[21] The Beast the Human Endeavor

The night after Jay met that girl—Viviendre de Califerne—Lalum crawled through the window in his bedchamber. He'd expected her.

HELLO HERO, her web read.

He sat on the edge of the enormous, circular bed, chin resting on thatched hands. He didn't bother to look at her. She kept to the shadows anyway. Seeing her lurk behind him when he talked with Viviendre made him remember. He didn't need to beat the queen in a fight—there were other methods.

"Your animus lets you control people, right."

YES, she said. Very quick. As though she expected the question.

"So you could control the queen to open the vault."

The YES remained. Jay wasn't sure whether to interpret that as hesitation or efficiency, but after seconds passed and nothing changed he decided which.

"You need a fairy's blood for it, though."

The same YES.

"I guess they don't have too many fairies in the capital. You wouldn't happen to know of any?"

The YES finally disappeared, replaced for a time with nothing, only an ordinary spiderweb pattern shining silver in the moonlight. Then:

THERE IS THE ONE. DEVINT KEEPS HER NOW.

Olliebollen. Jay's clasped hands adjusted, pressed together at the palms, held just beyond his nose, the fingertips brushing under the brim of his hat.

"Not her."

I KNOW.

Silly. He'd let her devour any other random fairy, just not one he'd met before. That's sentimentality for you. He wasn't immune.

"Before, you and the other nuns caught your fairies in Flanz-le-Flore's forest, right?"

YES...

And Flanz-le-Flore's forest was much more dangerous now. Right before Jay—before he wiped off half her face with his bat, Flanz-le-Flore insinuated she allowed Sansaime and the others to capture some of her fairies to maintain a peaceful relationship with Whitecrosse. Jay doubted that arrangement remained in place. Which meant sending Lalum back to capture another fairy was a death sentence.

"There are other fairy courts in this world, right? Olliebollen came from one, after all. She mentioned something about a fairy council or whatever."

THERE ARE MORE COURTES TO THE WEST. BUT...

"But what?"

The BUT remained the way the yes had. Jay waited, and waited, and finally an answer came.

I WOULD NOT KNOWE WHERE TO FIND THEM. I AM SORRY.

Jay didn't think that was the answer. Why hesitate so long? There was something else bothering Lalum. Maybe something else that had been bothering her the whole time.

Either way, Jay could get Olliebollen back from DeWint and ask her where the other courts were located. She hadn't been too upset about the nuns eating Flanz-le-Flore's fairies after all. She cared only about her own court, which the elves apparently wiped out already.

It sounded like a new quest. Olliebollen marks a spot on the map and Jay Waringcrane sets off to fetch the fairy. A standard timewaster, pretty rudimentary stuff in the games he played: Some door won't open and you need to go grab the key or three keys or sometimes they're orbs or crystals in order to open it. Even in open-world RPGs, player progression often got gated that way. Losing Olliebollen's healing made it risky, but he had Makepeace's shield to compensate. In some ways, that was better. He never enjoyed relying on Olliebollen. Olliebollen was Perfidia's stooge.

No Perfidia now. This was Jay's quest, conceived by him, with no NPC telling him where to go. His party would consist only of Lalum, whose trust he earned. He'd even be able to leave his sister behind where she'd be safe.

Everything exactly as he wanted. Right.

HERO, said Lalum. I MUST WARN YOU.

Jay had no idea when the words appeared, but Lalum had clearly waited for him to see them before changing the web:

YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO WANTS TO OPEN THE VAULTE.

"Okay." He figured as much. Those dukes wouldn't mind some powerful magic relics, he was sure. In fact, the reason those things were locked up so securely was probably to stop people like them. Viviendre was the only other person in the castle with a relic. Wasn't she worried someone would steal it? He'd ask next time he saw her.

He glanced up and saw the web changed again. NO, YOU DON'T UNDERSTANDE... Lalum herself, a shadowy form, fidgeted and twitched, her arms wound around herself, the tips of her legs scratched back and forth. She had eight legs. Didn't she lose one in Flanz-le-Flore's court? He remembered seeing it, dismembered in front of him.

"What don't I understand Lalum? Somebody's gonna try and take advantage of me. I know that already. I've known that since I got here."

BE CAREFULL OF

"Of who?"

Another long pause.

BE CAREFULL OF THE PAGAN GIRL.

Pagan girl. "Viviendre?"

YES. PLEASE BE CAREFULL. SHE IS MOST SLYE...

Yeah, yeah. She looked like a pirate, obviously he'd be suspicious of her.

"Don't worry. I just want some information on her relic. I'm watching my back—You're the only person I can really trust here."

The form in the dark seized up. A strange, muffled "eep" gurgled in what he assumed was her throat.

I—I—I—THANK YOU HERO MOST GRACESLY FOR YOUR HIGHE PRAISE!!!

Did it really make sense for her to stammer via text? Affectation? Whatever.

"Look." Bending his spine forward. "That DeWint guy is shady. He might have some fairies hidden somewhere. Sneak around his office or house or whatever for a day or two, see if you can find anything. Maybe we'll save ourselves a trip."

RIGHTE! YES! I SHAULLE DOUE AS YOUE ASKE HEROUX!!!

What wasn't affect was that excitement degenerated her spelling to shit, but Jay wasn't Shannon; let her butcher the English language as she liked. "That's all," he said. "Report again tomorrow. Same time, same place. I'm counting on you, Lalum."

YES! YES! OF COURSE! YES!

"Goodbye."

FARWELLE!

The spider skittered out the window and was gone. Jay remained in his outrageously stooped posture a moment more and then flung himself back on the bed to try and perceive a ceiling out of the suspended layers of bed-drapery.

This was best. He doubted Lalum would find anything tailing DeWint, but one never knew. Plus it gave him time. One or two days to recuperate after the craziness at the monastery, to ask Viviendre a few more questions and get a few more answers. Then he'd go on his fetch quest for a fairy. One—two days. No more.

—

The next day, Sunday, a herd of servants and officials propelled him against his will to the cathedral next to the castle. There he endured a service delivered by the short, round Archbishop Tintzel and his verbal tic of repeating exactly what he said but swapped around pointlessly: "God is great, great indeed is God!" Jay, crammed between Dukes Meretryce and Mordac, ignored the glower of the latter as he scanned the pews and contemplated if he'd get away with just standing up and leaving. No Queen Mallory anywhere. He did see Viviendre, tucked away a row down, her attendant (Jreige?) beside her. She turned her singular eye his way and stuck her tongue out at him.

Then the sermon got worse. As Tintzel concluded, he introduced a special speaker, an important personage, indeed a personage most important. In her sharp business suit Shannon Waringcrane rose, went to the pulpit, and orated.

About germs.

"It is said that cleanliness is next to godliness," Shannon began, then proceeded to make zero further references to God or religion for the next hour as she delved into an overview of the science behind bacteria, viruses, and other microscopic organisms that caused disease as well as the methods of contact that caused said organisms to spread from person to person, animal to person, surface to person, food and water to person, or air to person.

She segued this conversation into a broader discussion of demography. "While plague and disease are no doubt known to everyone seated before me, the germs I describe impact the population in an even more insidious fashion: infant mortality." She explained how bacteria is transmitted from a mother to her unborn child, leading to infections that pose significant risk to both. These infections were historically the biggest factor behind low population growth in premodern societies and—she snapped her fingers severely, prompting Gonzago of Meretryce to rocket upright from his seat and deliver her a gigantic tome—and were also the cause for the stagnant population change in Whitecrosse over the past four hundred years, as explicated in this Domesday Book she unearthed from the castle library's archive with help from Duke Meretryce. Holding the book up for the congregation to see, she claimed the pages therein painted a clear picture of a populace incapable of progress due to the restrictions placed upon it by disease and famine.

"Now, those of you gathered before me, who appear to be primarily of the upper classes, are probably asking: Why does this matter?" Shannon closed the "Domesday Book" and paced as far as the narrow, raised platform of the pulpit allowed. "Certainly, disease is inconvenient, but most of you can flee to your country manors whenever plague visits the city, can't you? You can afford to keep your own homes sanitary when it comes time for your wives to give birth to your heirs. It's only the poor people who die, right? If that's the way you think, your way of thinking is utterly myopic.

"Economy is built on the backs of labor. Less labor means less production. Especially in a society where automation isn't even a dream! I've seen this land. You've got open, fertile fields stretching miles away from the castle, but not a soul to plant a seed on them. You've got giant, sprawling forests, but nobody to harvest the lumber. Those mountains? Plenteous in precious metals and other useful minerals, but who's here to mine them? The lack of attention to the health crisis in this country has led to a horrifically unoptimized and inefficient economic situation that is robbing you—yes, you, the dukes and dignitaries of Whitecrosse—from further profit.

"Duke Meretryce, again, was gracious enough to allow me a peek into some of his family's internal recordkeeping. The situation I saw was frankly pathetic—nowhere near the level of profit generation even a small, local business in the world I come from could muster. And what profits you do make are almost never reinvested into expansion of your enterprises. Absurd! More people means more production. It means more surplus. It means more tax revenue. Those extra dollars—excuse me, those extra pence—go straight into your pockets. None of you even know what the word 'rich' means. Listen to me, and I'll show you the exact definition."

A snap summoned Gonzago. He positioned what appeared to be a painting easel beside the pulpit and spread a large parchment across it. The parchment displayed some kind of architectural drawing.

"What I am proposing is the construction of a sophisticated sewage system that will carry wastewater out of the city. Luckily, Whitecrosse is constructed on a hill, so the natural forces of gravity will help in this endeavor. However, we also need to prevent the moat around the city from becoming a pungent sump where disease festers—"

And so on. When her speech ended, the dukes and aristocrats rose, some applauding, all thronging toward her as she climbed down from the pulpit and directed Gonzago to collect her various demonstration materials. Jay, finally free, used the distraction to sneak unseen to the exit, and then wait unseen a few minutes more for Viviendre de Califerne to come scraping out after.

"Well!" Viviendre said as Jay fell in step with her down a sparsely-populated side corridor. "I certainly feel morally and spiritually edified after that."

"Not interested in finding out how to increase your profit margin?"

She expelled her fehfehfeh and shook her head. "In California we do things somewhat differently."

Her attendant walked behind them. His steps were silent or matched to Viviendre's slow gait exactly, so it was easy to forget him as they slowly (very slowly) descended a flight of stairs toward what looked like another underground passageway, this one pre-lit by torches at least. Viviendre experienced some trouble on one step, stumbling, and Jay wasn't sure if it happened naturally or if she did it on purpose, but either way he soon held her arm to help her the rest of the way.

"California," he said. "There's a California on Earth, too."

"Shit! Then there's no escape, wherever I go."

"Guess not."

Jay couldn't tell if she wore less perfume than the day before or if he was more used to it. Now it smelled simply sweet, not overpoweringly so, as they continued down the dimly-lit corridor surrounded by the omnipresent sound of droplets dropping.

"What's a Mahomet-worshipping pagan like you doing in a Christian church anyway," he ventured.

"Espionage. Infiltration of the enemy sanctuary. I must say the experience was eye-opening. Based on your sister's speech, the people of Whitecrosse pray to the most fearsome and real god in existence: profit, profit, profit!"

She spoke with the tone of someone attempting wit, but such surface-level observations about the dogmatic and religious elevation of money in society were so trite and cliché that it was hard to do anything but roll your eyes at them. Before Shannon moved out of the house for college she would talk about politics all the time. This would've been around 2012. He remembered her babbling ad nauseum about it: Obama, Romney, Obama, Romney, outlining respective policy positions and vivisecting them mostly to Mother. He didn't listen closely enough to know which candidate Shannon favored, but she tried to convince Mother to vote for him, and on voting day Mother forgot to vote altogether, which caused Shannon to keep talking about the election for weeks after it ended. "We live in Ohio Mother, our vote means more than anyone else's!"

But when you dug into it, it was all the same shit. The people who had money called the people who didn't freeloaders; the people who didn't have money called the people who did exploiters. And whoever got elected didn't change anything. It seemed impossible that anyone could change anything in that world. No matter who was in charge the machine would keep clanking the way it always did. The machine was built to keep clanking, the person in charge was designed not to matter. Shannon believed otherwise, but she needed to in order to believe in herself, as part of the machine. The truth remained: Barack Obama was no Napoleon Bonaparte.

"What the fuck are you thinking about so deeply?" Viviendre said. "Forget that we're having a conversation here? I know I'm rude. No excuse for you to be either."

Jay shrugged. He considered not saying what popped into his head. But Viviendre responded well to his "Mahomet-loving pagan" comment, so maybe she responded well to getting pushed around a little. "It's just kind of horseshit, isn't it? You've got gold and gems and fancy perfume and a personal bodyguard. You clearly enjoy expensive things yourself. You're just looking for an excuse to insult people you don't like."

Viviendre looked at him funny. Maybe that wasn't the right thing to say after all. But why?

It was easy to pick apart someone's words or mannerisms and figure out when they were lying, when they were being deceitful, when they wanted something out of him. Jay had always been able to see the small contradictions, the subtle tells, and expose them. But this was different. He'd talked with Viviendre twice now. He had a grasp on her personality. So what'd he do wrong?

Actually, a better question—why did he care? Sure, he wanted to get closer to her so he could learn about her relic. But he could ask Olliebollen about the relic, couldn't he? She'd recognized the Staff of Lazarus once Sansaime mentioned it, so she should know something. Maybe Olliebollen was still sulking too much to help but—

"Christ! You love to go silent, don't you?" said Viviendre.

"That time's on you."

"What? On me?"

"You never responded to what I said. Which means you went silent, not me."

"Fuck! That's not true right? Shit! Jreige, which of us went silent?"

"You, milady," the attendant said in a dry, deep, and heavily French-accented voice.

"Tch! Damn!" Viviendre expelled her breathless fehfehfeh and the moment was effectively papered over, even if Jay detected a slight artificiality in the entire interaction. At least it signified Viviendre wanted to move past any awkwardness.

He really shouldn't think about it so much. If he tried to analyze everything he said before he said it, she'd be giving him shit about going quiet all day. Jay didn't have much faith in his ability to speak without preplanning, though. There was a reason he preferred monosyllable responses when possible.

And of course, here he was not saying anything again. But neither was Viviendre; they proceeded down the dark corridor quietly, enveloped by the dripping, the scuttling, and the clack of her peg leg.

Eventually she said: "That sister of yours. She's a cunt, right?"

"Definitely. She's like that all the time."

"For a moment, sitting in that pew, I had a horrible sensation inflicted upon me. My body went rigid and a cold sweat broke on my brow. I was staring up at that pulpit, hearing her speak, and thinking: Mon Dieu! It's Mayfair once more!"

"Shannon won't summon a dragon to kill us all, at least.—I think."

"A dragon—? Oh yes, you mentioned that was what Mayfair did up there. That damn dragon. What's the name—Devereux. And with the Staff of Lazarus, right, so that's why she took that one in particular. Oh, it all makes so much sense. Fuck. What a precocious little bitch. Can you imagine, Jay? Actually yes I assume you can imagine since your sister is the same way, but at least she's your older sister. Can you imagine having to put up with that kind of pedantic, cloyingly over-intelligent behavior from a girl five years younger than you? You've no idea how often I wanted to take up this cane"—the relic waved—"and dash out her brains."

"It's not any better when she's five years older," said Jay. "Trust me. Shannon would always act like she was the adult and I was the kid. Go there, do that, don't talk back, don't ask why. Didn't help that Mother was always off in her own little world. And then of course Shannon would bring back whatever guy she was fucking—a different guy every week—and he'd kick the shit out of me as a joke or for no reason."

"Okay. Well, first off. Acting like an adult, like she could boss you around? Mayfair was still like that, didn't matter if she was fourteen, she acted that way anyway. What you're missing is the abject humiliation of it, okay? To have to listen to this too-smart-for-her-own-good kid mouthing off at you. Oh and the power dynamics. She's the princess, right! If she says it, I have to listen. Pfah! I say one slightly foul word and it's a lecture, and I have to simply listen because I'm the Mahomet-worshipping pagan and she's the righteous little princess. Second—" (and Viviendre's demeanor changed immediately, she leaned toward Jay and shifted her eyes slyly) "—your sister was truly bedding that many men?"

Jay clicked a half-snort, half-laugh through his tongue. "Why? Jealous?"

"Mere curiosity, that is all. And how many children has she given birth to?"

"None. What kind of question—"

"None! None." Viviendre threw up a hand in wonder and even checked back at Jreige as if to affirm what Jay said. "What, does she take it up the ass every time? After all that talk of 'germs' and 'bacteria'..."

"How the hell would I know! I don't spend time thinking about it. Don't tell me you have kids or anything."

"Me? Kids!" Fehfehfeh. "Perish the thought. Look at me Jay, I am not overly popular with the men of Whitecrosse."

"Oh please. You look fine."

"Fine! Fine?" The relic's bulbous end rose and tapped her eyepatch, causing a slightly-muffled thunk sound. "You are surely a flatterer, Jay. If it weren't for men like DeWint and Makepeace—God rest that man's soul—I'd have forgotten I was a woman long ago."

Jay squinted at her, trying to discern whether she was being intentionally self-deprecative to wring compliments out of him. He didn't intend to play ball. "How'd you lose the eye anyway?"

"I didn't lose it. Nor my leg. I never had either to begin with."

"Huh?"

"The royal bloodline of dear California remains pure, my friend," Viviendre appending a staged, actorly sigh, "but at great cost."

"Oh." Jay vaguely remembered one of the dukes—or maybe the queen herself—mentioning something about... that. He wasn't sure how to take the admission. Viviendre hadn't said it very gravely, in fact she parodied any seriousness it might have held. A joke—he'd respond with a joke. "No wonder why you thought I'd know how my sister has sex."

The drawback was that it got them on that uncomfortable topic again—in fact, given the new context, it was even more uncomfortable—but at least it made Viviendre laugh. "Please! And for your information, before you start spreading such nasty rumors about me the way all those horsefucking dukes do, I have never and never intend to partake in that particular 'family tradition.' Indeed, I traveled to Whitecrosse partially to ensure that."

"What a relief," Jay said, although a few seconds afterward he realized he wasn't sure why he said it, and felt kind of stupid for saying something so meaningless.

They finally reached the end of the tunnel. A new flight of stairs confronted them. Viviendre stopped and frowned at them, then without a word stuck out her arm for Jay to once more hold as he assisted her up.

"The only reason I'm divulging such things to you is because otherwise you'll hear it from the court's gossiping hens first, along with all manner of half- and untruths. Which reminds me. I'm certain a genius such as yourself has already figured it out, but you shouldn't trust any of those weasels."

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Of course not."

"Relay the message to your sister, too. She may think she has them licking from her hand with her grand schemes, but I assure you those dogs are craftier than they appear. There are many who do not wish to see a bigger, healthier, stronger population of peasants, no matter what extra profits are promised. Indeed, some would rather see no change in the current state of things—ever."

"That's fine," said Jay. "None of her plans will work anyway. The only two words she really understood during that speech were 'tax revenue.' Everything else I'm sure she got from a freshman-level college course."

"Freshman...?" said Viviendre.

"Entry. Entry-level."

"Well." Her step became unsteady, she swayed, he caught her, all without her seeming to notice. "Tell her anyway, unless you truly feel about her the way I do about Mayfair."

"Alright. Fine."

They reached the top of the stairs and Jay moved to unloop from her but this time her arm tightened just enough and they continued walking along a new corridor—this one lit by sunlight streaming through rows of identical ornate windows—arm-in-arm. He didn't resist. Her clothes were silky, soft. Somewhere buried beneath them a small body quivered, too physically weak to do otherwise.

Her hand found his. It felt tiny, the fingers small and brittle as they pushed and then slid between his own much larger fingers. An immediate pulse shot through him, he remembered the hands shattering in his grasp, the scream of pain Flanz-le-Flore made, the image of her face melting off her skull...

"Jay, may I ask you a question?"

Jay said nothing.

"When you said I looked 'fine'... did you mean it?"

The small fingers wriggled like worms, hard worms that would snap in seconds.

"Of course," Jay said, without looking at her, feeling stupid again, feeling like he was saying the dumbest possible thing.

"Thank you for escorting me to my room." Sure enough, there was a door in front of them. "These long walks always make my lungs feel like razors—I really should sit down for a bit. Would you like to keep me company a while longer?"

"Your Highness," said Jreige.

"Jreige say not another word. You serve me and do not forget it—else I'll chop your balls off, understand? Pardon me, Jay. I of course don't intend for anything uncouth. I simply enjoy conversation with you. Would you mind?"

The small fingers clasped tightly. As though she were trying to shatter his bones instead, except she was too weak to even make them hurt. Jay didn't understand. Like all the stupid things he'd said during the past conversation, it didn't make any sense.

Why did he want to say yes?

It didn't make any sense. He never wanted to say yes. To anything. Yet here he was. He understood what she was asking—"uncouth" or not—he wasn't oblivious. So why did he want to say yes?

After all. After all, when Flanz-le-Flore tried something similar, with her arms around his shoulders, with her soft voice whispering in his ear—and Flanz-le-Flore had been, sorry Viviendre, significantly more attractive—he'd said no. Said it easily. Hadn't even thought about it. Hadn't even needed the logical rationale he cobbled together afterward to justify his instinctual rejection. Since coming here every woman apparently wanted him, either because he was a hero or because Perfidia hardwired them all in a misguided attempt to keep him "satisfied"—either way, it meant nothing. Did he think Viviendre was any different? Sure, Perfidia was gone now, and sure, she wasn't outright asking him for anything—yet. It only meant she was savvier than the others.

So why did he want to say yes?

The churn in his stomach accompanied the mental image of her fingerbones grinding to powder in his grasp, of his hands grasping her throat and throttling her, of bashing her skull to a bloody mash with his baseball bat. Nausea gurgled and he became acutely aware once more of Viviendre's perfume, its saccharine tang as overpowering as when he first met her. His eyes watered, his skin itched—the perfume.

The perfume. Or maybe the relic. She was doing something to him. Right. She was altering his mind. Either the perfume or the relic could be the culprit. A seduction magic, something to draw him toward her even though her body was like Swiss cheese—not that she looked particularly bad, or was that the magic talking?—it had to be magic. Something like that. Right? Right. Lalum tried to warn him after all: be careful of Viviendre. Lalum was the only one he could trust.

"Silent again. Of course!" She said it with a smile that faded the moment she saw his face. "Uhm—"

He pulled his arm away from her. She wobbled and without thinking he seized her to steady her and just as quickly pulled his arms away, stepping out of her reach, stepping out of the plume of her scent.

It had to be the scent. Maybe the relic even caused the scent, or it could be animus magic, Viviendre kept herself covered up, maybe parts of her body were corrupted like the nuns. It made so much sense now—why didn't he realize sooner?

"What the fuck!" She lurched toward him and he backpedaled away from her. "Am I—am I really that disgusting?! Seriously?! You fucker! You could at least be polite about it, fuck! You fucking—you fucking fucker! Die in Hell!"

Her one golden eye drove straight into him and he winced. Was he—was he just being an asshole? No, of course not, she had to be manipulating him somehow, nobody would be interested in him otherwise. Even Lalum only cared because he saved her life.

Despite Viviendre's words, though, her posture was slumped, and her teeth were grinding together, and her eye drooped. Pained. Or maybe the perfume was forcing him to think she was pained, to feel bad for her, to feel bad about himself, it all had to be that perfume.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I..."

Behind her, Jreige the attendant stood like an inanimate object. Upright and unwavering, maybe something smug in those eyes. Further down the deserted corridor, hidden around a bend where the window's sunbeams didn't reach, peeped Lalum. So she followed him even here. Lalum warned him about Viviendre. Of course, Lalum could also have an ulterior motive, couldn't she? Jealousy.

"You what? Heh? Go on, say it. I've heard it all before." Viviendre swung back at a lazy tilt and leaned against her door, rolling back her head. "I'm deformed, I'm repugnant, I'm a blackhearted Saracen, I'm miserable. Go on! Say it. Be open about it at least, you bastard."

He didn't want to hurt her. "I'm sorry. Holding your hand, it just reminded me." His hand lifted, balled into a fist. "There was someone—someone I hurt. It was a bad memory."

What the fuck was he saying?

The golden eye narrowed. "That so. Hm."

More than anything he felt mentally and physically drained. He didn't want to think about this anymore. "It's true," he managed to mutter.

She stared. Then a low, snakelike fehfehfeh came out and a fragment of a smile manifested. "Then I suppose I can offer you a second chance. But not now. My mood's gone to tatters because of you, shitbrain. If you're really telling the truth, visit again later. Ciao!"

Her rapid, languid delivery hit a roadblock when she needed to open her door, which she struggled to do efficiently while leaning on her cane for support, and eventually Jreige stepped forward and opened it for her. She took a subsequent staggered series of seconds to hobble inside, whereupon the door shut and Jreige stood guard beside it without acknowledging Jay's existence.

The perfume scent dispersed. Jay felt no different than before. Head swimming, circuitous thoughts scourging himself, he walked toward where Lalum had been, but she was no longer anywhere.

—

The speech went well, but Shannon always knew it would. Ignorance was the formative matter of these people; even rudimentary knowledge of subjects outside her specialization flabbergasted them. So she spent the rest of the day much like the first, meeting with anyone and everyone of even tangential relevance to Whitecrosse's ruling class. Duke Meretryce acted her staunch ally, but he also promised too much, suspiciously promised exactly what she wanted most—a way home—shielded behind pie-in-the-sky qualifications for when those goals could be achieved. For instance, when she presented him with the more reasonable goal of recovering Wendell from the forest (she hadn't forgotten about him), Meretryce hemmed and hawed and suggested that the current time was unfavorable, dealing with the fae was tricky, it was best to rely on certain astrological signs, the whole pseudoscientific gobbledygook.

When it came to her plans for a public sewage system, though? People were on board, as she expected. She formed committees and subcommittees to refine her designs using the knowledge of the kingdom's architects; revised blueprints were submitted for her attention by noon. Shannon only wished she possessed more concrete learning in this field to better assess whether they moved in the correct direction.

None of that was the problem, though.

The problem was that she was horny.

Shannon Waringcrane disliked having this problem. For most people, maybe it made little impact. Her brother for instance. Not a single intimate physical moment with another human in nineteen years of life and he acted like he was perfectly fine with that arrangement. Or Mother. How often had Shannon told her she needed to go out and try dating again? But a decade after the suicide and all she ever did was watch movies and drink wine.

Somehow she shared genes with these aberrations. Inhuman mutants. Meanwhile her last time was five days ago and she found it difficult to concentrate. Words, words, words, she tried to prioritize her attention, filtering out needless courtesies and honing in on technical or logistical intel necessary to move forward with her plans, but the facts and figures mingled in her mind with another type of mingling. Bah! Stupid fucking Dalt, stupid stupid stupid asshole, why did he abandon her, why?! She needed him now more than ever.

Pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers at the oval table where the dukes and court officials debated financing she could feel the palpable and ineffable accumulation of stress within every ounce of her frame, head to toe, a shaking and a shivering that could only be reversed via the perfectly ordinary human drive for copulation. And it wasn't like she couldn't function whatsoever! It was simply that concentrating significant portions of her mental energy on the multifaceted and utterly unsexy series of problems she established for herself grew tantamount to Sisyphean. She needed that concentration. These were not charitable people regardless of their professed devotion to a charity-based faith. They wanted something from her—great things from her—and if she wanted them to open that gate she needed them. (There had to be a key on this side. Had to be. Maybe in that vault Jay mentioned. He might know something. Or Ollie might know something—although the fairy had gone missing, only compounding Shannon's combustive levels of stress—and here she was, distracted again.)

Opportunity was not the issue. No shortage of men had attempted to court her; some even brazenly proposed. There were enough of them that a few were even her type, although give her two more days and she'd settle for Gonzago if she had to. Nor was the issue loyalty to Dalt, who could come charging back on a herd of white horses and receive only a flat "It's over" for his trouble (after she made it back through the gate of course).

The issue was contraceptives.

She and her bodyguards prepared assiduously for their trek into this fantasy realm but birth control had very reasonably not been on her checklist. No pill in five days, not a single condom on hand. If the medieval world possessed any similarly-purposed techniques they surely lacked efficacy.

Unacceptable risk. Simply unacceptable. Only the most irresponsible, reprehensible sort of woman got herself pregnant at such a young age. Rearing a child under those conditions—simply irresponsible! She couldn't. Untenable. Nonstarter.

Yet the part of her mind that failed to focus on the grand and unending speech Duke Meretryce now gave to his compatriots kept nagging: "Come on. Come on. It's not that bad. You'll figure it out. You can worry about the whole pregnancy thing later. What about that captain of the guard who saluted so smartly? Not quite Dalt-sized but they're pre-agricultural revolution, malnourishment is par for the course. He's not doing so bad, that in mind. He's still taller than you at least, which most of these men can't say. So come on. You saw the way he looked at you. Come on!"

"Milady."

Buzzbuzzbuzzbuzz. How did she ever make it through her sermon at the church?

"Milady!"

She could not let it show. Above all else nobody could ever know. Her needs were perfectly ordinary but the continued functioning of polite society necessitated self-mastery—

"Lady Shannon!"

"What? What is it?" She looked up, looked around, eyes blinking in a circle around her, before she settled on the man standing beside her. Gonzago. Dandyish as always.

"I—Ahem. Well—is now a bad time?"

"I was attempting to focus on the duke's suggestions, yes," Shannon said, jabbing a pointed hand over the table. "If you have something to say, say it."

"Gonzago, my nephew, please." Duke Meretryce wore his broadest smile but his eyes sharpened themselves on Gonzago's flinching jerk to attention. "The heroine has little time for your antics."

"Aye, yes, well. Ahem. It's actually—it's—"

"Cease your stammering boy," Mordac snarled.

"The queen. It's the queen!" Gonzago's nod brought himself into greater focus, realizing him. "Queen Mallory has requested Lady Shannon's presence."

Shit. The queen. The most important person here, the most essential to impress, and the most volatile. Shannon still felt the bruises from the woman's punches and kicks. First impression went poorly, Shannon existed in a hole already, and now a surprise meeting with her in such a state. The absolute worst-case scenario.

"What?" said Meretryce, echoed by many others present. "What! Queen Mallory? She told you this herself? Gonzago, do not lie to me, I am a patient man but I'll not be tested on such matters!"

"Y—yes, of course, my uncle. I, ahem, I was not told by Her Majesty herself, but by one of her personal handmaidens—It was impressed upon me to deliver this message as swiftly as possible!"

Meretryce exchanged a look with Mordac, or rather Meretryce looked at Mordac and Mordac remained a statue. "Well now," Meretryce said finally. "A rare occasion indeed that Her Majesty sends for anyone other than her personal retainers. Although I suppose the arrival of the hero and heroine merit such rarities. I hope only that the days have given her some time to recover from the news regarding the fate of her children. Very well! Lady Shannon, gentlemen, let us render our conversation mobile. Her Majesty will be in the courtyard at this hour, so we have much ground to cover. Hup. Hup!" He clapped his hands and the others rose with creaks of chairs and bones.

"Ahem. Um. Actually." Gonzago shifted his weight. His eyes wandered to his feet, then to Shannon. "Her Majesty specifically requested the heroine come alone."

Meretryce's face devolved instantly. "Did she now."

"Ah—! Um, yes. Ahem. This fact was stressed most severely. I have been told—I am merely the messenger uncle!—I have been told Her Majesty intends to beat anyone else who disturbs her to—ehm, ahem—a quote-unquote 'bloody pulp'—no matter who they are. Please! I am but the messenger...!"

A silence. Meretryce's good humor gone. He looked nearly identical to Mordac in that moment, and the room was still save for Gonzago's cringing.

"Very well." To Shannon: "Attend Her Majesty quickly, lady heroine. She is not one for conversation, so it shan't be long. Hurry back soon, girl."

She rose, took her leave, all that, in a blur. Outside the chamber where the bigwigs conferred a maidservant awaited and it was her who ferried Shannon to wherever the queen was. For a few minutes Shannon didn't have to do anything except walk and keep her eyes riveted to the maidservant's heels, but after descending a few stairs and crisscrossing a few corridors she realized she needed to establish a conscious strategy for speaking with the queen. A successful conversation might do more for her than all of those dukes combined; an unsuccessful one might end with her bloodied on the floor. If—

"Ah, Lady Shannon, how do you do? Absolutely ravishing today!" The Prime Astrologer—DeWint. He walked backward, facing her, carrying for no definite purpose an antique brass sextant in one hand. He could not exist right now, no. Perhaps the most unctuous pest of the lot, the most forward with his overtures. She knew she possessed the self-control to grind his advances into the dirt but if she entertained him even mentally even for a second the shame would divvy her entrails. "Your performance at the pulpit enflamed us all with forward-thinking feeling. Mayhap the effect would have been even more pronounced had you an education in classical rhetoric. Which, need I remind you, is one of the many, many subjects I teach—"

"Not now. The queen summons me," she said.

"Fiddlesticks! And it's so rare to find you alone. Well, mostly alone." He nodded cordially—overly cordially—to the maidservant, who glared in response. "Let me merely mention that I have taken under my care a certain small friend of yours. Please come find me at your earliest convenience if you wish to see them."

A small friend?—Oh! "Ollie?"

"Ollie... Yes, yes, that is the name, correct. We have reached understanding."

It'd resolve at least one worry if Shannon had Ollie back. Plus Ollie knew a lot about this place. "I'll swing by your office after I talk to the queen."

"Excellent! Then I shall pester you no further, my exquisite heroine—as always, I am your devoted servant. Ta-ta!" In a flowing series of obsequious bows he dropped out of sight.

By the time Shannon remembered she needed to formulate a plan for the queen, she arrived.

The courtyard ate a narrow hole out of the center of the castle and ringed on all sides by multi-story walls from which even taller towers extended it seemed distinctly prisonlike, a semblance made more severe by its sparseness. No elaborate gardens or flower displays. In most of it, not even grass—just mud, churned into erratic whorls.

The reason for the dismal appearance became clear immediately as sounds came into focus: grunts, groans, hard whacks, stomping of feet. On the fringe of the mud circle, where the maidservant stopped and Shannon stopped beside her, a few other stiff female attendants waited and watched the interior, where people brutally assaulted one another with long wooden swords.

There were eight of them total, all tromping back and forth in light leather armor. They covered a swath of different heights and sizes and Shannon realized after a few seconds of dim contemplation they were the seven knights who had stood—then in full armor—behind the queen in the throne room. The eighth combatant was Queen Mallory herself.

In simple, almost peasant-like pants and shirt, with her blonde hair tied back behind her head, with mud painted across her face, she looked nothing like before. She darted and dove between the attacks of her knights, parried a strike from another, and after a few seconds of watching Shannon realized the queen was taking on all seven knights at once—and winning, given that three of them were already groaning in the dirt. Make that four.

The queen moved fast. She did not move gracefully. Her actions possessed a degree of efficiency, she clearly had technique even to Shannon's amateur eye (her sport was track and field), but any spared unit of energy was expended in the obscene, outrageous power of her swings, swings accompanied by a brutal and unladylike grunt that echoed between the courtyard's tall enclosure. The sound of her wooden sword plowing into a knight's shoulder was almost as loud; in the time the knight spent staggered, Mallory brought a strike nearly as hard into his hip to knock him down.

Hopefully, Shannon thought as the sixth knight fell after another lightning quick exchange, this meant the queen would be emptied of aggression before they spoke. Mostly though, Shannon didn't think anything. She watched Mallory's body whip back and forth and nimbly evade the blows of the final, tallest knight (not the largest—at least not by volume—but the tallest), who instead of a sword wielded a long staff as though it were a polearm. From common sense and intellectual osmosis Shannon knew spears were generally advantaged against swords, but Mallory acted as though this disadvantage made things more fun. Her mud-caked cheeks split into a broad smile while she agilely navigated routes of safety through the knight's stabs to pummel him once she got close.

That left seven knights felled and one woman standing. She hefted her arms to the sky, let her wooden sword drop wherever it might fall, and crowed triumph to the encircled sky. The servants standing around Shannon applauded politely. Shannon, lost in certain other thoughts after watching the brusque and physical display, joined in on rote.

Mallory grew bored of exultation, heaved a deep breath, and strode toward Shannon. One arm shot out—Shannon braced to run—but instead of strike it received from a nearby maidservant a flask from which Mallory quaffed. In fact, Mallory did not even look at Shannon as she walked past, beelining the way Shannon came while her servants fell into line behind her.

Wasn't the queen the one who called Shannon out here? Shannon looked to those left behind for an answer, but that number included only the groaning knights, who nobody felt important enough to assist. One exasperated grimace and Shannon hurried to keep up with the tail end of Mallory's train.

Through corridors. Up stairs. Zigging, zagging, Shannon brimming more and more intense rage with every step. Given the queen's propensity to violence Shannon was reluctant to rush up there and start speaking, but there was also a good chance the queen forgot her entirely, and without reminding her nothing would ever happen. Hastening her pace she pushed past the servants to the front of the line just as Mallory swiveled through an open door.

"Yes, hello. Excuse me—Your Majesty?"

Shannon followed through the door and stopped dead. Mallory, arms outstretched, was already in the process of being disrobed by a pair of maidservants. The leather armor came off and fell to the side, the shirt was pulled up—

"Yauoogh" somewhat approximated the sound Shannon made as she turned for the exit. The door slammed shut in her face, her last glimpse of the outside congested by a line of the maidservants wearing what she thought were sly smiles—although she saw them for only a second.

A sharp voice commanded: "Stay, heroine."

Quivering all over, Shannon stared at the shut door. "Your Majesty. I apologize for—"

"What's this. Cannot even look at me? Rude."

Shannon sighed. Fine. Fine! If the queen didn't care, then why should she? It was all women in the room anyway.

She turned. Queen Mallory had entirely disrobed and untied her hair so that it cascaded down her back. Her two maidservants stood to the side holding the filthy clothes and armor in loose bundles. The only thing of note in the dark, dim-lit room was a large wooden bathtub, from which hot steam issued. The queen stretched her arms overhead, yawned, and climbed over the edge to land in the water with a splash.

"Ahhhhh, yes, now there we go. Ahhhhh!" Mallory sank in up to her neck.

"Yes. Great." Shannon looked at where her watch would be, trying to erase that brief image of the queen's nude form from her head. For a thirty-something woman who'd ostensibly been pregnant twice, Mallory was in aggravatingly good shape. "I assume, Your Majesty, you called me for a reason?"

The queen said nothing. Her head leaned back against the edge of the tub. Eyes closed.

"Your Majesty."

Nothing.

Shannon looked to the silent maidservants for assistance, saw only more sly smiles.

Her face sank into her hands. No wonder Meretryce and the others hated this woman.

Coalescing all strength Shannon lifted her head and shouted: "Your Majesty!" If she had to fucking chant it the way the dukes did in the throne room she swore—

"Join me, heroine."

"No!"

"Why not?"

"I—I—!" Shannon calmed herself, although doing so required another strong shiver. "I already bathed today."

"But in this filthy, 'germ'-ridden world, should you not put especial care into your personal hygiene?"

So the queen heard the speech somehow—or heard of it. "Sharing your filthy bathwater is not what I consider hygienic. People do not usually bathe together."

"Such a disappointment. Very well, you are dismissed."

"Dismissed? What? I thought you had something to say to me."

"I did. Not anymore."

Shannon's shoulders went slack. Her eyelid twitched and she rubbed her eye furiously to stop it. Lunacy: moonlight bacteria tumbling and infecting the brain. Nothing would've made her happier than storming out of the room. But the queen's careless, casual remark made clear doing so would close—perhaps forever—one of the best avenues for Shannon to return home. Today was Sunday, and while she'd mostly lost hope of making it back before she got fired, this was her last chance to do so.

It'd been a few years, but Shannon ran track in high school. She'd used locker room showers before. This was essentially the same concept. Thinking herself toward the most practical way forward, she started to inwardly sneer at the cringing, virgin behavior that had turned away the moment she saw the queen disrobe. Childish! If she thought about it for even a second it became clear that this whole scene was Mallory's way of conveying trust toward Shannon—trust specifically on gendered lines. Jay hadn't been called here, after all. Nor any of the dukes. Only Shannon. Wasn't it obvious the queen felt some sort of connection with Shannon, given they were apparently the only two women with any power in the entire kingdom? This situation was deliberately crafted.

"Alright." Shannon's eyes flitted to the two maidservants still smiling; she decided they were irrelevances beneath her notice and fiddled with the buttons on her jacket. "Fine. If this is your preferred environment for serious discussion, so be it."

"Good girl."

Those two words caused Shannon to fumble a button. She thought she also heard a giggle from the maidservants—or her imagination. Either way she became aware of tightened, defensive body language, arms closed in and head drawn down, and had to force herself to unclamp and remove the rest of the buttons. Backing off now would turn her into a laughingstock.

If only her suit didn't have so many damn buttons! She turned partially, able to feel the queen's eyes on her as she removed her jacket and began on her blouse. Come on—damn it—finally! Her teeth ground together, something the dentist told her to stop, but she couldn't help it.

The rest of the clothes came off in a tangled blur and finally it was over and she climbed into the tub as quickly as possible, submerging herself to her neck in one dunk despite the water's scalding heat.

There they were. Mallory and Shannon. Two in a tub, rub-a-dub-dub. The tub large enough, at least, that there was no chance of even accidentally bumping a leg or foot against each other. Mallory and Shannon.

"So? May we please talk now?"

"Certainly."

"Perhaps you can start by telling me why you called me here."

"Why I... Oh yes. I suppose I did do that, didn't I?"

"You did."

"Right—right. I remember now. I wanted to tell you, heroine, that you are the sort of girl I absolutely loathe more than anything."

Of fucking course. "Thank you for the most edifying message, Your Majesty. Will that be all or should I go?"

"Girls like you are trained lapdogs. You know such quaint and clever tricks at which one simply must clap. But the only reason anyone cares that a lapdog can roll over is because the lapdog itself is such a malformed and pathetic thing; even the barest minimum impresses."

Exercise of trust—how did Shannon come up with such an idea. Mallory meant to humiliate her even worse than in court, stripping her first. A red heat rose in Shannon's head hot enough to match the sizzling water. How absolutely typical of a brutish woman like Mallory, to see another woman exceed her in some way and feel compelled to tear her down via any means available, even by weaponizing the same societal sexism that subjugated them all alike. Lapdog! A trained puppy, is that what Mallory thought when she heard Shannon's speech? If Shannon was a lapdog then every other human in Whitecrosse, male or female, was a cud-chewing cow.

"The true tragedy of the lapdog, though," Mallory continued, "is that it believes it deserves its praise. It is so proud of itself. It demands the treats its owners give it, it refuses to roll over without them, indeed only learned to roll over because it was given them, and even so it believes itself clever for learning at all."

Shannon plotted an escape route that minimized embarrassment.

"Those men you make your little plans with, Shannon Waringcrane—you know nothing of them."

"I know they can't be trusted, I'm not an idiot."

"You're worse if you think you can control them. Mayfair thought so. I did too—once."

"That right."

Mallory's eyes lit up, her smile turned carnivorous, her spine straightened and she arose within the bath, sloshing a wave of hot water Shannon's way. "Pride—the archest sin. Sin of Satan. You'll listen to nobody, will you? Not even the one who lived your life before you. One marriage, they promised, one male heir, and all would be mine, they would be mine to control. In a prison they locked me, locked and swallowed the key: Glup!"

"How depressing! Thankfully I'm not thirteen like you were and thus not a half-formed imbecile!" But Shannon sighed. The water was melting her muscles, a relaxation seeped within her. "Look—I'm sorry. Having something like that happen to you at that age. I understand it may have—scarred you in some way." It wasn't like Mother. It wasn't like Mother. Everything may have been dad's fault but Mother was complicit. Mallory could not have been. "If you want to work with me I'm willing to work. I'm only talking to them because you're always off in your own world somewhere. Is that what this is supposed to be? Us talking somewhere none of them will be able to listen? Then what are they?" Her hand lifted heavily out of the water to indicate the maidservants.

"They are mine," Mallory said. "I trust only what is mine. And you are not."

"Then it's an impasse. Although I want only one thing and it's nothing to do with you, nothing to do with this world at all. I want to go home, with my brother. If you can produce a key to that gate—"

"There is no key you stupid girl! Who was it that claimed there was one? Meretryce? They will say anything, that is what I am trying to tell you!"

"There has to be a key."

"Has to be! Why? Because you wish it to be so? Are you so arrogant you believe your desire alone can manifest dreams into reality?"

"What's in that vault Jay was babbling to you about?"

"Toys."

"If you have nothing to offer me I might as well go back to the dukes. At least they're serious!"

She couldn't bother with this garbage. It was difficult enough keeping the things that mattered straight with her in this condition. The queen was what they said she was, a petulant womanchild.

Expending immense effort she rose from the water and by the time she was halfway upright Mallory was there—seizing her wrist. How did she move so fast? Or was Shannon simply sluggish. She stood there, Mallory's face too close to hers, sky blue eyes intense and intent. Intent on what? Shannon became aware of the heaving of her own breath as the water rolled off her skin and cool air tickled the spots as they dried.

"Do you want to see me serious?" Mallory said. Looming over her. Taller than her.

Washed of mud, the queen's face was once more beautiful, possessed of the same flawless features as Mayfair her daughter. Shannon's eyes glanced down and she also became aware of the queen's body. The body of a woman in peak physical fitness, and the grip on her wrist crushing to match.

"Please," Shannon said calmly, seriously, although her mind was already going places she knew she lacked the will to stop it from going, not now, not as she currently was, "please release me, Your Majesty."

"There is only one person in this castle strong enough to keep you safe. That person is me. Without me—you'll see what happens, when they no longer want you."

"Please."

The queen's other hand rested on Shannon's shoulder. Shannon stood a creature transfixed; the queen stood over her, digging her into the depths with only a gaze.

"You tremble," Mallory said.

"I—" Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

The hand reached up, brushed away a strand of Shannon's hair. It couldn't be happening. It couldn't be. It couldn't.

Mallory's head leaned in; their lips pressed together. And it was happening. And Shannon didn't resist. Couldn't—drained of all power within and without. For a moment more her eyes remained open, and seeing the two maidservants watching, she squeezed them shut and allowed the queen to control her.