The estate had long since grown quiet by the time the former last-in-line slipped past the front door, one destination in mind.

A warded path greeted her.

She landed on the grass beyond it, on ground currently devoid of life.

The Cold heralded this cycle’s end with finality, each step as unremarkable as the last.

There were no trees or landmarks in her way—nothing but ashen weeds and crystalline cave walls.

Her awareness of the territory flared with a thought, and within an instant, the path became clear.

The carriage lingered barely within sight of the borders, taking the shape of a temporary structure, not unlike a small shed with a clumsily-attached balcony.

Her old friend was there, sipping on a ceramic cup, practically lounging around a table that took up half of this balcony’s space.

The once last-in-line cared not—they weren’t in her property, so who was she to complain?

She clasped her hands, the grip tight enough to prevent any instinctive fidgeting.

The natural impulse would clash too much with the image she meant to present.

The genuineness of her ire was excellent fuel for this, allowing her to avoid the difficulties of having to rehearse.

She was not here to complain—but staying just outside the estate was an invitation to confrontation.

It had to be.

Her actual sight locked in on them as her slow stride continued.

That attendant of her old friend hovered behind the table—perhaps this slow approach sacrificed more discretion than necessary.

Vigilance performed the tasks it had evolved to do, each blade of charred grass outlined. Beyond the attendant, there were no others in the vicinity.

This was not a conversation she would have with observers present, no matter what role the stranger played or whether her old friend held him in confidence.

“Hanne,” Bernadette tipped her head in greeting.

Her hands were still clasped at the height of her waist.

It was only proper.

The attendant’s mouth hadn’t finished opening when Hanne spoke.

“Silence, you,” the man’s name swirled past Bernadette’s ears like water flowing around pebbles. “I have a guest to entertain, it seems. Leave us.”

The seafarer—for that was what he had to be—frowned in Bernadette’s direction with a clenched jaw, and she met his gaze unflinching.

Peak Mortal Esse suited the former last-in-line well—her Inherents alone were more than enough to ignore any postulating from a low Core.

As such, whichever reaction this man wished for, he would never get, and while slow on the uptake, it appeared he grew aware of that soon enough, turning on his heel with the type of carelessness that made the movement squeak across the floor planks.

Hanne remained where she had been, observing the mantelpiece as though it were a book to be read.

She showed no intention of looking up to Bernadette.

It was curious.

“I should have had him bring a chair for you.”

“That will not be necessary,” Bernadette dismissed Hanne’s alleged concern.

Worry was far from the strongest emotion her old friend’s shifting eyes hinted at.

With Mien keeping her mask in place, Bernadette’s inconspicuous aura gripped the area surrounding the balcony. It would never be as effective at this as any of the Stealth variants could be, but flexibility had its perks.

Indeed, it confirmed none else were present, and no sound would escape.

And most of all, it was nearly effortless to sustain.

Bernadette had reason to suspect, surely enough, that both of them might seek to stall, each for their own reasons.

She had an inkling it would benefit neither.

“Shall I cut to the chase, old friend, or have you any matters to broach?”

“No,” Hanne spoke softly, still focused on her table. “Sea above knows I’m more lost than a selkie that misplaced its skin.”

Now was not the time to be deterred by Hanne being Hanne.

“The consequences of your actions, I take it?”

“Something like that.”

“You might be best served considering sharing your concerns with me, old friend—generous host that I am, I have never pressed on anyone’s privacy. But any harm being brought to my family is not something I can overlook.”

“Indeed, old friend, we all do what we can to keep those dear to us safe.”

“Then why, perhaps, will you not look me in the eye?”

Hanne’s gaze snapped up, perhaps if only to prove her wrong.

For a moment, Bernadette was back in Beuzaheim, amid echoes from more than a decade past.

Back when her House had yet to be struck down by a Saint, back when Old Father Martin had been their teacher rather than a painful memory.

They’d never be that close again.

“Anselm,” Bernadette saw no reason to further tarry. “What did you do to him?”

“Friend, you would be mindful to refrain from implying I would ever harm him.”

Were Bernadette a lesser person, she might have huffed.

“Not willfully,” she conceded with a tilt of the head, closing the distance between herself and Hanne. “But I was a salvor—I would not insult your intelligence by assuming you wouldn’t have foreseen me noticing the signs of seasickness.”

Hanne remained quiet for longer than Bernadette would have liked. “We performed an experiment of sorts, a polished version from our old theories on how Affinities might be triggered. It should not have gone as badly as it did, but worry not—I am handling it.”

The past slammed into Bernadette again, a gnawing thing.

Once, they’d fantasized about the coven they’d form whenever they managed to find Affinities and grow beyond the shackles of mortality.

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Those had been the dreams of children, and children had to grow up.

Apparently, only Bernadette had.

“I would admonish you for wasting time on such foolishness, were the actual outcome of your actions not a more important point.”

“The act was something planned by us both, Bernadette,” Hanne’s interest on her table had been reignited. “It was simple, if you recall the one with venaroot for conductivity. It was risky, and we knew that. He knew that.”

“Indeed, I recall the one. No step there should have led to seasickness.”

Hanne’s next deep breath was quite drawn out. “If I elaborate on this,” she shot her carriage a glance, as if ensuring her companion remained gone, “I need you to promise me to keep it to yourself. Please.”

“Just what did you do?”

“It wasn’t—”

“What. Did. You. Do?”

Bernadette found her façade nearly faltered, her grip tightening in on itself.

Her relationship with Anselm and Hanne both had… shifted since her marriage to Kristian Rīsan, but that was not to mean she did not care.

And setting aside the strangeness becoming his stepmother had triggered, this was now the only family she had.

Any threat under their own roof was hers to deal with.

Even a friend.

Hanne must have known that just as well.

Why else remain beyond the border?

“I used an awakening elixir to craft the retry tonic.”

“Wave take me,” Bernadette wasted no time in any pointless attempt to keep her mask from cracking—this was so asinine she would have assumed not even Hanne would have so much as considered doing it. “What in any Devil’s name possessed you to think that would ever go well?”

She was dangerously close to amending her belief that Hanne would not have harmed their friend intentionally—weaponized stupidity could only be forgiven to a certain degree.

“I was there,” Hanne sighed. “In my folly, I believed I could suppress any backlash.”

“‘Any backlash’,” Bernadette repeated it, incredulity slipping into her tone. “Hanne, can you not see why giving something meant for seafarers to a mortal would be insensate? How did you even get him to agree?”

Hanne’s silence was answer enough.

Bernadette still wished for direct confirmation—if her patience was to further falter, she could not let it bend to suspicion alone, no matter her certainty.

“He didn’t know, did he?”

“I wholeheartedly believed I had in under control.”

“Hanne,” Bernadette’s skull thrummed. “In all the time I have known you, not once have I thought you a liar. You’re one of the most idiotic people I’ve grown acquainted to, but not once would I have taken you for one so willing to betray one’s trust. And I consider myself a good judge of character. Perhaps I should thank you, for the lesson. Even I can be horribly wrong.”

“I stole it from my grandmother,” Hanne blurted out—as if that mitigated anything. “So long as he didn’t know, if it worked and I got caught, the blame lay squarely on me. I told him not to ask, and he agreed to that.”

“Excellent work, Hanne!” Bernadette all but hissed. She had not lost control this badly since the time her husband locked himself inside a closet to avoid explaining himself to her. “Now even if you get caught stealing from a chief, it’s okay! All you did was poison someone.”

“Bernadette, please,” Hanne stood in one swift motion, her chair squeaking across the floor as it was pushed back. “I made a mistake. I am working to fix it.”

“There is nothing for you to do, Hanne.”

Bernadette couldn’t help but accept the burning in her chest. The helplessness. She’d never see Anselm as a son, never could, but they’d still been close once. Would-be colleagues, and perhaps friends.

“Forgive me.”

“You jest. Mine is not the forgiveness you’d need for me to even consider letting you off the hook.”

Fists clenched over the table, Hanne made a gesture akin to a bow. “Do you want me gone?”

“That depends on how the rest of this conversation goes.”

Bernadette would have loved to claim she’d never wish harm on anyone, but while that may be a lie, to anyone she’d ever been close to? Certainly not, present company excluded.

Her brief time in the workforce had taught her the signs, enough for her to identify them where most would not—it had been what led her to confront Hanne with such surety in the first place.

Exposure could pass with little permanent consequences, the symptoms relatively light. A short convalescence with fever and difficulty moving at most.

People avoided going out during The Rain to spare themselves the unpleasantness, but contact with a passing droplet or two wasn’t a death sentence.

True seasickness was much more pervasive than that. Chronic weakness on the lesser end, bursting limbs at worst.

The speed and gravity of it varied, but if that fathomless power of the sea took hold, the body would never flush it out.

Bernadette had the misfortune of having witnessed what it did to those touched more deeply than they could bear, yet to dissolve into obits—bloated corpses leaking pitch-black blood, dying men clutching at their throats as the sea choked them inside out.

“When was this, Hanne?”

“Last year’s Flowers. Soon before the system informed him of Malwine, actually—I’d locked him in his quarters and Thekla had to break him out for them to seek the girl.”

“Pardon,” Bernadette blinked. She’d reached the balcony’s guardrail at some point, her grip having transferred to it. “You gave him a tonic laced with a seafarer elixir, and left?”

“The worst of it had passed, and he was lucid enough to ease my concerns. I simply expected him to lose consciousness quickly.”

In all likelihood, if he’d endured this long, the exposure wouldn’t be lethal, even in the long term. But Bernadette still despaired—the signs she’d been fretting over would be there to stay.

“Does he know now?”

“No.”

“Then how have you been treating him?”

“Of us all, he knows he’s unwell better than all of us,” Hanne’s shrug had no heart behind it. “And I’ve been giving him some blended elixirs, the sort Grandmother would offer guests.”

“Truly,” Bernadette knew not how her old—no, her former friend—had the gall. “Hanne, you’ve affected his life deeply. Have you explained why he’s unwell?”

“He might never trust me again if I tell him. Bernadette, please, understand. If I lose his trust, I will be unable to do anything to help him.”

“Oh?!” Bernadette raised her hands. “Help, as you did by causing this in the first place?”

“He knew there were risks in taking it, and accepted that.”

“Allow me to make a guess here—you offered a tonic to someone who trusted you, and of course he accepted it.”

“He is a grown man, not an adult in need of defending. He had the right to choose this. He knew he could have died, even.”

“And tell me, do you think he’d have still said yes if he knew you were giving him something concocted from seawater of all things?”

“No,” Hanne did not hesitate to concede that point, not even for a second. “No, he would not have.”

“You betrayed his trust,” Bernadette’s fists were clenched. “Wave take me, you betrayed my trust. You have always been welcome here, yet you lay a figurative hand on my family. None may bring harm to my husband’s children—not even you.”

“They are not your children to hound over! They are grown,” Hanne leaned forward, the outburst sudden. “They’ve right to their decisions, and bear responsibility over them. Do not lay the blame at my door when I already do everything in my power to atone for my mistake.”

“With all due respect, you aren’t mortal. You do not get to barge into my home and decide you can endanger my family due to your ignorance,” Bernadette snapped back. “You can’t just pretend Anselm’s blind trust in you led him here. You do not get to bring harm to my children.”

Bernadette didn’t feel that towards Kristian’s children, not truly—the feeling was directed to the idea of them. Of the responsibility she had inherited by marrying someone who already had offspring of his own, even if one of them was older than her.

“I did not mean him harm. It was my mistake, yes. But stop acting as though I were some malicious harbinger out to get you when, by your own words, you know me.”

“I believed I knew you—my certainty wanes. We hadn’t an earnest conversation in years,” Bernadette steadied herself. A bit of hurt might have slipped into her words. “Anselm, I see by virtue of sharing the estate. You, on the other hand, I rarely cross paths with. Perhaps you’ve changed—perhaps it turns out I never truly knew you at all. Whyever the both of you have chosen to limit your contact with me, know I could have warned you away from this.”

“Whyever? Do you not recall our hunts with Kat, Bernadette?” the way Hanne sneered sent shivers down Bernadette’s spine, of the sort she hadn’t felt since they’d exchanged names years ago. “Our time studying under the Old Father?”

“How could I not?”

They would never have met had they not once shared a teacher, and Katrina Skrībanin had often transported them to and from Beuzaheim for that. The occasional field trip with her was inevitable.

“I truly could not tell you when it all started falling apart,” Hanne’s tone turned to a whisper as suddenly as it had earlier become all but a shout. “But you married his father, Bernadette.”

Of course she had. If any piece of advice from her late father had ever proven helpful, it had to have been that.

Were we to be wiped out, cut ties and marry the strongest you can find.

At least then you’ll have a chance.

“What does that have to do with you?”

Bernadette had not expected Hanne’s eyes to merely widen as her posture slacked.

“Seriously?” Hanne shook her head. “I have my guesses now, then.”

Hanne sighed, turning on her heels with clear intent to leave the balcony.

Bernadette reached over the railing. “Do not walk away from me.”

She was promptly ignored.

“Hanne!”

The carriage shifted, the movement sending her careening a few steps back.

Incensed or not, she need not be warned to return to the wards.

Awareness of the estate’s lands returned to her in that instant, and Bernadette watched the carriage yank itself from the ground.

With a huff she did not bother suppressing, Bernadette began the walk back indoors.

It may take a while, but this conversation wasn’t over.