"She’s not dead, Clara— She’s— she’s not."

"I… I never said she was."

“Eigenlicht!” Estelle shouted. I turned, watching as she threw something pale blue and glinting—

The palm-sized ice-blue object arcs through the air, clicking as it lands on the cracked stones in front of me. It flashes, once— Estelle spins on her heel—twice, and then fulminates. My vision goes black.

Immediately, I turned on my heel, strengthening my Shroud as I ran. I took stock of the situation again.

Ahead of me— Arthur has one foot up on the ledge, one hand holding the railing, face frozen watching the two of us. My eyes gauged the distance. Roughly seventy feet. Closer to me— Estelle’s back was turned, poised to run. Twenty-five feet from me, forty-five from Arthur. Behind me, about fifteen feet back was whatever she’d thrown, moments from— presumably— exploding.

The question: To thicken my Shroud— brace the blast, or use the rest of it to clear the blast radius.

Sparks like exposed wiring rattled along the back of my eyes— I sprint past Estelle, arriving besides Arthur in the blink of an eye. Behind us, the explosion echoes outwards, shaking the cobble sky-dock. Arthur and I wait precious seconds as the spearman advances, and catches Estelle by the hair before she can make it to us. My Shroud is slow— unable to help me close the gap before a spear is plunged through her stomach.

I grit my teeth, coming to my decision as I thickened my Shroud and slowed my pace.

In the next moment, an explosion split the night’s silence like a crack of divine retribution.

A force rips me from my feet, sending me tumbling across the ground— tumbling harmlessly as I controlled my roll and came to a crouched position. Ahead of me, within arm’s reach, Estelle. Around me, I felt my Shroud crumbling, shattered from the impact. Dust and splintered stone and flicks of burst wood clattered and rolled and fell around me. Turning, I looped an arm under Estelle’s, hauling her up, dragging her towards Arthur, whose mouth had fallen open. I risked a glance back, and my mind stalled.

Where we’d been standing— the spearman and I— had been between two buildings. I had engaged them there on the premise it would’ve been more difficult to surround us. Now— I saw the explosion had turned it into an impromptu killing field. The explosion had created a crater, deep enough and riddled with enough unsteady rocks as to make it hellish to attempt to climb out. The buildings on either side had looked as if they’d been pulverized by a giant hammer— spitting splintering, fiery rubble in every direction. Shouts and wails of horrified pain was the final, echoing touch.

Weeping Angels, what the hell had she done?

I tore my gaze away, swallowing the shudder that climbed through my bones. Beside me, the pale-faced mage was slack-faced, openly panting and struggling to keep up as I dragged her along. Arthur’s face slid towards mine as I approached, seemingly coming to his senses.

“We have to go,” I said, keeping my voice even. Arthur shot me a weird look, before shaking his head and blinking. He hadn’t heard me. “Are we ready?” I yelled, louder this time, holding out my hand for the Featherstone. With my other hand, I unlooped my arm from Estelle’s, taking her hand instead. Arthur’s mouth moved, saying something I didn’t catch as he put a Featherstone in my hand.

The trail of sparks were flickering now, dying with my Shroud— We jump, and after an initial second of free fall, are jerked upwards by the Featherstones in our hand—

Without another moment to spare, I took a breath, swallowing my fear with it, and leapt— dragging the two with me.

For a heartbeat, at the apex of our jump, I felt weightless, and felt the truth of what we’d just done. My feet flailed, boots catching on nothing but air, as gravity took over. Icy wind rose and screamed past our ears, quickly drowning out the shouts that trailed behind us. I felt the last of my Shroud fall away, and with it, the last sparking, scintillating spiderweb that was my Expression, sloughing away like a shed skin.

Then, as my heart lurched and we began to tumble into free fall, the Featherstones’ spell buoyed into effect, sending a lightning shock of pain through my arm, quickly numbing as we were lurched upright. A pull and a sense of something giving drew my gaze back down— to see Estelle having begun falling, twisting as she vanished into the dark clouds below.

I cursed, my mind immediately jumping to what-ifs; what would happen to her? Her ability to cast spells made it significantly less likely for her to die— but she couldn’t cast— could she? I got no answers— my Shroud having been spent throughout the duration of the night, and by extension, my Expression, Divine.

[][][]

Tisali rose around us like a ring of blackened spears, clocktowers piercing the clouds at irregular intervals. The place Arthur and I had landed was somewhere damp and dark— covered in melting snow and dying streetlights and surrounded by crowded brick buildings that seemed to leer overhead.

I shoved away the Featherstone, trying my best to rub feeling and warmth back into my hand after the descent. My shoulder felt stiff, and complained when I swung my arm, but I’d dealt with worse. The bruise on my wrist throbbed, but I took that to be a better sign that being unable to feel my hands. I wrapped my cloak closer around myself, waiting as Arthur touched down beside me.

Arthur landed less gracefully than I did, eyes stuck to the ground as he stumbled forward, his arms failing to catch him. He went sprawling, and after a moment, crawled to a kneeling position, his odd feathery cloak petaled out behind him. He moved to stand, shuddered, and his foot slipped on the ground again.

I didn’t blame him. It had taken closer to a quarter-of-an-hour to land, and with each passing minute, Arthur’s face had only fallen farther and farther, before slowly becoming blank. Now, after falling a second time, he wasn’t getting up. I crouched beside him, a tentative hand on his back.

“Arthur,” I said. “Get up, we need to move.”

He didn’t respond.

“Arthur,” I said again, firmer. “Come on.”

“I know,“ he whispered, his voice strangled. He tried to stand again, this time rising unsteadily to his feet. I went to his side, to support him, but he turned me down with hand. “We need to look for her, Clara,” he murmured, voice hollowing into the dark street ahead. After another moment, he set off, trudging through the ankle-deep snow.

I frowned, before moving to catch up. “We don’t know where she landed.”

“Can you use your Expression?”

I winced at the edge in his voice. “That’s not exactly how it works.”

“Then what can you do?”

I stayed silent, unsure if I should say anything more. Arthur was obviously on edge, if not from the events of the night, then from the fact that his friend might’ve been dead. Which wasn’t a small thing, I knew how much Estelle meant to him. Every fifth sentence had some relation to her— it was almost infuriating to talk to him sometimes. It didn’t help he was probably also fighting the exhausting drain of adrenaline, the late hours of the night, and the handful of fights we’d been in. Even I felt my energy flagging, my feet complaining and soreness slowly setting into my limbs.

After several heartbeats, he sighed. “Sorry, that wasn’t fair of me.”

“It’s fine,” I replied. “But we should hurry, whatever we’re planning to do. If she survived she won’t last long in this cold.”

“She survived,” he said, sounding convinced. He muttered something under his breath.

“… I’m sure she did, mages are a notoriously difficult bunch to put down, especially talented ones… and she seems to be excessively talented.”

It sounded like denial, even to my ears— loopy logic and fraying hope blatantly misinterpreting circumstantial evidence and ignoring anything that ran contrary.

“I thought you didn’t like her,” Arthur muttered, not looking at me. We strained our eyes into a nearby alleyway, before choosing to walk down it.

I didn’t hate Estelle Laurent— per say. I just had… a different expectation for how she’d be in-person.

I wasn’t lying when I’d said that I knew of her already— I’d read her papers— guiltily, I might add, since I found a small amount of delight in watching each of her experiments come up inconclusive. I had thought that Estelle would’ve been like any other noble: arrogant, stuck-up, pompous, fully undeserving of the prestige and benefits she enjoyed for simply being born the daughter of a duchess.

In my head, I had seen Estelle as some snobby noble who spent her family’s fortune pursuing a magic that would never amount to anything— but then I’d met her, and found many of my preconceptions to be wrong. In a way— she’d been even more disappointing. The mage didn’t know a basic unlocking spell, nearly fainted after a single bout of Transmutation, and had thought her own opinions above that of our esteemed superiors. At least she hadn’t attempted to question my impromptu leadership of the situation.

Then, when I’d essentially cataloged her away as dead weight in my mind, she pulled those tricks with the shipping container, the hallway, and the dock— I didn’t know if she was crafty and cunning, stupid and apathetic, or some mixture of the four. If anything, it made me wary of her.

“I never said that,” I murmured, peaking out of the alleyway. No one was out at this hour, which was simultaneously both bad and good. Bad— because we couldn’t ask anyone if they’d seen her drop. Good— because it meant there’d be no witnesses in either scenario.

“You met her and the first conversation you had with her could be summed up as you calling her useless,” Arthur pointed out, voice sounding small.

“… and then she proved me wrong.”

Memories replayed in my head— of the incident with the stairs shortly before she passed out, and of the explosion at Clarion Isthmus. The mage had looked to be in no condition to be casting, if her spell with our cuffs had been anything to go off of. In the first, I had felt an enormous amount of ether being pulled towards the center of the hallway— presumably for her flashy ice spell— which meant that either her spell had bled— unlikely, given how efficient her spells were— or she drew from an external source of ether. In the second, it looked like she had thrown something, but I hadn’t recognized what.

She’s hiding something, I concluded, and shoved the thought from my mind. I could worry about it later.

We checked several more streets and alleys, ducking our heads in, slowly searching as we combed our way through wherever we were in the city.

“She couldn’t have fallen far,” I began to say, turning.

“I see something!”Arthur interrupted, before rushing down an alleyway.

“Wait— wait!” I swore under my breath, and began chasing after him despite the ache in my legs.

“I found her!” Arthur said as I came to a stop beside him. Found her he had, from what I saw.

Strewn haphazardly on her side, laid the woman we’ve been searching for over the last half-hour. In the time it’d taken for us to find her— a thin layer of snow had settled, draping her and her blue cloak in a thin layer of snow. Immediately, Arthur crouched beside her, brushing off the snow, gentle words I could barely hear rushing forth. Something about a promise, whether she was okay, and all sorts of little things.

I turned my gaze away— unsure if she was breathing— I didn’t want to see Arthur’s face if she wasn’t.

After a heartbeat, I heard Arthur fall silent, and I began turning back, some words of comfort on my tongue, only to find they weren’t needed.

Estelle sputtered to life like a reignited ember— coughing and hacking, curling in on herself as if to retreat into her cloak, whimpering and gasping in muted pain when something clicked. I frowned. People’s bodies usually didn’t make clicking noises.

Arthur’s voice was louder now, but still barely a whisper on the wind. “Elle— Elle— you’re okay, it’s okay—“

The mage groaned, sounding halfway between a kicked puppy and a wailing child, scrambling to a sitting position as she struggled to push Arthur away, crying out when her left side hit a nearby wall. Her muted wails got more forceful when Arthur shifted towards her— and he stopped, his expression confused. Her boots scraped on the stones beneath the snow, before stopping when her eyes flickered open.

“Elle?” Arthur tried again, gentler.

Estelle let out a strangled, garbled hum, before looking forlorn. She tried again, this time resulting in a choked whine and a whimper of pain, her expression fell farther, her eyes shut. She looked like a mess; her hair was damp, caked to her face from drying blood and melting snow; a thick smear of blood like a streak of lightning had broken down her face; her eyes were shut, her breathing shallow— I could smell the blood on her breath from where I stood— and her left arm hung awkwardly hunched forward by her side.

“We should get her to a hospital,” I suggested.

That stirred Arthur to motion, and carefully, we shouldered Estelle the best we could— this time, she didn’t try to fight us. She let out a cry when I moved to support her left side, so I took the role of scouting forward. We still didn’t know where we were, after all. Before we left the alley, I looked around for anything she might’ve dropped, finding her wand, a small, ornate wooden box, and a crystal that nearly froze my hand. I hissed, dropping it back into the snow below, before tenderly picking it back up with a bunched up portion of my cloak. It was also similar to the object she’d thrown. I silently filed away any questions for later. I dropped the crystal into a cloak pocket, along with her other things, before draping my cloak around Estelle— who’d been freezing for the better part of an hour.

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I swallowed down the cold ache that had begun setting into my body, and set off with Arthur in tow for a hospital.

[][][]

Vercari Private Hospital was the closest thing resembling adequately professional medical care that we could find nearby. At first, the Keepers employed at the door had been about to refuse us entry— before stammering out swift apologies when I started yelling about how dare they refuse treatment to the Duchess’ daughter— and how my family would hear about this!

They let us in after that, though kept a wary eye on us from the door. I made sure to occasionally glare back at them.

It made me a little uneasy to carelessly fling around nobility— especially that of titles that was both very much not mine and very nonexistent— but I reasoned it was for a good cause.

Before long— immediately, really— a set of healers took Estelle off our hands, while another two saw to our wounds, which weren’t numerous. Arthur had been scraped and bruised some— and had to be checked for a concussion. I’d showed them my bruise and the stiffness in my shoulder and they’d given me something warm to drink, some ointment, a tonic for my growing headache, and some days of rest. Luckily, none of them asked questions.

After our check-ups, Arthur and I found ourselves sitting down on plush chairs in the main waiting room. Warmth pervaded the room, enough for me to have shed my cloak and bunching it in my lap like a pillow. A phonograph slowly and quietly played a scratchy rendition of a song I didn’t recognize. Arthur sat beside me, hands clasped and head down.

We’d gone through the basic questions— how were your injuries, how are you— the answers we gave each other were fine and bruised or another dry variation. Neither of us wanted to ask the question— whether we thought Estelle would be fine— which was fine. Neither of us had the energy to further address our failings of the night. Arthur didn’t need the additional stress— and I had other things to think about.

Namely, what I was to make of this mess of a night.

It had been meant to be simple— my assignment had been to continue tracking Virgulta like I had been for months, eavesdrop on some details, then write a comprehensive report. Nothing I hadn’t handled before. Though, this time, it’d somehow gone off the rails— first, their new mercenary team, which was headed by that spearman. I’d then planned to get myself captured, so I could infiltrate wherever they were using as a hideout— before I met Arthur and Estelle.

That would’ve been fine too— until everything went sideways the moment the proper security got alerted. It only got worse when— despite the fact we got off relatively unharmed, hopefully— I had nothing to show for it. I couldn’t write a report without evidence— and the only pieces I had were Arthur and Estelle’s testimonials, but that had it’s own slew of problems.

More pressingly, with how the situation had played out, there was no chance that I’d be able to sit back and write a report. I could already imagine the silent disappointment rippling off Talon, and the faint bemusement that would radiate off the Warden that would terrify me more than if she was angry.

I felt my heart drop, as I imagined what my parents would think— that their daughter had gotten herself removed on the basis of being unable to follow procedure— or worse, on the basis of incompetency.

Arthur’s voice was quiet and somber, his hands clenched tightly in his lap. “Why?”

I turned towards him, echoing, “Why…?”

“Why did this have to happen?”

I frowned, turning towards him. His expression was dark, distraught and taut in all the wrong places. My frown deepened, guilt flickering through my veins.

He continued, his voice dead and hoarse. “Why did Elle have to get hurt…?”

I bit my lip. Normally, I never had to deal with this— my gut said that it was my fault, that the reason everyone had gotten hurt was because I hadn’t managed us well enough. But I didn’t know what I could’ve done better. Was responsibility mine to take if it technically wasn’t my fault?

“I don’t even get it— why’d they kidnap us in the first place?”

I spoke, slowly, as if testing the waters. “Ransom? Information? Typically… kidnapping that whoever’s performing the kidnapping has the use for the person kidnapped.”

“A use,” he spat the word with disgust. “A use for people.”

“The world’s… a little complicated, Arthur,” I said gently. I turned my gaze back to the ground, guilt gnawing at me. “Sometimes people pay costs in pursuit of goals that they deem worthy.”

“What goal is worth hurting people?”

“I…”

“Nothing, Clara. The answer is nothing— you shouldn’t have to hurt people to achieve what you want.”

You shouldn’t, my mind whispered, but the world doesn’t work on ‘should-nots’ or ‘should-haves’, the world works, and it only ever works one way. How nice the world could be if everyone were capable of finding common ground. But that was a lofty ideal, some would never listen to reason— bloodshed and might were the only language they spoke.

I looked over, to see his fists clenched, his gaze burrowing into the floor. “Think of all the people that’d suffered at their hands.”

I frowned. “… Arthur…”

“We have to stop them,” he interrupted me, his gaze turning resolute. “Next time, we have to stop them.”

My frown deepened, and he met my eyes. “We?” I echoed.

“Uh—“ his red-brown eyes narrowed “— yeah. Yeah, we.”

I blinked dumbly, before my brain caught up with my mouth. Indignation and failure flared in my stomach. “I— no? No! That’s— there’s no we— What?”

“What?” Now, it was his turn to be confused, blinking back at me.

“Yeah, yeah,” I asserted. “No. There’s not a next time, Arthur— It’s not happening.”

His face flickered, looking awfully like I’d betrayed him. “What? That’s— that’s you can’t— You can’t just—“

“Uh— Pretty sure I can. Why can’t I?”

“Because— because— Clara—“ his eyes became pleading “— you can’t expect me to sit around— to go back to normal life when I could be out there helping people— saving people— You expect me to stand down and ignore doing the right thing?”

“Yeah, I do, actually!” So you and her don’t get hurt— so you don’t jump into something so horribly out of your depth as to—

“Why?” he yelled. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the receptionist flinch and make a face, before briskly stepping away and out of sight. Smart lad.

“Why?” I sighed through my nose, rubbing it. “Because it’s dangerous, Arthur—“

“— I know fighting is dangerous,” he interrupted, tone steely.

I clicked my tongue. “Let me finish— it’s dangerous in a way that’s different from a fight— there are bigger repercussions—“

“— like what?”

“In a fight, the worst that can happen is dying— right?” I scowled. “Or getting injured, or bruise or craped or some other stupid little trip-up that’ll heal over time.”

“Yeah.”

“What happens when you fight the wrong person? What happens when you fight someone and they hold a grudge?”

His face flickered. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean, is that even if you win the fight, even if you were right in every way, if you chose to mess with the wrong person, the person who suffers in the end isn’t you, it’s the people around you. It is your mother, it is your father— It is Estelle, who’s laying in a fucking hospital bed because neither of us were good enough at what we do!” I found myself standing before I knew it, catching my breath and looking down at him with what I hoped was enough anger to convey my point. My voice raised before I could stop it. “You want to help people— Arthur? You could’ve become a healer, a doctor, a nurse— there was never any need to fight. You could helped and saved so many people without having to inflict pain on others. You wanna help people? Create a cure for the plague— solve our refugee problem— wipe the ravaging monster population off our continent— the statistical percentages of deaths that are inflicted by violence is a lot— I’ll admit, I can recognize that Fireflos and Scourge and Echo murdered millions, despite their brilliance— but it pales in comparison to the causes that afflict human condition!”

The hallways of the lobby swallowed my ranting, and I panted, breathing deeply as I watched— with a slight kernel of guilt— as the fire in his eyes died a little bit. His head fell, and my shoulders hunched. I nearly retracted my words, but he bit out a sentence before I could.

“I can’t do magic,” he forlornly admitted, as if it was some great, terrible secret. Vicious anger reared its head again.

“Half the clerics under the Church can’t cast, Arthur,” I snapped, ”and yet, the Angels still dole out power for prayers— they still grant miracles and keep touch with us— not having the ability isn’t an excuse! Not having magic doesn’t make you incapable of change— You don’t need magic to fix these things! Just because some people are capable of things you aren’t doesn’t make it a valid excuse—”

He bolted up, eyes burning and wild and hurt as he stared me down. I looked up, unwilling to step back. “I know that!” he retorted. “I’m not making an excuse— I know I can’t cast magic— I know that I could be better off helping people by studying medicine or solving famine or wiping out monsters or doing anything else to help people— I know that—“

“— Then why? Why do you want to fight so badly?”

He blinked, the wind taken out of his sails, before he guiltily glanced down, looking rebuked. I kept staring at him, unwilling to give up on my stance— why couldn’t he see that I couldn’t let him get involved in what I do? After a heartbeat, he sat down, sighing. I dropped into a chair across from him, crossing my arms and leaning back.

When he started speaking again, my anger had dampened a little bit. “When I was younger,” he muttered, head still down. “I idolized heroes— like Lariet and Quincoa.”

I blinked. “The storybook characters?”

He nodded. “I loved the way they would solve problems using their cleverness— how Lariet would out smart his rival alchemists while questing for the Golden Elixir, or how Quincoa would fearlessly sail the skies, outracing all who would want to catch her or her loved ones.” He swallowed, meeting my eyes. “I wanted to be like them. To be clever and swift and strong. To be able to defend those I loved through wit and word, even if I couldn’t back it up.”

I felt my anger dampening, and my shoulders starting to relax again.

Arthur continued: “Then, I met Elle— and I realized I wasn’t clever— I wasn’t smart— I couldn’t keep up with her. I didn’t understand the theory, the why or the what— you know half the time I read through her journals on her experiments, and I still have no idea what she’s saying through them?”

“That hardly seems fair— she studies Dimensionalism and dabbles in Dreamspinning. The only theory even comparable is higher-tier Enchantment and compulsion spells— which is— you know, heavily outlawed.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, “I didn’t know that then. All I saw was our difference, and the fact I couldn’t create lights like she could. I did learn, though that I was pretty good at swinging a sword— and she liked that, so we made a promise.”

I wasn’t sure what to say— this was quickly going into very personal history that I wasn’t certain I wanted to know— but I let him keep talking.

“We promised that we’d stay together, since we were all we had. We swore that since she was capable of things I wasn’t— she’d take me on an adventure to another world some day, and since I could do things she couldn’t, I would lend her my sword.”

My blood ran cold— “Swore? You swore on it?”

“Uh— I— I, yeah.” He looked confused. “We made a promise and stuff, shook our pinkies and all that— we laughed a lot, well, I laughed a lot, even then Elle didn’t laugh too much.”

From his confusion, my worry abated. It seemed the two of them had made a normal, child-like promise. They had sworn no oaths— lucky them.

“So, all this— “ I waved my hand, shaking my head and dismissing the worry. “— all this fixation on fighting and protecting— It’s for her?”

“At first it was something like that. I don’t think it is, anymore.”

“Then what is it now?”

“Protecting the people that can’t protect themselves, I feel.” He was silent for a moment, like he was contemplating something. “I don’t want to be the nurse or the doctor or the healer or the cleric that murmurs a spell or a prayer after the fact, you know? I don’t want to be there after someone’s already suffered from a crime.”

His earnest eyes tilted up, bright.

“I want to be strong and swift and clever— strong enough so that when people see me, their eyes will light up like stars. I want to be strong enough so that even when I’m not there, monsters will stand before a line of people and flinch. I want to be strong enough for evil to die out without the need of bloodshed.”

“You want to become a symbol.”

He didn’t, I noticed in the ensuing silence, deny my claim, and I sighed.

Weeping Angels, with conviction like that— who was I to shut him down?

“I’ll see what I can do— regarding whether you can come with me on assignment.”

Then, we lapsed into collective silence. I stared up at the clock, watching the minute hand and hour hand tick by, as I put my mind to the next steps that I needed to take. I didn’t turn my head to watch his expression, I’m not sure what I’d see there. I wasn’t sure the answer would be one I’d like.

Slowly, all too slowly, twenty minutes passed.

Then, forty minutes.

An hour.

Two, and my eyes began to feel heavy. Beside me, Arthur’s head had fallen forward.

Three— and I flinched to wakefulness as footsteps echoed in the hall. A nurse rounded the corner a moment later, a nervous and tired look on his face as he approached us. In a heartbeat, Arthur was up— fully awake, eyes wide as he spoke, almost breathless. “She’s alright?”

The nurse flinched back, before collecting himself with a small cough into his fist. “Lady Estelle is stable.”

“How hurt was she?” Arthur asked, perking up.

He breathed out through his nose. “She suffered a fractured clavicle— that’s your collar bone— on her left side. We observed signs of partial asphyxiation, bruising around the neck, as well as symptoms of hypothermia and Strain.”

His eyes looked like he had questions to ask, but refrained from asking them.

“How long will she have to stay?”

“We would’ve had her out by dawn, had she’d been brought in earlier, seeing as though she was in critical condition.” He furrowed his brow. “How long did you say you were out there?”

“Give or take an hour or two.”

The nurse let out a small gasp, “Then it’s no less than an Angel’s grace that she’s still alive.”

I frowned. Praise be for the Heavenly Choir— I’d much rather thank the medical personnel…

At our silence, the man moved on, his tone becoming professional once more. “Nonetheless, we project that she may have to stay for a little longer— a couple days at most— maybe more if she doesn’t awaken. But overall, her health is stable.”

“Okay— okay. That’s great. That’s good.” Arthur dumbly nodded, sounding breathless.

“I would suggest that the two of you return home, it is unlikely that she’ll awaken within the next couple hours. You may come back in the morning.”

I spoke up this time, since Arthur seemed partially… distracted? “We’ll stay a little longer, in case she does wake up, thank you.”

“Of course,” he nodded, and sauntered off.

Another hour passed.

The same nurse came back. This time, he looked apologetic. “Lady Estelle has awoken, but she has denied the request for visitors, please understand.”

Arthur looked taken aback. “I… yeah— yeah. Okay, that’s fine. But she’s okay— right? She’ll be okay?”

“Yes, sir, that much I can assure you. Her health is stable.”

The sigh of relief hunched his shoulders, and after another moment, the nurse excused himself, disappearing around a corner.

“Well— if she isn’t seeing visitors,” I said, “we should probably head home, right, Arthur?”

“I— yeah. Yeah.”

“Hey.” I pat him on the shoulder. “She’ll be fine— just give her some time.”

“Yeah— I know.”

When we stepped out of the hospital— the first rays of dawn greeted us, peeking through the clouds and over the tops of buildings. It had stopped snowing. Before we parted ways, I turned one final time to Arthur, taking his hands in mine.

“Hey,” I said, “get some rest and take care of yourself, okay?”

He nodded, and I gave his hands a reassuring squeeze, before letting go. He pulled away, and with a small goodbye, he began trudging through the snow, back towards his home.

“Hey— uh, one more thing, Clara.”

“Yeah?”

“Why can’t we tell anyone about this?”

“Oh.” The notion had skipped my mind. “Think of the implications— people would riot.”

“But isn’t it better to know th—“

“— Think of the people who’ll suffer, if riots start,” I echoed back at him.

He fell silent, and I watched until the last of his crimson cloak vanished around the corner, and I sighed, running a hand through my hair and rubbing at my eyes. Glancing back at the slowly rising sun, and another through the window at the clock on the wall, I sighed, starting down the opposite street.

I had a long day ahead of me.