Chapter Text
You don’t care for either of the men who live in the palatial houses on the north and south ends of the city. They both reek of politics, the kind that translates into kissing anyone’s and everyone’s ass if they think it’ll do them good. (The kind that sixteen-year-old you would want to kick your ass for if she knew what your job was.)
Still, you can’t say nothing good has come of being introduced to them. There are three kids between them: one’s got a boy, the other two girls. Seiji seems bored by the Vasillias – unsurprising, since the older of the two is four – but he’s absolutely taken by the Dubois kid, who’s less than a year younger than he is.
In fact, your life has become much easier since the first time you told him this is Sylas, I work with his dad. Make nice, okay? It used to be an ordeal making sure you weren’t even five minutes late in picking him up from a babysitter for the work day, much less any sort of extracurricular activity. Now he’ll happily spend hours at the Dubois place, even when he doesn’t have to.
His eagerness to stay at Sylas’ house has been a godsend these last two months. Lady Eudora (you like her much more than the rest of the people who run this city) is stepping down as representative, and the competition to replace her has meant more extra work than you’d ever anticipated. It’s finally over – there’ll be an official ceremony sometime next week, but tonight you’re at Joe Rothart’s place for a friends-and-family get-together to celebrate his baby sister winning the title.
You suppose Yvette isn’t “Joe’s baby sister” anymore, even if she is only fourteen. In a few days, she’ll be Lady Yvette, with a new uniform to match the title. She’s so small, though – she takes after the rest of her family you’ve seen in that regard. Babyfaced, too.
She’s darting around the room right now, talking to everyone. She’s excited, greeting even people she doesn’t seem to know that well with almost reckless enthusiasm. You smile, feeling a little indulgent, when she shakes your hand and buzzes that Joe’s talked about you a lot and she likes your coat and she’s so excited to work with you! And then she’s on to the next guest. You glance over at Joe himself, walking away from the snack table with a plate of tiny poppyseed muffins.
He catches you looking and nods, tilting his head to beckon you over. You grin and make your way through the other guests to say hi. There aren’t a lot of people, but the room’s not really built for a crowd. By the time you reach him, he’s almost gotten to Malliet, who’s talking to Joe’s brother-in-law.
“Hey, Joe. Congratulations.”
He laughs. “Aw, you don’t need to congratulate me. Yvette did all the work.”
“Still, you must be proud. Evening, Thierry.”
Thierry looks briefly over from his conversation. “Oh, good evening, Rin.” He sounds distracted. Joe laughs.
“Don’t worry,” he says quietly. “Thierry’s not blowing you off. He’s just – single-minded, when he gets going. Want a muffin?”
You smile, taking one. “Thank you. And I don’t mind. That’s Fred, right?” You nod towards the wide-eyed baby on Mr. Singh’s hip.
“Yeah, he’s almost one,” says Joe. “January should be around here somewhere… I’m surprised she hasn’t broken anything yet.”
“She’s three now, right?” He nods. “Well, the night’s still young.”
This gets a laugh out of Thierry, whose conversation seems to be wrapping up, and Mr. Singh, who sighs good-naturedly. He glances down at his familiar, a large, fluffy dog, who laughs. The two of them amble off in search of the kid. You shake your head with a grin.
“How is she, by the way?”
“She’s doing great!” says Joe, perking up. “I can babysit whenever I want – well, whenever Sarah needs me to. I can’t just come up to their house and go, ‘gimme my niece!’ whenever I feel like it.” He makes a grabby hand in front of himself to illustrate, which Thierry takes as an opportunity to link arms with him. The three of you laugh. “But I still get plenty of opportunities to look after her.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. She’s really… rambunctious.”
“You mentioned it was odd she hadn’t broken anything,” you say dryly.
“Well, it could’ve meant she was just clumsy. But she loves to play, and roughhouse, and run around, and… well, when I was a teenager, I never got why adults said that little kids wore them out.”
You laugh, clapping him on the shoulder. “Ha! That’s how it starts, Joe. Soon we’ll all be old. So, does Thierry help out any?”
“Yeah,” says Joe good-naturedly, “whenever he’s not busy with…” He glances at Thierry, who raises his eyebrows slightly. “School stuff.”
“’School stuff’.” It sounds like a euphemism.
“I’ve gotten to the part of my doctorate where everything’s much more theoretical than I expected,” says Thierry smoothly, “and it entails a lot more math than I’d prefer. Fiddly formulas. How’s your son doing, by the way?”
You furrow your brow, stopping yourself before your face betrays too much obvious suspicion or annoyance. It’s a transparent deflection, and you’re curious what they’re hiding from you, but you can’t exactly press the matter right now. You tell yourself it’s quite possibly none of your business. It doesn’t do much to quell your annoyance, so you focus on the changed subject.
“Seiji?” you say as casually as you can. “Well, he’s six now.”
“I haven’t gotten to babysit him for a while,” Joe comments.
“What, your niece isn’t enough?” You laugh – you’re not annoyed anymore. “Well, you know the Dubois family, lives right underneath Cheryl?”
They both give you confused looks. “Cheryl?”
“Oh, it’s a nickname people in the neighborhood I grew up in had for the big statue at the south end of town. Linda’s the north one.”
This prompts a laugh from Thierry, and you continue. “Anyways, you probably know Ambrose – he was representative before Eudora. His brother lives in a big fancy house up on the southern hill and hosts parties with a lot of insufferable rich folk. Apparently I’m ~important~ enough that I’m invited. The bright side is that he’s got a five-year-old son.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, his name’s Sylas. He’s a sweet kid – calls me ‘Seiji’s mom’ more respectfully than half the people at work call me ‘Commissioner Soga’ – and I don’t think Seiji’s talked about anything else since meeting him.”
Joe beams. “Aw, that’s cute! Maybe I can look after the both of them sometime?”
You laugh. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Sylas is sweet on his own, but I’ve seen how they egg each other on.”
Joe’s about to protest, but it’s at that moment that Yvette bounces up to the three of you, carrying January piggyback.
“Hey, Joe! Hi, Thierry!” she says.
January cheerfully repeats after her: “Hi Joe! Hi Terry!” She’s got some sort of pastry crushed in her fist, dropping crumbs into Yvette’s hair when she waves. Yvette doesn’t seem to care – she just lets January down so she can hug her brother and Thierry in turn. Joe bends down to scoop January up, lest she wander off again.
“So, how do you feel, Lady Yvette?” asks Thierry, putting teasing emphasis on the title. She laughs, shoving him in the arm.
“Haha, just call me Yvette! All the ~Lady~ stuff sounds so weird.”
You shrug, grinning along with everyone else. “You get used to it.”
She looks up at you thoughtfully, then shakes her head. “I dunno, I don’t think it’ll feel normal for adults to call me ‘Lady’ and not ‘young lady’ until I’m an adult. And – wow, I keep thinking about how much I’m gonna have to do now. It’s… exciting, really! I thought I’d be more scared, but…”
She spreads her hands.
“You can probably talk about that with Eudora,” you mention.
“Hey, yeah! I’m gonna start training with her on Monday. And I’m gonna meet with Magister Lapointe, too, and…”
You frown, not sure what to say. You’ve spent more time with Lapointe than you’d like to have, but there’s really no polite way to bring that up. You don’t want to rain on Yvette’s parade, anyway. She’ll get disillusioned with the magister soon enough.
You decide to excuse yourself – you “need to pick up Seiji” – before you end up ruining the mood. You bid a coolly polite goodnight to Joe and Thierry and wish Yvette good luck.
You’re catching up on paperwork when your phone rings. You groan. Calls you’re not expecting only ever come from Lapointe. You weigh your options for a second – it’s only barely not worth it to pretend you were out of the office and missed her call. Reluctantly, you pick it up.
“Rin Soga speaking.”
“Hey, Rin?” It’s Joe’s voice on the other end of the line, and you feel much better immediately.
“How can I help you?”
“I… you’ve spent time with Magister Lapointe, right? Outside of work?”
He sounds like he’s trying too hard to be conversational, but he’s clearly nervous. Not that you can blame him. Sharing a look with your familiar, you lock your office door with a spell.
“Yes, I have,” you say once you hear it click. “Why do you ask?”
“… It’s about Yvette.” He sounds reluctant. “I… listen, I’m at work right now, and maybe this should wait…”
“Are you busy?” you say immediately.
“What?”
“Is there anything you’re doing at work that needs to be done now? Because I can ‘need your help with something’ right now, if you want. Hell, I can swing by myself to pick you up.”
He pauses, just for a second. “Would you?”
You make eye contact with your familiar again. “I’ll be there in two.”
It’s a simple matter to get all your things in order. You don’t even bother to finish the form you were filling out – it’s waited this long; it can wait until tomorrow. It’s an even simpler matter to teleport to the San Carlucco station, wearing the I’m very busy and important look that seems to naturally come to you and keep people out of your way. You walk up to Joe’s office and find he’s waiting at the door for you.
“C’mon,” you say gently. The two of you sweep wordlessly out of the station.
It takes a few minutes, but Joe eventually speaks up. “So, uh… ever since Yvette became representative, she’s been really busy. She’s got special training with Lady Eudora about the unique representative duties, but that was quick enough. And she’s been handling the actual representative duties, too, but…”
“You wanted to know more about Magister Lapointe,” you prompt.
He nods. “Yeah, it seems like she’s been eating up all of Yvette’s time. I… I don’t know. Yvette seems really taken with her, talking about how nice and funny and cool she is, but there’s just… a feeling, I guess, that I’ve got in the back of my head.”
“I know what you mean. Seiji got his magic recently, about the same time Sylas did. We had a little party, but I figured we could wait on finding him an apprenticeship. I mean, he’s not even ten. But… well, apparently Lapointe’s been working with the Dubois family for years, and Sylas started an apprenticeship with her. And Seiji…”
You groan, running your fingers through your bangs.
“Seiji thought it wasn’t fair that Sylas got to start magic lessons and he didn’t. He wanted to have magic lessons with Sylas. I’ve never been fond of the woman, so I said no. I’ve never seen him so upset before – you’d think that I said he could never play with Sylas again. He cried, he yelled, he begged. And I think… well, I think if Lapointe herself hadn’t found out that Seiji wanted to study magic under her, I could have explained it to him. But she did, and she thought it was an excellent idea. And of course, once she was the one asking me why not, I couldn’t risk telling her no.”
Joe pats your arm. “I’m sorry, Rin. What… what should I do?”
You spread your hands helplessly. “I don’t even know what I should do. I mean, I’ve seen how he is after her lessons. He thinks she’s funny, too.”
Joe nods. “I… see, this is gonna sound weird. But the thing that bothers me the most is how close she seems to think she is to her.”
You nod. “I don’t think it’s weird. Seiji has a little of it, too. And I don’t know how to… make him understand that she’s not doing him a favor.”
“She calls her Fidelia, and…” He shifts uncomfortably. “Sometimes it seems like she treats their meetings like dates.”
You feel your breath catch in your throat.
“I think… all we can really do for them, right now, is to be there for them. No matter what Lapointe does, you’re still Yvette’s brother. She’s known you her whole life, and you’re a good person. Lapointe might be acting nice now, but… I know how nasty she can be. When Yvette realizes it, what she’s gonna need most of all is someone who really is nice. Someone who loves her.”
“… Thanks.”
It’s been three weeks since anyone has seen Yvette. You know what it looks like. Joe knows what it looks like. Thierry knows what it looks like.
It’s not like none of you are willing to say it. You’re not dumb. But none of you are quite willing to give up, either.
“I just wish I knew… what she was doing,” murmurs Joe. “I wish I noticed sooner. I wish…”
He trails off. Thierry squeezes him around the shoulder, nodding gently.
“What happens now?” he asks, looking up at you while patting Joe’s back.
You sigh. “Normally, there’d be another competition held for a new representative, but normally representative terms end more… well, predictably. The worst case, as far as I know, is sometimes a representative will be injured. I can’t think of anything like this happening before.”
Thierry looks at you, waiting for you to continue.
“Eudora’s volunteered to step back into the office, for now. There’ll probably be a competition soon, once it’s been long enough that people won’t write letters to the paper about how irresponsible it is to put children into the job.”
You roll your eyes and take a sip of wine. Thierry makes a face.
“I mean… what does the guard do, now?”
Joe sighs. “We get back to work. The missing person posters stay up, if we find a new lead we can pursue it, but… it’s not very likely, at this point.”
You nod glumly. It’s been a pretty shitty three weeks.
After about a minute, Joe speaks up again. “The worst part of all this is… I know it’s Lapointe’s fault. I don’t know what she did, but…”
He chokes up. He keeps going. “I’d still have my baby sister if it weren’t for that woman. I can’t ever forget that. Even if she’s okay somewhere, even if we find her… she could have killed her, and she doesn’t even care.”
You glance towards the door, thinking about your son sleeping down the hall. You don’t think he’s in the same kind of danger, but you shudder nonetheless.
There’s not much more to say as your wine bottle is slowly depleted between the three of you. Eventually it’s time for Joe and Thierry to leave.
“Well,” says Joe quietly as you’re showing them the door, “see you at work, Rin.”