Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Void had been kind.
Cold, yes, and cruel in its honesty, but kind. It asked nothing of her — no loyalty, no devotion, no proof she was worthy to exist. It only whispered, Rest.

Then the thread came.
A line of silk cutting through the quiet, pulling her toward light she no longer wanted. Every inch upward was agony, like her body remembered dying and resented being told otherwise.

When she broke the surface, the world rushed back — breath, sound, the sting of light. She gagged up darkness, coughing until she saw white again.

And there she was. Spider. Unmoving, composed, holding the strand that had dragged her back from oblivion.

“You—” Lace’s voice rasped, sharp as glass. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

Hornet’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You wanted to be left to the Void?”

“Yes.” The word struck out like a blade. “It was the first thing that ever felt honest.”

Hornet’s expression didn’t waver, though the silk between them trembled. “Honesty isn’t the same as peace.”

Lace almost laughed. “And dragging me back to this corpse of a world is?”

No answer. Only the faint pull of the thread between them, silk gleaming like a tether she hadn’t asked for.

Hornet turned first, of course. She always did. No hesitation, no wasted movement — just a flick of her cloak and the clean whisper of silk as she started up the path.

Lace followed because she couldn’t think of anything else to do. The ground felt too solid, the air too thin, like a world she wasn’t built for anymore.

“Tell me,” she called after Hornet, her voice hoarse but laced with mockery, “is this where you drag all your strays, or am I a special case?”

Hornet didn’t look back. “Bellhart is close. You’ll rest there.”

“Oh, rest. Of course.” Lace scoffed. “Back to being something pitied instead of something ended. You’re merciful to a fault, little spider.”

That earned her the smallest pause — barely a heartbeat. Hornet’s foreleg twitching on the handle of her needle. Then she moved on, faster now, as if distance could make the words fade.

Lace smirked, though her chest felt hollow. You could leave, a voice whispered. Turn around. Walk back to the edge and let the Void take you again.

But her feet didn’t listen.

They followed Hornet’s trail of silk through the broken corridors and dusted glass caverns, through air that shimmered with memory. Every so often she’d see Hornet glance over her shoulder — checking, not speaking — and something twisted beneath Lace’s silk exterior.

She wanted to say thank you. She wanted to scream. She settled for muttering, “You’d think saving a life would make you talk more.”

Hornet’s answer was as clean as a blade. “I speak when words are useful, child.”

“And I’m not?”

This time, a faint exhale — not quite a sigh. “Not yet.”

Lace barked a laugh, sharp and humorless. “Careful, your compassion’s showing, dear spider.”

The path upward wound through the shattered veins of Pharloom. Water dripped from ceilings like tears that had forgotten their purpose. Each echo of their footsteps felt stolen from some older memory.

“Bellhart still stands?” Lace asked, her tone brittle. “How noble. I suppose someone has to pretend this place can be mended.”

Hornet didn’t slow. “It isn’t about pretending.”

“Of course not. It’s about purpose.” Lace’s laugh was thin. “You and your purpose. Always weaving, never resting. Tell me, do you ever stop to wonder what happens when the thread runs out?”

Hornet glanced back, just once. “It doesn’t. We do.”

Lace bit down on a retort, tasting the bitterness like iron. She hated how calm Hornet sounded — how sure. The silence between them stretched long and taut, and Lace filled it the only way she knew how: with mockery.

“Do you often drag your enemies home? Or am I simply a charity case?”

“Neither.”

“Ah,” Lace said. “A pet project, then.”

That earned her a quiet exhale, almost a sigh. “If you insist on twisting everything, pale one, at least twist it toward living.”

“Living,” she echoed, letting the word curdle in her mouth. “You make it sound like a choice.”

Bellhart breathed differently now.

The air tasted less of ruin, more of dust and silk. Banners hung from fractured towers, their seams mended but visible — proud scars pretending to be intentional design. The hum of life echoed faintly through the streets, voices layered with the rhythm of looms.

When Lace stepped through the gates beside Hornet, conversation faltered. Faces turned. She felt the weight of their stares like a swarm of needles.

“Oh, good,” she muttered. “They remember me. I’d hate to think I died for nothing.”

A pair of workers paused mid-threading, one whispering behind a hand. Lace offered a theatrical bow, all jagged grace. “No need to whisper, darlings. I’m quite real, disappointingly so.”

Hornet didn’t look at her. “Ignore them.”

“I am,” Lace said, though her voice cracked on the lie. “You’re the one they revere, not me. The savior. The Redeemer of Lost Things.”

“That’s not what they call me,” Hornet replied softly.

Lace smirked. “Then they have no poetry.”

Chapter Text

Hornet’s bellhome sat high in the winding tower above Bellhart’s core — a place neither grand nor humble, just quiet. Lace followed her up the spiraling stairs, boots scuffing against the worn metal, until the door creaked open and the air shifted.

The room was smaller than she expected.
A narrow bed tucked against the wall. A single desk stacked with papers and quills, the faint glimmer of map pins scattered like stars across the plaster. And, suspended on a shelf, a heart — pulsing softly in a glass jar, bathing the walls in a slow, red light.

Lace tilted her head, a crooked smile rising. “How romantic. Nothing says welcome home quite like a preserved organ. Do you keep it for company or nutrition?”

Hornet didn’t look up from untying her cloak. “Neither.”

“That’s somehow worse,” Lace said, pacing closer, fingers grazing the edge of the desk. “All this silk, all these maps— you really do live like a saint on pilgrimage. Tell me, oh Red Maiden, do you ever rest? Or does divinity come with insomnia?”

Hornet’s gaze flicked toward her, faintly irritated. “You speak too much.”

“And yet you listen,” Lace countered, grin thin but steady. “Admit it, I’m endearing. A miracle of noise.”

“An endurance test.”

Lace laughed, the sound a little too loud for the tiny room. “Ah, so you do have a sense of humor hidden under all that silk. Careful, or I might fall in love again.”

Hornet stilled, the faintest twitch in her posture. “Again?”

“Mm.” Lace leaned against the wall beside her, arms crossed. “Don’t flatter yourself, Red Maiden. I fall in love with anyone who saves me from drowning. It’s a habit I’m trying to break.”

Hornet regarded her in silence, the red light from the heart jar pulsing across her mask. “Then stop trying to charm your way out of grief. It doesn’t suit you.”

Lace’s smirk faltered — just a flicker, small but real. “Who says I’m grieving?”

“Everyone who isn’t,” Hornet said simply, turning back to the desk.

For a long moment, Lace said nothing. She watched Hornet’s hands trace a map pinned with tiny red threads, each one leading to some unseen plan. The room felt too small, the air too sharp.

Finally, she whispered, softer than she meant to, “You really do like saving lost things, don’t you?”

Hornet didn’t answer. And that silence, more than anything, made Lace want to speak again — anything to fill the void before it swallowed her.

So she smiled, the brittle kind that held back tears.
“Careful, my divine rescuer. Keep this up, and I might think you care.”

Hornet’s reply came quiet, measured. “Care enough to make sure you stand. Not enough to let you fall again.”

Lace wanted to joke, but the words wouldn’t come. The silence pressed closer. The heart on the shelf pulsed — once, twice — as if to remind her she still didn't have one.

Hornet leaned against the wall, arms crossed, expression unreadable. “You survived. That makes you… unusual.”

“Unusual,” Lace repeated, laughing bitterly. “I like that. Makes it sound like I’m an artifact instead of a disaster.”

Hornet’s eyes flicked toward her, just for a moment. “Disasters are easier to recognize than miracles,” she said softly, almost to herself.

Lace’s stomach twisted, though she fought to hide it behind another jab. “And here I thought you only saved me because I was interesting to watch. Heroics always sound better when there’s someone whining along the way.”

Hornet didn’t rise to the bait. She moved toward the small window overlooking the spire, letting the sunlight spill across the room. “You’ll need to eat,” she said simply. “And sleep. The Void doesn’t leave people unchanged.”

"I'm full of changes already,” Lace muttered, staring at her own reflection in the polished wood. “Mostly bad ones. I’m lucky you didn’t just let me float away again.”

Hornet tilted her head, watching the bitter humor that Lace clung to like armor. “I didn’t.”

Silence stretched between them, thick and unyielding, until Lace finally let out a long, hollow laugh. “Lucky me, huh? Saved by the Red Maiden herself. I should be grateful, I suppose. Or dead.”

“You’re here,” Hornet said. No flourish, no praise. “That’s enough for now.”

Lace stared at her, sharp and unrelenting. “…Enough?”

“Yes.” Hornet’s gaze didn’t waver. “Breathe. Survive. One step at a time.”

Chapter Text

The morning light in Bellhart was pallid, strained through layers of silk and soot. The city hummed awake beneath the glass bells, voices rising like distant surf.

Lace blinked herself awake on the floor beside the single bed, her back aching and her pride bruised. Hornet was already moving, already dressed, her mask bright in the dim light. She worked in silence, gathering tools and rolled maps, and Lace watched her like a moth circling a lantern.

“You know,” Lace drawled, sitting up, “most people start mornings with tea. Or silence. Or anything that doesn’t involve glaring at parchment like it owes you money.”

Hornet glanced her way. “You talk in your sleep.”

“I’m told it’s charming.”

“It’s not.”

“Well,” Lace said, rising with a lazy stretch, “that’s disappointing. I was hoping my dreams might be improving your mornings.”

Hornet didn’t answer, only tied a small satchel and gestured toward the door. “If you intend to follow me, keep up.”

Lace smiled, brushing the dust from her skirts. “Oh, I always keep up, darling. It’s the leaving behind I’m bad at.”.

Hornet walked ahead, each step clean and measured, her cloak whispering against the stones.

Lace followed. Of course she did.

“You walk like you’ve got somewhere better to be,” she said, half skipping to keep pace. “Most people stop to enjoy the apocalypse.”

Hornet didn’t turn. “You talk like you’re afraid of silence.”

“Terrified,” Lace admitted with a grin. “It tends to have opinions about me.”

They moved through the upper square, past scaffolds strung with ribbons of woven bell-thread. Workers balanced on thin beams above, adjusting the pulleys that drew the bells taut. The air smelled faintly of oil and moss.

Pavo was already there — sharp posture, immaculate vest, a parchment rolled beneath one arm. The city planner. The self-appointed mouth of Bellhart’s trembling faith.

“Miss Hornet!” he called, bowing with too much enthusiasm. “Red Maiden! To think the savior of the Shrouded Vale walks our streets once more — what blessing we must have earned!”

Lace watched him the way one might watch a moth circle a flame. “Careful, darling, if you bow any lower you’ll start praying to her boots.”

Pavo straightened, startled, eyes cutting toward her with polite distaste. “And… your companion?”

“Tragedy in silk,” Lace offered brightly. “Temporary infestation. Don’t worry, I bite only when inspired.”

Hornet’s tone, though calm, carried steel. “She stays. My choice.”

Pavo’s mouth shut. The reverence didn’t leave his eyes, but it shifted — wary, uncertain. “As you will, Miss Hornet. Bellhart is yours to command. I only ask you tread lightly among its fractures. The people whisper of you still.”

Hornet gave a single nod. Lace almost pitied him; she’d never seen someone try so hard to worship and survive it at once.

They reached the market. Frey, the shopkeeper, was already sorting through jars of resin and bone dust, muttering to himself. When he spotted Hornet, his mandibles clicked in something like awe.

“Red Maiden,” he murmured, bowing slightly. “If you’ve come for thread, I’ll fetch my best spools. The silk that hasn’t lost its voice yet.”

Hornet inclined her head. “Only what’s needed.”

Frey’s gaze slid toward Lace, uncertain. “And… the pale one?”

“Oh, I’m ornamental,” Lace said. “You should see me under better lighting.”

Hornet sighed softly. “Ignore her.”

“Tragic,” Lace said, mock-hurt. “Not even a compliment for your new ward?”

“You are no one’s ward,” Hornet replied evenly, taking the spool from Frey’s trembling claws. “You’re simply alive.”

The words landed heavier than either expected. Lace felt them settle under her ribs like a stone. Simply alive.

She tried to laugh it off, but it came out brittle. “Alive’s a start, I suppose. A bit overrated, but fashionable.”

Hornet turned, eyes catching hers in the thin morning light. “It’s enough.”

For a moment, Lace wanted to believe her.

Then Frey coughed, breaking the spell. Hornet tucked the silk away, and the Red Maiden moved on — silent, certain — with Lace trailing behind like a ghost tethered to a heartbeat she didn’t trust.

Chapter Text

They called her the Red Maiden.
Hornet hated that name. It clung to her like dust she couldn’t wash off, sweetened and distorted by rumor until it no longer belonged to her at all.

Bellhart bowed when she passed. They always had — ever since she dragged the first screaming villager out from beneath the collapsing silkwebs. To them, she was the answer that came when they prayed hard enough. To her, she was only doing what was left to do.

Still, every whisper, every reverent glance carved a little deeper. Worship was a slower poison than hate, but poison all the same.

She felt it again that morning, standing before Pavo’s trembling gratitude, his voice quivering like a bowstring. He said Miss Hornet as though the title itself could bless him. His devotion was genuine, and that was what made it unbearable.

She answered him with the calm she’d learned to wear like armor. Every motion deliberate, every word measured — no softness, no indulgence. The Red Maiden could not flinch.

Lace, however, could not stop talking.

Hornet had saved her from the Void — literally dragged her from its mouth, slick with black mist and salt, her body light as dust. She still remembered the weight of her: the twitching hands, the faint, shocked laughter, the way her eyes opened like glass catching the light.

Hornet had not thought before reaching for her. She simply acted, pulled her from the darkness before the thought could whisper too late.

And now Lace followed her like a lost child, all sharp humor and fractured mirth. She flirted, she provoked, she filled the air with noise — but Hornet could hear the echo underneath it, the hollow sound of someone terrified of being quiet.

Hornet wanted to tell her to stop.
She wanted to tell her to rest.
But the words stuck, because she recognized herself in that restless deflection.

Every time Lace spoke, something old in Hornet stirred — guilt first, for saving someone who clearly hadn’t asked for it. Then pride, bitter and fleeting, that she had done it anyway. That she could still choose life over the void.

When Pavo had looked at Lace with that thin, wary disdain, Hornet had felt her jaw tighten. She didn’t need Bellhart’s gratitude; she didn’t want it weaponized against the one person here who hadn’t asked for reverence or pity.

Still, Hornet could not explain to anyone — least of all herself — why she hadn’t sent Lace away.

Chapter Text

At the bellhome, the quiet pressed in. The heart on the shelf beat faintly, an anchor in the stillness. Shakra’s maps whispered in the faint draft, each pin trembling with the memory of pursuit.

Lace had slept poorly. Hornet heard her shifting all night, muttering to herself, laughter turning to choked sobs and back again.

She had not intervened. She simply sat at her desk, tracing routes she’d already memorized, pretending the scratching of her pen was enough to drown out the sound.

Now, in the morning light, she felt the familiar ache — the weight of what she had pulled back from the edge, and the uneasy awareness that Lace’s survival was now her responsibility in more ways than she’d admit.

And yet…

When Lace smiled at her, when she called her “darling hunter” or “Red Majesty,” when her laughter cracked open the silence of the city — Hornet felt the faintest spark of warmth, unwanted but real.

It terrified her.

Hornet adjusted her cloak, straightened the pile of scrolls on her desk. The Red Maiden did not feel. She acted, she endured, she restored.

But as she glanced at the narrow bed, still rumpled from the restless ghost of sleep, she knew she was lying to herself.

The city stretched beneath her as she moved along the upper walls, each step measured, deliberate. Hornet’s eyes swept over scaffolds, watchtowers, and the winding streets below. Bellhart thrummed with life, but life could be fragile — easily undone by shadows that slithered past the edges of light.

She paused at the edge of the terrace, scanning the horizon. The faint hum of the Wish Board called to her attention, small wooden charms clinging in the breeze like insects pinned to silk. Requests for materials, summons from Shakra, appeals for protection. Each one was a thread in a fragile web she could not afford to sever.

Her claw hovered over the closest charm. The message was simple: a plea for silk for repairs to the lower gates. She would answer it later — first she needed to ensure the city’s perimeter was secure.

Lace had slipped away somewhere, presumably following some whim or memory she couldn’t resist. Hornet didn’t ask where. She knew the habits of ghosts. The Cradle, perhaps — the one site Lace had once tended with a tenderness Hornet had never seen matched by the battlefield they shared.

The Cradle. Hornet’s jaw tightened ever so slightly. That place bore the mark of old violence. She had cut Lace down there once, a precise strike, meant to save her from herself, meant to enforce the order that Lace had so recklessly defied.

The air shifted as she adjusted her route, moving toward the lower gates first, checking their mechanisms and ensuring no slack threads could be exploited. Hands brushed the woven supports, feeling each tension in silk and steel. Bellhart would remain standing, she promised herself. One careful action at a time.

Her mind, though, kept drifting. Lace’s laughter, fractured and teasing, echoed in memory. Hornet found herself imagining it carried on the wind, floating toward the Cradle, toward the flowers that Lace had coaxed into bloom before the fight — delicate petals, now swaying under the same indifferent sky.

Hornet stopped briefly on a rooftop, letting her gaze linger over the Cradle. The memory was sharp: Lace’s eyes wide, defiance burning, the flash of steel. And then, the sudden relief, the quiet in the aftermath, the life she had spared.

Hornet’s claws flexed against the railing. She could not allow herself to indulge in pride, nor in guilt. Only vigilance. Yet the thought of Lace there — so small, so reckless, so alive — tugged at her, as persistent and subtle as silk against skin.

She traced a mental map of her route, planning her next steps: perimeter, gates, Wish Board. The city demanded her focus. And yet, the Cradle called her attention in ways no task could ever fully occupy.

Hornet inhaled, slow and measured, willing herself to suppress the ache beneath her calm. Lace would be fine. She had to be fine.

Hornet’s steps carried her back toward the lower square, where a builder bug was fussing over a scaffold joint, muttering under his breath.

“Red Maiden,” he called, voice tight with nerves. “The—uh—the support here… do you—”

“Do you what?” Hornet prompted, claws resting lightly on the beam.

He swallowed. “Do you approve, or…?”

Hornet’s jaw tightened just slightly. “It will hold. Adjust the tension here, then secure the pin.”

The bug exhaled in relief. “Yes, Miss Hornet. Thank you, Red Maiden.”

She nodded once and moved on, but the echoes of his awe trailed after her. Every word of praise felt like silk wrapped too tight — comforting and constricting all at once.

Her claws brushed against the railing of the scaffold as she walked, and instinctively, she reached for the small Needolin strapped to her side. The instrument had a familiar weight, strings humming faintly beneath her fingers. Hornet plucked a single note, then another, listening to the vibration fill the space between scaffolds and banners.

It did little to calm her thoughts, but it grounded her — just enough to keep the worry about Lace at bay.

A low rumble answered her, the Bell Beast stirring in its enclosure beneath the square. Its massive form shifted, the bell-like plates along its back resonating as it moved. Hornet crouched slightly, murmuring under her breath.

“Easy now. Calm.”

The Bell Beast’s eyes, dark and slow, met hers, and Hornet traced a rhythm along its flank, plucking gentle notes on the Needolin. The creature settled, letting out a vibration that resonated like a sigh through the stone and metal beneath them.

Hornet allowed herself the briefest exhale.

“You must tire of this reverence,” she said softly to the empty square, almost as if speaking aloud would banish the memory of Lace trailing behind her. “And yet it follows me, everywhere.”

Her claws flexed on the Needolin again, letting a faint melody thread across the morning air. The city buzzed around her, voices rising and falling, but Hornet kept her focus small, precise, private — on the instruments, on the Bell Beast, on the scaffolds beneath her control.

Still, even as the melody hummed against stone, her mind flitted to the Cradle. Lace would be there, tending the flowers, laughing softly to herself, perhaps talking to the air as if the world had forgiven her. Hornet’s chest tightened, but she did not allow the thought to bloom further.

Not yet.

There was work to do. Bellhart needed her. The Wish Board, the scaffolds, the city itself — every line and corner demanded vigilance.

And Hornet, for all her discipline, understood that some threads could not be cut, even if they frayed the edges of her calm.

Chapter Text

The flowers were stubborn, just as she remembered.
Tiny petals, pale as ash in the early light, trembling on thin stalks like they feared the wind — or perhaps, feared her. Lace moved among them, hands gentle, coaxing new shoots upward, brushing away decay, whispering jokes to keep the silence from settling too heavily.

“Ah, you lot,” she muttered, voice soft and cracked. “Still alive. Not bad for a bunch of helpless idiots.”

Her smile was brittle. She knew it.

The wind carried the faint scent of the Cradle — earth, resin, silk — and with it came the memory. The Void. Its calm, unrelenting hunger. She could feel it now, a pull beneath her ribs, dragging her toward that cold emptiness where everything she was, everything she thought she had been, dissolved into nothing.

It was beautiful, in a way. Rabidly, violently beautiful. The kind of beauty that didn’t ask permission. She remembered the way it held her, patient and sure, whispering that she was irrelevant, hollow, free.

Her fingers faltered on a petal. “Purpose,” she whispered to herself, voice hoarse. “A poorly spun web, made for someone else’s amusement… a silk creature crafted in the hands of a child pretending she could shape the world.”

The flowers shivered under her touch. She laughed, though it wasn’t funny. “And yet here I am,” she said. “Alive. Stupidly alive. Saved by someone else. Someone perfect.”

The thought twisted in her chest like a pin through silk. Hornet. The Red Maiden. The one who had cut her down, the one who had dragged her back, tethered her to life when she had begged the world to let her sink.

She leaned closer to a stalk of violet, brushing the dirt from its leaves. “I don’t know how to be… anything,” she admitted softly. “Not a friend. Not a warrior. Not even a joke worth hearing. Just a shadow that follows, a knot that no one wanted, a—”

Her voice cracked. The words dissolved into a choked laugh. “—a mess, made of hollow silk, spun poorly, always meant to fall apart.”

The flowers quivered again, indifferent, faithful witnesses to her unraveling. Lace pressed her forehead against the soil, inhaling the faint warmth of growth, of life, that stubbornly refused to leave the world. She closed her eyes.

The Void was patient. The Void had waited for her before, and it would wait again. But she was here, still, pulled back by someone who refused to let go.

And she hated that.

Yet even in that hatred, even in the self-loathing that bled through every sarcastic remark she had ever made, a small, brittle thread of relief wound through her chest. Someone had cared enough to tether her back to the world.

Lace smiled faintly, though it felt like tearing herself open to do it. “You,” she whispered to the absent figure of Hornet, “you did this. And I… I suppose I’m stuck with you now.”

Her laughter was hollow. Her grief was sharp. And yet, the flowers leaned toward her hands, delicate and stubborn, just as she had always tended them — just as she had always tended herself, in the gaps between falling and being saved.

She hummed a tune that felt wrong, one she hadn’t remembered knowing, and laughed quietly to herself. “Look at me,” she whispered, “gardener of ghosts. Steward of silence.”

“You were supposed to stay there,” she muttered to herself. “Drown where you were meant to die. And yet—here you are. Pulled back for what? Spectacle? Charity?”

The petals beneath her fingers trembled as if the Cradle itself were shivering. Lace’s laugh cracked, thin and brittle. “Poorly spun, that’s what I am. Hollow threads, woven by a child who thought she knew how to make life and meaning. Silk that tears at a sneeze. Look at me, Hornet. Look at what you saved.”

She rose, pacing through the small garden. The wind tangled her hair across her eyes. The world felt absurdly sharp, cutting at her skin, mocking her. She reached out, pretending she could hold the air itself in her palm. “A creature of threads and mistakes,” she whispered. “Nothing more. Nothing less. And yet you wanted me. Why?”

She fell back to her knees, hands clenching soil and petals alike. The shadows of the Cradle deepened, curling into shapes she recognized too well. The Void, patient and hungry, had not left her entirely. It waited in her chest, coiling beneath rib and heart like a needled thread, pulling her down with every breath.

“I am alive,” she said, voice raw, unfunny. “Alive, and hollow. Alive, and useless. Alive, and tangled in… in you, Hornet.”

The words fell and shattered, landing among the flowers. She wanted to curl around herself, to disappear, to be swallowed by the calm, rabid embrace of drowning again — yet some stubborn pulse of life kept her upright.

Lace laughed again, quieter this time, trembling. “Ah, yes, purpose. My purpose was always a poorly spun thread, wasn’t it? Silly, brittle, meant for nothing but breaking. And yet here I am. Pulled back. Alive. By you. Of course. Of course.”

Her fingers brushed a bloom that leaned toward the sun. She let her nails dig into soil and petals, feeling the sharp bite of reality. Even in her self-loathing, even in the weight of her obsessions and pain, she still breathed.

Still, she could not stop herself from thinking of Hornet, somewhere distant, moving through the city with that calm, impossible assurance, and she whispered again, almost pleading:

“Why me? Why not let me stay there?”

The wind answered only with the rustle of silk leaves, and Lace sat among the flowers, laughing quietly, bitterly — a gardener tending the remnants of herself.

Chapter Text

The sun had dipped low when Lace crested the final stairs to Hornet’s bellhome. Her legs ached from wandering the Cradle all day, her fingers still flecked with soil and petals. She expected quiet. She expected solitude.

Instead, the room was alive with order. Hornet crouched over the desk, bone shards spread in careful patterns across the maps, pins marking strategic points and routes. The Red Maiden herself was a storm of calm focus, silent, precise, utterly untouchable.

Lace leaned against the doorway, tilting her head. “Ah, the master at work. Or plotting conquest. Or… what is this, strategic necromancy?”

Hornet didn’t look up. “Planning for Pavo. He requested preparation for the lower gates.”

“Ah yes,” Lace said, stepping closer, brushing dust from her legs. “I imagine the city planner requires the full show of bones and maps. Very dramatic.”

Hornet’s gaze stayed fixed on the map. “Dramatic shows don’t save cities.”

Lace smirked. Her eyes drifted across the room, landing on a small, square tub in the corner — steam rising faintly, glinting in the afternoon light. She tilted her head, lips curving. “Oh! And you’ve got… a tiny hot tub, do you? How decadent.”

Hornet’s hand paused mid-arrangement. “It is functional,” she said flatly. “I regain what is lost there. Not… indulgence.”

“Functional, of course,” Lace said, moving closer, circling the tub, peering into the warm water. She let her fingers hover over the edge. “Though… I must admit. After the Cradle, after sun, soil, wind… a soak might be nice. Don’t you agree, oh divine one?”

Hornet’s jaw tightened imperceptibly. “It is not for discussion.”

“Right, right,” Lace said, backing away with a small, mock bow. “Your secrets are safe with me. Though,” she added, softer now, “I wouldn’t mind knowing what it feels like to… forget, even for a little while.”

Hornet’s claws twitched on the edge of the map. She didn’t reply. The steam from the tub curled lazily around her shoulders, the heat faint, intimate. Lace caught her own reflection in the water, and a strange ache pulsed in her chest — a mix of envy, desire, and the unbearable urge to cling.

She laughed quietly to herself, shaking the thought away, leaning casually against the desk. “Ah, I suppose I shouldn’t tempt the saint, eh? Best to leave her to her magic and her bones.”

Hornet’s silence answered her. And Lace, chest tightening, let the words hang unspoken, teasing as a shield — even as the pull toward Hornet’s calm, ordered presence grew heavier than any thread she had ever followed.

Chapter Text

Hornet paused, her hands hovering over the maps. The soft hiss of the tub’s steam curled around the room, warm and fragrant with the faint metallic scent of the Bellhome. Lace’s fingers traced the edge of the water, playful and light, but Hornet noticed the small frays and tears along her silk — the remnants of a day in the Cradle, the remnants of the Void’s touch.

The maps lay forgotten under her claws. She straightened fully, claws flexing, and spoke without multitasking, without distraction.

“You should soak,” she said. The words were quiet, firm, almost transactional, yet carrying something beyond instruction. “It will help. Your silk… it’s frayed. I can mend it while you soak.”

Lace blinked, startled. “Oh? The Red Maiden offers baths now? How… merciful of you.”

Hornet’s gaze did not waver. “It is not mercy. It is care. You need it, and I am capable.”

For a long moment, Hornet watched Lace weigh the offer. The pale silk of her body shimmered faintly in the steam, threads lifting at the edges. Hornet could see it all — the silent fractures, the subtle misalignments — and the pull to restore it was immediate. She held her hand out, gentle but unwavering.

Lace hesitated, then laughed softly, almost to cover the tremor in her chest. “Well… if the saint insists. I suppose I should let her work miracles.”

Hornet inclined her head once. “Then I will provide more than water.” She moved to a small shelf, retrieving a jar she had found in the Citadel, a translucent vessel faintly glimmering in the light. “This. It produces scented bubbles in the water. It will soothe you while I mend your threads.”

Lace’s grin softened, curiosity and amusement flickering in her eyes. “Bubbles… scented ones? You truly spoil your wards, oh mighty Red Maiden.”

Hornet did not answer the jest. She simply began preparing the bath, pouring the solution into the tub, watching the water swirl and glitter as tiny bubbles rose and popped, carrying a faint, sweet scent.

“Step in,” she said, voice steady, almost imperious. “I will not force you, but this will help. You’ve carried too much today.”

Lace paused at the edge, fingers brushing the warm water. Her usual humor returned, but softer, quieter, tinged with exhaustion. “Well… if the Red Maiden’s offering a spa day, who am I to refuse?”

Hornet’s eyes softened ever so slightly as Lace stepped in. She knelt beside the tub, fingers lightly brushing along the frayed edges of Lace’s silk, knotting and weaving new strands with her own silk. The action was precise, calm, and entirely hers — intimate without excess.

Lace hummed faintly, leaning into the warmth. Hornet’s presence was steady, grounding. And though Hornet did not say it aloud, her thoughts acknowledged the quiet relief in Lace’s posture, the fragile trust beginning to take root.

She would mend the silk. She would keep the threads aligned. And for now, she would allow herself to simply be there — a quiet sentinel, watching over the one she had saved.

Hornet knelt beside the tub, silk coiled in her claws. The faint scent of the bubble solution mingled with the warmth of the water, curling upward into the small, enclosed space. Lace had settled in, shoulders slumped, eyes half-closed, hands tracing the water’s surface as if measuring how much of herself remained.

Hornet flexed her claws, producing a thread of silk from her own essence. It shimmered faintly, strong yet yielding, a living strand of her will. She traced it along the frayed edge of Lace’s silk body, knotting and weaving with deliberate precision.

Lace shivered. A faint hiss escaped her lips — not from cold, but from the tight, unyielding pull of the silk as it bound itself into her skin. Hornet noted the movement, the subtle reflex of flinching, but continued. Every knot, every weave, was meticulous, careful.

“Not too tight,” she murmured. “It must hold, but it will not hurt unnecessarily.”

Lace’s lips quirked into a half-grimace, half-smile. “Oh, of course. Pain with a purpose. I should have known the Red Maiden’s tender touch would still hurt like a whip.”

Hornet’s jaw tightened, though her hands did not falter. She worked steadily, silk threading over torn edges, pulling frays into alignment. The warmth of the bath made the threads glide smoother than raw skin would allow, but still, the act forced Lace to confront the damage — the rips, the breaks, the hollowed spots where her body had been frayed by the day and by the memory of the Void.

And in her mind, Lace recalled the other hands that had bound her before. Her mother’s hands. Quick, sharp, unyielding. Taut threads pulled without question, without listening, without regard for complaint. A knot meant control, not care.

Hornet’s silk was different. Hornet paused when Lace flinched. She adjusted the tension, eased a pull, wove a softer loop. Her claws were precise, firm, but measured. She met Lace’s occasional wince with nothing but attention, not reprimand, not impatience.

“You’re… careful,” Lace whispered, voice trembling as her fingers clutched the edge of the tub. “Unlike her. You… you listen.”

Hornet’s movements slowed slightly, silk threading over the last tear along Lace’s shoulder. “I do not rush,” she said. “I do not demand silence or obedience. You are frayed, not broken. We will mend, together.”

The words, simple and unadorned, sank into the room like a pulse. Lace’s body shivered again, part from the tightening silk, part from the weight of what she remembered — what she had remembered — and part from the novelty of care that did not wound the mind as it did the body.

Hornet tightened one final loop, then eased back, inspecting the work. The tears were gone, replaced by woven threads of her own making. Strong, yet yielding. Protective, yet intimate.

Lace let out a breath, shuddering, and leaned slightly against her. Hornet didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away. She simply observed, silent sentinel, as the ghost of laughter, pain, and relief flickered across Lace’s features.

For a moment, the room was just the tub, the faint scent of the solution, the glow of the Bellhome, and the steady rhythm of silk binding flesh to silk, binding past trauma into a fragile, living thread.

Hornet allowed herself the thought, brief and unspoken: I saved her once. And now, I keep her whole.

And she did not look away.

Lace’s tension slowly unwound, the bath and Hornet’s careful mending leaving her body pliant, her hands drifting over the water’s warm surface. Her teasing persisted, soft and uneven, but it carried a weight of something more: a trust she rarely allowed.

“You know,” she murmured, voice low and flirty, “it might be… a shame to enjoy this alone. Perhaps the saint should join her humble, fractured ward in the water?”

Hornet’s claws paused on the edge of the tub. She considered the proposal, the unusual ease in Lace’s tone. Curiosity flickered in her mind — delicate, restrained.

“Very well,” she said finally, voice measured. “If it will aid in your recovery.”

Hornet stood, moving to her cloak, loosening it from her shoulders. She carefully set her needle and the silk aside, placing them neatly on a shelf. The cloak fell to the floor, revealing her true form.

Lace froze mid-breath, eyes widening. Beneath the robe, Hornet’s body was black and furry, tall, spindly, like a spider: limbs long and angular, muscles coiled with controlled strength, scars crisscrossing her frame like the maps pinned across her walls. Every mark told a story, every sinew hinted at precision and danger.

Hornet caught the glance. Her expression, calm as ever, betrayed nothing, though she noted the subtle shift in Lace’s gaze — surprise, awe, a flicker of something raw, unguarded.

She moved with slow, deliberate grace, stepping into the warm water. The steam curled around her frame, obscuring but not hiding. She submerged just enough to let the water lap at her midsection, careful, composed.

Lace blinked, the teasing humor faltering for a fraction of a moment. “I… I didn’t… I mean… wow,” she whispered, voice soft, almost reverent. Her fingers toyed nervously with the edge of the tub. “You’re… even more… imposing than I imagined. And… terrifying. But…”

Hornet tilted her head slightly, allowing the silence to stretch, her eyes scanning Lace without judgment. “But?”

“But,” Lace breathed, leaning back against the tub’s edge, letting the warmth and Hornet’s presence envelop her, “you’re… still calm. Still… gentle. Even like that.”

Hornet’s gaze softened, ever so slightly, as she moved closer, careful not to disturb the water more than necessary. She gestured for Lace to lean slightly, enough to make space for the warmth to envelop them both, though still maintaining her personal distance.

Lace exhaled a long, trembling breath, laughter soft and brittle. “You know,” she murmured, “it’s… nice. To… just… exist in the same room, like this. Without maps, without the Void, without… all the other things.”

Hornet said nothing, only observed — silent sentinel, aware of every subtle shift in Lace’s posture, every flicker of emotion in her eyes. She adjusted a fold of silk beneath Lace’s shoulder, letting the water lap gently against the mended threads, letting the bubbles carry the faint scent from the jar.

Chapter Text

Lace let her hands drift lazily across the water’s surface, pretending to inspect the bubbles, but her gaze never left Hornet. Every scar, every angular limb, every faint shimmer of silk along the Red Maiden’s claws sent a shiver through her — not entirely from fear.

“You know,” Lace said, voice low, soft, almost teasing again, “I think I might enjoy this more if you… leaned closer. Help me soak, or at least make sure I don’t float away like some lost bit of silk.”

Hornet’s eyes met hers, dark, unreadable, but there was the slightest tilt of her head — acknowledgment. No mockery. No impatience. Just… presence.

Lace swallowed hard. Her humor trembled on the edge of something real, something she had been hiding behind jokes and flirty titles for weeks. “I… I don’t know why I feel safe, or… calmer. Maybe it’s the water. Maybe it’s you. Maybe… I just haven’t been… allowed to breathe in a long time.”

Her fingers traced the edge of the tub again, watching the water ripple, listening to Hornet’s steady, controlled breathing. She let herself lean back slightly, letting the warmth cradle her, letting the bubbles rise and pop around her.

“You really… you really care, don’t you?” she whispered, more to herself than to Hornet. “Not like… like anyone else. Not like my mother. You… you notice the little things. And you… you stop when it hurts too much.”

Hornet’s gaze didn’t waver. She knelt at the edge, letting a hand hover near Lace’s shoulder, but not touching unless needed. It was enough — just enough — to anchor Lace without breaking her.

Lace let a soft laugh escape, brittle but honest. “I bet I sound ridiculous. Here, half-soaked, talking like some… silly, frayed ghost. But I don’t care. I want… I want this. I want you here. And maybe I want to annoy you too. Maybe that’s just how I… cope.”

Hornet inclined her head slightly, still silent, still precise, still tethering Lace without words. The silence was a tether in itself, unspoken, binding them as tightly as any silk could.

The movement was simple. The presence was grounding. And Lace let herself sink into the water, into the warmth, into the quiet intimacy, finally letting the teasing slip entirely.

She laughed softly, a tremor of relief and awe. “This… this is nice. You’re… not like anyone I’ve ever known. Not like anyone I… ever wanted to know. And yet… I can’t stop staring.”

Hornet said nothing, just let the water cradle them both, letting Lace’s words float through the warm air. The silence was not empty. It was tethered, and it was enough.

For the first time that day, Lace felt herself truly relax, fully — humor, fear, past pain, all wrapped into one fragile, tender thread, anchored to the Red Maiden who had saved her from the Void and now held her, quietly, in her steady, unyielding presence.

But her mind was elsewhere. Something had been gnawing at her all day, ever since the Cradle.

“What about… that thing in the Void?” she asked softly, voice hesitant, curiosity laced with that familiar flicker of bravado. “The one… I mean, the thing that almost pulled me under?”

Hornet’s dark eyes flicked to her, calm and unreadable. “You mean my sibling.”

Lace blinked. “Sibling?” She hadn’t expected that. “You… have family?”

Hornet’s claws flexed slightly in the water. “Yes. Hollow. The Vessel. My father — the Pale King. My mother — Herrah, the Beast.” She paused, eyes narrowing just faintly. “It is… complicated.”

Lace tilted her head, “Complicated. Always a good start for a story. Try me.”

Hornet exhaled slowly. “Hollow… is my sibling. They are… difficult to explain. The Vessel is… another part of what Hallownest called family, but not in the way you understand it. My father ruled, my mother guided. And I… left.”

“Left?” Lace echoed, curiosity sharp now. “You ran off from all that pomp and misery? That dead kingdom?”

Hornet’s gaze darkened slightly. “Hallownest is gone. A corpse, desolate, quiet. I could not… linger. Pharloom offered purpose.”

Lace’s grin spread, teasing, her voice lilting over the water. “So basically, you’re a runaway princess. Got it. Red cloak, fancy family, tragic past, lonely exile. I mean, it’s almost romantic.”

Hornet’s dark eyes snapped to her, unamused. “You… are no different. You, too, are technically a princess. Born from silk and authority, expected to survive, expected to bear burdens you never asked for.”

Lace laughed, breathless, a mixture of awe and irony. “Touché, oh mighty Red Maiden. So, we’re both tragic royalty. Great. Makes this bath feel… positively noble.”

Hornet inclined her head slightly, eyes returning to the water’s surface. “Do not make light of it. Titles, family, burdens — they shape who we are. But we do not have to be defined by them here.”

Lace tilted her head, softening, letting her humor dissolve into something warmer, almost vulnerable. “I like that. I… I like that a lot. Because honestly? Dead kingdoms, deadly siblings, and distant fathers sound exhausting. I’d rather… soak in warm water and be annoying to you.”

Chapter Text

Hornet let a faint ripple pass through the water, the warmth lapping against her spindly limbs. She had kept her face calm, her voice steady, all morning — the sentinel, the precise and controlled Red Maiden.

But Lace’s soft, teasing commentary, paired with the way she had sunk into the bath without reserve, chipped at something in Hornet. Not enough to let herself lose composure entirely, but enough to let a flicker of dry humor slip past her usual restraint.

“You’re remarkably insistent on annoying me,” she said, voice low, careful, letting a slight edge of amusement curl around the words. “Do you have a daily quota?”

Lace grinned, inching slightly closer, letting her legs brush the water against Hornet’s side. “Maybe I do,” she murmured, laughter soft. “Maybe I just… need to see if the mighty Red Maiden can handle a little chaos in her perfect bath.”

Hornet’s eyes flicked toward her, dark and unreadable, but something sharper glimmered beneath the surface. “I handle it,” she replied dryly. “But don’t mistake my tolerance for indulgence.”

Lace’s fingers traced absentmindedly along a bubble, the movement slow, teasing. “Tolerance is good. I like that. Makes you… approachable. Dangerous, but approachable.”

Hornet inclined her head, the faintest smirk curling her otherwise stoic features. “I suppose I could take it as a compliment,” she said. Her voice was measured, but the playfulness in the cadence was unmistakable. “Though I doubt you’d survive flattery alone.”

Lace laughed, leaning forward slightly, her shoulders brushing Hornet’s. The closeness made her pulse quicken. “Maybe I like danger. Maybe I like you,” she murmured, letting the words hang between them, teasing, daring, vulnerable all at once.

Hornet’s dark eyes caught hers, calm, but she allowed a pause, letting Lace feel the weight of her presence without reacting emotionally. The shift was subtle — a tether loosening just enough to acknowledge, without encouraging, the flirtation.

“You are… reckless,” Hornet said finally, tone firm but not unkind. “Even here, you push. Even here, you test boundaries.”

Lace’s grin softened into something warmer, more open, a fraction of the armor slipping away. “I guess I trust you,” she whispered. “Enough to be… this silly, I mean.”

Hornet let a slow breath pass, letting her shoulders relax slightly in the water. “Good,” she said. “I am… not easily trusted. But I do not stop you.”

For a long moment, the water held them both, rippling gently as if the bath itself understood the fragile balance: Lace pushing, Hornet holding, teasing, but restrained. The tether between them grew taut in a new way, electric and unspoken, a test of patience, trust, and proximity.

Lace leaned just a fraction closer, letting her hand hover near Hornet’s arm, teasing, daring, waiting for a reaction. Hornet’s claws twitched ever so slightly, not pulling away, not encouraging — merely observing, aware, and carefully choosing the moment she would intervene, if ever.

And in that silence, in that warm, scented water, the two threads — the rescued and the savior — wound closer together, subtle, fragile, undeniable.

Hornet’s eyes followed Lace as she inched closer, the subtle shift of her silk body in the water drawing attention without overt intent. The warmth of the bath, the scent of bubbles, and the lingering closeness made her pulse tighten in ways she could not — would not — acknowledge.

A flicker of something irrepressible curled in her chest: amusement. She let it stretch, carefully, and the corners of her mouth twitched.

“You do realize,” she said, voice low and smooth, “that if you get any closer, you risk being trapped under my claws for asking questions or poking around my scars.”

Lace’s soft laugh bounced across the water, teasing, but warm. “Risky. I like risky. Makes life… more interesting. Besides, you do look dangerous. Very… lethal, like someone who might—”

“—finish the bath first, before annihilating my ward?” Hornet cut in, her voice carrying a faint edge of sarcasm. The corners of her eyes crinkled subtly. “Don’t flatter yourself. I rarely allow annihilation during relaxation hours.”

Lace’s grin softened, amused and vulnerable all at once. “Relaxation hours, huh? I’ll remember that, oh mighty Red Maiden. Though… I might test your patience anyway.”

Hornet’s claws flexed in the water, but she let herself tilt her head, a small smirk breaking her usual stoic mask. “Test me again, and I might be forced to retaliate… with sarcasm and excessive caution.”

Lace’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Excessive caution? That’s terrifying. How ever will I survive?”

Hornet allowed herself a fraction of a lean closer, careful, controlled — just enough that the warmth of the water pooled between them. Her tone dipped slightly, deliberate, teasing in a way she rarely allowed herself: “Perhaps you’ll survive… if you prove amusing enough to warrant my attention.”

Lace laughed softly, a sound threaded with something softer, something warmer. She leaned a little further, almost brushing Hornet’s arm, daring, playful.

Hornet’s gaze darkened, unblinking, but the smirk lingered. Her claws twitched slightly, brushing faintly against the water near Lace’s. “Amusing,” she said slowly, savoring the word, “is a high bar. I might even… allow it. But only for now. Don’t mistake this… for weakness.”

Lace tilted her head, breath catching in the warm water. “Oh, I wouldn’t dare. Though… I might try anyway.”

Hornet let a faint, deliberate chuckle escape, low and measured. Her eyes tracked Lace’s movements, noting every inch she inched closer. The water rippled around them, carrying faint bubbles, warmth, and the charged tension of proximity.

For the first time, Hornet allowed herself the thought — fleeting, careful, dangerous: I could enjoy this.

And she did not look away as Lace leaned just a little further, testing the boundary, pushing with playful audacity. The Red Maiden’s control remained firm, but her humor, her sarcasm, and her subtle teasing revealed that beneath the armor, threads of something human — maybe even dangerous — were beginning to unravel.

Chapter Text

The warmth of the water, the rising steam, the faint scent of bubbles — all of it pressed against Hornet like a weight she could not ignore. Lace’s small movements, the subtle shift closer, the soft teasing, and the daring brush of silk against water… it was too much.

Her claws flexed, not to strike, but to steady herself. Her chest tightened. The humor she had allowed, the faint smirk, the teasing tone — it had opened something she wasn’t ready to confront.

“You… you are reckless,” she muttered under her breath, more to herself than to Lace.

And then the hand hovered, almost brushing her arm, almost crossing a boundary she could not let fall.

Hornet’s mind snapped forward in a single, cold decision. No.

She rose abruptly, water cascading off her spindly frame, steam curling around her like a shroud. The sudden movement splashed lacewater, droplets catching in the air. Her cloak, sodden at the hem, she snatched from its folded place and threw it over herself with sharp, precise motion.

“I—” Lace’s soft, startled laugh cut off, words caught in her throat.

Hornet did not look back. She moved swiftly, silently, like shadowed silk through the steam, and exited the bath. Every step echoed with unspoken finality.

The door closed softly behind her.

And Lace was left alone.

She sat in the warm water, the bubbles still floating lazily, but the warmth and the sense of connection were gone. Her fingers trembled slightly as they skimmed the surface.

“Did I… do something wrong?” she whispered, voice small, almost fragile. “Was it me?”

Her laughter, usually bright and teasing, was gone. She sank lower, hugging herself, cheeks warm not from the bath but from sudden embarrassment and hurt.

The Red Maiden had left. The warmth had left. The tether she had felt, fragile but real, vanished like vapor. And Lace’s chest ached with a quiet, bitter realization: maybe, in her push to seek comfort, she had overstepped. Maybe the one person she was beginning to depend on could not—or would not—allow her closeness.

She pressed her forehead to the edge of the tub, voice barely a whisper. “I… I didn’t mean… I just…”

The bath held only silence in answer, the scented bubbles rising and popping, a cruelly indifferent chorus to her small, hollow voice.

Hornet’s absence was a thread pulled taut, snapping at the edges of Lace’s fragile heart.

And Lace, as she sat there, shivering in more ways than one, realized just how much she had started to need the Red Maiden’s presence — and how quickly it could hurt when it was withdrawn.

Chapter Text

The water clung to her skin, the warmth fading into emptiness as Hornet’s absence pressed against her chest. Lace’s fingers skimmed the surface, bubbles collapsing under her touch, and she realized, painfully, that the tether she thought she controlled had already slipped through her grasp.

Why? she asked herself, voice trembling in the empty bath. Was it too much? Did I… push too far?

Her reflection wavered on the water’s surface, distorted and hollow, just like she felt inside. She had wanted comfort, safety, connection — maybe even approval. And she had been rebuffed. Not harshly, not cruelly, but firmly, deliberately. Hornet had left. And Lace’s chest ached as she admitted the truth she’d been skirting around: she didn’t just want Hornet’s presence. She needed it.

She rose, water dripping from her silk-frayed arms, the bath’s warmth fading against the chill that gnawed at her insides. Her voice was low, bitter, whispered to herself as if speaking aloud could steady her racing heart:

“I… I can’t… I won’t… I won’t let it control me.”

But the words felt hollow, even as she clenched her fists, trembling. She tried to straighten her shoulders, tried to reclaim the persona she wore like armor: witty, teasing, untouchable. Yet her heart betrayed her, pounding with a helpless longing she couldn’t name.

She swayed slightly, catching herself on the edge of the tub, eyes tracing the empty space where Hornet had been. Every instinct screamed to chase, to demand, to cling. But pride, fear, and uncertainty forced her feet forward instead.

Control, she whispered again, bitterly. Control, Lace. You can’t—

The words broke into a shuddering laugh as she grabbed her discarded white cloak, wrapping it around her damp frame, still trembling, pulling herself together as best she could.

And then, in a flurry, almost instinctively, she fled. Out of the bath, out of Hornet’s bellhome, out of Bellhart’s safety. The streets stretched ahead, cool air biting at her wet silk, and she ran — fast, uncontrolled, a mess of nerves and silk and desperate adrenaline.

She didn’t notice her weapon lying forgotten on the floor. The pin stayed behind in the quiet of the bellhome, silent witness to the collapse she refused to admit.

Her thoughts raced, harsh and chaotic.

Why did I… why did I let it get to me?
Why did I… care so much?
Why do I… need her?

Her voice cracked in her head, the questions tearing at the fragile threads of composure she still clung to. She couldn’t answer them. She only knew that the ache in her chest, the fire in her veins, the desperate flutter of her pulse — it all pointed to one thing she couldn’t escape: she was utterly, completely lost in Hornet.

And as she left Bellhart behind, leaving the safety and warmth of the Bellhome, Lace felt the sting of her own helplessness. Her jokes, her teasing, her bravado — useless against the tether she could not sever.

She ran, and every step carried the weight of her dependence, her desire, and her fear — all tangled together like frayed silk strands she could not repair.

Chapter Text

Lace did not remember how she got there.
One moment there was the cold rush of the tunnels, the next — the Cradle, her Cradle.

The flowers she had planted long ago swayed in the faint luminescence, pale as bone and tender as breath. They greeted her with the same patience they always had, rooted and radiant in their silence. And yet, when she looked upon them, she saw them dying.

Not truly — their petals were unblemished, their stalks strong — but in her mind, the rot had already begun.

The edges blackened. The air thickened. The light dimmed.

Every breath she took felt stolen from something purer than herself.

She sank to her knees among them, her silk cloak dragging through the petals. They brushed her face, soft as pity.

“Beautiful, aren’t you?” she whispered, voice trembling into laughter that cracked before it could take shape. “Still so... perfect. Still alive. Why do you get to live when I—”

Her voice failed.

The scent of the flowers—sweet, sharp—filled her lungs until it hurt. Her hands, shaking, pressed to her chest, to the hollow cavity where she swore she could feel something unspooling.

Hornet.

Her name — no, her title — echoed in Lace’s head like a pulse.
The Red Savior. The one who pulled her from the Void.
The one who looked into her and did not flinch.

And now she had flinched.

“Of course she did,” Lace muttered, bitterness rising like bile. “Of course she’d see what’s under the mask and—”

She pressed her palms to her eyes. The warmth from the bath had long since fled her body; all that remained was the chill memory of the Void’s embrace — vast, indifferent, comforting in its nothingness.

How quiet it had been there. How simple.

No wanting. No striving. No shame.

Only stillness, dark and kind.

Her laugh came strangled, muffled against her trembling hands.

“I should have stayed,” she whispered. “Should’ve sunk. Should’ve—”

Her throat closed around the word.

Instead she had fought her way back to the light, clawing up through ink and memory and fear, all for what? To make a fool of herself in front of the only creature who’d ever looked at her without disgust?

She fell sideways, body curling among the flowers. Their stems bent beneath her weight but did not break.

“I ruin everything I touch,” she said to the earth.
The petals brushed her face again, forgiving, or maybe accusing — she couldn’t tell.

She laughed, hoarse and broken.
“I can’t even die right. I can’t love right.”

Her laughter broke into sobs, raw and ugly.
Every breath felt too loud in the quiet cradle of her flowers.

The air shimmered faintly, as if the Void itself had heard her call and stirred beneath the soil, patient, waiting. She could almost feel its cool arms reaching up to cradle her again, to hush her trembling heart.

And she wanted it. God, she wanted that stillness again — the weightless drifting, the quiet erasure of self.

But even in the thick of that longing, Hornet’s face rose in her mind — unreadable, stern, alive.
The tether refused to break.

Her hand reached out blindly, curling into the dirt.
“Don’t come for me,” she whispered to the air. “Not this time.”

Chapter Text

Hornet moved through the quiet streets of Bellhart, claws brushing against the worn stone, ears attuned to every whisper of movement. The Red Maiden’s usual precision guided her steps, but there was a tremor beneath it — subtle, almost imperceptible, but it tightened her chest with every heartbeat.

Lace was gone.

The thought sank into her like a stone through water. Not a rebellion, not a misstep — a flight, a disappearance she should have anticipated, perhaps even prevented. And yet she had let it happen.

This is my fault.

Hornet’s claws flexed unconsciously. She had stood in the bath, poised between control and desire, and she had chosen… flight. Not for safety, not for duty — but for herself. Because the flutter in her chest, the slow, unwelcome pull of longing for Lace, had terrified her. She had not wanted to confront it.

So she had run first.

And Lace, always attuned to the currents of others’ emotions, had borne the weight of it.

Gods, Hornet thought, I pushed her away because I am weak.

The streets of Bellhart stretched silently before her, familiar and empty. Every shadow, every corner, reminded her of the careful balance she maintained — and how easily it had shattered. She moved faster, steps echoing, the soft rustle of silk betraying her haste.

Her mind churned. Every instinct screamed to find Lace, to pull her back from the edge of despair she had created. But intertwined with that urgency was a heavier, sharper edge: guilt.

I saved her from the Void, she reminded herself. I brought her back from nothing. And now… now she suffers because I could not face what I feel.

She passed through the outskirts of Bellhart, checking the Cradle in her mind even before her eyes saw the familiar pale glow. Her pace quickened, claws scraping the stone. Every second that passed without Lace’s presence felt like a knife twisting in her chest.

She’s fragile, Hornet admitted, and not just to the world, but to me. She needed tethering, guidance, care — and I… I abandoned her when she needed it most.

The Red Maiden’s breath caught, an unusual tightness in her chest. Anger flickered, sharp and bitter — not at Lace, but at herself. Every careful boundary, every stoic pose she had worn, every refusal to engage with the feelings she didn’t understand… it had driven Lace into the night, into the Cradle, into her own unraveling.

I cannot lose her, Hornet thought, the words sharp and final. Not like this. Never like this.

Her steps carried her faster, instinct pulling her forward. The Cradle’s faint glow appeared on the horizon, pale as bone, delicate as hope. Her claws flexed. Her heart, taut and trembling, reminded her that she could no longer hide behind discipline alone.

I have to face this. I have to face her… and myself.

Hornet’s eyes hardened, determination wrapping around the pangs of guilt. She would not leave Lace alone in the dark. Not tonight. Not ever again.

And for the first time in a long while, the Red Maiden allowed herself to feel the weight of her own threads — the pull of responsibility, of care, of something she had never admitted even to herself: fear.

Fear of losing Lace, and of what it might mean if she could not protect her — emotionally, physically, completely.

Chapter Text

Hornet’s claws brushed softly through the low flowers, careful not to crush the pale stalks, her eyes scanning the faint luminescence. And then she saw her — Lace, collapsed among the blooms, silk frayed, body trembling, hands clenching the soil.

“Lace…” Hornet breathed, voice low, measured, but trembling more than she expected. Every instinct screamed to rush forward, to cradle, to soothe.

She stepped closer, cautiously, palm raised in tentative reach. “I… I shouldn’t have—”

The words never finished.

Lace’s head snapped up. Her eyes were bright, furious, and wet. In a single fluid motion, she scrambled to her feet, flinching backward, turning her back to Hornet. Her body shook, tense, a mix of fear, anger, and raw, desperate adrenaline.

“Don’t!” Lace hissed, voice sharp, cracking with hurt and anger. “Don’t try to… touch me! You think you can just… waltz in and fix everything?”

Hornet froze, claws hovering mid-air, unsure how to approach. The words were heavier than she expected.

“You left me! You left me to fall apart in your absence!” Lace’s voice rose, shaking, echoing faintly among the hollow stalks. “Do you remember what you did here? In this very spot?”

Hornet’s chest tightened. She remembered. Every scar, every cut, every precise strike she had delivered in that battle. She had cut Lace down, yes — to save her, to tether her back from the edge of destruction. But the memory was raw, etched into the soil of this place like a cruel reminder.

Lace’s hands clenched into fists, her small frame trembling with rage and grief. “You think you can just stand there and look calm, like none of it mattered? I remember! Every strike, every moment, every time you—”

“Lace…” Hornet began, voice gentle, but Lace cut her off.

“I dare you!” Lace spun, her eyes blazing, and lunged. She had no weapon, nothing but her hands and the desperate courage coursing through her. Her fist swung forward, trembling, wild, raw — a challenge born from hurt and defiance.

Hornet’s claws flexed reflexively, but she did not strike. She stepped back, giving Lace space, letting the attack pass harmlessly through air that could have been filled with petals.

“You… you want a rematch?” Hornet asked softly, voice carefully measured, barely hiding the sharp edge of incredulity and concern. “Here? Now? Without a weapon?”

Lace’s chest heaved, lips trembling, eyes shining with unshed tears. “Yes! Here! Now! You cut me down before, didn’t you? Prove it again. Show me. I’m done… done being… this weak!”

Hornet’s gaze softened, heart aching in ways she would not admit aloud. She knew the danger of engaging — that Lace’s anger and vulnerability were a volatile combination. Yet the Red Maiden could not step away.

She shifted her stance, careful, measured, silent — letting Lace’s fury have its full form, letting her stand, let her rage, let her lunge and fight without harm. And yet, every fiber of Hornet’s being wanted to anchor, to soothe, to fold Lace into safety and shield her from herself.

But she did not.

Not yet.

Because this was Lace’s fire, her test, her reclamation of agency. And Hornet knew — deeply, painfully — that she could not extinguish it, no matter how much she wanted to.

Lace lunged again, trembling and unarmed, and Hornet met her gaze, dark, steady, precise. The tether between them, frayed and taut, hummed like silk stretched across a chasm.

And for the first time, Hornet wondered — not how to control it, but how to survive it.

Chapter Text

Her fists moved almost on their own, fists and legs flailing, spinning and lunging, every strike guided by the Void still whispering in her mind. Her heart hammered, a frantic rhythm that drowned out reason, drowned out the warmth of the Cradle. All she could see, all she could feel, was Hornet. Hornet, who had left her. Hornet, who had cut her down. Hornet, who had abandoned her even when she needed her most.

And yet… she could not bring herself to strike truly.

So she cursed instead.

“You think you’re so perfect, don’t you, weavling?” she spat, the words tasting like fire on her tongue. Her hand swung again, a weak, wild punch that grazed Hornet’s cloak, but never pierced. “Always so calm… so untouchable… Red Princess of the world! Always… perfect!”

Hornet didn’t strike back. Didn’t scold. Didn’t even move her claws harshly. That only fueled the fire, the bitter, roiling flame that clawed through Lace’s chest.

“You’re a child!” she shouted, staggering backward, then forward again, lashing out with a kick that barely grazed Hornet’s side. “A silly, little child who thinks she can save everyone!”

Her voice cracked, raw. Tears pooled at the edges of her eyes, unheeded, blending with the sweat and water dripping from her soaked body. The Void hummed low, dark, a cool embrace at the edges of her mind, and she could feel herself fraying, unraveling, the little control she had left slipping like silk through her fingers.

“Look at me! You left me! You left me! And now you’re just… here, standing there like nothing happened!” Her voice rose, sharp, high, full of the wild desperation she had kept bottled so long. “I hate you, I hate you, I… I…”

And yet, even as the words tore from her, she felt the truth behind them — not just hatred, but longing, pain, and fractured trust. Every taunt, every cruel nickname, every flailing swing was a shield. She could not allow herself to feel how much it hurt that Hornet had left, even for a moment. She could not allow herself to admit she needed her.

So she laughed bitterly. “Come on, Red Princess! Show me your perfect little moves! Show me why I’m nothing! Go on! I dare you, weavling!”

Her body shook as she lunged again, fists swinging, kicks whipping, a chaotic dance of grief, anger, and defiance. She could not stop. She would not stop. And yet, she refused to hit Hornet in earnest, redirecting all the violence inward — every frustrated swing a warning to herself, a punishment to her own frayed silk, a reminder that she was hollow and fragile and endlessly, painfully alive.

The flowers beneath her bent and quivered, petals brushing her tear-streaked cheeks. The Cradle’s soft light seemed almost mournful, witnessing the storm of a bug fighting her own tethered heart, trying desperately to vent a chaos she could not contain.

And in the center of it all, Hornet remained — calm, untouchable, immovable — a perfect mirror of the tether Lace could not sever, the anchor she could not admit she craved, and the one she feared she would never truly hold.

She lunged again, fists swinging, legs flailing, every movement a chaotic blur of anger, fear, and the Void’s cold whisper. Her chest burned, her breath came ragged, and still, her mind roared with one thought: Hornet had left her, and she would not forgive it.

But she never connected. Every punch grazed only air or Hornet’s careful sidestep, the Red Maiden moving with a patience and grace that only sharpened Lace’s frustration.

“Come on, come on! Don’t just stand there like some perfect little—” Lace’s words cut off as Hornet’s hands suddenly curved around her sides, gentle yet unyielding.

The shock of contact made Lace stumble, her knees folding slightly beneath her, but she did not fight with malice — too many conflicting impulses tumbled through her. She wanted to flee, to lash out, to punch and push and scream… and yet she was caught, cradled against Hornet’s chest, held firmly but without force, carefully, as if the slightest pressure might break her.

“Let go!” Lace gasped, voice sharp but uneven, trembling. Her arms flailed, weakly pushing against Hornet’s steady hold, but she could not find the strength to escape fully.

“Lace,” Hornet said softly, voice low, measured. Gentle. Patient. The warmth of it cut into Lace’s chest like fire under silk. “I will not hurt you. I am not here to punish you.”

Her mind screamed back in chaotic fragments. Punish me? No — save me, maybe… fix me, control me… destroy me… I don’t know, I just…

“I—” she started, her voice breaking, “I hate… you… I hate you! You left me! You left me!”

Hornet did not respond with words beyond that first careful statement. She only held on, letting Lace’s small body press into her, keeping her upright, but not restricting her breathing, not forcing her down. The steadiness, the undeniable solidity of Hornet’s presence, tore at Lace’s defenses even as she fought against them.

Her hands trembled, reaching instinctively, as if trying to push Hornet away but also clutch her, desperate for a tether she could not admit she craved.

“You… you don’t understand! You don’t know! You—” Lace’s voice broke entirely, sobs threatening, her knees weakening. She pressed her forehead against Hornet’s chest, fighting tears she could no longer hold back.

Hornet’s fingers flexed around her gently, silk against silk, holding without squeezing, restraining without harm. The faint brush of her claws against Lace’s frayed arms was deliberate — a reminder of presence, not threat.

“You are safe,” Hornet murmured, almost more to herself than to Lace. “You are alive. You are… still here. And I will not let you fall again.”

Lace’s chest heaved, ragged breaths shaking her small frame. She wanted to pull back, to push away, to scream, to lash out… but the closeness, the safety, the undeniable warmth pressed into her, and all her defenses began to crumble.

Her voice fell to a trembling whisper, barely audible over her own heartbeat. “I… I don’t… I don’t know how to… be okay…”

Hornet’s chest was steady beneath her forehead, heartbeat slow and precise. Her tone softened, almost coaxing. “Then let me teach you. Let me be here. But not as someone you hate. Not as someone you fight. You are not alone.”

Lace flinched, trembled, but did not push away. Her fingers clutched weakly at Hornet’s cloak, her body trembling against the firm, careful hold. The chaos in her mind — the Void, the self-loathing, the grief, the anger — swirled violently, but for the first time in hours, she felt a thread of something else: a tether she did not have to fight alone.

And she hated it, even as she needed it.

Chapter Text

Hornet’s claws were steady, sure, but her chest burned as she held Lace close, feeling the trembling beneath her fingers. Her heart, taut and unyielding for centuries, throbbed with a rhythm she had long denied. The bug pressed against her, fragile and chaotic, a storm she could no longer ignore.

She shifted, carefully, guiding Lace to the soft bed of flowers. The petals bent beneath their weight, delicate and forgiving, a stark contrast to the tension radiating from Lace. Hornet seated them both gently, holding Lace against her chest, arms wrapped carefully, yet firmly. Every motion was precise, practiced, but the tremor in her voice betrayed the storm she carried inside.

“I am… tired of this silence,” Hornet finally said, voice low, deliberate, and trembling at the edges. “Tired of holding back what I feel, tired of pretending this… tether, this bond… doesn’t exist.”

Lace’s body shivered against her, small fingers clutching at her cloak, but she did not pull away. Hornet exhaled sharply, letting the carefully curated mask crack, letting raw emotion surge forth like a flood she could no longer dam.

“I saved you!” Hornet’s voice rose, sharp, fierce, echoing across the Cradle. “I pulled you from the Void when you wanted… wanted to disappear! To die! And I — I thought I could bear it. I thought I could stay detached! I thought I could just… guide you, tether you, keep you safe without… without feeling this!”

Her claws flexed, brushing lightly against Lace’s frayed silk, careful not to hurt, but grounding herself in the tangible, in the small, warm weight of the bug in her arms.

“You have no idea… no idea what it did to me!” she shouted, the words spilling free, jagged and raw. “To see you broken, to see you fall apart, to feel every shred of your fear, your pain, your self-loathing… and not be able to stop it without… without—”

She broke off, voice strangled, but the tremor did not leave. Her centuries of control, her precise, stone-faced composure, had shattered in moments, replaced by a torrent she could no longer contain.

“I… I did not expect to… to feel this,” she continued, lower now, almost pleading, almost raw. “I did not expect to feel it so… so deeply that it broke through every wall I have built in hundreds of years! I… I hate that it is this way. I hate that I cannot turn it off. I hate that you… make me feel…”

Her claws flexed once, sharply, and she buried her face briefly against Lace’s head, letting the frustration, the love, the fear, the guilt — all of it — scream silently into the blossoms around them.

“Gods! You shouldn’t have survived the Void,” she finally shouted, voice trembling with anger, with grief, with a strange, aching tenderness. “And yet you did! And you exist! And I can’t… I can’t stop caring, I can’t stop needing to protect you, and I… I… I am terrified of what it means that I can’t walk away!”

Her arms tightened slightly, not painfully, just enough to anchor Lace, to ground herself in reality. The Red Maiden’s eyes were dark, glimmering, unflinching — not calm, not composed, but raw and exposed.

“I should have stayed detached. I should have left you in the Void. But I couldn’t!” Hornet shouted again, each word like silk tearing. “I will not lose you! And I… I cannot lie to myself anymore! I—”

She faltered, voice breaking, barely audible now, trembling as centuries of restraint collided with the raw, fragile weight of one small, chaotic girl in her arms. “I… care… more than I should. More than I can… I can… I…”

Her head tilted closer, resting lightly against Lace’s, her claws holding her safely against her chest. The storm of emotion, the centuries-old walls, the guilt, the overwhelming need to protect — it all spilled out in a torrent of voice and tremor, raw and human.

“I… love you, Lace. And I am terrified of it! Terrified of you, terrified of myself, and terrified that I cannot fix what I have broken in you!”

For a moment, Hornet stayed still, letting the words settle in the warm air of the Cradle, the petals whispering beneath them. She held Lace close, not forcing eye contact, not demanding anything, simply letting her voice, her confession, her centuries of restraint, land where it might — and hoping that maybe, somehow, the tether they shared could survive the storm.

Stay.

The single word thundered through her mind, unspoken yet undeniable. She wanted Lace to remain here, in the Cradle, in her arms, tethered to her — not out of possession, not out of pride, but because the thought of losing her again, of letting her drift into darkness alone, made something inside Hornet ache with unbearable weight.

She shifted slightly, careful, keeping her arms wrapped around Lace without constriction, feeling the frail silk against her claws. The warmth, the subtle pulse of life, the softness of the small, trembling figure… it anchored her in a way she had not thought possible.

“I… I just want you to stay,” Hornet murmured, voice low, almost hoarse. Not commanding, not pleading — just a bare confession of need, of desperation she had never allowed herself to voice. She let her head rest lightly against Lace’s, eyes scanning the pale glow of the flowers around them.

The Cradle seemed impossibly still, the petals bending gently beneath them, the faint luminescence soft and forgiving. Hornet’s mind raced, but her body remained still, holding, protecting, grounding.

She whispered again, quieter this time, almost to herself: “Just… stay. Here. With me. Please.”

Her claws flexed unconsciously, lightly brushing Lace’s arms, small, careful motions that mirrored the fragility of both their states. She wanted to say more, to explain the weight of centuries, of guilt, of the impossible nature of her feelings, but the words failed her. She had only the tether, the hold, the desperate hope that Lace would not flee.

Hornet’s mind replayed every moment she had spent with Lace: the pull from the Void, the frayed silk she had bound, the warmth, the humor, the chaos. And with every memory, the ache grew sharper, fiercer.

Stay. Please.

Her heart, long armored, long precise, long untouchable, beat wildly in her chest as if echoing the unspoken plea. She could not articulate the depth of the fear, the weight of the centuries, the guilt she carried for saving Lace only to see her unravel again — she could only hold her, whisper the single word, and hope it was enough.

“Stay,” she repeated softly, almost like a prayer. “Stay… just here. With me.”

And for the first time in centuries, Hornet allowed herself to admit the truth fully: that she needed this tether as much as Lace might, that she could not bear the thought of letting go.

She did not tighten her hold. She did not force Lace to answer. She simply held her, letting the warmth, the quiet, the shared breath, speak the words she could not yet trust herself to say aloud.

Please stay. Don’t leave me again.

Chapter Text

Hornet did not sleep.

The floorboards beneath her were cold, and the faint warmth of her cloak did little to ease the ache in her limbs. Lace lay in her bed — her bed — the one narrow mattress pressed against the far wall, wrapped in Hornet’s spare blankets and the faint scent of the oils she used to mend silk and fur.

She had carried her there the night before, limp and trembling, flowers clinging to her clothes. The scent of decay still lingered on them, though the petals had been whole through the narrow alleys, through Pavo’s startled questions, through her own rising shame.

Lace had been limp in her arms, silk-damp and feverish, whispering nonsense between sobs that had barely formed into words. Hornet had not spoken. She had only walked, steady and deliberate, her heartbeat loud in her ears. She could still feel the weight of Lace’s body in her arms. Too light. Too fragile.

Alive, but only barely.

Hornet sat cross-legged on the floor beside the bed, head bowed, claws folded over her knees. Her eyes traced the lines of the maps plastered on the opposite wall — all her careful routes, her plans, her tasks — and for the first time in memory, they meant nothing to her.

This was my fault.

Lace stirred in her sleep, a small, broken sound leaving her throat — a whimper, or perhaps a name. Hornet tensed, heart leaping to the surface. She turned, watching as the silk creature twisted under the covers, her body coiling in some quiet, unseen torment.

“Lace,” Hornet murmured, her voice hushed, instinctive.

Another whimper, and Lace’s hands clenched into fists.

Hornet hesitated — then, without letting herself think, she rose. The cloak fell from her shoulders, landing softly beside her. Beneath it, her fur caught the faint dawn light: black, matted in places, a lattice of pale scars glinting across her arms. She crossed the short space between them and crouched beside the bed.

The air was warm from Lace’s breath, trembling and uneven. Hornet reached out, slowly, cautiously, resting a clawed hand against Lace’s shoulder.

“Easy,” she whispered. “You’re safe.”

But the tension did not ease. Lace’s body shuddered, a strangled sound caught behind her teeth.

Hornet frowned, her chest tightening with something she did not want to name. She had seen many things — wounds that split open the body, sickness that hollowed the mind — but this was different. This was grief made flesh.

So she did what instinct told her.

Carefully, she eased onto the narrow bed, lying down beside the restless figure. The bed was small — too small for two — but she fit herself there, arm draped loosely over Lace’s trembling frame. Her silk was cool beneath Hornet’s palm, frayed in places where the mending hadn’t yet held.

Lace stilled.

Her breath hitched once, twice, then slowed. The tremors dulled, her body softening against Hornet’s. A faint sigh escaped her lips, almost childlike in its relief.

Hornet let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Her chin rested lightly against the top of Lace’s head.

The scent of flowers — faint, hollow, like something half-remembered — lingered between them.

In the quiet, Hornet’s mind refused to rest. She thought of the Void. Of dragging this broken, desperate creature out of its cool black cradle. Of her own hands, wet and shaking, her heart pulsing with something dangerously close to love.

You wanted her to live, she told herself. You must accept what that means.

Her grip tightened slightly.
Hornet froze.
Her instincts screamed to retreat, to restore distance, to keep the barrier that had always kept her safe. But her body — tired, guilty, and human in its yearning — refused to move.
Instead, she stayed.
For the first time since she could remember, Hornet wished she could weep. Not for herself — but for the fragile, foolish, beautiful thing she had pulled from the dark, only to wound again in the light.
The morning bells began to toll, distant and low.

Lace shifted once more, pressing closer, murmuring something too soft to catch. Hornet closed her eyes. She would let herself hold her — just until dawn finished breaking. Just until Lace’s breath steadied completely.

Then she would rise, and pretend none of it had happened.

Chapter Text

When Lace woke, it was to warmth.
A weight across her ribs, light but steady.
The faint rhythm of someone else’s breathing.

For a moment she thought she was still dreaming — that she’d fallen asleep in the Cradle again, that the flowers had tangled around her limbs, that the darkness had come to take her back.

But the scent was wrong.
Not the heavy perfume of decay and silk, but something sharper — like old fabric, dry soil, and faint traces of resin.
Hornet.

Her eyes opened slowly.
Light filled the bellhome in soft strokes — gold and dust dancing in the air. The roof beams creaked quietly overhead. The walls, hung with cloth maps and bits of string, all swayed with the faint morning breeze.

Lace didn’t move. Couldn’t.

Hornet’s arm was around her, claws loose against her waist, her body warm and still behind her. Lace could feel the slow rise and fall of her breath, brushing against her neck with every exhale.

And just like that, the memories returned — not all at once, but in broken shards.

The Cradle.
Her knees in the dirt.
The flowers twisting, wilting in her mind.
Her voice rising, shaking, breaking.

And then—
Hornet’s voice, low, raw, cracking through the dark.

The words burned through her now as they had then, bright and terrible. She squeezed her eyes shut, breath catching.

No. That couldn’t have been real. Hornet wouldn’t—
She couldn’t.

The last thing Lace remembered was falling, sobbing into the hollow of Hornet’s chest, the world spinning, her mind slipping somewhere between waking and oblivion.

Had Hornet said it out of pity? Desperation?
Or had Lace imagined it, the way she imagined the flowers dying, the way she imagined she was ever worth saving?

Her throat ached. She wanted to cry again, but she was too empty for it.

She’d hurt her.
She’d struck Hornet — not just with words but with venom, with pride, with every jagged edge she’d honed to keep people away. She could still see Hornet’s eyes — not angry, but wounded. And that was worse.

Now, lying here, with Hornet asleep behind her, the guilt pressed down heavier than the weight of her arm.

How could Hornet touch her like this, after everything?
How could she forgive her so easily?

Lace’s breath trembled as she shifted slightly, just enough to glance back. Hornet slept still, her face half-hidden by a thin blanket, tangled and twisted, jaw slack with exhaustion.

“Fool,” Lace whispered under her breath, the word catching on her tongue. “Stupid, pathetic fool.”

She wasn’t sure if she meant Hornet or herself.

Her gaze drifted to the far side of the room — to the small table where her pin should have been. The space was empty. She’d left it behind in her flight, abandoned like her pride, her pretense of control.

Now she was unarmed in every sense of the word.

The morning air shifted. Hornet stirred behind her, a small sound escaping her throat — half sigh, half wordless murmur. Lace froze again, terrified that she’d wake her, that she’d have to face those eyes full of quiet, impossible kindness.

She didn’t deserve this — didn’t deserve her.
And yet some traitorous part of her wanted nothing more than to turn over, bury her face against Hornet’s fur, and stay like this until the world ended.

The thought made her shake, breath catching on a bitter laugh that never quite formed.

She remembered the look on Hornet’s face when she’d said I love you.
It hadn’t sounded like victory or confession. It had sounded like surrender.

And maybe that was what terrified her most — that Hornet, who had always been so certain, so sharp, so strong, could be brought to her knees by her.

The warmth at her back shifted again, Hornet’s arm tightening unconsciously around her. Lace swallowed hard, blinking away the sting in her eyes.

“Don’t do that,” she whispered, voice cracking. “Don’t make it harder.”

But Hornet didn’t answer — not in words, not in movement. Just a steady breath, soft and even, as if to say you’re here, you’re safe.

Lace stared at the morning light until her vision blurred.

She didn’t know whether to believe it.

Chapter Text

The first thing that changed was the air.
Hornet stirred behind her — a shift so small it could’ve been the creak of the floorboards, but Lace felt it. The warmth at her back drew away, replaced by the faint rustle of cloth.

Lace lay still, pretending to sleep.

She heard the faint scrape of Hornet’s claws against the floor, the slow, deliberate rhythm of her steps. She didn’t speak — didn’t even sigh — but the sound of her moving was steady, purposeful, the way she always was when she didn’t know what else to do with her hands.

Fabric moved. A drawer opened. The gentle clink of bone shards being sorted into jars.

Acts of order.
Of control.
Of not feeling too much.

Lace opened one eye. Hornet stood near the table, the morning light catching the damp fur of her shoulders, her cloak hanging loosely from her frame. She looked… tired. More than tired — hollowed out. But still she worked, straightening the maps, retying string, arranging shards into neat circles.

Every movement said what her mouth wouldn’t: I’m here. I’m doing something useful. I’m fine.

Lace pushed herself up slowly, the blanket slipping from her shoulders. Her silk had been mended — new, clean stitches pulled tight where her skin had frayed. Hornet’s silk. She could feel it hum faintly under her own, strange and alive, binding her together in ways that weren’t just physical.

For a long moment, she just watched her.

Hornet didn’t turn.
Didn’t acknowledge that she was awake.
Just reached for a small kettle and set it over the low flame of the brazier, busying herself with the ritual of tea.

Lace hated how tender it made her feel.

Finally, she found her voice. “You didn’t have to… bring me back.”

Hornet froze — just for a fraction of a second — before continuing to pour the water. “You collapsed,” she said simply. “Leaving you there wasn’t an option.”

“I told you to leave me.”

“I rarely listen when others tell me to abandon them.”

The answer should’ve irritated her. Instead, it just made her chest ache.

Hornet placed two small cups down, one in front of where Lace sat, the other for herself. The tea smelled faintly sweet — a flower blend, likely traded from Frey’s shop. Lace hesitated before taking it, the warmth seeping through her hands.

“Did I… say anything?” she asked quietly.

Hornet’s eyes flicked up to her, unreadable. “You said many things.”

“Anything worth remembering?”

A pause.
Then, softly: “Enough.”

That stung — not cruelly, but honestly. Lace sipped her tea to hide her expression, the bitterness grounding her.

Hornet, meanwhile, knelt beside a pile of cloth and bone shards, sorting them into bundles — all muscle memory, all precision. Her every gesture was careful, efficient, as if speaking too much might cause her to unravel.

“You mend me,” Lace said after a long silence, “and then tidy the room. Is this how you calm yourself?”

Hornet’s mouth twitched, just barely. “It is how I ensure my surroundings make sense, even when I do not.”

Lace tilted her head. “Ah. So when your mind is chaos, you clean your room.”

“It works,” Hornet replied. “Sometimes.”

Lace almost smiled — almost. “And when that doesn’t work?”

“Then I fight.”

Something in her tone — quiet, resigned — made Lace’s stomach twist. She watched Hornet’s hands as she bound a string of shards with thread, precise and steady. Hands that had killed, and healed, and carried her home.

“I’m sorry,” Lace said suddenly. The words escaped before she could stop them.

Hornet didn’t respond right away. Her claws stilled mid-motion.

“For last night,” Lace continued, voice low. “For the things I said. The things I—did. You should’ve left me there.”

Hornet finally looked up, eyes sharp and bright. “And if I had?”

Lace faltered. “Then I wouldn’t have had to—”

“Wake here?” Hornet finished for her.

Lace swallowed. “Wake like this. Feeling… all of this.”

Hornet’s gaze softened. “Feeling is not weakness, Lace.”

“You say that like you believe it.”

Hornet didn’t answer. Instead, she rose, moving to the basin near the window. She wrung out a clean cloth, the simple domestic motion carrying a kind of reverence that made Lace ache.

When she returned, she knelt beside Lace again, holding out the cloth wordlessly. Lace blinked.

“For your face,” Hornet said quietly. “You’ve been crying in your sleep.”

Lace almost laughed, but the sound broke halfway out. She took the cloth, her claws brushing Hornet’s fingers — and Hornet didn’t pull away this time.

The silence between them was heavier now, but not sharp. Just full.

“Why?” Lace whispered finally. “Why do you keep doing this?”

Hornet tilted her head. “Doing what?”

“Caring,” she said. “For someone like me.”

Hornet’s reply was simple. “Because someone must.”

Lace’s throat tightened.

And that — that was Hornet in her entirety. Not words, not declarations, not comfort. Just action. Hands that healed, silk that mended, quiet that steadied.

Lace set the cloth aside and stared down at the tea cooling in her cup.

She wanted to reach out. To say I love you too, to make the words mean something beyond last night’s delirium. But the moment felt too fragile to survive them.

So instead, she murmured, half to herself, “You’re impossible, Hornet.”

Hornet’s mouth quirked — the closest she came to a smile. “I’ve been told that.”

Lace watched her turn away again, resuming her work, the lines of her back taut and elegant, every movement deliberate. And in that quiet, Lace finally understood — this was how Hornet loved. Not with touch, not with words, but with care disguised as duty.

It was maddening.
It was beautiful.
It was not enough

Chapter Text

The tea had gone cold.
Neither of them moved.

Hornet watched the faint ripple on the surface of her cup — a thin skin of oil catching the light — and thought, absurdly, how much it resembled the sheen of the Void. Smooth. Deceptive. Still, until it consumed.

Across from her, Lace was all nervous motion. Fingers tracing the rim of her cup, claws tapping in small staccato bursts. Her silk shimmered faintly where Hornet had mended it, the threads catching the morning light. A patchwork body. A fragile thing pretending to be whole.

Hornet’s own hands rested on her knees. Still. Perfectly still. It was easier that way. Stillness as armor. Stillness as mercy.

“You said,” she had murmured earlier, “enough.”

And then Lace had asked what they were.

But she hadn’t asked about Hornet’s words.

Hornet had told herself she was grateful for that.

Now, as the silence grew thicker, that gratitude began to sour into something else — something jagged.

She glanced at Lace again. The girl was looking away, eyes distant, lost in thought. Not defensive, not even closed off — just… forgetful.

As if that night hadn’t carved itself into Hornet’s bones.

“Lace,” she said softly.

The name came easier now. Not child or fool or pale one, but her name. The way it sounded was almost gentle.

Lace looked up, startled, a smear of tea still glistening on her lower lip. “Mm?”

Hornet hesitated. She hated hesitation — it betrayed the pulse under the armor. “Do you,” she began, voice steady but quiet, “remember what I said to you?”

Lace blinked. “You? Last night?”

“Yes.”

Lace frowned, thoughtful. “It’s… blurry. I remember you shouting. I remember hands. And…” She trailed off, searching for words in the haze of half-sleep and pain. “I remember you telling me not to go.”

Hornet’s claws tightened around her cup. “I did.”

“And then?”

Hornet looked away. The maps on the wall stared back, covered in pins and ink trails, her own handwriting looping across parchment like the veins of a dead leaf. The city’s heart. Its burdens. Its weight.

She could tell Lace, now.
She could admit it.
That in the moment she had pulled her from the Cradle, covered in dirt and white petals, sobbing, something in her had broken. That she had whispered please because for once she could not command.

But to say it aloud again — here, in the sharp light of morning — would strip her down to the softest parts of herself.

So instead, she asked, “Do you remember what you said to me?”

Lace tilted her head, brows drawn. “Probably something awful.”

“You told me you hated me.”

“Oh.” Lace grimaced, rubbing at her face. “That sounds right.”

“You told me I should have let you drown.”

Lace said nothing.

Hornet continued, her tone calm, even. “And then, moments later, I told you I loved you.”

The air shifted. Lace froze, her eyes going wide. Hornet regretted it immediately — not because she’d said it, but because of what it did.

The word love felt like a live wire between them, hissing, too bright.

“I—” Lace started, then stopped. “I don’t… remember that.”

Hornet nodded slowly. “Good.”

“Good?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Hornet rose from her place on the floor, turning away. It was easier to speak to the wall. “Because it means it was not something you must bear the weight of. Words spoken in delirium should not anchor themselves to daylight.”

“Was it really delirium?” Lace’s voice was softer now, almost trembling.

Hornet didn’t answer.

Silence again, heavy as stone. The distant hum of Bellhart seeped through the shutters — carts creaking, voices rising. The world went on, indifferent.

Hornet busied her hands, collecting their cups, rinsing them in the small basin. Lace watched her, expression unreadable.

When Hornet turned back, she found Lace standing — awkward, uncertain, still in the mended silk.

Hornet met her gaze. There it was again — that glint of something too raw to name. She wanted to step forward, to cup Lace’s face and tell her she was wrong about everything but that.

Instead, she said, “Eat something. You’ll need your strength.”

It was the coward’s answer. The safe answer.

And yet, Lace smiled. Not bright — but soft, almost forgiving. “You really are terrible at conversations, aren’t you?”

Hornet exhaled through her nose, setting the cups to dry. “I’m adequate at the ones that matter.”

“Mm.” Lace stretched her arms overhead, the movement languid, teasing, as if to lighten what had just hung between them. “Then I suppose this one must not.”

Hornet didn’t rise to the bait. Didn’t smirk. Didn’t move.

Only watched her — watched her light catch in the dim room, the faint gold shimmer of her silk against the stone.

Something inside her shifted again, small and treacherous.

Hornet turned back to the maps. “Go,” she said quietly. “Pavo will need someone to check the western scaffolds. I will be there soon.”

And Lace, with her maddening grace, only hummed in acknowledgment — as if they hadn’t just touched the edge of something unbearable.

As the door closed behind her, Hornet let herself breathe. Her claws trembled where they touched the desk.

She whispered the words again — the ones she had said in the dark, the ones she’d hoped Lace would forget.

“Stay. Please.”

A pause.

“I love you.”

And the sound of them in daylight hurt worse than she’d imagined.

Chapter Text

Bellhart breathed with its usual unease. The city never slept, not really — its heart a clockwork rhythm of tools, pulleys, and pipes that echoed through the stone ribs of the cavern. Hornet found comfort in its constancy. Order. Function. Noise that wasn’t thought.

She needed that today.

She had left the bellhome not long after Lace. The air outside had the chill of iron; the sun-shards filtering down through the great domed skylight were thin and pale. The smell of oil and pollen mingled — the scent of survival.

Hornet passed through the main square, where Frey was opening her stall. The shopkeeper greeted her with a polite nod, eyes bright. Hornet returned it with a curt dip of her head — no words. Words were too costly this morning.

Her claws flexed against the haft of her needle as she walked. Order, she reminded herself. Duty. These are safe.

“Miss Hornet!”

The voice broke through the hum of the crowd. She turned, already knowing the tone: eager, reverent, that particular blend of awe and self-importance.

Pavo approached with his usual flourish — chest puffed, scrolls tucked under one arm. His shell gleamed with polish; his legs clicked with nervous excitement.

“The Red Maiden blesses us with her vigilance once again,” he said, bowing low enough to draw stares. “Bellhart thrives under your watch.”

Hornet suppressed the sigh that rose to her throat. “Bellhart thrives under its workers, Pavo. I merely ensure its pulse remains steady.”

“Ever humble,” Pavo said, straightening. His eyes flicked over her face — searching, almost worshipful. “Still, none would deny your hand steadies us. I had feared the Cradle might claim you both last night.”

Hornet’s jaw tightened at the mention. “It did not.”

“Indeed. Miss Lace looked… unwell when she passed by earlier.”

“She is recovering.”

“Ah. Then the Maiden’s touch truly heals.”

Hornet didn’t answer. Her patience was a thin thread today — she could feel it fraying.

Pavo unrolled one of his scrolls, pointing to the sketches of Bellhart’s western scaffolds. “We’ve had reports of erosion along the outer ledges. I’ve already dispatched a small crew, but your insight—”

“I’ll inspect it myself.”

He beamed. “Of course. I would expect no less. Truly, you are our salvation.”

There it was again — the word she hated. Salvation. As if her claws could cleanse the rot, as if her presence didn’t carry the echoes of what Hallownest had become: a corpse trying to whisper back to life.

She turned sharply. “Ensure your workers stay within the safety lines. I’ll meet you at dusk to review their progress.”

Pavo blinked, momentarily startled by the coldness in her tone. “Yes, Miss Hornet. As you command.”

He bowed again — too deeply, too theatrically. Hornet was already walking away.

And that was when she felt it: the faint prickle at the back of her neck, the sense of being watched.

She didn’t need to turn to know who it was.

Lace.

At the far end of the square, near the edge of the crowd, she stood half-hidden behind a market post, arms folded, expression unreadable. The delicate shimmer of her repaired silk caught the light.

Their eyes met. Briefly.

Then Lace looked away — too quickly.

Hornet exhaled quietly through her nose and resumed walking, ignoring the ache in her chest. She knew that look. She’d worn it herself once, in younger days, watching her mother command respect and devotion that felt unreachable.

Jealousy was not foreign to Hornet. But it was cruel to see it mirrored now in Lace’s face — cruel, and unearned.

By the time she reached the edge of Bellhart, her claws itched for something tangible to do. She inspected the western scaffolds as promised — her movements mechanical, efficient. She tested the stone for fractures, replaced frayed cord, marked weak points with chalk.

Work was good.
Work didn’t ask her to remember the way Lace had looked last night — drenched, trembling, as her own voice cracked with words she shouldn’t have said.

Stay. Please.
I love you.

The echo of her own voice haunted her more than Lace’s screams.

She drove the needlepoint into the ground to test the soil’s firmness. The vibration hummed through her claws like a pulse.

When she finally returned to the main path, Pavo was waiting again — clipboard in hand, smiling as if nothing had teeth.

“Miss Hornet,” he said, “Frey sent a message for you. Supplies ready for transport.”

“I’ll retrieve them.”

He hesitated, as if considering something bold. “If I may say, the citizens are grateful beyond measure for what you’ve done. Even Miss Lace, though she’s… spirited.”

Hornet’s gaze snapped to him. “What of her?”

Pavo raised his claws defensively. “Nothing, nothing ill! Only that she seems… uneasy. I approached her to ask after her well-being, and she nearly—well—bit.” He gave a nervous chuckle. “I suppose some simply don’t yet understand your grace.”

Hornet’s silence cut sharper than any retort.

Pavo faltered under it. “I meant no disrespect—”

“You didn’t,” Hornet interrupted, turning to leave. “But perhaps give her space. Lace is… finding her place here.”

“Of course, Miss Hornet. As you wish.”

She didn’t look back.

By the time she reached the lower corridors, the city’s hum had grown softer, replaced by the faint rush of the underground river. She stopped beside one of the sealed gates, resting her claws against the cool stone.

Lace’s voice echoed in her head — Maybe not all of them were wrong.

Hornet closed her eyes.

For all her pride, she had failed the one lesson Herrah had tried to teach her: that mercy, once given, becomes attachment.

And attachment, inevitably, becomes pain.

Still, she couldn’t stop herself from turning back toward the square, scanning for a glimpse of golden silk.

She didn’t see Lace again that day.

But she could feel her — just beyond sight, circling the edges of her life like something fragile and furious, waiting for a reason to break.

Chapter Text

The way her long fingers brushed the map’s edge. The quiet precision in how she arranged shards and thread. The way she spoke to Pavo — low, measured, kind.

That kindness curdled in Lace’s chest like spoiled nectar.

She told herself she wasn’t watching. She was protecting.
Hornet was fragile in ways she didn’t see — far too trusting of others, far too open to the wrong ones. Pavo, with his calm voice and neatly polished shell, had slithered into her circle like silk through a needle’s eye. He stood too close. He looked at her like he understood.

Lace wanted to tear that look off his face.

When Frey appeared a few moments later — all quick wit and nervous energy — Hornet smiled, tired but genuine. Lace felt her stomach twist.
There it was again — that warmth she couldn’t get from her.

She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.
She remembered the words Hornet had said the night before — fractured, blurred in the haze of exhaustion and grief.
“Stay… please. I can’t lose you too.”
Her voice had broken on that last word. Lace had thought she’d imagined it, or dreamt it in her fevered mind.

But now, in the morning light, it felt unreal. Distant. Like the echo of someone else’s memory.

And here she was — Hornet, calm and composed again, her cloak half-dried from last night’s storm, her posture a statue of self-control — surrounded by bugs who didn’t deserve her time, her gentleness, her gaze.

Pavo said something soft, something that made Hornet’s expression ease. Lace’s hands clenched before she even realized. Her silk threads trembled — a twitch of instinct.

She told herself she didn’t care.
She told herself she wasn’t hurt.
She told herself Hornet was free to speak to whoever she wanted.

But the truth roared beneath her skin like a tide she couldn’t dam.

She was jealous. Desperately, hideously jealous.
And she hated herself for it.

Every time Hornet turned to her, she forced a smirk — brittle and hollow.
Every time Hornet looked away, her heart cracked a little more.

Lace tried to recall the day before — the heat of the bath, the tenderness in Hornet’s touch, the tremor in her voice — but the details slipped through her mind like water.
She remembered saying things she shouldn’t have.
Doing things she regretted.
And Hornet leaving her sitting there, soaked and silent.

Now, seeing her move among others, offering them the same patient steadiness she had once given Lace — it burned.

She wanted to speak, to pull Hornet aside, to demand—what?
An explanation?
A confession?
A reason to believe that the night before had mattered?

But she said nothing.

Her pride sealed her lips shut, even as her heart screamed.

When Pavo reached for one of Hornet’s maps, their claws brushed.
Lace’s silk flared, a reflexive pulse. No one noticed.
She forced a breath, a smile, something sharp and artificial.

The Cradle’s air clung to her memory — sweet, sickly, choking.
She’d come apart there.

And Hornet had stayed.

So why, now, did it feel like she was already losing her all over again?

Lace could hear their laughter.
Soft. Harmless. Ordinary.
And it scraped against her nerves like a whetstone.

Hornet leaned close to show Pavo something on the parchment — a cluster of notes and runes she’d written the night before. Her shoulder brushed his shoulder as she reached, unthinking. Lace’s stomach tightened, her throat going dry.

She knew it meant nothing.
She knew Hornet wasn’t the kind to flirt, not with anyone, certainly not with him.
But knowing didn’t help.
It never did.

She kept her back turned, pretending to polish her pin, though her weapon still sat on Hornet’s worktable from the night she’d left it behind. Her hands trembled as she worked.

She caught herself whispering, almost under her breath,

“He doesn’t even fight. What use is he to her?”

No one heard her. The others went on talking — Hornet giving quiet orders, Frey fussing with supplies, Pavo nodding with that damned calm smile.

Something about Hornet’s poise infuriated her. How easily she carried herself again, after last night’s storm.
Had Hornet already sealed those feelings away, just like that?

Lace’s memories blurred.
She remembered heat. Soil. Hornet’s arms pulling through her torn seams.
Then light — too bright, too white.
Then darkness, and Hornet's voice breaking — I love you.

But what had Hornet said after that?

It was like trying to recall a dream that was already fading. A shape of tenderness, and fear, and something that might have been love — but she couldn’t hold onto it.

When Hornet turned toward her now, with her usual calm eyes, Lace wanted to ask — Do you remember?
But she didn’t. She only nodded, smirked, and muttered,

“Busy little queen, aren’t you?”

Hornet blinked, not catching the barb. “There’s much to be done. Pharloom doesn’t rebuild itself.”

“Right,” Lace said. “Wouldn’t want your… assistants… to feel unappreciated.”

The words came out sharper than she meant. Frey glanced up, puzzled. Hornet’s expression softened — or maybe it was pity. Lace looked away, humiliated by her own tone.

The rest of the morning passed in silence. Lace stayed nearby, pretending to help, every movement small and calculated. Her chest ached with the effort of holding herself still.

Hornet spoke to her once — “You should rest, Lace.”
And Lace smiled, brittle. “I don’t rest well.”

By midday, the others dispersed. Lace remained behind, sitting in Hornet’s shadow as she continued her work, her own thoughts a constant, sick pulse:

I broke this. I scared her. I made her afraid to touch me again.

And still, when Hornet reached for a spool of thread beside her, their hands brushed.
It was nothing — a flicker. But the warmth lingered long after.

Chapter Text

The day bled itself dry.

Lace spent it wandering the market paths, ignoring every curious glance from the townsfolk who dared to speak her name. The sun dragged across the sky, slow and smothering, until its last light pooled like blood over the rooftops.

The walk back from the outskirts had done little to cool her temper — the silence of Pharloom only made it worse. Every sound she heard became Hornet’s voice in her head: steady, sure, patient. The same calm she’d offered to Pavo. To Frey.
Never to her.

She hadn’t spoken to Hornet since morning.
Hadn’t needed to.
Every moment of silence between them had said enough.

By dusk, Lace’s fury had cooled into something stranger — not anger, not grief, but a gnawing ache she couldn’t name. She told herself she was only walking back to the bellhome because she needed her weapon. That was all.

The bellhome was quiet when she entered. The air smelled faintly of steel and parchment — Hornet’s scent, clean and sharp. A candle burned low on the table beside her maps. Hornet sat hunched over them, eyes half-lidded from exhaustion, the soft hum of her focus filling the space.

Lace stopped in the doorway, watching her.

Hornet looked… calm. Whole.
It made Lace’s chest tighten with something ugly.

Lace slipped inside, quiet as a breath. Hornet didn’t turn. The small table was covered in maps again — and a fresh pot of tea. Two cups. Lace’s pulse faltered.

“Expecting someone?” she asked, voice low.

Hornet startled, turning sharply. Her expression softened when she saw who it was.

“Lace. I didn’t hear you come in. No — the tea’s for you.”

Lace stood there, dripping rain onto the floor, eyes darting to the two cups, the neat arrangement of parchment, the warmth still lingering in the air.

“For me,” she repeated, disbelief curling into mockery.
“Strange. I thought you’d be too busy entertaining Pavo to notice I’d gone.”

Hornet’s brows knit. “You’re angry.”

“Jealous,” Lace snapped, before she could stop herself. “Isn’t that the word?”

Hornet’s tone stayed even, but her jaw tightened. “They help me rebuild. That’s all.”

“Of course,” Lace said. “You’ve always been good at finding new allies.”

Hornet’s gaze sharpened. “What are you implying?”

Lace’s pulse quickened. She didn’t want to fight — not really — but the words came anyway, sharp and trembling. “I saw how you looked at him. How he looked at you. You didn’t look at me like that.”

Silence. Only the faint creak of wood and the flicker of the candle.

Hornet rose slowly, her expression unreadable. “You think I would—?”

“I don’t know what you would!” Lace snapped, slamming her palm on the table hard enough to scatter the bone shards. “You let me fall apart in your arms, then you spend the next morning smiling at him!”

Hornet didn’t flinch. Her calm made it worse.
Lace wanted her to shout, to feel something, anything.

But Hornet just stood there, quiet and still, like a monument that would outlast every storm.

That silence tore something loose.

Lace lunged forward, gripping Hornet’s wrist — not to hurt, not even to restrain, but because she couldn’t stand the distance anymore.
Hornet’s eyes widened, startled, and for a heartbeat neither of them breathed.

“Why do you do this to me?” Lace whispered. “Why do you make me—”

She didn’t finish. Couldn’t.

Hornet took a slow breath, steadying herself, that unshakable calm sliding over her face again.

“Lace,” she said softly, “you’re not—”

“Don’t tell me what I’m not,” Lace hissed, stepping forward. “Don’t lie to me. You looked at him — the way you looked at me.”

“That’s not true.”

“Then why does it hurt?”

The question cracked out of her like lightning.
Hornet blinked, silent, her mouth parting as if to answer — but she couldn’t.

Lace stepped closer still, until she could see her reflection in Hornet’s eyes. Her chest hurt with every breath.

“You make me lose myself,” she said, voice trembling. “You make me think I matter. Then you pull away. You always do.”

Hornet’s voice was barely a whisper. “Because you frighten me, Lace.”

The words struck like a blade.
Lace froze. “Frighten you?”

Hornet nodded once, gaze unflinching. “Not for my life. For yours. You burn so brightly, but you don’t see what your fire does. You’d tear yourself apart for something fleeting.”

Lace laughed — sharp, hollow. “Better to burn than to fade.”

Hornet looked at her with such sorrow that Lace wanted to scream.

“You can’t keep doing this,” Hornet said. “You can’t keep—”

“I can’t help it!” Lace shouted. “Every time you look at me, I feel like I’m coming apart, and when you don’t—”
Her voice cracked. “When you don’t, I start to think maybe I already have.”

The silence that followed was unbearable.

Then — movement. Hornet reaching out, slow, cautious. Lace flinched back before she could touch her.

The teacup dropped, porcelain shattering on the floor.

Lace stood there, trembling, the heat of the touch still clinging to her fingers.

Hornet’s expression had changed — not angry, not afraid. Just tired.

“You think I don’t see you?” Hornet said quietly. “You think I don’t care?”

The words cut deeper than a blade.

Lace wanted to speak — to apologize, to fall apart, to beg — but nothing came out. Only breath, ragged and useless.

Hornet turned away, cloak brushing the floor. “Sleep, Lace. Please.”

And then she was gone, into the other room, leaving Lace alone with the dying candlelight and the mess of scattered maps.

Lace stood for a long time before she realized her hands were shaking. She sank to the floor beside the table, the silence ringing in her ears.

She hadn’t meant to touch her.
She hadn’t meant to break her.

But she couldn’t stop seeing it — Hornet’s calm eyes, Hornet’s steady hands, Hornet’s smile meant for someone else.

And beneath it all, the small, brutal truth she couldn’t bury anymore:

“I’d rather she hate me than look through me."

Chapter Text

Hornet left before she could hear Lace break.

The door closed behind her with a sound far too soft for the ruin she felt inside. Outside, the night air was cold enough to sting. It filled her lungs like a reprimand. The streets of Bellhart were mostly empty—just the low hum of the Bell Beast beneath the cobblestones and the distant, pulsing glow of the citadel spire in the east.

She walked without thinking, her steps tracing familiar routes. The wall first—always the wall.

Her claws touched the worn brass of the gate and for a long moment she only listened to the sounds beyond: the echo of wind through stone, the far-off rattle of a Hollow engine somewhere in the wastes. Everything beyond this point wanted to devour what they’d built. And tonight, for a heartbeat, she thought she might let it.

The map folded itself neatly in her mind: patrol routes, barrier cracks, the watchtowers that needed mending. All the order she’d made to keep chaos from leaking through the seams.

And then—Lace. Always Lace.

Her voice. Her trembling hands. The wild light in her eyes when she thought Hornet didn’t see.

Hornet stopped walking. Pressed a palm against the brass wall.

“You think I don’t see you?”

The words came back to her like an echo she didn’t remember choosing. She had seen her. That was the problem. Lace’s cracks were too familiar, the way her loneliness turned cruel when she didn’t know where to put it.

Hornet had spent her life burying that same cruelty under duty.

And for a moment, tonight, she’d seen herself through Lace’s eyes—the savior, the Red Maiden, the god. She hated it. She hated how small it made her feel, how unreachable. She wanted to be something Lace could hate safely, something she could survive losing.

But instead, she’d let herself falter. She’d let Lace’s hand touch her wrist, and hadn’t pulled away quickly enough.

Now the air around her felt too thin.

She walked again, this time toward the lower tiers where the builders had left their fires still burning. The air smelled of metal and oil and sleep.

One of the builders—a tired beetle with one eye and soot-stained mandibles—nodded as she passed. “Miss Hornet,” he rasped. “All clear tonight?”

Hornet gave a curt nod. “All clear.”

He smiled, relief softening his face. “Good. Pavo said you’d come check, even this late.”

“Pavo says many things.”

The beetle laughed, not catching the chill beneath her words, and went back to his work. Hornet watched him hammer a new support beam into place, each strike steady, certain. She envied that certainty.

When she reached the watchtower, she climbed its winding spine to the top and sat upon the edge. The Bell Beast’s pulse below her vibrated through the metal—steady, alive. A great heart beneath the city.

She drew out her needolin and began to pluck at its strings. The sound came low and resonant, echoing like wind through hollow bones. The music calmed her hands but not her thoughts.

“I love you.”

She remembered Lace’s voice at the Cradle—half delirious, bleeding from the void’s pull. The way the words had trembled out, more plea than confession. She’d told herself then it was the fever speaking, not Lace herself. That she had imagined the weight of it.

But tonight… she wasn’t sure anymore.

Hornet played another note. The melody wavered, broke.

She set the instrument down and let the silence sit heavy in its place.

Perhaps she should have let Lace stay lost in the Void.

The thought startled her—its cruelty, its honesty. She didn’t mean it. Not truly. But she couldn’t deny that saving her had tied their fates in ways neither of them knew how to unspool.

Lace clung to her as though she were the only thread keeping her tethered to reality. Hornet wanted her to be free of that dependence—to see her stand alone. But to cut that thread now might destroy them both.

The moon above Bellhart hung like a needle poised over silk. She stared at it until her vision blurred.

“What am I doing?” she whispered.

There was no answer. Only the wind and the faint hum of the Bell Beast’s slumbering heart.

She stayed there until the first gray light of dawn began to lift over the rooftops. Only then did she rise, cloak damp with dew, and turn back toward the bellhome.

She would need to face Lace again. She always did.

Chapter Text

Hornet returned when Bellhart slept.

The lanterns along the upper street had burned to dull embers, their light more smoke than flame. She moved through the quiet like a ghost, every sound too sharp: the echo of her claws against the brass, the sigh of her cloak dragging the stone.

The bellhome waited at the far end of the lane, haloed by the faint pulse of the Bell Beast’s heart deep below. When she opened the door, the warmth struck her — candlelight still guttering low, maps half-folded, bone shards scattered across the desk.

And Lace.

Asleep again in her bed.

Curled up small, knees to her chest, arms clutched tight as though she could keep herself from falling apart in her sleep. One hand still reached faintly toward the edge of the mattress — the hand that had touched her wrist earlier that night.

Hornet froze in the doorway.

The first thing she noticed was the salt streaks dried into the silk of Lace’s cheeks. Tear stains, faint and shining. The second was her breath — shallow, uneven, the kind of sleep that only comes after collapse.

She cried herself empty, Hornet thought.

She didn’t mean to think it with tenderness. But it came out that way, quiet and aching.

The guilt slid in next, heavy as lead.

Hornet closed the door behind her, careful not to make a sound, and crossed the small room. The maps on the wall rustled faintly in her passing. A candle burned itself low on the desk, wax pooled into its own shadow. She reached to snuff it out, but her hand paused halfway. The light, however weak, made Lace’s silk gleam — pale gold and half torn at the shoulder where Hornet had mended her.

The stitches still held.
At least something she had done held.

She let the candle burn.

Her body ached with exhaustion. She could have taken the floor again — she’d done it before — but as she looked at Lace, small and shaking even in sleep, the thought felt cruel.

And worse — she didn’t trust herself not to keep watching.

Hornet hesitated a long time before she reached down and gently pulled the silk sheet further over her. The gesture was mechanical, instinctive — but Lace flinched even in her sleep.

Hornet froze.

Then, quieter than a breath, Lace murmured something. Just a fragment, slurred and broken:

“…don’t leave…”

The words hit like a needle through the chest.

Hornet swallowed hard. She didn’t move her hand. Didn’t breathe. For the first time that night, her composure cracked, the sharp edges softening into something unbearably true.

“You think I don’t see you,” she whispered again, but this time the words were gentler. “I do. Too much.”

She should have left then — but instead, she sat on the edge of the bed, cloak falling around her like a second shadow. The floor would have been the proper place, the disciplined choice. But the floor was cold, and Lace’s trembling too visible.

Slowly, carefully, she lay beside her.

The bed was narrow, built for one. Hornet moved with deliberate care, keeping her distance — until Lace, without waking, rolled toward her and pressed her face against Hornet’s shoulder, seeking warmth like a creature who didn’t know it was allowed to want it.

Hornet’s breath stilled. Every instinct screamed to pull away. But she didn’t.

Instead, she let her arm curve around Lace’s back, a gesture halfway between comfort and confession.

For a long while, the only sound was their breathing — Lace’s uneven, Hornet’s forced into rhythm to match.

Hornet looked at the ceiling, its cracked plaster webbed with the faint light of the candle, and let her thoughts unwind like silk too fine to weave back together.

She remembered carrying Lace out of the Cradle — how light she’d been, how her body had felt hollow, as though the void still clung to her bones. She’d thought that night she was saving her.
Now she wasn’t sure from what.

Hornet glanced down. Lace’s face had relaxed in sleep, the tension drained away. For the first time in weeks, she looked at peace.

Hornet’s chest ached with something she refused to name.

“You don’t know what you’re doing to me,” she murmured.

The words fell into Lace’s soft head, unheard.

Hornet closed her eyes, forcing her thoughts to slow. She let the warmth of the other’s body seep through her fur and silk, steadying her heartbeat until, at last, exhaustion won.

As sleep took her, she made herself a single promise:

Tomorrow, I’ll make this right.

But even she didn’t know what right meant anymore.

Chapter Text

Lace woke to warmth that was not her own.

For one glittering, unguarded heartbeat she thought she was still in the Void—heat instead of cold, heartbeat instead of silence—and then she realized what she was touching.

Fur. Soft, damp with sleep.
A shoulder beneath her cheek.
Breath against her temple.

She froze.

Hornet froze too.

Their eyes opened at the same instant.

There was a moment of pure, catastrophic stillness, as if both their minds had tripped on the same stone. Then—panic.

Lace shot upright so fast the sheet twisted around her legs. Hornet lurched the opposite way, cloak half-caught beneath Lace’s knee. They both spoke at once—

“I—”
“You—”

Silence crashed in again. The kind that hums.

Lace’s pulse clawed at her throat. She dragged a hand through her tangled silk and forced out a crooked laugh. “Well. Good morning, Red Maiden. Didn’t realize I was such thrilling company you’d abandon the floor.”

Hornet’s reply came slower, her voice still rough with sleep. “You were shaking. I thought—”
She stopped. Composed herself. “It seemed cruel to leave you.”

Cruel. The word stung more than it should have.

Lace turned away, pretending to study the wall where maps glimmered under dawnlight. “And now it’s awkward, congratulations.”

Hornet exhaled through her nose, that quiet little sigh she did when she was trying not to rise to a tease. “It needn’t be.”

“Oh, but it is.” Lace’s laugh was too sharp. “I— gods, I don’t even know what to say to you.”

“You could start with the truth.”

That stopped her. Hornet rarely cut in like that, rarely asked.

Lace looked back over her shoulder. Hornet sat on the edge of the bed now, back straight, hands folded in her lap. Her face was calm again—but her eyes weren’t.

Something inside Lace gave way.

“The truth?” she said. “The truth is I make a mess of everything. Every time you reach out, I turn it into claws. You try to help, I burn you for it. I don’t know how to stop.”

Hornet didn’t look away. “Then stop running from what you want.”

Lace barked a laugh that almost turned into a sob. “You think it’s that simple?”

“No,” Hornet said softly. “But it’s a beginning.”

The sunlight through the bellhome’s single window cut across Hornet’s fur, lighting the pale scars along her shoulders. Lace stared at them too long. She’d caused some of them—she was sure of it.

“Last night,” Lace whispered, “I said things. I don’t know if I meant them or if I was just drowning again.”

Hornet’s tone stayed quiet. “You remember?”

“Pieces.” Lace met her gaze. “Enough to know I hurt you.”

Hornet shook her head. “You frightened me. That isn’t the same.”

“Then what is it?” Lace asked. “Because I can’t tell anymore whether you pity me or—”

She couldn’t finish.

Hornet rose, slow and deliberate, closing the small distance between them. “You mistake caution for distance,” she said. “I have never pitied you, Lace. I only… do not know how to hold something that burns.”

Lace’s breath hitched. “Maybe let it burn you a little.”

That made Hornet smile—small, unwilling. “You would like that too much.”

The tension broke on that almost-laugh. Lace snorted, half-choked, then sat back on the bed with a helpless wave of her hand. “See? Awkward. Entirely your fault.”

Hornet actually huffed a laugh then, faint and reluctant. “Entirely mine.”

For a few breaths they just were: two creatures who had survived too much, pretending morning could be ordinary.

Then Hornet spoke again, quieter:

“We cannot keep circling the same wound. Tell me what you need from me, Lace.”

Lace looked at her hands. They were trembling again. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe just… stay. Until I figure it out.”

Hornet nodded once. “Then I will stay.”

And somehow, that simple sentence settled between them like a truce. Not a clean one—nothing between them ever was—but enough to breathe.

Chapter Text

The days grew quieter.

Not peaceful, exactly — Bellhart never stopped humming — but the edges that once made Lace flinch began to soften. She found herself walking among the others without her mask quite so high, and sometimes, she even forgot to scowl.

At first, Hornet kept her busy.
Not with orders or commands, but small, deliberate invitations:

“Would you come with me to the market?”
“I could use a hand mending this thread.”
“Stay. I’ve made too much tea.”

Lace would grumble, of course — because that was what she did. “You only want me for my hands,” she’d mutter, pretending not to notice the faint curve of Hornet’s smile.

But she went. Every time.

Hornet had a way of appearing wherever she was needed, not with fanfare, but with steadiness. If someone’s spindle broke, Hornet fixed it. If Lace forgot to eat, Hornet left a plate where she’d find it. It was maddening, that calm certainty. Maddening, and warm.

Lace didn’t know when it started feeling safe to sit beside her in the weaving hall. Maybe the first time she didn’t get up immediately when Hornet did. Maybe the first time Hornet passed her a skein of silk without speaking — simply meeting her eyes and nodding, as if to say you belong here too.

She couldn’t produce her own silk, never was able. But Hornet’s silk — fine, strong, unbroken — she could work with that.

And so she wove.

Her hands still remembered. The rhythm, the pull, the subtle snap of tension. The first few times, her jaw hurt from clenching. But then, a pattern began to take shape — lines of silver through white — and she found she was breathing evenly again.

Hornet worked beside her. Their looms creaked in soft harmony.
Sometimes they spoke; sometimes they didn’t.

It was easy to forget the rest of the world in those hours.

One afternoon, when the light slanted low and golden, Lace caught Hornet watching her. Not the way others watched — curious, assessing — but like she was memorizing something she didn’t want to lose.

Lace smiled before she could stop herself. “What?”

Hornet blinked, then looked down at her work. “You’ve gotten better.”

“I was always good,” Lace said, flicking her silk to hide the heat in her face. “Just… out of practice.”

Hornet’s lips quirked. “Then practice suits you.”

It was such an ordinary sentence, but Lace’s heart stuttered like it was something else entirely.

She looked at Hornet again — the patient lines of her face, the scars at her jaw, the way her fingers moved, unthinking and precise — and thought, if I reach for you, I’ll ruin this.

So she didn’t.

Evenings became ritual. Tea, quiet conversation, the warmth of the bellhome’s lanterns. Lace would pretend to grumble when Hornet corrected her technique, and Hornet would pretend not to notice when Lace lingered too long by the window waiting for her.

There were moments — brief, tender, dangerous — when their laughter overlapped, and Lace swore she could feel the whole hive listening. The way sound changes when something sacred is happening.

But they never crossed the line.

Lace began to know the others by name — Pavo, Frey, little Chessa who brought her wildflowers she claimed were “just weeds.” They stopped flinching when she entered a room. Some even asked her opinion.

It startled her every time.
But the more she followed, the more she was seen.

Frey nodded when she passed. Pavo offered her a mug of mushroom brew, muttering something about “good hands for stitching sails.” Lace tried to sneer, failed, and ended up helping him patch the tears anyway.

And Hornet had smiled. Just faintly, but enough.

Days folded into one another. Lace found herself laughing again — carefully at first, then fully. She learned the rhythm of the market bells, the way the children’s wings flickered in the afternoon light, the smell of sap and iron in the forge.

Hornet was everywhere.

Everywhere, and nowhere near enough.

Their truce had become a sort of dance: Hornet would bring her tea in the mornings and leave without a word, Lace would appear at her side in the square as if by accident, and at night they’d talk about everything except the one thing neither dared to name.

Sometimes, Lace caught Hornet looking at her. Just a flicker — eyes softening, lips parting as if to say something that never came. It undid her every time.

She’d laugh too loud then, or pick a fight with Pavo, or throw herself into some errand just to stop thinking.

But it was different now.

When the children of the weaver’s quarter asked her to teach them swordplay with sticks, she did. When an old beetle lost his roof in the rain, she and Hornet climbed up there together, silent but side by side.

One evening, she realized she’d stopped checking the horizon for an escape.

The bellhome smelled of wax and silk. Hornet sat cross-legged on the floor, mending a tear in her cloak. Lace leaned against the doorway, pretending not to watch her hands move.

“You’re better with thread than I am,” Lace said finally.

“I make silk,” Hornet replied. “You mend what’s torn.”

“Same thing, isn’t it?”

Hornet looked up at her then, eyes catching the lamplight, and something inside Lace fluttered — that same aching, stupid thing that had been there since the Cradle.

She wanted to say that you could mend me, but the words jammed in her throat.

Instead, she walked forward, knelt beside Hornet, and took the cloak from her hands.

“Let me.”

Hornet hesitated, then nodded.

They worked in silence. The sound of the needle through cloth, the brush of their hands — small things, but they felt enormous.

Lace’s silk shimmered faintly in the lamplight as she stitched the last line closed.

When she looked up again, Hornet was still watching her.

Neither of them spoke.

The air was full of words unsaid.
For so long she had been a wound made of silk and regret, something to be avoided. Now, slowly, she was becoming someone again.

And yet, in the quiet after everyone left, she always looked at her hands and thought:
This isn’t what I wanted.

Not because it wasn’t good — but because she wanted more.

Wanted the sound of Hornet’s voice first thing in the morning.

Wanted to touch the silk she’d woven and know it meant us.

But every time she glanced at Hornet, calm and resolute, she told herself friendship was enough.

It had to be.

Chapter Text

The sound reached Bellhart long before the caravan did — a rhythmic jangling, the clatter of hollow wheels, and a chorus of bright, chaotic “whoo! whoo!”

Hornet froze mid-step, the spool of silk still in her hand.
No. It couldn’t be.

Then the first banner crested the ridge — threadbare but dazzling, stitched in glittering fleathread — and the world seemed to explode into motion.

The flea circus was back.

For a heartbeat, Hornet’s composure shattered like brittle glass. She actually gasped — a small, involuntary noise that escaped before she could contain it. A dozen tiny puffballs came tumbling over the road, bouncing and tumbling, each one shouting a different jubilant “wah-hoo!” as they leapt from cart to cart.

Fleamaster Mooshka stood at the head of the parade, his cape fluttering wildly, voice booming in all directions.
“Bellhart! The fleas have returned! Come one, come all — bring your young, your weary, and your extra rosaries!”

Hornet could have melted.

Instead, she folded her arms, back straight, expression deliberately neutral.
Her voice came out smooth. “Ah. The… Festival.”

Beside her, Lace blinked at the chaos. “What is that?”

Hornet cleared her throat, desperately trying not to grin as a trio of fleas launched themselves into a perfectly executed triple somersault. “A… traveling troupe. From Fleatopia. Their master—Mooshka—hosts what’s called the Festival of the Fleas. It’s… rather popular.”

“Popular,” Lace repeated flatly, watching a tired looking bug get tackled by a dozen excited puffballs mid-step. “It looks deranged.”

Hornet pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. She could feel it bubbling up, ridiculous and uncontainable — like being a child again. “It’s… exuberant,” she managed.

One of the fleas spotted her. Its tiny black eyes widened in delight.
“Whoo!” it squeaked, bouncing over the crowd and landing squarely on Hornet’s shoulder.

She froze. Then — carefully, reverently — she cupped her hand around it.
“Hello, little one,” she whispered.

Another flea immediately leapt onto her arm, then another onto her head, until Hornet was crowned in a living halo of puffballs, all shouting cheerful nonsense in unison.

Lace’s brow arched. “You’re covered in them.”

“Yes,” Hornet said softly, smiling before she could stop herself. “They… remember me.”

Lace blinked, unsure if she should laugh or be jealous. “Do they now?”

Before Hornet could reply, Mooshka spotted her and bellowed, “Hornet of lands beyond! My star champion!”

The words sent a ripple through the gathered bugs. Lace turned sharply toward her, but Hornet just sighed, rubbing the back of her furred neck as the fleas let out a new, excited chorus.

“I told him not to call me that,” she muttered.

But her voice was fond.

The evening exploded with noise and color. Seth, now found, juggled fleas like a master craftsman, Mooshka spun impossible tales of Fleatopia’s glory, and the air was full of sugar smoke and laughter.

Hornet tried to help organize the crowd, but every time she bent to pick up a dropped flea or right a toppled lantern, the tiny puffballs climbed her arms again, giggling and wahooing.

Lace hovered at the edge, watching. She’d never seen Hornet like this — off-guard, radiant, laughing. It hurt a little, how beautiful she looked in motion.

Hornet pretended not to notice Lace watching her, but she felt the gaze like fire. She straightened her cloak, brushed a flea off her shoulder — only for it to leap right back.

When Lace caught her eye, Hornet managed a calm tone. “They’re… persistent creatures.”

Lace’s lips curved. “You could just admit you love them.”

Hornet opened her mouth — then shut it, because another flea had just clung to her cheek, humming.

“…Perhaps,” she murmured, cheeks darkening beneath her fur.

By nightfall, the whole of Bellhart was aglow. The fleas’ antics had drawn every denizen from their burrows — laughter echoed through the hollow streets for the first time in weeks.

Hornet stood near the fire, her arms folded, fleas clustered at her feet, and pretended she wasn’t smiling.

When Lace approached, she didn’t say anything. She just looked at the fleas bouncing in the firelight, at the way Hornet’s eyes softened as one landed in her palm.

Something inside her cracked open, warm and tender.

Lace sighed. “You’re allowed to enjoy yourself, you know.”

Hornet blinked. “I am.”

“No,” Lace said, stepping closer. “You’re really allowed to.”

And for the first time in a long time, Hornet laughed — freely, joyfully, without restraint. The fleas cheered.

“Whoo!”

Chapter Text

The festival dimmed slowly, like a candle breathing its last light.

The fires guttered. The laughter sank into tired murmurs. Somewhere below, Mooshka sang his fleas to sleep in his strange, lilting tongue — half lullaby, half prayer.

Hornet sat on the roof of her bellhome, knees drawn close, the world below her glittering with the faint orange hush of embers. The air still smelled of oil and sugar, and faintly, of flea fur.

A small cluster of puffballs had fallen asleep against her lap — five of them, tangled together in a tangle of white fuzz and soft snores. They pulsed gently when they dreamed, like tiny beating hearts.

She reached out and brushed one lightly with the tip of her claw. It cooed in its sleep, curling tighter against her.

Hornet smiled faintly. “You are safe here,” she whispered.

Behind her, the roof creaked. Lace’s voice drifted up, soft but teasing.
“Should I be jealous?”

Hornet didn’t look back. “If you envy warmth, then yes.”

Lace climbed up beside her, settling with the graceless ease of someone who’d already had too much to drink and too little to lose. The pale shimmer of her silk skin caught the light of the glowworms far above— threadbare in places, but still beautiful.

For a while, neither of them spoke. Bellhart stretched below like a hollow lantern, its streets half-lit, half-asleep. The faint, rhythmic clatter of distant waves echoed up from the valley — the sound of the wind whistling through the bones of the old city.

Lace broke the silence first.
“You looked happy tonight.”

Hornet’s hand stilled on the sleeping fleas. “Did I?”

“Don’t deny it. You were laughing.”

Hornet gave a quiet breath of amusement. “They bring out something… simple in me. They don’t know of duty, or guilt, or… expectation. They only know how to leap.”

Lace turned to watch her. “Maybe you should learn from them.”

Hornet allowed herself the ghost of a smile. “And what would I learn?”

Lace’s tone softened, losing its edge. “How to stop bracing yourself against everything good.”

That struck too close. Hornet didn’t respond at first. Her gaze lingered on the horizon where the light of the festival melted into the dark — the threshold between joy and all she had vowed to protect.

“I cannot,” she said finally, voice low. “If I loosen my hold, I fall. And I cannot fall again.”

Lace studied her for a long moment. “You’re afraid,” she murmured.

Hornet’s eyes flickered to her, cool and sharp, but the denial never came. Instead she exhaled, long and quiet, and looked away.

The wind lifted her cloak. Beneath it, the silk threads stitching it together glimmered faintly — the same threads she’d used to mend Lace. They looked almost alive under the wormlight.

Lace followed the motion, her voice hushed. “You could have let me rot, you know.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t.”

Hornet didn’t answer, but her jaw tightened. The silence between them stretched, fragile as glass.

Lace leaned back on her hands, staring up at the little lights. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you liked me.”

Hornet’s breath caught — just a small hitch, barely there. She hid it under a low hum.
“You presume much.”

“I do.” Lace’s smile wavered. “It’s the only way I know how to stay standing.”

Hornet turned to her then, properly — the full weight of her gaze soft and cutting all at once. “You needn’t stand alone here.”

Lace swallowed, her voice trembling with something between laughter and ache. “Don’t say that unless you mean it.”

“I always mean what I say,” Hornet replied.

Then, after a long pause, quieter —
“Even when I shouldn’t.”

A breeze passed between them, carrying the faint scent of ash and wildflowers. The fleas murmured in their sleep.

Lace turned her face toward Hornet’s shoulder, close enough that their edges nearly brushed. Hornet didn’t move — didn’t dare.

They stayed like that, suspended in a silence that was neither comfort nor confession.

Beneath them, Bellhart breathed — alive, whole, for once at peace.

And Hornet, who had lived too long for such stillness, sat beside the one creature who could unmake her calm with a look —
and wished, for just a moment, that she knew how to leap too.

Chapter Text

When Lace woke, she was already warm.

The kind of warmth that felt alive — pressed close against her silk skin, steady and rhythmic. It took her a moment to realize why. Then she felt the rise and fall of breath, the faint, familiar hum just beneath her ear.

Hornet.

She didn’t open her eyes at first. Just lay there, perfectly still, pretending the world hadn’t started again.

The bed was small — it always had been — but in the nights before, they’d both fit somehow.

Now dawn filtered through the bellhome window, soft and golden, catching on Hornet’s dark fur. Her cloak was folded at the foot of the bed, her needle resting beside it. Without the armor, the silken form beneath her was strangely delicate. The battle lines and callouses didn’t vanish — but they looked softer, more real in a way Lace didn’t know how to face.

She turned her head slightly. Hornet’s arm was draped over her waist. Her claws, half-curled in sleep, brushed the edge of Lace’s ribs. The contact made her shiver.

You fool, she thought, though she wasn’t sure if she meant Hornet or herself.

She’d sworn to stop needing this — to stop finding meaning in someone else’s pulse. But here she was, holding her breath so she wouldn’t wake the only creature who still made her believe in warmth.

Outside, Bellhart was stirring. Distant voices — the soft squeak of flea wagons being loaded, the echo of Mooshka’s trill — filtered through the open slats. Lace could picture it: the caravan winding through the city gates, the fleas tumbling over one another in sleepy chaos.

Hornet would want to see them off. She always did.

Lace closed her eyes tighter, selfish for one last minute.

When Hornet stirred, it was subtle — a twitch beneath Lace’s shoulder, a quiet exhale. Then the tension. Lace felt it the instant Hornet realized where she was. The warrior’s instinct snapped awake before her voice did.

For a heartbeat, neither of them moved.

Then Hornet cleared her throat, withdrawing her arm slowly, carefully — as if afraid the motion itself might break something fragile. “You’re awake.”

Lace kept her eyes half-lidded. “Barely.”

Hornet’s voice came soft, measured. “You should have taken the bed alone.”

“Mm. And deprive you of the honor of my company?”

Hornet shot her a look — weary, fond, exasperated all at once. “You talk too much for someone pretending to sleep.”

Lace smiled faintly. “You let me, though.”

That earned her silence.

The kind that wasn’t angry, just complicated.

Hornet rose first, movements graceful but stiff — the muscles of someone who hadn’t allowed herself softness in far too long. She crossed the small room, pulling her cloak on, adjusting the clasp with trembling hands that only a fool would mistake for calm.

Lace watched her in the reflection of the water basin, tracing the way her fur caught the light before disappearing beneath her cloak.

“You’re going to see them off, aren’t you?”

Hornet nodded. “It would be rude not to. Mooshka expects farewell.”

“And you?”

Hornet glanced back, puzzled. “What of me?”

“Do you expect farewells?” Lace asked.

Hornet paused. Her expression flickered — a thousand unreadable things crossing behind her eyes — then settled into something small, almost tender. “Not anymore.”

They left the bellhome together.

Bellhart glowed in the early light — pale golds over the rooftops, the scent of sugar crumbs and flea powder still lingering in the air. The little creatures bounced sleepily through the streets, squeaking their “wahoos” as Mooshka barked orders with theatrical vigor.

Lace stayed a step behind Hornet as she greeted the caravan. The fleas climbed her legs, perching on her shoulders, fluffing her cloak with delighted chirps. Hornet tried — and failed — to hide her smile.

Lace’s chest tightened.

She should have felt joy at the sight — Hornet radiant, surrounded by laughter. But all she could think about was how far she stood from that warmth, how she could only ever orbit it, never touch.

Hornet caught her looking once. For a moment, the expression softened again, as if she could read the ache right off her face. Then she turned away.

“Come,” Hornet said when the caravan began to move. “We’ll walk them to the gate.”

Lace followed. Always followed.

And though she said nothing, every step whispered the same unspoken truth she’d been too afraid to say aloud:

I love you. And I don't know how long I have.

Chapter Text

The days settled into rhythm again.

Bellhart still smelled faintly of stale water and ash — half rebuilt, half dreaming — but it no longer felt like a wound. Just a place trying to be whole.

Every morning began the same way.

Hornet rose before the light, her movements careful, deliberate, as though the silence between them might crack if handled too roughly. She brewed the tea herself, because she didn’t trust Lace not to burn it. The scent — bitterroot and mint — always filled the bellhome before Lace even opened her eyes.

“Good morning,” Hornet would say, the same as every day.

And Lace, still wrapped in Hornet’s cloak, would yawn and answer, “If you say so.”

Then they’d sit together.

No grand speeches, no confessions. Just two creatures existing beside each other in the still air — Hornet’s claws wrapped around her cup, Lace’s fingers tracing the rim of hers as if the shape of it might tell her something she didn’t already know.

The warmth between them wasn’t sharp anymore. It had dulled into something manageable. Something she could carry without bleeding.

She told herself that was enough.

They spoke, yes — but never of anything that mattered.

They talked about Pavo’s endless city plans, about Frey’s ridiculous prices for glass beads, about how the fleas’ departure had left the city oddly too quiet. They debated whether the Bell Beast dreamed, whether silk remembered touch, whether music could make flowers grow.

All of it soft. Harmless.

Lace laughed more easily now. Her voice didn’t catch as often when she teased. She could look at Hornet and not flinch from the weight of it.

But at night, when the lanterns dimmed and the city fell into its shallow sleep, she would lie awake beside her, feeling the small distance between them like a fault line.

Hornet always turned toward her in sleep. Always. One arm half-curled, not touching — never touching — but close enough that Lace could imagine warmth crossing the gap.

Some nights, she reached for her hand in the dark, stopping herself just before contact. She’d curl her own fingers into her palm instead, whispering to herself:

This is fine. This is what I wanted.

Lies taste better when whispered, she found.

By the third morning, the routine had become muscle memory.
By the fifth, it had become a kind of mercy.
By the seventh, it felt like punishment.

Lace watched her in the quiet hours — Hornet moving around the bellhome, tidy, precise, never faltering. She wanted to ask if Hornet ever felt it too — the ache that hummed beneath the surface, the way silence began to hurt if held too long.

But Hornet was not a creature of spilling. She was containment made flesh.

And Lace — Lace was trying to learn that from her.

She’d been chaos once, all sharp edges and desperate need. Now she practiced gentleness like penance. She took comfort in small things: the way Hornet always left her the first cup of tea, the way she hummed low when she thought Lace wasn’t listening, the way her presence filled every corner of the bellhome.

It was friendship, yes.
And it was more than she’d ever thought she’d be allowed to have.

So she smiled when Hornet looked at her.
She laughed at her dry remarks.
She sat shoulder to shoulder with her in silence.

And each night, when Hornet’s breathing slowed and steadied beside her, Lace would close her eyes and tell herself that this — this quiet, this closeness — was enough.

Even if part of her still ached for what it wasn’t.

Chapter Text

The days blurred.
Bellhart mended, slowly. Silk bridges stretched between rooftops again, new glass set into old frames. The rhythm of rebuilding matched the rhythm of her mornings: tea for two, soft laughter, unspoken things tucked neatly between sentences.
Hornet told herself she preferred it that way — silence as safety. Lace’s laughter had teeth once, but now it brushed against her like silk rather than a blade.
And yet…
Hornet had begun to notice how the quiet lingered after Lace left a room. The way her own body refused to settle until it heard the faint hum of Lace’s voice again.
They were walking through the market square when Frey said it.

Frey, with his arms full of polished shells and an oblivious smile, looked between them and grinned.

“You two have practically fused at the hip,” he said, nudging Hornet with a leg. “If Lace starts wearing your cloak, I’ll never tell you apart.”

Lace laughed, brushing it off, her cheeks pink beneath her hood.

Hornet did not.

She only tilted her head — that carefully measured angle of indifference she had perfected long ago — and replied, “We work well together. Bellhart benefits from… cooperation.”

Frey winked. “Sure. Cooperation. That’s what they’re calling it these days.”

Hornet’s claws flexed around the parcel she carried. “Watch your tongue, Frey.”

“Fine, fine!” Frey chuckled and fluttered off.

Lace was still smiling when she turned back to Hornet. “You must admit, we have been spending a lot of time together.”

“Yes,” Hornet said simply.

And then, softer, “Too much, perhaps.”

The look Lace gave her then — startled, almost wounded — made Hornet’s throat tighten.

“I didn’t mean—” she started, but Lace only nodded.

“It’s fine, Hornet. You’re right.”

But her smile had gone brittle.

That night, Hornet couldn’t sleep.

Lace had turned away from her, just slightly, enough to make the space between them feel like a canyon. Hornet could hear her breathing — steady, slow — but it wasn’t the sound of peace.

It was the sound of restraint.

Hornet stared at the ceiling until dawn began to brush silver against the cavern’s rim.

The next morning, Lace made the tea.

That alone was strange enough to make Hornet sit up sharply.

Lace’s movements were brisk, practiced — but something had shifted. Her shoulders were tight. Her voice, when she finally spoke, came out light but wrong.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said, “I should visit Phantom. It’s been too long.”

Hornet set her cup down. “You intend to go alone?”

“Yes.”

The single syllable landed harshly.

Hornet’s first instinct was to protest. Phantom’s lands were far; the roads, unpredictable. But she bit back the words. Lace was not a child. She could fight. She could survive. She could leave.

Still — Hornet felt something in her chest twist, sharp and uninvited.

“When?” she managed.

“Tomorrow, maybe the next day,” Lace said, sipping her tea. “Just for a while. I think it’ll be good for me. For both of us.”

Hornet nodded once.

“That would be wise,” she said — and hated how flat her voice sounded.

Later, when Lace went to the market to gather supplies, Hornet stayed behind, staring at the empty cups.

The routine had broken, just a little. And already the silence felt heavier.

She thought of Frey’s teasing voice, of Lace’s brittle smile, of how easily that laughter had faded.

Too much, perhaps.

Yes, she had said that. And she had meant it as warning — to herself, not to Lace.

Because if they stayed as they were much longer, the quiet would break open.
And Hornet wasn’t sure she could bear what might spill out.

Chapter Text

The morning came gray and cold.

Mist clung to Bellhart’s bridges like breath on glass, and Hornet found herself standing at the threshold of her bellhome before dawn, cloak drawn tight, watching Lace fasten her satchel.

Lace hummed as she worked — quietly, absently — and the sound was too calm, too even. It unnerved Hornet more than silence would have.

“You’ve enough provisions?” Hornet asked, though she already knew the answer. She had checked them twice the night before.

Lace nodded. “Yes. And the compass you lent me, and a thread of your silk for the road. I’ll be fine.”

Her tone was warm, reassuring — the same tone she used when calming Hornet’s worries after a nightmare. It should have been comforting. Instead, it made something in Hornet’s chest ache.

“My status won’t let anything happen to me,” Lace added with a faint smile.

“I know,” Hornet said. And she did. Lace would be safe in her own company. Safe — and away.

The thought scraped her nerves raw.

She busied her claws adjusting the clasp on Lace’s satchel, though it didn’t need fixing. “You could have waited until the next caravan. The roads aren’t—”

“I need the quiet,” Lace interrupted gently. “I need to think. And besides—” she gave a soft laugh “—if I waited for the caravans, you’d find an excuse to come along.”

Hornet stiffened, caught.

“Would that be so terrible?” she murmured, the words slipping out before she could stop them.

Lace blinked at her, and the air between them seemed to hold its breath.

Then she smiled — kind, but tired. “You’d hate it, Hornet. Too much dust, too much noise.”

“Perhaps.”

Hornet stepped back, letting her hands fall to her sides. The space between them widened. It felt colder for it.

At the edge of Bellhart, near the bridge where the fog opened to the roads, Hornet stopped again.

Lace turned to her. “You’re not coming all the way to the crossroads, are you?”

“No.”

She said it firmly, though part of her screamed to follow.

“I’ve duties here,” Hornet went on. “The silk stockpiles, the guard rotations—”

“Hornet.”

Just her name, softly spoken. Enough to make her stop.

Lace stepped close enough that their foreheads nearly touched. “You’ve done enough. For me. For Bellhart. You don’t have to keep worrying.”

Hornet met her gaze. “You think I can stop?”

Lace’s expression faltered — something tender, something uncertain flickering there.

“I’ll be back before you can miss me,” she said.

Hornet didn’t answer. She only reached out, as if to fix Lace’s collar again, and then withdrew her hand halfway through the motion.

“Travel safely,” she said at last.

“I will.”

And then Lace turned, walking into the fog. Her form dissolved by degrees — cloak, bag, and the glint of her pin — until there was only mist.

Hornet stood there long after she had vanished.

When she returned to her bellhome, the place felt wrong.

Not empty — she had lived alone before — but unsettled. Like the air itself was waiting.

The teacups still sat on the table. Two cups. Hornet’s hand hesitated before stopping. She left them both.

Later, when she passed the bed, she found herself adjusting the blanket Lace had used, smoothing it as though she’d return that night.

She sat for hours by the window, listening to the distant hum of Bellhart below, the faint tolling of the silk bells in the wind.

Night fell. The sound of laughter rose from the lower bridges, but it didn’t touch her.

She told herself she’d only grown accustomed to conversation. That this ache was routine’s absence, nothing more.

But when she caught herself glancing toward the door every time the wind rattled it, her composure began to fracture.

She wanted to go after her.

She wanted to trust that Lace would come back.

She wanted too many things.

By midnight, Hornet sat alone on the roof, staring out across the pale expanse of mist.

Below her, Bellhart’s lanterns shimmered like a thousand tiny stars. Beautiful — and unbearably distant.

She remembered Lace’s laugh, her sharp tongue, her impossible warmth. She remembered her own words at The Cradle, fractured and desperate — I love you.

Hornet whispered into the wind, “Why did you leave?”

The bells answered only with silence.