"Aurora. His other lover." A beat, and a playful glance slid toward Quinlan. "Well. One of many."
"Many," Cela repeated faintly.
"You should have seen us at the Square, you know~" Aurora went on, warming to the subject with scientific enjoyment.
"Yeah, yeah!" Lucille giggled, eyes shining.
"Huh?" Cela gasped.
Aurora had a sly smirk as she explained, "We walked in right behind him. Ten masks, perfectly synchronized. We were very proud of that walk."
Cela's eyes went wide like saucers, searching the most vivid memory of her life and finding, at its very edges, a smear of masked figures she had never once looked at directly.
The procession had held eleven people, and her memory had kept exactly one.
"I... may have been looking elsewhere," she admitted to her apron.
Lucille and Aurora traded a look of deep, sisterly understanding. "We understand," they said in unison.
