”

Confound it. Claire had begun to change the count in rapid succession. Rae had caught on and was right every time, of course. She let her game continue for a moment longer.

“Eight, four, and two… wait, three. Hold on,” Rae said, interrupting herself. “Do you consider thumbs fingers?”

“Yes.”

“Then three. Wait, actually? They’re not even—”

Claire cut her off. “I’m not going to litigate this.”

“Okay, sure, keep your wrong opinion. Three. Was I right?”

“You know you were,” Claire said, very slightly irritated at being asked to confirm. “I’m duly impressed. Explain yourself.”

“So you know I’ve been practicing with Misha.” It was a statement, not a question. Claire nodded, humoring her, then realized Rae couldn’t see. Or could she? “Yeah, so, it’s kind of… miserable, honestly. We sparred in the woods earlier this week. Do you know how bad it sucks fighting someone who always knows where you are? It would be fine if I knew where she was too, but for someone with white hair, she sure can disappear into a treeline. I couldn’t score points on her.”

“I imagine she was insufferable about that?”

“Maybe? I wouldn’t say so. She does get more proud of herself than she lets on, maybe. Didn’t know the girl had it in her.”

“Please tell me you’ve found a way to humble her.”

“Well, maybe,” Rae said. She tapped the tip of her wand absentmindedly against a finger. “I don’t know if it’ll work in a fight as-is, but it’s a start. This is already more than I could do this morning. It might only work because of where we are, though. Hold out your hands? Notice anything about them?”

Reluctantly, Claire pulled her hands from the comfortable position they’d found behind her head. Immediately she noticed something wrong. They were covered in sweat.

She half-shrieked before stopping herself.

“Ew, ew, ew, ew!” Claire fumed, flicking her wrists over and over in an effort to shake whatever it was off of her hands. “Gross gross gross. Commoner, what have you done to me?”

“It’s just condensed water vapor!” Oh, Claire noted; Rae had taken off her silly blindfold at last. She turned to face Claire and offered her earnest explanations. “It won’t smell like anything, when it dries it won’t feel sticky or anything. I prommy.”

Claire stopped. With a slightly dubious sniff, Claire realized that she was right. Suddenly it all clicked.

“Oh. You figured out how to extend your senses through the matter you manipulate,” Claire said. “Still gross, but clever in its own way. Don’t do that to me again unless you absolutely have to. I’m proud of you.”

Rae beamed for a moment, then that sad serious cast returned to her expression. “Yeah, well. I came to practice on this rock just for the vibes. I wasn’t thinking about the fact that there’s probably more water vapor in the air here than elsewhere, on average. But there definitely is and that definitely mattered. I’m not sure how well this trick would work anywhere else. It’s not ready for me to use it tonight, that’s for sure, although nobody will need me for that sort of thing. Misha will be with us.”

The chill in the air settled deeper into Claire’s bones at the word. Tonight. She’d been trying not to think about the raid tonight. So she kept the conversation, and herself, moving, as she began to pace around the little pond’s edge.

“You’re a dual-caster, Rae,” Claire observed. “Maybe water isn’t the best medium for this. Can you make this work with your earth magic?”

“I tried that.”

“Report your findings then.”

Rae gave her a lazy two-finger salute and launched into her explanation.

“So footfalls make sounds, right? They also make little tremors in the ground. These tremors are confusing to follow. I think softly-packed dirt, like, occludes the signal or something. I tried using my magic to sense them but it barely worked. Maybe a hard surface like a stone floor would be better? But I had a bit of success tracking Misha for a minute like this. Then I think she caught on, because,” Claire saw Rae take a deep breath, “she jumped into the trees, and then all bets were off. I kinda got dumpstered.”

Claire made a sympathetic noise. “Poor dear.”

You could’ve told me about this on whichever day it happened.

She banished the thought. They’d been busy with final preparations. It must have slipped Rae’s mind.

“I didn’t want to show you until I had something to show for it,” Rae said. Claire frowned. Was that coincidence, or had she let her displeasure show on her face? Rae continued: “To be fair to Torrid, the tricks he taught us for this class really made the technique come together. I bet I can make this situationally useful pretty soon, at least, thanks to him. Who’d’ve thought class would be a place where a person might learn something now and then. Misha really is built different though. That thing she does with wind magic isn’t even a challenge for her. I don’t think she even makes a conscious note of what she’s doing with it.”

After looking around to check that she wasn’t in earshot, Claire grumbled, “Misha is a once in a generation talent.”

“So are you!”

“Thank you, my love, but I thought that went without saying.”

Rae laughed as she stood awkwardly from her seat. For a moment it looked like she would topple into the water, but after windmilling her arms for a moment (Claire watched the tip of the wand spin with some trepidation) she righted herself.

Wand in one hand, blindfold hanging from the other… she cut a fine figure. Her sleeves and her hair all swayed in the cool autumn breeze. Rae looked up towards the sky and breathed for a moment, eyes closed, before speaking.

“I’m gonna keep it 100 with you, Claire, I don’t know if I’ll ever master all four elements.”

What?

…what?

It was such a perfect non sequitur that Claire couldn’t help but get annoyed.

“Of course not!” she said, trying not to spit the words. “You’re not going to gain a new affinity at 17. Is that what you’ve been wasting your time with?”

“No, no, it was just a joke!” Rae said, hands up in a mollifying gesture, that same familiar smile on her face. “Guess it didn’t land. Well, nevermind.”

Claire huffed, ready to keep going, then sighed. “Fine.”

This idiot. This big beautiful idiot. Claire had obviously known what she was signing up for when she’d confessed her feelings for this girl, but… they’d been talking. This most recent conversation had been both pleasant and productive. And then that little joke killed it.

She was being insane about this, wasn’t she? It was such an overreaction on her part. But still, she couldn’t help but think it indicative of the larger pattern she’d come to talk with Rae about today.

It was probably a bad idea to broach the subject while irritated. Claire still didn’t really know where to start or how to convey her abstract frustrations. She had to regardless. It was now or never.

Here goes everything.

“Why are you like…” Claire began to ask, before realizing she didn’t have a word big enough for her question, “this?”

She gestured vaguely towards where her lover stood in the middle of the pond, ten paces away.

Rae’s only response at first was to laugh.

“A sudden and shocking return to form from Miss Claire! I’m so excited. If you felt like bullying me today, there’s all this water right here. Give me a shove for old time’s sake! Just be careful, the rocks are a bit slippery. I’d hate it if you fell.”

Claire took a deep breath, exhaled. When she spoke her voice was exactly level. She’d taken manual control of her breath, her diction, everything. If she didn’t her emotions would get the better of her. “This is exactly the kind of thing I’m trying to talk to you about. I know I could have found a more elegant way to phrase my question. I know that. So: my apologies for any offense caused. Would you please answer the question?”

“Oh. I didn’t realize you were serious.”

“I’m always serious, dear. So, if it’s not too much of a burden, could you give me a few minutes of your time?”

Claire began to walk around the pool, trying to find a place from which she had a clear view of Rae’s face without moving too far away from her. She paced, taking short steps, as if her lover were a flighty bird on the verge of taking off.

The face of the water was as still as solid glass. Claire hadn’t noticed at first. It took a moment for her to see double. Rae’s face was level with hers and Claire looked down and away from her, only to find it repeated and inverted by the reflection. Her expression was briefly clouded with fear or frustration or something else, it was hard to tell in the mirror. Instead Claire watched the leaves she was silhouetted against rustle back and forth. Then Rae caught her looking, meeting her eyes through the water, and her old fake smile returned.

“It’s not a burden, Claire. It’s more like… that’s kind of an all-encompassing question, don’t you think? ‘Why am I like this..?’” Claire heard Rae roll the question slowly over her own tongue, tasting it. From her tone, it had soured. “Iunno, where do I even start? At birth? Before? Historical forces prolly acted on my life in a few significant ways, so maybe we’d need to compose a historiography just to get started.”

“You’re awful glib today,” Claire countered. “So many words, yet so little said.”

Rae looked skywards, craning her head back, looking up into the cloudy sky. It made Claire dizzy just to look at, and she feared she might topple into the water even without her intervention.

“Maybe, Claire, just maybe, I didn’t understand the question, and I was inviting you to elaborate.”

“Then say so.”

Claire let the statement hang in the air. She’d gotten engrossed in the argument rather than composing her thoughts. She took the moment to breathe and recover.

“Okay.” After a moment Rae’s gaze finally leveled once more and she met Claire’s eyes. “Tell me in plain language what you want to know. I’ll answer. I belong to you, after all.”

“That’s the problem, though; will you answer? I can’t be sure.” Claire found a venerable old oak twice as wide as she was tall with a half-dozen branches only three or four feet off the ground. On a whim, she hopped up into its embrace, letting her feet dangle off the ground by a few inches. “I’m used to people lying to me, Rae. I’m good at seeing through such lies. Perhaps I’m too quick to assume ill intent, as when I refused to believe that your feelings for me were true. So I won’t call you a liar. Conversely, I won’t accuse you of telling the truth. I’ve lost count of the number of times you’ve neglected to share crucial information with me and I’ve had to find out after the fact. I’m only aware of some of these instances. The nature of such things forces me to conclude there are more of which I remain ignorant.”

Rae blanched as Claire spoke. She stowed her wand inside her uniform and ran a hand through her hair in that way that tousled it so wonderfully. But she didn’t respond, and that was the only thing Claire wanted from her at the moment: a response.

So she continued.

“I asked you once how I could trust you when you kept secrets from me. Do you remember your response? ‘If I didn’t keep any secrets, I wouldn’t need you to trust me’? I’ve tried to get upset at you for that answer. I’ve tried to forgive you for it. Neither have worked. All I can do is grit my teeth and accept that you are probably right. You win, as usual. But I asked you something else, and you never responded, and it’s only now that I realize it’s the far more important question of the two. Rae: do you trust me?”

“I..? Of course?” Now she just looked confused, not worried, not worried enough at least. “Where is this coming from?”

Really? Claire wondered, agitated. Can’t you tell?

She noticed that she was kicking her feet back and forth and willed herself to stop and sit still. Rae had tolerated Claire’s nonsense for long enough. She could at the very least sit still while they were talking.

“If you trusted me you would talk to me about why you’re hurt. I can see it in your eyes sometimes but you never talk about it which is fair because I don’t like to either. I’m not mad because I’m the same but I wish I was different and I wish I was better—”

“Claire, please,” Rae begged, “please don’t do this to yourself.”

Claire didn’t listen.

“—and if I’m not,” Why can’t I stop talking, “you don’t have to lie, you can just tell me you don’t trust me, I don’t know if I’ve earned it but would you tell me if that’s so and I can figure out how to change for you—”

“—Claire!” Rae’s shout cut through the noise. “I trust you no matter what! I promise!”

“You don’t act like it!”

Silence followed Claire’s scream. She hated the way Rae was looking at her, as though she were slipping away. She had one hand outstretched from the center of the water but the lovers were well outside one another’s reach.

Claire reconsidered. “Do you? I’m not sure I would know what it’s like: trust, that is. No… I’ve neither needed others’ trust nor warranted it in the past, surely. One day I’ll be someone important to someone—a duch*ess, an author, a leader or a devoted follower, a mother—who knows. Any of those titles demand a bit of trust, don’t they? But all I am now is a girl who’s spent her life shuffled between houses that are too big for her. Not a person of any consequence. So I’m sure you don’t trust me. You’d be a fool to. I know you’re no fool.”

Rae was taking a breath and preparing to interject. Now she had something to say, at last, now that Claire needed to talk through her thoughts? With a sharp slice of her hand, she cut her off.

“Don’t interrupt me!” Claire spat. “Wait until I’ve spoken, then you may answer. When I’ve quite finished, tell me: how could anyone trust someone like me? Trust is something earned, as you have earned mine. What could I have possibly done to earn yours!?”

Stillness followed. A leaf fell from Claire’s tree and fell to the surface of the water, floating across Rae’s reflection. Claire watched her raise both arms and drop them to her sides with a soft thud. “I don’t even know where this is coming from, Claire, so I genuinely can’t figure out how to respond. I’ve trusted you with my life a few times, and you’ve never let me down. That’s pretty big. Does that help?”

“I thought what happened to you didn’t matter so long as I was safe. How can trusting me with your life matter when you value it so little?”

“Oh, right!” Rae smacked a palm against her forehead to pantomime a theatrical realization. “I totally forgot all about that, Miss Claire!”

Claire snarled for a moment, silent, biting back words that would be very cruel. More importantly, they would be counterproductive. She could tell what Rae was doing, of course. These ironic deferrals to Claire’s ridiculous whims that could sometimes end any conflict sooner. But Claire needed conflict. It was the only way she knew how to grow.

Deep breaths, Claire.

Slow breathing didn’t work. After counting to ten she remained furious.

“Don’t patronize me. Listen to what I am saying to you, commoner: I don’t take your life for granted. I never have. You do.” Claire levelled an accusatory finger at her. “Time and again you have trusted me with your life—but never with your heart. You’ll fight with me, you’ll stand in the path of my spells. You’re so sure that you’ll be safe, or maybe so uncaring—but you won’t let me in.”

Rae ran her hands through her hair again, buying time before she spoke.

“Okay, so I get upset sometimes. Compared to what you’re going through it’s much less serious and much less interesting. I kinda don’t want to play a tragedy tournament with you where you have these big meaningful moments of self-discovery that are so perfect and beautiful and all I’ve ever wanted to see—and then interrupt them like, ‘wow, did you know, sometimes I hurt too!?’ I know that, you know that, I know you know that, you know that I know that you know that—and so on, right, so it doesn’t really bear discussion.”

“You really don’t want to talk about yourself at all, do you?”

Rae shrugged. “People get bored of Rae talk. Nobody more so than me.”

Claire was on the verge of tears with frustration. She wanted to throw things; to send something, anything, into a wall or into the woods or at any target really. All she had was her wand and she wasn’t dumb enough to risk damaging it now of all times. So she dug her nails into her palms so that the pain could let her focus for long enough to ask her next question.

“Why are you allergic to treating your problems like they matter?”

“That’s just what love is, Claire. For me, at least.” Rae sounded defeated. “I’m nothing special, but sometimes the people I love are. You most of all. My first instinct is always to protect the things that matter to me whatever it takes. I don’t think I’m wrong for that. If you want me to change that, I’ll try, but no promises. Most likely I’m gonna be like this forever.”

Rae dipped a hand into the pond, finally disturbing the water’s face. Her reflection shattered as she splashed idly in Claire’s direction, the drops falling short of reaching her by almost fifty feet.

“That’s what love is to you? Everything for me, nothing for you?” Claire had to ask the question because she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her hands felt a bit wet again, she realized. Looking down she saw identical, thin lines of blood running across each palm. She hadn’t even realized it when her nails had broken the skin. She shifted the position of her fingertips and continued to clench her fist. She couldn’t help it.

“Claire, I’m so lucky to be with you at all,” Rae said. “I think you’ve already given me more than I deserve. I’m not going to get greedy.”

“That doesn’t sound like love to me. It sounds like worship. I don’t want that.”

She froze when she realized she’d once again said something much more honest than she’d meant to. Rae had no idea how to react, apparently, because after a moment of bewildered silence she replied with all the wrong words. She blinked. Then asked:

“Are you breaking up with me?”

Claire was nearly sick.

“No. God, please, no.” Claire took a deep shuddering breath and forced herself to ask, “Not unless you wa—”

“—No!” Rae shouted. Claire had never been so happy to be interrupted. “f*ck. I, wow. I really f*cked this up. Sometimes I don’t word good when I get scared. I’m sorry for that. I didn’t think that’s what you’re saying and I don’t want that either.”

“Oh… okay. That’s… really good.” After a moment spent bringing enough air back into her lungs to speak once more, Claire said, “Please don’t leave me.”

“I told you,” Rae said, “I’m not going to let you go.”

Claire smiled sadly. That wasn’t good enough.

There was a crashing noise in the woods behind her. Her words died in her throat, frozen by terror as she wondered if someone had heard them, if someone knew. The sound retreated into the distance. Whether it had been a fellow student or a monster or whatever woodland creatures were actually meant to be here, she would never know.

When she was sure she was safe, Claire tried to speak again.

“You don’t understand. You will let me go. As long as you keep treating your life like it doesn’t matter, one day you will trade it away to buy mine, and then I’ll be alone. I don’t know what will happen to me if I’m alone, Rae. I can’t even dress myself.”

“You’re getting better.”

“Not in the slightest. I can undress myself now, but even that is a slow process.”

“Just do that, maybe without the usual theatrics, and reverse it.” Rae said, half-laughing, then paused. Withdrawing her want from her uniform, she casually aimed off into the trees and flicked it downwards, as if tapping it against an invisible surface. The water beneath her feet froze solid in an instant. Ice radiated out from where she stood faster than either of them could run. The pond was solid shore to shore within moments.

She began to cross.

“Don’t slip,” Claire said, forcing a smile, and let herself slide off of her branch and into Rae’s waiting arms. She was a far more comfortable perch than a tree branch, after all.

Rae pulled her in close, her hands resting just above her hips. It was so unfair how much taller she was than Claire, but sometimes Rae’s greater stature had its positives. Like now: Claire could draw herself up to her full height and it was just enough for her to rest her chin on Rae’s shoulder and nuzzle against her neck. The heat radiating from her body, the clean smell of her hair, even the faint hints of sweat on her skin from the day’s labors—put together it felt like coming home.

“I’m sorry, Claire,” Rae murmured. “I’ll be better.”

“I don’t need you to be better, Rae,” Claire said, slightly muffled by speaking into Rae’s skin and collar. She pressed herself closer. “I don’t need apologies. I don’t need promises. I don’t need half-true explanations for every time you’ve told harmless lies of omission. We’ll have plenty of time for those later. All I need from you, right now, is that you listen to me.”

With some reluctance, she pushed Rae away, just by a few inches, so that she could look her in her deep red eyes.

Rae didn’t respond, so Claire continued.

“My heart isn’t in here anymore,” she said, drawing the fingertips of one hand over her chest, right above the spot where her true heart still beat. Then, with the other, she reached back towards Rae. Her hand fell once more upon her neck, seeking, finding the golden chain of her amulet. She pulled it loose then slid the palm of her hand along it until the ruby pendant was at rest in her hand. Her fist closed around it. “It’s in here. It lies no more than six inches from your own.”

Rae’s breath caught in her throat. The only response she could manage was a quiet, “Oh.”

Claire took a moment to tuck her little metaphor back beneath Rae’s collar. “You have to protect your heart, Rae, if for no other reason than its proximity to mine. If yours breaks, mine will too.”

“Oh… well, when you put it that way, I understand. I’ll make sure not to break any of your things, Miss Claire.”

A sob that Claire hadn’t realized had been trapped in her throat finally shook its way free.

“Please don’t. It was expensive.” The joke was almost enough for her to feel normal once again. She felt normal enough, at least, to poke Rae in the stomach and put a little bit more blame onto her shoulders. “You scared the sh—uh. You scared the… heck, out of me.”

Rae smiled for the first time in several minutes. “I can’t believe this. You’ve spent too long around Misha. I can’t believe she’s taught you to swear.”

“I’ve known how to swear,” Claire protested. “I don’t because it’s uncouth.”

“You’re the couthest, it’s true.”

The conversation died once more. A thin sense of relief warmed her momentarily at Rae’s assurances that this argument wouldn’t be the end of them. Nevertheless, they were still back where they’d started. Worse than that, really, because now they were both upset with one another, and Claire still knew her no better than she had this morning.

Rae broke the silence first.

“I know you don’t believe me when I tell you that you’ve saved me. But you did. ”

Oh. That was true, wasn’t it? Rae had told her so before, when she’d given her the amulet the first time.

“I’m sorry, Rae,” Claire said, quiet. “If you say so, I will take it as an article of faith that I've saved you. Yet, after all this time, I’m no closer to understanding how.”

“You wouldn’t have believed me at the time if I’d explained,” Rae said with a heavy sigh. “No, don’t apologize, it’s fine. I know it sounds weird. I’ll do my best.”

She disengaged from Claire and began to pace. Claire waited.

“I’m told I showed so much promise as a kid. I was pretty clever, some cool people like me sometimes, and also I guess I have this amazing magic: I could’ve probably lived a good life.” She kicked a pebble and watched as it skittered across the ice, bounced off of a rock at the far edge into the treeline and out of sight. “That was the worst thing. There were so many things that I could’ve done with my time and absolutely none of them were worth doing. There’s not much more sickening than seeing every possible meal you might ever want served to you while you have zero appetite. You starve and you can only blame yourself.”

This all sounds very familiar, Claire realized. She bit her tongue for now.

“All of that changed when I saw you for the first time,” Rae said. “I fell in love. Instantly. Who wouldn’t? Maybe it’s silly that you had such a profound effect on me, but you did. You gave me a purpose when I… needed something, anything, to give me something like that, real real bad. I didn’t even know how empty my existence was. I woke up every day without knowing why I still did it. Then you came along and suddenly there was something in my life that mattered again. It barely mattered that I knew you would never choose me. The mere fact of you was enough to save me.”

Somehow Rae’s words could still move her, no matter what. Claire didn’t know what to say. It was too profound for a response.

After waiting a moment to see what Claire might say and hearing nothing, Rae retook the initiative. She brought Claire’s hand in close, leaned down, kissed it. Then again down her fingers. With a cheeky smile she parted her lips ever so slightly and bit down on the final knuckle of Claire’s pointer finger. Pulling away, Claire gave her the most ineffectual tiny slap in the world. A lesser intellect might have even called it a caress.

“Cease this at once. We’re in public.”

“Mm.” Rae looked unconvinced, that damned smile spreading.

Claire blushed and tried to move past the warm feelings spreading throughout her body.

Neither the time nor the place, I think.

“You were wrong, in the end. I did choose you.” she said, trying to distract herself from her baser instincts.

“Mmhm. Yeah, you did,” Rae echoed. She relaxed, dropping the smile, though not quite looking unhappy. “That still doesn’t feel real. Anyway, that’s my explanation, that’s all I got. Does that make any sense?”

“More or less. It’s a lot to take in. Forgive me if I ask clarifying questions at a later date, but yes, I do consider one question answered. As for the other…”

“What? Oh, trust, right. I guess that didn’t really relate to the trust thing, did it,” Rae said. She threw a rock into the pond like she was skipping a stone. It bounced. “I guess it’s pretty simple. I trust you because you’ve never let me down. On the contrary, you keep exceeding my expectations for you. I knew you’d be a good person—not that it matters—if you ever let yourself try. I never thought you’d be a saint.”

Claire frowned. “I’m not. You’re delusional.”

“Me? Delulu? Maybe. Except, no: Claire, you keep trying to hug people who have literally tried to kill you. It makes protecting you so stressful for me.”

“Name one.” Claire reconsidered. “Fine. Lene and Louis. Name three.”

“There aren’t three!” Rae was halfway between laughing and shouting, annoyed and amused. “But one is one too many! Do you think everyone else draws from whatever wellspring of infinite forgiveness you can apparently access?”

“I don’t forgive incompetence.”

“Okay. So you don’t suffer fools—except for me—but who does? Sorry, sorry, I’m sort of straying from the point I’m trying to make. Basically,” Rae said, taking a deep breath, “you’re fighting for something beautiful. You have this love for and belief in human dignity that I haven’t really seen in anyone else before except the terminally naïve. You’re not like that though: you’ve lost people, been hurt, been betrayed, yet you always choose to be kind regardless. You have this idea in your head that I’m a better person than you and I’m not. Every time I’ve been hurt it’s made me worse. When you’re hurt you force yourself to change for the better. If that doesn’t make a girl saintly, what does?”

Claire could choose to respond to that, to say, ‘no, I’m still not a good person,’ and get drawn into a useless argument. Or she could close this trap of Rae’s own making around herself. She finally had the thing, the lodestone, that finally made all of Rae’s actions and emotions up to this point make sense.

Finally, everything clicked: all the reasons why Rae needed Claire as badly as Claire now needed Rae. All her various raisons d’être weren’t some complex puzzle to which Claire was missing pieces. Rae had already given Claire all the information she’d ever need; it was simply that neither noticed at the time. Or so Claire thought. If she was right about this she would’ve had one big fact about her lover figured out at last. But if she didn’t say anything now, she might lose the chance to know her. It was time to learn from Yuu a bit. It was time for Claire to gamble on something that mattered, and she liked her odds of being right.

She’s like me.

“You lost someone,” Claire said as the realization dawned over her. “All you want is for someone to stay by your side, but it hurts, because all you can think about that whole time is how badly you’ll hurt when they leave you. So you don’t let anyone in.”

Rae didn’t deny it. She hung her head instead and stared at her shoes.

“Will you tell me about them?”

“He—about him,” Rae choked out.

“Him? That’s the first thing you’ve said all day that has actually surprised me.” Claire fell back against the branch she’d sat on before, making sure her hand stayed nestled into Rae’s. “Not a former lover then, I take it?”

Rae followed her lead, leaning up against her, as she let out a mirthless laugh. “No. Not remotely. Not even spades, let alone hearts—I don’t have time to get into that. No, he was a friend. We grew up together. Me, him, two other friends I haven’t mentioned yet, I guess. But he left us. He always did like to leave the party without saying goodbye.”

Rae laughed. It would be a horrifying thing to laugh at, if Rae was saying what Claire thought she was saying. But there wasn’t even a shade of humor to the noise. It shook as Rae’s hands and shoulders shook with barely-suppressed emotion. She’d turned away, her face out of sight.

Claire wasn’t callous enough to deny her this defense mechanism, but it killed her knowing that Rae had borne yet more weight alone. So she tried to shoulder the burden too: she pressed herself bodily against Rae’s back, a light pressure on the bridge of her nose as she squeezed tight. Her hands clasped in front of Rae’s heart.

“Will you tell me about him?”

A slight tensing of the muscles through her back and shoulders—Rae had nodded, just barely. One of her hands went to her face, wiped something away, and then fell to her side once more.

“He wasn’t like Yuu. He wasn’t cursed. But he was pretty close. He was a guy, but due to an accident of birth, his parents forced him to act out the part of a girl, in the most regressive and misogynistic view of what that actually meant that you could ever imagine. Hyper-conservative in ways that would be seen as regressive even by Bauer’s standards. I didn’t know them too well, but it was like they were letting him go to school as a favor to him instead of as like… education being a fundamental right?” Her voice was even, but she was agitated, kicking dirt back and forth with her heel. Rae spent long moments crushing a twig misfortune enough to find itself underneath her shoes before she could continue. “As long as he was in school, he had a bit of leeway. He could make friends they didn’t approve of—which eventually included me, for example—and he could excel in his own ways. They tolerated that for a while so very graciously. Then that ended. For better or worse middle school never lasts forever. And then his folks were all, ‘Okay! Time to get married! Met a nice guy recently? How many kids ya gonna have? Et cetera.”

Claire felt Rae’s tears start to rain down into her hands without seeing them.

“He hurt me, once, because he was hurt,” Rae said, barely. It sounded almost as much like choking as speaking. The shuddering of her chest as she tried to fight back sobs was something Claire was so terribly familiar with. “It’s fine. He was scared and confused and he was my friend and I forgive him. Always. I wish I—I wish I had told him that sooner.”

Now at last Rae was crying in earnest.

She’d spent so long wishing Rae would let her give her comfort. That time had come at last and Claire discovered that she didn’t know what to do.

“Hey,” Claire said, reaching for words that wouldn’t come. She reached upwards, her fingertips resting on her cheekbones and nose. Then she cupped her chin and let a thumb rest over her lips. She wanted to silence her lover, not because she wished she would be silent, but because she knew speaking was hurting her. “I’m here. Hold me, Rae.”

At least she still followed orders. Rae’s arms found her, despite the fact that she still couldn’t meet Claire’s eyes. She didn’t speak for some time afterwards. Claire spent that time watching a cloud drift across the sky, not too far away. It was so low that Misha could maybe jump high enough to touch it.

The cloud had drifted out of the clearing of open sky above before Rae moved again. Claire felt her shoulders relax and her grip tighten.

“Talking to Yuu hurts,” Rae said. “If you’re asking me to talk about that sorta thing even when it’s annoying and selfish of me—yeah. Nowhere near as badly as I know she’s hurting, but. Oof ouch owie.”

“I wondered about that,” Claire said. “Typically, any time anything is happening to anyone besides me, you’re more or less apathetic to it. Yet her circ*mstances clearly had a profound impact on you. I’ve wondered why, but your story has helped me square that circle.”

“..Yyeah. Sometimes Yuu will say something and I’ll feel like I’ve come unstuck in time. I’m not in the capital anymore, I’m back home with Misaki looking for things we’ll never find, while he cries on my shoulder about all the ways he wasn’t the man he thought Kosaki wanted.” Claire let the new and unfamiliar name roll past her. It wasn’t her place to press for details. “I can’t let it happen again, Claire. I can’t stand over another person’s grave and wonder if I didn’t do enough.”

Claire closed her eyes and for a moment she was lost in time as well. A little girl stood all alone on a windy hillside outside the family crypt. She knew she’d been surrounded by people at the time: by her father, her vassals, and much of the country’s high nobility. Melia François had been well loved, after all. Yet looking back Claire could never remember their names or faces. They’d been part of the audience, not the show. Claire, meanwhile, had to read the lines they’d all expected to hear from a noble scion. She’d been good, she hadn’t cried, but she hadn’t been allowed to mourn her mother at the time either. Not even at her funeral.

It wouldn’t have been like that for Rae at all, she assumed, but the hurt must’ve been at least as great. Claire only had to blame herself for what she’d said to her, how she’d told her mother that she hated her in a fit of childish rage. She didn’t have to blame herself for what she had done—or rather, for what she had failed to do. What sort of person would she have become if Mother had lived a bit longer? What if Claire could have saved her but didn’t?

She could never know for sure, but she felt like she’d become someone even more like Rae. That was no good. There was such a thing as having too much in common with another person, especially when those commonalities were failings.

“Rae,” Claire said, falteringly trying to find the right words to convey this strange mix of empathy and worry. “I worry. I know what it’s like to become obsessed with finding or building an ideal version of yourself. It makes maintaining healthy interpersonal relationships… difficult. To say the least.”

“Are you saying that’s what’s happening to me?”

“A bit, dear. I’ve been lonely.”

“Huh.”

“Fortunately, you have someone at least as stubborn and irritating as you are, who isn’t going to let you retreat back inside your own head.”

“Oh?” Claire felt Rae smile with a hand that had wandered up to cup her face. “Who might that be?”

“Mmmmm… who knows.”

Claire gripped her tight around the waist with one hand and pressed on her shoulder with another, spinning her around until she could see Rae’s face once more. She was as much a mess as Claire had ever seen her, so she sighed and pulled Rae’s handkerchief out of her pocket and began to work.

Rae shied away from her touch like she was a child.

“Get back here,” Claire said, laughing softly. “You don’t have to pretend for me like everything’s okay anymore, you know. The illusion has shattered. Likewise, I will try to stop pretending for you. I’m sure that act has never fooled you. Maybe we can find some common ground in our shared failures.”

After Rae’s wordless sigh in response, Claire finished her ministrations and gingerly tucked the now-gross handkerchief in her coat’s inside pocket.

“Sorry. I wish I’d known how to bring it up. I’m not an articulate person in that way. I don’t even think I had a conscious realization as to what type of way I’ve been feeling until you forced me to. Like, you’re right, more or less. But it was also the first I was hearing of it. Sorry.”

“It’s okay now. I can hardly blame you for temporary lapses in self-awareness, considering… well.” Claire took a moment to fight against reliving hundreds or thousands of embarrassing moments from her memories before continuing.

“Moving on: take a moment to think about who you’re talking to, Rae. I am obsessed with succeeding and finding ways to improve myself. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, either. Frankly, most people would benefit from trying a bit harder, as you and I do. However, it can also allow a person to be ruled by fear, as I sometimes have been. I fear that I’m not good enough for the nobility, not good enough to help the common people, not good enough for you. No, don’t interrupt me,” she said, cutting Rae off. She’d been about to. “I know you don’t feel that way. My point is: perhaps you and I are more similar than we’d have ever wanted to admit, once upon a time.”

Rae chuckled, the first sound she’d made in several minutes that wasn’t 90% tears or more. “Can you imagine how mad that would’ve made you, if I’d said it to you a year ago?”

“Yes. She doesn’t have to know, Rae, it’ll be our secret.”

“I’ll never go back in time and tell her. So—are we okay?”

“Yes, Rae, of course we are. I feel much better now. I hope you don’t feel too much worse; I know that was hard for you to speak about. I’m sorry to press, but I’m glad you were able to share. And… next time, I’ll try and handle my frustrations better too. I’m not sure how, but I suspect my response to feeling upset could probably stand to improve.”

“Meanwhile I’ll just stop trying to become the Avatar, then,” Rae said. “I’ll leave it to Manaria. Fine. I’ll make do with just two elements. Should be plenty for our purposes.”

Claire ignored her. “We could all still run away, dear. If helping Yuu is too difficult, if her goals seem unattainable, you could just put her to sleep like you did me once, bundle her into a sack, get in a cart—”

“Get to a port, steal a ship and become pirates. Yeah, I know.”

“I’m not sensing a lot of enthusiasm for my plan. I’ll have you keel-hauled for that.”

“Ha. Okay, jokes aside: maybe I could ditch Bauer, in theory. Maybe Yuu and Misha could. Could you?”

“I’m tired of being selfish, but yes,” Claire said. “If I ran out of options, maybe I’d be willing to leave.”

“Okay, that’s good, that’s a huuuuuge relief. But before then? Running away seems like the thing you’d do when it’s game over. We’ve barely sat down to play. I think it’d be out of character for Claire François to run from a challenge like that, especially when it counts.”

Claire sighed. Rae was of course right, as usual. “Ugh. Damnation. No, I can’t just run unless it’s the only option, or I’d spend the rest of my life looking back and wondering what might have been. What a mess we’ve found ourselves in, dear. You’re scared of losing people, I fear for the fate of the country, yet we’re helping Yuu put all of that at risk. We’re doing so well.”

Rae shrugged. Claire was glad to see her expression return to a more analytical cast. Maybe Rae could stop pretending that she wasn’t clever now that she was pretending less that she wasn’t okay.

“We all have reasons for thinking her plan is sound,” Rae said, disentangling herself from Claire at last to pace and think. “There are things we can learn here that’ll keep us safer in the long run. In terms of getting the job done tonight, well: you and I are strong, Misha probably kept us alive back on that boat, and Yuu is at the very least not a liability.”

Claire bit her tongue. Her own magic was not exactly subtle. There was such a thing as too much power. As such she had essentially no place in their plans until the very end, but she knew better than to remind Rae of that. Anything seen as self-deprecating would just cause Rae to start an ever-so-supportive argument with her.

Rae stepped onto the still-frozen pond, letting herself slide a bit over the still surface. She turned around to face Claire again and nearly slipped in the process. “Whoops! But anyway, no: if anything I’m worried about everything that comes afterwards more than the operation itself.”

“How so?” Claire asked. She hadn’t brought up anything of the sort before. It was a bit late for misgivings; they were going to return to their rooms and get ready the moment they finished class.

“sh*t might get real, real fast?”

“Language, commoner.” Claire grit her teeth watching Rae almost keel over again as she tried to zoom around the ice. She knew that her lover could heal herself in a moment if anything went wrong, but it still made her nervous.

“No—woah!—really. There are people pulling the country real hard towards or away from revolution. Right now they’re in—augh!—equilibrium. Okay I need to stop for a sec.” Rae ran in place for a moment before building up enough momentum to leave the ice, continuing to speak back on dry land. “Salas is one of the main people keeping the balance—if only in furtherance of his own villainous agenda. I’m not that worried that our plans tonight are gonna fall apart. I’m worried that we’ll succeed—and it’ll make everything worse. Okay, if we win tonight, Salas gets weaker. He’s keeping Riche and the various revolutionary factions in check, though. Do you trust them? You can see the problems here, right? I believe you can do anything, Claire, even change the world. I always have. But I think how the world changes is too big for any one person to control, no matter how many plans Yuu makes or how well you lead by example. Being a noble is important to you, down to your bones. You might lose that.”

Claire shrugged. Even if Rae was right it changed little.

“I will do everything I can to redeem my class. I’m not so pessimistic about us as Yuu is, despite our obvious flaws,” she said. It was nice that they could finally relax and talk about this. Claire flexed her hands and then let them relax, wincing at the pain from the cuts she’d given herself with her nails. “However: this kingdom, these people, belong to no one, not even the king. We—the nobility—inherit certain rights to the land and the people therein, but we don’t own them. Even serfs have some rights of their own, not that they are apparently vindicated. If this kingdom is so fragile that it can be shattered by four children, then perhaps we ought to turn it over to the people and see if they can learn to rule better than the nobles have.”

“Well, regardless. I guess we’re gonna do this, so we’ll find a way to be fine regardless. I’ll try and forget about the long term for now; if we keep ourselves and our friends safe I have to hope the rest will follow.” Rae looked at Claire for a moment like she was looking through her and her voice became more focused and forceful in a way that thrilled her. “I promised Misaki I wouldn’t stand by and watch someone else share his fate. I promised myself that I’d protect you. And I promise you, right now, that I’m not going to abandon you. I’d rather break the world than break those promises.”

“You can’t break the world, my love,” Claire said as she fought the warm melty feeling Rae’s words had stirred in her. “I live there.”

Rae smiled sadly. “I hope we don’t. But we might.”

Chapter 20: 4.3 First Strike

Chapter Text

Whether stealing from a thief or killing a killer, Claire had never before believed that two wrongs could make a right. One day, justice would find both the criminal and the vigilante.

And me.

Claire’s legs and brain burnt as she climbed, trying to make sense of what the hell she was doing here.

She’d never considered something enormous but oh so basic before: why do people kill? Why steal? Wasn’t it obvious that both were wrong, evil even? Shouldn’t any person be able to tell at any time whether any action was right? If any given action was immoral, wouldn’t that be reason enough to stop?

That hadn’t been enough for her, though. Claire had been a thief since the day she was born, as had the entirety of the noble lineage she remained so proud of. She hadn’t even noticed until she was practically an adult. The revelation shattered her simplistic view of right and wrong and left her bereft of perfect answers to her problems. Nothing seemed simple anymore, and that hurt, but it did leave her open to creative solutions to her problems.

Like now. Maybe guilt had been her birthright. Maybe she’d let herself be led astray. There was a chance she’d been tricked into believing ill of her noble peers. Perhaps Princess Yuu’s cause was not just, perhaps there was no tyranny to resist. Perhaps Claire was betraying the righteous order of the world where the nobility ruled and others followed. Inaction damned her either way. Whether she opposed Salas on the basis of being a tyrannical noble or an upstart commoner that shamed the rest of his putative class, she had to oppose him. Moving forwards was the only way for her to keep a clear conscience.

With another surge of action, she kicked herself up the shaft. She tried to come to rest at a horizontal line of mortar between two bricks where the lower of the two jutted out from the wall. That could be a decent foothold: her foot moved to rest upon it. Then, in a heartstopping moment that probably took less than a second but felt like an hour, the brick crumbled beneath her toes.

Claire wasn’t a climber. She wasn’t built for this, trained for this. She wasn’t too proud to say she flailed. Both hands struck each side of the well like thunderbolts, which hurt like hell, by the way. She knew it was already bruising before she finished feeling like she was falling. Her right leg went rigid while the left bent to a sharp 90 degrees and then beyond 90 degrees, until she had a point of contact with the wall at four roughly equidistant points around the circumference. Her fall stopped, the magical power of friction doing her work for her.

The cramped size of this stupid brick-chimney was, at the very least, helping her out now. It was too small for her to comfortably fit inside and it had been poorly-built even when it was new. Both were were boons to her now. Her shoulders pressed hard against the crumbling bricks at her back, the only things that slowed her down enough to recover. There were three people ready to catch her with magic a few dozen feet below, should she fall. She was glad she wouldn’t need them. It would still hurt her body but more importantly her pride. This boring-yet-critical job was one of the only things she was actually doing to help, tonight. She resumed her climb and gained more confidence in herself with every inch of ascent. Her legs pumped against masonry as she slowly shimmied her way out of one danger and into another.

As her confidence returned so too did her grievances. It’s not like she’d wanted to take point, here. As she finished pulling herself up over the lip of the well and stepped into the basem*nt she cursed her father for years of strength and conditioning training. Of the four of them somehow only she and Yuu could do a pull-up. Yuu pulled rank, surprising none of them. It would be loutish to suggest a princess spend even an instant alone in her enemy’s lair, apparently. Thus Claire ended up with the worst job under duress.

Misha had at least checked and assured her she’d be in no immediate danger. After a brief visual scan of the dim dusty room she’d entered to confirm that was true, Claire found somewhere to tie off. She’d made her with a rope tied around her waist for just this purpose. No reason for her companions to be exhausted by repeating Claire’s climb, after all. They might need their strength later.

A stone column ran from floor to ceiling—that looked structural. Claire had gotten a lot of practice tying knots recently, so hitching her rope to it took no time at all. She tossed the tailing end back down the well, ignoring the muffled “ow!” that echoed up from below, and began to look around properly.

The smell of dust and damp metal filled the air, as well as an ominous but quiet and apparently sourceless hiss. She was sweating through the heavy black cotton of her shirt and tights despite the lingering chill of the underground. It wasn’t just from the exertion of her climb; the basem*nt was unpleasantly hot and humid, filled almost wall to wall by a somewhat alarming contraption of interlocking tanks and pipes. Heat radiated from an array of ruby gemstones as if from a fire. They sat behind a steel cage that had been welded to the device, safe from prying fingers if not prying eyes. It cast the only light in the room besides a dim lantern near the door. The soft red and gold light glinted off the copper pipes and sent indistinct shadows rippling across the floor. The only other occupants of the room were a set of shelves on the opposite wall by the door, covered with spare boards and nails and hammers and all sorts of maintenance supplies that had long since begun collecting dust.

After a minute or two a hand appeared over the lip of the well and flailed for a moment. Claire sighed and pulled Rae into the room as she waited for the rest of the party to arrive.

“Shame about the tights we’re wearing,” Rae said, tugging at her collar and then the mask that covered her face below the eyes. “Was hoping to be graced with an upskirt while you climbed.”

Claire sighed.

I fell in love with a perverted idiot. God damn it.

“You are incorrigible,” she said, poking her in the neck. Rae winced.

She consoled herself with a reminder that she’d known exactly what she was signing up for and didn’t particularly regret any part of it.

Poking Rae had hurt Claire’s hand more than Rae’s neck. Why was that? Oh: looking down, she realized that she’d made a mess. Her hands had been turned into a maze of tiny cuts where she’d pulled her way up across masonry during the climb. Grime and flecks of fired clay and mortar had ground themselves in until the blood was more brown than red, and it stung. By God did it hurt—

Rae noticed the problem at the exact instant or perhaps even a moment before. Her wand was out in a flash, a splash of water leapt out of the well-bucket and formed a bubble around her hands, and the pain Claire hadn’t even processed until moments ago faded fast. A faint blue glow joined the lamplight in illuminating the room for the moments it took the healing magic to work. After trying not to moan in relief as the blossoming pain receded, she realized how cold the water Rae’d used for her magic had actually been. She tried flicking the water off her hands by instinct but they were dry, Rae hadn’t left any behind, she was just cold as all dickens and had no relief. No relief until, of course, Rae grabbed both of her hands and interlaced their fingers as she drew them in close to her chest. Claire pressed against her until her hands were fully enveloped by both of their bodies and after a moment the burning cold began to subside.

“I’m sooooo glad I helped—uh, no one important—with her Saber cosplay once,” Rae said, stumbling over her words for a moment. “That chignon looks great on you, Claire. Can you say something about how you’re seeking the Holy Grail for me? And sort of pose, yeah, just like that? No, not like that—”

Claire pulled her hands away so that she could shove her face into them in embarrassment.

It was a mercy when Misha finished her ascent. Claire gave her a hand up and over the ledge, as her face was showing signs of strain.

“Thanks,” she grunted.

Actual gratitude from this prickly girl? Claire wondered, laughing to herself. Maybe the world really is turning upside down.

She bit her tongue. Not the place to start bickering, most likely. Besides, Yuu had finished her climb, faster than any of her other companions by far. She somehow managed to make mantling over gross old bricks into a dusty old basem*nt look almost elegant.

“Ladies first, after all,” she said with a mocking smile.

Claire had never met anyone else who seemed to get true enjoyment from such a cruel joke at their own expense. In truth, she’d gone last because she could catch anyone with water magic if they’d happened to fall. God forbid she miss a chance to be self-deprecating, though.

She looked around at this strange quartet. They all wore the same outfit; nondescript black cloth pants and shirts. Yuu had ‘requisitioned’ them from unwitting palace staffers over the course of several months. They were covered in dust now, of course. They were no longer suitable for royal servants, but it didn’t matter. For once their sartorial choices were fully practical. The plan was for Claire to burn them as soon as possible.

No set the princess found quite fit Claire, so Rae had made the necessary adjustments. She wasn’t fond of pants, only enduring the stupid things for the sake of their cause. It helped that Rae was quite taken with the sight of her in the stolen clothes. After finally getting the pants to fit right she’d taken one look at Claire and immediately lay down and spent the next several minutes recovering.

Yuu was still smiling behind her black mask. Claire had no idea how—worry was starting to roil in her stomach like acid. Was Yuu’s confidence merely a front? It didn’t make sense. She was always like this. The rest of her friends, of course, did not share her apparent excitement. Rae’s eyes lost their usual shine and while she still made bad jokes they’d lost a bit of their bravado. Misha looked affected in no particular way at all. No, that was wrong: her usual expression was cool and detached but not in a way that seemed affected. Now, her light red eyes were cold, blank.

“Soooo…” Rae started.

Yuu cut her off. “Oh, yes. Not a good place to dawdle. Misha, darling? You’re up first.”

The couple walked softly to the door on their cloth-wrapped feet as Misha withdrew her wand. As she slowly and carefully pulled the heavy wooden door ajar, Claire could see the faintest glow from the crystal at the end of her wand. The door opened silently, as far as anyone was aware. More likely Misha had localized a zone of silence around the hinges. She looked back at them and half-frowned at her lover, who was caressing a loose strand of Misha’s hair.

“Don’t breathe into my ear for this next part. You’ll distract me.”

Yuu chuckled. “Does that mean you find me distracting?”

“Yes.” Misha leaned in to kiss her on the cheek, then pushed Yuu back. The normally strong princess wobbled backwards like her legs had turned to jelly. “Now go stand over there for a moment.”

How novel, seeing a princess following the orders of a commoner. Yuu complied as Misha leaned back against the wall, pointing her wand out the barely open door. Then she closed her eyes and waited.

A minute passed. And then—

“The ground floor is empty,” Misha murmured. “As are the two… rather, one, above it. There’s a man descending from the third to the second. He’s breathing heavily, more so than he should be even though the stairs are steep. Maybe he has a heart condition? No, he’s drunk. He’s talking to himself but I can’t make out the words, his speech is slurred. He stepped into a room just now, didn’t lock the door, and is breathing hard in his chair. All that after maybe fifty feet and a flight of stairs. As always, the Chancellor isn’t sending his best.”

Claire shivered. She’d known that Misha was an extremely gifted mage. It hadn’t clicked for her just how strong she was. She could pick out details of a person’s breath from a hundred feet away through several walls and ceilings. She’d told them she could do it while they’d formed this plan but Claire hadn’t understood what that really meant until she’d seen it in practice. Just how many secrets had she heard in the course of living her life? It was a very, very good thing for her that she’d never quite managed to make an enemy of the girl.

Misha continued to speak, picking apart the placement and composition of their enemies in precise detail. “...the other four are split, two and two, between the fourth and fifth. On the fourth floor, one’s pacing in what might be an office. The other… eurgh. He’s distracted by whatever is on the sheet of paper he’s holding. Obviously I can’t see it but I can guess what it is, based on context clues. Then up on the top floor, they’re cleaning up. Not quite frantic but they’ve worked up a sweat, and they’re saying something about… oh, a shift change. What time do we think it is?”

“I knew I should’ve worn my watch,” Yuu sighed. “We left at midnight, sharp. It should’ve taken us no more than forty-five minutes to get here from school, and then a bit to climb up here. It’s no later than one.”

“Your watches are custom-made. If you’d worn it you would’ve lost it and given away your exact identity,” Misha said, frowning.

“It’s only sporting to leave a calling card at times such as these.”

Misha shook her head but didn’t engage. “Moving on; apparently these two will be relieved at roughly 2 in the morning or so. They’re talking about one of their higher-ups in hushed tones. They sound frightened of ‘him’, whoever he is.”

“Almost makes me curious enough to stick around for an hour and find out,” Yuu said.

“Let’s not,” Claire cut in. “We’re already risking enough by being here. We have a good plan—we ought to cleave as close to it as we’re able.”

“Yeah, should we maybe, like, pick up the pace? We’re burning daylight.” Rae paused, then tried again. “Burning… night… light? Nevermind.”

Yuu’s eyes flicked between Claire and her lover, noting their objections without comment. It was hard to tell if she’d been serious about wanting to stay longer. Her innermost thoughts were often kept screened behind a joke and a smile. Now, at least, she appeared to relent.

“Alright. Plan’s a go, then. We all know the drill. Keep things as physical as possible, try and keep to magic no one will see or understand. Sleep magic is great. Detection magic is great. Nothing flashy: definitely no Magic Rays and no Cocytus, you two.”

“Obviously,” Claire said. “I can’t think of a single reason we’d need such spells. No one is here except for dead-end office workers and drunken guards, just as we thought…”

She couldn’t help a bit of frustration creeping into her voice as she trailed off. Firepower—so to speak—was her only true talent. Even without quite as much raw power as Rae, her ability to manipulate the destructive forces of flame were second to none. This was worthless. She wasn’t here to kill enormous monsters in one shot, she was here to help read, steal, and then burn files. The exact same job could be accomplished by an oil lantern.

Claire and her lover could both have demolished this building without bothering to enter it. That would barely help them carry out Yuu’s plan, though. Worse, doing so would give away their identities instantly. Only she, Rae, and Prince Rhod had the raw power required to accomplish such a feat, as far as she knew. That was a very, very short list of suspects, and while the crown prince seemed kind enough she doubted he would be willing to take on this much blame.

Thus Yuu’s rules. Nothing flashy. Plenty of people in the kingdom had weak aptitudes for magic, so they could use their wands if they really had to without blowing their cover. Even basic spellcraft was best avoided, though. Misha was the only exception. Nobody in the history of magic, as far as anyone knew, could use wind magic to detect others as she could. The spells she used to listen into what should have been private conversations were not detectable by human senses. Of all her many strengths, this subtlety was the most dangerous. In short, she was a holy terror.

I hope I don’t need her to save me again tonight, like she did when we fought Louis, she’ll be insufferable…

She was also extremely annoying, and unlike Rae not in ways Claire found endearing. Misha snapped her fingers, jolting her from her reverie.

“You ready, Your Grace?” she asked.

Everyone except for her was at the door, waiting, looking back expectantly at her. Rae looked the most concerned of them all. They’d made up (and made out) after their fight earlier in the afternoon. Those sorts of challenging conversations only really left one’s mind after a good night’s sleep, though, and they hadn’t had one yet. They certainly wouldn’t have the chance to sleep tonight, either. As a result Claire had been on edge since well before their plan began in earnest. Even before the conflicting feelings and the tension caused by becoming a criminal began to settle in, Claire had not been calm.

She didn’t have to be here. No part of the plan from start to finish actually required her presence. If she wanted to turn back, she still could. She didn’t even think her friends would mind. They could do this without her.

Claire’s jaw worked silently for a moment as she stood, lost for words. She wanted to say she’d been ready all along, but the words hadn’t left her mouth.

“Hey, look at me.” Yuu waved to her with two fingers, dim in the lamplight, casting long shadows across the wall. She sat against the two short steps leading up to the door out of the basem*nt. Somehow, she almost looked relaxed, lounging back, an elbow swaying out to rest on the top step and letting the hand support her head as she sat askew. “I think you need a reminder of why we’re actually here. That’s fine. I’m not mad. I do need you to focus and to listen, though, Miss François.”

“Watch it,” Rae said, cutting in with an unusually sharp tone in her voice. In the gloom, Claire could still see her eyes flicking between Claire’s own and Yuu’s. “Do you think now’s the time to start a fight? I don’t.”

“I truly was just talking, darling. Are my words so dangerous in your mind?”

Claire intervened before her knight could further defend her honor. “Fine. I’ll listen. This is the point where we’re owed an inspirational speech, after all. Let’s see what you’re capable of.”

“Inspirational?” Yuu laughed. “No such luck. I’m going to bring the mood down further, but I hope it’s helpful, because… look. I don’t pretend I’m a good person. I’ve tried to be honest about that, at least, from the start of our little playdates and planning sessions. I’m doing all of this for myself, but I’m not the only one who stands to gain from Salas’s losses. Think about the situation that we’re in as a country. The king’s top advisor is a monster. Even if my father were aware of what sort of man he’s working with—and I have no reason to trust his judgment—he could not remove him without sparking a civil war. Because he keeps the politically extreme urban poor in check, my father needs him, and because he keeps the taxes on the nobility low and easy to cheat, the nobles will never remove him from his post. I don’t know if they’d care if he murdered one of them in front of the Royal Diet. That’s how useful he is to them.”

It wouldn’t be the first time he’s tried, Claire thought. Louis’s assassination attempt had taken place offshore, at the kingdom’s periphery where it might not have been treated as anything other than a tragedy. She believed Yuu, had seen enough evidence, that she believed Salas was almost certainly behind the attempt on her life. For a trivial sum he could have saved Louis and his mother instead. Claire would have. The poison Cantarella… was it all connected? Was the mysterious assassin who’d tried to murder Prince Thane one of Salas’s creatures as well? Surely Nur wouldn’t sell their precious poison so cheaply. Claire doubted that more than one faction within Bauer had access to the poison. The pattern fit, too: using monster (or gh-ghost) attacks as cover for an assassination attempt. If Salas was responsible it was a crime that warranted execution. More importantly, he’d endangered a majority of all the people that Claire had ever cared for.

Yuu continued. She was built for these sorts of speeches. Perhaps she liked to hear herself talk a little bit too much (Claire knew better than to say she liked the sound of her own voice) but she had a talent for it. Claire could charm and flatter but never lead. It was better to let each of them stick to their own talents, perhaps.

“They will never care about his crimes; they’ll find some way to justify it, or call any evidence regarding them a lie, or to silence his critics, because he is their advocate and they are all the same. If we could prove any of his wrongdoings—of the treason, of the assassination attempts, of the children he’s stolen and sent God-knows-where for God-knows-what purposes—to my father, perhaps he would act against him.” Yuu paused, took a breath, and pulled down her mask so that she could speak unimpeded. Her favorite cruel smile twisted her face. Claire assumed that the greater part of that hatred she felt was, as always, directed inwards, but it was always hard to tell. “Don’t hold your breath, though. He’s happy so long as Salas doesn’t get in the way of his precious science projects and his incremental meritocratic reforms. We’re here, we know what he’s doing, so we’re the ones who’ll stop him, whatever our selfish reasons for being here.”

Claire almost objected. Were Claire’s reasons for being here selfish?

No, was her first instinct. I’m doing this for the people. For a cause. For a better world.

And then, that nagging voice in the back of her mind:

You know that’s not true. You’re doing this to sleep at night. So that you can continue to tolerate your position, your wealth, with every advantage that so few other girls in history have ever been so lucky to have.

Most days she didn’t believe that voice. But today? If it was okay to be selfish? She at least didn’t have to shut it up. Selfishness or selflessness didn’t have to enter into the equation. One way or another, that wasn’t the point anymore. What mattered was this: Claire had to be here. She knew what kind of person she wanted to be; someone who couldn’t sit idly by at the thought of injustice being done.

As Yuu went on, Claire watched her other companions’ reactions as a way of trying to quiet her own racing mind. Rae twirled her wand around her fingers, not looking bored per se, but neither did she appear to have much stake in this conversation. She caught Claire’s eyes, smiled reassuringly with her eyes, and blew a kiss through her mask.

Claire studied Misha while Yuu spoke. Her reactions were more interesting, and she couldn’t understand what inspired them.

“Some of the Chancellor’s men steal children off the streets. We’re not going after them tonight, but the people in this building are the ones who make that possible. Money has to move around, ‘goods’ have to change hands, records have to be kept. I’m sure none of these people like to think about what they’re actually doing. I’m sure they have great reasons why they’re better than their colleagues, why they’re innocent, why their hands are clean. This is absurd. It’s like arguing that your right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. Remember: we’re striking at a giant tonight. We might only be able to attack Salas’s organization one finger at a time. Any one of a giant’s fingers might not appear bloodstained at first glance, but trust me; there’s plenty spilled elsewhere.”

Over this minute or two of earnest soliloquy Misha slowly sank deeper and deeper into herself. The brief flash of her eyes Claire caught before her head tilted too far forwards was the most pain the girl had ever shown. It wasn’t much, it wasn’t long, but Claire had seen enough. For a moment there was nothing there, nobody home, more like Misha was an empty body possessed of no motive force, no spirit, like a clock that had finally wound all the way down. Then she moved again, hands clutching opposite shoulders, looking away, kicking her feet as she paced.

Claire had never seen the girl looking so defeated, and it wouldn’t even matter. Misha would go wherever Yuu went. More importantly, she was the crux of the plan. It was entirely up to her whether they could proceed, and she wasn’t backing down. Claire’s pride wouldn’t allow her to, either. She wasn’t going to be outdone by a commoner. Not this one, anyway.

“The Chancellor has to go in order for the rule of righteousness to return to Bauer. He runs the courts, though. He has legal and extralegal ways of dealing with his political enemies. Any opposition to his authority could be twisted into a crime, even treason. So: what are you going to do about that, Miss François?”

She already had her answer. She’d hesitated because she was weak, not uncertain. Still… this talk, it helped stiffen her resolve. Claire and Yuu had many points on which they disagreed. She didn’t share her overwhelming cynicism and hoped that she never would. The simple fact that she wasn’t the only person who saw the flaws—who knew that everything had to change somehow and if they weren’t responsible for that change someone else would be—was enough. Everything else could be worked through.

Claire was going to help her, in the end, for the simple fact that what Salas Lilium did was evil, and she knew about it, and she could never now un-know it. She had to oppose him. He would make doing so legally appear to be a crime. Why not, then, break the law? Laws that bound her, but which did not protect her… they were awful. Now she had an idea of how commoners felt. And that—feeling like a commoner, in any capacity—was the one thing that she could not stand for.

“I’m going to get this over with quickly,” Claire said. Then she walked forward, through the door that Yuu pulled open for her.

Chapter 21: 4.4 Broken Entry

Chapter Text

Misha took the lead as they left the dusty basem*nt.

The ground floor was somehow darker; the lanterns lining the walls next to each doorway burned only dimly. Their search began, slamming open the doors of what looked to be soldiers’ quarters. Most of them appeared disused, lacking even sheets on the narrow cots. Claire withdrew her wand from its spot near her waist and summoned a flame over their heads. It cast short sharp shadows of the four of them over the floor that barely ranged further afield than their feet.

She’d expected this place to be crawling with armed guards when they’d begun their planning. They were there to steal very incriminating documents, after all. Regardless of how critical the information contained wherein might be, their very existence was evidence of a crime. Why wouldn’t they be guarded?

Well, it wasn’t so simple. By law, no troops could muster within the state region of the capital. Nobles had a right to some variable number of retainers based on their rank but not many. The Chancellor’s private army—or criminal syndicate, or intelligence operation, or whatever you’d like to call it—certainly surpassed his allowance. For these forces to concentrate in any way would invite questions he might find unpleasant.

So, Yuu explained to them, Salas Lilium never kept too many of them in the same place at the same time. He spread them out, keeping them in heavily-policed parts of town. Gendarmes could be bribed to look the other way, or else to join in on their plot. Any of these men, criminals or police, could keep an eye out. If there was any new suspicious activity in the area, such as—just for example—four girls breaking into his office, they’d know. They hadn’t counted on getting attacked from beneath, but why would they? One thing guarded this place moreso than padlocks or guards—reputation. Salas Lilium was one of the most powerful people in the country, second only to the king and perhaps the Pope. Who would be stupid, crazy, or desperate enough to challenge him?

Claire looked back at Yuu after clearing one room and saw her eyes burning a deep emerald green in the firelight. There was a certain thrill there, a hunter’s glee, of the sort that Claire had been searching for all day but hadn’t found. It was a bit disconcerting, but she had that right, Claire figured. Yuu was just trying to take control of her life and her destiny, same as she.

None of them were ‘sneaking’, though, not in any way you’d describe as such from a distance. Claire had a vivid mental image of how burglars and spies behaved. Keeping close to walls, moving from shadow to shadow, barely even breathing out of concern for blowing their cover: these were their stock-in-trade. She had no particular fantasies about joining the Secret Service. Such work was beneath her. The idea of being an agent had always been delightfully evocative to her, however. She could fantasize about being such a character from one of her novels, moving unseen and unheard through her enemy’s den.

Misha obviated any need for such theatrics. She kept to the front of the group, wand out and glowing dimly. Her spell cast an invisible curtain of silence surrounding them. They could speak at any volume, even scream, without being noticed. Their footfalls would not reach the ears of another soul unless she permitted them to hear it. If this constant spellcasting was wearing against her energy reserves, she didn’t show it. Her stride was swift and sharp as she led the way down the hall, letting the three who followed in her wake check each room in turn.

Every door except one was unlocked. Yuu spent about thirty seconds with that last closed door. With a flick of her wand she froze the lock, manipulating the tumblers within with her ice until it clicked open. There was nothing exciting inside, however: more bunks that had never been slept in and trunks without any belongings within.

“Looks like he could quarter a small army in here,” Yuu observed, once she’d finished scanning the room. “Naughty, naughty. He doesn’t command the Army of the Interior, so this is a big no-no. Anyone who’s read their classical history knows why we don’t allow this sort of thing. Yet another little bit of treason. Ah well. Shame that it’s hard to conclusively prove. He’d level this place before he would let it get investigated by the Crown.”

“I sure wish I had some sort of… hand-portable, pocket-fittable device that could capture evidence of all this stuff we’ve seen,” Rae said, shaking her head. She mimed a sort of clawed grip of a nonexistent object with one hand and tapped at the air with another. “Something that could make a picture, or a painting, just like that, of anything you pointed it at. Would be realllll useful.”

“That would be useful.” Misha flicked Rae’s hand. Rae recoiled, blinking, and recovered from her strange reverie. “Unfortunately, we live in the real world, and that isn’t an extant thing. Come back and join us here, Rae.”

“Right! Good catch. Thanks, Misha. Maybe I can do some artificery another time and sort that out, but no promises.”

They ascended after making sure the files they sought weren’t on the ground floor. Due diligence, after all, even if they’d been sure that they wouldn’t find anything in these rooms. They were confident in their assessment that the files would be in the same rooms as Salas’s men. There was no reason for anyone to be here overnight if not to manage Salas’s illicit empire, after all, and all that work took place on paper. One of the downsides of being a criminal, apparently. When one traffics children in the dark, one must also file invoices and do payroll in the dark as well.

They ascended the stairs. Every hair on Claire’s body was standing on end, and the unease tightened with every step.

Several different jarring sensations interlocked and overlapped in Claire’s mind and across her skin. Being in a dark building at night, the eerie shabbiness of an abandoned office, being somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be: all of this felt very, very wrong. She wasn’t even worried about whether they’d be able to out-fight a couple of drunks and bureaucrats. Her greatest battle was against herself, against the silent screaming in her head and feet that urged her to flee this place.

To bring herself back to reality she focused on the back of Misha’s head, at the head of the column advancing through the narrow halls. A black hood covered her distinctive silvery hair, so there wasn’t anything for Claire to focus on besides the wrinkles in old faded fabric.

And all the while, that unease followed her. They were walking without care for the sound of their footsteps. Surely someone would hear them, someone would know; but, no. When Claire focused, it struck her how unnatural the silence surrounding them was. All the sounds of the street that would be somewhat traveled and audible even at night were deafened. The rattling of pressurized steam through the pipes and the hiss of the gas lamps did not reach her. Then she would get close, only a few feet away from the silent things, and the sound faded into existence in an instant. As quiet as these noises were, she was startled every single time they flashed in and out of her awareness.

Misha could become a monster so easily. With power like this…

Or with power like mine, Claire realized. She could drill herself on discipline and control for a lifetime. In fact, she had; but one errant spark or a single wrong move could start a fire. Water magic had made fighting fires so much easier and safer, but it was always a risk even now. Every flourish of Claire’s wand could lead to a blaze leaving her control and changing dozens or hundreds of lives forever.

So: that distraction had failed utterly. Claire felt worse now. She wouldn’t even be able to enjoy punching this first goon’s lights out. If he was too drunk to make it down the stairs, it didn’t matter how bad of a person he was, what crimes he’d committed or knew of but looked the other way. It just felt wrong.

Misha stopped in front of the door she’d indicated earlier when she’d scanned the building from the basem*nt. Her wand hovered, wavering at a spot around the door frame before steadying.

“There,” Misha said, tapping her wand lightly with her pointer finger for emphasis, pointing at a spot none of them could see.

“Understood,” Claire muttered. She sidled past Misha and put her hand on the door handle, Rae in tow. “Three. Two. One. Go!”

She charged through the door. It slammed against the wall, the flimsy wood warping and flexing with the impact like a rolling wave. Following the lead that Misha had given her, she charged into the dingy room. She only had enough time to confirm with her eyes that she was alone in the room besides her target before she struck. One heavy punch to the man’s jaw sent him reeling from his stool. She was small compared to him—inches shorter and not so heavyset—but he toppled. By the mostly-empty bottle of wine in front of him, and the several empties she saw littering the floor, Claire realized he might have been knocked over just as easily by a light breeze.

“Sleep!” Rae shouted, wand out, and the man’s slurred swear died on his lips.

It was over already. Their first target slumped on the floor, the flailing he’d belatedly began already ceased. Rae set about binding his hands together with the heavy steel cuffs she’d fabricated weeks ago for this purpose.

When Claire had asked her where she’d gotten the idea for such a thing, she winked and told her she’d explained later.

She had, and Claire wasted a brief moment in a distracting reverie. When she came to, every drawer in the room was opened, every duvet upon the bunks thrown wide open just in case there was any information hidden inside the soldiers’ sheets. Yuu was painstakingly lifting the man onto her shoulders, grunting with strain, until she could toss him stomach-first down onto his chair. She smiled and looked back at Claire when she was done, noticing her quietly observing this scene.

“We think this guy’s pretty drunk, right? Don’t want him to choke on his own vomit. Keep that mouth of his aimed down and away. He’ll thank me for it later.”

Disturbing. Claire didn’t know that was possible. How on earth did Yuu?

Best not to think about it, she decided.

This felt right, now. It was right for this to be so easy. They’d been caught in Salas’s web before they’d even known it, flailing desperately to cut his strings. First the fight with the Assassin and his summoned Chimaera, then against Louis. Both times, Claire had nearly lost people she loved. Less importantly, her own life had been at risk. She didn’t enjoy this cloak-and-dagger work, but it had ruled her life for a long time. It felt better to be a player than a piece on the board. Whatever her objectives: protecting her loved ones, furthering her noble cause, she finally felt as though she was where she had to be.

“Room’s clear,” Misha said. She looked tired already, shoulders drooping, wand still in one hand but limply held. The crystal at the tip emitted a faint white glow. “Let’s keep moving.”

“Are you alright, Miss Jur?” Claire asked.

“Yes.” Misha gave Claire a sidelong glare, her single visible eye filled with something that wasn’t rage but which defied any other descriptions. “Maintaining several auras at once is a bit taxing. Please remember that I only make it look easy. Can we hurry up?”

“Terse tonight, are we?”

“Shut up. Sorry,” Misha said. She shook her head, bringing her free hand to her nose, as she walked back into the hall. She almost looked like she was limping. “I would really prefer to neutralize every threat in this building so that I can sit down and breathe as soon as possible. That’s all I meant. Go.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up,” Claire muttered uselessly. Her heart wasn’t in it. Misha was working harder than her. In return for services rendered she could get a pass, this time.

Yuu held the door open as Rae and Claire followed her out. She didn’t bother pulling it shut behind her. She simply fell in line.

The floorboards creaked as they walked. Their footfalls made almost no sound, dampened by the cloth wrappings on their feet that replaced their shoes. Even without Misha’s aid they were nearly as quiet as their shadows, dancing across the walls in the faint lamplight.

They returned to the narrow, creaky staircase. It was a much easier climb now that her fears no longer weighed so heavily. Her knuckles stung a bit from where she’d punched the drunk in the face, but that was the only injury they’d taken so far. She was hopeful, now, that they’d finish ahead of schedule.

One more floor searched. They honored Misha’s request by working quickly and joking sparingly. They were thorough but not perfect. While Claire didn’t feel as though they were ever derelict in their duties, they might have missed something of note. It wouldn’t matter. Misha maintained a running commentary on everything of note the attic pair were saying. Their prize was almost certainly kept by the two men on the top floor.

The process repeated. Claire fought with Yuu for a moment on the stairs. Someone had to neutralize the man with heroic endurance who was, according to Misha, still pleasuring himself. After a short, sharp argument Yuu (begrudgingly) agreed that she would do it. that Claire had already taken the worst job of the evening, at Yuu’s insistence, and she was owed a break. Claire and Rae’s target was the man pacing in his office. He’d put his hands up and gone down without a fight as one flick of Rae’s wand put him to sleep. They returned to the hallway after a brief ransack of the place to find Yuu cursing and using water magic to scour clean her hands as Misha consoled her.

They reached the top floor. On the landing, beneath the slanting eaves, Claire was briefly arrested by the sight of the Capital’s lights. Few buildings she’d ever seen, let alone entered, were as tall as the one she currently raided. She looked down over the dim lights that now guarded the city streets, l’Ausseil I Bauer’s greatest gift to the people of the Capital, and wondered how many still prowled out of sight. How many Salas Liliums and Rae Taylors and Claire Françoises ventured far beyond the gaslamps’ protective halo? Could anyone ever know?

Misha held up a hand as she walked down the hall. The lamps lining the halls up here were either off or out. Either way, as she melted into the darkness, they saw a flash of motion. One palm raised, facing away—silence. She was worried, then, about the possibility that their prey would enter the deafening radius of her magic.

Claire hadn’t been talking, but she nodded, making sure Yuu and Rae had noticed as well. She held Rae’s hand as she walked on the balls of her feet towards the closed door. It lay at the end of the hall, the top floor only boasting a single, long room that ran along its entire depth. She ran her tongue over her lips as the anticipation mounted. One more brief fight and it would be all over. They could do the light reading they’d come here to do and then go home. It would be no different from visiting the library.

Yuu raised one hand until it hovered just between her head and the door. In the other, her wand was at the ready. Her empty hand went from a fist to: three, two—a flourish between each count, and then finally—one!

Yuu shoulder-checked the door. It flew open and she ran in just to the right of the frame and stopped. Claire followed, charging, then realized what had given her companion pause. Fast as lightning one of the two men inside, a brown-haired man with a slight build, already had a wand drawn facing them. Red light concentrated on its tip before being channeled in a flash into a bolt of flame blitzing towards her.

This all took less than a second. He was fast. Claire was faster.

With a flick, an exactly equal and opposite bolt launched from her own wand, struck his, and they both detonated harmlessly in midair. He tried again and again, both times to the same result: no avail.

Claire was frustrated despite her successes. She could muster enough strength to turn this man to ash, but that was the furthest thing from what she wanted. If she struck him at all, she could not be certain she wouldn’t leave him hideously injured. The image of that Commoner Movement boy’s burnt body flashed before her eyes, paralyzing her. Her adversary’s companion was running behind the man and then behind the bureau desk that occupied the back-center of the room.

Her nostrils filled with the phantom smell of burning skin she’d thought she’d forgotten since her childhood. She couldn’t do anything but watch as the man who’d fled opened a drawer and withdrew a gun from inside. All her overwhelmed mind could think of was how simple and elegant the machine that was about to kill her looked. It had been well-enough cared for that the wooden grip shone in the light between his fingers. The distinctive priming mechanism never caught or jammed as the man’s hand scrabbled at it. Then the hammer co*cked and he pulled the trigger. She saw a flash at the barrel and heard the loudest sound she’d ever heard in her life.

She waited patiently to stop existing. Oblivion never came. Instead a sharp-angled shell of ice surrounded her before she could blink, before the shot could find its target.

While Claire’s head and heart were racing with the thoughts of death, her legs and hands got busy. It was easy enough to escape this icy shield, as it only guarded her from the front. At least guns took some time to reload. Unless he had a second one ready to fire—and the fact that he’d left one fully loaded pistol lying around was already the peak of absurdity—she would be safe to break cover. She wouldn’t have to burn anyone at all to bring this skirmish to a close, she realized. The sight of the muzzle flare was still etched into her vision. It had given her what one might call a flash of inspiration.

Her next spell was brand new, invented and then cast within the span of a heartbeat. There were no projectiles for this man to block, no way to counter her besides Spellbreaking. Claire closed her eyes as her wand shone forth with pure, blinding light. It only lasted an instant before she heard her target start to scream incoherently and crash about the room.

Canceling the spell, Claire saw the now-blinded (temporarily? she hoped?) man stumbling towards her, hands over his eyes, wand forgotten on the floor. Behind him, Yuu slammed into the man’s partner before he could reload his gun and they toppled behind the desk and out of view. Claire had had enough: she charged. After a few steps to gather speed and close the distance, she planted her lead foot behind the man’s leg, turning him into an oversized lever, and struck him hard in the solar plexus. Unlike Claire’s earlier victim, this man didn’t have any liquor in him to soften his landing on the hardwood floors. The choking gasp everyone makes when the wind is knocked out of them repeated as he struck the ground. He curled up into a ball, unable to even yell with pain, and Claire saw Rae flicking her wand in the corner of her vision. Within moments he was asleep.

Claire took a deep breath. Two down, none to go.

A sharp tug on her wrist pulled Claire back behind cover. She wheeled on this new assailant, ready to strike, but it was only Rae. Before Claire could thank her for finishing the job, her maid began to shout at her, which didn't help the ringing she started to notice in her ears.

“Are you alright!? Are you hurt anywhere!? Talk to—”

“Be silent!” Claire snapped. It was all too much, the adrenaline, the deafening noise of the gunshot, the blinding ring in the center of her vision—she couldn’t handle this as well. She pulled her wrist free of her lover’s grasp. “Confirm that I’m fine later. Let’s make sure we’re done first!”

Before Rae even had time to look hurt Claire broke cover again, only to find as she ran forwards that the hard part of the day was already over. Yuu had the former wielder of the firearm on the ground. The man on the ground was raining down blows on Yuu’s constricting legs as he started to scream.

“No—it hurts! Stop! Stop! I’m sorry! Please don’t kill—”

“Not killing you,” Yuu grunted as she faced the floor and continued to twist into more advanced positions of her grapple. “Just teaching you—agh—a lesson. Pay attention.”

He flailed impotently with his fists, trying to strike somewhere it would hurt his assailant enough to allow an escape. She was taller than him by enough that none of his attacks could reach anything vital. One of the man’s legs was locked in a cage of flesh and bone, all four of Yuu’s limbs dedicated to keeping his leg fully extended. One of her legs slipped over his, the other lay beneath, her ankles crossed somewhere around her victim’s hips. It left the leg nowhere to go, no option except remaining at torturously full extent. Yuu’s hands gripped each end of his boots, by the ball and heel of his foot, and continued to twist. It was the same hold that she’d tried in class against her brother a month ago. Thane at least had the option to tap out. This man, apparently, did not.

He was awfully thin. The grown man’s arms and legs were rather spindly, especially by comparison to the Princess’s. She was perhaps an inch taller than him, and for all the darkness in her eyes during brief moments when she’d discussed her childhood, had missed very few meals in her life. She hadn’t slackened in her training, either, whereas her victim was clearly not a natural fighter.

Then Claire’s overloaded mind realized a horrifying fact it had at first refused to accept. The front of the man’s knee and the back of his heel were facing the same direction, toes pointing one hundred and eighty degrees opposite from the way they were supposed to face.

Legs aren’t supposed to bend that way.

Claire turned away the moment she realized what Yuu was about to do. She spared herself from actually witnessing the moment that she broke him. The sickening crunching noise—or perhaps it was more like a snap?—she could not block from her mind.

She’d already turned away. Twenty short steps, that was all. That was as far as she had to make it, before she could leave this room and its monsters behind for a moment. As gorge and shame burned their way up through her throat, Claire walked very slowly and carefully towards the open door to the hall. Every single cloth-wrapped step she took reminded her of how lucky she was for her body to be whole and intact, unlike the man still screaming on the floor.

It felt like such a long and short walk at once, but Claire managed to leave. As quickly as she could while her stomach heaved and arms trembled, she pulled her mask down from her mouth to her neck, doubled over, and was sick on the spot.

She’d thrown up so few times in her life. Alongside that horrific sensation of her body betraying her was always a curious sort of clarity. Her vision was so clear, for these moments, despite the instinctual tears that rose to the corners of her eyes. Her thumb traced along the hardwood floor and felt every individual grain along its length. Her sense of smell and taste—those she wished she could turn off, but they had been sharpened as well. There wasn’t much there besides bile. Not many chunks. She’d been too anxious earlier to eat dinner. Small mercies, she supposed.

Sound, though? There was nothing. As her hand hit the floor, legs no longer able to support her, the sound of screaming stopped abruptly. The change came faster than the striking of a flintlock’s hammer. With speed she didn’t know she still had, she clambered up the wall, ready to run in and stop whatever Yuu was doing to him now, if they were killing him—only for the screaming to resume, just as before.

After a moment and after regaining line of sight, and watching Yuu, now standing, waving her wand, it finally clicked. Her ears had crossed the invisible threshold that separated Misha’s universe from the rest of the world. The screaming had resumed when she’d reentered her world, then stopped, because Yuu had at last released Salas’s minion from the burden of consciousness.

Claire couldn’t look at her anymore. The screaming might have ended but the ringing silence was almost worse. She stepped over her disgrace down the hall two or three feet. Everything here was artificial except for her vomit. The clean white paint along the stucco walls, the distant glow of the lamp in the stairwell, the peace of it all: none of this was actually happening. The only thing that was real was the twisting feeling in her heel, the tightness along her calf, the panic in her spine that began to set in when she began to grapple with exactly what that man must have felt.

The pain struck her at the same time as an intense bout of loneliness. She’d thought Yuu to be her friend. She was her peer, at the very least. They had the same dreams, the same thoughts. For whatever reason, neither girl could continue being… this. This enormous thing that they were now aware of, this monstrosity of nobility, was the most pure and beautiful thing in the world: just as golden chains would be pure and beautiful. Both of them had decided to set it aside. Hadn’t they?

Yuu’s beautiful rhetoric and brilliant planning already seemed so far away. Such high-minded ideals had filled her head: protecting the innocent, casting down the wicked, lifting the shroud of ignorance from the masses. They were all gone. Their plan had already devolved into the same brutal domination that Claire had thought they were fighting against. One body broke another in the shadowed corners of a darkened room.

Claire had liked her. She’d wanted to help her. So… she had. And then Yuu did what she did as Claire forced herself not to watch, because she was a coward.

A hand dropped onto Claire’s shoulder. She was too tired from being sick to fight it. Besides, she already knew its warmth, its shape, its tender touch. She knew who it would be.

“I didn’t like watching that very much, either,” Rae murmured.

But you didn’t lose your dinner.

“It’s… horrible,” Claire said, taking a moment to wipe her lips with the outside of her sleeve. She tried not to look at what was left behind too hard. “How could anyone do that?”

“How could anyone fire a gun at you?”

“What?”

“Claire, he fired a gun at you. You—you could have died. Please, please understand that you can worry about yourself, too.”

“He didn’t have a gun!” Claire shouted. They were outside the range of Misha’s bubble, sound worked normally once more, but she didn’t have to worry about detection. The rest of the building had been neutralized already. “Not when she… when she did that. He was unarmed. Defenseless. Weak.”

“Good!” Claire looked up at her lover in horror, whose expression shifted from a closed-eye smile to a grim line of determination in a moment when she realized Claire hadn’t responded. “Were you worried about excessive force when we fought the Chimaera?”

“Well, yes,” Claire said, trying to keep up with this non-sequitur. “Only because we were fighting a monster and you were in danger! What’s that got to do—”

“What about Louis? We fought him, hurt him.”

Claire’s sickness returned with the memory. She had to take a moment to steady herself, elbow bending until her entire forearm braced against the wall. “He wasn’t a person anymore. Like you said, he was already dead. You’re trying to goad me into saying that this is the same. Pure sophistry. It’s not. This is a living, breathing person.”

“A person who—Claire, repeat after me. He fired…”

“he fired…”

“A gun…”

“a gun…”

“At me.”

“He fired a gun at me—yes, Rae, I know what he did! I watched it happen from the front row.”

“So what’s the big deal?” Rae shrugged. “Healing magic’s easy. He’ll have a bad few days until someone in his organization fixes him up. It’s not like it’s permanent.”

“Rae… healing is not easy. You forget how exceptional you are, sometimes.”

“Salas Lilium can do it.”

“Will he? For one of his foot soldiers? He has a job, Rae. He’s busy.”

“If he won’t do the right thing when he can, that’s not our problem anymore, right? That’s on them. Not you.” Rae, at last, pulled Claire into a hug. She wanted to protest, to say that she was disgusting right now, that she was weak and unworthy. She was too weak to even say the words. All she could do was let Rae comfort her. “I’m sorry.”

“What could you possibly have to be sorry for?” Claire asked, confusion jarring free some of her self-hatred.

It took Rae a moment to respond.

“I’m sorry…” Rae began, haltingly, “that I couldn’t keep your hands clean. That’s my job, as your maid.”

“It’s not important,” Claire said. “You’ve loved me. That’s already more than I could ask.”

“Not good enough.” Rae nestled her face into the crook between Claire’s shoulder and neck. She breathed slowly, in, out, until Claire found that every rise and fall of her chest matched her own. Strange: she hadn’t even noticed how hard it had been to breathe until she could breathe once more. “I thought if I did all of this on my own, I would be able to protect you. And then it turned out that I didn’t understand everything, that I barely understood anything. That’s why we have to work with her, with Yuu. If we know more, just a bit more, it’ll keep us safe. Can you do that? Can we stay together? Just for a little bit longer?”

Can we? I don’t know…

It took a moment, but the question forced her to slow down. To think, to step back from the pure emotional response she always jumped to but always hated. One deep breath, in, out. Calm, controlled, as befitted nobility.

Was Yuu’s crime unforgivable? Likely, no. It made her viscerally uncomfortable. It changed how she saw the Princess. It might indicate a greater trend in how Yuu thought and what she was willing to do. It was cruel and unnecessary, but it wasn’t a permanent injury, provided someone bothered to heal the man.

Claire wasn’t going to run from that yet. She couldn’t be sure she and Rae would be safe without Rae’s help. She had to see this fight through, to whatever end came of it.

Really, Claire wasn’t a good person either. If she wanted to hope that she could be better, she would have to extend that same courtesy to Yuu as well.

Not that changing was ever easy.

She realized that Rae was still staring at her, and pulled her lover in tight.

“Weh.”

“Yes, Rae,” Claire said, smiling. “I’m not running. I’ll stay.”

Forever, with you.

She wanted to vow this to her, that her love would be safe and eternal. She couldn’t. This institution they fought against, that she was part of, still had so many ways to pry them apart. For now Claire merely dreamt it, traced the words with her tongue, and hoped that would be enough.

She leaned into Rae’s touch, and they spent several silent moments staring through the window at the far end of the hall. There should have been more stars in the patch of night sky visible through the glass. The lights of the Capital below burned brighter but were beyond their reach.

“I’m so stupid.”

Claire turned, just barely, until she was nose to nose with Rae as the girl still rested upon her shoulder.

Where’s this coming from? she wondered.

“No, Rae,” Claire muttered. “Of course you’re not stupid. At least, not by comparison to any of us, and there’s no way we’re all stupid.”

“Well—hm. Maybe not stupid, exactly, but: unobservant? Naïve? Forgetful?” Rae’s gaze traveled far away. “Yeah… it’s that last one. I’ve been forgetting the most important thing about us, over and over and over, which is that only some people’s lives get to be a romantic comedy. I was trying so hard to pretend that we could be one of them that I almost forgot why I’m here in the first place.”

One of Rae’s hands rose to Claire’s face, the thumb slowly brushing lingering wetness from her eyes. As Claire looked deep into her lover’s red eyes, she thought that they looked older and sadder and far more tired than ever before.

“Sorry, Claire. This one might be a tragedy.”