"LADY VINE!"
Aim had barely turned his head before her body crashed into him.
Terminus drew the longsword out slowly.
Lady Vine lay beside the overturned tea table. The blade dragged against the edge of the hole in her coat, lifted her a little, then came free.
She dropped back to the floor.
He turned toward Aim.
No.
Toward the body lying across him.
Isolde stepped between them.
Her sword cleared its sheath. Light gathered around the catalyst in her other hand, unsteady for a moment before she forced it to hold.
"Just tell me if he's about to cast," she said to Aim.
Aim could barely breathe beneath the weight across his chest. He pushed against the floor with his good hand, trying to see past a fall of pale hair.
Terminus lowered the point of his sword.
"…Lucia."
The body on top of Aim went rigid.
"You and the Pointer. At last, I can finish this."
Aim twisted far enough to see the face beside his own.
Const?
For a moment, the name was all he could manage.
But—why did he call him that?
Const's eyes were wide open.
Blood trembled on his lower lip. His mouth moved once, soundlessly, and another mouthful spilled down his chin onto Aim's collar.
Below the knee, one leg was gone.
The torn trouser leg lay empty against the floor. Beneath it, something was slowly rebuilding itself, drawing the ragged end of the wound outward a fraction at a time.
His waistcoat had been torn open. The fabric twitched across the damage beneath it, strands reaching for one another, losing their grip, trying again.
Const did not look at any of it.
He watched Terminus.
"No…"
The word scarcely made it out.
"No. Not you. Not you—!"
He tried to crawl backward.
His remaining foot slipped. He clawed at the floor, shoved against Aim without seeming to recognize him, and tried again. His breath came in small, choking pulls.
"Const. Hey—Const!"
He did not answer.
Aim had seen that face smile at things that made everyone else run.
Now Const could not even make himself look away.
Isolde's grip shifted on her sword.
Then shifted again.
The point began to tremble.
"Lady Flaure!" Aim shouted. "Please—do something!"
"Wh-which Flaure? M-me?"
The woman beside the armchair looked from him to the sword, then toward the other woman wearing her face.
"Ah—I—I…"
Her hands lifted and stopped, empty.
Terminus spared neither Flaure a glance.
His sword remained pointed at Const.
"Two years of this tiresome game of cat and mouse."
His foot moved.
Isolde brought her sword up.
He was already there.
The distance vanished so completely that Aim's eyes were still finding him in the place he had left when the longsword rose above Isolde's head.
She set both hands to the hilt.
A pale shape lurched past her shoulder.
Const.
He had hauled himself upright on a leg that was not yet whole. One hand caught Isolde's shoulder and pushed her back.
The sword came down.
It entered beneath his shoulder and passed diagonally through his body.
For an instant, he remained standing.
Then the two halves fell apart.
Aim screamed.
He did not hear the sound as his own. He was reaching before he knew what he meant to catch, his broken arm jerking against its splint, his good hand closing on a handful of blood-wet cloth.
"CONST—!"
The upper half struck the floor beside his knee.
Const's mouth opened.
He was still alive.
Terminus reversed his grip.
The point came down toward Const's head.
Isolde caught it.
Steel struck steel so hard that the sound seemed to fill Aim's skull. Her knees bent. The blade slid toward her guard.
She held for less than a heartbeat.
Then the force tore the hilt from her hands.
Her sword flew across the room, struck the wall, and fell somewhere behind them.
Isolde stared at her empty fingers.
Terminus lifted his weapon again.
Aim tried to drag Const toward him. His arm would not lift the weight. The damaged coat stirred once beneath his hand and went slack.
"Sol—"
She had nothing to put between them.
She put up her hands anyway.
At Aim's knee, Const was trying to speak through the blood in his mouth. One hand scraped along the floor, searching for purchase.
The sword reached the top of its arc.
No one was going to stop it.
Fire wound around Terminus's wrist.
A thin spiral at first. Almost delicate.
Then it tightened.
White heat engulfed his sword arm. The steel brightened from edge to spine, its straight length sagging as the fire climbed past his elbow.
Terminus screamed.
The sound broke against the mask.
He recoiled, trying to pull free, and the fire followed the motion, gathering into a violent, whirling column around the arm that had held the sword.
Through the glare, Flaure (???) was already moving.
Her longsword came level with his throat.
He turned too late to meet it.
"Tsk."
A dark opening split the air behind him.
Terminus fell backward through it.
Flaure (???) struck.
The opening closed against the passing edge.
Her blade hit the empty floor beyond it, splitting the boards and driving a crack beneath the overturned table.
"Fuck!"
The fire collapsed.
Something small and molten struck the floor with a hiss.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Aim could hear himself breathing.
He could hear Isolde breathing.
"Did we…"
His voice was barely there.
"…make it?" Isolde finished.
Then Const moved against his knee.
Aim looked down.
"No. No, no, no—!"
He gathered the torn coat in both hands as though it could hold everything together if only he pulled hard enough. The two parts of Const's body were still separated by a stretch of blood-dark floor.
Fine strands were reaching across it.
Too slowly.
"Help him! Please, somebody—"
Flaure (???) turned.
Her gaze passed over the three of them, cold and level.
She raised one hand.
A pulse crossed the room.
Aim felt it behind his eyes.
His fingers opened.
Isolde folded beside him, and the last thing he saw was Const's hand finally going still.
The room fell quiet.
Flaure (???) stood among the broken furniture until the last small sounds of movement had ended.
At her feet, the filaments continued their work.
She stepped over them.
The other Flaure had slumped beside the armchair, one hand caught in the folds of her dress.
Flaure (???) took her beneath the arms and dragged her toward a waiting mirror.
The surface opened.
Beyond it lay a bedroom in the palace.
She pulled the sleeping woman through, lifted her onto the bed, and freed the hand trapped beneath her skirts.
For a moment, she remained beside her.
Then she turned back to the glass.
In the mirror dimension, the tea had spread beneath the fallen table.
Lady Vine lay beside it.
Flaure (???) found a small piece of paper and wrote a few lines in a quick, controlled hand. She folded it once and slipped it into the unconscious woman's coat pocket.
Then she took hold of her and dragged her through another mirror.
This room was dark.
Beyond the window, snow drove sideways through the night, hiding everything more than a few yards from the glass.
She laid the woman on the bed and drew the blanket over her.
The folded note remained in the pocket.
Flaure (???) returned to the palace.
Moments later, she rose above its roofs.
The towers fell away beneath her. She looked down over the windows, the galleries, the long wings of rooms where a hundred polished surfaces waited in the dark.
She opened her hand.
The pulse passed through the palace.
In bedchambers and dressing rooms, in corridors and locked cabinets, every mirror shattered.
Three hours later.
The Northern District.
The Veilnoir family manor.
Vine (???) woke to the sound of snow striking glass.
For some time, she did not move.
Her limbs felt heavy beneath the blanket. Even turning her head required more effort than it should have, and the room swayed slightly when she tried to sit.
One gloved hand settled over the middle of her body.
The hole was gone.
Beneath the damaged clothing, the flesh had closed completely. She pressed a little harder, testing it, and released a long, tired breath.
"So I…"
She looked around.
A carved headboard. Familiar curtains. Candlelight trembling beside the bed.
Outside, the storm had swallowed the view.
Something crinkled against her chest.
She slipped her fingers into her coat pocket and drew out a folded note.
The handwriting brought the faintest curve to her mouth.
Thanks for removing that "Vine" role, I shouldn't have used it.
The Northern District will almost certainly be the next to face disaster. I'll suppress the reports myself. Don't worry about that.
And bring that little brother of yours home and teach him some manners. He keeps interfering with Flaure.
A quiet laugh escaped her.
"Honestly, Lady ████… how much more possessive of Her Majesty can you possibly get?"
Pale light began to gather along her fingers.
It climbed her sleeves, outlined her shoulders, and caught in the long silver hair lying across the pillows.
She kept reading the note.
The figure beneath the blanket wavered.
Silver darkened. The long fall of hair drew back from the pillows. The face changed by degrees within the light: the jaw becoming firmer, the brows heavier, the violet in the eyes warming into gold.
The glow faded.
A man sat against the pillows.
He occupied almost the same space, only a little taller, his shoulders broader beneath a dark coat edged with black fur. Charcoal hair swept back from a pale, composed face. His amber eyes remained lowered to the paper.
The white lace was gone. In its place, a high slate-colored collar rose beneath his jaw, worked with fine silver embroidery. An oval silver medallion rested at his chest.
Valery Veilnoir smoothed the note between his gloved fingers.
Then he folded it carefully along its original crease.
"As head of House Veilnoir, Duke of the North, and your faithful servant…"
He inclined his head in the quiet room.
"I shall see your wishes carried out to the last."