Rose’s face darkened after glancing at the note. She stood from the couch and got face to face with Ivy.

“Ivy,” she said, “who gave this to you?”

Uh oh. Things had seemed so great just a second ago. Ivy took a step back, her legs bumping up against one of the chairs beside the unlit fireplace.

“W-why?”

“Ivy.”

“Will you tell me what it says if I tell you where I got it?”

Rose sighed.

“Yes, I will read it to you. If you don’t lie to me.”

“Do you promise?” Rose just glared at her. “Cause you seem kind of mad right now.”

“I promise.”

“Okay. Well you see, the thing is…” Ivy glanced down at her feet. Why was this so hard? She had done much worse things in her life than accept a piece of paper. Bragged about them, even. But facing down Rose’s condemnation, she wanted anything but to admit to what she had done.

“Just out with it,” Rose said.

“Don’t be mad okay? But…TheBloodyPrinceGaveItToMeAndAskedMeToRetrieveWhat’sOnTheNoteAsAnInitiationToJoinTheBloodyFlag.”

Whew. She had got it all out in one breath, hopefully fast enough so that Rose didn’t understand a thing.

“The Bloody Prince, Ivy?” So she had heard. Rose raised a single brow at her.

“It’s true! Look, he gave me this piece of wood, too!”

She held out the Prince’s authority token. Rose’s eyes flicked from Ivy’s face to the token and then back to Ivy again. Her face pinched and she squinted as she stared deeply into Ivy’s eyes.

“Hey!” Ivy said, “you’re reading me! You said you wouldn’t do that!”

“Oh, Ivy,” all of Rose’s hostility fell away as she crumpled back down into her seat, “what have you gotten yourself into?”

“Uh, I told you what I was going to do.”

“You’re barely seventeen! I could hardly expect you to go straight to the overlord of the city’s criminal empire! How did you even—” Rose froze, her anger returning. “No, tell me you didn’t.”

Ivy grinned sheepishly.

“Uhm?”

“Ivy!” Rose's sharp tone hit Ivy like a slap, and she flinched. She had never heard Rose yell before. “What if someone saw you? What if you were caught? I don’t…I couldn’t…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Your power doesn’t make you invincible!”

“I know that.”

“Then try acting like it.”

“Sorry.”

Rose closed her eyes and relaxed against the back of the couch.

“It’s fine. We’ll just forget about this and—”

“Uh, Rose?”

“What?”

“You promised.”

Rose’s eyes shot back open with renewed fury behind them.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Why?” Ivy asked, her whole body starting to heat up. Instead of backing away from Rose she stomped up to where the older witch was seated. “Because what you say is always right? I’m just a criminal to you, is that it? Miss royal guard? Is that what gives you the right to go back on your promise?”

“Ivy, you don’t know what you’re asking for.”

“That’s why I’m asking you to tell me!”

Rose rubbed her temples with both hands.

“Was I this annoying when I was young? I’d like to think not.”

It was the second time Rose brought up age, and Ivy realized she had no idea how old the witch really was. Sometimes it seemed like she could be as old as the Bloody Prince or beyond, but her face remained so youthful.

“I won’t give up,” Ivy said, “just tell me.”

“Promise me you won’t follow what’s on the note and I’ll tell you.”

“That’s not fair.”

“It is not about fairness,” Rose said, “but you are right.” Huh? “If you insist on believing you know better than me, I will honor my promise. You'll change your mind anyway once you hear it.”

About time. “Good,” Ivy said.

“It says, ‘the heart of the demon rests at Atrican Cathedral’s innermost sanctum.‘”

Ivy took a seat beside Rose.

“Oh,” she said, “what does that mean?”

“It means nothing, because it is a lie, and I won’t let you try to infiltrate the heart of the church’s power for that despicable man. Especially on a hunt for something that does not exist.”

“Hold on, hold on,” Ivy said. Why hadn’t Rose led with this? Ivy placed her hand on Rose’s shoulder. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Rose. I do. If you’re certain this…thing doesn’t exist, I’ll believe you. But how could you possibly know such a thing?”

“If there were a demon in the city, I would know it.”

“How?”

“I lied to you the day we met,” Rose said.

“What do you mean?” Ivy took her hand away from Rose’s shoulder.

“About my power. I was afraid you would run away if I told you the truth.” Rose was staring into her lap with her hands folded on her knees. “I’ve been a witch for…a while. There was a time when I knew exactly what everyone around me was thinking for miles.”

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Ivy recoiled back from Rose.

“That sounds awful.”

“Yes. I don’t do that anymore. But my point is that I know my power very well. When you thought I was reading you earlier, I was actually checking on Prince Armond.” The confusion must have shown on Ivy’s face. “Sorry, the ‘Bloody Prince.’ And the moment I saw that letter, I read every single person inside the cathedral. No demon heart has ever been inside that place. But more than that, I can sense a demonic presence with far greater accuracy than a human. It is not there.”

Huh. Rose was revealing a whole extra side to her because of Ivy’s little venture into the criminal underworld. She had read the Prince from all the way over here? And the entire cathedral? What were her limits? Not for the first time, Ivy’s curiosity about her sister’s past flared to life.

“What was he thinking about?” Ivy asked.

“Many things. He seems to be taken by the idiotic myth that consuming a demon heart will grant great strength instead of a painful death. He’s also quite intrigued by you, Dragonfly.”

Ivy covered her face with both hands. She even pulled that out of his head? She peeked out of one eye between her fingers to gauge Rose’s response.

“Oh god. That’s going to stick with me forever, isn’t it?”

A tiny little smirk split Rose’s face for an instant before she once again regarded Ivy with drooping eyes.

“I’m sorry for yelling,” she said, “but you need to be more careful. Prince Armond is not stupid. Your silly alias isn’t worth much, and he will be able to track you to me.”

Ivy sucked in a breath. The last thing she had been thinking of—or wanting—was to put Rose in danger.

Rose snorted.

“I can handle an ornery, displaced monarch, but it's his interest in you I'm worried about.” She reached out and patted the top of Ivy’s head. “And you can be…well, quite dense.”

“Hey!” Ivy shook off Rose’s hand.

“It comes with youth,” Rose said, shrugging.

They sat there for a while just staring, both with frowns on their faces until Ivy couldn’t take it anymore.

“I know you said it was stupid…but—”

“Ivy…”

“You should have seen me! I hardly recognized how awesome I had become! ‘Hello,” I said with my legs crossed like I was just hanging out on his couch. You wouldn’t believe the look at his face.”

Rose let out a long, drawn out sigh that hopefully marked the end of her resistance to Ivy’s mischievous will.

“You’re going to get us both killed, aren’t you?”

“No way! I’ll protect you.” Her hand went to the hilt of her dagger and she fingered the texture made by the dragonfly engraving on the pommel.

Rose smiled.

“I don’t doubt that one day you will, Ivy, but for now, I’d appreciate it if you let me do that part.”

“You protect me?” Ivy asked. “How? Your power won’t help you fight.”

“You’d be surprised what you can do with nearly unlimited information. Besides, I don’t wear a sword on my hip for show like you do.”

Ah, right. It was still hard for Ivy to believe that Rose of all people could be a royal guard. Ivy knew that she herself was a small person, and likely wouldn’t be growing anymore in height so the idea of her patrolling the streets with a club on her shoulder as Rose had once suggested seemed ludicrous. Yet despite standing quite a bit above Ivy, Rose too could never be described as a physically imposing woman.

From the outside, she didn’t quite fit the profile of those in the guard. If you knew her, though, and took a moment to think about it, there was probably no one better suited. Ivy imagined being able to predict with certainty every crime in advance, every movement of an opponent before they struck. It had to be almost impossible for any danger to befall the target of her protection.

“So what are we going to do, then?” Ivy asked, standing and beginning to pace the room.

“About?”

“The Bloody Prince’s request, of course.”

“Ivy, really?”

Ivy stopped in her tracks, and spun on Rose.

“What? You said you’d protect me, right? ‘Just a mean old Prince,’ or something, yeah?”

“You’re really determined to do this, huh?” Rose asked, and Ivy nodded. “Well I suppose I can make sure you don’t get into too much trouble. It might feel good to flex my muscles every now and then. Obviously poking around the cathedral is a no.”

Ivy had started pacing again, her steps faster than before, trying to hide the growing grin on her face.

“I didn’t say I was going to,” she said, not stopping. Despite her bragging about escaping the witch hunters, that had scared her enough. She had no longing to face the paladins.

“Good. Maybe there is some sense left in that head of yours.” Rose got up from the couch and passed by Ivy’s pacing circuit. “Come on.”

“Huh?” Ivy watched her go by, following her with her eyes as she retreated down the hallway that led to their bedrooms before catching up “Where are we going?”

Rose opened the door to her room, stepping within and leaving the door ajar. Oh, okay then. All the time since Ivy had been living with Rose, she had yet to see inside Rose’s private little sanctum. What could lie beyond? Hm. Ivy took a moment before peeking just her head in.

Her mouth dropped at the scene before her. If there was any place that existed as the opposite of the Bloody Prince’s domain, Rose’s room had to be it. Every inch of the walls were covered in…things. From carved wood frame paintings that were probably regarded as masterpieces to crystalline mirrors draped with dangling golden necklaces, to bejeweled weaponry all hung haphazardly around the perimeter of the room. Heaps of silk finery were strewn about the floor, including many extravagant dresses of which Ivy had never seen Rose wear. In fact, Rose had never worn anything save for the practical trouser and tunic combo she always wore. At the center of all the mess sat a purple curtained four poster bed that could probably fit six or seven people.

“A-are we rich?” Ivy asked, stepping into the room.

“I’m a bit of a collector,” Rose said, fumbling through a pile of fabrics in the far corner of the room up against a painted, ornate armoire near the bed.

“I think that's the wrong word.” Ivy had to pick her feet high off of the ground to avoid tripping over a box full of glittering rings and bracelets to reach Rose.

“Ah, here it is,” Rose said, turning to meet Ivy.

In her left hand she held a silver pendant that had been worked into a familiar triangular shape. She had just seen the symbol recently engraved into the paladins' armor. It was also carved into the face of every temple in the city. But other than belonging to the church, she had little idea of what the pendant meant or how it could help.

“This is given to an archbishop upon ascension as a badge of their office,” Rose said, “take it to the prince as proof you infiltrated the cathedral, but found no demon heart.”

Ivy eyed the twisted metal.

“This looks like something any talented jeweler could forge.”

“It is made from a metal monopolized by the church as they control its only quarry. It would not be mistaken by anyone in the know.”

It seemed like ordinary silver to Ivy at first, but when Rose shifted it in her palm, its surface drank in the light, leaving no reflection in its shadowy curves. It looked a lot like how the blade of her dagger sometimes obscured any brightness that touched it.

“How did you get it?” Ivy asked.

“I knew its owner.”

“Excuse me?” Ivy looked up from the pendant to regard her sister. Rose had been acquainted with one of the archbishops? The older witch’s expression was flat.

“Remember when I said I would protect you? This is one of those times. Knowledge can be as deadly as any blade. I will not elaborate further.” Rose offered up the pendant. “I’m being tolerant enough already. Take it.”

Ivy hesitantly reached out. “Yeah…why are you being so helpful for something you clearly disagree with?”

Dropping the pendant into Ivy’s outstretched palm, Rose said, “I simply recognize this as the path that will lead to the least trouble.”

Ivy huffed out a breath.

“Will this really convince him?”

Rose’s eyebrow shot up.

“Are you asking for more priceless treasures?”

It was impossible for Ivy’s eyes not to roam the actual trash heaps of insane opulence. There were most definitely a few things in here that she wouldn’t mind taking off of Rose’s hands. She could use the help to at least clear out a path to the bed. Ivy had had no idea the extent of Rose’s material possessions. Sure, Mister Couch by the fireplace was unmatched in comfort, and Ivy’s own feather stuffed mattress was also covered in silky smooth…

Maybe she should have realized something. All these things sounded like they had been made for royalty, and Ivy had just accepted them as Rose’s kind hospitality. Just who had her sister been in the past?

“I’ll take some of these clothes if you don't mind,” Ivy said, “You don't wear them anyway.”

Rose laughed and waved a hand at the mess.

“If you can find something that fits, it's yours.”

That, Ivy supposed, would be the problem. If these were all meant to be Rose’s size, she’d be out of luck. Still, she wasted no time rummaging though the surface of what she could see, discarding the obvious mismatches as she went. Rose watched over her as though Ivy might steal something, despite having given Ivy permission. Eventually she ended up with a few dresses folded over her arm that might work and a couple sets of darker versions of Rose’s typical outfit.

“K,” Ivy said, standing amongst the not-at-all diminished hoard of goods, “I guess I ought to get going.”

“Now?” Rose asked.

“Sure. The faster I return the more competent I will appear.”

“And one day you may possess enough actual competence to not just appear so.”

“Hey!”

“Go on.”

Ivy made to exit Rose’s room with the pendant clutched in one hand and the garments draped over the other arm, but turned back at the doorway.

“You’re going to have to teach me to read,” she said.

Rose smiled.

“With pleasure, Ivy.”