New Decameron Sixty-Seven: Caitlin Starling (Patreon)

In This, At Least, We Are Alike

by Caitlin Starling

Pharyn Heir Lorelei Steddart sits at the conference table where she will negotiate her marriage. In front of her is a leather folder filled with notes, assumptions, expectations. There are no photos. No dossiers. She should be afraid for her future, but it’s hard to focus; even her nerves can’t pierce through the dull wrap of grief that has swaddled tight around her for the past six months.

She’s dressed in a custom-made, luxuriously soft woolen dress, narrow at the waist and falling in a gentle circle around her knees. There’s a glittering brooch at her right hip in the shape of her house’s crest. Everything, from her stately kitten heels to the silk scarf folded on her lap, is new. It is expensive beyond her wildest experience.

It is all the unbroken white of mourning.

Her uncle sits down next to her, either satisfied with his defensive prowling about the glass-walled room they wait in, or finally giving in to boredom. They are a matched set, except he looks natural inside a high government building, wearing his bespoke suit. He would have been here six months ago, while she still was still working in a factory office. Six months ago, his eldest daughter, Gwyndofir, would have sat in this board room, with some say in the impending match.

But Gwyndofir’s bones were burned to ash five weeks ago. The white of her uncle’s suit makes the shadows beneath his eyes all the darker.

She tries to sneak a look at her phone, though it’s new and nobody from her old life knows the number. Her uncle catches her. "Chin up," he says. 

She puts the phone away, blanching. 

Her uncle’s voice softens. "They will be here soon. They know how it would look to keep us waiting. We are not here to beg."

The words make her skin crawl all the same, and she has to bear down on herself to keep from standing, from fleeing the room. She wants to be in her old apartment. She wants to be by her mother’s grave. She wants to be out past the city walls, where maybe she could lose herself.

She does not want to be here, waiting to be bargained off in exchange for the possibility of rescue.

A bustling mob of suits turns the corner towards them. Aides, lawyers, advisors, all flocking around the Prince of Volun. She rises to her feet just a few milliseconds after her uncle does, but she knows she will be rebuked for the delay later. She has never learned all the proper forms of address, the various subtleties of the highest echelons of polite society. She never needed to, before this.

Rifting take her, she was living in a studio apartment six months ago. She didn’t even have a trust fund, let alone…

All this.

All this, because her family is dying. Is dead.

She watches the mob approach, and fights to slow her breathing, trying to feel something beyond stabbing grief and wretched anger. Even panic would be welcome, would seem appropriate.

And then the crowd in the hallway parts. The backs of Lorelei’s knees bump against her seat as she instinctively tries to retreat. Down the center of the divided mob walks a woman, nearly six feet in height, her dark hair shot through with grey, her eyes framed by an elaborate mask that stretches from her cheeks and brows to her temples and jaw. Beneath those woven metal strips Lorelei can make out rippled, glowing scars, pulsing a deep indigo. It’s as if the limiters the woman wears are keeping her skull together, not just managing the immensely powerful magic within.

She walks with studied confidence, pinstriped suit moving with her, never pulling awkwardly. She wears a decorative cape, held in place at her right shoulder with an elaborate pin that proclaims her rank.

She doesn’t need to wear it. Everybody knows her face. Everybody knows her cold, removed stare. 

"War Alchemist Corisande," Lorelei whispers. She has seen her on the news a thousand times.

Her uncle inhales sharply. Unexpected to him, too.

The prince’s aide opens the door. Most of the mob peels off and goes their separate directions, orders issued, and the prince enters. He is accompanied only by what looks like two lawyers—and the war alchemist. One of the highest-ranking generals in Volun’s army, who has no role in marital matchmaking. 

"Well, Lord Steddart," the prince says, extending a hand across the table. "It is good to see you on a happy day this time around."

Instead of at a funeral, he means.

"It is indeed," her uncle replies, his confusion already hidden. He bends down to kiss the prince’s ring. His lips do not touch the stone, and his hand doesn’t touch the prince’s. Posturing, or acknowledgment of potential contagion? She doesn’t know.

He straightens. "May I introduce Lorelei, my half-sister’s daughter."

Six months ago, that half would have been important. It had meant she was the last in line for inheritance. Now it means nothing at all; whatever is striking down her family, it doesn’t care about parentage or marriages. It only cares about the blood.

The numb spiral of her thoughts revolts in a sudden burst of grief, but Lorelei forces herself to keep moving, imitating her uncle’s gesture.

"She does have your father’s countenance," the prince says as he regards her. "And what is your mind about this marriage, Miss Steddart?"

"That I’m very lucky to have such a matchmaker," she says.

Her voice cracks.

The rehearsed line amuses the prince, who laughs and pulls out his chair. He sits, and so do the lawyers, and her uncle, and Lorelei. Only the general remains standing.

Her uncle greets her with a polite, "And you, War Alchemist? Will you be assisting in finding the match?"

The older woman’s mouth tenses. But it is the prince who speaks.

"War Alchemist Corisande is here to be the match."

Lorelei’s shy glance transfigures into a terrified, disbelieving stare. Corisande gazes back, coolly.

"Miss Steddart," the prince says, "I am pleased to introduce you to your wife. Nephele?"

The woman inclines her head. "Miss Steddart," she says. Her voice is steady, devoid of any emotion.

Lorelei can’t speak, not even when her uncle taps her shoe with his below the table.

"We are honored," he says for her. "Though I have to admit to some… curiosity."

Some confusion. As heir to the house of Pharyn, Lorelei should be matched with a similar scion, or at least a wealthy businessperson. Nephele Corisande brings no land, no lineage to the match; nothing but her own reputation.

A reputation as an ice-cold soldier, elegant in her brutality on the battlefield.

Lorelei can’t look away from her, not even when Corisande’s jaw tightens in annoyance, not even when the other woman turns her attention to the far wall, looking ahead blankly as she falls into parade rest.

"I understand," the prince says, "that initial tests have shown no connecting factor between all the deaths in your line. Is that correct?"

Her uncle is uneasy. "Yes, your highness. It isn’t an illness or genetic trait, not even foul play as far as the authorities can tell—we’re still at a loss." 

Her mother has been dead three weeks now, and still has no diagnosis, even after a thorough autopsy. All the doctors can say is that her heart stopped. Lorelei twists the scarf between her fingers at the memory.

"It’s probably magical in origin," Corisande says.

Her voice cuts through the fog. 

"I assure you," her uncle says, "we’re all properly warded."

"Then shall we blame divine judgment?" Corisande asks, voice level, no trace of cruelty in her mockery. "Wards can only go so far, and even the best only defend against whatever they were designed to defend against. I am here to investigate."

"Do we have to be married for that?"

Everybody turns to Lorelei then, but she barely notices. She is fixated on Corisande. The anger at her situation leaps up in her gullet again, followed by desperation, and then, worst of all, hope. Hope that this is worth it. Hope that Corisande can help.

"Strictly speaking, no," the prince says. "However, the marriage would solve a host of other issues. What the general lacks in a family estate, she more than makes up for in status and wealth. She—"

"Nobody else would agree to it, would they?" Lorelei asks. And just like that, the hope fades again.

Her uncle grabs her wrist below the table, trying to get her to stop.

She doesn’t want to stop. She wants to scream. She wants to tear the whole room apart. She wants…

So much. And only this: that the nightmare be over, that it could have never begun at all.

The prince’s lips quirk in a wry, surprised smile. "You’re very perceptive."

"Your Highness, I apologize for my niece’s bluntness. I assure you—"

"Spare me." The prince leans across the table toward her, splaying one ringed hand on the wood. "You’re correct, Miss Steddart. While we could postpone your marriage during the investigation and try again once you are hopefully cleared of all threat, your uncle made very clear to me that the issue of an heir was to be the top priority in the match."

Her cheeks heat.

"And the war alchemist…" Her throat goes dry.

"Agrees to legitimize any children you bear, by whatever means." The prince sits back, spreading his hands in offering. "You may conduct yourself in whatever way the House of Pharyn approves of; there will be no contractual obligations in the arrangement except that you do not divorce, and that you assist War Alchemist Corisande in her investigations."

"This is very unorthodox," her uncle begins, and she thinks he’s about to disagree, thinks he’s about to argue that the search should be widened. Except, instead, he says, "However, we appreciate your dedication to finding a solution to our peculiar needs. We accept."

#

The engagement ceremony happens only two days after Nephele Corisande first meets the Steddart woman. It is a lavish affair, impersonal, and not for either of them. That’s probably for the best, because Nephele has had Lorelei answering questions and undergoing tests every waking moment between then and now, with breaks only for sleep and so that Lorelei’s uncle can take her to yet more dress fittings and to visit a fertility clinic for— future plans.

The rest of this arrangement, outside her investigation, feels more than a little sordid, but Nephele keeps to her duty and that helps her sleep at night. It is clear that Lorelei hates her, hates her uncle, hates the world. But she hates death most of all, and so she has cooperated. So far.

As they stand up together in the middle of the cavernous gallery, alone on top of a raised dais, surrounded by a murmuring audience of the wealthy and powerful, Nephele occupies herself with theoretics. She has ruled out the mundane, like the doctors who have gone before her; it is not a plague that has killed the House of Pharyn, and it is not poison, and it is not an assassin’s malice. There is only the connection of the family, which means that Lorelei, too, is at risk. 

For a moment, Nephele considers simply waiting to see what happens to her fiancé in the coming weeks and months, but though she is cold, she is not cruel, and her remit is to stop the problem, not just identify it.

"What are you thinking about?" Lorelei’s voice surprises Nephele. She thought this would be a silent affair; all that matters is that they are seen together, by everybody who crowds the balconies, talking and laughing, drinking, gossiping. Engagement ceremonies are for display, not for companionship.

Though perhaps, if they were a normal couple, it would have helped them bond. Shared embarrassment with the world, or pride at being together so visibly, or… something.

"About how pointless this is," she says. It’s a better, more polite answer than explaining that she’s thinking about Lorelei’s imminent death. That can go unspoken.

Except Lorelei is still hurt. Nephele feels her flinch.

This is not her problem. 

"Pointless," Lorelei says. "Yes, I suppose it is. All of this. How much longer do we have to stand here?"

Nephele checks her watch as surreptitiously as she can. "Forty more minutes until they expect us to circulate and talk to our guests."

Lorelei responds only by taking slow, even breaths, just like she does while she waits for Nephele’s to finish running her tests. She’s settling in. 

Nephele thinks about commenting on some absurd detail of their situation, if only to help pass the time, but decides against it. They have stood side by side, otherwise silent, not even touching, this whole time. 

It’s easier this way. For both of them.

It isn’t that Lorelei is not beautiful (she is, though it’s hard to tell, really, through so much sadness). It isn’t that she hasn’t enjoyed, on occasion, Lorelei’s commentary (though it’s been rare, given the circumstances). It isn’t even that Nephele never planned on marrying. It is that this whole endeavor is so alien to her existence that she doesn’t know what to do. What to say. What to think.

So she doesn’t speak, and she thinks about death instead. 

In that, at least, they are alike.

#

Five days later, Nephele is no closer to solving the mystery, but that much nearer to the altar.

It is night, but the city-state of Volun is still awake. Nephele sits in the back of her town car, skimming over new reports on her tablet. She has begun longitudinal tests of Lorelei Steddart, taking various measurements at the same time each day, every day, hoping to find some change. Some stasis. Some clue.

But there is too much interference. Too many emotions, too much change, and Lorelei’s vitals swing up and down and around, all within the normal range for severe stress so that even the most promising signs mean nothing else. Is her latent reactivity to thanatotic spellwork rising cyclically because of some inherent trait of hers, or some induced trait, or just because she’s grieving? Are the strength of all wards placed on her fluctuating because every test is measuring something subtly different, or because Lorelei has not been sleeping regularly? 

And how much is being thrown off by the medications she’s been started on, to prime her to bear a child she clearly does not want?

All her test results mean nothing, and Nephele has a headache. Her brain feels swollen, muddy, and she can see in the car windows that the glow beneath her skin has taken on a sickly tone. She needs to rest.

She is halfway between her borrowed lab and her apartment when her phone buzzes. She glances at it, expecting some note from the prince, or any one of a hundred mages and soldiers who need things from her on a seemingly daily basis, but it’s not any of them.

It’s Lorelei.

Lorelei has never texted her before, and suddenly she is afraid. Afraid that she has already failed, that she was not fast enough, that this girl is dying, and she—

-Do you think I’ll still be alive for my wedding? Serves her right, if she has to marry a pile of bones.-

The fear falls away, leaving only awkwardness, embarrassment, frustration.

The girl clearly hadn’t meant to send that to her. The appropriate thing to do—the easiest thing to do—is to delete the text and never acknowledge it again. Gallows humor, bitterness, anger… it’s all reasonable, all to be expected. And yet Nephele can’t bring herself to delete the text. 

It feels more honest than any of their structured, exhausting interactions have.

Lorelei is typing another message. Nephele has to put a stop to this, has to let Lorelei know she isn’t whatever confidante she’s trying to seek solace in. But before she can tap out the words, the next message springs to life.

-I don’t want to die.-

Nephele’s heart tightens in her chest.

There is no next message. Not because Nephele shuts off the phone, but because, for whatever reason, Lorelei isn’t expecting a response from whoever she thinks she’s talking to. The older woman is left staring at it, suddenly far too aware that Lorelei is not just a frustrating puzzle, not just an obligation, but a person. A very scared person.

A very lonely person.

This is not Nephele’s problem. But she still pulls up the app that shows her exactly where Lorelei is, and instead of being safely at home, she’s downtown. The neighborhood she’s in isn’t dangerous, but it is a long way from her apartment, and Nephele can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong.

She opens the intercom to her driver’s section. She gives him the address. She sits back as the car turns towards the west side of town.

There is an argument to be made that Lorelei should not be out in public at all. It isn’t so much that she is contagious, or vulnerable, but that there might be collateral damage involved in whatever terrible end comes her way. But Nephele decided the day her investigation began that she would not demand that of Miss Steddart. After all, the knowledge alone that she might be a danger to others would be deeply distressing, and isolation would mean nobody would be able to call for aid if Lorelei grew ill too quickly to call herself.

This is the trade-off: a desperate, vulnerable woman, alone, halfway across town.

By the time they’ve parked, Nephele has herself straightened out. She will check in on Miss Steddart, from afar if possible. If all is fine, Nephele will leave well enough alone. If something is wrong, Nephele will intervene as necessary, which will most likely mean just calling Lord Steddart to foist the whole thing onto his plate. Lorelei hates them both, but is more used to her uncle interfering. 

It will be easier.

Lorelei’s tracker places her inside a small bar. It is relatively new, with industrial-inspired light fixtures and a hammered copper bar taking up a large portion of the square footage. The array of bottles lined up on a mirrored shelf, like glittering books in a library, is staggering. She looks for Lorelei in the booths, at the tables, and finds her at neither.

No, she’s sitting at the bar itself, a tulip-shaped glass clutched between her fingers, containing the dregs of something liquid and golden. Even disastrously drunk, as Nephele now strongly fears she is, Lorelei has at least kept some dignity for herself. She isn’t slumped against the bar, and she manages a small smile for the bartender when he pauses to check in on her. From the fluid, easy way he turns to unload a batch of freshly-washed glasses, he isn’t on the verge of kicking her out.

Nephele isn’t needed here. She shouldn’t even have had to articulate the thought, should have already turned, already left the building. 

Instead, she’s sliding onto the stool beside the younger woman.

"You should come home," Nephele says, keeping her voice low.

Lorelei startles, twisting in her seat to stare at her, eyes blown wide. Her cheeks, already pink, turn red.

"How—"

"The engagement ceremony," Nephele says. "Part of the ritual placed a tracking spell on you."

That wasn’t the right thing to say. Lorelei’s expression crumples in panic, in despair. "I didn’t agree to that," she says. "I didn’t. That wasn’t in the paperwork. My uncle never told me."

Nephele’s shirt collar feels far too tight. She’d thought her actions reasonable, at the time. "It falls under cooperating with my research."

Lorelei turns away, staring at the wall of bottles behind the bar. She begins to shake.

Fuck. Not the outcome she wants. She rubs at her temples, her headache worsening. "I don’t intend to use it unless I need to."

"And tonight?" Lorelei whispers.

"Tonight you accidentally texted me instead of somebody else, and I…" She doesn’t want to say it. She makes herself anyway. "I was worried."

At first, Lorelei looks like she is about to cry. And then she downs the rest of her drink and says, "I’m not dying." Her fingers twitch on the stemware. "Not any more than usual, I mean."

She sounds just as defiant and alive as she did that first day in the conference room, where the match was made. Nobody else would agree to it, would they? she’d said, and Nephele had realized that the confection in white had been a person who knew exactly what was happening to her. Ever since, though, it has proven easier to think of her only as the problem to be solved. Simpler.

But Nephele can’t pretend anymore, not tonight.

"I wasn’t worried about that," she says. Thinks of elaborating, of apologizing for not making sure she had grief counseling, some sort of network, something to offset the strain of Nephele’s work so that she wouldn’t end up in a bar, alone, drunk and scared and lonely. But none of that feels right. Too little, too late, or perhaps too much. She pulls out her wallet and tosses some cash onto the bar instead. "How much is your tab?"

"I’m fine. I’m allowed to do this for at least a little longer, you know. I want to stay here." 

She’s slurring a little.

"Do you, really?" Nephele asks. "Or do you just not want to leave with me?"

"You’re angry." Lorelei sounds, if anything, surprised.

"I’m frustrated. There’s a difference." She flags down the bartender. "Will this cover her tab?"

From the look on his face, it more than covers it. Fine. The man deserves a good tip for taking care of her… fiancé. Soon to be, in the most round about, horrible way, the mother of her child. Nephele bites back a groan at the thought and turns her attention back to Lorelei, who is staring at her. Her eyes are wet with nascent tears.

"Let’s go home," Nephele says again.

"Where’s home?" Her voice is soft.

She doesn’t have the fortitude for existential questions right now, so she stands up, twitching her suit jacket back into place. "Where my liquor cabinet is," she says, and holds out her hand. "You may continue to drink your way to numbness there."

And you don’t have to do it alone.

Lorelei searches her face, and Nephele prepares for her next argument. But it doesn’t come. Instead, the younger woman scoots off her bar stool and grabs up her purse, then totters a few steps away. She’s wearing ridiculous heels that she doesn’t seem to know how to walk in. Probably her uncle’s doing, replacing her entire wardrobe with more "suitable" attire without taking into account the woman who’d be wearing them.

The very drunk woman who’d be wearing them. Nephele mutters a curse and comes to her side, gently taking her arm. Lorelei lets her.

"Did you drive here?" Nephele asks as they step out into the cool evening air.

"No. Bus."

One less thing to worry about. "Your uncle will be delighted to hear that," she says as her chauffer steps out to get their door.

"Fuck my uncle," Lorelei murmurs, then gasps, realizing what she’s just said.

Nephele is already laughing. "Agreed," she says, climbing into the car and holding out her hands to ease Lorelei in with her. Her driver shuts the door, leaving them in comfortable darkness, only a few inches apart. Nephele can smell the booze on her, but it’s almost like a perfume; she’s been drinking something with a lot of aromatic bitters. Vermouth cocktails?

At least she has good taste.

The car pulls smoothly onto the street.

The only lights are the persistent glow of Nephele’s own skin and the faint lights from the signs they pass filtering in through the tinted windows. They illuminate Lorelei’s face gently, and don’t glimmer off any tears on her cheeks. Nephele can’t even see if she’s blushing.

Good. Better.

"I’m sorry," Lorelei says after a long stretch of silence. "About—about texting you."

Curiosity makes her ask, "Who were you trying to reach?"

Lorelei ducks her head. "It’s stupid."

Nephele says nothing. If Lorelei doesn’t want to share, there’s no reason for her to push. Lorelei’s allowed to keep whatever lovers she wishes, and surely has her own life that Nephele and her uncle are otherwise doing their best to rip her out of. Nephele shouldn’t endeavor to damage it more.

Then Lorelei says, "My mom," and Nephele exhales sharply. "They haven’t turned off her service yet. I can still… she’ll never see it of course, but…"

"That’s not stupid," Nephele says.

Lorelei goes very still. Nephele watches her, wonders if she’s broken her, if she has overstepped a boundary that needed to remain between them in order for her to stay upright, stay sane, stay alive. She closes her eyes a moment. Then she pulls out her phone, and Nephele watches as she selects her mother’s number, and types out a message:

-I miss you.-

She hits send.

#

The apartment General Corisande leads her into takes up the entire top floor of the building, and towers above the rest of the central city. It has floor to ceiling windows, and though most have curtains drawn over them, she can see lights glittering far below, all the way to the outer city wall. From here, she can see all that is safe. All that is stable.

Lorelei realizes, after several long minutes of staring, that she is alone. While she stood transfixed, Corisande disappeared. She tries to figure out if she’s relieved or not, and decides the answer is a firm not. How strange, when just hours before she wanted nothing more than to run, to be swept miles and miles away by the shifting landscape beyond the city walls, just to avoid—

All of it.

The death, the tests, the treatments, the clothes, the marriage. The marriage, which is so laughably unimportant in the grand scheme of things, had come to stand for all of it, a kind of incongruous shorthand. And now, suddenly, it doesn’t. Not quite.

She wants Corisande to sit with her again. It was almost pleasant, their strange conversation in the car, despite the gigantic mess she was making of it all. Almost convivial, certainly intimate, and not so cold as all their other meetings. 

Is it wrong, to want her wife? Her almost wife. Nearly wife.

She looks around; the spacious, open-concept room is empty. A few lights are on, but overall the room is dim. She wanders over to the nearby couch, a very minimalist thing that doesn’t look at all comfortable. The entire room is cold and barren and half-empty. The view is impressive, but the rest is bleak. It’s a good reminder, she thinks. Even if Corisande—if Nephele was worried about her tonight, even if she was almost gentle, this is only a business arrangement. An investigation. Lorelei is being too sentimental and needy again, by half; she should know better.

She sits down, knees bumping against the metal coffee table. She wraps her arms around herself. The pain wants to come back in now, despite the numbing embrace of the four—five—six? drinks she’s had. It’s not that the numbness is receding, though; it’s that she’s adjusting to it.

What else can she adjust to?

Lorelei is about to tip headlong back into her wallowing when something soft and heavy settles across her shoulders. She looks up, muzzy-headed; Nephele is back and has draped a thick blanket around her. The blue glow beneath her skin is brighter here, even brighter than in the dark of the car, and Lorelei realizes she’s removed her limiter, the edifice of finely-worked, sturdy metal that keeps the magic roiling inside her in check.

"Your face," Lorelei blurts.

Nephele doesn’t seem insulted, though, and instead lifts one hand, revealing a series of interlocked metal bangles around her forearm. They are half-jewelry, half-shackle. "More comfortable for home life," she explains. "They can’t withstand power spikes during combat, but they can handle sleep."

"Oh," she says.

It’s startlingly intimate. Lorelei is certain the general has never been filmed without her mask, has never even been seen without her mask except, she would guess, by her doctors. She carries too much power within her. She is her mask, to all the world.

But not at home, apparently. And not around Lorelei. Not always.

And she’s—she’s stunning. Lorelei can’t look away. Doesn’t want to look away. There’s a whole host of new problems to grapple with, like if she’s allowed to be attracted to her future wife, and she isn’t sure if she wants to laugh, or cry, but it cracks away her numbness either way, making room for something a little more real.

Nephele must notice, because she makes sure Lorelei has a hold on the blanket, then goes to what turns out to be a modest liquor cabinet, filled with expensive whiskey. "I thought you’d have gotten started without me," she says.

Lorelei’s cheeks burn. "I’m not—usually, I don’t drink this much—" she babbles, until she remembers, vaguely, that Nephele had said something when they came into the apartment, about how she should help herself, but she’d already been too distracted by the view. Nephele isn’t passing judgment. "I’m good," she settles on. "Thank you, though."

Nephele pours herself a dram, then puts everything away again. She comes back to the couch, to the metal coffee table, to her. She stands there, awkwardly, and sips.

Lorelei wants to say something, but there is too much between them that is too hard to sort through just now. She has been through so many appointments, tests, interrogations, and she is so tired, down to the bone. All she knows is that she doesn’t want this—whatever it is—to stop just yet.

"I’ve done you a disservice," Nephele says.

The world goes very still. "I—"

"Let me continue. Please. You are in a horrendous situation, and I have allowed it to continue being horrendous, because I can’t fix everything that has gone wrong. It will always be horrendous, even if we solve this tomorrow. But…" Here she takes a sip of whiskey, falling silent, and Lorelei feels seen, because nobody else has cared how miserable, how terrifying this has been for her, on every front.

She’s been given so much by her change in station. Yes, the price is terrible; she has lost her family, her friends, her routine, her steadfast belief that she knows how the world works. But everybody agrees that she is lucky, too. She wears couture dresses in place of budget slacks, has an unlimited credit card, and is now being looked after by the most powerful mage, the most powerful soldier, in a city built on power. Perhaps, they think, the price is ultimately reasonable. Wouldn’t most people at least consider it?

Nephele understands, though. Lorelei would give it all up. She is drowning.

"But?" Lorelei prompts, desperate to hear more.

"But I can, at least, treat you like a woman—not a test subject, not a job—if that would help. None of this is your choice, so if you want me to be… warmer than I have been, I can…"

Silence again. Her hand flexes on the glass. Lorelei realizes she’s nervous. War Alchemist Nephele Corisande, nervous. She finishes the whiskey as Lorelei watches, rubs a hand over her jaw. 

"I’m going to protect you, as best as I am able," she says at last.

"Of course you are," Lorelei says. "I’ve never doubted that." She doesn’t see how this connects with warmth, with concern.

Nephele paces to the windows. She stares out at the city, and Lorelei stares at her. 

"Why did you bring me here?" she asks. She readies herself for another cryptic answer, something along the lines of, "I wanted to ensure you made better decisions with your time." 

But Nephele doesn’t say that. She says, "Because I wanted you to have somewhere to go. I didn’t want to leave you alone with… everything. Not again."

"Oh," Lorelei says, softly. Desperation kindles in her, alongside a kind of hope. Hope for kindness, and more than kindness. Intimacy. Partnership.

She does not want to be alone anymore.

Nephele comes back to her and sits on the edge of the coffee table, looking straight at her. "Tonight made me realize that you deserve a say in how I protect you. Things can continue as they have, if that’s easiest for you. But if it’s not, I can try to be…" 

She trails off, whatever words she’s looking for refusing to come again. Lorelei can hardly breathe, afraid that she is misinterpreting.

"Nephele?" she asks.

"Oh, fuck it," Nephele says, and buries her face in her hands. "You can talk to me. That’s what I mean to say. I’m here, I’ll listen. If you want me to."

And just like that, Nephele is not a war alchemist, not a political alliance, not a distant, authoritarian figure.

She is a woman. Solid, present, and close enough to touch.

"Really?" Lorelei asks. A hundred questions are crowding in her throat. Did you choose this assignment yourself? Are you willing to risk your life by marrying me? If we succeed, will you resent being bound to me, to us? Will you mourn me, if we fail?

And Nephele answers all of them, at least in part, when she looks up and says, "Really."

******************************************

"What a complex political world, and what great characters moving in it," he says.

Maya nods. "I really like how they managed to become friends anyway," she says. "No cures for plagues. I was hopeful when she went to the clinic."

"No," he says. "And nothing to eat. But we're sure to find something soon."

"That's a first chapter, right? It has to be. Even though it's quite complete as it is"

"I'd keep on reading, if I could," he says. "But what else do we have?" He picks up the next book from the top of the pile. "This one doesn't have a title. It's by Lisa Goldstein, and it's the first glimpse of a novel, but it's so new it doesn't even have a title yet."

Maya pats the table. "Thanks, library," she says. 

And they read.