When Regina woke, there was a heavy arm around her and a soft breath against her neck.

‘So this,’ thought Regina, ‘is what it would have been like to be married.’

She would have liked being married.

Clumsy and gentle and then not clumsy and then less gentle…

Regina closed her eyes against the memory of pleasure and the pain of what was to come.

“I love you,” she said softly, to the dark, to the future that would never be hers.

Then, with all the skill of a woman who had spent years fading from others’ grasps, she removed Artem’s arm and rose from the bed in the dark of the not-yet morning.

She did not look back.

~♦♥♦~

“Why in the name of the blood are you waking me before dawn?” snarled Henrietta, as Regina finished roughly shaking her shoulder to rouse her from her sleep.

Henrietta obviously did not enjoy having her sleep interrupted.

Well, Regina did not enjoy the cruel joke her life had become, so Henrietta could learn to share in the misery.

“I will do it,” said Regina flatly.

“What?” said Henrietta, suddenly bolting upright in her bed, and far more alert than she had been mere seconds previously.

“I will do it,” said Regina. “We can forget the other plans. I will do it.”

Henrietta stared at her, the light from the moon making her seem almost like a corpse, so still she sat.

“I will let her know,” said Henrietta finally, a tone in her voice that Regina refused to understand.

“You will have to make sure no one else comes near,” said Regina, and her voice was not trembling, it was not.

“Oh Gina,” said Henrietta and Regina fled somewhere that was near no one at all, because she did not want to hear the pity or the sorrow.

Regina deserved neither.

In the end, Regina was as she always had been. She was a villainess who would perform the best magic trick anyone in Carcosa had ever seen.

Regina forced a smile as she curled up in the window of the dressing room, waiting for the sun.

“Ava,” Regina said softly, her sister’s face so clear against the moon that Regina wondered if she had willed her into being. “Was there ever any way for either of us to win?”

The moon had no reply.

~♦♥♦~

By the time Regina arrived in the bridal suite, wearing a skirt that made every other skirt she had ever seen embarrassed by their lack of ambition, she was not sure whether she yearned for or dreaded the future she was courting.

“You look,” said Henrietta, “as though you are about to peel your own skin off it that ridiculous prince does not get to it first.”

“Thank you,” Regina dryly said. “I am glad I have you to nurse my fragile emotions through the most trying time of my life.”

“You are welcome,” Henrietta replied, as impervious to sarcasm as ever to sarcasm that did not flatter her. “After all, you would be doomed were it not for me.”

That managed to coax a smile out of Regina, however little they were in supply with her.

“You are invaluable,” Regina replied. “Without you, I am sure I would be dead thrice over.”

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It was not an exaggeration.

Regina was very sure that there would be a desperate increase in assassination attempts before Regina had a chance to say her vows and cement the marriage neither she nor her beloved now wanted.

Whether it was Artem ordering the assassinations or the royal family themselves, there was little chance that Regina would make it to the altar alive and intact.

It was ironic that both of the wedding participants wanted so strongly to stop the marriage and yet neither of them could let their partner know.

She wished she could have said as much to Artem.

Unfortunately, she was aware that it was impossible for either of them to call off the wedding absent one of their deaths.

Worse still, even if she and Artem both wanted to go peacefully to the countryside, there was no chance at all the world would let them quietly disappear from the political stage. Nobles had taken positions and their threat to the crown prince was beyond the point of retraction.

There was only one way out that did not involve Regina stabbing Artem herself.

Henrietta had been trying to convince her of it for nearly the entire week, but it had taken Regina’s conversation with Artem for Regina to realize the truth and agree.

“It would be more than thrice dead,” said Henrietta with a sniff, pulling Regina from her increasingly unpleasant thoughts.

“Anything that involves ducks does not count,” said Regina firmly.

“Fair,” said Henrietta. “It is hard to tell whether they are helping you… or trying to assassinate you on their own.”

Regina shuddered. “I sometimes wonder if someone who hates me has some duck related power, but does not want me to die quickly.”

“Well,” said Henrietta with a shrug, “that will not be your problem very soon.”

Regina felt a sharp stab in her heart at the thought, surprised to realize that she might actually have grown attached to the aquatic monsters haunting her every waking moment.

She had been less surprised at her sorrow when she had to bid goodbye to the orphans. She was sure she had convinced her parents that it was a very valuable reputation raising activity to maintain them, but Artem had mentioned he would provide them with education and shelter and care after --

Regina closed her eyes.

Whatever Artem thought of her, his interactions with the orphans had always been genuine. He would care for them. They did not need her beyond her panniers and Artem could provide the actual care that was so difficult for her to show.

Artem might even stay around her parents long enough to act the part of a grieving would-be son-in-law -- something they would surely see as a fair exchange for Regina herself.

If Regina was a more sentimental woman, she might have called the sudden constriction in her chest heartache.

Instead, she dismissed it as another relic of her lingering childhood weakness - though one she needed Henrietta’s voice to interrupt.

“Are you,” said Henrietta even as Regina went on with her dark thoughts, “trying to pretend you are the star in some terrible morbid drama?”

“Am I not?” said Regina, opening one baleful eye to glare at her.

“We do not have time for you to faint and weep,” said Henrietta quite reasonably. “So you will have to star in one of those ridiculous action stories instead.”

“The ones where no one bathes or eats or washes, but somehow everyone aids them on their quest anyways?” said Regina.

“Precisely,” said Henrietta and oh, Regina was glad even if there was no one else in the world she could trust, that her one person was Henri.

“I love you,” said Regina, meaning it with all her heart.

“I am a taken woman,” said Henrietta, with a sniff.

Before Regina could process that statement, Henrietta’s face shifted into something grimmer and sadder.

“Was a taken woman,” said Henrietta.

“If you cannot do this…” said Regina, starting to feel truly alarmed.

Henrietta waved her hand, her voice suspiciously even. “What else awaits me if I do not do this? Are they going to kill me? Discover my secret and force me to marry Cousin Randolph who cannot go more than an hour without an episode after they tortured him as a child? If they think me powerless, will they somehow find someone even worse than your choice to marry me to?

“No offense,” Henrietta added belatedly.

“None taken,” said Regina. “Perhaps your lover could-”

“No,” said Henrietta, her voice still that strange even tone. “She- I mean, they have done enough. It is impossible.”

Before Regina could overcome her shock, Henrietta went on, her voice getting stronger.

“Almost,” Henrietta added, “as impossible as your skirts.”

“None of this would be possible without my skirts,” said Regina, staring at their giant spread.

“Then let us make sure that they will make this possible,” said Henrietta, expertly working on the panniers… and what they would contain.

Regina looked down at her progress and felt a grim smile spread over her face.

After all, sometimes the only way to survive… was to die.