ã€ŠA Lovesong of Rooks: Angels and Demons Aren&#x2019;t Saving the World, So I Guess I Have Toã€‹


 Prologue: The Trans-Sylvan Express

    A Lovesong of Rooks:

    Angels and Demons Aren¡¯t Saving the World, So I Guess I Have To

    Part I: The Swallow Who Fell in Love with the Moon

    ¡ª

    This is a story that ends in mud.

    ¡ª

    <hr>

    Perilous System ./ Access Granted

    A Little Learning Is A Dangerous Thing

    Enforced Time: September - Holy Moon, 1998

    The Final Days

    Location: Great Laurentia Deep Wood, Bathypelagic Zone

    ./Begin Story

    Prologue - The Trans-Sylvan Express

    A train in the darkness illuminated by a promise. A boy without shoes. A girl without certainty.

    Looking up through the pale gloom of the twilight column, the day looked old and tired, despite the fact that it had only just begun.

    Demi was up to greet the watery dawn not because she was an early riser, but because she had slept very little. She had been too nervous to sleep, and so had left her sleeping berth some two hours past.

    Her guardian had dutifully followed her from one train car to the next, and now they were both comfortably settled in.

    It was still a good three hours to the City. She could study the fantastic scenery at her leisure.

    It wasn''t only nervousness that had driven her from her berth. A trip through the heart of the Deep Wood was a rare pleasure. They had booked a special viewing car at her request. It had wide windows, and part of the roof was transparent. It wasn''t glass. It wasn''t even tempered glass. ¡ª it wasn''t safe to use glass on a train that went through the abyssal layer of the Deep Wood. Glass wasn''t strong enough. The windows were probably some type of heavy acrylic.

    Whatever it was, it was clear, and afforded breathtaking views of the forest where no man walked.

    It was a little like being in the deep sea, and staring out the window of the Nautilus.

    The special observation car was where she and her butler were now passing their time. They had their own private compartment, and it was very comfortable.

    Every once in a while, a roving light from the train would flash out into the gloom, illuminating the scene like falling lightning. When the light passed, she could see all the little motes swimming through the heavy air, the tiny creatures who made up the Deep Wood¡¯s foundational food source. And there were other hunters that were sometimes caught in the light for a moment before they disappeared back into the mists.

    But the light didn''t flash out particularly often. It was disruptive to the wildlife, and besides that, it was unsafe.

    The Trans-Sylvan Express was very secure, belted in steel and titanium and designed to be impact resistant, but it was unwise to draw attention for long in the Deep Wood, no matter one¡¯s precautions. If the light roved too long or too freely, then it might wake one of the sleeping giants. That was an outcome every sane person wished to avoid.

    Demi thought it might be nice to see one of them.

    She was interested in most everything that lived and breathed, even things that were horrifically dangerous. One day, before she died, she wanted to see for herself the red eye of a balor shining out of the darkness.

    If she hadn''t already had an unavoidable future laid out before her, Demi thought she might have liked to become a silvologist ¡ª a real proper one who did research in the field, who dove into the depths where no others dared ¡ª a wraith who moved among giants. She wanted to walk the trackless glades where the light of the sun never penetrated.

    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    She loved the Deep Wood, unspeakable terrors and all.

    Therefore, Demi had decided that she would waste as little of her journey as possible sleeping, despite the fact that she had an inevitable and inescapably long day ahead of her.

    But she would persevere, and live in the moment. Her mother had taught her that rare experiences should be savored. There was too much to look at for her to waste her time worrying about what awaited her in the City.

    And so she had spent good portions of her journey lying on her back in the highest compartment of the observation car, cuddled under a thick, fluffy blanket and staring up through the misty light at the ancient gnarled trees, trees upon trees upon trees ¡ª symbiotes, epiphytes, lianas ¡ª and at the sometimes amorphous creatures that made their way through the pregnant air above her.

    That was what she had most often done in lieu of sleeping.

    It was a strange feeling, lying on her back and looking into the swirling darkness, and it gave her a sense of weightlessness and timelessness, as if she were drifting along the surface of a sunless sea. It was looking up to see ocean swells overhead, or looking down to see clouds dotting the ocean.

    The train thrummed out its strange machine heartbeat, and she felt it in her body as they all hied along in the darkness together.

    Miles and miles above her, past the stratosphere and the exosphere, past the pale moon, and the chain of planets caught in the thrall of the sun, past even the heliopause, and out into the interstellar gulf ¡ª there were uncounted numbers of stars turning and turning in the vastness of time and space, revolving, revolving, even as she revolved. In the silence, she listened to the sound of the sky.

    She was awash in ancient starlight, a girl made of stardust ground from the bones of giants who now slept in the bodies of others, their days long since passed away.

    The knowledge gave her a trembling, full feeling in her chest as she lay there thinking about it: the vast night sky with its infinity of stars, the long, nighted depths of the Deep Wood, where ancient things dwelt, and phantasmal creatures that even now remained undescribed stirred softly through the hazy stillness, leaving tracks behind in what was thought to be trackless.

    It was almost enough to induce vertigo.

    That was the Deep Wood in essence.

    But even she could not stare into the Deep Wood endlessly.

    Eventually the chill got into the depths of her bones, despite the heaters set into the floor around her, despite the fluffy blanket and her formidable resolve.

    When that happened, she wistfully descended from the heights and returned to the land of mortals, where she occupied herself with warmer pursuits.

    She could still admire the dread giants from the comfort of the considerably warmer lower compartment, and she did.

    After all, who knew when such a chance would present itself next? In the very near future, her time would no longer be her own, if it might be called such a thing now.

    It was better to live and breathe in this moment while it lasted.

    One never knew when, or if, the next moment would come.

    ¡°Was it so very long ago?¡± Demi wondered aloud, then shook her head. ¡°It seems like it can''t have been.¡±

    Robert Grave looked up from the newspaper he was reading.

    ¡°Was what very long ago, my lady?¡± he asked.

    She might have been talking about practically anything: a previous train journey, her last birthday, the last time they¡¯d been out together, just the two of them.

    The funeral.

    ¡°When I was just a little girl,¡± she said seriously, her eyes still fixed on the dark shapes that slid by the windows of the train. ¡°And I first went to the edges of the Deep Wood, and was almost lost.¡± She glanced at her watch. If they were on schedule it wouldn''t be long before the train dived even deeper into the forest, crossing into the abyssal layer for the last leg of their journey.

    As if on cue, there was the sound of electronic chimes, and a voice announced, ¡°We will be entering the abyssal layer in fifteen minutes. Travel from car to car will be restricted while we remain in the abyssal layer. This is for the safety of all travelers. Thank you for your understanding.¡±

    Robert Grave smiled briefly as he folded his newspaper.

    ¡°Indeed,¡± he said. ¡°For me, it does seem as if it were not so very long ago that you were just a little girl, daring to go where you shouldn''t. Not that that has changed particularly in the last ten years,¡± he said dryly, and she shrugged very beautifully in response, as if to say ¡®I can''t change my essential nature.¡¯ He looked out the dark window himself and added, ¡°I believe that children perceive time differently than adults. One day, I am sure that the days will fly by you as well, my lady.¡±

    She shivered slightly and he stood.

    ¡°I believe you require something hot to drink,¡± he said as he moved to the door. ¡°Would you like some tea with honey, or with jam?¡±

    Demi smiled and said, ¡°Oh, Mr. Grave, you don''t have to go out for my sake. I¡¯ll be fine.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll be better with something warm to drink,¡± he said matter-of-factly, and she knew then that there was no arguing with him.

    ¡°All right,¡± she said. ¡°With honey, but you best be right back,¡± she said, flashing an impish smile. ¡°We¡¯ll be entering the abyssal layer soon!¡±

    He graciously nodded his head. ¡°Of course, my lady,¡± he said. ¡°Do you require anything else?¡±

    ¡°Only your incomparable company,¡± she teased. ¡°So hurry back.¡±

    ¡°As you wish,¡± he said with a brief bow, and then was gone, closing the compartment door behind him.

    She looked out the window at the dark shapes of the massive trees of the Deep Wood as the train passed between them, bound for the abyssal layer. Bioluminescent creatures flashed from time to time in the twilight, hunting one another for food or procreation. Everything seemed very still as the train hurtled along in the deepening twilight.

    The butler had been gone for some minutes when Demi began to expect him at every unusual sound. There was a light footstep in the hallway, and then the door to her compartment slid open.

    But it was not Robert Grave.

 Prologue: The Trans-Sylvan Express 2

    It was someone she had never seen before.

    It was a young man, or a boy really, her age or a little younger. He was wearing fine clothes, although they seemed to be a little out of fashion. There was a slouchy newsboy hat on his head and absolutely nothing on his feet. They were as bare as the feet of a newborn baby. She could count every one of his toes.

    He had a sweet, sleepy expression. He was one of the least threatening people Demi had ever seen in her life, and so she was not alarmed even though he had come into her compartment unannounced.

    ¡°I''ve misplaced something,¡± he said in mild distress. ¡°But I can¡¯t seem to remember what it is that I''m looking for.¡±

    She looked pointedly at his feet and suggested, ¡°Maybe your shoes? Or socks?¡±

    He looked down at his feet as if unaware there was anything amiss with them.

    ¡°Ah,¡± he said as he stared at his bare toes. ¡°That could be it.¡±

    The loudspeaker sounded again: the same electric chime.

    ¡°Attention. We are now entering the abyssal layer. Travel between cars is now restricted for the safety of all travelers. Thank you for your understanding.¡±

    Demi had had all the requisite warnings about not talking to strangers when she had been but a lass.

    However.

    She was a girl with a taste for adventure and an interest in practically everything.

    And at the moment she was interested in the boy with no shoes.

    ¡°Would you like to sit down?¡± she asked.

    The private compartment that had been booked for her pleasure had space for six to sit comfortably, and a folding table besides. The table was currently unfolded in front of Demi, with a pack of playing cards and two of her favorite books within easy reach of her hands.

    ¡°I don''t know if that would be polite,¡± the boy said bashfully, apparently suddenly overcome with a case of manners, despite the fact that he''d entered a strange compartment without knocking.

    She laughed. ¡°You may as well,¡± she said. ¡°If your seat isn''t on this car then you¡¯ll have quite a wait until you get back to it. You can''t just spend all that time hanging around in the hallway.¡±

    The boy smiled and nodded.

    ¡°You¡¯re right,¡± he said, and moved to sit across the table from her.

    She stood up and poked her head out into the hall, but it was otherwise empty. It seemed that despite his best intentions, Robert Grave had been detained elsewhere. She slid the compartment door closed.

    Then she looked down at her new companion¡¯s feet again.

    ¡°Would you like some socks?¡± she asked. ¡°Aren''t your feet cold?¡±

    The heating units under the seats had immediately kicked on when they had crossed into the abyssal layer, but it was still a little chilly. Frost had begun to paint faint lines along the windows of the car where condensation had misted earlier.

    ¡°Well, I couldn''t take your socks,¡± the boy protested, blinking owlishly.

    Demi laughed at that, throwing her head back and showing the slender line of her neck. She enjoyed laughing, and laughed with every ounce of her body.

    ¡°They''re not my socks,¡± she said, still giggling, ¡°Or, wait, I suppose they are, but they''re not the socks I¡¯m wearing right now,¡± she assured him, digging into her bag. ¡°A Forest Girl is always prepared!¡± she quoted, and pulled out a very fluffy pair of pink socks. They had sweet rabbit faces on them, and little bobtails above the heels. ¡°I hope you won''t mind them. They¡¯re very warm and comfortable,¡± she promised.

    He smiled as he accepted them.

    ¡°I like them very much,¡± he said, and promptly put them on his feet.

    Once the bunny socks were on his feet, Demi had to admit to herself that they strangely suited him. He looked positively angelic. He wriggled his toes inside the socks briefly and then said, ¡°Ah, they''re really nice. Thank you very much.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re welcome,¡± she said, feeling very good inside. It was nice to give someone something they needed. It was nice to see them pleased and happy. She was glad she had crammed the extra pair of fluffy socks into her already bulging bag. She had matching bunny slippers in there too, but she wasn''t quite ready to give those away, not unless he really needed them. They were her favorites.

    Although to be fair, she had a collection of bunny slippers, and more than one favorite pair. But these were especial favorites. That''s why she had packed them in her shoulder bag as opposed to in her regular luggage.

    Fortunately, he didn''t seem to be in immediate need of slippers.

    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± he inquired mildly. ¡°I''m incognito.¡±

    ¡°Hello incognito! I¡¯m also incognito,¡± Demi said with a self-deprecating smile. ¡°Let¡¯s use nicknames then! You can call me Evie!¡±

    He smiled peacefully and said, ¡°Flash.¡±

    It was such a funny name for the sleepy, mild young man that she could not help but giggle. ¡°It really suits you!¡± she said with amusement.

    ¡°It''s aspirational,¡± he agreed pleasantly.

    ¡°I suppose mine is too,¡± she admitted with a smile.

    She tapped at the deck of cards on the table.

    ¡°Would you like to play a game?¡± she asked. ¡°I love games, and it''s a nice way to pass the time while we¡¯re traveling.¡±

    Now that she had a guest, she didn''t think it would be polite to spend all of her time staring dreamily out the window.

    ¡°What did you have in mind?¡± he wondered.

    Demi¡¯s eyes brightened. ¡°What sorts of card games do you like to play? Trick taking? Poker? Rummy?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll leave that for you to decide,¡± he said. ¡°I like surprises.¡±

    ¡°Then let¡¯s play aphorism whist!¡± she suggested. ¡°It''s one of my favorites. Have you ever played?¡±

    He shook his head, so she explained.

    ¡°It''s like ordinary whist, you know, a trick collecting game, but whenever you play a card, you have to say something pithy, or clever, or at least vaguely wise,¡± she said. ¡°If you can¡¯t, you get penalty points and they count against your tricks! Since there¡¯s only the two of us, we¡¯re going to have to be very clever off the cuff. That means two positively epigrammatical sayings every trick! Shall we play? I''ll let you pick the topic!¡±

    The boy thought about it for a minute, then said, ¡°I am interested. Let¡¯s play.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s the topic for this game¡¯s aphorisms?¡± she asked. ¡°It can be anything you like, although some topics are more challenging than others.¡±

    ¡°Life,¡± he said simply. ¡°That''s the topic I choose.¡±

    ¡°That is one of my favorites!¡± Demi said in delight, beginning to smoothly shuffle the cards. ¡°It''s a good one too. It''s hard to run out of things to say.¡±

    ¡°I had a feeling you might be keen on it,¡± he said amiably.

    ¡°We¡¯ll use the rules for honeymoon whist since there are only two of us,¡± she said with a giggle. ¡°If Mr. Grave somehow makes it back before we¡¯re through the abyss, we¡¯ll try something different. Is that all right with you?¡±

    The boy nodded.

    ¡°You don''t have to follow suit or to trump while there are still cards left in the stock,¡± she explained. ¡°But once the stock is empty, you always have to follow suit or trump. We each add one card to our hand after every trick. The winner of the trick gets an exposed card, and the other player gets a hidden card. The winner of the previous trick always leads the next trick,¡± she tapped the cards lightly against the table. ¡°When it comes to aphorisms, this game is played on the honor system,¡± she said, as she dealt the cards. ¡°If I''ve said something that you don''t think is very clever, you may certainly lodge a protest. But, if you yourself say something that you don''t think is particularly stimulating, you have to own up to it. We are always our own harshest critics, after all. If you turn yourself in for being a dunce, I can still veto it and save you from your penalty, and vice versa. That''s a safeguard against those of us who tend to be a little too self critical.¡±

    ¡°That''s a thoughtful rule,¡± he said. ¡°I approve of it.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m glad!¡± she said with warmth. ¡°Shall I deal, or will you?¡± she asked. ¡°It''s thirteen cards apiece.¡±

    ¡°I''ll let you handle it,¡± he said magnanimously.

    ¡°That means you¡¯ll lead the first trick,¡± Demi said as she shuffled. ¡°I wonder what miracle the cards will show us this time?¡± she asked as she fluidly spread the cards to deal them. They flowed like warm butter under her fingers. She turned over the top card of the stock.

    ¡°Hearts trump,¡± she said.

    Flash was apparently ready. Perhaps his name was not altogether aspirational.

    ¡°There you are,¡± he said, ¡°Sitting in front of me with your handful of aces, desperately hungry to begin. Have a little caution. Don''t you know it¡¯s dangerous to step outside your doorway? The road can carry you off, just like a river with a swift current. It might take you anywhere.¡± He played his first card and led the trick.

    ¡°If I had a handful of aces, then I would gleefully take every trick,¡± Demi said with amusement as she considered her own cards. ¡°Alas, I am not quite so well endowed at the moment. But a good lead.¡± She leaned forward. ¡°Very fresh! Zesty even. You are an original thinker. But you¡¯ll discover that I am not a dozy daisy.¡± She folded her hand in on itself and drew one card from it, holding it between slightly crossed fingers, so the patterned back faced forward. The rest of her hand she held folded under her other palm. It was very theatrical, but Demi enjoyed theatrics, most especially when it came to cards. Her fluid handling of decks had only come with years of practice, and she fell easily into the pleasure of handling the cards. She paused for a moment, then cleared her throat before saying, ¡°I¡¯m not afraid of the rolling road, or the rolling river. I can''t wait to see what¡¯s waiting for me where the gulls fly free,¡± she sang out, then returned to a more conversational tone. ¡°I plan to swim in my fate like a fish. I will play every ace that¡¯s dealt to me, and even some that are not. That is how luck is made.¡± She played her first card and took the trick.

    ¡°That sounds a little like cheating to me,¡± the boy said philosophically, as they played on, laying card after card. Demi took the second trick. They played on.

    ¡°I don''t cheat,¡± Demi protested. ¡°I do play inside the rules, if only just. I am admittedly very creative in my interpretation of the law, but I''m always ready to hear petitions regarding my bad behavior. I¡¯m full of tricks, really, and not just the kind on the table. I bet on long odds and win every time. Some people would call that a miracle. I call it finding the way forward. I always can, you know, find the way forward, I mean. It¡¯s a special talent of mine. Besides that, I''m not at all afraid of losing. After all, I can turn any defeat into a victory. It all depends on how you look at things.¡±

    He laughed. ¡°So that¡¯s how you can bet on long odds and win every time,¡± he said. ¡°No matter what the outcome is, you declare it a victory. Doesn''t all that spinning leave you dizzy?¡±

    ¡°Not really,¡± she said with a shrug. ¡°I¡¯ll turn the world round and round until I find the reality that suits me best. Always look on the bright side ¡ª ¡°

    She played the ace of spades.

    ¡°Of death,¡± he finished with a smile. ¡°Abandon all hope,¡± he said, as he played a card, tapping it lightly with a fore finger. ¡°Ye who enter here.¡± It was the three of spades.

    ¡°Midway through life¡¯s journey, is that it?¡± she asked with a laugh. ¡°That doesn''t bode very well for me, does it? I''m not even sixteen yet! Not until tomorrow, at least.¡± She took the trick.

    ¡°It may not be the quantity that¡¯s important,¡± he advised wisely.

    ¡°Ah, not the hours themselves, but the richness of them,¡± she wondered with a smile. ¡°Well, I do intend to gather loads and loads of rosebuds, both in season and out of season. My blood will be hot even in December.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not surprised to hear it,¡± he said with a mild laugh. ¡°But be careful you don''t bloom out of season. That can be fatal.¡±

    ¡°Don''t worry, I''m going to do absolutely everything at just the right time,¡± she answered pertly. ¡°And by that I mean I¡¯m going to do it at the time it suits me best, and then the world will turn to accommodate me. That is one of the perks of being the heroine of this picture.¡± She winked. ¡°Don''t worry,¡± she assured. ¡°It''s going to be a good one.¡±

    Stolen story; please report.

    ¡°I look forward to it,¡± he said earnestly, and then his eyes seemed to unfocus, and it was as if he were looking at everything at once ¡ª not just the things in the little compartment, but all the things around them. It felt very peaceful. ¡°Who are you, really?¡± he asked dreamily. She had just taken another trick.

    ¡°Goddess of the good green earth,¡± she answered immediately. ¡°And lady of the cornfield. Who are you?¡±

    ¡°Just a passenger,¡± he said. ¡°I like to watch the scenery go by.¡±

    Demi looked out the window thoughtfully. The gloom pressed in against the glass, almost tangible.

    ¡°But it¡¯s dark out,¡± she said, a little perplexed, forgetting that she had, until recently, also been in contemplation of the depths of the abyss herself.

    ¡°That¡¯s the general state of the world,¡± he said with a rueful smile.

    ¡°Isn''t it too lonely just to watch things go by?¡± she asked. ¡°Aren''t you ready to be off this train? Every minute that ticks by takes us closer to our inevitable end, after all.¡±

    ¡°Someone has to watch,¡± he advised. ¡°Otherwise what¡¯s the point of the performance?¡±

    ¡°We are our own audience?¡± she wondered.

    ¡°Now you''re being too self-referential,¡± he scoffed. ¡°It''ll be the kind of show that academics will write pages and pages of analysis about. You¡¯ll be the detective and the missing person she¡¯s searching for at the same time, and the audience will groan and try to blot the experience from their memories. Every life needs a little popcorn eating.¡± He paused. ¡°Maybe more than a little.¡±

    ¡°I do like popcorn,¡± she agreed. ¡°And I like detectives.¡± She fluttered her hands. ¡°Everybody likes detectives. I wouldn''t mind being one. Mysteries are very popular. They''re problems that can be understood, questions that have absolute answers. Those are often in very short supply.¡± She paused. ¡°You know, writing a mystery story is like performing a magic show. People are always amazed at the end reveal, and they always wonder how it''s done. Do you want to know the trick of it? My mother explained it to me.¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s see the man behind the curtain,¡± he prompted.

    ¡°You begin at the ending, and work backwards,¡± Demi said proudly. ¡°You start off with the result you want, and then pace backwards, to the beginning. And it''s important to weave in lots of interesting but extraneous information, so the reader doesn''t necessarily know what¡¯s important. Everything is there, all laid out, but the person reading it can''t see the pattern until it''s revealed. There¡¯s one little bit of context that¡¯s held back until right before the end, and it changes everything, it makes everything clear, and then the truth seems so obvious you could just laugh. That''s what makes it feel like magic: one thing suddenly becomes another right before your eyes! That''s genuine transmogrification. But I don''t think seeing it from the other side makes it any less impressive.¡± She cupped her cheeks with her hands and sighed in contentment. ¡°I love books,¡± she admitted, then she blanched slightly. ¡°Ah, I¡¯m sorry. I suppose none of that was particularly clever. I just get carried away talking about things I like. I¡¯ll take a penalty.¡±

    The boy waved her off. ¡°You don''t have to. I enjoyed finding out the secret. But aren''t magicians supposed to avoid revealing their tricks?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll start avoiding it if I ever become a magician,¡± she promised solemnly. ¡°Right now, I¡¯m rather far from being one.¡±

    ¡°Who are you?¡± the boy asked again, and his eyes seemed very deep, like wells at the bottom of the sea.

    ¡°That''s a good question,¡± she answered with a wan smile. ¡°I''m not really sure I know the answer to it.¡± Her brows drew together. ¡°I wonder what a detective would say, if you asked her? I suppose you could say that I¡¯m my mother¡¯s daughter and my father¡¯s heir. I grew up at the eaves of the Deep Wood, and I''ve been a Forest Girl for years and years and years. I know how to tie quite a lot of knots, and start a fire from nothing but twigs and kindling. Oh,¡± she said, as if a new thought had occurred to her. ¡°And I love books. I very much love books. Did you know that the tricks in whist are also called books? That''s one of the reasons I like playing it. Are you hungry?¡± she wondered spontaneously. ¡°They packed a box of sandwiches for me, and I haven''t even begun to finish them. It looks like Mrs. Stella intended to feed an army in the field. I suppose we ought to call it breakfast.¡±

    ¡°Well, we are breaking fast. I¡¯ll have liverwurst,¡± he said placidly and she laughed.

    ¡°Then it''s your lucky day!¡± she said, passing him a sandwich, ¡°Because that¡¯s my favorite and it seems like she packed two dozen.¡±

    There was one more trick to take, and she led, laying out her last remaining card.

    ¡°Do you ever worry about the future?¡± he wondered. ¡°The days stretch forward past the horizon, and none of us knows how things will end. It could be very gruesome,¡± he warned. ¡°You might not like it.¡±

    ¡°I prefer it to the alternative,¡± she quipped.

    ¡°You don''t always,¡± he said, and it was a shockingly perceptive statement.

    She smiled painfully. ¡°You¡¯re right,¡± she admitted. ¡°I don''t always. It''s not something I like about myself, that feeling.¡±

    ¡°But it''s part of who you are. You can''t throw it out, like bathwater or a baby,¡± he observed wisely. He played his final card.

    ¡°You¡¯re right,¡± she said with a sigh, taking the trick. ¡°I am who I am. I can''t be anybody else.¡±

    As she took the trick, she was surprised by his polite but enthusiastic applause.

    ¡°That was wonderful!¡± he said, apparently delighted that he had lost. ¡°You took all twenty-seven tricks! I believe that¡¯s called ¡®shooting the moon.¡¯¡±

    ¡°Sometimes,¡± she said with a weak smile. ¡°In hearts in particular.¡± She frowned slightly. ¡°Were you even trying?¡± she demanded. ¡°You kept playing into my cards.¡±

    ¡°I''m always trying,¡± he said pleasantly. ¡°Something or another.¡±

    Demi could not shake the feeling that she had been allowed to win, which was a little off-putting for a girl who could put fear into the hearts of opponents much older than herself. She was a genuinely good player.

    But the boy was not upset by the accusation that he had thrown the game.

    ¡°I''m very impressed,¡± he said as he amiably munched his sandwich. ¡°I love watching you play,¡± he admitted, a blissful smile on his face as he reveled in the sensory delight of a tucker box sandwich. ¡°You¡¯re always so interesting. No matter the outcome, it''s always worth watching.¡±

    Demi blushed at all the praise. She was accustomed to winning games ¡ª card games in particular ¡ª but she was still a little shy about receiving effusive praise from such a mild and genuine source, particularly when she wasn''t sure she had done anything to deserve it.

    He had finished his sandwich while she flushed, looking at the cards spread across the table between them.

    ¡°Now,¡± the boy said, brushing the crumbs from his lap and standing, ¡°As a thank you for the marvelous game, the socks,¡± he wriggled his toes, ¡°And the sandwich,¡± he rubbed his tummy in appreciation, ¡°I¡¯m going to stake you to some valuable advice. This is a special service, so please pay attention.¡±

    Demi blinked. The darkness passed by outside the windows, and huge unknown shapes moved slowly, hauntingly, through the midnight of the abyss. The compartment had become very quiet, and she could hear the steady thrum of the wheels against the rails, and the rapid quiver of her own heart beat.

    Then the boy in the slouchy newsboy cap began to speak.

    ¡°You''re about to begin a journey,¡± he said, his voice smooth and sweet and still. ¡°At some point during the journey ¡ª not at the end, because this journey doesn''t have any such thing ¡ª at some point during the journey you''re going to look back to this moment and you''re going to recognize that you have changed. Your thoughts will have changed. Your opinions will have changed. Your heart will be filled with all sorts of new and exciting and powerful ideas and emotions. You will have laughed many times, and cried many times. You will be a different person than the person who¡¯s currently sitting in front of me. That is a startling truth, particularly as we like to consider that some part of ourselves is immutable and unique, a tiny grain of the eternal. But you will have changed, and if you have the courage to look at yourself, you will see this. That is good. That is the essence of a journey. So practice mindfulness, and no matter how the road goes ever onward, be capable of stopping to breathe, stopping to look back, stopping to appreciate how far you''ve come. You have a right to be proud of yourself. After you have reflected on things, turn yourself to the unknown and move forward. After all, the road does go ever onward.¡±

    She swallowed hard and answered.

    ¡°I will,¡± she said.

    ¡°Will you swear that all that you do, you do by your own choice?¡± he asked. ¡°Will you take responsibility for your own fate?¡±

    It was a strange question, but somehow, she knew the answer. It had been in her heart from the time she had been born, perhaps.

    ¡°I will,¡± she insisted.

    At that, he smiled again, strange and warm and quiet, and she thought it sounded like snow falling.

    ¡°Who are you?¡± he wondered again, and this time she answered almost without thinking.

    ¡°A traveler,¡± she said. ¡°Just like you.¡±

    And with that, the strange silence was broken, and the sounds of the train bloomed around them naturally. Far off down the hall, she thought she heard a door opening, then closing.

    ¡°I hope the path that you travel leads you to happiness,¡± said the boy.

    ¡°The path will lead me wherever it goes,¡± she answered with a tight smile. ¡°And I¡¯ll manufacture happiness there no matter the circumstances.¡±

    ¡°Thank you again for the game,¡± he said. ¡°It was very instructive. Good luck, Demi.¡±

    She smiled warmly and said, ¡°Good luck to you too, Flash. I hope you find what you''re looking for.¡±

    And then he slid the door open a sliver and disappeared through it.

    She was still looking at the partially open door when it slid open entirely, and Robert Grave filled it, carrying a silver tray with a green thermos and a dainty tea cup on it.

    ¡°I''m sorry my lady,¡± he said. ¡°I was detained by unforeseen circumstances.¡±

    She laughed. ¡°Its all right, Mr. Grave,¡± she said. ¡°Some complications are unavoidable. I¡¯m amazed they let you change cars while we¡¯re still in the abyssal layer.¡±

    He cleared his throat and straightened his waistcoat.

    ¡°I did have to give the young doorman something of a talking to,¡± he said. Demi didn''t envy the doorman. Robert Grave could be a terrifying person when he wanted to be. He hadn''t been the chief butler at Forest Home for nearly forty years simply because he was good at laying tea spoons.

    ¡°Well, thanks for all the trouble,¡± Demi said, getting to her feet to push the sliding door open a little wider. ¡°Did you pass Flash in the hallway?¡± she asked. ¡°If there¡¯s enough tea, I¡¯d like to call him back to share it.¡±

    Mr. Grave¡¯s eyebrow rose the barest fraction.

    ¡°My lady?¡± he asked. ¡°Is this Flash another of your imaginary friends?¡±

    ¡°Mr. Grave, I haven''t had an imaginary friend since before I was in double digits,¡± she protested with a laugh. ¡°You know that, being as you know basically everything important about me, even the things I¡¯d rather you forget. Flash is a boy who came to sit with me after we entered the abyssal layer. He¡¯s very sweet,¡± she insisted, keenly aware of Robert Grave¡¯s wariness of strangers. ¡°I know you¡¯ll like him.¡±

    ¡°My lady, there¡¯s no one else in the hallway,¡± he said seriously. ¡°And I passed no one as I changed cars.¡±

    Both of her eyebrows shot up before she could stop them.

    ¡°Are you sure?¡± she asked in confusion, pushing past him so that she could look up and down the hallway.

    There was no one. The hallway was empty, and the train car was silent except for the two of them.

    She pressed her lips firmly together and moved down the hallway to look into the other compartments. One opened after a polite knock. There was a businessman engrossed in reports inside it. She apologized for disturbing him. There was no answer at the other compartment, and she slid the door open without a second thought. It was completely empty.

    That left the bathroom.

    It was also empty.

    She returned to her own compartment, perplexed.

    Robert Grave had already cleared the table and laid out her tea.

    ¡°Did you find your mysterious companion?¡± he asked.

    She shook her head as she returned to her seat and pensively sipped her tea.

    ¡°I suppose he must have left through the other door,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m really surprised you didn''t see him, though. You must have just missed one another.¡±

    ¡°Perhaps you were dozing,¡± the butler suggested diplomatically. ¡°And you simply had an engrossing dream.¡±

    ¡°Well then, I played cards with my dream, and gave him a pair of socks,¡± she answered testily. ¡°He must have really liked them, since he carried them back to dreamland.¡±

    ¡°Well,¡± the butler said philosophically, ¡°Stranger things have happened.¡±

    He seemed completely unperturbed by her phantom visitor. She thought it had the makings of the kind of ghost story that made a body¡¯s hair stand on end, but Mr. Grave was unmoved. He was always telling her that the world was full of mysteries. He had witnessed no few of them in the employ of her family, or so he liked to say.

    Demi sighed as she blew on her tea, watching the steam dissipate against the frosted window.

    Outside the windows, the woods were dark and deep.

    She drank her tea and thought about the question that the boy in bunny socks had asked her repeatedly.

    ¡°Who are you?¡±

    The future lay open in front of her, but for all her bravado, Demi was still a little shy and a little frightened. Things were changing. They would never be the same again. Doors were closing behind her. Who knew if any others would open?

    Even Robert Grave would leave her before the day was done.

    She would be on her own in unknown territory. There would be new people to meet, and she would have to create herself again, wholecloth, every time she encountered a new face.

    She wanted to be strong and lovely and passionate; graceful, wise, and sincere. She wanted to be loving and loved. She wanted to be beloved.

    She could almost make out the silhouette of that future self, obscured by bright sunlight.

    But it was still a phantasm, a shadow thrown by a low hanging sun, one that stretched long and tall, giving a false impression of majesty.

    She was who she was.

    That would have to be good enough.

    <hr>

    I am not a lifeguard.

    The sea is deep and stormy and treacherous.

    I was born in that water. I can still feel its hands on me now. I knew nothing but that water, that desperate scrabbling struggle for life against everything. I could not conceive that there was any world apart from the waves, beating and beating against me. It is a miracle that I survived, that I clawed my way out of that water. It is a miracle of my own making, but that makes it no less miraculous.

    I am safe from that sea, standing on the dry land, but I can see the sea before me, dark and churning.

    If I go too deeply into that water, I will drown.

    I am not a lifeguard.

    I cannot swim out after others who I see floundering in the waves.

    But I can wade out.

    I can wade out, as far as I dare, and hold out my hands to help drag you out of the stormy sea.

    Have courage.

    You are good enough.

    You are good enough, just as you are.

    You are not alone.

    I love you.

    This book is my hands.

    My words are my hands.

    Hold fast to them.

    There is a way out of the sea.

    - From the Testament of Demeter Serraffield

 Canto 1 - At the Top of the World 1

    Canto 1 - At the Top of the World

    Atop of Babel, a very unexpected outcome.

    1 - the arrival

    It was strange riding up the escalator into the feeble sunlight that ebbed around the open doors of the station. It felt to Demi that she had been out from under the sun for weeks, years even. Seeing natural light again felt queer, and she blinked as her eyes adjusted, moving with the crowd as they disembarked from the escalator before scattering in a dozen directions, each intent on their own business. Demi paused as she was yet unsure where to go and what to do with herself. She expected that she and Robert Grave would be collected, perhaps by her father himself. She had steeled herself for a meeting with him, and even now she held onto the strap of her bag a little too tightly, her knuckles pale.

    But until that moment came, they were adrift.

    She looked up at the high ceiling above, turning slowly as she took in the vaulted rotunda. There were no skylights. Even at Grand Central Station in the Uppercity there were tons of steel and stone and concrete overhead. The sunlight only ever touched the exterior of Grand Central, and swilled a little, just inside the doors. Even then it came in at a steep angle, as if they were sunk into the grandest canyon of them all.

    That was the City: Metropoly. Every surface street was a deep canyon, crisscrossed above by elevated roads and walkways, and thrown into shadow by the colossal buildings that scraped the skies above. This was a city of monoliths and megastructures, where light was often artificial, except when it wasn''t, and then it was uncanny.

    There were no skylights in the station, because the station floor was a place the sky never touched, but there were paintings.

    There were gargantuan paintings high above them, panel after panel, each intricate and figurative, as if the station had been painted with the ambition of rivaling the Sistine Chapel.

    It was a strange choice for a mass transit hub.

    Everyone¡¯s so intent on getting where they''re going, rushing from place to place. Does anybody even look up at this ceiling? she wondered. The sprawling paintings were the sort of thing that demanded dedicated study, but such study would require the use of a crane, surely. If not that, then a large framework of spidery scaffolding at the very least. Demi had a sense that there were many details that remained vague and unseen from her vantage point on the ground. There was a story being told above her, but she couldn''t make sense of what it was.

    She stood for some seconds looking at the ceiling, puzzled. It felt almost as if the ceiling were looking down on her, as she gazed up at it. She could not have said why she had this feeling. She just sensed that there were many eyes upon her, that she was being watched by someones or somethings outside the realm of common experience.

    Around her, the crowd flowed like water, the station busier than a hive. She was a mote of stillness in a sea of frantic activity. She looked down at the ground.

    The marble under her feet was so polished that it reflected light like a mirror. She turned to make a remark about it to Robert Grave, and that¡¯s when she saw that they¡¯d been spotted.

    Perhaps that was the reason that she¡¯d felt the weight of eyes on her.

    There was a slim, middle aged man approaching them, very fastidiously dressed, neat and trim, with a bowler hat on his head, a hat that looked somehow slightly out of scale with his narrow body. A very large and formidable person followed behind him, an earpiece in his ear and dark sunglasses covering his eyes: a bodyguard.

    ¡°Lady Serraffield,¡± the smaller man said with a bow, taking off his large hat. ¡°My name is Clarence Darby, and I¡¯m your father¡¯s chief equerry. I¡¯ll be your guide until you¡¯re sworn in as a squire this evening.¡± He didn''t introduce the man behind him, as if this man didn''t have a name, or otherwise didn''t merit an introduction.

    ¡°Hello, Mr. Darby,¡± Demi said with a nod of her own. She gestured politely to Robert Grave. ¡°This is Mr. Grave,¡± she said. ¡°He¡¯s the butler and head of household at Forest Home, and has been my reliable guardian and chaperone for more years than I¡¯d care to count.¡± She leaned sideways to get a clear view of the bodyguard and smiled. ¡°It''s nice to meet you too, sir.¡±

    The bodyguard was silent for a moment, before he said one word. ¡°Call.¡±

    Demi wasn''t entirely sure what he meant to communicate. She felt as if she¡¯d been challenged in poker, but that didn''t make any sense at all. Therefore, she decided to gamble herself and throw a rope out into the dark.

    ¡°It¡¯s nice to meet you, Mr. Call,¡± she repeated, and he made an almost imperceptible move with his body.

    He had given her his name then.

    She thought.

    She still wasn''t absolutely sure.

    Clarence Darby looked at her as if he had no idea why she was talking to the security detail. Then he turned his attention back to her companion.

    ¡°Mr. Grave,¡± said Mr. Darby with a brief bow. ¡°Thank you for escorting the young Lady Serraffield all of the way to the City. I give you my utmost assurances that she¡¯ll be looked after properly.¡±

    Demi started and glanced briefly at her butler. It sounded very much like he was being dismissed, sent home directly. Demi had known that she would say her farewells to Robert Grave before the day was over, but she hadn''t expected them to come so soon, when her mind was still a whirlwind because of the confusion of her arrival.

    Robert Grave¡¯s expression had not changed.

    ¡°I have no doubts that she will be well taken care of,¡± Mr. Grave said seriously. ¡°I am looking forward to seeing her settled in.¡±

    He did not seem keen on being sent home, and Demi felt like she might melt in relief. Everything was strange and new and overwhelming. She had counted on having Robert Grave with her the first day, through the swearing in and the acquisition of her new accommodations. His very presence was comforting because he was so dependable and unchanging. He had looked and acted the same way for as long as she could remember, from the time she had been a very small girl, even through the funeral and all that had happened afterward. He was unshakable.

    And he was unquestionably loyal. That was a rarity in this City, or so she had always been told. It wasn''t that she distrusted Clarence Darby, necessarily. But she knew whose interests Robert Grave considered paramount. He would always act in her personal interest, barring a direct command from the master of the family, Demi¡¯s father, the current Lord Serraffield.

    ¡°She will be well settled in,¡± Mr. Darby insisted. ¡°So you needn''t trouble yourself with her further, sir. I will see that she¡¯s taken well in hand.¡±

    ¡°Looking after the heir has never been something I consider a trouble, Mr. Darby,¡± Mr. Grave said crisply. ¡°I am at my lady¡¯s disposal until she has tired of my company.¡±

    ¡°I thank you again for your tireless service to the Serraffield family,¡± Mr. Darby said with the faintest touch of aggravation in his voice, ¡°But his lordship specified that I was to look after the young lady today. I am sure you have other duties to busy you back at the country seat.¡±

    ¡°I have any number of duties,¡± Mr. Grave said with a formal bow. ¡°But my duty to the young lady trumps all else. I will stay at her side until she releases me.¡±

    Clarence Darby glanced at his watch in irritation. ¡°Sir,¡± he said, ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but we have a very busy schedule today. Please say your goodbyes to the young lady and be on your way. I have a sealed letter from Lord Serraffield that details his intentions for you. I can assure you, they no longer involve his daughter.¡±

    Mr. Darby thrust the letter forward, and Mr. Grave took it with an almost imperceptible frown. He slowly opened the letter and read it. His eyes flicked back to Mr. Darby, and then to Demi.

    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry my lady,¡± he said, and beneath his no-nonsense tone she could hear his genuine sincerity. ¡°It seems I have been ordered back to Forest Home on the next train.¡±

    Demi smiled weakly. She ought to have expected as much. Having Robert Grave with her would have given her some traction to resist that which she did not like. He would have made the day bearable.

    Of course, that was not something her father cared particularly about. He expected her obedience. Isolating her made her less likely to act out, less likely to act in any way other than the way he dictated.

    At that moment she felt like she would have been glad to be back at the edge of the Deep Wood, straining for a glimpse of a balor¡¯s eye in the deepening twilight.

    Those were dangers she knew. Here, there was only uncertainty.

    ¡°If my lady wishes it, I will stay, regardless,¡± Mr. Grave said seriously, breaking into her pensive thoughts.

    To defy her father¡¯s direct command was to forfeit his position with her family. He had served them from the time he was a boy. His father had served the Serraffields before him, and his father¡¯s father before that. He was willing to put all that in jeopardy just to be a balm for her on one afternoon. That was what he was like. He considered his duty to her above all other things.

    Particularly since that windy afternoon in March, when everything had changed.

    But she couldn''t let him do it, no matter how much she wanted him to stay by her side. She would have to be strong. His wellbeing was her responsibility as much her wellbeing was his. That was what it meant to be a Serraffield: to be ever aware of one¡¯s responsibilities.

    Demi shook her head and patted his arm gently.

    ¡°No, no,¡± she said. ¡°Go back. I¡¯ll be fine. After all, nobody knows how to run things with you out of the house,¡± she said with a rueful smile.

    ¡°Are you certain my lady?¡± he asked, leaning down to study her face. She forced a smile. She knew it wouldn''t convince him, but she had to give him some sign that she would be all right. She was tough. She could manage. Hadn''t they all taught her well?

    ¡°I¡¯m positive,¡± she insisted. ¡°Go on. You¡¯ll miss your train.¡±

    Mr. Grave was still obviously reluctant to leave, but seeing the set expression on her face, he apparently made his decision. He bowed, very formally, from the waist.

    ¡°I wish you luck, young mistress,¡± he said.

    At that, Demi lost what hold she had on herself and moved forward quickly, wrapping her arms tightly around him as he straightened, and holding on for dear life. He let himself be held tightly, then put his own arms around her, rubbing her back soothingly.

    ¡°There, there, little mistress,¡± he murmured. ¡°You¡¯ll be all right.¡±

    She sniffled and nodded her head against his chest, fighting back tears. She couldn''t send him off crying. She swallowed her fear and worry and forced herself to smile again.

    ¡°Of course I will,¡± she agreed, stepping back from him and brushing her hand across her eyes. ¡°Be sure to write me, all right?¡± she begged. ¡°And tell me all of everything that¡¯s going on at home, about when the peacocks have chicks and about Mrs. Stella¡¯s latest true love, and about what¡¯s blooming in Mr. Howard¡¯s gardens. Don''t leave out anything!¡±

    He blinked hard. If Demi didn''t know better, she might have thought that Robert Grave was on the verge of tears himself.

    But it must have been a trick of the light, because he sounded wonderfully, perfectly, comfortingly like himself when he said, ¡°Of course, my lady. As you wish. And you must write to us about your life in the City, so all of Forest Home can know what its favorite daughter is up to. Remember, young mistress, you¡¯ll always have a home at the edge of the sea of trees.¡±

    Then he had bowed again and excused himself, moving back toward the escalators that would take him to the platforms.

    Demi watched him until his silver head was completely out of sight.

    Then she turned her attention back to Clarence Darby and resolved to make the best of things. She would pretend away the lump in her throat.

    ¡°So, what now, Mr. Darby?¡± she asked curiously.

    ¡°Please call me Clarence, my lady,¡± he said with a bow.

    ¡°All right then, Clarence,¡± she said with a smile. ¡°I do hope we¡¯ll get to be friends.¡±

    The idea apparently startled Clarence Darby because he coughed, then cleared his throat.

    ¡°Yes, well,¡± he said with a nervous smile, ¡°That¡¯s kind of you to say.¡±

    Demi pressed her teeth against her lower lip.

    ¡°My father isn¡¯t here,¡± she observed, and Clarence Darby shook his head.

    ¡°No,¡± he said. ¡°He¡¯s engaged with a committee meeting at the moment. You¡¯ll see him at the Pinnacle this afternoon.¡±

    ¡°All right,¡± she said steadily, tightening her hand on the strap of her shoulder bag. ¡°I suppose we ought to go claim my luggage then.¡±

    The equerry shook his head. ¡°No, you don¡¯t have to concern yourself with your bags, Lady Serraffield. Your luggage will be collected and delivered.¡± He paused as he looked her over, then said, ¡°We have other appointments.¡±

    There was a driver waiting for them at the front of the massive, gilded station, in a special cordoned off area where policemen stood on watch. As they moved toward the car, they drew the attention of a number of journalists and photographers, who crowded up to the cordon.

    ¡°Lady Serraffield, how does it feel to be in the City?¡± one asked.

    ¡°It''s rumored that you''re going to be sworn in as Lord Lysander¡¯s squire this evening. Can you give me some thoughts on that?¡± another asked.

    ¡°Are you looking forward to enrolling in St. Muirgein¡¯s, your mother¡¯s alma mater?¡±

    ¡°Is there a special someone in your life, or are you still looking for your Prince Charming?¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s your favorite clothing brand? Are there any designers you''re partial to?¡±

    ¡°What do you think of the ban on cigarette smoking in public places that was recently passed?¡±

    ¡°Can you comment on the enormous cost per day of your stand of living?¡±

    ¡°What are your ambitions for your first year in the City?¡±

    It was a little overwhelming to be caught in the deluge of questions, even as Clarence Darby urged her along. It wasn''t totally unfamiliar, though. Given her social position, she had weathered questions from the press before, although usually in the company of one of her parents, generally her mother. Her eyes scanned the flood of reporters and at last they fell on a familiar face and she smiled in recognition. It was a journalist she knew personally, one who had been a proper guest at Forest Home on occasion, reporting on her mother¡¯s work.

    He grinned when he saw that she had recognized him, and made a small wave with one of his hands, but he didn''t ask any questions. He was listening.

    That restored a little of her pluck and so she smiled, a genuine smile, full of pepper.

    ¡°I¡¯m looking forward to everything,¡± she said with enthusiasm. ¡°And I¡¯m grateful for the opportunity to continue the tradition of serving the public as the next scion of the Serraffield family.¡± Her smile quirked up at the corner and she shared a conspiratorial secret, ¡°I can''t wait to see what the future holds, can you?¡±

    Clarence Darby made a strangled sound when she made her statement to the press, as if he were holding onto his composure with great difficulty. It was a sound of mortification and anger. He hurriedly herded her into the car with the assistance of the bodyguard and then shut her up inside. She waved cheerily to the press out the window, but had the sneaking suspicion that they couldn''t see her due to the darkly tinted glass.

    Once Mr. Darby and the bodyguard were inside the car with her, the equerry wrung his hands.

    ¡°Lady Serraffield, it would be to all of our benefits if you refrained from speaking to the press unless you have been briefed beforehand on what to say,¡± he said, and Demi could tell that he was trying to be diplomatic even as he lectured her. ¡°The family will release a statement about your arrival and oath-swearing this evening through the press secretary. Your creative responses, no matter how well intentioned, are not required.¡±

    Stand so that your best features are visible. Walk this way. Smile. Laugh when you''re expected to laugh. Look beautiful and available, but also demure. Your body is not your own. Your mind is not your own. Your heart is not your own. Say what you are instructed to say. Otherwise, keep your mouth shut.

    It was nothing new, really. It was the price of her privileged position. It was how heirs to the Curia were expected to comport themselves, particularly the girls, who were taught to weaponize their femininity. All at once she appreciated how free her life had been at Forest Home. She had been allowed to be herself, to stand how she liked, to say what she thought, to engage and think and decide things on her own.

    She no longer had that luxury, and every time she acted out, she would pay for that liberty with her own skin.

    She was not newly acquainted with her father, after all.

    It was best to play dumb, and couch her rebellious activities as nothing more than being featherbrained. That was likely to work on Clarence Darby, although it was no strategy to use against her father himself.

    ¡°Oh, I¡¯m sorry,¡± she said with an angelic smile. ¡°Was I not meant to talk to them? I¡¯m very sorry. I¡¯ll try not to do it again.¡±

    This absolutely terrible excuse seemed to satisfy Mr. Darby, as he sighed and said, ¡°Very well. You didn''t say anything too damaging, but it is unwise to go off script. Please do try to limit your conversations with those who have not been fully vetted by the family.¡±

    Inwardly, Demi rolled her eyes.

    I¡¯m sure to become an excellent politician if I never speak to anyone who might have something critical to say, she thought to herself.

    But she kept her blank smile fixed and gave the impression that she was thinking of happy bunnies hopping around in fields of wildflowers.

 Canto 1 - At the Top of the World 2

    2- the seven sighs boutique

    After they pulled away from the station, the City began to ooze past the windows. Mr. Call did not seem as if he wanted to make conversation with her, and she did not think she particularly wanted to make conversation with Mr. Darby. She would surely have her fill of conversation with him before the day was over. Demi was a very magnanimous person, or at least liked to imagine that she was, but Mr. Darby had committed a terrible sin already: he had sent away Mr. Grave.

    That was quite awful. It would take a great deal to turn her opinion of Mr. Darby at this point. She would be civil and polite, but she would not be amiable. She was much more interested in Mr. Call, but he did not seem particularly outgoing.

    Demi was quite capable of carrying on an animated conversation with a taciturn person entirely on her own, but she did not want to make Mr. Call unduly uncomfortable. He was currently working, which meant he had no escape from her no matter how tedious he found her conversation.

    Still, she wanted to give it her best when it came to befriending him, and so she did. She did not rate herself as particularly successful by any metric, and so after some presumably fruitless minutes passed, Demi contented herself to look out the window and study the City as it passed by.

    The traffic was very heavy, but the driver seemed to know what he was doing, and they wove in and out through the densely moving cars. Automobiles were a luxury in the Uppercity, as Demi understood it. They were a luxury everywhere in the City, honestly, but cars here were kept for pleasure and convenience, as well as for spectacle, not for labor.

    All around the narrow roads the buildings reared up like staircases towards the heavens. In this place, every inch of space was priceless. Only the most wealthy were able to pay the ponderous taxes required to license an automobile here, to fuel it and maintain it. Of course it was natural that her father had several automobiles at his disposal, being the Lord Serraffield.

    The car had a smell of newness and polish, of leather. Demi leaned her temple against the cool window and watched the City slip slowly by. It was one moment of respite, one moment of quiet before she gathered herself again.

    She missed Robert Grave terribly.

    She hadn¡¯t anticipated having to give him up so soon, but she supposed she ought to have. That she hadn¡¯t considered it as a possibility made her feel both young and naive.

    Even the earnest feeling of wanting her faithful and trusted friend made her feel young and naive. She was an adult. She would have to be an adult. There was no hiding anymore.

    And so she took a deep breath and drew herself up, then turned her attention to Clarence Darby.

    He had apparently been waiting for her to collect herself, because the moment she turned to him, he was pressing a small, boxy device into her hands.

    ¡°This is your mobile phone, Miss Serraffield,¡± he said. ¡°My briefing materials led me to believe it is your first. Is that correct?¡±

    Demi nodded as she turned the phone over in her hands.

    ¡°Yes, it is,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯ve got lots of experience with technology, but there was never any need to have one at Forest Home. There isn¡¯t any coverage so far out in the Deep Wood. Besides, I¡¯m not sure who I¡¯d have called on it. The whole of the world that I know was more or less at Forest Home already,¡± she smiled wryly.

    Clarence Darby sniffed and it was a very fastidious sound. ¡°Yes, well,¡± he said. ¡°Here you will find that you need it, and carrying one is quite convenient. The phone already has several useful and important numbers stored inside it. I can arrange to have someone teach you how to use it if you like. I¡¯ll schedule it now.¡±

    Without waiting for her answer he had pulled a device from his own pocket and begun rapidly scribbling on it with a stylus.

    Demi¡¯s eyes widened and she raised both her hands in polite defense.

    ¡°That will be quite all right, Mr. Darby,¡± she said gently. ¡°I don¡¯t need instruction. I¡¯m fairly certain I can figure it out on my own. If I can¡¯t, I promise to let you know so that you can schedule that class.¡±

    The idea of sitting through a class to learn how to operate her cell phone sounded so dull that it made her eyes water.

    (In fact, the majority of the council of Demi, the interior organization of shoulder angels and devils that she consulted from time to time, were already asleep at the table. One of them was drooling.)

    Demi had grown up using all different sorts of technology, so she was certain that with a little experimentation, she would soon be quite proficient enough at handling her new phone. Growing up in the lab meant that she knew how to hook up many different configurations of complicated A/V equipment, and to diagnose and resolve most networking issues. Besides that, she had any number of small devices she was used to using regularly and carrying with her in her bag, they just weren¡¯t for making telephone calls.

    Clarence Darby did not seem entirely convinced. It was clear that acquainting her with her new phone had to be on one of the lists he was ticking off with marks in little check boxes. He wanted evidence of this box being checked.

    ¡°Do you want me to call you to prove that I can use it?¡± Demi asked with a bemused smile and a raised eyebrow. Her smile quirked up, ¡°Or maybe I could call Mr. Call?¡± she wondered, smiling at him. His face was expressionless, and his eyes were still hidden by sunglasses. He didn¡¯t move at all when Demi made this exciting proposition.

    The idea of either he or the bodyguard receiving a personal call from her seemed to startle Clarence Darby so much that he immediately raised up a hand, palm toward her, as if he were intent on stopping traffic.

    ¡°That won¡¯t be necessary, Miss Serraffield,¡± he said, reaching up to straighten his tie. ¡°Please do tell me if you have any difficulties, and I will schedule the class for you.¡±

    She nodded and a quiet laugh was there in her voice as she said, ¡°I promise.¡±

    He seemed relieved, and so Demi looked at the phone before tucking it into her bag,

    It really isn¡¯t very cute, she thought to herself. I¡¯ll have to remedy that.

    Once the phone was safely stowed, she turned her attention again to the equerry.

    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    ¡°So?¡± she asked, folding her hands over her lap. ¡°What does the schedule look like for the rest of today, Clarence? With whom do I have appointments?¡±

    The equerry straightened in his seat. ¡°At six p.m. you¡¯ll meet with your father, and at seven p.m. you¡¯ll be introduced to Marquis Lysander and your squiring will be formally confirmed during the squiring ceremony. After that, you¡¯re scheduled to take part in an evening dinner and cocktail party to become familiar with some of the people in Lord Lysander''s operation.¡±

    ¡°I see,¡± she said, then tapped a fingertip lightly against her lap. ¡°And before that?¡± she wondered. He had indicated that they had a full schedule, and yet the first appointment he had listed was not for some hours. Even considering a generous margin for travel, it did not make sense. Surely it would be better to let her become acquainted with her new home and to consider her clothing for her afternoon meetings. It was possible that her father did not intend for her to live with him at Starry Falls, the main City residence of the Serraffields. The family had other properties in the City, and Demi soberly understood that she was a complication that he might prefer lodged elsewhere.

    It wasn''t as if they were close, and he was a busy man. In all honesty, it might be a relief to avoid living at the main house, under constant scrutiny, although it would probably put a damper on the investigation she planned to pursue.

    She had rarely seen her father after her mother¡¯s funeral. She had to think carefully about the impression she wanted to leave on Lord Tristan Serraffield.

    ¡°We¡¯re here,¡± was what the equerry said brightly, driven by nervous energy.

    Demi looked up in surprise. The driver had pulled to the curb in what appeared to be a very exclusive shopping district. Clarence Darby circled the car and opened her door for her. She was unable to open the door herself, as it was locked from the inside and the controls on the side panel did nothing to alter the state of either the door or the window.

    Idly, she wondered if she had been kidnapped. But then, that was ridiculous. She had expected to see her father at the station, but she recognized Clarence Darby as one of the men of his retinue. If she had been kidnapped, then she had been kidnapped at Lord Tristan Serraffield¡¯s order. Certainly, it seemed as if her father¡¯s equerry had orders to keep a very firm grip on her. She could not escape the feeling that she was being forcefully escorted around. She had no illusions that she had any influence over the day¡¯s schedule, or the engagements that the equerry was so keen on keeping.

    She was carefully shepherded into a boutique. She went where the equerry led her and was followed at all times by Mr. Call.

    Although she had sincerely attempted to make friends with him, it was apparent that she had not made any headway. He wouldn''t speak to her at all, no matter how she tried to engage him. He hadn''t even twitched when she¡¯d made quite a lot of funny faces at him, although the faces had put Mr. Darby into conniptions.

    She had pacified him by telling him they were facial exercises, an important daily regimen to keep her face tight and smooth and wrinkle free. Astonishingly, he had bought this audacious lie, and she was fairly certain she now had free reign to make silly faces around him, provided he thought no one untoward was watching them. This knowledge inspired in her a powerful desire to find the undiscovered country of ridiculous faces, faces so ridiculous that they had not yet been seen by the eyes of man, and then visit them at length upon Clarence Darby, content in the knowledge she had the eternal safe haven of pretending to be a sweet but empty-headed princess.

    This was the sort of vengeance that Demeter Serraffield entertained, one based in mischief and her own entertainment rather than pettiness or cruelty. It was also a fine illustration of one of her greatest faults: when she sussed out a boundary, she could not resist the temptation to push against it, to discover whether it was hard or soft, to find the last line, and walk it like a razor¡¯s edge.

    That was the contrary part of her personality, the part that chafed under any restrictions at all, the wild heart that yearned for freedom. It was also the sensualist part, the part that imagined that all things existed for the pleasure of experiencing them, even the absurd things.

    Unfortunately, Demi did not currently find herself at liberty to begin her inspired performance of wicked and silly faces for the singular audience of Clarence Darby.

    They were neither alone nor in private company. Her command performance would have to be paused, at least for the moment.

    The boutique where they now sojourned felt like money. There were no goods on display, simply a very nice parlour quite a distance back from the forward facing windows. The shop was lit by soft lights and there was a subtle smell: clean linen and orange zest. An impeccably dressed lady led the small party to the parlour, and Demi sat while the equerry conversed with the clerk.

    Mr. Call stepped off to the side and kept his eyes on the door.

    Demi looked at her own feet and wondered why they had come to this place. She had a well appointed wardrobe already, one that had been carefully pressed and packed for the journey to the City. She was used to having a dressing room rather than a closet, and this had been true from before the time she had first toddled around on her own. She had no shortage of finery, certainly, and she was accustomed to wearing formal attire when the occasion necessitated it.

    Of course, she hadn¡¯t expected to be introduced to Lord Lysander in her tired shoes and her traveling dress, with her hair in a braid that was even now unravelling. She had excellent taste herself, and very strong opinions of the sort of things she liked to wear, and the sort of things she did not like to wear. She had begun to be uncomfortable, because the clerk still had not spoken to her. The clerk did not even look at her, merely looked her over, then turned her attention back to the instructions of the equerry. At last the clerk finished speaking with Clarence Darby and Demi straightened in her seat, but the clerk merely bowed, and departed behind a curtained doorway.

    ¡°Would you like to explain what¡¯s going on, Mr. Darby?¡± Demi asked, letting the faintest note of dismissive boredom curl up in her voice. She had taken a reasonable measure of Clarence Darby by this point, she thought. He was under orders from her father and meant to gently goad her along, but given his slightly nervous nature, she thought he might be susceptible to the correct kind of pressure.

    Demi wasn¡¯t really bored or disdainful. She was mildly upset and uncomfortable, but she recognized that the equerry was unlikely to respond to either feeling with genuine empathy and sensitivity. She knew better than to ask for help or understanding. It was better to give him the impression that she found things tedious.

    ¡°Ah, Lady Serraffield,¡± he said with a slight flutter of his hands, ¡°We¡¯ve come to have you dressed for your debut at the Pinnacle. The ladies here are experts at what they do. They¡¯ll have you looking perfect in no time at all. Would you like something to drink? I can have a page fetch you a coffee or a soft drink.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± Demi said, then frowned slightly. She took a deep breath and exuded displeasure.

    ¡°Mr. Darby, I know I need time to change and freshen myself after the train journey,¡± she said, ¡°And I am not against making some new acquisitions for my wardrobe if my father has deemed it necessary, but I don¡¯t really require someone else to ¡®dress me up.¡¯ I am not a doll, and I was not under the impression that I was going to the Pinnacle merely to be decorative.¡±

    He looked pained. ¡°I am sorry, Lady Serraffield, but these are direct orders from your father,¡± he said. ¡°I am sure you have impeccable taste and are more than capable of dressing yourself for other occasions, but perhaps you might consider this an educational exercise? I recall that you are an excellent student, and a good student should always be ready for learning experiences.¡±

    What is this meant to teach me exactly? she wondered to herself. How to passively accept whatever is done to me without complaint?

    ¡°So I am to have no say in how I¡¯m dressed?¡± Demi asked icily, drawing herself up and giving him a look that was both remote and disdainful. It was one of the best of her imperious princess cards, and she played it like an ace. She regarded him as if he were feces she had discovered under the heel of her royal slipper.

    ¡°I¡¯m afraid not, Miss Serraffield,¡± he said with a weak smile. ¡°We all have our roles to play, after all. This is simply another one of your responsibilities as the heir to the Serraffield family.¡±

    She leaned back in the chair again and deliberately turned her face away from him. That was it, then. He was much more frightened of her father¡¯s displeasure that he was of hers. There was nothing she could really do but accept what was forced upon her. There was no denying the establishment. There was no denying the great, terrible weight of the City. There was no denying Tristan Serraffield.

 Canto 1 - At the Top of the World 3

    3 - pygmalianation

    <hr>

    In the end, she found herself in a pale blue tweed suit with a short skirt and a silken blouse that was tailored very close to the line of her body. Once her hair had been carefully smoothed and twisted into a complicated chignon, and her feet had been fitted into coordinating pumps, she looked very striking indeed: a potent combination of competent and available. She certainly looked older than sixteen: an impeccably polished career woman.

    When she had seen the complete effect of her arrangement in the full length mirrors of the salon, she had truly comprehended what she had begun to suspect even during the early stages of her transformation. She had certainly not been dressed for herself, to give her confidence in an uncertain and challenging situation. She had not even been dressed to suit her father and his distant impression of the daughter he now expected to rise to her place at his right hand.

    No, it was very clear. She had been dressed to satisfy the fancy of Lord Lysander, the man she was meant to squire. She did not need an encyclopedic knowledge of his whims to understand this fact. She did not even need a vague impression of his character. Everything about her had been carefully calculated to please, from her small, but bright diamond earrings, to her precise but understated makeup, to her careful pale pink manicure, and the classic height of her stiletto heeled pumps.

    She felt ill at ease. It was nothing at all like the way she had intended to dress herself.

    Always be aware that the way you look ¡ª how you choose to dress, the set of your hair, even the color of your lipstick ¡ª has a profound effect on the way people see you. This does not mean that you should be so foolish as to judge people solely on their looks. You are brighter than that, my darling, her mother had said. But it would be equally foolish to imagine that the way you look doesn¡¯t matter, or that it shouldn¡¯t matter. If you do not take care with how you appear, you will discover that you are saying something that is not of your deliberate choosing. You must always think, and make these choices carefully, for yourself. Never let someone else dress you without the understanding that they are putting whatever words they like into your mouth.

    But there was another thing she understood. Her father had ordered that this was the way she would be presented at the Pinnacle. It did not matter what she thought about it. It did not matter what wisdom her mother had left in her care. She might have stoically refused. She might have appealed to logic, or sympathy. She might have lodged a fierce protest. She might have thrown a splendid tantrum. She had tried all of these tactics in the past, during the long years of her childhood.

    When it was the will of her father, there was nothing to be done about it. Either she would submit quietly, or her arm would be twisted until she submitted. She was not allowed to protest. She was not even allowed to have an opinion.

    Her mother had been philosophical about it.

    In the face of immovable tyranny, one finds other ways to rebel, she had said. You will find your own ways Demi, with wisdom and cunning and patience. You don¡¯t have to resign yourself. You simply have to bide your time. We all have yokes under which we chafe.

    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    And so she had endured. She had let them smooth her curls and powder her face, and paint her eyelids in a way that was very different from the way she painted them herself. She had tolerated all of it, even being dabbed by a perfume that was not of her choosing.

    They had taken her dress from her.

    They had taken her petticoat, her drawers, her socks, even her shoes. They had taken even her underwear, and put her in new pieces of a substantially different style. These new undergarments had a mature feeling, sleek and sexy and without the ribbons, lace, and trims that defined the panties and bras that she ordinarily wore.

    These new clothes ¡ª the suit, the pumps, the panties and bra ¡ª they all fit comfortably. They were all well designed and beautifully tailored. This outfit would have been a dream to many: chic, sophisticated, minimalist, modern, stylish.

    But they were not what Demi would have chosen for herself in any circumstance. She had a very strong personal style and thought very carefully about everything she wore. She was deliberate about things, and this deliberateness made her happy. It felt fulfilling to wear the clothes that she loved, put together in new and interesting ways that she had thought of herself.

    Even today¡¯s coordinate, one meant for comfortable travel, had been thoughtfully put together so the look was cohesive and entirely her own. A travel coordinate was a special sort of outfit, because it required one¡¯s style to be reduced to the most essential elements for both comfort and practicality.

    She was partial to the dress, and she had been wearing one of her favorite petticoats, so she was concerned when one of the shop girls cleared them away while she was getting changed.

    Don¡¯t worry, she had been told. Your old clothes will be packaged, cleaned, and delivered to your home address by the end of the day.

    She would have to depend on their word. She had no real way to disagree. It wasn¡¯t as if she could go to the Pinnacle dragging around her petticoat and dress stuffed into a second bag, and although her own bag was miraculous in what it could hold, it was not bottomless.

    And it was stuffed to the gills already.

    So she was required to trust them with her things.

    But she put her foot down when they attempted to take her bag.

    ¡°I am sorry,¡± she said with a snap of her deadly pointed heel, ¡°But I refuse. Categorically. I¡¯ve let you do the rest, but I am keeping my bag.¡±

    It was her last bastion of self, the repository for her most precious treasures, those she had not trusted to be tucked away into her suitcases. The bag itself had its own meaning too. It had been a birthday present. Her mother had arranged for it to be specially made. There was no other bag like it in the world ¡ª a messenger bag made to look like her favorite book. It was a treasure in itself.

    It was the line she drew in the sand. She would not allow anyone to cross it. They had to understand that there was a limit to her docility. There were some insults that she could not and would not accept.

    She was ready for a standoff, ready to make this the hill she died on.

    Fortunately for her, her equerry had both sense and experience. Allowing her to keep her own bag was something that Clarence Darby was willing to accept. It was a small concession, after all.

    Demeter Serraffield was allowed to keep her bag.

 Canto 1 - At the Top of the World 4

    4 - a reader reads while being read

    <hr>

    Mr. Call shadowed them until they arrived at the platform for the Pinnacle¡¯s sky carriage, the lift that was restricted to all but members of the Curia, their heirs, and a select few trusted aides. Mr. Call apparently lacked the clearance to board the sky carriage, and so Demi waved at him cheerily as Mr. Darby herded her toward the platform. He would take another route to the Pinnacle, and join her father¡¯s security detail when he got there.

    (She managed to pry this information from Clarence Darby before they arrived at the platform, so she had an opportunity to thank Mr, Call and bid him a proper goodbye. Nothing at all that had happened thus far had been his fault. He was a guard and had spent the afternoon guarding her. She was grateful for that. Mr. Darby was again alarmed by her direct interaction with Mr. Call. He seemed relieved when they parted company with the bodyguard, but that relief was not destined to last long.)

    Demi and Mr. Darby arrived at the platform just as one of the carriages was about to depart, and Demi scurried to make it, quite startling Clarence Darby, who scrambled to catch her. She made it into the carriage safely, and due to a wild hustle, the equerry managed to make it as well.

    Demi had idly hoped to slip away from him during the ride to the Pinnacle by catching the departing carriage before he could make it on. She didn¡¯t have any grand ideas of running off on her own, she would have simply liked a little time by herself, so she could process all that had happened and all that was likely to happen before the day was out.

    Mr. Darby had displayed heroic athleticism in an attempt to catch her, a skill that was definitely against his type. Demi could only reflect that he feared the repercussions he would face if he lost track of the Serraffield heir even for a few narrow minutes.

    He straightened his tie and his hat, and while hanging onto a bar, greeted the other occupant of the car, and then gestured very politely for Demi to take a seat. She did, and then he took one directly next to her.

    Demi¡¯s breathing was more labored than she would have liked as the result of such a short run, so she fished in her bag to pull out her inhaler, and puffed on it, just to be on the safe side.

    As she did, she couldn¡¯t help but think about her heroic battle to keep her bag.

    I wonder if they would have even let me keep my inhaler if I hadn¡¯t put up a fight, she thought to herself.

    Surely they would have, since a severe attack would put her worryingly adjacent to death, but there was always the chance that they would not. Concern for her look, for her silhouette, might have trumped the regard for her health and safety, particularly if someone else, say Mr. Darby, had been tasked with holding onto her inhaler until she needed it.

    That would have put an immense amount of hard control into Mr. Darby¡¯s hands, which might have been the point.

    Fortunately, that alarming scenario had not come to pass, and Demi herself was in possession of the inhaler, along with all of the other things she had somehow managed to fit into her shoulder bag.

    After using her inhaler, she tucked it pack into her bag and put the bag on the seat next to her.

    The sky carriage was part inclined elevator and part suspended cable car, going the first leg of its journey against the steep earth of the mountain side, and the last leg of it in the free air. Demi had only ridden it twice before in her entire life, both times in the company of her mother. It was the preferred way for Lords of the Curia to access the Pinnacle, and as such, it had been built with luxury in mind.

    The seats of the car were comfortably upholstered leather, with deep cushions and substantial back rests. The seats themselves were heated, and Demi¡¯s behind was grateful for this feature, because the carriage itself could get chilly, despite the double insulation and the heaters built into the car. During the ascent to the Pinnacle, the temperature outside dropped nearly seventy degrees Fahrenheit.

    In addition to the leather seats there were small side tables of polished wood inlaid with marquetry, secured so they wouldn''t move even as the carriage did. The carriage was paneled on the inside with rich cherrywood, and there were louvered shutters that could be drawn down over each of the large windows, should the passengers decide they didn''t care for the scenery. There were even iced drinks available from cunningly concealed refrigeration units, and hot drinks from what was either an electric tea pot or a coffee maker. All the carriage lacked was a dedicated attendant, and Demi understood that the omission was one in the interest of privacy. Many confidential discussions were held in these secured carriages, because they were so exclusive.

    There was only one occupant in the car other than herself and Mr. Darby. It was a very serious looking man in a very serious looking three piece suit. He had long fingered hands with bony knuckles, and dark hair shot through with silver. She could discern this easily because his head was bent over his reading, in which he seemed to be fully engrossed. Apart from glancing up at her when she entered the car, he paid her no further attention.

    But once she had investigated all of the things inside the sky carriage, she paid him quite a lot of attention.

    It wasn''t only that he was distinguished-looking and handsome in a severe sort of way, with a neatly trimmed beard and carefully combed hair. He looked like the sort of person who might have been the dean of a college, a person that a body calls ¡®professor,¡¯ or else. In short, he looked as if he also wore three piece pajamas and consulted the Oxford English Dictionary with regularity. Everything about the way he looked was precise and just so. It was an affect that she found charming.

    But it wasn¡¯t only that.

    All of that was very interesting in itself and might have held her attention for the balance of the journey alone, if not for the book he was reading.

    There, directly across the car from her, held in those hands with the bony knuckles marked by a spiderweb of old, thin scars, was her favorite book in the entire world.

    It was a book that she had read dozens and dozens, perhaps hundreds of times. He was reading it so seriously that she could find no fault with him. He seemed to be in his own world, immune to interruptions, swept away by the forces that drove the narrative ever onward.

    If that wasn''t serendipity, then dipity of all kinds was nonexistent altogether.

    The book that held him in thrall (and held her in thrall, watching him read) was a decades old romance, a bit of popular fiction written by an author who had enjoyed considerable celebrity in the past, but who was now relegated to only vague acknowledgement and some scant academic interest. In this day and age, the author was better known for the strange circumstances of her life than for her works themselves. The knowledgeable generally regarded her as an oddity, so far as Demi understood. Those less well acquainted with novels of the mid twentieth century regarded her not at all.

    Which was their loss, honestly. The book was sparkling, passionate, agonizing ¡ª wonderful, absolutely wonderful. It was painful and true in all of the best ways. Reading it made her feel alive. It made her feel loved.

    It made her feel as if she were not alone.

    That was a feeling that she sorely needed, these days.

    That was why finding this gentleman reading her secret treasure made Demi¡¯s heart thrill, as if she''d just made a life-long acquaintance who would remain dear to her heart always.

    She thought: your heart understands mine.

    She thought all of these things without ever having spoken a word to the man who was reading. That was, essentially, how her mind operated.

    Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

    It didn''t matter if no one else in the world understood how splendid the Swallow was, because here was another person who read it and truly understood it. She felt as if she were the last remaining native speaker of a forgotten language who had suddenly found her tongue alive in the mouth of a stranger. Now she had someone to talk with, someone to debate with, someone to argue with.

    It was bliss that no amount of discomfort at her circumstances could dispel.

    And she didn''t for a moment entertain the thought that his ardor for the novel might be cooler than hers, for how could such a thing even be possible.

    Now, all that remained was to properly make his acquaintance.

    She glanced down at her shoulder bag, as it sat on the seat beside her. This bag was full to bursting with all of the items that Demi would have taken to a desert island, and the Swallow was surely the most important of them all.

    The bag itself had been fashioned in imitation of the cover of the first printing of the book the man held in his hands, the Swallow. Demi could barely contain her glee, and it spilled out of her in wriggles as she tried to keep her seat. Surely he would also appreciate how splendid her bag was. It was one of her most prized possessions.

    Because she was so overcome with her delight, Demi was, despite her best intentions, squirming like an over enthusiastic puppy, her feet tapping lightly against the floor of the carriage in a jaunty repeating pattern.

    I have found a new friend. I have found a new friend. Everything is wonderful. I feel like I could sing, her feet tapped out again and again.

    It was remarkably rare to find someone else who had even heard of the Swallow, let alone read it, let alone was reading it at this exact moment. The reader himself was rarer still, a somber older man with a firm mouth and thin lips. The lines on his forehead spoke of anger, frustration, displeasure. They were relaxed as he read. He had moved outside himself and into the pages of the story.

    Her heart was glad to see that he enjoyed it. The Swallow was sometimes dismissed as a book for silly young girls, a romance that was in no way grounded in reality, filled with dramatic confessions, derring-do, and any number of cliches flipped and turned around every which way. That was why it was so strange and thrilling to see a grown man, a man of the world, patiently reading it as a way to pass the time.

    For he was certainly a Lord of the Curia. Demi could discern that even if she did not recognize him. The fact that he was on the sky carriage alone was a strong predictor of his status, and Mr. Darby had called him ¡®my lord,¡¯ as they had entered the carriage, although the man had not responded. He had not even given a token response. Either he thought Mr. Darby beneath his notice, or he was so engrossed in his novel that he hadn''t even heard the equerry¡¯s deferential greeting.

    Possibly both.

    Demi could sympathize. The Swallow was an engrossing read.

    It was not a perfect novel, and even in her youth and passion she recognized this. Sometimes it was strangely funny when it perhaps ought to have been poignant. Sometimes scenes dragged out interminably, chasing their own tails in seemingly endless introspection. Sometimes the descriptive prose was so dense that it was difficult to navigate, as if it were a peat bog that could swallow unwary readers and preserve them for anthropologists as yet unborn. It was a fanciful novel ¡ª filled with fancies and whimsy and dandelion fluff ¡ª but it also carried dread in its belly, dread and despair, and a terrible sense of loneliness. But despite all of these flaws and many more besides, Demi loved it. She loved it because it was truthful and funny and brave and painful. It was beautiful because it was imperfect. It made her chest tighten with joy, and it also made her heart ache.

    She almost always cried over it. That was the sort of book it was.

    At her side, Clarence Darby was busy scratching away notes on his PDA. She did not think he was likely to provide intelligence about the man who sat across from them. To be fair, that would have been difficult even if he were not distracted. They couldn''t very well have a secret discussion about the other passenger¡¯s identity right in front of his face.

    But Demi wanted the opportunity to get to know him. She wanted to know what he thought of her book. She was as curious as a cat, and so therefore resolved to introduce herself to him as soon as the right moment presented itself. That moment would come. She was certain.

    While she was studying him intently, he at last seemed to perceive that she was watching him, because he looked up from his book, and his eyes found her. They were dark, and very heavy. That silent look made the blood rush right to her head and she flushed as she tried desperately to give the impression that she was absolutely captivated by the scenery outside. It wasn''t the right time to introduce herself. Of that, she was positive.

    She felt like she was having a heart attack.

    Fortunately, after studying her silently for a moment, he turned his attention back to his book. She continued to stare out at the scenery for several more seconds, until she decided the coast was clear, and then commenced watching him again.

    He seemed to be reading a very old edition indeed. His hands concealed part of the cover, but the book looked very much like it had come from the Swallow¡¯s original print run. If he had an original printing, then he likely wasn''t a first time reader, but a dedicated fan. The first few print runs of the Swallow had been small, and the books were in high demand as collector¡¯s items.

    The book he was reading looked well-loved, as if it had been handled many times, as if it had been read many times.

    It was a little strange to see a person reading a priceless original edition when the book was still in print. Even if he owned a first or second edition, that was the sort of thing most people kept at home, in a private collection.

    The man across from her seemed to be treating the book he held as if it were quite ordinary for him to read it. He wasn''t treating it as if it had no value. On the contrary, he was holding it carefully and reading it well, the way a book ought to be read, without damaging the spine or dog-earing the pages.

    But it was still queer. She didn''t think she would have had the wherewithal to drag a first edition around with her, had she owned one. She would have kept it safe, in a place of honor, and probably brought it birthday cakes whenever the publication anniversary date rolled around.

    Wealthy people are certainly strange, she thought to herself. It did not escape her that she herself was included in this generous observation.

    As she was considering this, he looked up again unexpectedly, and she again pretended to look out the window, turning so quickly that she knocked her forehead against the glass. She winced in pain, making a sound that was between a squeak and a whimper. She felt cockeyed and a little dizzy from the bump, and covered her head with her hands.

    She felt that he watched her briefly, his brows drawn together, then returned to his book.

    This time she pulled her bag into her lap, so he would see it when he looked at her again. If he understood the reason she was studying him, then he might strike up a conversation on his own, and therefore spare her the difficulty of searching for the right moment. Surely he was as lonely for a good talk about this excellent book as she was.

    Thinking about this conundrum had driven all of her worries about her coming arrival at the Pinnacle completely out of her head.

    She wasn''t thinking about meeting her father, or Lord Lysander, or being put on display for a faceless audience. She was instead completely focused on figuring out how to begin a conversation with this forbidding man who read romance stories.

    She studied where he was in the book and tried to imagine what scene he was reading. When he did notice her and decided to speak with her, she wanted to make sure she didn''t accidentally reveal anything he didn¡¯t know already.

    There was a very small chance that this was the first time he had read the Swallow. He might have been gifted this precious copy, or started with another of Belmont¡¯s works and only just arrived at this crowning jewel. All readers ought to have the pleasure of unraveling the mysteries of the novel themselves, she thought.

    He was too far in for it to have been secret sharing in the heavy rain, but it might have been the midnight picnic.

    As she was watching him, again he looked up at her, and this time she steeled her nerve and held his gaze. Her bag was on her lap. He would see it and know.

    They stared at one another silently for several seconds.

    Then his eyes dropped to his book again.

    Demi was experiencing a profound feeling of anticlimax when a chime sounded through the car and caused her to jump.

    It was the announcement that they had arrived at the Pinnacle.

    And before she knew it, Clarence Darby was hurrying her along again, as he was always hurrying her along. They were out of the sky carriage and onto the platform before she could think of what to say. She glanced over her shoulder once to see the serious man in the serious suit close his book and tuck it under his arm, and then she was chased out of line of sight by Mr. Darby.

    Demi sighed.

    She and the serious man would have to talk things over about the Swallow another day.

 Canto 1 - At the Top of the World 5

    5 - the pinnacle

    <hr>

    The station into which the sky carriages arrived was as luxurious as the station they departed from, but Demi wasn''t spared much time to admire the details of the architecture, which featured a great deal of wrought iron and bricks that seemed to be inscribed with hundreds and hundreds of names.

    There was a small, neatly kept park before the station, one with precisely trimmed topiaries in remarkable shapes, and Demi could hear the songs of several birds that she recognized: robins and cardinals and warblers. It was strange to think of these garden birds flitting about at such a high altitude, far above the alpine tree line, but here they were in a protected environment.

    They were all in a protected environment, from the first goldfinch to the last Lord of the Curia.

    Nearly all of the Pinnacle was enclosed in an arcology, a massive geodesic dome that rose like an egg over a broad platform. The dome was crissed and crossed by support beams that divided the shell into triangles and diamonds.

    Even the weather and the oxygen content were regulated here, and the temperature was pleasant, in keeping with the most temperate areas of the City below. The birds that lived among the beautifully shaped trees of the park were as well cared for and as well monitored as the living statuary on which they perched.

    But Demi¡¯s mind didn''t linger long on the lives of the birds in the park.

    It couldn''t.

    Because they at last came around a garden wall and into the great square, and she could see all there was to see.

    And there was quite a lot to see indeed.

    The Pinnacle was the City reproduced in miniature. It was the jewel in the crown.

    The first thing she saw were the people. That was because there were so many of them, countless humans rushing here and there, all intent on their own errands. There were hundreds of them. It was the scene at Grand Central multiplied, and she could look down on them just like one of the birds in the garden because she stood at the top of several shallow flights of steps that led to the tiled square below.

    The second thing she saw was the Seat of Law, the capitol building itself.

    The capitol building was an uncanny sight: gargantuan, rearing high into the sky, so high that the highest reaches pierced the geodesic dome that sheltered the rest of the Pinnacle. It was also sprawling, and it occupied most of the space inside the dome. The Seat of Law looked as if dozens of ornate buildings had been heaped on top of one another in an attempt to make the grandest, most baroque structure possible. Parts of the polylithic building were graceful Greek revival, others were austere Romanesque, other parts still looked as if they were authentic ancient Greek that had been plundered from the ruins of antiquity. There were Georgian symmetries and rococo frills, cyclopean Egyptian monumental stone, and heavily carved Russian wood. The great building was brick and stone and wood and metal and glass and a hundred hundred other things: adobe and plaster, tile and mosaic. It was red, blue, green, white, black, grey, silver, and gold. There were gothic flying buttresses, medieval gargoyles and crenellations, Bavarian towers, and spiral minarets; curved pagoda roofs, Italianate facades, and ornately decorated onion domes. It seemed as if every architectural tradition in the world was represented in some corner, arch, window, or cornice. It was truly a chimera, and impossible to properly classify. There was no other place like it, even in the hulking, cyclopean City of Metropoly.

    And it had another quality too, another bit of chimerical alchemy.

    The Seat of Law had the immensity and presence of ancient monumental stone, as if it were a building had been reared with the stones at Carnac, or Stonehenge, but it also had the modernity of a steel-supported skyscraper (or several dozen skyscrapers, all piled on top of one another like jenga blocks). It was palatial and luxurious, the meeting place of the aristocratic elite, and it was also industrial and mechanical, a technological marvel for any age, for every age, sheltered comfortably by the huge encompassing dome of the arcology, and yet straining against it, peering out of it, slipping through it.

    It was a building that had stood for ages, since time immemorial, and yet was always being renovated, reconstructed, added onto.

    The nickname of this structure was Babel, or more simply, the Tower.

    It certainly seemed like a tower built to pierce the heavens and challenge an almighty creator. It was surely the grandest building on the entire planet, a monument of excess and maximalism. It was a manic celebration of what could be raised by mortal hands.

    And it was a place impossibly tied up in her future, in her present. One day she would have full rights to walk the halls of that place as an aristocrat of the Curia of Lords. Even now she was moving toward an oath that would change the nature of her life for good. She thought back to something that Flash had said with a mild, sweet smile.

    ¡°Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.¡±

    It wasn''t as bad as all that, really.

    But it would have been a lie to suggest that she was looking forward to seeing her father again, and he was there, somewhere inside the labyrinth of government. So was Lord Lysander, the man she''d been dressed to please, who¡¯d take her as a squire without regard for her own personal feelings.

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

    That was simply the way things were. She had no ability to change the nature and structure of the world. All she could do was live in it, living the best life she could under the circumstances.

    Demi might have stood staring at the sprawling building in deep contemplation for an impossible amount of time had Clarance Darby not fallen into conniptions over the time, and how far off the schedule they apparently were, or would be if they didn''t hurry along forthwith.

    He moved ahead of Demi and said, ¡°Please follow me, Lady Serraffield,¡± before starting down the stairs at a remarkable clip.

    He was apparently not willing to take it on faith that she would follow him like an obedient hound, so he continually looked over his shoulder to verify that she remained at his heels as he led ever onward. She was positive that he''d have driven her before him with a gad if he''d had one.

    Demi followed mechanically, but she had no ability to make her heart and mind follow him. Her heart was out among the countless strangers, roving with them, wondering where they were going, where they had been. Her mind was tracing the spires of the Tower, trying to make sense of its mess and majesty.

    To put it succinctly, her eyes were not on her feet, nor on the ground underfoot.

    And so, as one might imagine, she tripped quite spectacularly and was destined for several surface abrasions and a mild concussion as she tumbled down the stairs like a rag doll.

    Only she didn''t tumble down the stairs like a rag doll.

    This wasn''t on account of any remarkable feat of acrobatics, or a latent skill at tumbling suddenly manifesting itself at that particularly opportune moment.

    Demi didn''t tumble down the stairs toward injury and a very bad evening because someone had caught her by the arm, someone with a powerful grip and a baleful eye.

    It was her serious man in the serious suit. He held her by the arm as if she were a very small girl, recently saved from tripping into an active volcano or a storm swelled river.

    ¡°Unless you¡¯re absolutely set on cracking your skull open, I suggest you tear your eyes away from the architecture occasionally, if only in the vicinity of stairs,¡± he said dryly.

    ¡°Oh, I¡¯m certain I would have looked at the stairs if I had noticed them,¡± Demi answered quickly, a giddy smile nervously skirting across her face. ¡°But there really is so much to look at, isn¡¯t there?¡± Her wide eyes practically swam with the visions of square before her, as if she were a projector at a planetarium, throwing complex patterns of light against a bare wall. This was the world through a glass colored Demeter. ¡°The old stone and the stained glass and the steel and the way the light comes in through the dome in a sort of lattice pattern, and the spires like thorny coral or bone spurs, and the carvings in the peristyles that make you want to climb up and just touch them and touch them, even though you probably shouldn¡¯t since I¡¯m sure they¡¯re historic and priceless and protected by all sorts of rules, besides, I¡¯m sure the guard would come if people just started climbing up the walls of the capitol building just to satisfy a sensory itch ¡ª and then it''s the people themselves: all the dozens and dozens and dozens of dozens of people, all with their own intentions, all with their own desires, all with their own miseries and triumphs ¡ª and that¡¯s only a little of it, only a small, little bit of all this color and interest and activity. I¡¯m sorry sir, but I¡¯m afraid the stairs simply couldn¡¯t compete.¡±

    ¡°That,¡± he said very heavily, ¡°Was my point.¡±

    ¡°I knew you¡¯d understand, being as we¡¯re both romantics at heart,¡± she said conspiratorially. Her smile curled mischievously at the corner of her mouth. ¡°Anyway, this seems like an awfully dangerous place to put stairs,¡± she asserted as he let go of her arm and sat her back on her feet. ¡°Any old person could just go spilling down them without realizing it until they hit the bottom. They could break their crown or their hip or some other part of themselves that really ought not be broken.¡± She raised one finger adroitly. ¡°That,¡± she declared officiously, ¡°Is a safety hazard.¡±

    He looked at the stairs for a beat, then looked at her again, then gestured vaguely at the wrought iron railing and painted lines that marked the lip of each step.

    ¡°Yes, it looks extremely treacherous,¡± he said flatly. ¡°I¡¯m surprised people aren¡¯t killed in accidents here daily. One would expect more outcry about such a menace to the public.¡±

    It was at that moment that they were interrupted.

    ¡°Ah, Lord Eisenreich,¡± cried the equerry as he hurried back up, looking pained as he bowed rapidly and deeply. ¡°I¡¯m terribly sorry that we¡¯ve inconvenienced you.¡± He shot a distressed look at Demi, but she was not particularly concerned. She had a name for her reader. That was a treasure in itself. Besides that, she sensed that she had her footing here, and even if the equerry was intimidated by the authority and presence of this man, she was not. He did not seem to be a person particularly governed by whimsy. If he had caught her, then he had meant to catch her. He had spoken to her and so she had answered him. It was all very natural and ordinary.

    She tapped one of her fingers to her lips briefly as she considered the equerry, then turned her attention back to the man called Eisenreich.

    ¡°You, sir, are very funny,¡± she pronounced with fine humor. She looked terribly pleased with herself at that moment, as if she had discovered a great secret. She felt that she had. In this strange place, where she knew no one, they shared a profound secret. He was very funny. ¡°Thank you for delivering me from my dangerous enthusiasm. I appreciate it,¡± she said, and despite the humor that still lit her eyes, she was very sincere as she laid her fingertips against her chest, over her heart, ¡°Honestly I do. And I¡¯m sorry for troubling you.¡± She took a careful step backward and gave her own brief bow of deference. Then her smile quirked again. ¡°But I am glad you took the trouble to be troubled by me.¡±

    The brows of the very serious gentleman drew together briefly as he considered her. Then the nervous distress of the equerry caught his attention again and he waved the both of them off. It was a brief move of one of his hands, apparently an act of absolute dismissal.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± he said shortly, and it was apparently so. It had been decreed. ¡°If you¡¯ll excuse me, I have an appointment.¡± He moved to go, but then paused, looking back at her once, the space of a slow heartbeat. His eyes were dark and heavy. ¡°It is safer,¡± he said seriously, ¡°To keep your eyes on the ground rather than the sky. Good day.¡±

    Demi was quite content to watch him as he went, following him with her eyes as he descended the stairs to the square and then began to cut his way through the crowds.

    But Clarence Darby had no patience with her interest. In fact, he still seemed alarmed by Eisenreich, even at a distance. It was if he feared that her attention would somehow summon him back.

    ¡°Come along, Lady Serraffield,¡± he said, and then, as if he had at last understood that she would pay him no real attention when there was so much to look at, he led her directly down the stairs, and rather than attempt to lead her across the busy square, went to a portal that was guarded by armed security officers.

    After a rapid exhibition of identification, Demi suddenly found herself underground.

 Canto 1 - At the Top of the World 6

    6 - underground

    curious

    <hr>

    It was a very broad tunnel, tiled and well lit. Demi sensed that the throng of people moved on above them, but there were comparatively few people in the tunnel. It was cool and hushed.

    But even here there were things to look at, things to study and consider.

    There was a pattern of sandy beige tiles underfoot and numerous mosaics on the wall. Demi felt a little as if she were following a yellow brick road.

    ¡°That was Lord Eisenreich,¡± the equerry volunteered as he led her onward. Demi thought he might have stopped to mop his brow with a handkerchief had he not been so focused on their intended destination. Her close encounter with the serious man in the serious suit had apparently stirred up his nerves. Despite the fact that he had raised it, he did not seem particularly enthusiastic about their current topic of conversation, as if he feared mentioning the other man¡¯s name might summon him unexpectedly. It did not seem that Clarence Darby actually wanted to discuss her new acquaintance with her, but rather that he felt it was his duty to do so. He was in the service of her family, after all, and he seemed to think that she required a warning.

    Or, at least that he had best provide one if he wanted to avoid criminal liability.

    Darby spared her a side eyed glance. ¡°Lord Eisenreich is one of the twelve peers, one of the great princes of the City. Ancien Regime, noble of the sword, he is from an extremely old and well-respected family ¡ª he rules the burough of the Iron Garden and holds the title of Duke. He is one of the most powerful people in the City.¡± He paused. ¡°He can be a very intense person.¡±

    ¡°Well, he has a splendid sense of humor,¡± Demi observed with a laugh. Her encounter with the serious man who had been reading her book had restored a little of her sense of adventure and fired her courage, as had the splendor and confusion of the great square. She was still herself no matter how she was dressed and painted. She would just have to work that much harder to make sure her true self came through despite the distortion.

    ¡°I doubt you would find many in these halls to agree with you, my lady,¡± the equerry said tiredly. He glanced behind himself to verify that she was still following him and found that she had stopped again to observe one of the vast mosaics that were laid into the walls.

    It was a magnificent series of mosaics: massive, complex, strange, arresting.

    It shimmered faintly with the brilliance of jewel cut gemstones, even in the calm, even light of the tunnel.

    There were spots of stone as red as blood, the wildly saturated and inimitable beauty of lapis lazuli, bits of turquoise and jade and amethyst, and bright flashes of copper, as shiny as new pennies. The mosaics she had stopped to study seemed to be a triptych illustration of the swirling sky. The center panel featured two angels quite larger than lifesize (one supposed) who were apparently in the process of descending with law tablets.

    ¡°I suppose these are our people,¡± she said, leaning forward to lightly touch the stone where two laurel crowned youths of ambiguous gender stood with their arms raised at the bottom of the center mosaic. They were apparently both awed and delighted to be visited by a code of ethics from on high. She then turned her attention to the side panels, and slowly paced out their length. They seemed to feature an unusual collection of mysterious chimerical beasts ¡ª of practically indescribable description ¡ª all venerating the newly delivered law in many strange and sundry ways. The whole scene looked as if it had been pulled directly from the imagination of Hieronymus Bosch. ¡°Are these then the senators of the oldest republic in the world?¡± she wondered aloud. ¡°All the beasts of the field and all the beasts of fancy. One almost expects a caucus race to break out, which I suppose is appropriate, in its own way.¡± She walked backwards and craned her neck back, trying to look at the mosaic in full. ¡°It¡¯s very interesting, don¡¯t you think?¡±

    ¡®Interesting¡¯ was an understatement, but Demi was at something of a loss describing her feelings concerning the immense art installation. It made her feel slightly uncomfortable, as if there were a meaning hidden in the work just out of sight, something others saw and understood, but which evaded her understanding. It was maddening not to be able to put her finger on it.

    The equerry had clearly assumed that hers was a rhetorical question, but Demi turned her attention back to him, expecting a reply. When he realized this, he hastily nodded.

    ¡°Yes my lady, but do please come along. I¡¯ll try to arrange a tour of the Curia for you at a later date, but I must remind you, we do have an appointment with his lordship, your father.¡±

    Her brows drew together briefly and she answered quietly, ¡°I know.¡±

    In fits and starts they moved down the tiled tunnel, with Demi stopping to admire frescoes and mosaics that interested her, and Clarence Darby goading her along, reminding her there was a schedule to keep.

    They passed other people from time to time, but the tunnel remained quiet. All of the traffic and bustle was going on above their heads. It was a sore thing to be missing, Demi thought, but she supposed she would have the chance to get her fill of it over time. All of her future was bound up in this place, whether she liked it or not.

    Clarence Darby might have wondered at her ability to linger even in a quiet tunnel, but Demi was interested in practically everything she saw, and in no particular hurry to meet either her father or Lord Lysander. She was careful to be mindful enough of the time so that neither she nor Darby would be likely to face harsh punishments on account of their tardiness, but she relished what freedom she had, while she yet had it.

    As always, she walked the line.

    While she was idling along, admiring the stonework, Demi realized that they had the attention of another party.

    There was a figure approaching them with alarming speed ¡ª or at least, Demi imagined that it would have been alarming if it hadn¡¯t been so interesting. She immediately took notice of this exciting development. Clarence Darby was clearly trying to do everything in his power not to take notice. He averted his eyes from the person who was bearing down on them, instead looking only directly ahead or directly behind him, an attempt to reassure himself that his charge had not somehow disappeared in the short span of seconds he¡¯d had his eyes off of her.

    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

    Demi could not help but feel that he was being a little thick. The person in front of them was certainly headed directly toward them, but Darby behaved as if she wouldn¡¯t be able to see him if he didn¡¯t look directly at her.

    ¡°Why is she coming this way,¡± Demi heard Darby mutter to himself. It did not really sound like a question. ¡°She can not possibly have business with us.¡±

    The ¡®she¡¯ in question was a small but smart looking woman dressed in a crisp, authoritative, and immediately recognizable uniform. There was braid on one shoulder and a short capelet over the other, but the most striking element of all was the gleaming badge in the area directly over her heart. She was an officer of the Pinnacle Guard, the security and law enforcement apparatus that served the Seat of Law. She was vested with the power to drag people off to jail ¡ª even Lords of the Curia if their offenses were grave enough. What business she had with the two of them, Demi could not say.

    The small lady seemed to be a study in opposites.

    She had doe eyes and a sweet face, and fluffy silvery white hair pulled into two low pigtails, but that baby face was set into very firm lines. She gave the immediate impression that she was more than capable of using the heavy baton that hung at her waist, even against a substantially larger opponent. The Pinnacle Guard was an elite organization. To even be considered one had to have an exemplary record of service in another policing organization, and then be recommended by a superior. Candidates then underwent grueling training before they qualified to wear the prestigious uniform. Demi had learned all of this while researching the Pinnacle Guard for a story that she had been working on.

    It was all fascinating stuff.

    Looking at her, Demi was certain that this small officer had experienced a great deal of hardship during her career because of her small frame and her baby face.

    As another small person with a baby face, Demi felt an immediate kinship with her. She was on the side of this small policewoman, even if the lady had arrived to take Demi directly to jail.

    It was all interesting, regardless.

    Demi hoped she wasn''t about to be dragged off to the gaol ¡ª although honestly, sitting in a cell would probably be more enjoyable than being exhibited as an impeccably dressed accessory for Lord Lysander. After all, she''d never been to jail before. The novelty was interesting in itself. As she was still a juvenile, would she go to juvenile hall? Did the Pinnacle have a juvenile hall? The question was a compelling one.

    Fortunately or unfortunately, Demi discovered that she was apparently not the focus of the small officer¡¯s attention.

    ¡°Clarence Darby,¡± the officer said, brandishing a very official looking document, ¡°You have been served with a demand summons issued by the Marchioness Carter. It is my duty to inform you that you will appear before her immediately or suffer penalty of incarceration and punishment, which may include permanent expulsion from the Pinnacle.¡±

    Clarence Darby practically shrieked, stepping back half a pace and drawing his hands to his mouth, as if he intended to bite all of his nails at once. ¡°But I¡¯m currently engaged in an errand under the direct order of Count Serraffield! This is the young Lady Serraffield herself! I''m acting as her guide and guardian until she is officially squired!¡± he protested, showing a bit too much of the whites of his eyes. ¡°She is in a most delicate position, being newly arrived to the City and unfamiliar with the ways of the capitol.¡±

    The officer was not moved. ¡°I am sympathetic to your predicament,¡± she said gravely. ¡°But a demand summons trumps all but an order by one of the twelve peers. You will present yourself to the Marchioness, or you will be detained.¡± She paused, and looked Demi over carefully. ¡°If you wish, after I escort Mr. Darby to his audience with the Marchioness, I can take you wherever you like.¡±

    Demi smiled and started to speak, but Clarence Darby cut her off.

    ¡°Absolutely not!¡± he said with shrill passion. When he realized the officer was giving him a dead-eyed stare, he panicked again. ¡°What I mean to say is, while the offer is very generous,¡± he leaned forward to eye her name badge, ¡°Officer Fury ¡ª ¡° he stumbled.

    ¡°Flurry,¡± she answered dryly, crossing her arms over her chest. ¡°Jill Flurry.¡±

    ¡°Officer Flurry,¡± he said, correcting himself, ¡°Your offer is very generous, but my lordship¡¯s orders were very clear. Lady Serraffield requires,¡± he paused, apparently debating his next word carefully. At last he said, ¡°Supervision.¡±

    Demi was unable to prevent her eyes from rolling. They did so of their own accord.

    Clarence Darby took no notice of her reaction. Officer Flurry¡¯s eyes flicked sideways briefly, making Demi believe that she had seen the eye roll. Demi had already taken a liking to the pint-sized officer who was so big on her responsibilities. Demi didn''t want Officer Flurry to come away with the impression that she really was a spoiled, troublemaking princess who required constant supervision, but her eye rolling had been an absolutely unavoidable reflex. Clarence Darby was being sickeningly patronizing. Demi lacked both the ability and the desire to curb her exasperation.

    Whatever Officer Flurry¡¯s private thoughts were with regard to Demi¡¯s situation, she kept them to herself, and didn''t push back against Darby¡¯s rebuff.

    But the equerry was still fretting over other matters.

    ¡°What could the Marchioness want with me!?¡± he lamented, deeply distressed. He looked as if he might be physically ill.

    ¡°I¡¯m afraid I am not privy to that information,¡± the lady officer said, her grim look now totally fixed. She was standing ramrod straight, the summons thrust out in front of her so he was forced to confront it.

    Demi did not think that Clarence Darby had expected any sort of reasonable explanation from Officer Flurry. He was simply venting in an attempt to control his anxiety. But she had apparently run out of courtesy for him when he had turned away her offer of assistance. Now she was all business.

    Watching Darby fret, Demi almost felt a little bad about things. He was a little obnoxious, certainly, but as far as she knew, he was just following her father¡¯s orders. Demi didn''t really want anything bad to happen to him. She just wanted to be rid of him, even if only for a little while. But then she recalled that he had sent Robert Grave packing with an order from her father and she felt slightly less sympathetic. Even if he was just following her father¡¯s orders, he was sort of a jerk.

    She didn¡¯t wish him ill, but so long as his life wasn¡¯t in danger and the most he faced was a period of anxiety and discomfort, she would not move to intervene.

    (There was little she could do, regardless. She was only an heir, not even a squire yet, let alone a Lord of the Curia.)

    Besides, Darby wasn''t even good as a tour guide, since he refused to let her stop and look at the things she was interested in. Instead, he hurried her along, as if he had a switch to her heels, and he was so nervous about absolutely everything that it left her feeling exhausted just being in his general vicinity.

    She could do with a vacation from Clarence Darby, and she was infinitely grateful to the unknown Marchioness Carter for furnishing that possibility.

 Canto 1 - At the Top of the World 7

    7 - then under arrest

    <hr>

    For his part, it seemed as if Mr. Darby had finally come to terms with his situation.

    He sighed, and seemed to deflate utterly.

    ¡°If it''s a demand summons, then I have no choice,¡± he said. ¡°I''ll go to the Marchioness immediately, but before that, I must make sure that the young Lady Serraffield has been left in a secure location.¡±

    ¡°All right,¡± said the officer, after a brief glance at Demi. ¡°I''ll escort you to Count Serraffield¡¯s petite demesne so you can verify that she is safe and secure there, and then I''ll take you directly to the Marchioness.¡± She narrowed her eyes. ¡°I hope you do understand that if you attempt to flee or further delay your meeting with the Marchioness, I will detain you.¡±

    Clarence Darby gave a nervous little shiver, as if he might be allergic to the idea of incarceration.

    ¡°Agreed,¡± he said, fidgeting with the knot of his tie. ¡°Lady Serraffield, I¡¯m sorry for the inconvenience, but will you please follow me?¡±

    Demi looked on impassively. She wasn''t entirely sure of where she stood with Officer Flurry, but this was probably not the best place to make a scene. She had very little to gain, and quite a lot to lose. It was best to continue playing the part of the bored princess. That was the safest choice at the moment.

    ¡°Very well,¡± she said, daintily covering her mouth to conceal a yawn.

    Demi hoped that wherever Clarence Darby ¡®secured¡¯ her, she would be left up to her own devices until his audience with the Marchioness was finished. If she were left alone, then she could get up to some exploration and investigation ¡ª without supervision.

    It wasn¡¯t as if she planned to go haplessly wandering around the whole of the Seat of Law. The tower was a dangerous place to investigate. She knew as much even given her scant experience with the Pinnacle, but she also knew that she would be safe if she remained in her father¡¯s petite demesne. That was inviolable territory. The only person who might have harmed her in such a place was her father himself.

    Which was not absolutely outside the realm of possibility, given ¡ª

    Well, given everything.

    But he had never done so, not once in her entire life, regardless of what he thought of her actions. Demi herself had never been physically hurt as a means of discipline, although she had been restrained and confined. The methods of control exercised on her were of a more subtle nature.

    And she was used to them. She had already decided to accept whatever punishment might await her as a consequence of her investigation even before she had boarded the train to come to the City. That was the depth of her resolve.

    And her words had an immediate effect on her situation.

    Having received her (admittedly vague) blessing, Clarence Darby flew like an arrow through the halls of the Curia, his rapid steps nervously ringing against the floor. He was apparently taking the officer¡¯s threats of permanent expulsion very seriously. That was probably wise.

    Jill Flurry seemed like the sort of person who ought to be taken seriously.

    Darby was now moving at such a clip that Demi and Jill Flurry had to practically jog to keep up with him as he raced along the labyrinthine hallways of the tower¡¯s petite demesnes.

    After a complex series of turns, the three of them arrived in an area that seemed slightly familiar to Demi. It was the sovereign territory of the Serraffields within the Seat of Law, their petite demesne. Demi had only been there twice before. Her father had not been particularly enthusiastic about having children underfoot at the seat of government.

    She saw no one she knew.

    To be true, she saw no one at all. Every member of her father¡¯s staff seemed to be absent or cloistered behind closed doors. It was a little off-putting.

    But then, she had never expected a grand welcome.

    Clarence Darby seemed unperturbed by the relative desertion of the suite. His mind was perhaps on other matters.

    He led her directly to a closed door and then fished out a key to unlock it.

    ¡°If you don''t mind, please wait here until you''re retrieved, Lady Serraffield,¡± he said. ¡°I''m sure you¡¯ll be very comfortable. If it turns out that the Marchioness requires my attendance for more that a few minutes, then I¡¯ll dispatch someone to get you as soon as I have a free moment. Under no other circumstances should you leave this room.¡± He glanced sidelong at their escort, who looked ready to drag him off if he didn''t get going on his own.

    Demi sighed and then nodded.

    ¡°I¡¯ll defer to your judgement on this issue,¡± she said blandly.

    As she moved toward the room, she felt a light touch on her arm. It was Officer Flurry. She had put the official summons under her arm and was scribbling something onto a notepad. She handed it to Demi.

    ¡°That¡¯s my phone number and contact information, Lady Serraffield,¡± she said seriously. ¡°You can call on me at any time if you need assistance. Before I leave, I''m going to verify, it is by choice that you''re entering this room, correct?¡±

    Demi smiled wanly. It was a difficult question. She could not help but think back to the question the boy on the train had asked, during that strange, silent moment.

    ¡°Will you swear that all that you do, you do by your own choice? Will you take responsibility for your own fate?¡±

    She hadn''t done much of anything at all since leaving the train that had really been her own choice. Her father was an expert at coercing desired behavior out of her. She understood what the consequences were for perceived rebellion.

    But to be fair, she knew that there was another choice. She could refuse to preform as expected and be disowned and expelled from the family. That always remained an option. But she had no place to go and no other way to be. Besides, she couldn''t run from herself. She was a Serraffield, and she owed service to the world as compensation for her privileged upbringing.

    So she nodded seriously.

    ¡°I am acting of my own free will,¡± she said.

    Officer Flurry did not appear to be wholly satisfied, but she seemed willing to accept Demi¡¯s word. Meanwhile, Darby nervously motioned her toward the open door.

    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    Demi was an expert at following the rules and getting her way at the same time. She could jump through hoops, dot i¡¯s, cross t¡¯s and still end up doing what she wanted (mostly). Her intention was to promptly exit the room as soon as Mr. Darby was out of earshot. She had an even greater desire to explore now that her chaperone had expressly forbidden it.

    (The council of Demi was in full agreement on this point.)

    Besides, even if she was caught, she could always feign ignorance, flightiness, and innocent confusion. Acting as if she had no brain at all in her skull was one of the best cards she had to play, and along with eccentricity, allowed her a free pass for misbehavior that would otherwise be punished severely.

    As she was contemplating her plans in the doorway, Clarence Darby apparently at last lost patience with her and practically shoved her into the room with a muffled ¡°pardon me, my lady,¡± as he did.

    As soon as Demi was through the door she heard it shut behind her, and then the rapid turn and click of the lock. She turned on her heel and tried the handle with a vague sort of resignation. It was indeed locked, as she had expected, and there was no apparent way to unlock it without a key. It was unfortunate that she had not yet learned to pick locks. She resolved to move that skill to the top of her list of priorities. Still, there would be no lock-picking today.

    So much for investigation and exploration.

    Outside the door, she could hear a muffled conversation. It sounded like Officer Flurry was having words with Clarence Darby. Still, after a moment, the voices faded, and it became clear that the officer had hauled him off, presumably to his nonconsensual appointment.

    With the understanding that she was now on her own, Demi promptly opened her bag to retrieve her hair clip and clipped it back into her hair at its accustomed place.

    Let¡¯s hope Mr. Darby is so frazzled by his experience that he doesn¡¯t notice, she thought to herself.

    But then, could he really force her to take her hair clip off?

    It might be a battle worth fighting.

    Time would tell.

    Demi turned her attention back to her surroundings.

    As a waiting room, it left quite a bit to be desired. It was fortunate that she had brought her own reading material. The room felt as if it had been made for the express purpose of contemplating one¡¯s sins ¡ª there was precious little else to contemplate, after all.

    The room was small ¡ª more like a cell than anything else ¡ª plain, with no windows, not even the interior windows that were so common in megastructures. The door behind her opened outward, which made the small room feel even more closet-like. There was a single folding chair and nothing else of interest or substance other than a small painting that hung on the wall opposite the door.

    The scale of the painting required her to move until she was standing directly in front of it to puzzle out the subject. It was a dark canvas with several vaguely menacing figures gathered in a circle around an open pit, which appeared to have large, misshapen teeth jutting out around the rim. Underneath the painting was a brass plate with one word: Urheimat.

    As Demi stood with her hands folded behind her back, staring at the inscrutable painting, she heard the delicate sound of bells. The sound was regular, slow, and ritualistic, as if something strange was approaching from a long way off. It was a queer sound in the small, generally featureless room.

    At the sound, Demi turned around, and that was when she saw the veiled lady.

    It was a bizarre experience. Demi had not heard the lock turn nor the door open, but there was someone standing before the closed door, as still and lovely as water.

    The woman was clad totally in white, in semi-transparent fabric that fluidly fell over the lines and curves of her body, and ultimately concealed very little of her shape. Even her face was covered by layers of a long diaphanous veil that nearly brushed the ground before her. The features of her face could be picked out under her veil, for the fabric had been drawn and fastened loosely over it, but they remained hazy and indistinct. Demi could not have said what the woman looked like under the veil, although what little exposed skin she did have at her extremities was a medium olive in tone. Demi guessed, but could not be certain, that her hair was dark. That was all she could determine about the veiled lady.

    That and the fact that she was shockingly, arrestingly beautiful.

    It was something that Demi understood, even having only seen her through the mist of her all-covering and yet barely concealing clothing.

    It all felt fantastic, and a little unreal, or perhaps hyper real, as if this lady were the statuary of Antonio Corradini come to life.

    There were anklets on the veiled lady¡¯s bare feet which were the apparent source of the sound of tiny bells.

    Demi was still reflecting on this woman¡¯s entrancing and compelling beauty when she realized that the veiled lady was speaking.

    She had a low, smooth voice that made Demi think of the sound of hushed call and response prayer in church.

    ¡°I have come to fetch you, Lady Serraffield,¡± was what she said.

    ¡°Ah!¡± Demi squeaked in a most undignified way, completely caught off guard that she was the object of interest for this genuine madonna. She flushed and struggled to recover herself.

    ¡°Mr. Darby isn''t coming back?¡± she asked.

    ¡°Circumstances have caused him to be detained beyond his reckoning,¡± she said, and her manner was grave and stately. ¡°He will not return for some time. I have been asked to escort you to a different room, where you may wait in comfort.¡±

    Demi was honestly relieved to be deprived of Clarence Darby, even for an extended period of time. She needed a break from her father¡¯s uptight equerry.

    Besides that, the small room where she had been left was mind-numbingly boring. It was so hopelessly boring that Demi felt that she had totally exhausted its minimal charms in the six and a half minutes she had thus far been confined there. While Demi was a very inventive person and had prodigious scope for imagination, the undiscovered wonders hidden past the horizon of the closed door were too tantalizing for her to be content with the folding chair and urheimat.

    She was in one of the most interesting locations in the entire world, but she felt as if she had been locked inside a nondescript broom closet (nondescript apart from an excessively weird painting ¡ª exactly whose homeland was that supposed to be?). Anywhere, even imminent doom, would be better than the locked closet. At least imminent doom was likely to be interesting.

    Suffice it to say, Demi had never seen the veiled lady among her father¡¯s entourage. The veiled lady was a person who could not be forgotten once she had been seen, regardless of the state of her dress or undress. Demi could not say beyond a reasonable doubt that the veiled lady represented her father''s interests, although it was certain that she had at the very least the ability to unlock doors that Clarence Darby had locked behind him.

    But Demi also recognized that her father¡¯s interests were not necessarily her interests, no matter how often they naturally aligned due to their direct familial ties. Following this woman¡¯s directions without outside confirmation that she was a member of Count Serraffield¡¯s entourage could possibly be dangerous. Metropoly was not a kind City, and Demi knew that she had value primarily as a piece to be used by other people, at least until the time of her majority.

    And yet.

    Demi had a general idea of what awaited her with the return of Clarence Darby. She knew that she could not really avoid the future that was laid out before her. That future had been determined at the time of her birth, and possibly before it. She had very little freedom of choice and much of what appeared to offer her novelty and variety were illusions. She might choose small detours here or there, she might assert her will in the way she chose to walk down this singular path, but she could not change the path itself. She was unfortunately accustomed to having many things in her life decided for her, with no concern for her own wishes.

    But she refused to passively accept the futility of her position, she refused to be slowly pushed forward by the inevitable tide of her predetermined life.

    Besides, if things went very south, she could always call the police. She had Jill Flurry¡¯s number in her pocket, and she had already memorized it.

    And so, when the veiled lady asked, ¡°Will you follow me?¡±

    She did not even need to consult the council of Demi.

    A short life and a merry one, Demi thought.

    But she said, ¡°Yes.¡±

    She would follow whatever rabbits chanced to cross her path, regardless of their color.

    Even if there were only one chance in the uncountable infinity that a genuinely new page might be read after this one was turned, she would take that chance.

 Canto 1 - At the Top of the World 8

    8 - in the Study of Eve

    once upon a time there was a story, and that story was a story about stories.

    <hr>

    ¡°Please wait here until you are called on,¡± said the veiled lady and Demi only managed a distracted nod as the woman retreated in a soft chorus of bells and left her alone in a breathtaking room.

    It was all light and color, like being inside a jewel box. The walls were like the walls of a conservatory or greenhouse, all glass seamed with metal, but instead of being clear, the glass was all colored in rich shades of green and blue and red and gold. Each great frame of the windows was a complex picture in stained glass, and the panels in between were decorated with scenes of fruits and flowers and trees. It seemed as if the windows were dedicated to scenes from myth, as Demi saw fairies and unicorns depicted among the green leaves of light.

    Demi put her bag down on the ground and breathed in the feeling of the place with her skin.

    She turned around and around, her arms spread wide, enjoying the feeling of dancing inside a box of jewels and light. The floor was a beautiful wooden parquet made of subtle shades of brown. It was not ostentatious enough to draw interest away from the astonishing windows, but Demi realized that there were figures of flowers underfoot there too.

    It was like a room from a dream, and Demi adored it.

    There was one window of clear glass amid all the jeweled windows; one window that seemed as if it had been built for looking out rather than turning inward.

    It was roughly oval, an elongated octagon cut like a gemstone. It had a deep, broad sill, almost like a window seat, one that extended away from the wall in an egg shape. The seat and the muntins that divided the facets of the window were a reddish gold that seemed illuminated by the western sun. The muntins looked like lines of golden thread sewn to frame the picture of the window.

    The tall, stained glass windows that flanked the observation window rose up toward the curved, vaulted ceiling. Like the other windows in the room, they depicted scenes from myth, using lapis and emerald glass to tell a definite story. The room was roughly divided into two halves by the observation window, split like the hemispheres of a globe. The two windows that flanked the observation window on either side were the tallest and grandest of the stained glass windows, and both were framed with gnarled limbs bearing fruit and flowers. The stories told by the two halves of the room were not mirrors, but perhaps analogues. The stained glass windows on the right side of the room as she faced the window seemed to tell the story of a girl whose truth had been found inside the fleshy middle of a pomegranate. The windows on the left had a similarity about them, an echo without sameness. They told the story of a girl who found her truth in the shadow of an apple tree.

    This room was clearly meant for quiet thought. There were several deep club chairs and arm chairs arranged variously around the room, and tasseled pillows lay in the chairs and scattered across the floor in idle, hedonistic piles. There was an interlocking pattern on the rug, a hilbert curve punctuated by stylized flowers that might have been roses or tulips. Other than the light that came through the stained glass and the observation window, this room was lit by lamps with shades of colored glass which depicted either flowers, or insects. Demeter Serraffield did not know until later that this room was called ¡°the Study of Eve.¡±

    It seemed to Demi that the jewel box room was some person¡¯s private treasure. She felt it, instinctively. This room had been very carefully cultivated, very carefully curated, and then very carefully arranged. Although Demi did not labor under the delusion that it had been arranged for her personal pleasure, she loved it as itself, as its own thing, with abandoned disregard for the person who had arranged it. The study might have been the personal property of the devil himself and she wouldn''t have minded it.

    It put her at ease ¡ª more at ease than she had been before, certainly. She took a deep breath, then let it out. This room even smelled of fruit and honey, and a strange dustiness that was not indicative of either a lack of tidiness or a lack of use. It was queer, but not uncomfortable.

    After some moments passed as she moved around the room, examining the windows and the furnishings, it became clear that Demi¡¯s chaperone would be some time, if he came at all. The veiled lady hadn''t locked Demi into the bejeweled room, and yet Demi had no strong desire to leave it. She was far away from her father¡¯s petite demesne, and so any investigation she did would be for pleasure rather than purpose, and the room of stained glass was pleasurable in itself.

    Having decided that she would stay in the beautiful room for the time being, Demi went to the egg shaped window seat, kicked off her shoes, and crawled into it, looking out over the City below.

    It was enough to make her shiver with delight and let out a high, nervous giggle, and she pressed her fingertips against the window, peering out like a child on her first train ride.

    In the wide circular break in the feathery mist that hung just below the Pinnacle, she could see the bulge of the great City beneath her, gilded by the light of the late afternoon sun. This small room was above the dome of the arcology, and seemed to hang over nothing, almost by magic.

    It was a strange picture, and she somehow felt as if she alone of all the people in the world had looked upon it. It was like looking over an impossibly high wall and catching a glimpse of untold numbers of marvels and horrors that had not yet been described or catalogued by the powers of mankind, things that could only be understood as half formed dreams or fancies. It felt like creeping on stage during a play and looking off to the sides to see the hidden activity in the wings, or like being among marionettes and looking up to see the movement of the strings.

    She had an inexplicable feeling that she was looking upon a thing that she saw, but did not properly comprehend, as if she had witnessed some profound secret that she could not make sense of. The dizzying view gave her a sense of vertigo, and she sat back on her feet, trying to make sense of what she had seen and yet not understood.

    But there were easier thoughts too ¡ª thoughts of pleasure and amusement and fancy.

    She certainly had the high seat now. She was high in the Pinnacle, in the crown of Metropoly, like a princess in a tower, looking down at the tops of the clouds.

    This was really the ideal spot to read. Demi pulled her bag up into the seat with her and dug into it. She had two books with her. One was the Swallow, naturally. More than two books would have been a heavy weight to have on her shoulder all day, when one accounted for all the other things she had managed to stow away. Besides, Robert Grave had chided her when he had seen her trying to somehow fit five books into her bag along with her other treasures.

    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    ¡°It''s not as if you¡¯ll be away from your books for that long, my lady,¡± he had said. ¡°They''ve all been packed up and sent ahead. Chose your favorite and I¡¯ll put the rest into your luggage.¡±

    Of course, they both knew that she didn''t have to choose a favorite. Her favorite was readily apparent, and that was part of the problem.

    ¡°But what if I end up somewhere and I don''t have the right book on me?¡± she had asked, biting her lip. ¡°I¡¯ll hate it if I want it and I don''t have it with me.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll survive, little mistress,¡± Robert Grave had said with a slow smile. ¡°We must all make our little sacrifices.¡±

    She had wheedled and waxed poetic and made very picturesque pleading faces, and at last he had relented. She was allowed to pack two books in her shoulder bag, rather than one. As it was, two had been pushing the limit. Her precious bag was stuffed to bursting, with socks, silverware, a small blanket, a rescue inhaler, twine, scissors, a first aid kit, a portable game system, important letters and cards, jewelry, shiny stones and other small treasures, and a beloved pair of slippers.

    A Forest Girl was always prepared, after all.

    She really ought to take time to pamper her beloved bag once she got settled in her new room. It had been going the distance like a champion. She would clean it with saddle soap and condition it ¡ª or whatever one did to pamper a leather bag. She wasn¡¯t entirely clear on it herself, as her personal maid had been in charge of such things while she still lived at Forest Home.

    But Mariana had not come with her to the City. She was safe back at Forest Home, keeping Demi¡¯s things in order at that grand estate.

    Demi would have to ask a knowledgeable person about the pampering of bags. She didn¡¯t mind doing it herself. Her bag was a dependable companion and was deserving of her care.

    Looking down at the two books that lay on the sill before her, Demi felt an uncomfortable itch in a place she could not scratch.

    She had been right. She had been right!

    Neither of the books she had brought suited the room or her mood, the strange string of events that had brought her to this place, the fluttery nervousness in her stomach. She couldn''t read. Not these books. Not now. Not even the Swallow would do. She needed something new, something enticing, something she had never read before.

    Only the seduction of novelty might have cured this case of maddening anxiety.

    She ought to have known.

    A little forlorn, she patted them both apologetically. It wasn''t the fault of the books after all.

    And then she looked out over the City again.

    She leaned against the window, silk stockinged knees pressed against the sill, and ran her fingers back over her sleekly pinned hair. She pressed her teeth against her lower lip and came to a decision.

    It¡¯s better to ask forgiveness than permission, she thought to herself.

    That was often the common consensus of the council of Demi.

    It was also too late in the afternoon for anyone to redress her act of rebellion. Not enough time remained to force her to change before the meeting. They would have to accept her as she was.

    Demi had a very acute sense of when it was the right time to gamble.

    She was just pulling the last of the pins from her hair when she heard a quiet footstep behind her and apologized with a guilty laugh. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± she said with an easy mixture of mild self-chastisement and sweet, impish charm. She felt more herself than she had since stepping off the train at Grand Central. Even in this unfamiliar City, she was getting her feet again. ¡°I know you went to an awful lot of trouble to have me arranged just so, and I know it was my father¡¯s express wish, but this just isn¡¯t me. I look better like this. It¡¯s more honest, even if it is less professional. I¡¯ll be sure and take all the responsibility for my choice. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima ¡ª ¡±

    As she turned to beg forgiveness from her stuffy equerry, the mass of her curly brown hair tumbled down her shoulders and settled like a long mantle behind her. Framed by the light of the window, with her fingers laced together before her and a shy smile of contrition, she made a very striking picture.

    (This was calculated, naturally. She knew how to put herself at advantage.)

    But it was not the equerry who stood before her. It was her reader: the tall, serious man in the serious suit.

    ¡°Lord Eisenreich!¡± she cried in astonishment, the color rising to her cheeks. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I thought you were Mr. Darby.¡±

    (It was genuine astonishment, a genuine flush, and genuine squirming. She had put herself at advantage to dull the anxiety of her father¡¯s nervous equerry, not to exhibit herself before the cool and remote Iron Duke. She felt a little ridiculous, like a pigeon parading in front of a mirror. Certainly, he did not have the least interest in how she chose to arrange her hair.)

    He had been looking at her blankly as she squirmed in place, but then he seemed to come to himself at once, and his eyes focused on her again.

    ¡°I am not Mr. Darby,¡± he agreed shortly, and studied her. ¡°You¡¯re right,¡± he said after a moment of thought. ¡°It does suit you better that way.¡±

    The way he said it was frank and disinterested, as if he were making a plain and bare statement of fact. He apparently did not intend for it to be a compliment, merely an observation, and so was not the least bit uncomfortable making it. After all, he had not said he liked it, merely that it suited her. Depending on how he regarded her, this might make the remark cutting rather than generous. Demi read and understood all this in his eyes and his voice and his words, and she trembled a little inside the shell of herself.

    His words were not really the sort of thing to set a girl¡¯s heart aflutter.

    Eisenreich himself was not particularly well cast as the type of romantic figure that might have been appealing to a girl her age. Barring the attractiveness of his authority and position, he had little to recommend him. He was not what other people would have called handsome, although she found him appealing. He was not genial. His manners were brusque and curt. He did not seem like the sort of man who was accustomed to either giving or receiving empty flattery. He was very dry and aloof, a man in late middle age with a reputation for being dreary, dull, hard, and unfriendly, with a direct and exacting nature, and as her father¡¯s equerry had put it: an intense disposition.

    And yet.

    Inside the fragile shell of her body, her membranous heart trembled.

    She lit up from the inside.

    He had not given her an empty platitude. He had given her a simple, grave truth: one small moment of recognition and acceptance. He had spoken honestly, and she had understood him.

    Demi flushed more deeply and brought her hands to her cheeks involuntarily, conscious of, and embarrassed by the fact that she had lit up so obviously. It was dangerous to give so much of herself away so easily, particularly to a man she knew very little about and whom she had only met an hour previous.

    No matter how much she wanted to.

    ¡°Ah, I¡¯m sorry,¡± she repeated, and squirmed in place again. ¡°Please excuse me. I think the light of the window has dazzled my eyes.¡±

    It was a silly excuse, but she depended upon it.

 Canto 1 - At the Top of the World 9

    She retreated from the sill, and scrambled from one strange seat to another. She settled herself on the arm of a plush chair with a diamond pattern across it. Once situated, she got hold of herself, folding her hands in her lap. She didn¡¯t wait for the silence between them to become uncomfortable, but instead promptly asked, ¡°What do you think of ¡®The Swallow Who Fell in Love with the Moon?¡¯¡±

    Her conversation was as active as a squirrel naturally, and even more so when she was feeling a bit shy and awkward.

    His brows drew together briefly again and she hastened to explain.

    ¡°You were reading it this morning in the lift,¡± she said. ¡°It¡¯s been one of my favorites for a long time. I brought my own copy with me from home,¡± she turned to nod toward the sill, where a copy of the same book lay. ¡° ¡ª and some others of Evangeline Belmont¡¯s, although I had to pack them. They sent my luggage off some place, I suppose to my father¡¯s house.¡± And then it at last dawned on her. ¡°Oh, I am sorry,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯ve been very rude. I¡¯m Demeter Serraffield, Lord Serraffield¡¯s daughter.¡± She stood and crossed the space between them to offer her hand.

    ¡°I know,¡± he answered almost absently, taking her hand briefly and giving it a single firm shake.

    This brought the wicked tail of her smile back to her face.

    ¡°You¡¯re certainly full of surprises, Lord Eisenreich,¡± she said with a laugh that was as easy as the sun on a lizard¡¯s back in the warm grass. ¡°Reading romances, telling jokes, knowing my name. A person might even begin to expect that you¡¯d come into this room for no other reason than to talk to me.¡±

    ¡°That is the reason I came into this room,¡± he said, direct and brusque, and apparently still totally unconcerned.

    She might have been fluttering, but he was a rock. He was immovable, inviolable stable craton. He was the oldest rock in the world.

    Then he frowned, as if he had tasted something sour. ¡°I would prefer you not call me that,¡± he said.

    Demi went from a moment of rosy surprise and twittery fluttering to the bright and insufferable satisfaction of a cat that had just caught a bird. She gleamed like the fine edge of a knife. She had found her footing again. He had issued an invitation, whether or not he regarded it as such.

    ¡°And what shall I call you then?¡± she asked, leaning forward a little, so that she could look up into his face as she teased him. It was one of her favorite tactics with people who were taller than she was, which amounted to practically everybody over the age of twelve. This time her question was rhetorical, because she continued on without waiting for an answer. ¡°I don¡¯t know your given name, but I¡¯m terribly good at guessing games. You can call me Demi if you like,¡± she imparted breezily, barely sparing a moment for this nicety before dancing forward on her feet, keen on playing and winning the game she¡¯d just invented. ¡°Is your name Claudius? Diocletian? Valerian? Septimius? What about Hadrian? Well then, let¡¯s try something a little less Roman. How do you feel about Constantine? Hannibal? Seigfreid? Demetri? Richard? Benedict? Bartolomeo? Ivan? Igor? Allistair? Barnabus? Atilla? Charlemagne? You look like you might possibly be a Khan of some kind or another ¡ª no? Well then, is it Eadwig? Hrothgar? Wulf? Could you be Frederick Barbarossa? Probably not, given that you don''t have a fiery red beard ¡ª ¡°

    He apparently sensed that she was ready to keep guessing for an interminable length of time so he broke in.

    ¡°Matthias,¡± he said, raising both of his hands as if to ward her off. ¡°My given name is Matthias. You may call me Doctor Eisenreich or Director Eisenreich. That¡¯s what I prefer.¡±

    She stopped listening at a part of the conversation that was convenient for her.

    ¡°Matthias,¡± she repeated, and it gave her a little thrill. ¡°I suppose I¡¯d have gotten through all the saints eventually. I like it,¡± she declared categorically. ¡°Matthias Eisenreich. It has a good sound to it.¡±

    He raised an eyebrow but his face was otherwise neutral. ¡°I¡¯m flattered that you approve of it, Miss Serraffield.¡±

    ¡°That won¡¯t do, you know,¡± she said, clicking her tongue. ¡°How am I going to get away with calling you Matthias and scandalizing positively everyone living and dead if you don¡¯t call me Demi?¡± she wondered, chiding him.

    ¡°That¡¯s simple,¡± he said flatly. ¡°You will not get away with it.¡±

    When she was about to puff out her cheeks and begin an inspired pout, a third person entered the room. Demi again expected her missing equerry (who was at that moment frantically searching the whole of the Seat of Law for her) but it was a pale, slender girl with dark eyes who appeared. Her long hair was a beautiful pinky-blonde and it flowed like silk behind her, with part of it tied up in two long twin tails, done up in ribbons. She was wearing a very elaborately ruffled white dress, one trimmed beautifully in lace and pearls. Two animals were following behind her, and the sight of them made Demi come to a full stop because she immediately recognized them as wolves.

    They were not wolflike dogs.

    They were not even wolf dogs.

    There were wolflike dogs in the kennels at Forest Home: malamutes, huskies, shepherds, samoyeds, akitas. Demi had romped with them often. There were even a trio of wolfdog hybrids that her mother had rescued. She had also romped with the wolfdogs, once she had learned lessons of respect and restraint. Demi was interested in romping with every living thing that it was safe to romp with (and probably many that were not in any way safe to romp with).

    On top of being a fan of all things that were alive, Demi had made an especial study of wolves when she had gone through a ¡®wolfgirl¡¯ phase after having seen a certain influential movie. At that time she had entertained romantic ideas of running off and being part of a wolf pack, and living in the wildwood, so she had done a lot of research in order to prepare herself for this undertaking.

    (Although she would have certainly visited her human mother on weekends even if she had become *an the wolfdaughter. She was a conscientious girl.)

    Therefore, Demi had the expert knowledge of an almost-wolfgirl. These two animals were neither dogs nor wolfdogs, although their coloration indicated that somewhere back in their lineage, they had been either crossed with dogs, or had been purposefully bred for domestication, favoring unusual coloration.

    There were Lords of the Curia who kept wild animals as a personal hobby. There were whose who kept them as pets, and brought them on leash into public spaces, even massive animals like bears and tigers. She knew that. But still, it was surreal to see two wolves, a black one and a tawny red one, standing at the heel of a young girl in a frilly dress. They were neither leashed, nor collared, although they were both remarkably well mannered.

    They did not seem to be her pets. She gave them no commands that Demi could discern. They acted as they acted at their own discretion. The black one was silently surveying the room as if keeping on guard for danger, while the red one was lazily watching her, with his mouth slightly open in a wolfy grin.

    The two creatures seemed to be the girl¡¯s friends, her escorts, her guardians.

    The sight was moving to the almost-wolfgirl in Demi. Here was a real, authentic wolfgirl in the flesh, and she had become a wolfgirl without having to trade her frilly dresses for skins and paint her face with blood. It was a triumph.

    The girl in the dress carried a ruffled parasol over one shoulder. All of it together ¡ª the girl with the parasol, her twin tails and lovely dress, and her guardian wolves ¡ª it was all a bit surreal, even given their environs.

    The girl who was accompanied by wolves rapped the tip of her parasol on the floor twice. It was a neat, delicate sound.

    ¡°And so, Lord Eisenreich?¡± she asked. ¡°Have you made your decision?¡±

    Eisenreich folded his hands behind his back and turned to give the girl in white his full attention. He bowed his head briefly.

    ¡°I accept,¡± was all that he said, as if that was all that was needed.

    The strange girl in white nodded herself, apparently satisfied with his answer.

    ¡°Then it is done,¡± she said. ¡°Now I must go and inform the other parties of this turn of events.¡± As she turned to go, she looked at Demi very seriously and said, ¡°I look forward to seeing exactly what you become Lady Serraffield, and exactly what becomes of you. I¡¯ll see you in time.¡±

    Not knowing what else to do, Demi curtseyed.

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    The girl gave her a brief, slow smile, and then she was gone on her way, the two wolves turning silently to follow her.

    Demi was left feeling puzzled, even as her heart bid a fond farewell to the wolfgirl and her wolf friends.

    ¡°Who was that, and what was that all about?¡± she asked, leaning forward again and pitching her voice low, as if she worried they might be overheard. (By whom? They were now quite alone in the room again.) Demi was already treating Eisenreich as if they were longtime acquaintances and committed co-conspirators. She had cast him as her accomplice and now apparently expected that he was both duty bound to answer her questions and enthusiastic about doing so.

    Fortunately for her, he did not seem terribly malcontent about the role he had been assigned, at least for the moment. He agreeably dispensed the information she had requested without any elaboration or embroidery.

    ¡°That was Lady Lunamaia, the Lord of Ashpodel,¡± he answered shortly, and Demi¡¯s eyes widened. It was a name she recognized. Lunamaia was another of the great princes of the City of Metropoly, one of the twelve peers. Although invested with a huge amount of influence and authority, she rarely if ever made public appearances. It was startling to recognize that the current Lady Lunamaia was so young. She might have been a junior high school student.

    Demi didn¡¯t have time to dwell on this revelation, because Eisenreich continued. ¡°As for what our exchange was about, it is simple. I gave my consent. I have accepted you as my squire until you are released at the time of your majority.¡±

    Demi blinked and stared at him blankly.

    ¡°What?¡± she asked in confusion. She knew she was there at the Pinnacle to be assigned as a squire to one of the Lords of the Curia, but so far as she knew that assignment had been decided years ago and was to the Lord Lysander, a notable figure whose family had been allied with her own for generations. But although he was of considerable means and influence, he was certainly not one of the great princes of the City ¡ª

    She needed to sit down.

    ¡°Surely you are aware that you were here at the Curia for no other purpose than to have your squiring assigned,¡± Eisenreich began, his mouth turned down at the corner.

    ¡°Yes, of course I know that,¡± Demi said in exasperation, going back to sit on the arm of the chair in a fit of pique. ¡°But I didn¡¯t think ¡ª that is, I didn¡¯t know ¡ª it wasn¡¯t supposed to be you,¡± she finished at last, her brow wrinkled and her eyes pleading.

    What on earth does all of this mean? her heart was shouting.

    She had no idea.

    ¡°You¡¯re unhappy with the assignment then,¡± he stated flatly. It did not appear that he cared about her opinion on the matter one way or another. It was simply another observation.

    ¡°No!¡± It exploded out of her all at once, all her distress and exasperation. ¡°Or yes, I don¡¯t know.¡± She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. ¡°No,¡± she said, opening her eyes. ¡°I¡¯m not unhappy with the assignment. I¡¯m glad,¡± she said haltingly. ¡°I¡¯m flattered even. I¡¯m honestly thrilled that you¡¯ve decided to take me on as a squire. I¡¯m only surprised, is all. Things are,¡± she struggled again, burying one of her hands in the hair near her temple. ¡°Things are different is all, different from the way I¡¯ve always been told.¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± he said. ¡°They are.¡±

    A moment passed in stillness and he apparently collected himself.

    He folded his hands behind his back again as he regarded her seriously.

    ¡°And now, Miss Serraffield, I must caution you,¡± the pitch of his voice was so low that it gave her a shiver just on its own. He had become, if it were possible, more serious, more grave. She scrambled from the chair and stood up straight, folding her own hands behind her back, and gave him her steady gaze. She could read the current in the room well enough to recognize that he now expected her full attention. He made a very quiet sound as she clasped her hands behind her back and faced him. It was brief, a whisper, something like a snort ¡ª had he laughed? That might have been such a miracle in itself that she didn¡¯t even mind being the butt of whatever joke sparked his well-concealed sense of humor.

    But he did not chuckle and he did not guffaw. He simply stood absolutely straight and looked at her heavily.

    ¡°I must caution you,¡± he repeated. ¡°No matter what your experience has been in the past, you cannot be glib and irreverent with the brokers of power in this city, whether they be Lords of the Curia, or the prominent among the masses. It is reckless to count on good will in this place, and dangerous to depend on charm. You are young and attractive and intelligent, and your social position affords you some feeble immunity, but do not imagine that any of these attributes provide any real protection from the dangers that exist here. Be wary of who you attempt to befriend, and be wary of who takes interest in you. It will be years before you reach your majority and become a Lord of the Curia in your own right. At the moment, your position as a squire presents you with limited privileges and dangerous access to those who would eat you so much as look at you.¡± He closed his eyes briefly, then refocused his attention. ¡°But by no means should you live your life in fear,¡± he said crisply, and it rang in the otherwise quiet room. ¡°You are my squire and therefore under my protection, and I expect you to conduct yourself with tact and decorum, exhibiting neither prideful excess nor cowardice.¡± His mouth turned down at the corner. ¡°Some people may allow your bad behavior. Some may even encourage it because they find it diverting, but they will always expect something in return for their indulgence. This is a dangerous City in which to find yourself beholden. I have allowed you to be familiar, here, in this place, because I wished to gauge your character and determine whether or not taking you as a squire might be at all worthwhile or simply a waste of time. What you must understand,¡± he said, bringing one of his heels down in a strike against the ground underfoot for emphasis, ¡°Is that I will not tolerate this familiarity out in the world.¡±

    My position dictates that I cannot tolerate it.

    It was a commandment, sharply given, as plain as if he had cut it into rock. Demi heard the words that he implied with his heavy eyes as clearly as if he had spoken them.

    He expected to be obeyed. His low, powerful voice exerted a pressure that she could feel on her skin. She had the startling impression that if she put her hands out, she might have run her fingers over the strange shape of his menace and warning. At that moment, he was terrifying in a way he had not been when he had caught her by the arm, or let her offer a dozen dizzy guesses in an attempt to suss out his birth name. At that moment she understood why her father¡¯s equerry had looked like he would wet himself when he had discovered her idly chatting with this man.

    She shifted her weight to the toes of her feet and trembled slightly with repressed energy. At that moment, she felt very much as if she wanted to run away, to run and run, away from the hard City which was just as terrible and dangerous as he had described, she knew, she knew, she knew it in her bones and marrow. She felt like she was groping around in the darkness, looking for the slivers of light that might mark out the shape of a door, so she could get away from the room where he watched her with such heavy eyes and such potent, terrible thoughts, away to the safety of the eaves of the Deep Wood, where at least the dangers were known.

    But as powerful as her desire was to turn tail and run away, there was another desire flickering in her heart, like a candle sheltered from the night wind. She wanted to stay in this place that he threatened was fierce and dangerous. She wanted to stay in the shadow of this ominous, frightening man, to secret herself away, trembling and curious, and see what might happen.

    What will you become? Lady Lunamaia had wondered, And what will become of you?

    Curiosity killed the cat, she thought. But satisfaction brought it back. I am ready to spend all nine of my lives.

    A door had closed behind her. All she had to do then, was to open another door.

    She settled back on her heels and did her best to calm her rapidly beating heart.

    ¡°It is not as if I intend to leave you bereft, drifting in the sea with neither a paddle nor a rudder,¡± he said more neutrally, and she let out a breath that she didn¡¯t know that she¡¯d been holding. ¡°I am now responsible for your development, and I will see that you are properly schooled,¡± he said. ¡°I demand your respect and your attention, Miss Serraffield. If you offer these seriously, then I will see that you reach your majority well grown and appropriately experienced. If you do not ¡ª ¡° he warned ominously, ¡°I am afraid I cannot guarantee your safety.¡±

    He let the words settle into the stillness of the room, and they were both gilded by the rays of the setting sun as it hung low outside the window.

    ¡°Do you understand me?¡± he asked finally.

    ¡°Yes,¡± she said deliberately, then nodded once. ¡°Yes, sir.¡±

    ¡°Good,¡± he said with another slight noise, ¡°Although you should know, Miss Serraffield, that I don¡¯t actually expect you to stand at attention whenever I speak to you.¡±

    Her rigid stance broke all at once and Demi trembled, leaning forward and covering her face with her hands. It looked a little as if she were having an attack of some kind, but Eisenreich was spared the worry over her condition when a wild tremble of giggles erupted out of her.

    Her frantic tension had broken into the gentle surf of laughter. She laughed until she was breathless, then looked up at him, her cheeks rosy, pushing back the hair that had fallen into her face. ¡°I am sorry, sir,¡± she admitted. ¡°It¡¯s just that I hadn¡¯t even realized ¡ª ¡°

    ¡°Yes,¡± was all he said. ¡°I gathered.¡±

    She took several deep breaths and managed to school herself again, running her hands back through her hair to straighten it. Despite her tendency to lapse into silly giggles, she actually had remarkable command of herself for a person so young and inexperienced.

    ¡°There is just one more thing sir,¡± she said, having gotten herself back in presentable order.

    ¡°Yes?¡± he asked with a raised eyebrow. He seemed to say, Are you not yet satisfied?

    ¡°Thank you, sir,¡± she said sincerely, leaning forward in a half bow, her hand over her heart. ¡°I¡¯m in your care.¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± he said simply. ¡°You are.¡± Another moment passed in the golden stillness, but then he seemed to shake off the spell of the quiet room and turned toward the door. ¡°Come along, Miss Serraffield, and we will locate your father¡¯s people. I can¡¯t leave everything to Lunamaia.¡±

    Seeing that he intended to leave, she scuttled over to the window sill and hurriedly tucked her books away, back into her bag.

    He paused at the door and held it wide, and after a moment of looking pointedly at her, she realized that he intended her to go before him.

    It was a strange gesture. She had had doors held open for her all day long, one after another after another.

    But this was the first time since Robert Grave had left her company that she felt it was a real courtesy.

    She smiled at him, then scurried under his arm, leaving the jeweled Study of Eve behind her.

 Canto 2 - At Home in Confusion 1

    2 - At Home in Confusion

    Housed with saints and inscrutable junk

    <hr>

    1 - the cradle¡¯s children

    It had been a day for astonishing sights.

    From the fleeting behemoths glimpsed so briefly through the deep gloaming of the abyssal layer to the bloody sunset as it angled sharply through the jewel box windows of that room at the top of the world, the day had been positively packed with panoramas, enough to stuff a hundred postboxes full to bursting with picture postcards.

    Hugs and kisses from scenic somewhere.

    Demi felt as if she had a permanent kink in her neck from rhapsodizing over one staggering vista after another. She imagined that she looked like a lovestruck goose with a passion for stargazing.

    Country come to town, for certain, she thought to herself. If she was a goose, she was certainly one with a little round straw boater hat and a ribbon tied around her neck.

    At the tail end of such a day, a certain amount of jaded disengagement might have been expected. After all, the more fantastic landscapes one sees, the less fantastic they become as a whole, until at last they are not fantastic in the least. At that point, the fantastic has become the ordinarily tastic: the normal, the regular, the expected.

    And yet, even when taking into account the remarkable circumstances of the previous twenty-four hours, when Demi came into the broad square at the heart of the Cradle of St. Mary on the heels of the resident archbishop and escorted by members of the apostolic guard, she found herself physically unable to do anything but stare up at the great cathedral that rose before her like a palace from a dream.

    It was providence only that spared her from taking an inelegant tumble right onto her besuited backside. It was certainly not due to any oversight on her part. She was oblivious to the wet brick underfoot, except as it existed as a frame and the ground for the dizzying masterpiece that rose before them.

    Santa Maria Nascente shimmered in the misty night over the rain slick bricks of the plaza. The street lamps along the plaza were all haloed, as if they were candles seen through frosted glass. High above, unseen in the darkness overhead, Demi heard the sound of wings, but then that was drowned out by the deep pealing of bells as the cathedral sang out through the rainy night.

    Briefly, Demi forgot to breathe. She forgot to do anything at all besides stare up at the cathedral before her, her arms wrapped absently around herself, the low vibration of the bells making some place deep inside of her tremble at the sound.

    The ornate spires that crowned the roof were golden against the red night sky, straining impossibly toward heaven. At the point where the roof seemed to vanish into the sky, a heavenly maiden reigned above all, arrayed in gold and crowned by stars. The cathedral wholly dominated the square, looking as if it had been carved from the ivory bones of some ancient and gargantuan dragon, or had otherwise grown in that location over slow eons like a thorny mantle of coral.

    As the bells rang out their last, Demi realized with a start that the archbishop was speaking to her.

    ¡°How did you like Santa Maria''s welcome to you?¡± he asked with a genuine smile, then he blanched. ¡°I hope I haven''t embarrassed you,¡± he asked with sudden concern. ¡°It just seemed the appropriate thing to do. It''s not-so-very often that we welcome new residents. I¡¯m particularly pleased to have you and honored that Tristan put you in my care.¡± His smile bloomed again as he said, ¡°I hope you¡¯ll enjoy your time here. You¡¯re at an exciting point in your life.¡±

    Her own smile flickered briefly. ¡°Yes,¡± she said, not quite sure of what else to say. ¡°I suppose I am.¡±

    They stood looking at one another for several seconds, and Demi felt slightly awkward. She wasn¡¯t quite sure if she ought to think of the archbishop as an archbishop or as a family friend. She could remember having seen him once or twice in the past, but she hadn''t ever spoken to him. As an archbishop of one of the seven apostolic cathedrals, he was a noble of the cup, one of the Lords Spiritual of the Curia, which meant that he currently held a higher rank than she did. He had been made her de facto guardian, but she didn''t know him well enough to know whether or not he expected her to be polite or familiar.

    But it was hard to focus on that when standing before the great church. She ended up staring silently, her eyes cast upward, still and reflective in the lightly falling rain.

    ¡°The Cradle is your home now,¡± he said with a sweep of his arm, ¡°And the Duomo is the heart of it. I know you¡¯ll come to love it as I do, all the strange crannies and nooks.¡± He smiled wryly. ¡°As of today, you''ve become a church mouse.¡±

    Demi pulled her eyes away from the great cathedral with difficulty and regarded the archbishop curiously.

    ¡°I think you¡¯ll come to love the chapterhouse as well,¡± he said warmly. ¡°You¡¯re a positively voracious reader, aren¡¯t you? The original chapterhouse is the greatest library in the Cradle, and you¡¯re welcome to read anything you find there without worrying about asking permission.¡± He put his hand behind his head and laughed sheepishly. ¡°It is a bit ¡ª well, you¡¯ll see, but that¡¯s part of the adventure, isn''t it? You¡¯re a girl for adventure, as I recall.¡±

    She smiled at that and nodded.

    ¡°I am,¡± she admitted.

    ¡°Any daughter of Haiko¡¯s would be,¡± he laughed. ¡°It may take a bit of getting used to, but I have a feeling it¡¯ll grow on you. I know you¡¯ll find it much more interesting than you would living at the great house. I¡¯d live there myself if I could get away with it,¡± he said with a wink. ¡°It¡¯s a labyrinth of treasures. Now come along,¡± he said with a light clap of his hands. ¡°You ought to meet the other church mouse.¡±

    He moved toward the cathedral, and Demi followed along behind, thinking over the peculiar events of the day.

    The archbishop had turned out to be a mild and easy-going man who seemed far too young to occupy such an exalted position. He was also extraordinarily amiable, and before Demi realized it, she found that she was chatting along with him like a little sparrow. Demi could not fathom why the pleasant man was such a close friend of her father.

    Well, it was more that Demi could not picture the substance of their friendship, given her father¡¯s personality and general demeanor. She was very willing to believe that the archbishop might have made friends with anyone, including a rock from the back garden. Perhaps that was the secret of it: the archbishop was her father¡¯s best friend because he was his only friend, and had arrived at that exalted position through sheer persistence

    But it was still very hard for Demi to reconcile the fact that her father and the archbishop were the same age. The archbishop had a warm and infectious boyishness that her father was altogether lacking. Demi did not believe that he had even been a boy himself. He gave the general impression that he had sprung into existence fully formed and over forty.

    It was difficult to understand how the things that had come to be, had actually come to be.

    Demi had expected some sort of altercation when Lord Eisenreich had arrived before her father and Lord Lysander and announced his intention to take her as a squire. She had stayed safely behind him, peering out from behind his broad back as if she were a small child afraid of meeting strangers.

    One of those strangers had been her close kin, but she felt more certain of her standing with Eisenreich than she did with her own father.

    But there had been no altercation.

    None at all. It had been confounding.

    Her father had said nothing noteworthy. In fact, he hadn¡¯t even seemed surprised by this altogether shocking development. He had been formal and polite and had shown his keen mind and his impeccable manners, but hadn¡¯t given Demi any real impression of what he thought of it all.

    He acted as if Eisenreich declaring his intention to take her as a squire was a perfectly ordinary outcome.

    It had been much easier to detect Lord Lysander¡¯s animosity, but the lord himself had said nothing at all. He seemed to have a flair for the dramatic from what Demi could discern just by looking at the way he chose to dress and stand, but he did nothing to openly communicate his displeasure before Eisenreich, despite the fact that it looked as if he was spitting nails to air his grievances whenever the mask of his politeness slipped at all.

    Demi had thought back to what Clarence Darby had told her about Matthias Eisenreich, the Iron Duke.

    He can be a very intense person.

    Demi got the distinct impression that Lysander was frightened of Lord Eisenreich, and that was why he was very polite and restrained throughout the whole episode.

    He¡¯ll probably throw himself onto a fainting couch later, she had thought.

    And so the ceremony for which she had ostensibly been preparing for her entire life, the one that would govern so much of her future, had played out without incident.

    She had been sworn to Eisenreich.

    He had then inquired about her living arrangements, and Tristan Serraffield had explained his intentions.

    And it was at this moment that Demi discovered that she wouldn¡¯t be living at one of the Serraffield properties at all.

    She would be living in the Cradle of St. Mary, under the watchful eye of the archbishop.

    After making a few other inquiries with the archbishop himself behind closed doors, Eisenreich had apparently been satisfied, and had allowed Demi to leave with him so that she could be introduced to her new accommodations.

    It had been a strange day in a strange season. This was surely a strange hour.

    And that was how she had found herself in a cathedral, speaking casually to an archbishop.

    It boggles the mind, Demi thought. Certainly, everything that had happened was enough to leave her head spinning.

    But there was really no time for that.

    Just inside the great doors of the church, the archbishop stopped and looked at her carefully.

    The apostolic guard had left them at the threshold of the cathedral, and now they stood quite alone.

    ¡°I want you to know that I am not your keeper,¡± he said seriously, a strange departure from his earlier sunny warmth. ¡°You are free to do as you like for as long as you live here. Go where you like, when you like. Spend time with anyone you choose in any way that you choose. Nobody¡¯s going to be looking over your shoulder.¡±

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    Demi started and her eyes widened. ¡°Archbishop!¡± she cried out before she could stop herself.

    Did he really mean that? Demi wondered. Her head was spinning so fast now that she felt emotionally dizzy. Although she was no longer living at one of the Serraffield properties, she had expected to be closely monitored, as she had been for the whole of her life. Not by the archbishop, certainly. He was too important a man to spend his hours trailing her, but surely someone would be tasked to do it. If not by the archbishop, then by her father, certainly.

    ¡°Didn''t expect that, did you?¡± he said with a wry smile. ¡°But that was one of the conditions for you living here, in the Cradle,¡± he said. ¡°Find your feet,¡± he advised. ¡°Find out who you are, and who you want to be. You can only do that if you¡¯ve got the freedom to try all sorts of different things. You don''t have to ask my permission for anything,¡± he said, once again serious. ¡°If you feel like you need guidance, you can come to me if you want, but from this point forward, you are responsible for yourself. I trust you, Demeter Serraffield.¡±

    Demi blinked, the color having risen to her cheeks in a rush. It was very difficult to wrap her mind around all that the archbishop had said.

    Freedom.

    Was that really a thing she might have?

    It still seemed impossible. It felt too good to be true, like wishes from a genie bound to contort themselves contrariwise until they spelled her doom.

    She was afraid that it was all a trick, that if she dared to stray a step out of line, that all of heaven and earth would fall down upon her.

    First Eisenreich had delivered her from being the squire of Lord Lysander, changing the fate that had seemed so unchangeable, and now the archbishop was telling her that she could do as she liked without fear of reprisal.

    From the time of her mother¡¯s death, Demi had finally begun to truly understand the future that had loomed open before her. Robert Grave and the other precious people she had left behind at Forest Home had done their best to shield her even after the passing of her mother, but Demi had seen and she had understood. She wasn''t a foolish girl.

    All of the hours and minutes and years had piled up in the past, pushing her forward to this inescapable day. Demi had always thought that everything had been laid out in stone, that her future had already been written, and that it could not be changed. And yet here she was, standing in that unknown future, and everything had turned out differently from what she had expected.

    And this had led to a new thought: maybe she didn''t have to simply accept what was given to her, what was done to her. Maybe there really was a way out.

    It was like striking a match in the darkness. Her whole soul lit up.

    The idea was warm in her chest, rising, but fluttery. She felt like she had to fold her hands over her heart to keep it from slipping away, into the dark sky that yawned somewhere overhead, on the other side of the stone vaults of the cathedral.

    The archbishop was still speaking.

    ¡°Now, keep in mind, I really can¡¯t control what Tristan does,¡± he advised sensibly. ¡°He¡¯s a worrier, and I know he¡¯s always worried about you. He¡¯ll probably keep an eye on you from time to time, but he won¡¯t interfere unless he absolutely has to. So live the way you want to live.¡±

    He looked up at the high ceiling overhead.

    ¡°I have only one piece of advice for you,¡± he said, raising a single finger. ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid to fail. Growing up successfully requires a lot of failure.¡±

    At that the uncertainty and tension inside of Demi broke, and she could not help but laugh. The archbishop grinned.

    ¡°I guess I expected some esoteric and profound holy wisdom,¡± she admitted helplessly. ¡°Or a warning against sin at the very least.¡±

    That was probably a very irreverent thing to say to an archbishop, but Demi felt as if she had gotten a good sense of him, and so she¡¯d said exactly what was on her mind.

    ¡°That is my esoteric holy wisdom,¡± he said with a laugh.

    The inside of the cathedral was cavernous. The ceiling rose high overhead, held up by the tall arches of the vaults. There were enormous tapestries and paintings hanging between the great columns of the arches, heavy with age and meaning, and the columns themselves had finely carved capitals depicting saints and angels. Everywhere there was ornament: sculpture, colored glass, gilt and gold. The stone underfoot had been laid out in a pattern of geometric flowers and far ahead she could see the apse was lit with warm light. Above it was the night dark rose window, which crowned three tall stained glass windows, like a blossom on three stems. The stained glass was illuminated by spotlights, giving the place a very mystical feeling, as if they were glowing under their own power.

    Demi followed the archbishop down the central aisle, her footsteps echoing after his, and marveled at the forest of pews, all beautiful polished wood. It truly was one of the seven great cathedrals. She thought it might hold as many as fifty thousand people at once.

    That was staggering to think about.

    Besides their footsteps, all of the rest of the sound of the great building seemed strangely muffled. She wasn¡¯t taking particular care to be profoundly quiet or reverent, and yet she was.

    Perhaps it was simply the space.

    Even at this late hour there were some people still seated in the pews, apparently lost in silent contemplation. When such a person looked up, the archbishop smiled and acknowledged them, so it took a little time for them to get to the place that they were going. Demi didn¡¯t mind it all because there was so much to look at, so much to think about and consider. It would take her a very long time to fully digest all that she experienced having stepped over the threshold of this great place.

    Just as they reached the central nave, they stopped.

    There was a small figure sitting at the end of a pew, with a great book lying on her lap. Her short, slender legs dangled from the seat without quite touching the ground, but she held them very still. Only once in a long while would one of her feet bob absently from the ankle. Her face was turned away. She was apparently in contemplation of the expanse of stained glass above her.

    The archbishop politely cleared his throat and the little figure turned very deliberately, after a slow moment. One got the feeling that she had known that Demi and the archbishop were there, waiting for her attention, and had granted them an audience in her own time. Strangely, this imperiousness did not strike Demi as being spoiled or vain. It seemed natural and appropriate, as if it were ordinary to wait on this small person as if she were an imperial majesty.

    She was a little girl with long, dark hair that was carefully braided into two low pigtails. She seemed uncommonly small when she got to her feet, just as she had seemed uncommonly small when she had been sitting. Her skin was so fair that it gave the impression of being alabaster, and it had an opaline, bluish cast to it that made her seem just slightly uncanny. Her eyes were large and clear, a strange color somewhere between lavender blue and silver. She had a grace when she moved that was very unusual to see in a girl of her age, or so Demi supposed.

    She certainly could not recall having been as elegant and poised when she had been a girl of the same years, although quite a lot of money and time had gone into instilling just these qualities in her.

    The affable archbishop smiled as the little girl got to her feet and when she and Demi came face to face with one another, he said, ¡°This is the other church mouse, your roommate, Miss Lumina Calloway. Miss Calloway, this is the young Lady Serraffield.¡±

    Lumina very gravely offered a small, white hand, and Demi moved to take it.

    They stood looking at one another for a long, queer moment, and then Demi shook the cobwebs out of her brain and smiled.

    ¡°It¡¯s very nice to meet you, Lumina,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m Demeter Serraffield. Please call me Demi.¡±

    ¡°The pleasure is mine, I¡¯m sure,¡± the little girl answered seriously.

    The girl had folded the prodigious book that had lain open on her lap under her arm when she had stood, and given the distinct advantage of height, Demi found she could read the title: Philology in Regards to the Mythology of Linnean Lepidoptera.

    Well, that was certainly light reading for a little girl.

    ¡°Miss Calloway has been here for ¡ª ¡° he paused and gave a wry laugh. It was clear that he wasn¡¯t entirely sure for how long the small girl had been his ward.

    Fortunately for him, the little girl had a more exacting personality, and provided his answer.

    ¡°Nineteen months,¡± she said gravely. ¡°I have been here at the cradle for nineteen months.¡±

    ¡°Of course,¡± he agreed with a warm smile, and gave Lumina a gentle pat on the head. It did not appear that she disliked the patting, as she got a very faint flush on her otherwise serious face. ¡°And I¡¯ve been glad to have you all this time,¡± he said. ¡°I know that you and Miss Serraffield will get on famously.¡±

    He turned his attention back to Demi.

    ¡°You¡¯ll be living in the original chapterhouse along with Miss Calloway,¡± said the archbishop. ¡°Although it may be a bit strange at first, buck up, hang in there. It¡¯ll be a cozy home before you know it. Miss Calloway will teach you the way of things,¡± he said. ¡° Don¡¯t worry,¡± he assured. ¡°Everything makes its own kind of sense.¡±

    He pulled something from his pocket and opened his hand so that a chain of lovely keys dropped one by one, like strings plucked on a harp.

    ¡°Here are your keys,¡± he said solemnly. ¡°The keys to the kingdom, you might say. The keys to your own private castle. Guard them carefully.¡±

    Demi swallowed as her hands closed around the string of keys, and she nodded. They were beautiful keys. She felt as if she had been entrusted with a great treasure.

    Demi liked keys. She had a whole collection of them on rings chained together like daisies, and they had come with her, to the City. She couldn''t remember the purpose of many, if not most of the keys that dangled and jangled, old, new, borrowed, and bartered. Lots of them were probably dead keys, keys that no longer opened any lock at all, but Demi kept them because she liked them. They didn''t need a purpose. Their purpose was simply to exist. Demi liked to dream that the dead keys were to doors and treasures that had not yet come to be, or that had been lost, but would come again.

    She was a whimsical girl, and her mind was filled with such strange, fey thoughts.

    After having given her the string of keys, the archbishop was apparently satisfied that his duties were concluded, at least for the evening.

    ¡°Good luck,¡± he said warmly, ¡°And enjoy Wonderland.¡±

    With that, he departed, and the two girls were left alone.

    After a moment, Lumina said what the both of them had apparently been thinking.

    ¡°The archbishop is an unusual person,¡± she said.

    Demi giggled at that.

    ¡°Aren''t we all?¡± she asked philosophically.

    Lumina did not dignify this question with an answer.

    They stood silently and simply looked at one another for a long second, as if sizing each other up, but then Lumina turned, saying, ¡°We should go on to the chapterhouse. I¡¯ll only be a minute.¡±

    She returned to the pew where she had been sitting and gathered four other heavy books. There were far too many to fit into her little girl backpack, so she fit what she could into her bag, and carried the rest in her arms. Demi thought that all of the books together might well have weighed as much as the little girl herself.

    Kindred spirit, Demi thought to herself. Bibliophile confirmed. Where were you when I was your age? We could have had splendid story hours. Story days. Story months.

    She didn¡¯t realize it, but the thought brought a smile to her face, and she couldn¡¯t help a quiet and affectionate laugh.

    Lumina heard the laugh and raised a solemn eyebrow.

    ¡°What is it that you find funny?¡± she asked gravely, loaded down with her arms full of heavy books.

    Demi¡¯s smile flickered, and then she shook her head.

    ¡°Oh, it''s nothing,¡± she said absently as she tapped a finger against her lips. ¡°You just remind me of me,¡± she said, then smiled again weakly. ¡°I¡¯m sorry if that¡¯s rude of me to say. It''s strange,¡± she admitted. ¡°I feel like if we had met as children, we would have become great friends.¡±

    Lumina¡¯s poker face didn''t change at all as she observed, ¡°You¡¯re right. That was rude. Besides, we are meeting as children,¡± she said. ¡°You have not yet reached your majority. You are still, technically speaking, a child. Whether or not we will become friends remains to be seen.¡± She pursed her lips slightly, but then relaxed. ¡°Although, I will admit that I am partial to the idea. You are another unusual person. I like unusual things.¡±

    Demi laughed because it was a funny thing for the little girl to say, but it was also obviously an honest one. And Demi could understand the sentiment. She also loved unusual things.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± she apologized with a genuine smile. ¡°I know I was being condescending. Please forgive me?¡± she asked, putting her hands together and bowing her head briefly. ¡°I know we¡¯ll end up being good friends.¡±

    Lumina seemed to consider the apology for a moment, but then she nodded gravely.

    ¡°Very well,¡± she said. ¡°You¡¯re forgiven.¡±

    Demi held out her arms. ¡°Now that we¡¯ve resolved to be friends, let me help you carry your spoils of war,¡± she said.

    Lumina again considered her, but ultimately acquiesced, although she did not hand over all of her books. They split them as evenly as possible.

    Then Lumina turned her head and looked up at the high ceiling of the cathedral. ¡°Now come along,¡± she said. ¡°There¡¯s quite a lot for you to learn and it''s already late.¡±

    Then the two girls, laden down with treasures of the written word, went off into the shadowed recesses of the church.

 Canto 2 - At Home in Confusion 2

    along the saintswalk

    <hr>

    Lumina led Demi up several flights of dark, cramped stairs and through a door that she unlocked with a key from around her neck.   There was a general shuffling around of books to accomplish this feat, as there would be with every door they encountered, locked or not.

    When Lumina unlocked the door, she showed Demi her key, then waited for Demi to pick the matching key out of her own string.  Once she was satisfied, she moved on.

    Down several corridors and around more than one corner, Demi found herself face to face with another door.  It was made of dark wood and carved so ornately it seemed like it ought to have been the prize of a museum collection, but Lumina simply took another key from around her neck and exhibited it to Demi.  Demi dutifully produced a similar key from her own string and Lumina nodded and then unlocked the door before curtsying as she opened it.

    Demi smiled at her fondly.  She already liked the little church mouse quite a lot.

    They both collected their books from where they had been gently laid on the floor and continued on.

    On the other side of the carved wooden door was a narrow stone bridge, just wide enough for three people to walk abreast.  After Demi passed through the door, Lumina closed and locked it behind them.  Demi looked up at the cloudy night sky overhead and the wind whipped her hair around her face.  It still smelled and tasted of rain but the lonely moon was visible, the clouds gathered around her like skirts.

    Above her, she again heard the sound of wings, but she could not discern the source of the noise.

    Lumina passed by her, and Demi turned her head to follow her, looking at the City around them.  They were high up, higher than Demi had anticipated.  She was glad that she wasn''t particularly afraid of heights, or the walk might have been decidedly uncomfortable.

    A dark shape loomed before them, a strange building with dimly lit windows: the original chapterhouse.

    ¡°The saint¡¯s walk is the main way into the original chapterhouse,¡± the small girl said seriously.  ¡°And by main way, I mean it¡¯s really the only way.¡±

    Wrought iron fencing ran atop the waist high stone walls of the bridge, curling into fanciful shapes that finished as spikes pointing up at the red sky.  There were lamps here and there along the fence so the way forward was lit.  The roof of the cathedral behind them was lit up like it was Christmas, but here along the saint¡¯s walk, the lights were low.  It was just enough to see by.

    ¡°The only way in?¡± Demi asked with confusion.  ¡°But aren''t we about five stories up?  There has to be some way in and out at the ground level,¡± she pointed out.

    ¡°There are four doors on the ground level of the original chapterhouse,¡± Lumina confirmed. ¡°But they''re always kept locked, and we don''t have the keys for them.  In addition, two of them are physically blocked by crates of books and other miscellaneous items.¡±

    ¡°Well, shouldn''t we ask for the keys?¡± Demi wondered, perplexed.  ¡°You said that we¡¯re the only two people who live in the original chapterhouse, right?  Wouldn''t it make sense for us to have them?  Or is there a reason that¡¯s not allowed?¡±

    ¡°I think I might have been unclear,¡± Lumina said with a finely drawn brow. ¡°It''s not that the keys are in someone else¡¯s possession and all that we need to do is ask for them.  The keys are in no one¡¯s possession.  No one knows where they are.  I don''t think they''ve been seen in over fifty years.  That¡¯s what I have determined as a result of my research.¡±

    This caused Demi to stop flat on her feet.  ¡°What?¡± she asked in absolute confusion.  ¡°No one has the keys to the main doors of the building?  They can''t be opened at all?  If the keys are lost, why haven''t the locks been changed?¡±

    ¡°Because the original chapterhouse is a historic building,¡± Lumina said evenly.  ¡°The archbishop explained it to me when I first came to live here.  It''s against criminal law and church law to alter the structure of this building.  The windows on the ground floor are barred, so you know.  They don''t open anyway,¡± she added, predicting Demi¡¯s next suggestion. ¡°The only remaining usable entrance above ground is the saint¡¯s walk.  This door is never locked,¡± she said, nodding her head toward the small side port ahead of them. ¡°It can''t be locked,¡± she said.  ¡°There¡¯s no way to lock it.¡±

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    ¡°That¡¯s comforting,¡± Demi said vaguely, but Lumina gave her an idle shrug.

    ¡°It''s very safe,¡± she assured.  ¡°Admittedly, the cathedral serves many of the devout, and therefore there are always unfamiliar people on the grounds of the church due to the archbishop¡¯s open door policy, but they have no physical means to approach this door.  Apart from flight or by use of a siege ladder, the only way to access the saint¡¯s walk is by going through St. Anne¡¯s door and St. Mary¡¯s door, and they''re both locked, always.  That¡¯s what you need your cathedral keys for.  It''s a rare privilege to be entrusted with them, even among people who live on the grounds of the cathedral,¡± Lumina said, shifting the books in her arms so she could again exhibit the small, bright keys that hung on a silver chain around her neck.  ¡°And I know all the side corridors and secret ways,¡± she confided. ¡°So it''s easy to avoid the crowds, even during mass on major religious holidays.  I can teach them to you, if you like.¡±

    ¡°Thanks,¡± Demi said with a brief smile, then her brows drew together again. ¡°Going back to the doors on the ground floor,¡± she said, ¡°Couldn''t they have somebody make a duplicate key by studying the lock?¡± she wondered. ¡°I''m pretty sure it''s possible to do that.  It really doesn''t seem safe to live in a tower with only one exit on the fifth floor.  What if there¡¯s a fire?¡±

    ¡°I''m told the locks are too intricate for a duplicate key to be made using that method,¡± Lumina said. ¡°It''s one of the reasons that the doors and the locks themselves are under protection as important relics.¡±

    This was really an unnerving conversation to have with a seven year old girl, and Demi felt badly about grilling her, but she was the only source of relevant information Demi had about her strange and unexpected new home.

    And it was clear that it would be both foolish and rude to underestimate the capabilities of her young guide based purely on her age.

    ¡°In case of fire, we do have a few precautions,¡± Lumina explained.

    ¡°Such as?¡± Demi asked with honest curiosity.  Maybe the diocese had installed fire escapes or sprinklers in the ancient building ¡ª although she sincerely doubted it.  If not even the locks could be changed, then greater structural alterations were surely disallowed, even in the interests of public safety.

    ¡°We¡¯ve been presented with several very fine rope ladders,¡± Lumina said, stonefaced.  ¡°We have enough of them that there are two on every floor of the chapterhouse, including the attic floor, where we¡¯re going to be sleeping.  They¡¯re simple to operate,¡± she said matter-of-factly.  ¡°You just break a window, throw the ladder out, and climb down to escape from the burning building.¡±

    Demi couldn''t tell if the little girl was attempting to be funny or not.

    She decided to respond with a similar level of dryness.

    ¡°We¡¯re allowed to smash the windows in this historic building?¡± she asked blandly. ¡°That seems like it would definitely break the rules.¡±

    ¡°I imagine that they''re already resigned to damage if the building is on fire,¡± Lumina said with a shrug. ¡°Their hopes of continued preservation depend upon the idea that a fire can be avoided in the first place.¡±  They had at last arrived at the opposite end of the saint¡¯s walk.  Lumina announced, ¡°We¡¯re here,¡± and pushed open the carved green door with her shoulder.

    They were suddenly in a small, quiet, dusty room.  Motes danced in the moonlight that came through the transom window above the door to the saint¡¯s walk, and doors of various sizes led off in multiple directions.

    This was a between place.

    It smelled of books and history and neglect.  It smelled of solitary nights.  It smelled of loneliness.

    There was a sign on the far wall, two words in large, unmistakable san serif font: NO EXIT.

    Which was funny, because there was definitely an exit.  It was right at their backs.

    Lumina saw that she was studying the sign and laughed quietly behind her hand.

    ¡°This place has a sense of humor,¡± she said wisely.

    Demi wasn''t sure what to make of that, but decided to accept it at face value.

    This place had a sense of humor.

    Before they went any further, Lumina rummaged around in her shoulder bag and pulled out a flashlight.  It was comically large in her hands, all metal, very professional.  She flicked it on.

    ¡°You¡¯ll have to get your own flashlight,¡± she advised.  ¡°There are lights in this building, but they''re strangely placed and they only work when they feel like working.  It¡¯s dangerous to depend on them.¡±

    Indeed, the room they were in wasn''t lit at all that Demi could tell, apart from the moonlight coming through the window, and what appeared to be green emergency lighting that illuminated the no exit sign.

    Lumina gathered her books again, and with the flashlight in one hand and the books balanced on her arms, she set off again, and Demi followed.

    The archbishop had been right.  This was certainly an adventure.

 Canto 2 At Home in Confusion 3

    the original chapterhouse

    <hr>

    Lumina led Demi through a medium sized door on the right hand wall and then up a flight of stairs, through another small door, along a very narrow hallway with checkerboard tile and a steep incline, and then down four stairs that creaked so mournfully that Demi was sure they were going to collapse imminently and felt bad for walking on them. She gingerly skipped down them.

    They did not collapse, despite their sad protests.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about the despairs,¡± Lumina said mildly, watching Demi¡¯s skittering descent. ¡°They always sound like that.¡±

    Demi didn''t even have to ask. It was clear that the four moaning, creaking boards behind them were called the despairs. It was a wholly appropriate name for them, she thought.

    At the end of the narrow hallway and past the four despairs, were three more doors. They had the appearances of having been painted many times, in many different colors, and the paint was peeling in spots, giving glimpses of the weathered skins and shades of yesterday. Two of the doors had small sliding plaques on them that had both been moved to the ¡®unoccupied¡¯ position.

    ¡°Who designed this place?¡± Demi asked in a mixture of admiration and aesthetic distress.

    ¡°Apostolic monks,¡± Lumina answered practically. ¡°It wasn¡¯t only a chapterhouse,¡± she confided. ¡°It was many other things besides, including a scriptorium. Now it¡¯s a forbidden library, a treasure trove, a junkyard, and an anything room.¡±

    ¡°An anything room?¡± Demi asked curiously. The name itself seemed to suggest its purpose, but Demi still felt compelled to ask.

    ¡°An anything room is a room that can be any thing to any person,¡± she explained.

    And that made sense, in its own way. Of those titles Demi was most interested in the possibilities suggested by the words ¡®forbidden library.¡¯ Demi was keen on libraries of any kind, and particularly interested in anything expressly identified as being forbidden. Still, the archbishop had said that she was free to read anything she liked in the chapterhouse, and she presumed this also extended to forbidden books.

    Was a forbidden library still forbidden if one had permission to look at it?

    The council of Demi entered into a debate over the question, but Demi did not have time to wait for their ultimate verdict, because Lumina was again on the move.

    The little girl went through the door that did not have a plaque ¡ª which was currently robin¡¯s egg blue, but had previously been gold, pink, and avocado green, among other colors. Demi followed her up another flight of stairs, and then into the attic of the chapterhouse.

    The attic was a strange place.

    The whole building was strange, but the attic was particularly strange.

    Because of all the snaking turns, the groans of the despairs, the sometimes irregular sweep of Lumina¡¯s flashlight, and the dizzy number of doors, Demi had lost her sense of where they were in the building. It was miraculous that she still knew up from down.

    ¡°This place seems bigger on the inside than it does on the outside,¡± she observed.

    And it did.

    The attic seemed like an immense, cavernous warehouse ¡ª the kind of place that might have generated an echo if one wailed loudly enough ¡ª and it was absolutely stuffed to the gills with unidentifiable detritus. Demi half expected to lift up a cover sheet and find the remains of previously autopsied alien bodies. There was some light here, but it was dim, mainly serving to turn the tangled heaps of things into tangled heaps of sinister things.

    Lumina¡¯s light flashed up one of the tangles before them, as if reassuring herself of what it contained. There were arms of various sizes sticking out of it.

    Demi barely contained a scream that came out through her nose as a garbled squeak.

    ¡°I thought that when I first moved in too,¡± Lumina admitted. ¡°You¡¯ll get used to it.¡±

    She stepped toward the offending mountain and flashed her light again.

    ¡°See? It¡¯s all doll parts, and mannequin limbs,¡± she explained.

    Demi let out a breath that she didn''t know she¡¯d been holding. Lumina flashed her light upwards, and Demi¡¯s eye followed it. There was the soft sound of fluttering.

    The sound of wings.

    Demi looked above herself but could see nothing.

    She could not make out much of anything in the darkness, nothing alive, at any rate.

    Well, nothing she wanted to be alive.

    Lumina seemed satisfied, and her light flashed down to the floor again.

    Although the ceiling yawned upwards, criss-crossed by exposed wooden timbers, the floor was piled high with an impenetrable wall of junk that rose ten feet in the air at its lowest point. There was a small bit of open space around the door to the stairway, but otherwise the two girls appeared to be entirely hemmed in.

    Lumina moved to a small side table, on which rested an old fashioned telephone with a rotary dial. It was bright red. There was a small lamp shaped like a candelabra next to it. Lumina assured her that it was battery operated, and therefore more generally dependable than most of the lights in the building,

    ¡°This is for emergencies only,¡± Lumina said, gesturing to the phone. ¡°We¡¯re not allowed to use it otherwise. I call it the bat phone,¡± she added with a very straight face. ¡°Unfortunately it connects you neither to a police commissioner, nor to a caped crusader. It doesn''t even connect you to bats: fox, fruit, vampire, or otherwise.¡±

    Demi was disappointed. She would have liked calling bats up on the telephone, if they were amenable.

    ¡°It''s an interior line,¡± Lumina continued. ¡°If you need to make a private call then you have to do it either from the abbey or from the archbishop¡¯s house.¡±

    ¡°I guess we can always call someone else and then ask them to call the police or the fire department, or whoever you call when you¡¯re being accosted by arm monsters,¡± Demi said dryly. I suppose I ought to be glad I have a mobile phone, she thought. ¡°That seems more than a little roundabout.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s the idea, I think,¡± Lumina agreed solemnly. ¡°Everything here is roundabout.¡±

    Given the evening¡¯s experiences, Demi did not doubt that statement in the least.

    ¡°What is all this stuff?¡± she asked, turning back to the impossible heights of junk, her face a mixture of amazement and consternation.

    ¡°Old furniture, priceless historical and art objects, donations no one had any idea what to do with, books that had no place left to go, old church records that nobody wants to sort or even house properly,¡± Lumina said blandly. ¡°Secrets, scandal, and shame, most certainly, if one knew the correct place to look. But as you can see, this is the haystack and we are the needles.¡±

    ¡°This has got to be a fire hazard,¡± Demi said with astonished certainty. Admittedly, she had not expected to become a deputized junior fire marshal in addition to the other bizarre developments of the day, but that was what it felt like. If she didn¡¯t find some fault with the ridiculous situation, then who would?

    ¡°Oh, this place is a tinderbox,¡± Lumina agreed placidly.

    ¡°Then why on earth are we living here?¡± asked Demi in confusion. It seemed to be the obvious question to ask.

    ¡°Because this is where we¡¯ve been assigned to live,¡± Lumina explained patiently. ¡°All in all, there are many places in the City that are in a similar state, even here in the Uppercity. And honestly, it''s a lot better than most places that we might live at St. Mary¡¯s,¡± she said frankly. ¡°It''s quiet, and there¡¯s a lot of privacy. And even given the state of the place, there¡¯s actually quite a lot of room. Once you get used to things, the place sort of grows on you. It''s something like a cross between living in the storage room at a museum and at a multistrata archeological dig.¡± She raised a single finger. ¡°And it isn''t completely without amenities. We do have electricity ¡ª most of the time, and our own private bathroom on the ground floor. Best of all, no one will bother us. That¡¯s the nicest part. I thought about it for quite a long time when I first came to live here,¡± Lumina said. ¡°Like you, I thought the whole situation was ludicrous. I demanded to be put some place else immediately ¡ª some place that wasn''t quite as fraught with fire hazards and inconveniences,¡± Lumina said, and her slow smile spread briefly, like a secret she was sharing. ¡°And my protests are the reason we currently have rope ladders and a number of fire extinguishers. It isn''t ideal, but somehow, it suits. Ultimately, I decided that this place was worth the trouble of carrying a flashlight and having to break a priceless antique window and throw out a rope ladder to escape a conflagration. This was my castle,¡± she said seriously. ¡°And now it is our castle. I sincerely look forward to our time together, Demeter.¡±

    ¡°Ah,¡± said Demi awkwardly, uncertain how to react to the calm and reserved gentility of the chapterhouse¡¯s resident infanta. ¡°Thank you,¡± she managed. ¡°Me too.¡±

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    Demi looked up again at the dark timbers overhead, and the yawning abyss of darkness where the ceiling ought to have been.

    ¡°You mentioned electricity as an amenity, but I¡¯m not entirely convinced it ought to be counted as one,¡± she said skeptically.

    ¡°It¡¯s dark because it¡¯s night time,¡± Lumina explained practically. ¡°The chapterhouse thinks we ought to be asleep. This place makes its own kind of sense,¡± she said, echoing what the archbishop had said earlier. ¡°If you want more light, all you have to do is ask,¡± she said. ¡°It doesn''t always work, but it works more often than not.¡±

    ¡°Ask?¡± Demi wondered, her brow wrinkling. ¡°Ask who? Aren¡¯t we alone in this building?¡±

    Lumina shrugged. ¡°We¡¯re the only two humans here, at the moment, but that doesn''t mean we¡¯re alone,¡± she said. ¡°There isn''t any who, just a where, where we are. Try asking.¡±

    Demi bit her lip and wondered if her miniature tour guide was having her on, ready to have a good laugh at her expense when she started talking to nothing, or to the building itself, whichever was more embarrassing. But the little girl was as pale and grave as a tombstone.

    Demi looked around herself uncertainly and then decided to give it a go. The worst that might happen was that she¡¯d look silly, and she was used to looking silly.

    It wouldn''t be the first time she talked to a place either, it just wasn''t something she often did around other humans.

    She took a deep breath and then asked, ¡°Would you mind letting us have a little more light? It¡¯s my first night here, and I¡¯d like to get a good look at this place.¡±

    And of course, nothing happened. Demi felt very silly.

    But then there was a low humming sound, and like an ebbing wave, lights overhead flickered on in sections until the whole of the attic was lit up. The lights were strange, as mismatched as the interior: floor lamps standing like flap poles on top of piles of miscellaneous junk, elegant wall scones, bare bulbs, the long tubes of industrial fluorescent lights, comical novelty lights on the ground like emergency lighting, shaped like cats and hula dancers, and jack-o-lanterns. In one place there were twinkling Christmas lights, in another an ancient neon sign featuring a scantily clad lady with a sly smile and a kicking leg. It said CAN CAN CAN repeatedly, methodically, like a slightly inappropriate motivational speaker.

    Demi looked down at Lumina, her eyes wide.

    ¡°How does that work?¡± she wanted to know.

    The little girl shrugged. ¡°I haven''t the faintest idea,¡± she admitted. ¡°But it does work, most of the time. There¡¯s no telling when the lights will decide to go out again though,¡± she cautioned. ¡°They may be on all night, depending on how this place feels about it. I hope you¡¯ve brought a sleeping mask.¡±

    Demi cast her eyes about to the mismatched lights that lit up the attic.

    ¡°Some of these are fire hazards,¡± she noted, then amended. ¡°Most of these are probably fire hazards.¡±

    ¡°Undoubtedly,¡± Lumina agreed seriously. ¡°But the chapterhouse takes care of the chapterhouse,¡± she said. ¡°It¡¯s not going to set itself on fire.¡±

    ¡°I guess,¡± Demi answered vaguely. The little girl seemed positive about it, and she had lived in the building for some time ¡ª besides that, the archbishop had told Demi that the place made its own kind of sense.

    Demi could not help but feel a little off balance as she followed the guidance of the little miss with the flashlight.

    Since she was in the company of a child, Demi had relaxed some of the pose of Lady Serraffield. Demi liked children, and got along well with them. Most children appreciated kindness and easy familiarity more than practiced etiquette. That had been her experience in the Forest Girls troop, at least.

    But as they walked and talked together, Demi found herself constantly falling out of step, as if she didn¡¯t quite understand the rhythm of their movement or conversation. She was experienced enough that she didn¡¯t stumble, but the little girl continued to surprise her. Demi had decided to treat Lumina as if she were a jolly little schoolmate. Demi was acutely aware of her own position in society as it related to other people. If she remained formal, then other people had no choice but to remain formal also. By being casual and amiable herself, she gave permission to Lumina that she might also be casual and amiable.

    But despite Demi¡¯s friendly overtures, Lumina Calloway behaved as if she might have been in audience with an emperor, or otherwise was a very small empress herself.

    In that attitude, Demi could not escape feeling a gentle rebuke from the serious little girl.

    ¡®It is unwise of you to get into the habit of forgetting your place, Lady Serraffield,¡¯ she seemed to say, without saying anything at all. ¡®Even this place has the potential to be dangerous.¡¯

    Being out preformed in wisdom and manners was not something that Demi was particularly accustomed to. She was every bit the young lady of the Serraffield family, with all the tact, polish, and restraint that that position implied. She had been reared from birth with knowledge that she was an heir to the Curia of Lords, and that meant heavy responsibility. She was thoughtful, dedicated, and well-educated.

    Her manners, wit, and poise were part of the armor that she wore when she went among other people. She was soberly aware that she needed that armor for her own protection, here, more than any place that yet remained on the earth.

    The City was a very dangerous place.

    And yet, despite that knowledge that had been writ into her very flesh, there was another thing that was true about Demeter Serraffield.

    She was remarkably charismatic, sometimes dangerously so, and she liked getting along with the people that she liked. She also liked pleasing herself and getting her own way. She was both generous and genuine, and keen on following her own instincts. As much as she had been drilled to keep herself secure inside her armor, she had a contrarian yen to throw it off before people that she judged as her own. It was a streak of defiance that ran down her back like the curve of her spine. She was a cat with a very long tail, and her rebellion was trusting the people that she honestly liked with self-satisfied abandon.

    But in Lumina, Demi could not help but hear the words of Eisenreich: it is dangerous to depend on charm.

    Those deep, silvery-lavender eyes were cautioning her.

    Demi, however, was stubborn. She was as stubborn as steel enforced cement, and absolutely committed to making a friend out of Lumina. She would follow her own instincts.

    After all, it remained a possibility that Lumina was always cool and collected and remote, that this was simply the shape of her character.

    It had seemed ordinary for the archbishop to wait on her serene majesty, after all, even though he¡¯d been jovial and friendly to Demi, doing his best to put her at ease.

    Still, even if it was in her nature, it was remarkable that this little girl did absolutely everything as if she were acting in accordance with the heavenly mandate. It was one thing for Demi to be able to pull off such a feat. She would be sixteen at the stroke of midnight.

    Lumina was an elementary school student.

    ¡ª an elementary school student with a ponderous book with a ponderous title tucked away in her cheery little backpack, and an additional stack of them in her arms.

    Even having had basically no personal experience with school, Demi could say with one hundred and ten percent certainty that Lumina Calloway was not an ordinary elementary school student. In no universe dreamt of by mortal men would Lumina Calloway have been considered an ordinary elementary school student.

    She was so precocious that it was honestly uncanny, and a little alarming.

    But Demi was a thoughtful person. However unusual Lumina might be, Demi was ready to accept her as she was. Surely there had been other unnaturally precocious children throughout history. She had probably been one herself.

    Or, she remained one even now, according to Lumina Calloway¡¯s way of thinking.

    ¡°Your things have already been delivered,¡± Lumina said, moving around an apparently insurmountable wall of objects and revealing a path that led deeper into the attic. Demi hurried to follow her.

    The best thing to do, she decided, was to simply relax, and let Lumina set the pace for their tour, and their conversation. She would learn the rhythm over time.

    Besides, Lumina was not the only uncommon phenomenon unfolding around her.

    The attic was soon revealed to be a maze of narrow paths through the towering stacks of discarded items. Lumina seemed to know exactly where she was going.

    ¡°I ended up suggesting where I thought that they ought to set up your room,¡± she related, glancing over her shoulder. ¡°I am the resident expert on this place, after all. It''s a nice spot. It''s out of the morning sun, but gets good natural light. It''s a relatively open spot. There used to be a grand piano and a bird cage the size of a telephone booth there, among other things. Who knows where they took all that off to,¡± Lumina said philosophically, as if she were discussing the destination of souls of the deceased.

    ¡°Thank you for suggesting a good spot,¡± Demi said seriously. She did appreciate the other girl¡¯s solemn thoughtfulness, and her guidance, although it still felt inescapably strange to rely on an elementary school student for instruction.

    The small girl looked over her shoulder and smiled again. It felt like a rare treasure.

    They twisted through stacks and piles of boxes, books, and sheeted furniture and at last came to a sizable cleared space. There was a neat single bed made up with a blanket and pillow that had come from Forest Home. The other pieces of furniture a lady of her age might require had also been arranged in the space. It was a little incongruous, coming upon a tidy little bedroom in the middle of the crowded attic, but it was nice. She had never seen the furniture before, but she instinctively liked it. Someone had acquired it with her taste in mind. That seemed clear.

    For a moment, she wondered how all of this had been brought to the space it now occupied. It was hard to imagine furniture being squeezed through the narrow, inclined hallway, or carried down the four despairs.

    She laughed in spite of herself.

    This place definitely had a sense of humor.

    Her two trunks and the large set of matching luggage had been arranged at the foot of her bed. Her things were ready to be unpacked.

    And to her great relief, there on her bed was the dress she had traveled in, along with her petticoat and the rest of her things, right beside her beloved Lacey-tan. Everything had been cleaned and folded neatly.

    She was grateful to the staff at the Seven Sighs Boutique for taking care with her things, and for returning them as they had promised. Once she finally had the opportunity to change out of this suit, she would have it cleaned, and then she would fold it neatly and put it away. It was not hers, really. It did not feel as if it were hers, and yet it was possible that at some point in the future she might have need of it. So she would be kind to it, as she was kind to all of her clothes. It was not the suit¡¯s fault that it had been an instrument of her distress.

    Demi looked up toward the roof that rose high and unseen overhead. She turned around slowly in place, revolving, as she had revolved many times before. She found that she liked the place ¡ª unexplained, ludicrous weirdness and all. It was interesting, and just like Lumina Calloway, she liked interesting things.

    It probably didn''t hurt that this place had not only been a chapterhouse, but also a library and scriptorium, and more than half of the piled up detritus was obviously composed of crates and boxes and stacks of old books and documents. Who knew what treasures were to be unearthed here!?

    ¡ª perhaps even the lost, unfinished manuscript that Evangeline Belmont had been working on right up until the time of her death.

    Demi had an inward chortle at that. She was a lucky ducky, but surely she was not that lucky.

    So she turned her thoughts to more practical issues.

    ¡°I guess I¡¯d better start unpacking,¡± she said.

    Lumina nodded once, but then shifted the books and flashlight so that she could hold up a small, pale hand.

    ¡°Before you start, I ought to show you the way to the bathroom,¡± she said, unloading her books and her backpack on the floor near Demi¡¯s bed.

 Canto 2 At Home in Confusion 4

    the girl in the tower

    <hr>

    That seemed innocuous enough, but Demi soon discovered that to access this bathroom, one had to first navigate to the emergency phone, then go all the way down from the attic to the ground floor, snaking along a convoluted path that felt as if it tied itself in several knots, and passing through six locked doors, each of which required a different ornate skeleton key from a ring that Lumina generally kept on her person.

    There was no use trying to leave the doors unlocked, explained Lumina.  They just locked themselves back.  It was best just to tolerate it and to carry the keys when the bathroom was required.

    ¡°Now that we¡¯ll be sharing the chapterhouse, I¡¯ll leave the bathroom keys on a hook near the stairs,¡± she said.  ¡°Please do the same when you''re finished with them.¡±

    ¡°Okay,¡± Demi agreed, blinking.  Even given the strange path they had taken to the attic, the situation with the bathroom had blindsided her, and she wasn''t entirely sure of how she felt about things.

    ¡°I''ve drawn up a basic map of the original chapterhouse for you,¡± Lumina added, passing over a neatly folded piece of paper.  ¡°It isn''t complete, by any means.  I''d rather not leave a documented record of all the paths here.  Every rabbit needs a bolt hole, after all.  I¡¯ll teach the rest of the ways to you over time.¡±

    Demi boggled a little as she accepted the note.  The attic paths alone seemed complicated enough that a map might be useful as she was first getting her bearings.  She didn''t know what to make of Lumina¡¯s more arcane statement: that she did not want to leave behind physical evidence of all the paths in the building.

    Maybe Lumina was just a little girl being a little girl: building pillow forts and exulting in secret passages, investigating treasure maps, planning camping expeditions around her own home, playing make-believe princess.

    Certainly, this was a building worth make-believing in.  It was perverse, contrary, and a little hilarious.

    Lumina had been eminently correct.  This place had a sense of humor.

    If playing household explorer was all that occupied Lumina, then Demi felt like she could understand the little girl¡¯s spirit.  In her dewy youth, Demi had often played that way in the halls and on the grounds of Forest Home.  She had devoted herself to ¡®discovering¡¯ secret paths that everyone already knew about, spelunking under tables, finding lost treasures in the bottom of closets, and had eaten more than one bagged lunch at the top of a steep flight of stairs, as if she had just conquered Mt. Everest.

    But for Lumina Calloway, the pleasure of solitary exploration and childish secret keeping might not have been the beginning and the end of it.  Looking at her, Demi was unsure.  She could not say it with any kind of conviction, but she instinctively felt there was something else, something less picturesque behind this little rabbit and her bolt holes.  The feeling was strange, as if she had pieces of a shape that she could not put together properly.

    And there was something else too.

    When she looked at Lumina, Demi could not help but feel nostalgic about her own childhood.  She had a yen to be in the dappled sunlight at the edge of the forest, enjoying a picnic lunch with her mother, and naming all the birds as they flew by.

    Her grainy, overexposed hi8 memories aside, Demi¡¯s living arrangements in the original chapterhouse were a completely new experience for her.   The bathroom was a case in point.  She had never shared a bathroom before, certainly not one behind six locked doors.  She could easily recognize that having her own private bathroom was a luxury that not everyone enjoyed, but she was fairly certain that even people who shared large, communal bathrooms, like the ones at the abbey, did not have to use six keys to get to them.

    Quite unsurprisingly, there was only one set of bathroom keys.

    ¡°Nobody has any spares?¡± Demi asked tiredly, already knowing in the depths of her soul what the answer would be.

    ¡°Nobody has any spares,¡± Lumina agreed.

    ¡°And we can¡¯t make any?¡± Demi asked flatly.

    ¡°Oh, we can make them,¡± Lumina contradicted.  ¡°But the chapterhouse doesn¡¯t like them much.  They¡¯ll stick in the doors, break, simply not work at all ¡ª sometimes they do work, every second Sunday when the moon is full, I suppose,¡± Lumina said philosophically, ¡°But when one is late for an appointment with the toilet, one would rather avoid any unexpected delays.  It¡¯s much more dependable to simply use the keys we¡¯ve been given.¡±

    Well, at least there was a bathtub, and a toilet.

    The bathroom was spotlessly clean, a marked departure from the dusty negligence of most of the chapterhouse.  When Demi remarked on this discrepancy, Lumina produced a toilet brush.

    ¡°It''s clean because we¡¯re responsible for keeping it clean,¡± she said.  ¡°The sisters will do your laundry for you, but you have to take it down in a laundry bag before breakfast.  And they prepare meals for us, but it¡¯s on a set schedule.  We¡¯re allowed to keep our own snacks here, but given the various fire hazards of this building that you have already pointed out, we¡¯re not allowed to cook here, even with electric appliances.  We¡¯re also not allowed to keep or use candles.  And we¡¯re responsible for cleaning this bathroom and keeping our own spaces tidy, although it''s not as if anyone comes to check on the state of the bathroom, or our living spaces.  It''s simply for our own comfort.¡±

    It seemed like a great deal of responsibility for a seven year old girl.

    ¡°You like it here?¡± Demi asked, an attempt to verify the statement Lumina had made earlier.

    She had returned the toilet brush to its stand and closed the door to the bathroom.  Demi heard the unmistakable click of the lock as she did.

    ¡°I do,¡± Lumina repeated.  ¡°Of course, I¡¯d rather be with my mother, but the conditions at her expedition site are too dangerous.  Minors aren''t allowed into the deep strata.  As for the chores, it¡¯s no more than what I was already doing before I came here,¡± she said. ¡°And I¡¯m allowed to do what I like.  That is important to me,¡± she said. ¡°I find it hard to tolerate adult oversight.¡±

    ¡°Oh,¡± said Demi.  ¡°Well, that makes sense,¡± she admitted.

    Demi felt like she could also do with quite a bit less adult oversight, even though the prospect was unexpected and dizzying.

    ¡°Now,¡± said Lumina, with another of her small, sweet smiles, ¡°Would you like to meet our other roommates?  I think you¡¯ll enjoy it if you have an interest in Lepidoptera.¡±

    <hr>

    Lumina¡¯s bed, such as it was, was perched on top of a mountain of books and old toys, discarded doll parts, and what appeared to be quite a lot of artificial flowers.  It was a single bed clearly meant for a little girl.  It had four white posts that spun up into minarets that reminded one of unicorn horns.  The top half of the bed was inside an enormous birdcage, very ornate, although it had a sizable hole through the side of it which rendered it useless for keeping birds smaller than an elementary school student.  It was through this opening that Lumina¡¯s little girl bed protruded.  It had to be accessed by stairs as well as a ladder.

    There was a canopy of translucent mesh over the whole of this unusual arrangement, studded with small rhinestones like stars. Spidery threads anchored it to some unseen height, drawing it into points like a silvery crown.  It was quite a fantastic bed.

    The archbishop had been right to call this place Wonderland.

    ¡°I thought you said you didn''t know where they had taken that,¡± said Demi thoughtfully as she looked at the remains of the birdcage.

    Lumina shrugged.

    ¡°I haven''t the faintest idea where they took the birdcage that used to be in the place where your bedroom is now,¡± she said.  ¡°This is a different birdcage.¡±  She paused.  ¡°You didn''t imagine that I arranged all of this myself yesterday afternoon, did you?¡±

    Lumina was inescapably correct.  Demi was at a loss as to how to explain the origins of the bizarre tableaux that were piled thick around her, even given a geologic timescale.  It seemed to her as if a seed of the confusion of junk had been accidentally sown one day, and then had spread like kudzu.

    Lumina didn''t pause particularly long before answering her own question.  ¡°I believe this birdcage used to stand in the Iron Garden¡¯s great conservatory, the Glass Menagerie,¡± she said. ¡°A cage inside a cage: an appropriate place for a little girl, don''t you think?¡±

    Demi wasn''t sure how to respond to that.

    ¡°Our purity is fetishized, and yet we are desired and idealized,¡± Lumina continued.  ¡°¡®What a pretty little girl.¡¯  ¡®What a smart little girl.¡¯   ¡®What a good little girl.¡¯  We are guarded treasures who are denied rights and autonomy.  We are not even allowed to control our own narratives.¡±

    ¡°I see what you mean,¡± Demi said.

    She did.  It was something she sometimes thought of herself, but she had never imagined discussing the subject with an elementary school student.

    Lumina Calloway was a very strange little girl.

    Well.

    It took one to know one, she supposed.

    The lights around Lumina¡¯s bed were dim, but the bed was illuminated by a shaft of bright moonlight that filtered down from somewhere up above.

    Wait.

    Wait, Demi thought.  That isn''t right.

    Demi still felt a little confused and mixed up about her location in the chapterhouse, but she felt for certain that the angle of the light was wrong.  There were no windows or skylights above that might have produced this beautiful pool of moonlight.  It might have been redirected by a cunning arrangement of mirrors, but Demi could spy none.

    Lumina saw her studying the moonbeams and smiled slightly.

    ¡°It¡¯s strangelight,¡± she confirmed.  ¡°It isn''t always here, but this is one of the places it likes to pool.¡±

    Strangelight.

    It was an eerie phenomenon of the City.  Moonlight, sunlight, and starlight appeared in places where none ought to have been, inside of buildings, under stairs, in old, tired basements, in the deep canyons between towering skyscrapers.  Strangelight had no interest in keeping to a schedule either.  The sun sometimes shone down in the dead of night, and the stars and moon rained down at noon.  It was queer and beautiful.

    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    Demi had seen it only rarely, since she had only visited the City on occasion as a girl.  It gave one a bit of a shiver to look at it.

    It remained unexplained, although it had been studied extensively: by scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, even occultists.  Investigations were ongoing, even now.  It was the sort of mystery that people yearned to unravel, something that captured the imagination and hinted at the shape of the universe.

    And yet, for the people of Metropoly, strangelight was ordinary, in the same way that all the other bizarre things about the City were ordinary.  If one took notice of them all, there would be time for nothing else, and the denizens great and small would spend their time gaping and gawping at every last thing.  It was in the interests of sanity that people learned to go about their business without much concern for what was strange and inexplicable.

    But Demi had not yet become inured to the weird wonders of the City.  She was still green, a girl fresh from the forest, and so she gazed at the queer moonlight with fascination, straining to glimpse where it came from.

    But of course, she could not tell.  Great mysteries were not so easily unraveled.

    When Demi looked back at Lumina, she found that the small girl was laughing quietly, her smile concealed by a delicate hand.

    ¡°If past experience holds true, then you¡¯ll have your own strangelight,¡± she said with a smile that touched her eyes.  ¡°I mentioned that your bedroom gets good natural light.  I should have also added that it often gets good unnatural light as well.  Sunlight pools there the way moonlight pools here, although rarely in accordance with any rational schedule,¡± she said with a brief shrug.  ¡°Yet another reason for sleeping in an eye mask.¡±

    Lumina moved away from her bed to the base of another ladder that ran from the floor into the rafters.

    ¡°Come along,¡± she said.  ¡°If you want to meet the others, you have to climb.¡±

    They climbed.

    Once she was up among them, Demi realized that the rafters were larger than they appeared from the ground, wide enough for a person to walk across them without fear of an untimely death.  The ones meant to be walked on even had railings, making them more like catwalks than simply rafters.

    Looking down at the ramshackle labyrinth below, Demi could get a better sense of the overall layout of the areas around their bedrooms.  Surely this was how Lumina had started her map.  The bird¡¯s eye view was informative.

    But it didn''t provide absolute clarity.

    There were sections of the attic covered in tarpaulins and a patchwork of sheets and netting that made it basically impossible to discern what was underneath.  The map indicated that there was a cave with a working television somewhere inside the mess of terra incognita.  That surely needed exploring.  A television was required for many of Demi¡¯s most treasured hobbies apart from reading, like watching Cryheart, and Magical Girl Frail Ribbon, and of course, for playing console games.  There was a small television in her new bedroom, but it was a new model with a flat screen.  It wasn''t suitable for playing games that required light guns.  The mystery television was therefore an intriguing possibility.

    Plus, the idea of crawling into a secret cave made out of blankets and overturned furniture to watch television and play video games called out to Demi¡¯s soul.

    Too bad it¡¯s verboten to pop popcorn in this place, she thought idly.

    Problems like that demanded answers.  She¡¯d just have to buy an enormous tin of prepopped popcorn and secret it away in the cave like a squirrel.

    Of course, this was all supposing she could fit into the cave.  The map indicated that it was passable, but Lumina was a very small individual.  Demi was also petite, but not quite so petite as the doll-like young lady.

    Still, it begged investigation.  Demi could already imagine cuddling in with Lumina in a pile of pillows and eating candy and popcorn while she introduced Lumina to Cryheart and Frail Ribbon.  Frail Ribbon was generally considered a show for adults, rather than children.  It even aired late at night.  But Demi had already judged that Lumina was a mature enough audience to appreciate her most favorite show.  Demi was a Frail Ribbon evangelist, in the same way she was an evangelist for the Swallow.

    While Demi had been day dreaming about sisterly bonding in a cozy pillow fort, Lumina had continued to lead the way.

    Just ahead, Lumina had begun to climb a beautiful wrought iron staircase that spiraled down from somewhere up above.  It met the catwalk before her as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world for a spiral staircase to be suspended in open space at the end of a rafter.  Demi peered over the catwalk¡¯s railing at the attic floor below, but the spiral staircase did not descend further than the rafter where she currently stood.  Like so many other ways in the chapterhouse, there was apparently only one (meandering) path forward.  It was a bit like threading a needle.

    She stepped onto the staircase experimentally, expecting it to shake and shimmy with her weight, but it held firm and steady.  Relieved, Demi hurried to follow Lumina.

    Having crested the stairs, the little girl had apparently reached a level above even the attic.  Had she entered the attic¡¯s attic?  The chapterhouse seemed to be the sort of place where one might stumble into such an absurdity, where attics required numbers or letters to designate which was which.

    There was another carved wooden door before them, this one set into a wooden wall that stretched in either direction, making a large wooden box that as far as Demi could discern was suspended from absolutely nothing.

    Well.  It wasn¡¯t the strangest thing she¡¯d seen that day.

    Pause.

    Full stop.

    Demi realized at once that she really couldn¡¯t say what the strangest thing she¡¯d seen that day actually was.

    The council of Demi could not even come to a consensus over this troubling question.

    That was the sort of day it had been.

    Lumina pushed through the door in front of her.  It was unlocked, and required no key.

    And once Demi followed her through the door, she knew at once that she had not entered Attic B.  There was no reason to label it in such a way because its purpose, and therefore its name, was immediately clear.  The room was surrounded on three sides by checkerboard walls scored with regular recesses, and on a fourth side by ornate wooden railing.  Past the ornate railing was the outer wall of the chapterhouse, and in it were many small openings, neat little entrances that were open to the night outside.   There was a drowsy feeling there on the hardwood, and the low, peaceful hum of soft voices.  It smelled a bit dusty.  She again heard the sound of wings, which was rather to be expected as she was surrounded by birds.

    ¡°It¡¯s a dovecote!¡± Demi realized all at once, turning around in place to look at all the dozy roosting doves and pigeons.

    Lumina nodded.  ¡°Yes,¡± she said. ¡°There are about three hundred birds up here, not counting the late fledges who haven''t left the nest yet.¡±  Lumina paused, turning slowly to look around herself.  ¡°In fact, there are more friends here than usual today ¡ª quite a lot of tourists.  I wonder if the birds decided to have a festival?¡± she asked curiously, apparently to herself.  She looked back at Demi.  ¡°Of course, they¡¯re mostly ash pigeons,¡± she said, gesturing around herself.  ¡°There are some other doves about, but they¡¯re in their little pens, over here.  They wouldn''t survive out in the world, but they remain safe under care.¡±

    Demi followed to look at the cages where doves and fancy pigeons roosted comfortably.

    ¡°It¡¯s only soot rooks and ash pigeons in the City, isn''t it?¡± she asked thoughtfully as she looked at them.

    ¡°Outside of conservatories and arcologies?¡± Lumina asked, then confirmed with a nod.  ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± she said.  ¡°No other birds survive for long in the City.¡± She frowned briefly, and her brow creased faintly.  Then it relaxed as she looked again at the caged birds.  ¡°But they¡¯re safe here,¡± she repeated.  ¡°That¡¯s just the way things are in the City.¡±  She opened one of the cage doors and coaxed a plump dove onto her arm.  ¡°But that''s all right,¡± she said, giving the bird a gentle rub.  ¡°My inmates aren''t very interested in escape.  This is Merope,¡± Lumina said, indicating the bird on her arm.  ¡°That is Celaeno.¡±

    Afterwards Demi found herself introduced to many birds.  All of the birds who lived in the dovecote had names, and Lumina could pick them all out easily.  That was how she could immediately determine that they had so many guests this evening.  She was in charge of looking after the birds, although the loose pigeons required very little looking after, as they fended well for themselves and went in and out as they pleased.  It was only the fancy doves and pigeons that depended on Lumina¡¯s care.

    But they were all well looked after, and Lumina clearly considered them her true friends.  The birds were very comfortable around her, and would let her do practically anything to them.  As she moved around the dovecote, birds would flutter down to land on her head and shoulders, sometimes quarreling with one another over coveted space until Lumina hushed them down with quiet authority.  There were times that she looked not so much like a girl as like a Christmas tree ornamented solely in pigeons.

    As she watched the birds making themselves comfortable on Lumina, Demi was granted a great honor herself, as a pigeon came to sit on her arm unexpectedly.  She had held it out experimentally, wondering how long it would take before the birds of the dovecote trusted her enough to come near.

    She had not expected that a bird would immediately take her up on the offer.  As she marveled at the fat little pigeon on her arm, several other birds decided to investigate her.  These weren¡¯t brave enough to perch on her body, but they did form a circle around her on the floor, milling about slowly and considering her.

    They probably expect me to toss them some feed, she thought with an inward smile.

    Still, it was touching to have them accept her they way they did, even if they likely had ulterior motives.

    Lumina was also impressed by the pigeons¡¯ interest in Demi.

    ¡°If the pigeons like you, then I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll get along,¡± she said seriously.

    That was quite a vote of confidence.

    Demi did not meet all three hundred of the resident birds that particular evening, owing to the fact that it was already late, there were an excessive number of visiting birds, and Lumina did not want to disturb the pigeons more than they already had, but Demi did meet them all in time, and others besides, as the population of the dovecote grew steadily the entire time she lived at the chapterhouse.  The dovecote was a very relaxing place, not because it was still, but because it was alive.  It was a nice place to sit and think while the goings on of living carried on all around.

    But there was more to see and Lumina was ready to exhibit it.  So the dovecote was closed up neatly and down the staircase they went, criss crossing on rafters until they came to a metal ladder.  This ladder offered passage back down to the floor in a wholly different part of the attic.

    They ended up in an entirely enclosed space, one that could only be reached by the ladder from above (or from a small concealed tunnel that one had to take on hands and knees, but Demi would only be introduced to this handy escape some time later).  There were wire shelves along the walls made of oddities, and each of the shelves was stacked to the very top with aquariums.

    Or rather, terrariums.

    ¡°Welcome to the larvarium,¡± Lumina said solemnly.

    Besides keeping doves, Demi¡¯s little girl roommate was apparently a serious collector and cataloger of butterflies and moths.  There were a dozen specimen cabinets in their own little area, and a desk with fine tools laid out across its work space.  There were also paints, and other small sundry materials, along with sketchbooks and notebooks, magnifying glasses, pins, and prodigious looking reference books.

    Apart from the terrariums full of eggs, caterpillars, and chrysalises, and the neat workspace, there was also a butterfly house that had a square footage that Demi estimated was larger than a small apartment.  It was a proper room entirely devoid of junk, made with screen netting stretched over a frame of plywood and metal pipes and fitted with a double gated door.  The butterfly house was lit by lamps that produced simulated daylight, Lumina explained.  Strangelight could not be counted on to provide the amount of sunshine that the green growing things required to stay healthy.  There was a veritable garden in the butterfly house, all silver blue because the lights were dimmed to simulate moonlight.  Moths fluttered softly in the dark.

    The sound of wings, Demi thought.

    It was all strange and beautiful.

    It was quite astonishing to discover all of this wedged into a corner of the attic, but it really wasn''t any stranger than the dovecote, suspended as it was in some unseen way over otherwise empty space.

    It did strike her as queer that a larvarium and butterfly house had been installed in the attic, presumably at great expense, but that changing the locks remained forbidden.  She remarked upon it and Lumina shrugged idly.

    ¡°I was given to understand that changes are all right, so long as they are non-destructive changes, and that everything can be put back to the way it was at the beginning,¡± she said.

    ¡°What was it like at the beginning?¡± Demi asked with wide eyes.

    It was hard to imagine what this place had been like before it had been stuffed to the gills with all the detritus of a hundred generations.

    ¡°That is a very good question,¡± Lumina remarked, but had no further answer.  She cocked her head slightly and smiled her mysterious smile.  ¡°And if you¡¯re wondering, the archbishop likes pigeons.  He also likes moths and butterflies, which is why the dovecote and the larvarium exist, although I am the primary proprietor of both.  He claims that he satiates his curiosity by indulging in the sponsorship of these special places.¡±  She looked up for a moment before adding, ¡°The dovecote was here before the both of us, though,¡± she said.  ¡°I imagine it will remain even after we¡¯re both gone.  The pigeons have a way of looking after themselves.  I¡¯m just their temporary caretaker.¡±

    Then she yawned quite hugely, bringing her hand up in an attempt to delicately cover her mouth.  She wasn''t entirely successful, but that made the entire sequence even more charming and cute.  She sleepily rubbed at one of her eyes.

    ¡°And that¡¯s the tour for this evening,¡± she said with another yawn.  ¡°I¡¯ll take you back to your bedroom, but then I''m afraid you¡¯ll have to excuse me for the night.  It¡¯s past my bedtime.¡±

 Canto 3 - The Fairy School 1

    3 - The Fairy School

    A castle in the forest.  The newly minted president.

    the beginning begins by beginning

    An unfamiliar ceiling swam into focus, and for a moment, Demi could not place herself.

    But then the pieces fell into place, one by one.

    Item one: the dusty, tired wooden beams laid like a loose lattice overhead, crossing and criss-crossing in an impossible jumble of exposed timbers that ran right up to the underside of the distant roof.

    Item two: dozens of slender, stilted ladders leaning helter-skelter, against walls, against towering piles of junk, against anything at all (and sometimes against absolutely nothing at all).  They were piled on top of one another like stairways to heaven, and nailed into place from beam to beam like somewhat questionable catwalks. The tableau might have inspired M. C. Escher to illustrate a game board for chutes and ladders.

    Item three: the sunlight that came in through high and strangely placed octagonal windows, each one featuring a different esoteric symbol in the center of the frame (upon reflection, that was honestly a pretty strange choice for a church building).

    Item four: the spiders and doves and moths and the larvae of half a hundred butterflies: Lumina Calloway¡¯s larvarium, and the dovecote these two little birds shared with one another, and with their numerous avian roommates.

    Conclusion: this was the unfamiliar ceiling of the original chapterhouse.  This strange building was located on the grounds of St. Mary¡¯s Nativity, Santa Maria Nascente, in the Cradle of St. Mary.

    She was a church mouse.

    It was certainly the most unfamiliar ceiling that Demeter Serraffield had ever contemplated, and very much at odds with the one she had expected to wake up to, even so recently as yesterday morning.  Yesterday, she had come to the City expecting to be squired to Marquis Lysander and to move into the main town residence of the Serraffield family: Starry Falls.  It might have been different from her life in the country, but perhaps not terribly different.  She had not expected to have much freedom of choice or much influence over the course of her life until she turned twenty.  Her previous experience with her father and her sober understanding of her hereditary position had made her ever aware of boundaries: what was allowed and what was not allowed.

    And most everything interesting was quite assuredly not allowed.

    Demi had spent the whole of her life like a great jungle cat in an enclosure at a zoological garden.  Great pains and tremendous expense had gone toward making her habitat as comfortable and realistic as possible, and so long as she followed some basic rules, she was allowed to do exactly as she liked inside of it ¡ª but she was always carefully protected from the outside world.  She was always carefully monitored and tracked.  She knew she was in a cage, that she had been born in a cage, and that she would live in that cage until fate afforded her a chance to escape from it.

    But even though Demi had a very practical understanding of her situation, she never stopped feeling out the corners of her enclosure.  She was always pushing against the edges of things to find out what was flexible and what was not.  She was an expert at determining which rules would be rigorously enforced and which would be routinely ignored in favor of keeping the peace.

    That made her a habitual rule breaker who was almost never punished.  When she was punished, she felt that it was arbitrary, with little connection to any particular infraction and with no discernible relationship to her behavior.  Therefore, Demi was audacious in the way she committed the crimes she could get away with, and always threading the needle on the crimes that were likely to be punished.  If there was a red line that absolutely could not be crossed, she would approach it and walk it with calm self-possession, as if she were on a high wire.

    Whatever freedom existed inside the ornate cage of her birth, Demeter Serraffield was an expert at finding and devouring every last drop of it.

    It was the only way to live, really, because she chafed at her confines.  She could be a paragon of manners when it suited her, but as any of her tutors might have said, Demi had always been at least half wild animal.

    But even given her innate authority challenging and conversely authority worshiping nature, the wild animal who was Demi understood that she lived in a cage, and that there were some restrictions it was fruitless to question.

    Her mother had helped to make her cage as comfortable and interesting as possible, until  ¡ª

    Until.

    Until she had not any longer.

    Demi couldn''t think about it.  Not this morning.  If she did, then she would get angry, and she would get hot and tense and all her muscles would hurt, and she would cry and cry miserably, and here there was no Robert Grave to quietly comfort her, no Alexis Bryce to challenge her with another book, no familiar quilts to hide away in, no assortment of animal friends to pet and pet and then messily cry on.

    She was on her own.

    That feeling was as unfamiliar as the ceiling.

    This was the first day of the rest of everything.

    Or it was the second day.

    But perhaps it would always be the first day, over and over again.

    Things kept on happening and happening, quite without her permission.

    It was a lot to take in.

    Something very extraordinary had happened the day before ¡ª something unexpected, something perplexing, something marvelous, something arresting.

    She had met a serious man in a serious suit who had caught her arm and caught her fancy ¡ª as easily as winding a bit of ribbon around his fingers.  He had cautioned her about her attitudes, made her laugh without intending to, and then taken her as his squire without even asking her what she thought about the idea, offering his protection and guidance.  He had changed her unchallengeable, unchanging tomorrow with a crisp snap of his fingers.

    He had opened the door of her cage as if it were nothing, and had beckoned her out into thrilling, terrifying freedom.

    It was still strange to think back on her father¡¯s reaction to everything.  She had expected ¡ª well, she had expected something.  Instead, he had remained cool and remote, and had not given away any surprise at all when Matthias Eisenreich had calmly announced her new affiliation.

    (Matthias Eisenreich had certainly not asked for her father¡¯s permission.  He had informed her father of her squiring as if it were an incontrovertible fact.)

    Demi had expected a stare down, some clear conflict between their powerful, intense personalities, but her father had given her up without even changing expressions.  His poker face remained absolute.  In some ways, it was a little disappointing.

    It wasn¡¯t as if she had wanted to see her father and the Iron Duke in some kind of grudge match, but the ease with which he gave her up made it feel as if he really didn¡¯t care particularly what happened to her.

    I suppose it doesn¡¯t change much for him, she reflected, feeling a bit distant and disconnected.  I was going to be squired one way or another.  He knew he¡¯d be giving me up to somebody.

    That left her feeling a little sad and hollow.  She had no illusions that her relationship with her father was anything approaching chummy, but it still hurt that he could let her go without even changing expressions.

    But despite how unmoved he had been by the entire escapade, her father had sprung one unexpected surprise upon her, and that surprise was the reason why she had woken disoriented, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling.

    In compliance with his decree, Demi would not be living at Starry Falls, or at any of the other family properties.   She didn¡¯t believe she was even permitted to, had she asked for such a thing.

    This declaration had put something of a damper on her planned investigations, but Demi imagined that she was still allowed to visit the family properties as she chose, simply not to live there.

    The whole thing was rather peculiar, even nested as it was inside a rummage sale¡¯s worth of peculiar events.  Demi had very little experience with what squiring entailed, having not grown up inside the City, and having been overly sheltered, but she did know that squires generally lived with either their birth families, or their mentors, depending on the agreement.

    She was deeply grateful that she did not have to live as Marquis Lysander dictated, but she would not understand how narrowly she had avoided trauma until some time later.

    But she had never heard of any squire who resided with an unrelated third party, apart from those who chose to live at school dormitories, if they remained enrolled.

    Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

    And yet it was unquestionably true that her father had arranged for her to be looked after by one of his old school friends.  That old friend had turned out to be the Apostolic archbishop in charge of Santa Maria Nacente.   He was a Lord of the Curia in his own right, although his mild temper and sunny disposition made him less forbidding that he otherwise might have been.

    Her new living arrangements weren¡¯t a punitive measure, as far as she could tell, and seemed to have been planned months ¡ª perhaps years ¡ª in advance.

    It figured that she would be the last to know.  It wasn''t as if her opinion would have been consulted even if she had known about it.

    And so now she was in the care of the sisters of the Nativity of St. Mary and a man who looked too young and boyish to be called an archbishop.  Nonetheless, ¡®archbishop¡¯ was what he was properly called, just as she was properly called ¡®Lady Serraffield,¡¯ although she still wasn¡¯t quite used to wearing it yet.

    No one had called her that at Forest Home during her childhood.  Instead, she had been ¡®the young mistress,¡± or more informally ¡®the little miss.¡¯  After the funeral, she had become ¡®my lady,¡¯  but she still felt like something of an imposter.

    She had been the Lady Demeter Serraffield, heir to the seat of Serraffield from the time of her birth, but it still felt sometimes that the title belonged to someone else, that she was merely participating in a pantomime, and would eventually be found out.

    She looked up at her unfamiliar ceiling.

    Somewhere far above there was the warm, dusty sound of wings: a dove in the dovecote, probably.

    Demi took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

    It was her sixteenth birthday, but she didn''t feel any different than she had the day before.  She was simply one day older than she had been yesterday.

    Her birthday brought no expectations of a party or presents.  Demi didn''t really mourn the loss of either.  Those things had passed out of the world.  Robert Grave had tried to put together a small gathering the birthday after the funeral, but it had fizzled out weakly, like a tired sparkler that had passed one too many seasons unchosen in a beleaguered box of summertime amusements.   While Demi had thanked him sincerely, she had prohibited further birthdays, and he had respected her wishes, although it had been hard for him to let such milestones pass uncelebrated.

    She was the young lady of the Serraffield family, after all, and the most precious of his charges.

    But despite the roil of emotions adolescence and profound grief had made an operational standard of her everyday life, Demi felt no sharp sting of persecution over the fact that her birthday was sure to pass unremarked upon.

    For Demi, the lack of celebration (and interest) was just an ordinary and unquestioned element of her life.  And she was circumspect enough to know that she was not the only newly sixteen year old girl who did not look forward to a lavish celebration.  There were many terrible circumstances in the world, but her own circumstances, her own standard of living, were among the most exalted, measured by any metric.  It seemed childish to lament something as silly as a birthday party when there was famine, disease, and poverty in the world.  She was acutely sensitive to personal loss, to systemic injustice, to human despair.

    Deeply mired in grief at the age of fourteen, she had resolved that she had grown too old for birthday parties anyway.  She was a Serraffield, after all.  She had responsibilities.

    In any case, Robert Grave was not here, under the eaves of the original chapterhouse.  He could not have arranged a birthday party for her even if she had begged for one.  He was on his way back to Forest Home, having reluctantly delivered her into the care of Clarence Darby.  That was where Mr. Grave belonged, where he was most happy.  At Forest Home, he would carry on his duties with precision and regularity, the same way he had for forty years.

    Demi would have to look after herself.

    The antique alarm clock on the side table began to ring as angrily as if it were warning of a catastrophic fire (absolutely overdue at the original chapterhouse, as she had discovered the day before).  Demi sat up in bed groggily, reached over to seize the alarming clock and then shoved it into the blankets on her bed, throwing two pillows over it.

    It could still be heard ringing, although it had been somewhat muffled.

    I hate this alarm clock, Demi thought for the thousandth, the millionth time.

    Then she shoved one hand into the nest of blankets and located the key on the back of the clock.  She turned it one way, then another way, then another way, and at last it clicked, and came out of the back of the clock, and the clock stopped ringing.

    It was the only way to shut the alarm clock off once it had begun ringing, and the sleep addled Demi, who was a very slow starter, could not manage to shut it off while half awake.  It was the reason she kept the alarm clock, even though she hated it: it was the only alarm clock she had ever used that could successfully get her out of bed.

    She didn¡¯t hate it when it wasn¡¯t ringing.  In fact, she rather liked it.  It suited her sensibilities.

    It was a beautiful piece of art in its own right: languid nymphs lolling around the unsympathetic face of the austere clock, shading themselves with palm fronds.  Under the face of the clock was the m?bius loop of a metal ribbon with a single twist and the words ¡®Time will always get away,¡¯ engraved into it.

    That was true enough.  Time was always getting away from her.

    As Demi ran her hands through the hair that fell into her face, she came to a realization.

    She was not alone.

    Lumina Calloway was in her pajamas, a toothbrush in one of her hands, standing as still as a statue cast in bronze at the foot of Demi¡¯s bed.  There was no telling how long she had been standing there, silently observing her new acquaintance.  If Demi had been a little more awake, she might have recognized the situation as being a little unnerving.

    Demi ran her hands through the hair again and made some vague noises of good morning to her small roommate.  Demi was not a collection of best habits, although other people often expected her to be.  She was not early to bed and early to rise.  She was more likely to stay up all night reading and thinking, and at last collapse into slumber at the edge of dawn.  If left to her own devices, Demi would have likely not gotten out of bed until noon, and then only with the promise of a cup of tea and buttered toast.

    She liked to be gently carted into wakefulness, the sleeping beauty passenger of a wheeled bower tugged along by fluffy rabbits with sweet expressions and accompanied by angels singing hosannas (quietly).

    And then she¡¯d have a languid hot shower, take her time detangling her hair, and go through the twelve ordered steps of her morning skin care routine.

    By the time she was finished with all her important morning rituals, nearly two hours had generally passed.  Demi would by then have emerged fully from her torpor, ready to engage fruitfully with the day ahead, as bright and as curious as a robin.

    For people who did not see the sluggish, shambling Demi ¡ª who might fall asleep at the breakfast table if not regularly prodded awake ¡ª it was easy to imagine that she sprang into each morning fully formed: cheerful, inquisitive, playful, mannered, and courteous.

    Lumina didn''t seem perturbed by Demi¡¯s vague and unintelligible greeting, or the fact that she seemed like some sort of swamp monster, shrouded in the tangled veil of her hair.  Lumina said simply, ¡°The sisters prepare breakfast between five thirty and six thirty.  If you ask, they will also prepare a box lunch.  I¡¯m not certain if high school students need box lunches,¡± Lumina admitted seriously.

    ¡°I''m not either,¡± Demi agreed drowsily.  ¡°What time is it?¡±

    ¡°Six twenty five,¡± Lumina announced evenly, causing Demi to lurch unsteadily out of bed.

    ¡°I know I set the alarm for five thirty,¡± Demi said to herself, trying to untangle herself from the blankets as she tumbled out of bed.  She ended up in a pile of blankets on the floor, with a book open over her face.  Lacey had tumbled off the other side of the bed when Demi had fallen onto the floor, but Demi didn¡¯t have any time to see to her.

    ¡°Oh right,¡± she said, pushing the book off her face.  ¡°I reset the alarm because I couldn''t go to sleep until almost five am.  I decided that some sleep was better than no sleep.¡±

    But because of her questionable decision to sleep in, Demi found herself pressed for time in a way that was profoundly distressing.  She didn''t have nearly enough time for her morning routine.  She had to be on her way by seven thirty at the latest, and she had never been to St. Muirgein''s before.

    She had committed the directions to memory, but she was still very unfamiliar with the City.  If she got lost or turned around on the way, half an hour would not be enough time to get to school, and she would surely be tardy.  It was not the first impression she wanted to make.

    She had to move at top speed.  She couldn''t afford the luxury of a lazy wakeup.  There were things to do.

    Demi staggered around, trying to collect the things she needed for her morning toilette, and soon she was ready to toddle off in absolutely the wrong direction, deeper into the strange maze of the chapterhouse attic.

    ¡°The bathroom is downstairs,¡± Lumina reminded her.  ¡°On the ground floor.  I would lead you there, but I¡¯m afraid I don''t have time.  I have to feed the pigeons before I go.¡±

    Demi made an about face, and rushed off, but still had to double back to get her uniform, a pair of clean underwear, the map Lumina had drawn for her, and the set of ornate keys that was required to unlock the six doors that stood between the attic and the ground floor bathroom.

    After maddeningly fumbling with the large ring of skeleton keys half a dozen times in short succession, Demi hit the bathroom like a hurricane, and somehow managed to get herself ready in only twelve minutes by exhibiting dizzying feats of flexibility and ambidexterity.

    But even setting the land speed record for cleaning herself up and getting dressed did not avail Demi with regard to breakfast or lunch.  The sisters were very punctual, and had moved on to other responsibilities by the time Demi got to the kitchen at the abbey.

    Given that she was functioning on very little sleep, Demi had at least hoped for some toast.

    But everything had been carefully put away, and although Demi rummaged through several cabinets, the only foodstuffs she could find were canned.

    Canned green beans were not really the kind of thing that set a young girl¡¯s heart dancing.  Besides that, she didn''t have the time to make them and eat them, even if she had acquired permission to use the kitchen (and she had not, at this point, acquired permission to do much of anything).

    With no possibility of morning norriture, Demi backtracked to the original chapterhouse to do a final check on her hastily arranged uniform and to pack her school bag.   As she straightened the bow around her neck and pulled her vest down snugly, she owned to the fact that she had done all she could.  She needed to be on her way, even as she faced her morning commute with some trepidation.  Lumina had already gone.

    Demi¡¯s nervousness was perhaps understandable.

    It was her first day of school.

    It wasn¡¯t only her first day at a new and unfamiliar school.  It wasn''t the first day of a new term, or even a new year.

    It was her first day of school ever.

    She could only hope that things would go smoothly and quietly, and that she would find a comfortable place where she could be something like herself.

    And a friend.

    She wanted to find a friend.

    It felt like she hadn''t had one her own age for a very long time.

    Demi was so preoccupied with thoughts of her new school life that she didn''t remember that she needed to return the original chapterhouse¡¯s pass keys to the hook in the attic until she was halfway across the saint¡¯s walk, bound for school.  She had to beat a hasty retreat to the attic to return them.  There was only one set, after all, and she had to share them with Lumina Calloway.  The ground floor bathroom could not be accessed without them.

    Even if she was in a hurry, she couldn''t just run off with the keys to the only toilet they had.

    That was beyond unconscionable.

 Canto 3 - The Fairy School 2

    Monday

    <hr>

    As Demi let herself out the narrow iron side gate, she took a deep breath and tried to steady her nerves. It was all right. It was going to be all right. Certainly navigating a new group of peers would be a little nerve-wracking, especially as she had so little experience with persons even vaguely close to her own age, apart her troop mates in the Forest Girls.

    But.

    She would be all right.

    After all, she had plenty of experience making friends with adults, and she had done a great deal of research on this new and intriguing environment: high school. She had read quite a number of books and manga about the social lives of school girls, and felt like she theoretically understood important concepts like passing notes, going to slumber parties, and ¡®hanging out.¡¯ She had a lot of information, a boundless curiosity for new experiences, and only a very slight worry that she would make a total fool of herself and become a social pariah with no friends who was therefore excluded in principle from any engaging reindeer games.

    It was an insignificant, tiny little worry that her first real attempt at socializing with people her own age, in person, without the comforting and guiding presence of her mother, would somehow spontaneously catch fire with such ferocity that the blaze might be observable from orbit.

    It would be fine.

    Everything would be fine.

    She turned her face forward and straightened her beret with determination.

    And then she was startled by the sound of polite applause.

    There, standing right before the small side gate was a very pretty girl with long, dark hair, wearing a uniform that was almost identical to the one Demi herself had studied in the mirror that morning.

    She was certainly a student of St. Muirgein¡¯s, and she was still clapping, an easy and gentle smile on her face.

    ¡°Very good!¡± was what she said as she looked Demi over. ¡°You look ready to ride to war, Lady Serraffield! I am personally very inspired.¡±

    Demi shifted awkwardly on her feet, caught completely off guard by this girl¡¯s calm and easy demeanor. It ended up looking like a funny little dance.

    ¡°Ah, thank you,¡± she said shyly. ¡°I suppose you already know who I am, then. But for the sake of politeness: good morning, I¡¯m Demeter Serraffield. I¡¯m pleased to meet you.¡±

    Demi offered her hand, and the dark haired girl took it and gave it a friendly squeeze.

    ¡°I¡¯m Monday Volkova,¡± she said with a peaceful smile. ¡°I¡¯m a junior at St. Muirgein¡¯s, and the acting vice president of the student council. I¡¯ve been assigned to be your equerry for all matters relating to your school life, and so I¡¯ve come to escort you to school. I can see you''re looking forward to your first day,¡± she said with a mysterious, and slightly alarming giggle.

    This caused Demi to respond very eloquently with a brief string of ara aras, perplexed. Then her brows drew together slightly. ¡°I hadn''t realized that I would be assigned my own equerry at school. My father didn''t mention it when I spoke to him.¡±

    Then again, he hadn''t mentioned many things to her, including the fact that she was now expected to live in the attic of a derelict building that was built of matchsticks and kindling, and absolutely wall-to-wall with all of the objects that had most certainly not been used to start the fire (but still might be, at some later date).

    ¡°Well, it''s through a special arrangement with the school, so I¡¯m not surprised,¡± Monday said pleasantly. ¡°I''m not attached to your father at all. I¡¯m only attached to you, so you can trust me,¡± she said, placing her hand over her heart and bowing her head slightly.

    ¡°Ah, I see. You want me to know that you''re not spying on me for my father, is that it?¡± Demi asked with a raised eyebrow. ¡°Is that what you¡¯d like me to understand?¡±

    ¡°Bingo,¡± Monday said with an angelic smile. ¡°St. Muirgein¡¯s is outside your father¡¯s sphere of influence, so you should be free to exercise a lot of autonomy in your school life.¡± She tilted her head slightly to the side and laid two fingers against her cheek. ¡°So, shall we go, Lady Serraffield? I¡¯m sure you don''t want to be late for your first day of school. That would be terribly embarrassing.¡±

    She giggled again and Demi could not be absolutely certain that the giggle was as vague and harmless as it seemed to be. It was somehow worrisome.

    ¡ª

    Santa Maria Nascente ¡ª the Church of the Nativity of St. Mary ¡ª sat in the middle of its own special precinct, the Cradle of St. Mary, which included the grounds of the cathedral itself, the abbey, the monastery, the nearby churchyard and crypt, the apostolic barracks, the archbishop¡¯s palatial residence, and a broad, beautiful square. The Nativity of St. Mary was one of the seven great cathedrals of the Apostolic Church, and so it was afforded special privileges that lesser churches did not enjoy. The entire district was bounded by a high stone wall, and there were tall iron gates at every point of egress. These were ordinarily kept open, Lumina had told her. They were closed only in the event of an emergency. If they were closed, the district was like a fortress. The only way in or out was with an escort from the apostolic guard.

    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    The gates were open today, fortunately. Demi didn''t have the time to hunt up a guard to give her permission to leave ¡ª although there were several of them loitering around in the early morning sun around the edges of the square. Monday led the way lackadaisically, floating along and giving random information about the buildings they passed, acting as if she were a tour guide that was paid by the hour.

    St. Mary¡¯s Cradle was a very small district, not a true ward of the City, and once they passed through one of the iron gates they were no longer in territory controlled by the archbishop.

    They had passed into Asphodel, the ward ruled by Lady Lunamaia. The Cradle was an ecclesiastic precinct, and so it was comparatively quiet, but Asphodel was busy, alive with activity. Monday and Demi were soon weaving through crowds as they passed subway terminals and train platforms thick with commuters desperate to be on their way. Monday, however, seemed thoroughly uninterested in mass transit.

    ¡°Today is a special day!¡± she said with spacey enthusiasm. ¡°So we¡¯re walking almost the whole way!¡± she said. ¡°That way you can enjoy the beautiful scenery of Asphodel!¡±

    Given her late start, Demi wasn''t sure it was the best morning for sightseeing ¡ª but there was quite a lot to see, and Monday assured her that they would make it to school on time. Demi was soon wandering idly behind Monday, her eyes on the buildings that towered up around them, connected by high walkways, elevated streets, and a skeletal network of stairways, ladders, and fire escapes. Although it was morning, the high buildings threw much of the ground into shadow, so all the ornate street lamps were lit.

    It was strange how the character of the environment changed so swiftly when they crossed over a border line. St. Mary¡¯s Cradle was all ivory marble, huge and magnificent and flamboyant, dominated by the architecture of the cathedral. Asphodel was markedly different, with color schemes in green and gold and brown. The forlornly curving lines of art nouveau were an often repeated architectural refrain ¡ª on windows, doors, street signs ¡ª

    And there were flowers. There were flowers everywhere: in well kept beds that dotted the sidewalk, in flower boxes, climbing up the walls of buildings, even hawked at nearly every corner by a vast assortment of florists.

    The abundance of live flowers made everything beautiful, but it also felt fragile.

    As they walked through deep shadow thrown by a building that reared high into the sky, Demi cocked her head as she looked at the asters and heather blooming in a bed trimmed by wrought iron. They were in City Twilight, lit by the glow of green and golden lamps.

    ¡°How do all of these plants get enough light to bloom?¡± she wondered. ¡°It can¡¯t all be strangelight.¡±

    ¡°It''s artificial daylight,¡± Monday agreed. ¡°Almost all of the exterior lighting in Asphodel can switch between full spectrum daylight and ordinary street light and it does on a schedule to stimulate normal growth. There are plenty of places in Asphodel that receive normal sunlight, but flowers and vegetation are a part of the elementary character of Asphodel. The Midnight Duchesses have always wanted green growing things to be available for all to enjoy, even down here in the canyons.¡±

    ¡°Well, it is lovely,¡± Demi said.

    The areas that did not directly feature blooming flowers often had intricate floral motifs. Even the streets seemed to be named for plants. As she followed along behind Monday, Demi had the strange sense that she was back at the eaves of the Deep Wood. Everything had an organic shape, and buildings appeared to have grown up between massive tree trunks. It was all architecture, of course. Even the massive trees of the Deep Wood could not have supported the weight of the megalithic structures of Metropoly.

    And there was something else that reminded her of the wood. Asphodel was the first place in the City that had not smelled and tasted overwhelmingly of soot and exhaust. It did not smell fresh ¡ª not exactly ¡ª but at least it did not smell terrible.

    There were no cars on the streets. It was all foot traffic, bicycles, and mass transit.

    Demi was wandering along, taking in the sights of the ward when she suddenly realized that Monday was no longer with her. She stopped immediately and searched the crowds with a growing sense of trepidation. She had no idea where she was. Monday had taken her on a circuitous route, and Demi had only learned a little of the ward¡¯s geography the evening before.

    Just as she was beginning to panic, Monday appeared at her side again and handed over a warm pastry.

    ¡°It was impossible for me to ignore the rumbling of your tummy,¡± Monday said with a giggle. ¡°We don''t want your growling stomach to interrupt the beautiful and moving speech you¡¯re going to give to your adoring public.¡±

    Demi was hungry enough that she didn''t even dispute Monday¡¯s embroidered vision of future events. She simply accepted the pastry and munched away.

    ¡°Pain au chocolate,¡± Demi said blissfully as she devoured her pastry as daintily as could be managed.

    ¡°I¡¯m glad you liked it,¡± Monday said warmly. ¡°There are some wonderful bakeries along this street.¡± She turned her face forward. ¡°Now come along, Lady Serraffield! We don''t want to miss our trolley, otherwise there¡¯ll be a wait and we¡¯ll definitely be late for school,¡± she giggled again as she set off.

    Demi was not yet sure what to think of Monday. She had claimed not to be in the employ of the Serraffields, so that was something, but just because Monday Volkova wasn''t working for Tristan Serraffield did not mean that she was a safe person to share secrets with. Demi might have grown up outside the City, but she had not grown up entirely ignorant of its politics. Monday had said that St. Muirgein''s was outside her father¡¯s sphere of influence, but that only meant it was under the purview of another power. Since the school was located in Asphodel ward, that made Lady Lunamaia the most likely suspect. And Monday had not been particularly shy in her praise for the ward or its mistress.

    Monday¡¯s sponsor was likely the Midnight Duchess. Like Matthias Eisenreich, the current Lady Lunamaia seemed to have some unknown interest in Demi.

    Demi couldn''t say whether the interest of the Midnight Duchess was good or bad. Certainly, it was somewhat alarming to have powerful eyes watching her, but then again, it was always useful to have friends in high places.

    So long as they actually were friends.

    Still, Monday seemed nice enough, if slightly off-putting. She was obviously good at playing a featherbrain, but Demi doubted that she was empty-headed as she made herself out to be. Playing a silly, harmless featherbrain was a tactic that Demi often adopted herself, so she was acutely aware that Monday¡¯s smile did not tell the whole of her story.

 Canto 3 - The Fairy School 3

    Asphodel

    <hr>

    At the pace of Monday¡¯s idle, sedate stroll, they made the trolley stop just as the car was getting ready to pull away, and they both hand to scramble to get a place on it.  Fortunately, there was plenty of standing room.

    ¡°For the hill, the trolley is best, Lady Serraffield,¡± Monday said mildly.  ¡°If we tried to climb the whole way up to St. Muirgein''s, we¡¯d surely be dead by the time we made it to the top.¡±

    The trolley began resolutely making its way up the steep hill, clicking all the way.  Demi had the unsettling feeling that she was on a rollercoaster.  She gripped her hand loop a little more tightly.  Then she turned her thoughts to something that had been bothering her for some time.

    ¡°I understand the need for formality in certain circumstances, Miss Volkova,¡± Demi said, ¡°But you really don''t have to call me ¡®Lady Serraffield¡¯ absolutely all of the time.¡± She stopped suddenly as she came to a realization.  She could not help feeling and looking a bit ashen.  ¡°It''s not expected that I be called that at school, is it?  By students?  By professors?  Please tell me it''s not.¡±

    ¡°I''m afraid it is, Mitya,¡± the still smiling girl agreed pleasantly.  ¡°And I¡¯m afraid you¡¯ll just have to get used to it.  Even if you delivered a heroic, inspiring speech at the moment of your introduction, and moved the whole student body to tears with your earnest entreaties to call you ¡®just Demeter,¡¯ most everybody would still call you ¡®Lady Serraffield.¡¯  And the people who didn''t want to would be the ones you¡¯d be wise to watch most closely,¡± she said, raising a slender finger.  ¡°Best to be wary of social climbers, Mitya.¡±

    Demi felt somewhat called out by Monday¡¯s accurate prediction of her first course of action, which would have certainly been an attempt to ditch the honorific as it pertained to her school life.

    There¡¯s definitely something keen behind that smile, she thought.

    Her brows drew together as she tried to reason it all out.  ¡°Why wouldn''t people call me Demi or Demeter if I asked them?¡±

    She was honestly unsure why a heartfelt entreaty was destined to fail, as Monday suggested it would.

    Her new equerry fluttered her hands.  ¡°Oh, don''t let me keep you from making your speech about libert¨¦, ¨¦galit¨¦, sororit¨¦ if you''re set on it,¡± she said mildly.  ¡°Certainly, your fans will enjoy it, if nothing else.  They¡¯ll clasp their hands over their bosoms,¡± and here she clasped her own hands over her ample bosom, ¡°And say ¡®that¡¯s so like Lady Serraffield!  Such humility!¡¯¡±

    Then Monday giggled again, apparently thoroughly entertained by her own impressions.

    Demi was somewhat less entertained, likely because she was the butt of the joke.  ¡°What do you mean, ¡®my fans?¡¯  I don''t know anyone at St. Muirgein''s.  How can I possibly have fans?¡±

    She hoped it was just more of the flighty girl¡¯s hyperbole.

    But upsettingly, it did not seem to be.

    Like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat, Monday suddenly produced half a dozen magazines.  Demi was startled by this act of incredible prestidigitation, as Monday had seemingly pulled the magazines from nowhere.  Demi was more startled when she realized that she was on the cover of three of the magazines, and this drove her astonishment over the impressive display of sleight of hand out of her head.  The magazines that did not feature her as the cover girl seemed to instead feature speculative articles that listed her name on the cover in bold typeface.

    They were all girls¡¯ magazines, the sort that young teenagers and high schoolers read.  Demi was so flabbergasted by this sudden and unexpected blanket of coverage that she did not know what to say.

    (To be fair, the sort of magazines that she read most regularly were manga anthologies and Lolita bibles.  Otherwise, her mother had subscribed to dozens of magazines covering video games, as well as a wide variety of other otaku pastimes, including cosplay, dolls, and model building.   Even after her death, the magazine subscriptions had continued, and even now filled the shelves of the shuttered lab.  The long and the short of it was this: Demi was not particularly familiar with the kinds of magazines that Monday was brandishing like the spread tail of a peacock.  This made her sudden appearance on multiple magazine covers that much more impactful to her.  It felt very unreal.  This was a world that she had very little experience with, both by circumstance and by choice.  She hadn¡¯t even delved into it during her research into high school life and high school girls, having been content to immerse herself in the lives of fictional high school students, rather than engage with the extant examples provided by reality.

    Therefore, she was having a difficult time processing what Monday had revealed to her.)

    Fortunately, Monday was not quite so stupefied.

    ¡°You see, Mitya, even if you don''t know a soul at St. Muirgein¡¯s, the girls at St. Muirgein¡¯s know quite a lot about you,¡± she said with a flourish, adroitly tucking all of the magazines but one under her arm, and flipping the remaining magazine open so Demi could see for herself.

    ¡°The mysterious and elusive Lady Demeter Serraffield finally comes to the mother of all Cities!¡± Demi read aloud slowly.  ¡°Lady Demeter Serraffield will soon join the ranks of Metropoly¡¯s young and beautiful elite.  By law, the young mistress must be a resident of the City by her sixteenth birthday, or forfeit her title and position.  This magazine has received exclusive information that she will be attending St. Muirgein''s Above-the-Forest starting this autumn term.  She will be a legacy student at that institution, following her mother¡¯s distinguished record.  The young lady herself is something of a mystery, although it is known that she loves the out-of-doors.  Reared as a country aristocrat on a vast family estate, she has made few public forays into the City, and is little known among her peers.  This beautiful debutante¡¯s coming out is sure to be the event of the season.¡±

    Demi looked up blankly.

    ¡°Are they all like this?¡± she asked.  There was quite a bit more of the article, and it featured several candid pictures of her on the grounds of Forest Home and in High Sylvia, the small village near the estate.  There was even a picture of her dressed smartly in her Forest Girl¡¯s senior ranger uniform.

    It was somehow acutely embarrassing.

    ¡°Oh no,¡± Monday said, shaking her head, and Demi was momentarily relieved, until the other girl continued.  ¡°Some of them are much better than that.¡±  She gauged Demi¡¯s expression.  ¡°Much worse?¡± she wondered aloud thoughtfully.  ¡°Much something,¡± she decided at last.  ¡°The best ones speculate about your love life!¡±

    ¡°Why are people interested in this?¡± Demi wondered in confusion.

    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    ¡°Because Mitya is an authentic celebrity!  A real life princess!  At St. Muirgein''s, this will inevitably be the event of the year!  You¡¯re a beautiful and mysterious transfer student!  Everyone at school already loves you, and they¡¯ll no doubt be vying with one another to become your bosom friend.  You are as glamorous as a movie star,¡± Monday answered easily.    ¡°More even, because there are more movie stars than there are heirs to the Curia.¡±

    ¡°But I haven''t done anything to be admired for,¡± Demi protested.  ¡°I''ve only just arrived!¡±

    ¡°And already been made squire to one of the twelve peers,¡± Monday noted with a smile.  ¡°The ominous dragon who never takes on squires ¡ª the Iron Duke of the Iron Garden!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re well informed,¡± Demi said shrewdly.

    ¡°I¡¯m your equerry,¡± Monday pointed out.  ¡°I have to be well informed to be useful to you.¡±

    Demi sighed and decided to let the point go for the moment.  There were other things that were more immediately worrying at hand.

    ¡°I know that my rank guarantees some notoriety,¡± Demi said slowly, ¡°It¡¯s just, this is far beyond my expectations.  I¡¯m not sure how to feel about it.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s because my sweet and lovely Dimusha was raised in seclusion, like an adorable little nun,¡± Monday said decisively.  ¡°This is just how the City is.  The social pages of the teen magazines will follow everything you do, everyone you see, everything you wear.  They¡¯re hungry to show how royalty lives, because it captures people, it enchants them.  It enthralls them.  Everything that used to be private is now going to be public.  There¡¯s nothing you can do to avoid it, so it''s best to learn how to shape your publicity in your favor.¡±

    As suddenly as they had appeared, the magazines were gone.  Monday¡¯s sleight of hand skills were nothing short of astonishing.

    But Demi felt so heavily weighed down by all these new revelations that she did not have the energy for enthusiastic applause.

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure I¡¯m ready to spin absolutely everything I do,¡± Demi said tiredly.  ¡°That sounds exhausting.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll learn,¡± Monday predicted.  ¡°It''s sink or swim in the City.  Lucky for you, I am an excellent life guard.¡±

    ¡°Lucky for me,¡± Demi echoed with slightly less enthusiasm.

    ¡°You¡¯ll have your fans, whether you like it or not,¡± Monday said philosophically.  ¡°Both at St. Muirgein''s and in the City at large.  Millions of girls will idolize you.  There¡¯s nothing you can do about that.  You¡¯re a fairy tale princess come to life.  And it''s more than that too.  There¡¯s another reason people will be reluctant to call you by name rather than title.  The power that you will one day wield is legitimately terrifying,¡± she said.  ¡°The girls at school in the Uppercity all have well-to-do parents: businessmen, doctors, professors, officers.  They have had privileged and comfortable lives filled with all the luxuries that citizenship affords.  But you, Mitya, you are something different.  You are the heir of one lord and the squire to another.  You have rights to walk in the Curia of Lords.  St. Muirgein¡¯s is honored to have you.  You are our forest princess,¡± she said with another flourish of her hands, as if she were introducing Demi on stage.  Then she giggled again.  ¡°It''s very convenient for us that you appear to look and act the part of a princess.  The girls would be terribly disappointed otherwise ¡ª although I know from experience that they would get over it.¡±

    Demi frowned slightly and tilted her head to the side.  ¡°You told me to be wary of people who didn''t call me Lady Serraffield,¡± she pointed out.  ¡°And you''re definitely not calling me Lady Serraffield.¡±

    Demi wasn''t quite sure how she felt about the varied nicknames Monday was so keen on giving her.

    ¡°You will discover that I am an exception to nearly every rule,¡± Monday said as she dreamily drifted back and forth on her feet, as if she were being gently swept by the movement of an unseen sea.  ¡°I am sure you will find others,¡± she added.  ¡°Please call me ¡®Momon!¡¯¡±

    ¡°Ara,¡± Demi said, caught off guard, and slightly flushed.

    ¡°Ara ara,¡± Monday echoed mildly, a peaceful and radiant smile on her face.

    I have a feeling we could just go on with this indefinitely, Demi realized.

    She had entered into a potentially endless loop of ara aras.

    She was still adjusting to Monday¡¯s pace.  It was remarkable how quickly this girl moved from serious social advice to extremely silly, featherbrained behavior.

    But it¡¯s probably most awkward because it feels like looking in a mirror, Demi realized.

    Still, she wasn¡¯t quite ready for ¡®Momon.¡¯  She needed to mentally prepare herself.

    ¡°Are you sure I can''t just call you Monday?¡± she asked, shifting a little on her feet.

    Monday let out a dramatic sigh, and seemed to deflate utterly and Demi felt bad for having not indulged her.  She was about to fold to her new equerry¡¯s request when the other girl was suddenly as sunny as a daffodil again.

    ¡°If that''s how you¡¯d like to handle it, Mitya, that''s fine with me,¡± she said with a relaxed smile.  ¡°After all, I have the long future of our everlasting friendship to convince you to call me Momon,¡± she said, throwing her arms around Demi in a moving sisterly hug.

    Demi expected the hug to run its course, but Monday apparently had different ideas on what constituted the appropriate amount of time to hug a person that she''d just met, and Demi began to be uncomfortable as she turned her head from inside Monday¡¯s embrace and realized that a number of other school girls and commuters were watching them as if they were breaking news.

    ¡°Ah, Monday,¡± Demi began, mildly embarrassed. ¡°People are looking at us.¡±

    Monday giggled as she snuggled against Demi alarmingly, rubbing her cheek against the top of Demi¡¯s head.  ¡°Of course they''re looking at my lovely Dimusha.  It''s because she¡¯s a beautiful princess!¡±

    ¡°I really don''t think that¡¯s the reason,¡± Demi answered flatly.  During the course of the hug she had gotten alarmingly well acquainted with Monday¡¯s expansive chest.   It wasn¡¯t an unpleasant experience, by any means, but Demi could not help but feel that the other girl was leading her around by the nose.

    ¡°Well,¡± Monday sang out. ¡°What else would they be looking at?¡± she wondered aloud, snuggling Demi again.

    Being crushed into Monday¡¯s chest was one thing, but having her own self petted and patted was quite another.

    ¡°Ah, Monday, please be careful of where you''re touching me,¡± Demi said, squirming, he flush rising on her cheeks so that her ears burned.

    ¡°But I am being veeeeeeeery careful, Dimusha,¡± Monday giggled.

    Demi sighed.  It seemed like Monday had a catlike personality.  The more something squirmed and wriggled, the more she wanted to pat at it.  Getting more embarrassed was likely to spur Monday on.  The best thing to do was to play dead.

    And so Demi did just that.  She played dead, and went limp in Monday¡¯s arms.

    Monday Volkova had not been expecting such a tactic, and so they both almost went spilling over, right onto the floor of the trolley.  Fortunately, Monday managed to catch a hand loop, and Demi fell back over her arm, executing a perfect swoon.

    Together they made the sort of scene that might have been a key panel in a yuri manga.   This development was enough to make even Monday mildly embarrassed, because she had been caught so off guard.

    After a moment, Demi fluttered her eyelids, her lashes thick and dark, and drew her hand to her mouth, saying. ¡°I¡¯m terribly sorry, Monday.  I guess I¡¯m feeling a little faint this morning.¡±  Then with practiced ease, she shifted her weight and easily extricated herself, rolling out of Monday¡¯s arms.  As a matter of precaution, she moved a comfortable step away, just out of the range of Monday¡¯s roaming hands.

    If the other girls on the trolley hadn¡¯t been looking at them before, they certainly were now, but Demi had resolved to herself that it was an acceptable sacrifice of dignity.

    Monday had been so startled enough by this turn of events that she didn''t react immediately, but simply hung there frozen.  She didn¡¯t remain frozen for long, however and quickly recovered her balance and her mild, comfortable smile.  As she did, she began to giggle.

    ¡°Mitya is very wily,¡± she said in admiration.  ¡°I like that.¡±

 Canto 3 - The Fairy School 4

    through shilouette gate

    <hr>

    From street level, the school appeared rather nondescript.  There was a tall stone wall ¡ª perhaps twelve feet tall ¡ª with an additional green metalwork fence atop it.  Although Demi could see a large egress quite a bit further up the street ¡ª likely the main entrance ¡ª Monday led her through a little side gate, which she unlocked with a key from her person.

    Going through the little gate was like stepping through an enchanted portal into a strange, new world.  Once one passed through the wall, there was a short flight of stairs down, because the school grounds were lower than the street, and gently sloped away, downhill, as one went deeper into them, deeper into the mystery of the campus.

    And it was a mystery.

    While the street on the other side of the wall was pleasantly landscaped, with flowers in beds and small, well groomed trees, it was still a street in Metropoly, a city street in a densely packed urban area where buildings reared high into the thin sky and walkways crissed and crossed far above.  Buildings were piled on buildings here, as they were everywhere in the City.  Asphodel was refreshing in its own way, but it was still the City.  It was asphalt and concrete and brick and stone and steel and glass and iron.

    In the City, the City seemed the whole of the world, as if nothing at all existed outside of it.  All other places seemed to fall away into nonexistence.  There was only the City.  It was every where and every thing.

    But the grounds of the School were something else.

    When she passed through the gate, she knew.

    Here, the City did not matter at all.  On the grounds of the School, the School was the whole of the world, and even the City fell away, leaving nothing but trees, a smell of the forest, and a feeling that one had passed into a secret kingdom.

    It was strange.  Here, in the middle of the City, was a park so densely forested that it might have been called a wood.  They had such a wooded park at Forest Home, along with a few managed timber areas and several preserves.  One expected squirrels and deer to be about.

    It was a good place.

    She liked it instinctively.

    There was a canopy of leaves overhead and a tangle of bumpy roots underfoot.  Once a body passed through the gate, there wasn''t a proper paved path any longer, likely because of all the gnarled roots.  Instead of a sidewalk, there were dozens of stepping stones: some of them irregular slabs of natural rock, others more regular geometric tiles.  The light came down dappled, and shed Dalmatian spots over the stone and the mossy ground.  The trees were so thick around them that it was difficult to get an impression of where things were.  There was the high stone wall behind them, and a gate at their backs.  The future lay ahead of them, through the wood.  The only option then, was to follow the path of stepping stones laid into the ground, like they were pearls or breadcrumbs.

    It almost ought to be yellow brick, oughtn''t it? Demi wondered to herself.  It seemed she was always off to meet some wizard or another, so she was always on the lookout for the telltale sign of yellow bricks.

    But these were not yellow bricks.

    Instead, the natural stones were all different sorts of rock: granite, shale, limestone, basalt, flint, sandstone, marble, and some other kinds she did not immediately recognize.  The tiles were similarly diverse in make and color and finish. Almost all of the stepping stones were carved with pictures: flowers and ferns and mushrooms, squirrels and rabbits and deer, nuts and leaves and pine cones.  The tiles were painted and glazed with similar subjects: very sylvan, all of them.

    But every once in a while, like a glimpse of the divine, one saw a fairy.

    That wasn''t to say one caught a glimpse of a real flesh and blood fairy, all spritely as it flitted between buttercups.   That would have been a bit beyond the pale, even for this place, which seemed to be perched at the marches of the marchen.

    Instead, there were wee clay people hidden among the roots of the trees like toadstools, small figures spun out of glass and left hanging like lights or chimes from the branches of trees, lithe little things shaped from metal and left to dance in the sunlight, or turn atop a weathervane.

    The fairies weren''t overwhelming in their presence.  Certainly, the regular motifs of the forest were prevalent, but the fairies lingered everywhere, like hidden secrets, and were particularly apparent if one had a keen eye and the curiosity to look for them.

    Demi was a born bird spotter and was insatiably curious.  She was particularly curious about curious things, and so she spotted quite a lot of fairies in a very short amount of time.

    But she found she did not really have much chance to look for them, because once they were through the gate, she discovered that she and Monday were no longer alone.

    Demi was relieved to see that it was a small delegation that had come to meet them ¡ª although faintly, one could hear the sounds of a crowd.  Demi hoped she was simply hearing the sounds of traffic on the other side of the wall.  She wasn''t quite ready to face the mass of her adoring public, if such they were.

    ¡°Aren''t you supposed to be in class?¡± Monday asked the assembled girls mildly. ¡°The final bell rang twenty minutes ago.¡±

    Demi blanched and checked her watch.  Monday was correct.  They were certainly late for school, although the self-proclaimed equerry didn''t seem particularly concerned about their tardiness.

    ¡°The free press is free to go wherever it likes!¡± declared one of the girls defiantly.

    The girl who had spoken was wearing an enormous cable knit sweater over what one could only guess was her ordinary uniform.  The sweater was cavernous, and hung like a tent, all the way down to her bruised knees.  Since it was being worn over a jacket and skirt and who-knew-what-else, the sweater was weirdly rumpled and lumpy, and it bulged in places where it really ought not have bulged.  Demi got the impression that there was more under that sweater than just a strange girl and her strange clothes, but she wasn''t yet ready to guess what made the stranger lumps and bumps.

    Behind the girl in the mysterious sweater was a tall, willowy girl with long, dark hair.  Her hair had much more volume than her delicate self, and she seemed almost to hide inside it, peeking out like a shy little lamb.

    But it was another person who spoke next, a delicately androgynous youth with wavy hair the color of tea with milk.  Their uniform was very sweetly arranged, and absolutely becoming, and there was a large silk ribbon tied loosely in a bow that was clipped into the milky colored hair at the temple.  This was a very pretty person, with a fresh face and very carefully done and yet understated makeup, which added to the person¡¯s overall appeal of innocence and cuteness.

    ¡°We¡¯ve been let out of guidance early,¡± milk tea said pleasantly. ¡°All three classes of the juniors have been let out, and I think some of the underclassmen too.  Everyone is excited to see Lady Serraffield in the flesh.¡±

    Since St. Muirgein¡¯s was a girl¡¯s school, it might have been reasonable to assume that this mysterious youth was a girl, but Demi could not say for sure.  Having heard milk tea speak, she was less sure that there was even a definite answer to the question at all.  The one thing she could say for certain was that milk tea was really hopelessly, almost fiendishly adorable.

    If that''s a boy, then all the girls I have ever met are in trouble, she thought to herself.

    Milk tea bowed slightly to Demi and introduced himself.  ¡°Good morning, Lady Serraffield.  I¡¯m Ichigo Omi,¡± he said, ¡°Thirteen hundred and twenty seventh heir to the grand shrine of Izumo.  My charm points are that I¡¯m a miko as well as a priestess in training, so be sure to come to me if you need blessings or cleansings, all right?  I also write for the literary magazine.  You can say ¡®he¡¯ or ¡®she.¡¯  I don''t mind either one.  I¡¯m a junior in the Star Class.  I¡¯m very pleased to make your acquaintance.¡±

    Demi bowed reflexively in response. ¡°Ah, the pleasure¡¯s all mine, Omi-san.¡±

    ¡°Ichigo is fine,¡± said the very pretty boy with an idle wave.

    ¡°So the whole of the junior class has been let out early?¡± Monday asked, seeming faintly perturbed.  ¡°I¡¯m glad I thought to come in through silhouette gate.¡±

    Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

    Ichigo fluttered her hands.  ¡°Oh, it''s a zoo at the main gate,¡± she agreed. ¡°But I know Momon.  That¡¯s why I¡¯m here and they''re there.¡±

    ¡°And I¡¯m here because I have a nose for news,¡± announced the sweater.  ¡°Nobody can keep me away from a good story.  I¡¯m attracted to a scoop like a magnet is attracted to another magnet.¡±

    There was a girl wearing a lace headband standing near the girl in the sweater, and she planted both of her hands on her hips.

    ¡°We¡¯re here because we followed Ichigo,¡± she said.  ¡°And you do know that magnets don''t just attract each other, right?  They also repel one another.¡±

    ¡°Of course I know that,¡± scoffed the sweater.  ¡°I repel boredom and boring things.¡±

    The headband rolled her eyes.  ¡°Well, I¡¯m not going to argue with that,¡± she said, then muttered. ¡°But I don''t think that''s all you repel.¡±

    The sweater ignored her and instead focused her attentions on Demi.

    ¡°I hope you''re ready to confess all your deepest and darkest secrets,¡± she said, swaying back and forth, as if she were a snake intent on hypnotizing a hapless mouse.  ¡°We¡¯re all ready to run a special edition: Lady Demeter Serraffield, Dark Queen of the Abyss.¡±

    But Demi was not the sort of mouse who was easily hypnotized.  She was the sort of mouse who rode motorcycles and fought off her enemies with a longsword.

    She might have also (unfortunately) been the sort of mouse who breaks into other people¡¯s houses and then wrecks them in the course of her own enjoyment.

    ¡°Ararara,¡± said Demi blankly. ¡°No, I¡¯m not really ready to do that.  And I sincerely hope you don''t call it that, whatever you write.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re not calling it that,¡± assured the headband, but the girl in the sweater continued to ignore her.

    ¡°I can make you talk,¡± the sweater said with an eerie giggle as she flailed her sleeves like ominous noodles.  ¡°I have ways of doing it.  So it¡¯d be better for you if you just answered my questions.¡±

    The lamb girl had begun to back away slowly when the lumpy sweater noticed that she was attempting to escape.

    ¡°Get back here, minion, unless you want to be cursed for your next twenty lifetimes!¡± the sweater demanded, flailing her noodly sleeves in apparent threat.

    The lamb girl bleated in distress and shrank back into the position she had occupied previously, behind the maniac in the lumpy sweater.  She hid even deeper inside her hair.

    The headband girl sighed, and slowly rolled up the paper she was carrying under her arm, and whacked the sweater girl on the head with it.

    ¡°Don¡¯t call Mariah a minion,¡± she said with a sigh.  ¡°We¡¯ve been over this, Mallory.  She¡¯s not your goon.  She¡¯s an editor at the newspaper, just like you are.¡±

    ¡°Ah yes, but I am the editor-in-chief!¡± the girl in the lumpy sweater ¡ª apparently Mallory ¡ª cried in triumph, and struck the pose of a confident dictator-for-life, one finger pointed straight up toward the blue heavens, as if the gods themselves had agreed to her dominion over lesser mortals.  Her majesty was only slightly undermined by her spontaneous bouts of creepy giggling.  ¡°That makes me the supreme boss, and you the obedient minions,¡± she declared.

    She hunched over and then giggled again, this time into her noodly sleeves.

    I wonder who reads this newspaper, Demi mused idly.  Vampires?  Werewolves? Monday?

    The girl in the headband rolled her eyes very expressively.

    ¡°Yes Mal, we¡¯re all very impressed,¡± she said dryly.  She looked apologetically at Demi.  ¡°My name¡¯s Rosamund.  I¡¯m sorry about Mal.  She gets this way when ¡ª ¡° she gave a halfhearted shrug, ¡°Who am I kidding? She¡¯s basically always like this.  We¡¯re the senior staff of the Muirgein Ze ¡ª ¡°

    ¡°The Bloodhex Dispatch!¡± interrupted the sweater with passion.  ¡°It is called the Bloodhex Dispatch because we dispatch our enemies with blood hexes!¡±

    Rosamund unrolled the paper and calmly held it in front of Mallory¡¯s face as she spoke to Demi.  ¡°We¡¯re the senior staff of the Muirgein Zephyr.  We publish new issues every other week.  I¡¯m news, Mariah is features, and Mallory is inexplicably the editor-in-chief.  In the interest of transparency, I feel like I ought to tell you that we¡¯re also the senior staff of the literary magazine.  Oh, and Mal does actually write the Bloodhex Dispatch.  It''s just a column in the newspaper.  She may actually try to put ¡®Lady Serraffield, Mistress of all Evils¡¯ in there, so heads up.¡±

    I can''t wait to read that, Demi thought.  I hope she captures my good side when she¡¯s writing about my abyssal soul.

    Besides Ichigo and the members of the newspaper staff, there was one other person waiting near the gate who had not yet spoken.  She was a very short girl with a mass of pink hair done up in high, curly pigtails.  There were mirrored, star shaped sunglasses perched in her head and she was wearing a large backpack that had been made in the shape of Popuppu, a popular golden retriever mascot character.  The backpack was really almost comically oversized, like it was meant for rough, backcountry camping, or a military deployment, rather than an ordinary school day.  The backpack was almost bigger than the girl.

    She must be stronger than she looks to be able to keep from falling over with all that on her back, Demi thought.

    ¡°I¡¯m Vivian,¡± she announced, ¡°And this is Luna,¡± she said, motioning to the backpack she was wearing.

    Well, that backpack is certainly big enough to have a name, Demi reflected.

    ¡°It''s nice to meet you, Vivian,¡± Demi said warmly, then paused briefly and added, ¡°And Luna.  I really like Popuppu too,¡± she admitted.  ¡°He has a really cute butt, doesn''t he?¡±

    This was a popular observation about Popuppu, and a regular topic of discussion among his fans.

    ¡°Yes,¡± Vivian agreed very seriously.  ¡°His booty is really cutie.¡±

    Demi managed to keep from bursting out laughing only with some difficulty, when she realized that Vivian had not meant it as a joke, but as a legitimate observation.

    She managed to turn her strangled laugh into a clearing of her throat and said with gravity, ¡°Wisely said.¡±

    Monday clapped her hands lightly.

    ¡°I am sure Lady Serraffield is very happy to meet all of you,¡± said Monday diplomatically, ¡°But right now, she does have an appointment to keep ¡ª ¡°

    ¡°The press will not be denied!¡± cried Mallory, moving to stand directly in their lane of travel.  ¡°We¡¯re here to ask the important questions that the public has a right to know,¡± she said as she leaned forward, staring at Demi through her hair in a very disconcerting way.

    ¡°Like, ¡®do you have a dog?¡¯¡± broke in Vivian.  She also leaned forward, balling her hands into fists as she stared in a similarly disconcerting way.  There was a gleam in her eye.  She was apparently desperately ready to hear the answer to her question.

    Demi, caught completely off guard by this most unexpected question, stammered, ¡°Yes, I mean, no, I suppose not.¡±  She blinked.  ¡°There are many dogs at Forest Home, and I am happy to count all of them as my dear friends, but I wasn''t allowed to bring any with me, or I suppose, they convinced me that the dogs would be happier in the country than they would be in the City.¡±

    ¡°What?!¡± asked Vivian in astonishment, ¡°Who told you that?¡± she demanded.  ¡°I bet that person has never talked to a dog before in their life.  The very best place for a dog to be is with their person.  It doesn''t matter whether it''s the City or not in the City.  Pups belong with their people,¡± she said decisively.

    ¡°Well, I¡¯m not sure dogs are allowed in the place where I¡¯m living,¡± Demi said with an awkward smile.

    She tried to imagine spaniels and terriers and collies scrambling over the towers of junk in the attic of the original chapterhouse.  And she¡¯d have to take them through the cathedral to walk them, since there was no way else to access the ground from the saint''s walk short of installing a dog elevator consisting of a large picnic basket and a rope.

    Vivian waved off her concern as if it didn''t matter in the least.

    ¡°Dogs are allowed everywhere,¡± she announced.  ¡°Some places just don''t know that dogs are allowed there yet.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s an interesting way of thinking about things,¡± Demi said diplomatically.

    The gloomy, sinister newspaper girl broke in, apparently aggravated.  ¡°That isn''t the question I was going to ask.  The public doesn''t care about whether or not she''s got a dog.¡±

    ¡°Of course they do!¡± insisted Vivian.  ¡°Everybody loves dogs.¡±

    ¡°They don''t,¡± insisted Mallory, stomping her foot.  ¡°Right now, I don''t like dogs, because you keep talking about them!¡±

    Vivian crossed her arms over her chest.  ¡°I would say that dogs don''t like you back, but you know what?  Dogs are better than that,¡± she said.  ¡°Dogs will like you even if you dislike them.  That''s how good dogs are.¡±

    Monday breezed in between the two quarreling girls effortlessly.

    ¡°Mallory, I promise that Lady Serraffield will give you an exclusive interview for the school newspaper, all right?¡± she asked mildly.  ¡°And Vivian, Lady Serraffield has already told me how interested she is in sitting in on the next meeting of the ¡®look at dogs¡¯ club.  Unfortunately, at the moment, she¡¯s late to see the headmistress.¡±

    Demi¡¯s eyes widened as Monday helpfully booked up her schedule without so much as a reassuring glance.  Both of the girls seemed satisfied by the promises, and unlikely to interdict their travel further.

    ¡°And Ichinichi just wanted to get a look at the princess, right?¡± asked Monday, turning to the priestess-in-training.

    ¡°Bingo!¡± Ichigo said with the flash of a smile.  ¡°I¡¯ve collected enough material for a first meeting.  I have so many ideas,¡± he said, his cheeks flushing rosily.  ¡°I can''t even wait.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m looking forward to it,¡± Monday said easily. ¡°Just try not to get caught writing in Professor Fisk¡¯s class again.  You¡¯ll have to do a Saturday detention for sure.¡±

    ¡°Yes ma¡¯am,¡± Ichigo chorused obediently, folding her hands in front of herself.

    Monday turned to Rosamund.

    ¡°Do you mind breaking the news to the girls at the main gate?  Just give us about fifteen minutes to get safely to the Air Castle,¡± she said.  ¡°They¡¯ll be disappointed they didn''t get to see her arrive, but just remind them that they¡¯ll have plenty of chances to see her this afternoon.¡±

    ¡°Will do,¡± said Rosamund with a salute.  Then she waved at Demi.  ¡°We¡¯ll be seeing you, Lady Serraffield.¡±

    The lamb girl behind her nodded her head silently, but was clearly not yet ready to emerge from her hair.

 Canto 3 - The Fairy School 5

    on approach to the enchanted castle

    <hr>

    And with those fond farewells, Demi found herself again on the path of breadcrumbs, with Monday as her guide.

    The way forward through the trees was picturesque and calming. This last effect was a good one for Demi, who was still struggling with nervousness and an elevated heart rate.

    It was a little alarming, being a princess.

    That was a new thought for her, one she had never considered before.

    Princesses needed people to lean on. That much was becoming very readily apparent. She had taken for granted the others she had leaned on in the past: her mother, Robert Grave, Alexis Bryce, counting them to be there for her always. But now they were gone, or otherwise occupied by their own responsibilities, and Demi had not yet found anyone that she trusted enough to lean on.

    (She thought ¡ª she hoped that Matthias Eisenreich might be one of those people. At the very least, she did not have to be anyone in particular for him, which was an enormous relief. Still, it wasn¡¯t as if he would be on hand for all of the challenges of her school life. She would have to manage her life at St. Muirgein¡¯s on her own.)

    She did not yet have a sense of who might be an ally in this place. She had taken her mentor¡¯s warning to heart. The Iron Duke had told her that the City was a dangerous place. It would not be wise to take others at face value, to trust that secrets would be kept and weaknesses guarded.

    (And she had certainly read enough manga to know that school girls could be very dangerous.)

    The princess would have to stand on her own two feet for a while, regardless of how exhausting that was. That meant a great deal of pretending.

    Most people don¡¯t want who you are, Demi thought to herself. They want who they imagine you to be.

    This was particularly true of princesses. Demi hadn''t really become a princess only lately, after all, although she was generally used to it as a part time occupation only.

    She studied the stones underfoot and the trees around her as she walked on thoughtfully.

    There were ironwork lamps along the path shaped like tall, slender flowers, and the lights in them glowed pale pink and lavender, mint, and blue, even in the morning sunlight. It made everything feel hushed and magical. The sound of chimes came from a long way off.

    Demi suspected that they were hung among the trees, and they sang whenever the wind rustled the leaves.

    ¡°Vivian is a senior in Sunflower Class. Rosamund and Mallory are seniors in Iris class. Mariah is a junior in Moon Class, with us,¡± explained Monday as they walked along the path. ¡°And of course, Ichigo told you that she¡¯s a junior, and in the Star Class. Each year has three classes of students. In our case, there¡¯s the Sun Class, the Moon Class, and the Star Class. There are roughly ninety students in each year, and so around three hundred and sixty in the upper school.¡±

    Demi smiled nervously. ¡°That''s a lot of students,¡± she observed. She was absolutely unused to being around more than a dozen girls at a time, and even those over a relatively broad range of ages.

    Monday laughed easily. ¡°The schools in the Lowercity regularly have two thousand students a year,¡± she said.

    I know, Demi thought to herself, looking up through the trees.

    The world was a very big place, and there were many people in it, even if one only counted high school students.

    It made her a little nervous to think about. She wasn''t used to big crowds of people. The idea that most of the junior class had apparently gathered at the front gate for the pleasure of seeing her was a little unnerving.

    Still, it was something that she was going to have to get used to. She was going to be a public figure for the rest of her life. She was going to have to become inured to public scrutiny.

    Still, a little at a time. Baby steps were all right for now. She had only just arrived in the City yesterday morning. She had time to get acclimated to things slowly. Of course they''d make a fuss over her at first because she was something new, but then things would settle down and she could find her place. She could learn the names of the girls in her class and hopefully make some friends. That would be a good start. She could worry about learning to manage her public image with time.

    And then she didn''t worry very much at all about her public image, because they had suddenly come out of the dense wood and into a very romantic park filled with arbors of roses that were blooming even now, in early autumn.

    The park was so lovely that it deserved a very proper study, but Demi had no time for it. That was because a very remarkable collection of buildings had come into view at the other end of the park, across a clear, babbling stream.

    ¡°Welcome to St. Muirgein¡¯s Above-the-Forest,¡± Monday said with a smile.

    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

    ¡°Did elves build this school?¡± Demi demanded, her eyes wide.

    It certainly seemed like the sort of place that might have been called the last homely house. The architecture was full of long sinuous lines of wood that curved into lovely, abstract shapes. These organic shapes were echoed in glass and metalwork. Everything was curvilinear, delicate, beautiful, languid. The architecture was perfectly art nouveau, and so it very naturally looked as if it had been built by elves. It was so fanciful ¡ª full of stained glass and the details of the living world: flowers, leaves, flowing water ¡ª that it seemed unreal. It seemed to be a place too beautiful to truly exist, the sort of place that might be ruled by a fairy queen.

    And yet, this was a high school for girls.

    There were several buildings arranged variously around the park, as well as delicate wooden bridges that evoked the same sense as the rest of the architecture, flowing over the water features like water themselves. The largest building was directly across the park. It rose four stories above the ground, but as it was set on the sloping hillside and was so far back from the outer wall, it had not been visible from the street.

    Rising above this building was a narrow tower, and that, indicated Monday, was where they were headed. Demi¡¯s shock at having come upon such a beautiful picture had finally subsided enough for her to close her mouth and stop gaping.

    ¡°It certainly seems as if elves built this place,¡± agreed Monday with a giggle. ¡°Now come along, Mitya. Your astonishment is absolutely adorable, but I have a feeling you¡¯d rather not be caught by the other students just yet. Rosie-rose won''t be able to stall them for long.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± Demi said with an awkward laugh. ¡°This really is a remarkable school, isn''t it?¡± she asked, turning around in place as she tried to look at everything at once. ¡°There are so many beautiful parks. I feel like I¡¯m at a botanical garden,¡± she paused, then clarified, ¡°Built by elves.¡±

    ¡°There are four formal gardens and two orchards on the campus,¡± Monday agreed, ticking them off on her fingers as they walked. ¡°The rose garden belongs to the seniors,¡± she said. ¡°The apple orchard belongs to the juniors. The cherry tree promenade belongs to the freshmen, and the sophomores have the water garden. You¡¯re free to visit any of the gardens you like, of course. In addition, the middle school has a hedge maze, and the lower school has a very pretty tulip garden. Each of the classes in the upper school helps with the upkeep and maintenance of their particular gardens, under the supervision of the gardening staff and the garden clubs, of course. Even the very young students get their hands dirty planting flower bulbs. It''s one of our enrichment activities. Oh, and the wooded parks belong to everyone.¡± She paused, then carefully added, ¡°With the exception of the Wanderwood. Only student council members and those on student council business are allowed in there.¡±

    It really was like a fairy land. Demi had been through an enchanted wood and was now on approach to a fairy palace. It was all a little surreal.

    ¡°There are two towers on the campus,¡± Monday added, gesturing toward the main building. ¡°The Air Castle is the domain of the headmistress. The Forest Castle belongs to the student council. You can see it just there,¡± Monday said, pointing.

    Far past the main building was the silhouette of a tower rising high above the trees. It was visible because the ground continued to gently slope downward the deeper into the campus one got, but then it seemed to rise again as it approached a high bounding curtain wall. The Forest Castle appeared to be on a high promontory, so that it rose to overlook even the curtain wall, gazing not only at the school, but at strange vistas beyond. The view from the Forest Castle was surely marvelous, but it seemed distant from the school¡¯s main buildings.

    ¡°Its a little ways off, isn''t it?¡± Demi wondered. ¡°Isn''t that a bit inconvenient?¡±

    Monday shrugged. ¡°You get used to it,¡± she said. ¡°The reason it''s so far out is because it''s at the edge of the school grounds, and at the edge of Asphodel itself. The Forest Castle overlooks the interior of the campus on one side and the Deep Wood on the other side.¡±

    Demi brightened immediately, suddenly acutely interested. ¡°Does it?¡± she asked. ¡°I¡¯d love to see that. I grew up next to the Deep Wood,¡± she explained, then paused. ¡°But you knew that already, I¡¯m sure.¡±

    ¡°Of course! Knowing all about my lovely Mitya is just part of my job,¡± answered Monday pleasantly. ¡°And I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll get the opportunity to see the view from the Forest Castle if you like. After all, you''re our wonderful new princess!¡±

    Demi¡¯s mouth flickered in an uncertain smile again, but Monday paid her no mind.

    As they crossed one of the humpbacked bridges, Demi leaned over to look in the water, because she thought she had spotted a vivid flash of color.

    She had. The stream was alive with beautiful koi fish: maple red, snowy white, black as ink. That made her feel at home, and gave her a sense of connection with her past. There was a great koi pond at Forest Home, and many fish besides in the other water features. Demi was very fond of both koi fish and goldfish, and could recognize and name several patterns and types.

    But there was no time to spare for koi fish just as there had been no time to spare for the rose garden. That was all right, she supposed. She would have plenty of time at the school to explore the gardens and feed the koi fish. She would be a student for the next two years, and possibly longer, based on the desires of her father. He had the right to keep her in secondary school until she came of age.

    At least this didn''t seem like a bad place. Even based on aesthetics alone it was extremely appealing, especially for a bereft girl who was feeling particularly homesick.

    Nurture the hungry heart, Demi thought, nurture the soul.

    Demi turned to look at Monday who seemed to be enjoying watching Demi enjoy the scenery.

    ¡°Jorunn is already here, isn¡¯t she?¡± she asked, looking over the rolling green of the campus. ¡°And Druid and Foxy? I know today will be busy, but I¡¯d like to see them after class, if possible.¡±

    Monday smiled her cat¡¯s smile and nodded once. ¡°Yes, Mitya, your beloved horses are here along with their trainer. I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll be able to make some time to see them.¡±

    Demi nodded and then Monday gracefully indicated the way before them with a courtly sweep of her arm.

    Demi smiled a bit at that in spite of herself and moved on as Monday directed. Monday continued on at her side as she did.

    It was relief to know that Jorunn and the horses had arrived safely and settled in. They¡¯d come to the City separately, and now they had become something like a lifeline, a slender thread connecting the past to the present. Now that Mr. Grave had been sent back, Jorunn, Druid, and Foxy were the only piece of home she yet retained. It would feel good to see them, to simply touch Foxy, stroking her face, or to shelter against Druid, enjoying his warmth. She hoped they weren¡¯t too disturbed in this new environment. Foxy had traveled a bit, but Druid had spent his entire life at Forest Home because he had been foaled there.

    Well, at least this place feels like a good place, she reflected. Hopefully it¡¯s at least a little bit familiar even though it¡¯s unfamiliar.

    This was a school in one forest and above another, after all.

 Canto 3 - The Fairy School 6

    the greatwitch of the forest

    <hr>

    When they entered the main building, Demi had to stop for a second time and turn slowly around and around, looking at everything.  The inside of the building was beautifully in keeping with the outside.  Everything was sea blue and spring green and there was golden wood everywhere.  All of the light fixtures were shaped like flowers, and the skylights overhead were stained glass that made it seem that they were still out under the green leaves and the arbors of roses.  The light coming through them reflected off the polished floor, making it seem as if there were grass underfoot.

    There was a broad stairway leading upwards in the main hallway, but there was another stairway too, a beautifully elegant spiral that seemed to have grown out of the building, turning and turning as it pushed its way upwards.  It was here that Monday led Demi, up six flights of curving, curving stairs, and into a beautiful waiting room with windows that overlooked the rose arbors and the stream full of plump koi fish.

    The room was decorated with awards and memorabilia, small curated collections of trophies and ribbons, certificates, medals, even an oar covered in signatures that seemed to have come from a rowing competition.

    And then there were the photographs.

    There were dozens and dozens of photographs on the wall of all different sizes and aspects, some in color, others in black and white, some sepia toned with age.  There were many class portraits, with rows of girls standing primly before the beautiful lines of the main building, or otherwise clustered in the various gardens.  And then there were more candid shots of students and faculty: small and mixed groups of girls hard at work or at play, on ponies, digging in the dirt, in classrooms.  There were small engraved plaques attached to each photograph¡¯s frame, and Demi read over dozens of unfamiliar and sometimes vaguely familiar names before she ran across one that she knew in her heart.

    And the face was also very familiar, younger certainly, but instantly recognizable.  Haiko Kobayashi had never really looked her age.  All of the other researchers had always agreed upon that.  There was another girl in the photograph who also seemed immediately recognizable.  It appeared to be the Duchess Lunamaia, but it couldn''t be.  It was likely her mother, although the resemblance was uncanny.

    ¡°Your mother was student council vice president during her time in school,¡± Monday said pleasantly.  She was a much better tour guide than Clarence Darby had been, despite the fact that she was much more handsy.

    ¡°Not president?¡± Demi asked, preoccupied.  It was hard to imagine her mother not being in charge of things.  She had run all of the organizations that she had engaged with, in Demi¡¯s experience: the lab, the estate at Forest Home, the guild, even Demi¡¯s Forest Girls¡¯ troop.  She was that sort of person: a competent one.

    Monday shook her head.  ¡°The current Duchess Lunamaia was president at the time,¡± she said.  ¡°As per the rules of this school.  Your mother served as her vice president.  They were the most celebrated student council this school has ever known, and established many of our current traditions.¡±

    This provoked Demi out of her reverie.

    ¡°The current Duchess Lunamaia?¡± Demi asked in confusion.  ¡°Surely you mean her mother.¡±

    The Lunamaia that Demi had met had appeared to be a young student, possibly a middle  schooler.

    Monday smiled vaguely.  ¡°The Duchess has a childish figure and a baby face,¡± she confided.  ¡°They''re both charm points for her.¡±

    Demi blinked as she looked again at the girls in the photographs.

    Indeed, Lunamaia was easy to identify.

    She looked identical to the girl Demi had met briefly in the room of stained glass.

    In fact, she looked so absolutely identical, it was a little unnerving.

    It was as if the duchess had not aged a day in over forty years.

    ¡°St. Muirgein¡¯s instituted the honor code at that time, as well as the honor council, the code of ethics, and the disciplinary committee,¡± Monday said.  ¡°They spearheaded the reorganization of the library, reformed the library committee, and went before the board of trustees to argue for changes to the school charter.  It was at this time that St. Muirgein¡¯s increased its scholarship spots from two to twelve, and secured four of the spots for students from the Lowercity.  It was revolutionary at the time, and the changes at St. Muirgein¡¯s caused several other schools to follow suit in reviewing their standards and traditions.  Your mother went on to attend university with the duchess, and they remained close friends ever afterwards.¡±

    Demi stared at the wall of framed photographs pensively.

    ¡°I wonder why she didn''t come to the funeral,¡± Demi said, touching the frame of one of the photos.  It was of her mother, looking impossibly young, sitting behind a huge amount of paperwork, with a rueful smile on her face.

    ¡°The great princes have many responsibilities,¡± Monday said wisely.  ¡°I¡¯m sure if she did not attend, it was not because she did not wish to be there.¡±

    Demi smiled tightly, and then nodded.

    ¡°Now, If you¡¯ll follow me, Mitya, the headmistress would like to see you,¡± Monday said.

    The office was up another flight of the spiral stairs and through a beautifully carved door.

    It was a large room, full of light because there were windows facing out on all directions, and the tower commanded an impressive view of a great deal of the campus.  It felt like being in a crow¡¯s nest, or a lookout tower.

    The carpet was dense and plush, with an abstract pattern of honeysuckle blossoms that had been fitted into fluid geometric curves.  The whole room was a beautiful aquamarine color, and the wood that was not painted was the color of golden honey.  There were framed illustrations of bees hung in between the wide windows, and a hexagonal honeycomb pattern was repeated in several places in the room.  The room itself was not round, but rather hexagonal.

    There was a great wooden desk in the middle of the room, but there was no headmistress behind it.

    Instead, there was a lady with silvery white hair looking out across the campus through one of the many windows.  She had her hands folded and clasped behind her back.

    She was tall and well built, and her silvery hair fell loose over her shoulders and hung so long she might have sat on it.  She was wearing a long, black dress  and she had a very elegant looking velvet jacket thrown over her shoulders as if it were a cloak.

    She did not immediately turn to look at them, but instead kept her eyes focused on what could be seen across the campus before her.

    She gave the impression that she had been waiting for quite some time and Demi could not help but feel chastised.

    Still, she thought that she would have probably made it to school on time had Monday not led her on several leisurely strolls.  She had made Demi feel as if there was no real hurry to get to school, despite the lateness of the hour, and so she had been lured into admiring  everything that interested her.

    Monday had only become vaguely concerned with punctuality once they stepped onto the campus.

    And yet, if Demi were being completely honest with herself, she knew it was no fault but her own that she was late to her first day of school.

    Monday hadn''t set her alarm forward a full hour, after all.

    When the headmistress did turn to look at them at last, Demi was struck by her elegance and beauty.  She was wearing glasses with small round golden rims, and both the sleeves and collar of her dress were detailed with intricate cobwebby lace.

    And she was carrying what was unmistakably a riding crop.

    I guess this lady is a horsewoman too.  I hope I''m not about to be flogged for being tardy, Demi thought absently.

    It seemed like it might be a credible threat.  The headmistress did not look like the sort of a person who suffered fools easily.  She looked very capable of dispensing hard guidance in the form of discipline.

    ¡°I¡¯m pleased to finally make your acquaintance, Lady Serraffield,¡± the headmistress said coolly, placing the riding crop under her arm so that she could offer her hand to Demi.

    Demi blanched slightly.  The word finally was well chosen.  She took the headmistress¡¯s hand and gave it a polite shake.

    ¡°The pleasure is mine, headmistress,¡± Demi answered politely.

    ¡°Please,¡± she said, indicating a carved wooden chair before her desk, ¡°Sit.¡±

    Demi sat as indicated, but she was surprised to see that Monday remained standing, despite the fact that there was another chair in front of the desk.

    The headmistress moved behind the desk and sat, laying the riding crop across a neat stack of paperwork as if it were a fountain pen.

    ¡°I hope you''re finding St. Muirgein¡¯s agreeable,¡± the headmistress said evenly.

    Demi smiled genuinely and said, ¡°I like it very much.  It''s really nothing like I expected, although I can''t really say what it is that I did expect.  It''s as if it''s come right out of a fairy story.¡±

    The headmistress smiled briefly, a flicker of her mouth.  The smile seemed honest, and not forced.

    ¡°This is a very special place,¡± the headmistress agreed.  ¡°It is our honor to be trusted with it and to enjoy the privilege of living and learning in this sacred space.¡±

    It does seem sacred, doesn¡¯t it? Demi thought to herself.

    It didn¡¯t feel sacred in the way that the cathedral felt sacred, full of the agony and ecstasy of organized religion.  This was an elder sacredness, one that could be smelled, and felt on the skin.

    Maybe it¡¯s because the Deep Wood is so close by, Demi thought.

    Surely if gods dwelt anywhere on this earth it was in the shadowed depths of the Deep Wood.

    This would be a good place, she thought: a good place for her, and a good place for Druid and Foxy.  They would be able to breathe here.

    ¡°That being said,¡± the headmistress concluded, ¡°We are pleased to receive you as a student, Lady Serraffield, and to welcome you as a legacy to St. Muirgein¡¯s-Above-the-Forest.  Your mother made remarkable contributions to the rich history of this school during her time as a student, and I am certain that you will make your own contributions given time.¡±  She frowned briefly as she said, ¡°We find ourselves in need of your leadership, so it¡¯s fortunate that you have elected to begin your studies with us, although certainly we would have been pleased to have you earlier.¡±

    Wait, Demi thought.  Something seems ¡ª

    But the headmistress continued.

    ¡°The girls will certainly be overjoyed to meet you, and I expect dealing with that will take the lion¡¯s share of the day.  You may take your first day as one of leisure, to become acquainted with the campus and the students,¡± the headmistress said.  ¡°I don''t expect you to begin your duties until tomorrow.¡±

    Demi blinked and thought about how to phrase the question that had immediately appeared under her tongue.

    ¡°And what duties are those?¡± she asked mildly.

    It was the headmistress¡¯s turn to blink, and then she very slowly shifted her piercing gaze to Monday.

    ¡°Miss Volkova, haven''t you told Lady Serraffield anything?¡± she demanded.

    ¡°Oh, I''ve told her lots and lots of things,¡± Monday disagreed pleasantly.

    The headmistress exhaled loudly through her nose, a sign of frustration and resignation.

    ¡°But nothing about her responsibilities here?¡± she verified, having seemingly already arrived at the answer to this question herself.  ¡°Nothing about her position?¡±

    ¡°A little about her position,¡± Monday said evenly, unperturbed by the headmistress¡¯s aggravation.  ¡°She¡¯s a very curious Alice, and I answered all of her questions as she asked them.  As for her responsibilities, some of them are self-evident, and of course wouldn''t escape a bright girl like Lady Serraffield.  As for the others, I thought it was best to leave that to you, being as you are the authority and all.¡±

    Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

    The headmistress sighed again and brought her fingertips to her temple briefly.  But then she schooled herself and put away her frustration, becoming cool and businesslike.

    ¡°Upon your entry into this school, you became, by right of your status as a hereditary aristocrat and heir to the Curia of Lords, the president of the student council, the ultimate student representative and authority,¡± she said.  ¡°So it is written in the school charter, and so it shall be.¡±  She gestured briefly to Monday.  ¡°It is for this reason that Miss Volkova has been assigned as your equerry with regards to your school life.  She will also serve as your vice president as you require it, and will answer any questions you may have about protocol and tradition.  Once you leave here, she will escort you to meet the other members of your student council.¡±

    The room became absolutely silent as Demi digested this rather large and completely unexpected piece of information.

    She managed to contain her desire to shout ¡®WHAT?!!?¡¯ in a frenzy of anxiety and distress, and instead channeled all of her dread into cool offense.

    ¡°Excuse me?¡± she asked.  ¡°What do you mean when you say I became student council president upon entry to the school?  I never agreed to any such thing.¡±

    The headmistress raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°You''re not required to agree to anything, Miss Serraffield,¡± she explained levelly. ¡°Or rather, I¡¯m afraid that you already have.  By applying to this school you implicitly agreed to shoulder this responsibility as the highest ranked heir to the Curia among the students.  Once we accepted your application, your position became final.  The day you began as a student would be the day you became St. Muirgein¡¯s new student council president.  You will retain this office until you graduate, or until a higher ranked heir to the Curia is accepted as a student.  In that circumstance, you will serve as vice president until the time you leave school.¡±

    Demi frowned and then said, ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but I can''t accept that.¡±

    It wasn''t only that suddenly being thrust into a leadership position would absolutely wreck her plans to try and learn to socialize normally with girls her age.  Baby steps would no longer be on the table.

    But beyond that, the idea of being appointed student council president because of the auspices of her birth, when she didn''t know a soul among the students apart from Monday and the girls she¡¯d met at the gate, felt very wrong to her.  It offended her sensibilities.

    This is just like that pigeon game, she thought tiredly.

    She knew that this distress at the idea of taking up a responsibility because she had been born to do it was hypocritical.  She could not but know that, having known she was an heir to the Curia for the whole of her life.  But that was something she couldn''t escape, the duty of service she owed in payment for her privileged life and remarkable education.

    She had hoped for something different in her school life.  She had hoped for a place where she was not required to be a lovely showpiece at all times, shouldering the worries and responsibilities that came with any position of notoriety and power.  It wasn¡¯t as if she disliked being a leader.  On the contrary, she was most comfortable in a position of leadership, particularly if no other suitably qualified people presented themselves.  She had to see to every detail herself, or otherwise be dissatisfied.

    It wasn''t as if she rebelled at the idea of being the student council president in principle.  It was something that she might have sought out for herself and enjoyed.  But if she had decided to run for student council while she was a student, she wanted it to be because it was the path that she chose for herself, the office that others elected her to because they thought she would do a good job and serve well.

    She strongly disliked the idea that she was a leader who was being forced onto the other students without their consultation.

    ¡°Did you hear that?¡± Monday asked curiously.  ¡°Mitya can''t accept that!  Isn''t she cool?  I think the other students are going to love her personal integrity.  Such a charm point!¡±

    The headmistress shot a look at Monday that clearly indicated that she ought to be silent, which the other girl accepted without apparent worry.  Then the headmistress turned her attention back to Demi.

    ¡°Your time as a student at this school will be brief.  That is true of high schools everywhere, and it has been for long, long years.  Despite the brevity of your high school experience, these years are important as they shape you into the person you will be for the rest of your life,¡± she said seriously.  ¡°You will make friends and enemies here.  You will learn a great deal, and not just from the professors and instructors.  You will learn from your classmates, and your teammates, and your rivals.  You will make friends here that will last the rest of your life.  Not all times will be good,¡± she cautioned.  ¡°Some times will be absolutely terrible, and your heart will break more than once, but the time you have at school is precious, and it should not be squandered.¡±

    Demi pressed her lips together hard, and they became a thin line.  She remained relatively emotionless, listening, because the headmistress clearly had more to say.

    ¡°High school changes students.  It changes them as they grow and learn, as they move toward becoming the people they wish to be.  But it isn''t only school that changes students.  Students also have a profound effect on their environment.  They have the ability to change and influence the systems of their own education from the inside.  That is the essence of the student council system at St. Muirgein¡¯s which has been adopted widely among the other educational institutions in the Six Schools Alliance.¡±  The headmistress paused and then affixed Demi with a dark eyed stare.  ¡°You have been given a remarkable privilege and opportunity,¡± she said.

    ¡°It''s not that I don''t appreciate the importance of my time here,¡± Demi answered carefully.  ¡°It¡¯s not that I don''t appreciate the importance of student leadership.  On the contrary,¡± she said seriously, ¡°It is because I understand the importance of the position of student council president that I must refuse an appointment.¡±

    ¡°This place is a sanctuary,¡± the headmistress said passionately, throwing her arm out to the side, the riding crop cutting such an arc through the air that it could be heard, ¡°And it requires protection.  You were born with the power to protect this place.  You must learn to exercise it whether you want to or not, whether it pleases you or not, or more people besides you will be hurt.¡±

    She stared at Demi hard and then asked a demanding question,

    ¡°Who is Demeter Serraffield?¡±

    The question was heavy, and hung in the air in silence for a long moment before the headmistress continued.

    ¡°What will your legacy be?¡± she asked.  ¡°Who will you choose to be?  What are your values?  What is it that you want to leave here after you''ve graduated?¡±

    Each question was hard and difficult and utterly without mercy.

    These were not questions that Demi felt that she could answer.  She hadn¡¯t prepared for this.  She hadn¡¯t prepared for it at all.

    She felt a little like crying, although she knew that she could not do such a thing.  Fortunately, Monday seemed to sense her distress and interceded on her behalf.

    ¡°Ah, baba, don''t put so much pressure on Mitya,¡± Monday chided.  ¡°She¡¯ll faint and we¡¯ll have to call paramedics, and then the whole school will be in an uproar.¡±

    ¡°Miss Volkova!¡± the headmistress said sharply, striking her desk with the riding crop.  ¡°I have told you countless times.  You will not be overly familiar with me during school hours, or when you are performing your duties as council attach¨¦.¡±

    Monday made a flowy, undulating movement with her arms.  It seemed as if she were doing a strange interpretive dance.

    ¡°Baba, Mitya is going to think you''re an old crone of a tyrant!  Why not be a sweet and lovely grandmama who makes beautiful pies and dispenses folk wisdom?¡± she asked. ¡°Vinegar and honey and all that.  The warm sun and the cold wind.¡±

    Monday¡¯s strange and funny display did a great deal to break the tension in Demi¡¯s heart and to calm her.  She appreciated that, whether it had been intentional or not.

    But she suspected it had been intentional.  Monday was very keen.

    ¡°Miss Volkova, I am perfectly capable of managing my own image as headmistress without your advice,¡± the headmistress said crisply, her own temper having cooled a bit because of Monday¡¯s seaweed-like dance.  The headmistress adjusted the small glasses at the end of her nose and took a deep breath before speaking again.  ¡°Miss Serraffield is not a child.  She must be ready to embrace her responsibilities,¡± she said evenly.  ¡°There is no time left for a delay, whatever her feelings.  They are upon her.  They are upon us all.¡±

    So the headmistress is Monday¡¯s grandmother, Demi thought to herself, looking at the both of them.  That''s probably why she was assigned as my equerry.  I have to expect that at the very least, Monday will give reports on my activities to the headmistress, if no one else, although at the moment it seems as if they may be at odds.  Monday seems a little stubborn and independent, not fully in line.  Of course, that could be a show put on for my benefit, to increase my trust in Monday and to encourage me to take her into my confidence.  I won''t know until I get a better feel for things.

    Both the headmistress and Monday had seemed sincere in their positions, but Demi didn¡¯t know them well enough to say for certain.

    ¡°I don''t think Mitya is lacking in responsibility,¡± Monday advised.  ¡°I think her sense of justice is being challenged.¡±

    The headmistress paused thoughtfully and looked at Demi intently.

    ¡°Please explain yourself,¡± she said.

    Demi¡¯s mouth thinned for a moment, because she had been put on the spot yet again, but she resolved to handle it as best she could.  She felt she could answer this question.  She could understand it and articulate her thoughts on it.

    ¡°I don''t believe it''s appropriate for a student to be appointed student council president with no due process,¡± she said. ¡°I don''t object to the responsibility.  I am prepared to act as my responsibilities dictate as an heir to the Curia of Lords, and to serve as student council president if I am elected by the student body.  I am not prepared to serve without an election.¡±

    Monday tittered, but then spoke with what seemed to be genuine compassion.  ¡°Oh Dimusha, surely you know that at the high school level, all elections are merely popularity contests, don''t you?  It''s not the most suitable or capable person who is elected to the job, it''s the person who¡¯s most idolized.  As far as election according to popularity goes, it extends much further than high school elections.  Just look at the representatives in the Lower Thing.¡± She paused, ¡°And surely by now you have realized that you are St. Muirgein¡¯s number one idol.  You''d win any election we staged unanimously, probably, or very nearly unanimously.  There¡¯s no accounting for some people,¡± she added mysteriously, with another undulating wave of her hands.

    Demi frowned.  ¡°Be that as it may, I am not going to accept an appointment.   Even taking into account the weaknesses of representative democracy, I won''t accept oligarchy.  If you want me to be the president, then let me run in an election, even if you think it is a farce.¡±

    ¡°That''s very charming, coming from a hereditary aristocrat of the Curia of Lords,¡± the headmistress said bitterly, with a grim smile.

    Inwardly, Demi winced.  She had been called out on her hypocrisy.

    Whatever egalitarian dreams she nurtured in her bosom, she was still an aristocrat.  Her position came with power, but it was up to her to shoulder her responsibilities.

    She had hoped, she had been wishing ¡ª

    She had been wishing for a little time, a small place, a place where she didn¡¯t have to constantly be Lady Serraffield, where she might be Demi, where she might be an ordinary student and make friends and join clubs and do the things girls did when they were in school.

    But that time had passed.  It had passed before it had ever begun.  That made her heart mourn, even if she felt petty in the mourning, feeling selfish and childish and immature.

    It had been such a little wish.

    But she was not allowed to mourn.

    The headmistress leaned across her desk and pressed her lips together, and Demi¡¯s hackles raised.

    This was an intimidation tactic, and Demi braced herself.

    ¡°I don''t believe you understand your position, Miss Serraffield.  You had best relax your bargaining posture.  There will be no bargaining,¡± the headmistress said with frigid authority.  ¡°You are the new student council president, regardless of your feelings on the matter.  That is written into the charter of the school, and you have no ability to oppose it.  You are not the Countess Serraffield yet.  At the moment, your title is accorded to you as a courtesy.  You are a girl in school and you will abide by the school rules.¡±

    You can''t force me to do as you like, Demi thought grimly.  I am not so easily handled.

    She could be as stubborn as a concrete donkey when she wanted to be.  She was ready to dig in her feet.

    But then the headmistress felled her with a single sentence.

    ¡°You are perfectly within your rights to be the student council president in nothing but name,¡± the headmistress observed idly.  ¡°As your equerry, Monday will carry out your duties as well as her own.  We have certainly had presidents who enjoyed themselves at the expense of the school.  The students will likely continue to love and adore you, but they will know that you have ignored your responsibilities in favor of enjoying the privileges of your position.  Beyond that, you will know,¡± she said, ¡°You will know that you take, and give nothing in return.¡±

    Inside of her shoes, Demi¡¯s toes curled, and she pressed her nails against her palms.  The headmistress had read her very well, and flipped her own sense of justice over on top of her.   It was heavy, and that heaviness was painful.  Demi had no ability to deny her responsibilities.  She would not be able to live with herself if she held the position of student council president and ignored her duties.  She could not foist her troubles on Monday, no matter how unasked for they were, no matter how amiable her equerry appeared to be.

    Demi sighed.  She had been cornered.  She had been forced to submit.  She was used to having her arm twisted.

    Currently, she almost felt as if she were the one twisting it her ownself.

    ¡°If you think the charter is unjust, then the way to change it is by acting as the student council president,¡± Monday pointed out easily.  ¡°You''re the only one with the authority to raise issues before the board of trustees, although you won''t have an opportunity to do so until January,¡± she said.

    Demi had had the stick, and now this was the carrot.  Even if Monday and her grandmother were not working in perfect concert with one another, the result was the same, and easy for Demi to perceive.

    But just because she could perceive it didn''t mean she could do anything about it.  To refuse her duties would be to compromise her core values.

    Demi could not do that.  The idea made her feel anxious and sick to her stomach.

    ¡°All right,¡± Demi said slowly.  ¡°I accept.  But please understand that I will begin working at my earliest opportunity to have these rules changed.¡±

    The headmistress nodded once, apparently satisfied.

    ¡°We all have our own crusades don''t we?¡± she asked indulgently. ¡°Particularly when we are young.  I wish you well, Miss Serraffield,¡± she said, rising from her seat.  ¡°Monday will show you to the Green House and you can meet the other girls you will be working with on the council.¡±

    Demi sighed again, feeling disgruntled, but then very carefully put her displeasure away.  She could not appear ungrateful or uncaring to the people who were now her responsibility.  She had to contain her discomfort.  To do otherwise would be unseemly.

    And it wasn¡¯t just that.

    There had been the look she had seen in the headmistress¡¯s eyes when the woman had furiously declared,

    This place is a sanctuary and it requires protection.

    That hadn¡¯t been a bad look.  Even though the lady had finally resorted to strong arm tactics, Demi sensed that she had not done so out of spite or out of malice, but likely out of desperation.  What she wanted most was to protect the place that was precious to her, and to do that, she had decided that she needed Demi¡¯s help, one way or another.

    This place was wonderful.  Demi had never seen anything like it, and she had seen many spectacles of wealth and grandeur.

    But despite its serene majesty, it was fragile.  She did not doubt for a moment that it needed protecting.

    In this world, the things that were genuinely good needed protecting.

    That was a sentiment that Demi could understand.

    She had only just come to this place, and she also wanted to protect it.

    She resolved to do her best to do just that.

    She hadn¡¯t resolved to make the best of a bad situation.  The situation was neither bad nor good.  It was simply a situation.

    She just had to find the way forward, to find her own way to be student council president while remaining herself.

    She would do it.

 Canto 3 - The Fairy School 7

    those waiting behind the door

    <hr>

    As Demi rose from her seat, her audience with the headmistress concluded, Monday appeared at her side with a neatly folded bundle in her arms.

    It was a cloak.

    Cloaks were one of the privileges of the student council.  Demi had seen them in numerous school photos in the room below, but had never imagined that she would wear one herself, let alone on her first day of school.

    At some point during Demi¡¯s heated conversation with the headmistress, Monday had slipped away and donned her own cloak, so she now also looked like a proper authority figure.

    It felt a bit like a coronation as Monday spun the cape theatrically and settled it over Demi¡¯s shoulders.  Once it was on, Monday helped her adjust it and pin it back, so that both of her arms were free and unrestricted.

    It was a beautiful cloak, and Demi could not help but recognize that hers was different from Monday¡¯s, and in fact different from the other cloaks she had seen in the photographs.  The outside of the cloaks were a deep emerald green, but the lining of cloaks was different from cloak to cloak.

    Butterflies, Demi thought to herself.  Butterflies and moths.

    Her own cloak was cut in the shape of a Luna moth, including the trailing tail.  The lining matched the calm sea green coloration of the moth, eye spots and all.

    Monday¡¯s cloak was cut differently, and had a lining in magenta and gold.  She was the rosy maple moth, the smallest of the silk moths, gorgeous and radiant in their color.

    Each member of the student council had their own associated moth or butterfly, Demi would learn, and these assignments were decided based on divinations done in a traditional ceremony.  Because of the circumstances of Demi¡¯s upbringing in the country, she had not been present at her own ceremony.

    And yet, it fit.

    Literally and figuratively.

    The cloak fit very well, and beyond that, it fit her sensibilities, as if it had been made expressly for her.

    (It had been, naturally.)

    She felt comfortable in it.

    Somehow, the weight of being student council president seemed somehow less just from having donned her cloak of office.

    The headmistress had overseen the ceremonial presentation of the cloak, and when she saw that Demi had smiled in spite of herself the moment that the cloak had been swept over her shoulders, she had apparently been satisfied.

    With the presentation finished, and Demi having formally accepted her new position as president, the headmistress released them.

    Demi was relieved to finally be done with the fight over her status at the school.

    Like the director, the headmistress had an intense personality.

    She followed Monday down the stairs.

    Based on the headmistress¡¯s unequivocal orders, Demi thought that she would surely be pressed into immediate service as student council president, but once they were outside of the hexagonal office, Monday made it clear that she apparently had other plans.

    ¡°Before we do anything else, we¡¯re going to introduce you to your home class ¡ª our class ¡ª Moon Class,¡± Monday explained, her bosom swelling with pride as she stood a little straighter.

    That her bosom could swell beyond its already gravity generating mass was impressive, and Demi could not help but admire it.  This phenomenon seemed to be the sort of thing one ought to salute, as if it were a flag.  At the very least it deserved polite applause.  The council of Demi were currently engaged in either saluting or applauding the majesty of Monday¡¯s bosom.  One of them had even begun by clapping and then saluted.

    Demi somehow managed to keep from doing either, but it went down to the wire.

    Demi believed quite strongly that a person ought to admire all that was admirable in the world ¡ª freely, and with gusto ¡ª but she was also aware that the Lady Serraffield who was required as the new student council president was probably not a person who applauded breasts, no matter how remarkable they were.

    Monday continued on, oblivious to the tableau unfolding inside Demi¡¯s mind,  ¡°After you¡¯ve visited with Moon Class, I¡¯ll take you to the Forest Castle so you can meet the other members of the student council.¡±

    This proclamation brought Demi back to her senses and she paused, thinking of how to reply.

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t want to disturb their lessons.  The students, I mean,¡± Demi began hesitantly.

    That much was true.  She did want to meet the other girls in her class, if only for the brief paradise of normalcy in what had otherwise been an excessively abnormal day.

    But she didn¡¯t want to interrupt class and make a spectacle of her arrival.

    It was more than an hour past the morning bell.  Surely classes were now in session, even taking into account the crowd at the gates that she had heard, but not witnessed.

    But Monday was apparently entirely unworried.

    ¡°Today is going to be absolute pandemonium regardless of your actions,¡± she observed idly.  ¡°You couldn¡¯t really do much to influence this storm of chaos even if you wanted to, Mitya,¡± she said sympathetically, with a gentle pat on the back. ¡°So best not to worry about it, all right?¡±  Monday then shrugged her shoulders fluidly.  ¡°All of the girls of the upper school want veeeery much to catch a glimpse of you.  I¡¯m sure that¡¯s why so many were let out of class early.¡±  She tilted her head to the side and her mouth curved into a mysterious smile.  ¡°But I¡¯m sure that the girls of Moon Class have made their way back to their classroom by this point, because they¡¯ll know that being in class will give them their best chance of seeing you: Up. Close. And. Personal.¡± She giggled her strange giggle as a way of punctuation.  ¡°And of course, it is possible that the faculty will have worked their own magic to rein in the enthusiasm of everyone else.  In that case, most of the students will have already returned to their own classrooms, even if they don¡¯t believe they can count on the good fortune of meeting you there.  If not, well, maybe then it will be punishment time,¡± she trilled with another very ominous smile.  ¡°This is a school, after all.  Good little girls should be in their classes,¡± Monday opined.   Then she raised a single finger and closed one of her eyes.  ¡°But better safe than sorry, ufufufu.  I¡¯ll reconnoiter the hallway a bit first just to be on the safe side, so that we don¡¯t run headlong into a mob of your most ardent fans.¡±

    And so, Monday reconnoitered the hallways of the main building while Demi remained safely sequestered inside the Air Castle, looking at photographs and memorabilia.

    Quite miraculously, Monday¡¯s wishful thinking was borne out.  When the equerry returned to escort her princess to that most fabled of destinations, Moon Class, Demi was relieved to find that they were not accosted by mobs of girls eager to meet their new transfer-student-council-president.

    There might have been a few intrepid souls who were still prowling around the halls in search of a glimpse of their incoming princess-president, but if there were, they kept out of sight.

    It followed that whoever was still at large would probably keep their distance from Monday, who despite her dubious personality was apparently a respected authority figure ¡ª albeit a questionable one.  Even if some students remained out and about, loitering around classrooms while classes were at least ostensibly in session was likely not encouraged.

    It was possible that some girls were as yet on the lam ¡ª Mallory, dictator-for-life of the Bloodhex Dispatch was one such rebel who came to mind ¡ª but if they didn¡¯t have a proper excuse for skipping out on class, these young ladies were now apparently in danger of disciplinary action, executed by Monday Volkova herself.

    Demi could not help but reflect on the fact that Monday¡¯s interest in enforcing school rules seemed entirely arbitrary, and apparently depended on how she was feeling at any given time.

    ¡°Fufufu~ if we find any naughty girls who are playing hooky, I¡¯ll puuuuunish them,¡± she giggled, and wriggled her fingers in a very ominous way.

    To Demi, Monday¡¯s words had the ring of a very credible threat.  Monday was a suspicious person who probably had very suspicious ideas about what amounted to fair punishment.

    Demi got a chill down her spine just thinking of it, and briefly wiggled as she walked, trying to get rid of it.

    That¡¯s my newtype flash warning me of danger, she decided, glancing sidelong at Monday, who still had a serene smile on her face.  She was now humming a song whose lyrics Demi could not even begin to imagine.

    They probably involved punishment.

    Demi had zero desire to end up on the wrong side of the rules relative to Monday and find herself in a punishment scenario.

    Demi suspected that the students who did remain at large apparently thought likewise regarding Monday¡¯s unambiguously voiced threats, and had made themselves scarce for this exact reason.

    I need to get the sense of this place as soon as I can, Demi reflected.  I don¡¯t want to accidentally break a rule and find myself in detention.  She glanced at Monday again, who was still cheerfully humming, and wriggling her fingers from time to time in sync with the song.

    Or worse, she amended.

    Demi was keenly aware of rules.   It didn¡¯t matter what the rules were, or what the situation was.  If there were rules that governed a particular time or place, then she would suss them out and learn them back to front, upside down and inside out.  It was important to have an awareness of rules.

    Demi always made it a priority to learn the rules of any new situation she found herself in.

    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

    ¡ª but not because she was interested in following them.

    Demi was deeply conscious of rules so that she could determine which rules she could break with impunity.  In the court of justice that was bound to reign in any institution, most particularly in a school, Demi was ¡ª essentially ¡ª a defense attorney, rather than a prosecutor.  She was a rules lawyer par excellence. To be wholly transparent, she was most commonly a defense attorney engaged in her own defense, although she was certainly willing to act on another¡¯s behalf if they had unwittingly bungled into trouble.

    Demi knew exactly where the line was, because she kept her toes on it for orientation ¡ª

    It was one of the wires she walked with such regularity that it had ceased to be concerning to her at all, as if she were the star of a three ring circus, as comfortable turning cartwheels high in the air as she was on the solid ground.

    She was not particularly concerned with either rules or laws.  She broke them as she saw fit.

    She was quite an audacious character.

    But.

    The fact that Demi was just as likely to break rules as to follow them did not mean that she was without moral bearings.  She actually had a very strong personal code of ethics, which had been on unambiguous display during her showdown with the headmistress.  It often caused (other people) quite a bit of trouble, but Demi pinned that trouble to her chest  like a battle star.  She had a way of taking her own faults and polishing them until they sparkled, and she wore them like jewelry.

    Along with the sparkling jewels of her faults, Demi was also comfortable displaying an array of her virtues (both real and imagined).  For instance, Demi liked to congratulate herself on being a very sensible person, but it was doubtful whether others would have unanimously agreed with this generous self-assessment.  What they might have signed off on was this:

    Demeter Serraffield was a girl who threw rainbows.

    She had some strange personal magic, an uncanny ability to light up the world in color and interest, to illustrate it, to embellish it, illuminate it, to draw out the best features of each and every moment, to make them manifest for all to see.   She could sing up the sun and dance down the moon, and her enthusiasm was both infectious and intoxicating ¡ª beyond that, it was believable, earnest and honest and freely shared.  She was a charmer, even of dread beasts, even of the trampled and forgotten.  People with tired eyes and damaged hearts, those who had consigned themselves to misery and despair, she could draw them out, capture them, and make them believe, if only for a few moments at a time, that possibility still existed: for themselves, and for others.  This was her enchantment, her magic made real and potent and undeniable.

    Demi was always charging forward toward the ever-distant horizon, heedless of terror, of pain, stretching her hands out to grasp what remained as yet unseen, phantasmal.  This reckless passion grabbed at the hearts of other people when they saw it.  She was a flame that burned very brightly, sometimes so brightly that she was painful to look at.  She could be both beautiful and heartbreaking, like a tree blooming out of season, helplessly, needlessly raining down petals on the unforgiving hard winter ground.

    Her strength was a gentle strength.  She had romantic temperament and a very fertile imagination, a kind heart and a boundless curiosity toward all that was interesting.  She also had a powerful personal will.   All of these traits gathered together into one basket created a very singular individual, a strange and lovable girl who acted as if the world was at her command.

    She painted the world to suit herself, and the world ¡ª quite shockingly ¡ª generally complied.

    She was inescapably eccentric, and often found herself out of step with other people because of her unusual ways of thinking about things.   But this eccentricity also drew other people to her, a magnetic attraction that was very difficult to ignore.

    She drew in people that admired her.  She drew in people who wanted to protect what they saw as both beautiful and fragile.  She drew in people who wanted to see the future she was chasing after.

    She loved living, every note of it, every drop, and that fact was inescapable to anyone who entered her orbit.

    She loved living except when she did not, and she did not like that part of herself.

    She did not know what to do with it.

    So she did not do anything with it.

    She pushed away and she did not think about it.

    It was easy enough to do.

    Demi was effortlessly charismatic, and charmed herself as easily as she charmed other people.

    She had personal experience with loss and despair, loneliness and tragedy.  In the pain of others, she saw her own pain, her own loneliness.  What she wanted most was to be kind to others.  She wanted people to be happy.  She would bear up under strain and hurt if it meant that she could help others to be happy.

    She was probably a little too willing to take on burdens.

    There was a part of her that thought ¡ª

    That thought ¡ª

    That thought she deserved it.

    None of these things, except perhaps for a willingness to indulge in self-sacrifice, none of these things were necessary for the heir Serraffield.  The mess of life and color who was Demi, it was all an unneeded complication.  What was required was that she go about her duties without incident, moving smoothly and frictionlessly from place to place, role to role.   While there was a phantasm of power and control that bloomed alongside notoriety, it could not be counted on.  Even in her inexperience, she knew that.

    It was dangerous to draw attention.  She needed to perform adequately as befitted her station, no more, and no less.  She could be intelligent, but only so intelligent.  She could be beautiful, but only so beautiful.   She could be charming, but only so charming.  She could even be defiant, so long as she remained only so defiant.

    She needed to keep between the lines.

    She knew that.

    It was impossible that she not know it.

    And yet.

    In this world where compliance with the status quo was brutally enforced, Demi remained hardheaded, stubborn, passionate, and compassionate.  She was devoted to doing things in her own way, regardless of what the rest of the world had to say about it.

    She was defiant in her decision to be herself.  That was her resolve, unshakable, foundational.

    And that defiance was dangerous: as clear and fragile as glass.

    It was the reason she needed to understand rules, to understand laws.  It was another part of her resolve.

    ¡ª because she had a sober understanding of her position, even if this influence was not always obvious to the outside observer.  She would not have survived so long as the heir Serraffield if she did not.  As the heir to the seat of Serraffield, in most circumstances she was expected to be a perfect role model: a symbol of order, control, tradition, and authority.  It was very important to her continued well-being that she embody these ideas, even if she did not particularly wish to.

    But her mother had reared her very well, and as a result, Demi was cunning, and full of tricks.  A girl in her situation had to be, really.

    What it amounted to was this: Demeter Serraffield was very good at giving the impression that she was each and every one of the things she was supposed to be, while at the same time doing what she wanted in the way that she wanted.  An uncharitable observer might have opined that she was nothing more than a spoiled and privileged rich girl obsessed with getting her way.  Demi wasn¡¯t sure that she had much of a defense against that barb.  It was a stinger she taunted herself with whenever she was feeling particularly low.

    But she had no other way to be than the way that she was.  She had developed her own way of living, her own way of surviving.  She could not be different and she did not want to be.

    Demeter Serraffield would be who she was, regardless of the position she occupied: heir to the Curia, squire, school girl, and also, apparently, student council president.

    But she was spared any further introspection on the subject because after a leisurely stroll through the halls of the main building, Monday had at last come to a halt before a beautifully lettered plaque that was hanging on the wall.

    It read Moon Class.

    There was a transom window over the door in front of them, stained glass depicting the moon with a backdrop of seven stars.  The window was slightly open, propped up by hinges, and the hushed murmur of voices could be heard from the classroom.

    Well.

    It would be challenging to classify all of the voices as hushed.

    The girls in the classroom were clearly having a very animated discussion.

    ¡°It¡¯s really disgraceful that we haven¡¯t even managed to arrange a twenty one gun salute,¡± came a clear, commanding voice.  ¡°We need to observe proper honors for such an exalted person as our new commander-in-chief.¡±

    ¡°Guns are scary ¡ª ¡° came a soft, tremulous voice.

    ¡°You¡¯re scared of everything,¡± retorted a different loud voice.  ¡°It would be much more exciting to welcome her with some fireballs, or maybe some flare arrows,¡± she contradicted.

    ¡°Magic isn¡¯t real, dynamite in the brain,¡± denied the military girl.  ¡°Reality is the smooth, beautiful stock of a long barrel rifle.¡±

    ¡°It must be very painful to have a brain so tiny and filled with rocks that it can¡¯t comprehend the magnificence of high sorcery,¡± said the loud girl comfortingly.

    ¡°Don¡¯t fight,¡± begged the soft voice, still trembling.

    ¡°We¡¯re not fighting!¡± both girls declared at once, and with some force.

    After a moment, the loud girl cut in again.

    ¡°Besides, Margot, where are you even going to get twenty one guns?  You know you¡¯ve been barred from even approaching the members of the shooting team, and you¡¯re not allowed to go to the shooting range without adult supervision.¡±  The loud girl seemed supremely smug when pronouncing these restrictions.

    There was a cut off sputter and then an indignant, ¡°I have already verified the locations of twenty one starting pistols in the club rooms of the various sports teams.  I would lay hands on them this minute if I could be confident that the soldiers of this regiment were ready to present honors in proper style.¡±

    A soothing, airy voice broke in, ¡°Ahaha, your teacher would appreciate it if you didn¡¯t bring firearms into the classroom again, Miss Bahr.¡±

    ¡°That wasn¡¯t a real weapon, Lieutenant.  It was a highly accurate, painstakingly crafted model.¡±

    ¡°But your teacher can¡¯t tell the difference between your highly accurate, painstakingly crafted model and a real gun, can she?¡± came the fluttery voice of the apparent teacher.  ¡°It caused a big problem last time!¡±

    ¡°Since Margot doesn¡¯t have any guns, I¡¯m definitely going to cast some cool spells when she gets here,¡± insisted the loud voice.  ¡°My magic is supremely awesome.  I have spent many years wandering the darkest dungeons and the most mysterious forests to hone my craft.  She will unquestionably be super impressed.  Magic is way better than guns anyhow.¡±

    When the girl with the loud voice began talking, she drowned out whatever else might have been happening behind the closed door.

    ¡°Please stop yelling,¡± rebutted the trembling voice.

    ¡°I¡¯m not yelling!¡± yelled the girl who was unquestionably yelling.  ¡°This is just how it sounds whenever I¡¯m chanting arcane words!   Can I cast my spells, teacher?¡± she asked, but then didn¡¯t wait for an answer before deciding, ¡°I¡¯m going to cast my spells.¡±

    ¡°I suppose that¡¯s all right, Miss Parker ¡ª ¡°

    ¡°I can only be bound by my true name, Symphonet Inferna, the one they call the Scarlet Devastation!¡±

    ¡°All right, Miss Symphonet-Inferna-the-Scarlet-Devastation, you can cast whatever spells you want so long as you can cast them while sitting at your desk.¡±

    ¡°Curses, foul witchbinder, I can¡¯t use the greatest of my spells without their full somatic components!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s the point,¡± cut in a dry voice.

    ¡°Be silent, all of you,¡± came another low voice, ¡°My third eye has opened!  The rosenqueen has descended!  She will be upon us before the bell tolls twelve times!¡±

    ¡°Yeah, what an amazing prophecy,¡± scoffed another girl. ¡°If she¡¯s not here before lunchtime, I¡¯m sure even she¡¯ll get some kind of detention.¡±

    When they¡¯d heard the first clear voice, Monday had politely held up her hand to stop Demi from advancing.  She had simply stood before the door, smiling her mysterious smile, while the conversation rapidly advanced from mildly unusual to downright bizarre.

    Demi had been unable to conceal her reactions to the discussion as it developed.  The volume of voices lowered at last ¡ª Symphonet Inferna was clearly preparing her spells ¡ª and Demi leaned close to Monday to whisper.

    ¡°Should we really go in there?¡± she wondered.

    It sounded as if she might be facing a firing squad, explosions, and end times prophecies.

    All at once, even.

    ¡°Fufufu, relax, Mitya,¡± Monday giggled.  ¡°These are your people, after all.¡±

    Then she turned on her heel like a dancer to face the door at her back.