Florette III: The Two-Faced
The Birth of Spring was shrouded with fog, thick enough that Florette could barely make out the opposite side of Peige Boulevard as the sun rose. The vernal holiday was meant to embody life, growth, and warmth, but in Cambria it only meant the start of summer haze. According to Rebecca, it had something to do with a difference in temperature and vapor from the sea, but honestly Florette had barely understood it, and time had only muddied the explanation further in her memory.
Ill-fitting as it was for its ostensible purpose, Florette still found the Birth of Spring superior to the Guerrine tradition, the Festival of the Sun. That event had once represented the tyrant Soleil and only properly shifted in meaning after the spirit’s death, in addition to the cataclysmic disruption in Guerron after the duel between Camille and Lord Lumière’s duel hadn’t helped. It wasn’t as if it made much difference though, just an equinox by whatever name you gave it.
Christophe didn’t have the whole neighborhood association with him—most of them were down in the production district, making one last attempt to resolve negotiations without starting a strike. Florette didn’t have much hope for that, nor did most of the neighbors, but not trying was the sort of thing they’d be liable to regret. Exhaust every avenue, and all.
Florette recognized Helen standing to Christophe’s left, here instead of at the factory after being sacked for her inability to work—inability caused by their damned fire, not that they cared at all. The other boy was a stranger, though, and Christophe himself had taken her a second to recognize after his massive growth spurt.
It’s interesting that Lamante’s mask is even capable of growing and changing with him. For whatever reason, Christophe saw this form as his own more than whatever he’d looked like before, to the point that Florette had never once seen him without it, even during the sorts of covert missions where a different appearance would have been extremely useful. There was a chance that was related. But considering this was a dead face, potentially centuries old, Florette couldn’t help but wonder how its original owner would feel about its evolution. Whoever they’d been, they’d died young, their face carved off by a spirit whose morality was well south of neutral, then bestowed on a passionate Hiverrien with a warm heart. Hopefully they’d appreciate that.
“I recognize Helen,” Florette said, the woman’s burns reminding her of that first horrifying moment she’d seen Fernan after his escape from Gézarde’s lair. The more time passed, the stranger it seemed that Fernan’s creepy alderman had been capable of healing the wounds at all—no other flame sages seemed capable of it, nor indeed any sages Florette knew of at all. Had that invaluable ability died with him? “But I don’t think we’ve met before,” she told the other boy.
“Jareth,” he muttered gruffly. “I’m her brother.”
“He just got back from Micheltaigne,” Christophe added. “An experienced soldier.”
Experienced fighting for the wrong side, Florette couldn’t help but think, though the fact that he was here right now counted for a lot.
“You’re the Blue Bandit?” Jareth asked skeptically. “For a mythical terror, you don’t look like much.”
“I wouldn’t be very good if I did.” And I don’t have the time or the interest in convincing you. Instead Florette addressed Christophe, asking, “Is there any way to delay the strike? String along negotiations for another few weeks? That bastard Monfroy just gave me another job, and it’s time-sensitive.”
“What do you care what some high lord thinks? Wouldn’t the Blue Bandit throw him out a window for even asking?” Jareth folded his arms, a weariness creeping across his face. “She’s not the real thing, is she?”
“Jare! Stop!” Helen looked horrified, but Florette wasn’t particularly offended.
If anything, she couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the accusation. “If I want to stay in this country, people have to go on believing I’m no one important. Monfroy has some leverage, but it’s nothing I don’t intend to deal with.” Imminently, as a matter of fact. “I have to ask, Jareth, is your problem with me, or the fact that we’re going against the nation you bled for?”
“Avalon?” Jareth spit onto the ground, expression twisted into a sneer. “My concern is playing things smart. I don’t want my sister getting caught in some half-baked scheme and paying the price.”
“I can take care of myself, Jare. Been doing it the whole time you were gone.” Helen stepped in between them, staring her brother down. “I’d be dead if it weren’t for her, along with half our friends. She evacuated the roof of Princess Lizzie’s on her own, then climbed down into a burning building to save the rest of us. So if you’re going to be snitty, maybe you should go keep an eye on the negotiation and leave the adults to talk.”
Jareth flinched, then took a step back. “It’s not that.” He stared Florette down, emptiness in his eyes. “I’ve heard enough about you that if even half of it’s true, I’m sure you’d be a big help. You probably have been already. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to rely on you, especially if you say you can’t help us because you’re busy doing Lord Monfroy’s bidding.”
I suppose that’s fair, considering you don’t have the context, but that doesn’t mean I need to justify myself to you. “I’ll do everything to help as soon as I get back, but I’m no good to anyone if Monfroy makes me a fugitive, least of all your cause. Trust me.”
“I don’t. I can’t.” Jareth exchanged a look with his sister, then Christophe. “But we’ll take any help we can get.”
“We’re extremely grateful,” Helen rasped, elbowing her way in front of her brother. “But we can’t wait for you. The contracts expire today; we have to take what they’re offering or make a stand, and we have no intention of rolling over.”
Fuck you, Monfroy. The one part of her life where Florette could be herself, be heroic without deceit or compromise, and that asshole aristocrat was tearing her away from it. But blowing off his request would be worse, for her and the workers both. Instead, she turned to Christophe. “Can you keep them safe until I get back?”
“Yes,” he said confidently, Jareth surprisingly saying the same thing as if she’d been asking him.
“Then I’ll leave it in your hands.” But not without helping out a bit before I go. Florette already had something perfect in mind to leverage her talents against the VM owners, and it wouldn’t even shake her cover. Rather than mention it, she held her tongue, since mentioning it to the suspicious soldier was a needless risk. What Florette had in mind would be more effective if it didn't make it into the journals. “Starting tomorrow.”
≋
“Here, you look like you’re nodding off.” Rebecca passed over the hand-roll without partaking of it herself, which was nothing unusual. Whoever had passed it to her probably didn’t know her all that well. “Someone told me it’s laced with pixie powder.”
“Seriously? Damn it.” Kelsey scowled, then took a long swig of his drink. “I have to be on the first ship out tomorrow if I want to make Toby’s unveiling. I can’t be up all night.”
“Why didn’t you just stay in Charenton, Kelsey?” Albert laughed, then took a hit of the hand-roll. Florette didn’t know him well, but Albert Ingles had graduated from the College in the same year as Rebecca, focused mainly around his compacted printing press project. Sara had introduced him to the Twilight Society with much fanfare at the last New Year’s party, talking about how he was going to incorporate tactile type into his machine, but he hadn’t shown up at any of the events since, so perhaps that collaboration wasn’t going well. “You were here for what, like, two days?”
“I had to meet another Cambrian bureaucrat to move the undergrounding project along. Letters haven’t been very convincing.” Kelsey’s frown relaxed slightly. “Plus I didn’t want to miss this party! I haven’t seen most of you in months. For all I knew, Sabine got buried out in the desert.”
“I’m in the same boat.” Florette pressed the hand-roll to her lips and inhaled, feeling her body perk up with energy almost immediately. “Metaphorically,” she clarified, realizing how her statement could be misinterpreted. “I’m headed west instead of south, but I’ll be there at the marina with you.”
“You what? You just got back.” Rebecca looked like she wanted to say considerably more than that, but the public setting seemed, fortunately, to be holding her back.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Sorry, I was going to tell you. It’s another special assignment.” That was the go-to phrasing for a Monfroy errand in polite company, since Rebecca more or less understood the situation there. Florette would be lying if she said she’d never used it for other extracurriculars, though, including today’s more secretive Blue Bandit excursion.
It feels awful having to lie, but I don’t really have any alternative. There was a good chance Rebecca would accept it—she seemed sympathetic enough to the Blue Bandit on the occasions where it had come up, in no small part thanks to Kelsey and Toby consistently advocating for the truth, but that didn’t mean telling her was without risk. It was dangerous enough already with her working for Prince Luce in the Towers, and the more she knew, the greater the risk. Asking her to lie about the Blue Bandit every day at work wouldn’t be fair to her, and the honesty wouldn’t count for much anyway next to the more significant lies that would remain either way.
“You shouldn’t let him push you around,” Rebecca said, frowning. “It won’t be long before your finals, and there’s a real chance you won’t graduate if he keeps sending you every which way. Can’t it wait?”
Florette shook her head, feeling guilty even though that part wasn’t a lie. “He wanted me to leave today, but I insisted on account of the Birth of Spring. I had to see you first.” Not to mention helping Christophe and the neighbors, for all that her efforts there felt inadequate. “Let’s talk about something else, please.”
Rebecca’s eyebrows slanted down, though she didn’t contest the point. Probably going to let me have it once we get home, but at least she’s letting it lie for now at the party.
“How’s your work going, Rebecca?” Hopefully talking about your passions will help perk your mood up a bit. “Did Crete finish that DV project I helped inspire?” Florette asked the question casually, though the timeline would be important considering that it was her most powerful weapon against Monfroy. The whole idea had been to find a counter against whatever he used to drain the life from his victims, leaving them as withered husks aged by decades in the minutes before their death. That was why it was called DV in the first place, Dessication of Vitality, though Florette still found it much clunkier than her initial suggestion of Wither. Crete had probably just wanted to make sure the name had her mark on it too—she had exactly that kind of ego, though Rebecca said she was still very professional and talented to work with despite it.
“You know I can’t talk about that, Sabine,” Rebecca hissed through grit teeth, nostrils flared. “State secret.”
“Of course...” Florette shrank down into her seat, desperately hoping someone else would save her from this conversation.
“I’m surprised you sprung for the pixie powder, Ernie. It’s so expensive up here.”
“Not if you buy it from the right person.” Albert shrugged. “Ernie Porterfield has a sister with a company in Lyrion where it’s dirt cheap. It’s stupidly easy to grab there, and no one at customs ever checks his luggage.”
“Convenient,” Kelsey said, a hint of envy audible in his tone. “I lost my valise to them about a month ago when they found my naca—I had to pretend it wasn’t mine and drop Luce’s name so they’d leave me alone. Not my proudest moment.”
“You were lucky it didn’t happen a couple weeks later. My father had the Murder Twins searching the ships after a tip-off about the Gauntlet of Eulus.” Rebecca smiled at Kelsey, slowly pulling her hand away from Florette. “I doubt Luce’s name would have gotten you anywhere with them.”
Kelsey grimaced, pulling back in seat without responding.
At the mention of the Murder Twins, Albert perked up. “They’re an impressive team, aren’t they? Probably the second and third best binders in the world, right?”
“I don’t know that I’d go that far,” said Florette, trying to correct that ridiculous assertion without drawing on any knowledge that Sabine wasn’t supposed to have. “There’s King Harold, his son, and Rebecca’s dad at the top before you even get to the other families. The Sigmund lance is maybe enough to put Klein the Moonstrike in the conversation for fourth, maybe, but the Sunflash is nothing special.” Next to some of the opponents Florette had already overcome, really, neither of them seemed all that impressive, but that wasn’t reason to let her guard down if they were roaming around Cambria.
“Excuse me? Clarine Rivough is far and away the better warrior!” Albert insisted, surprisingly invested in the distinction. “She beat the Foolhardy Sage of Flammare in a scrap and the Prince Regent in a spar, and I heard her Siglinde sword was strong enough to open the Grimoire Archives for him. Bougitte beat an earth spirit single-handed, if you believe the Cambrian, which means Clarine could do the same. No way she’d lose to her brother—on the power scale, she’d even beat the Blue Bandit.”
“Well, wait, that’s not how that works at all.” Rebecca took a long sip of her drink, then started tearing into Albert’s argument. “This all depends on the context. Who’s better rested, where is the fight taking place, who knows what about what their opponent can do? It’s not like there’s a linear power scale where you can say X would beat Y because they beat Z.”
“Well if Y beat Z, then wouldn’t it tell you—”
“No.” Rebecca rolled her eyes. “That’s like saying my incendiary bombs are stronger than the concussive ones just because they’d set them off. This is just like when you said the Blue Bandit could travel to other planets.”
“And I’m sure she can! It’s all based on established feats!”
“Wait, what?” Does he somehow know something about me that I don’t? More likely it was just him being mistaken, but either way the answer would be interesting.
Albert nodded sagely. “Remember the Esterton Vault robbery? Olivia Esterton used her mechanical replica of the Eulus Gauntlet to shoot lightning at her, and she dodged it. If she can move faster than light and use the same intangibility that Cloak of Nocturne gives her, nothing would stop her from traveling the cosmos. Maybe she already is!”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. She obviously read Olivia’s body and guessed when she’d attack, then preemptively dodged.” Correct. “Using that to assume she can travel faster than light is absolutely, aggressively, idiotic. If you pulled your head back before I slapped you, would that mean you can travel the stars?”
“If you slapped me with lightning, yeah. Obviously I can’t, but the Blue Bandit could.”
“Established feats,” Florette cheekily echoed. “I could see it.”
“Not you too!” Rebecca cried with a playful mockery of anguish. “Kelsey, back me up here, please. Their logic is as weak as a sickly kitten.”
Kelsey scoffed. “Yeah, I lay train tracks around cities. I’m not really up on all that spiritual shit. Jumping into space sounds about as possible as phasing through walls and fighting off Olivia, so what do I know?”
“Well there you have it.” Albert grinned. “Two to one, with one abstention.”
“You’d be outnumbered if my girlfriend weren’t a traitor.” Rebecca groaned, flopping back defeated, but at least she didn’t seem mad about Monfroy’s assignment anymore. “How do you live with yourself, Sabine?”
I try not to think about it too much, and when that fails, I remember that what I’m doing is necessary to fight tyranny and help people. It wasn’t always easy though, especially around Rebecca. Every time Cassia Arion came up was like a knife through the heart, and Florette couldn’t even let herself react strongly enough to be suspicious while the guilt crept down her spine. “What can I say? Albert convinced me.”
≋
“I think I left something on the ship,” Florette lied, forcing herself to pull away from Rebecca’s embrace. “I’ll catch up with you.”
“Oh... alright.” Rebecca bit her lip in a strangely familiar way, for reasons Florette couldn’t put her finger on, then turned away. “I’ll wait in the carriage.”
“Perfect.” Florette feinted back up the gangway until Rebecca was out of sight, then doubled back towards Monfroy’s carriage. She felt a shiver when she opened the door as the wind began to pick up. The Birth of Spring’s tomorrow and Cambria still thinks it’s winter. Compared to Enquin this time of year, this was swimming weather, but Florette had regrettably acclimated enough to the Cambrian climate that it still felt cold out.
Then again, perhaps it had more to do with the man she was meeting. “Ambushing me at the dock, Lord Monfroy? Was that really necessary?”
“Time is of the essence here, Sabine.” All trace of the withered hesitation was long gone from his voice, eerily clear and strong. “I have an assignment for you.”
“I assumed. Can’t it wait? I just got back, and—”
“No. You’ll get back on a boat to Carringdon tomorrow to be in position before the end of the week.”
“For what?” Florette left out the ‘you predatory prick’, but it remained in her tone of voice.
“Ostian Astor vacated his Great Council seat on account of his late brother Douglas, mad with grief or something of the sort.” Monfroy sounded as if the very word was foreign to his tongue. “Your paramour's patron, the Prince of Darkness, is scheming to outmaneuver his brother in choosing Astor’s replacement with some bizarre continental ‘election’ process replacing the traditional selection.”
“And you want me to stop it,” Florette sighed. It couldn’t be something defensible either, could it? Considering how things had turned out in Guerron, the aristocrat would probably just be replaced by a wealthy merchant or a puppet swaying to the will of one, but it would still be some measure of improvement considering the state of Avalon’s government. Not to mention that Fernan would never let her hear the end of it if he found out.
“On the contrary, by all means, let it proceed. You should be familiar with the Great Council dynamics after the dossiers I had you prepare. Collect similar information on the candidates in Carringdon and ensure that you have leverage over the winner, whomever they might be. Create the compromising circumstances for the right material on your own, if necessary, but it’s vital that I own them as I do you.”
“Oh.” And once you do, you’ll control the deciding vote between the feuding princes. You could get whatever you wanted out of the Great Council without even setting foot inside it. Without anyone even knowing you’re involved.
Unless I kill you first.