Étienne led me into the crowd of dancers, my hand light in his. Students and high society folks alike parted to let us through. Everyone was staring at the new girl who caught the prince’s affections.

Including Antoinette.

I caught her eye only a split second before Étienne gently turned me and we settled our hands where they ought to be for the dance–hip, shoulder, clasped together.

Determination aside, I was still a little nervous.

“I can’t dance like this,” I hissed. “I’m pretty sure I never learned.”

“I don’t mind teaching you,” Étienne said. He probably regretted saying so when I stumbled into him, unused to the size of my skirts and the sweep of the steps. He laughed lightly, righted me (damn your niceness!!), and added, “I only wanted a reason to be close to you.”

“I’m going to step on your nice white boots!”

He pointedly slowed us. “You’ll be fine, Chloé. One thing I know for certain about you is that you’re adaptable.”

Despite myself, once he let me concentrate on the steps, giving me little instructions under his breath through his soft princely smile, I started to relax. Étienne was the first sure thing in my world after I woke up on that harrowing, bizarre, rainy evening, and had been helping me get my bearings ever since; I wanted to hold onto him. It was in Marie’s DNA.

Eventually I got my dance skills under enough control for Étienne to say, “I’m wondering how you are, Chloé. Genuinely. You’ve been here for a month–are you enjoying yourself? Do you need help?”

A month! It felt like I’d been here for an eternity. I guess that happened when every experience was brand new.

“I’m great,” I said. “Seriously, I…”

His earnest look of interest made me falter.

“...I’m okay.”

“I worry about you. I know I’ve been…reticent, I suppose? After our weekend together, I realized that there’s no sense in that.” Right, the weekend at the palace, full of party prep. He gave my hand a little squeeze. “There must be more I can do for you, when it comes to finding where you came from.”

“No, no. Thank you, but that’s for me to straighten out, alone.”

“I understand. But know that you can ask me for anything. I’ve done what I could to make you safe. Now I want to do what I can to make you happy.”

They’re little programmed computer guys, only here to fall in love with you. No matter what you do, he’ll love you. It’s all a script, even if he isn’t reciting the game word for word.

But once again, face to face with him, all I could think of was that he was my friend.

And hearing someone say they wanted me to be safe and happy, with that genuine tone…?

I blinked rapidly. Ugh, I’d agreed to dance with him so I could set a boundary with him, not get all misty! “That seriously means a lot, Étienne. More than you even know. I’m really relieved I have you as a friend.”

Friend, yeah?

“I have something to ask you, though.”

“Oh, no, don’t you want to bask in this moment of friendship for another minute?”

He laughed and said, “I’d like to introduce you to the King and Queen. Would you allow that?”

I knew this would happen–it was part of why I was avoiding Étienne in the first place–but I was still making a pretty good impression of the blinking white guy meme. As we spun, I caught a glance of Antoinette, watching us like a cat on the prowl near the chocolate fountain.

I said, “You don’t mean it in a normal, ‘meet your benefactors’ kind of way, do you?”

“...No,” he admitted. “Please don’t hold this against me, but they aren’t exactly keen on the idea of me helping you. A distraction, they called you. You aren’t the kind of girl I should be getting close to. You aren’t the kind of girl,” even Étienne couldn’t stop the creep of sarcasm in his voice at that, “I should invite to dance.”

“So you’re going out on a limb by associating with me at all.”

“I feel like I have no choice. In a good way, I mean…” He looked askance for the first time, seeming to lose his words. (He totally was the poster boy for the he-falls-first trope.) “I would be denying my feelings if I kept you out of my personal life any longer. I want the whole world to know that you’re the kind of girl I want to help.”

OMG Étienne. It’s been a month, please…

Still. How the hell could I say no? This really mattered to him. And maybe I didn’t wanna be the newest princess of Eavredor or whatever, but I did want to support any endeavour that helped him stand up to his parents.

He said, “I wanted to tell you…I’ve become quite fond of you over these last weeks. I hope that isn’t too forward to say, and I don’t expect you to have the same feelings. I hope you don’t feel obligated to, because of who I am.”

We’d gotten very close all of a sudden. I could feel the buttons of his tailcoat pressing against the stomach of my dress, and see how the chandeliers cast shadows on his blue eyes from his long lashes. I could practically hear the paparazzi shutter clicks all around us–or, at least, feel the pressure of a kajillion eyes wondering who this new suitor for the crown prince was. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Antoinette watching us, a blur of red and purple and scary auras.

In the game, this was Étienne and Chloé’s first kiss if you chose to dance with him and you’d stacked your affection okay so far. Maybe that was a little much for so early in the game, but if that monologue just now didn’t prove it, he was kind of feeling a lot.

Right as he leaned in the slightest bit, hand lifting to cup my face, I panicked. I smacked a hand over his mouth.

We spun to a halt and stared at each other, both surprised by what I’d done.

I whispered, “What are you doing? Everyone can see us.” I removed my hand so he could answer.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Sorry?”

“Weren’t you going to kiss me?”

He went pink. “Your hair is caught in your earring, I was going to fix it…”

“But you did the whole speech and I–I–”...caught a blaze of red flame coming towards us. Antoinette. She was practically sashaying, though her blue eyes were full of blades.

And the first thought that jumped in my head was, Yeah, serves you right. I get a volleyball to the noggin and you get all eaten up by jealousy.

“I’ll meet your parents. Promise.” I slipped out of his hands. “Thank you for the dance. I have to–”

image [https://64.media.tumblr.com/50bbf7ba81d41b20c5fbbea0c0a331ee/3a6819a4ad1a40d9-86/s2048x3072/a22bd754dae13312cd9834620217929fb1a025da.jpg]

The room halted. Perfectly on time, too, as Antoinette was only a couple strides away.

Nowhere to run. I had to confront her. Frankly, I liked her too much to not do so.

Rémi was chatting with a crowd of NPCs, all fawning over him. Colette was fixing Lou’s cuffs, both of them as far as possible from their parents. And Sylvain was a straight shot behind Antoinette, leaning against a marble pillar, watching what was about to go down. He probably wanted Antoinette to lecture me to hell and back for being a nasty meddler or whatever. Maybe dump a glass of champagne on my head for good measure.

Hmm. He was right behind Antoinette, like they were two perfectly aligned pool balls I could pocket with one hit.

If this didn’t work, well–I was about to have one dreary dance.

3.

Exactly like how the game took over my mouth in dialogue choices, it now took over my body. I spun on a heel towards Sylvain–Antoinette–and pushed forwards. My hand sprang up towards her and–thank god–landed with a clumsy hecticness into her own.

“Hey, want to dance?”

The puppeteering stopped. Though I’d betrayed the rules, I was dancing with someone, so could the system really complain?

Antoinette gave Étienne, a few steps away, a tight, knife-edged smile. “You don’t mind if I steal your date?”

Whether he gave her a nod or not, I didn’t know; she’d swept me away before I could really get my bearings.

“You must have known,” she said, voice sly and severe, “that I wanted to speak with you.”

“The glare kinda tipped me off.”

While Étienne’s guiding of our dance was gentle, Antoinette made clear that she wasn’t going to tolerate any shitty dancing from me. We were practically close enough to be doing a tango as she forced me through the students and guests. People swiveled to stare at us.

“If it’s not Rémi,” she said, “it’s Lou. If it’s not Lou, it’s Étienne. What’s your angle?”

“Angle? No angle.”

“I suppose it’s to make them fancy themselves as heroes. You’re their Sleeping Beauty, after all. Stop falling back so hard on your left foot.”

Aaand here it was. The first real conversation with Antoinette to mark her crossing from schoolyard bully to romantic rival. That Sleeping Beauty metaphor was from the game. Though I stalled for words, the last thing I wanted was for Marie to butt in with dialogue choices, so I forged onwards blindly.

“They’re only my friends. I’m serious.”

“Don’t lie to me. We’re just girls here, right? Now your right foot’s dragging.” Antoinette studied me as I tried to pick up the dancing pace, but she could topple me with merely a look of her blisteringly beautiful blue eyes. Her sheets of wavy red hair swirled around us, light as chiffon. She had gems sparkling on her chest, making the shape of butterfly antennae to match the wings on her bodice.

I took a big breath, turning my focus towards her words and away from the way her skirt was swishing between my legs and her manicured nails were digging into the fabric of my bodice.

“I’m being honest with you.”

She spoke through her teeth: “You can’t be, because I know there’s something off with you. I can’t stop thinking about it. You’re driving me insane!”

Welp, that was new. I nearly asked what she meant, if she would confide in me. But I was smarter than that. I’d played this game. I’d written those fics. I could either be patient and wait hours for her to confide in me like she did about her mother, or push her buttons and get the answer now.

“Insane? I can see that! You’re the heiress, surely you shouldn't stoop so low and worry about the guys who have crushes on me.”

“I know!” She laughed a single, humourless beat. We whirled between two sets of couples, fast enough that I felt my hair lift and hit someone’s back. “And yet I can’t stop. I’m not obsessed, I’m not jealous, I’m not threatened, I’m–”

“And you’re not stupid. Can’t you tell I’ve been pushing you into their arms at every turn?”

“Yes, I can tell, Chloé!!”

Oh, shit. She was mad now. I’d admired countless pink-cheeked, eyes-flaring graphics of Antoinette…seeing it up close was something else. And yet I wasn’t intimidated. I knew she wasn’t directing her anger at me, not really, even if she didn’t totally understand it.

I can explain, I wanted to say. Instead, I pushed, “If you’re not obsessed, why toss the paint? If you’re not possessive, why hide your ring? If you’re not jealous, why–”

Right as we neared the tower of champagne glasses, her foot hooked behind mine. She threw me into our next turn, upending my balance all topsy-turvy. The ballroom whizzed past me.

And I locked my arms behind her neck to drag her down with me.

We froze, so fast I nearly expected a dialogue box above my head. The champagne glass tower jingled as my necklace slid backwards against my throat and rang against the glasses. Her hand snapped off my waist to steady herself; I dropped an inch and my butt hit the edge of the table.

“Christ on a bike, Antoinette! Were you trying to throw me into the tower?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

I squeezed my opposite wrist, linked behind her neck, glaring up at her amidst the curtains of her red hair. “Okay, enough. Cool off,” I said. “I'm not your enemy.”

She scoffed and righted us, ducking out of my hands. “It shouldn’t matter,” she said in a scathing hiss, “what you feel about any of them. I’m better than this. I’m better than them.” She swallowed, something catching in her voice. “It shouldn't. I hardly know you. Why do you make me feel like…like nothing makes sense?”

That one shot me in the heart. When I’d thought of the programming messing with the other characters–the other people–I’d thought of it only in terms of how it made them predictable. What was she experiencing, really? What was it like?

Totally confusing, apparently, because she steered right back around to the topic the script wanted her to be pissed about. “All those idiots are obsessed with you. How could you not feel superior to everyone for that?”

“Oh my God, I don’t care about that!”

“Why not?!”

“Because I like girls!”

She stared. And then swooned.

Um, that's a little dramatic, I thought as she caught herself on the edge of the champagne tower’s table. The glasses sang out a strident warning.

“Antoinette, look, where I'm from, it's totally normal, and–”

“Get me off the dance floor,” she snapped, voice breathy.

When her leg gave out, I nearly wasn’t fast enough to catch her. A couple glasses teetered off the top of the tower and smashed to the floor. Gasps fluttered through the guests.

She huffed hard, annoyed, her breath skating past my arm. I helped her up. I felt eyes on us from all corners, pricking my skin like needles.

I looped our arms together and marched her to the edge of the ballroom. Though she was almost dead weight against me, to her credit, she was keeping her head up, like she'd knocked down those glasses for the fun of it (seemed like something Antoinette would do). Maybe fresh air would help? Privacy definitely would.

When she tumbled onto a bench with a harsh, very un-Antoinette-like slump, and I saw how her milk-pale skin had crossed into greenish and sallow.

“Antoinette, are you okay?” I asked.

“No, obviously.” At least she had the energy to sass me. She lifted a hand to push her hair off her face and it was shaking.

What was going on? Did something happen while we were dancing? Was it exertion, intoxication?

Nothing was so simple. This world was part of a video game at its heart, wasn’t it? This could only be much worse than it seemed.