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“Cait.”
There was a creak as one of the double doors to the study was pushed open by the slope of a surprisingly strong, stocky shoulder. Hm, Caitlyn thought absentmindedly, barely acknowledging it beyond the far furrow between her brows and bated breath caught in the base of a parched-dry throat. Perhaps I should ask Agathe to oil the hinges again.
It had probably been months, after all. Caitlyn had spent practically all her time in here, meaning the staff rarely tended to the space, and she couldn’t blame them either. It had felt haunted just as similarly she sat behind the desk her mother used to use too, the same buttons and levers she pushed as she operated that mysterious microfiche machine she had spent her entire girlhood wondering about. She could feel past generations of her ancestral line looking down upon her as she sat, pouring over photographs and paragraphs, records and reels, that cool cerulean, the coloring of the river on a clear day, on a cold day, as if the surface shimmered with slippery ice.
Then, the months following, the study had been a hub, of sorts. A headquarters. Noxians, draped in their dark blacks and deep reds, slipped in and out all hours of the day, sometimes sticking to the shadows and sides, hidden corners and crannies, patrolling the perimeter of the house and gardens. Her own staff quickly made them scarce, scampering around like field mice fearing the falcon. That same door had been pushed open by armored arms and pounded on by fierce, fast fists every single time something required her attention—another sighting, another riot, another attack, more unjust, unfair arrests. More often than not, the general gallivanted around, acting important and and invited, entering without expressed permission or even purpose—
“Caitlyn.”
The scrape of the pen’s nip against the scrap of paper stopped, scratching against the hard, heavy wood of the desk. Ink blotted, then blossomed and bloomed, dripping and drying dark, blurring the surrounding scrawling words in a swirling mass of blackness. “Oh,” she muttered, quickly seeing a smear of it against the side of her palm and forefinger, like dirt drying under her fingernails, heaving back a sigh. “Bloody hell.”
A snort followed another scraping sound as she dropped the damn pen on the desktop, reaching for the handkerchief tucked away behind one of the teetering towers of paper content and casefiles. Her desk was, to put it nicely, a pigsty, lined with pieces of paper and thick tomes, legal ledgers and historical documents or political dissertations. Other things were clattered between, ceramic mugs and porcelain plates and teacups, dried-out ink pots and empty staplers, crumbs from half-dried biscuits between the bottle of that minty, mineral salve for the seam of the slash-scar on her eyelid and the still-sore stitches on her side, as well as the book that Vi was reading that had somehow ended up here.
She had cast glances at it each time she let out a sigh, bracing against the big hunk of wood, when her side, side and stitched, spasmed, cramping. Sitting for so long wasn’t good, she supposed. Standing, with the support of her brace or cane for her still-healing knee, or reclining put less strain on that sensitive spot. She had gotten up to pace the perimeter of the room, muttering under her breath, strands of hair sticking to a sweat-streaked forehead, then that did little to lessen the discomfort, settling into a dull, dismal ache. Eventually, she had sighed, shucked off her sweater, leaving her in a loose, light camisole, and sat back down at the desk, intending to ignore the insistent issue. Ignoring it, until Vi came to check on her as she always did every so often.
And, speaking of Vi, Caitlyn’s gaze lifted, her single, still-seeing eye taking in the shadow of a familiar figure standing in the frame of the door. Letting out a slow sigh, the air blowing out of her like a deflated blimp, she looked up through her lashes at the source of her sudden surprise, which was also the source of the snort, and now the familiar smirk stretched across scarred lips, cheeks parted with that skipping slip of a smile, cheeks flushed and freckled, a revelation Caitlyh had very happily made in the last two months Vi had taken to living Topside, soaking up sunshine the way a slumbering cat did, laid out in the slanted beam of sunlight, all lazy and low, languid. And Vi deserved to be all those things.
“Oh,” those languid lips said now, looping, that faint, fading scar stretching and shifting with each word said with a very poor impression of her own posh Piltovian accent. “Bloody hell.”
Now, Caitlyn held back her own snort, automatically forming a fist against her mouth to muffle the noise, most likely smearing more streaky ink in the process. The groan she let out afterwards was, in fact, muffled, her lips parted, puckered and pouted, as she felt the big blob of stickiness clinging to her lower lip, and now the tips of her teeth.
Splendid, she thought bitterly. Truly.
Vi still stood there, sure and serene, hands stuffed in the pockets of her checkered, baggy shorts, the ones she had been wearing to sleep lately. Everything she owned was still Zaunite in fashion: well-worn, baggy fits with mismatched fabrics and fastenings, prints and patterns, rips and tears, clasps and closing buckles instead of the little brass buttons Piltovian pants loved, actual pockets instead of faux ones stitched into the seams. All sorts of colors and lighter materials, nothing too shiny or gaudy. Caitlyn had things—blazers and button-ups, suits and slacks, ties and tailcoats—tailored for formal events, but it had been fun to make a day of Vi showing her the shops and sights of Zaun, finally getting more clothes beyond the two pairs of pants, shirt, and singlet she owned: tank tops, shirts and shorts, jeans and joggers, jumpers to wear when winter inevitably rolled into the city and more jackets beyond that red leather one that practically matched her red hair perfectly.
Caitlyn had caved and had the thing professionally laundered. It had been left in the back of her closet, banished there after Vi had picked up the badge and slid on Enforcer blues. The second jacket hadn’t been too lucky, not surviving the singed burns or soot (and blood) stains it sustained from the fight at the commune. Caitlyn had exchanged pleasantries with partygoers attending the local galas and garden parties, inquiring interest to find a suitable tailor, a gentleman who lived in Lower Piltover, catering both to the common Zaunite and to Piltovians with an “eccentric flair.”
When she found the time to slip away, booking it over to the bridge, she had a new piece quickly commissioned, with a price she was sure was practically doubled, but no amount of coin spent could ever make a dent in the Kiramman coffers. It was well worth it in the long run: to see the smile on Vi’s face, the freckles against the top of her crooked nose and the cradle of stretched cheeks, fingertips tracing spirals and shapes, that two-headed hound, a motto, a motif, of her late adoptive father, the Hound of the Underground.
Now, Vi lifted a hand from her pocket, making a vague gesture with her pointer finger to her own pouted lips. “You got a little something…”
Caitlyn rolled her eye, smiling despite herself, and reached down to open one of the many drawers running down the desk. She produced a neatly folded piece of fabric: a handkerchief done up in Kiramman golds and greens, the family crest stitched carefully into the corner. By the time she was sitting back, stretching to alleviate the strain on her lower back from sitting so stiff and straight all day, Vi had already sauntered over, practically sitting on the edge of the desk, the old wood protesting under the sudden added weight of her strong, solid body. Caitlyn blinked, lashes fluttering as looking between them, Vi’s biceps bulging as she reached over. Gods, she has no right being this alluring and annoying at the same time—
Without another word, Vi simply plucked the scrap of satin from her grasp and pressed softly against the soft seam of her mouth, over her lower lip and the crook of her chin. “There,” she murmured, thoroughly, clearly, satisfied, pulling away after a second. She dumped the handkerchief unceremoniously on the desktop, adding to the chaos of clutter currently surrounding it.
Caitlyn blinked again. “What time is it?” She asked, as if her brain had only processed the fact that the curtains were closed and Vi was parading around in her pajama pants. Or, rather, not quite pants, but her, well, short sleep shorts, revealed the curves and contours, shifting shadows of a toned upper thigh—
“Late,” Vi said simply, offering no other option.
Caitlyn furrowed her eyebrows. “That’s not a—”
Vi interrupted her by tipping the gilded edge of the golden gadget sitting on the edge of the desk, a timepiece that worked, what, five years prior? Or was it six? “What’s the point of keeping this if it can’t even tell you the time?”
“It’s an heirloom, Violet,” Caitlyn drawled, aware how stupid it sounded as it slipped from her mouth, still slightly sticky from that smear of ink. She frowned and reached for the slightly-stained handkerchief. “It’s historical.”
Vi also frowned. “It’s a clock, Cupcake.”
“Yes,” she replied. “I’m well aware.”
“Pilties are weird,” Vi rightfully retorted.
“I’m also aware.”
Letting go of the golden, glinting edge of the edifice of the clock, Vi turned to face her, finger talking an impatient pattern against the polished finish. Caitlyn briefly wondered when the last time it had been properly steamed and stealed, polished to perfection. Perhaps she should ask Agathe that too—
“Did you have dinner?” Vi was asking. “I didn’t see a tray delivered.”
Caitlyn cocked her head as she dabbed at her mouth, gaze slipping sideways to the small plate, still scattered with dried, half-stale biscuits and the hot, herbal scent of the milky mint tea, tangy traces left in the air. “Oh,” she murmured, suddenly aware of the ache on her lower stomach, like twisting tendrils, like the trellis of trailing ivy outside her bedroom window. “I never sent for one.”
Vi’s frown pulled tight, a firm, flat one as her lips pressed together, pursing. That scratch-scar pulled taut too. “Cait,” she chided, so much complaint and care packed into one simple, single word. She looked back at the glinting glass of the near-useless gadget, then rolled her eyes. “We could call for one now—”
“No,” Caitlyn said, short and stiff. She huffed, trying not to sound so harsh, though the twinging, the twitching and throbbing, in her lower back and belly was making it increasingly, impossibly, harder. “Like you said, it’s late.” Vi scowled, not liking having her own words thrown back at her, but Caitlyn continued on. “Besides, I’ve let Agathe go home for the evening. Her daughter is due any day now, you know, so she should really—”
“Cait.”
“—be at home to tend to her family. It’s a girl, didn’t I tell you?—”
“That’s great, but—”
“A granddaughter. Agathe is just—”
“Caitlyn.”
“What?” Caitlyn responded, a bit rashly. Raspy, throat tight from disuse. She attempted to clear it, a careful sound, muffled again by her fist. It hid her harsh reaction. Vi almost never called her by her actual name, only absolutely absurd pet names or a short, practical Cait.
“Why,” Vi started. “Why can’t you just care for yourself as you care for others?”
“What?” Caitlyn repeated. The audacity, really. Vi could not be one to talk about caring and concern—
“You heard me,” Vi replied evenly. “Holing yourself up in this stuffy study…” She gestured to the space surrounding them, to the shelves towering high above them and the smoke from the half-smothered flames in the fireplace in front of them, then turned her glare to the chair Caitlyn was currently curled in, hunched over in a way that would have any governess gasping with disbelief. “Sitting in that stupid chair—”
Caitlyn’s supposed smirk turned out more like a scowl, lips pressed flat together. “Violet, you cannot possibly have a vendetta against a chair, of all things—”
“—Staying here all day, starving, isn’t going to serve yourself, or anyone else for that matter.”
“Oh, please,” Caitlyn countered. “Look around.” She tapped the edge of a blunt nail to golden-glint of the timepiece that didn’t even tick. “I’m hardly starving.” She crossed her arms over her abdomen, grimacing instead of groaning aloud at another snake-slither of soreness shooting up her side, a pulse of pain, tiny, tracking pinpricks, like the stinging nettles she would get when laying low in a thorny ticket while leveling her shot, at a competition or a casual childhood hunt on the hot, sticky summer days of her youth. “Besides, my stomach has been… unwell, as of late.”
That was true. Headaches were a common occurrence; now, of course, other aches and pains were managed by medication and physical therapy, as well as talk therapy, and the best healer of all wounds: time. But today, her lower back was aching. She had to correct her posture while in the chair multiple times, groaning when there was a twinge in her lower abdomen as well. A side effect of sitting, she supposed. She wasn’t supposed to be putting too much pressure on her patch of stitches.
And, maybe, just maybe, they were hunger pains, pangs, a low growling of her gut asking for assistance.
Vi snorted, her frown fumbling, slipping sideways. “Probably because your idea of a meal consists of chocolate biscuits and leaf juice.”
Maybe.
“Tea,” Caitlyn corrected, feeling very childish. “And they’re not chocolate, they’re regular.” Her lips pinched together, almost a pout. Gods, she really was acting like a spoiled snob. “…I didn’t want to smear chocolate on my reply to the Council,” she added. “You know, my resignation.”
Unfortunately, rescinding her family’s Council seat took tedious time and many monotonous meetings, piled and piles of paperwork, stacks requiring her signature, all ledgers and legal codes, as well as letters from concerned Councilors and citizens, other heads of High Houses. It also involved a very sweaty clerk who shuffled his feet and stared over the edge of his spectacles as he slid over the thick tome that she had to leaf through, squeaking whenever he spoke. Caitlyn had managed to limp into the cramped corner of the temporary Customs building—seeing as the old one was currently… indisposed of—and at the counter requested the required paperwork for removal from the Council’s consideration list. The clerk’s jaw had barely hung out the whole time as he watched as she signed a few documents and tucked the monstrous mountain that was the rest of it under her arm, his gaze burning into her back even as she left.
Vi licked her lower lip, smacking them together as she fought the smile that threatened to take over, either at her retirement from the clown circus, as she liked to refer to their governing body, or her worry of vandalizing an official document with creasing, chocolaty brown fingerprints.
“Fine,” she concluded, crossing her arms too. “But then I’m making you a big breakfast tomorrow.” She leaned over to nudge Caitlyn with the edge of her elbow. “We need to keep up your lessons.”
Vi had taken to their kitchens the way birds took to flight, bonding with many of the staff over a shared Zaunite heritage and whipping up dishes Caitlyn had never even heard of despite a childhood of fine dining at fancy restaurants and summer spent vacationing on different seas and oceans. Vi was glad to share childhood staples with her: the soup she made for sick siblings, the meat stew she had cobbled together when her teenage self had wanted to “bulk up,” and the sweet, sticky buns Vander made for the winter holidays. Caitlyn shared some of hers in turn, though Vi had yet to discover a flavor of tea age particularly liked and always made fun of the finger foods served at Piltovian parties, though she did scarf them down like there was no tomorrow, slightly startling their more proper and polite company. Poor Piltie proclivities, she muttered, and Caitlyn disguised her chuckle as a cough, conveniently covering the movement of her mouth with the gloss of a gloved hand or the glinting edge of a glass, that fizzy, fuzzy feeling in the pit of her stomach having little to do with the sips of champagne and more to do with her charming companion.
Companion. It was the word used to describe her and Vi. Frankly, it seemed too formal, too stiff, like a scrap of fabric straightened and steamed to get rid of wrinkles, scrubbed to get rid of stains, all pressed and polished to prestigious, pristine perfection. It was like the starchy dress she was forced to wear while entertaining guests at galas and garden parties, the collar suffocating, chafing, and the skirt scratchy against sweaty palms.
What were they? Girlfriends seemed all jovial and jolly, juvenile, like it was another school crush or summer fling, a thing to snicker about and sneak around for, to giggle and gossip. There was no snickering, as the love she felt for Vi was never a laughing matter, and there was no sneaking, as Caitlyn had no intent to hide the fact she had found her favored person, and this some informal infatuation that had her squealing into her pillow like a preteen. There was giggling, technically, when Vi said something that made her shoulders shake and stomach sore, quivering like quicksand, the site of her stitches becoming an area of ache. Only Vi had the power to make her giggle like a girl again. And, of course, there was gossip, as there always was when the scion of a High House was afflicted with affection, especially with a pairing as particularly unusual as theirs. Uncouth, as some should dare to say.
There were lots of ways, of words, to describe their relationship, the relation they had to one another. They had been co-workers, she supposed. Comrades. Compatriots. Confidants. Caitlyn had once been in command of Vi once, and never wished to do so again. But even if those words were truthful, they still seemed too proper, professional, a polite term to describe the way they worked together. Lover or paramour, or mistress, as some of the gossip rags reported, seemed too sensual, too scandalous. Caitlyn preferred partner, she supposed, but even then it seemed so niche, so narrow of a description. Partners in work? Partners in life and love?
Vi was her partner, her person, but they also were just Caitlyn and Vi, often a two-thing deal, now Caitlyn-and-Vi on the tip of another’s tongue, quickly clumped together into one group. CaitlynandVi. They were a duo, their names a description enough.
Vi had also taken to dragging Caitlyn into the kitchen and insisting she help, which Caitlyn had no qualms to. What she had problems with was when Vi suspected she had never stepped foot in a kitchen at all, like she was a spoiled child who only existed to stick fingers into the stirring bowl, swipe away some sugar-sweet dough, and stick her tongue out or scoff at the staff who swatted and shooed her away. In fact, she recalled many mornings spent in the kitchens, looking at the bread batches sitting on the silver cooling racks, pouting and then smiling when one was pressed to her palm by a kind cool, shoving the warm roll into the ruffled pocket of her uniform skirt to scarf down on her walk to school, the only times she didn’t bother to have proper table manner, taking tiny nibbles and avoiding smacking her lips or swallowing too thickly.
Caitlyn wrinkled her nose. “What?”
“Pancakes,” Vi replied, the ghost of a grin fading across her face. “With chocolate, while we’re on that subject.”
“I know how to make pancakes, Violet,” Caitlyn immediately retorted. “You put batter in a pan.”
Vi nudged her again, this time with her shoulder, slowly shifting closer. “Not fluffy ones, you don’t,” she said. “Top secret Trencher recipe.”
“Huh,” Caitlyn hummed, thinking. “I really don’t think food should be classified as fluffy. Things that have fur are fluffy. Do these pancakes have—”
Vi never replied. Instead, she reached over and ran her hands over Caitlyn’s sides, down the curve of her chest and over the hold of her hips, careful of the sensitive, stitched-up spot there. From there, she simply scooped Caitlyn up from the shoulders and lifted, hooking a hand under her knees and throwing her over one shoulder like the sack of soil she carried around when she helped tend to the gardens, fishing out weeds and filling in the flowerbeds. One hand gripped Caitlyn’s hip from where it was wrapped around her waist while the other had an ample grab on her arse.
“Violet,” Caitlyn breathed, briefly having it knocked out of her lungs. “What are you—”
Vi laughed, the sound vibrating straight up her spine and shoulders, arching over her head, and somehow right into her heart. She held back her worried words as Vi hurried down the halls and unceremoniously deposited Caitlyn upon a pile of pillows and shiny silk sheets, still careful, cautious, giddy yet gentle.
Caitlyn let out a long, low breath, blowing a stand of dark blue hair out of her face. Vi still stood at the edge of the bed, smiling, hands stuffed back in her pockets again.
“Pancakes,” Caitlyn repeated, as if mentally preparing for the time spent away from her study and her stacks of paperwork. “Alright.”
Vi only slipped into the big bed, the one that often felt too big before there was a bold, bulky brawler to sleep under the sheets, the sheets that shimmered in the lowlight as she scooted over to press a chaste kiss to the corner of Caitlyn’s mouth. She swore she could already taste sweet batter-bread and sticky syrup on the tip of her tongue.
When Caitlyn opened her eye—no, eyes—there was blood on the tip of her tongue.
She inhaled sharply, pain immediately flaring, a firm flame flickering and burning against the flat planes of her right side, straight up her arm and down to her ankle. Nostrils flaring, she took in the smell of seawater and salt, as well as tangy traces of iron. She was standing on the steps of Piltover, magnificently made up of marble, shiny, but Vi always said it was sterile, like the hospitals Zaun lacked, all whites, golds and grays—
Red.
Red was splattered against the ground. Red smeared against the blue of the sky, boats that boosted a foreign flag, big, bulking vessels, vile and vicious, violent, sitting in the clear water of their harbor, their home, waters that were once blue too, now with blooms of crimson red, from the blood and cloaks of the bodies bobbing in the lapping lake, in the turning of the tide.
No, no, this wasn’t—
White. The clouds were white. The smoke in the sky was gray. The smears of soot and ash against the grounds, signs of a struggle, were gray. Gold, glinting and glittering, glowing. Gold was the color of the rifle before her, the one she had tried to reach, to aim and fire and failed, now disabled and disarmed, a scrap of steel and silvery metal, useless, like the knees that buckled under the weight of her own body, slumped onto the strong body of another, solid and stocky, but not soft, not sweet. Not like Vi’s—
Vi.
Caitlyn tried to stand, but she struggled. The muscles in her side spasming, cramping and cracking, pinpricks of pain shooting up her spine, pulsing around her pelvis. She gasped, a scraping, scratchy sound from the back of her right throat to the gap in between her top teeth. She bounced, trying to balance on shaky legs, bobbing her head, bobbing like the bodies in the water, like a puppet with its strings cut.
(That was what she was, wasn’t she? A political puppet. A ploy. And the puppetmaster had no more reason to swing and slide her along for any longer, no use to check or correct her.)
The crook of her chin hit the slant of the shoulder she had slipped upon, big and broad, the armor cold against her cheek. As cold as the cartridges and clippings from the rifle she had tried to reach for and retrieve. As cold as her mother’s corpse in that golden coffin.
Gold. Gold was the mask of the woman, the warrior, before her, letting her look into the whites of narrowed, half-lidded eyes. Gold was the handle of the blade sticking out of her side, pinned there, prickling like poison ivy, the bubbling blood drops a rash-red.
“Desperation is the doorway to oblivion, child,” a crisp, clipped, cruel, voice whispered into her ear, somehow still heard over the hum of her heart and the building rushing roar of her blood. Cold breath, bated and barely there, pressed against the side of her neck, prickling, as cool as the dent of her armor, as the hilt of the dagger—
Caitlyn opened her eye, fighting back a choked gasp. She could breathe again, but there was still a sore spot on her stomach, a pulsing sensation, like a pulled muscle. She shot up in bed, her sleep shirt sticking to the salty, sweat-stained skin of her sternum, tender to the touch. She pressed there, at the pushed-out point of her sternum, the curve of her chest, feeling the pounding pulse of her heart hammering on underneath skin and sinew, blood and bone. She felt like she couldn’t breathe, even though her breaths came out in small, shallow bursts, catched raggedly on the ridges and racks of her heaving ribs, gasping, gagging, on the bile on the back of her throat.
Her two hands poked out at once, pressing and prodding. One settled on her side, under the waistband of her silky-soft sleep shorts, right against her lowest rib, near the hold of her right hip and the tipping tilt of her pelvis. She found nothing but smooth, sleep-warmed skin and scar tissue, a piece of the plastered bandage-bundle currently covering the scabbed, sensitive skin, still sore and stitched shut. The other hand jerked to the back of her head, past the slope of her shoulder, tugging at strands of her hair and ponytail, to the nape of her neck, also slick with the slight, salty sheen of sweat, where the little, prickly hairs there stood up on end. More soft, smooth skin, shiny from sweat and that stress of her dream.
Nothing. No blood. No wound by bullet or blade. Just the pressure from her palms, the touch of gentle, guided fingertips, and the cramping of her stomach and sides, like a seizing, spasming sensation of her sinewy muscles, along with the aching area looping down the line of her spine. She fished her hand out from behind the sleek-shine silk of her sleep set and found that troublesome, tender spot.
Caitlyn let out a long, low groan when she first made contact, wincing, teeth gritting. Her eye blinked closed, still crusty from sleep, clinging to the crested center of her cheek. She pressed her palm there, firm and flat, and bit her bottom lip. The only sound was her raised, ragged breathing, then the shuffling of sheets. The mattress dipped in the middle and Caitlyn began to twist, to turn, trying to glance over her shoulder without father aggravating the already achy area just as another hand pressed against warm, waiting skin, this time at the nape of her neck. Cool, calloused fingertips brushed the bare spot of skin there, cold. Cold as a muzzle of—
Gray. Gray was the color of the sky the day they buried her mother. Gray was the color of the rifle pointed down the back of the neck, pressing and prodding, like a tease. A taunt.
“I did appreciate your warmth,” a voice sneered, smirking, all sappy and syrupy sweet, sickly so, the addition of the accent making it tilt and twist, as the fingers pressed, prodding, poking. Teasing. Testing—
“Cait.”
Caitlyn gasped and jolted, jumped, jerking forwards so suddenly her side screamed in pain, the pinpricks became a full, firm pressure that exploded up her entire side. That taut line, the seam of her stitches, tightened and tugged. She let out a weird sound, half-scream and half-squeal, as one hand braved and braced against her sore side and the other gripped the edge of the bed, the silky sheets like a stream of water in her hands, sliding past sweat-soaked skin. Her fingers tightened around the edge of the stuffy, stiff mattress.
“Caitlyn.”
Vi’s voice was different now. There was no teasing, no sleepy smirk tucked into the corner of it, none of that easy warmth that usually made the syllable feel like a hand held out in the dark. It was low and careful, all concern.
And so Caitlyn turned, tilting her head. Vi was already awake. Fully awake, apparently, her blue-great eyes blown wide and whole and brows drawn together as she looked at Caitlyn’s face, then her hands, then the tangled sheets around their legs. Her fingers hovered near Caitlyn’s side without touching, as though she were waiting for permission.
“I’m alright,” Caitlyn whispered, managing it over the manic dance of her heart, over the blood pumping persistently through veins and vessels.
It was an obvious lie.
Vi knew it. Caitlyn knew it. Even the room, with its shadowy corners and sliver of moonlight slipping between the blackout curtains installed for her monstrous migraines, probably knew.
“You’re shaking,” Vi shot out, and it hit the bullseye, straight and steady.
Caitlyn stiffened, trying to straighten out shaking muscles and shivering skin, feeling gooseflesh against cool, silky sheets. “I know.”
Vi frowned. She raised one hand, as if reaching for her, but paused, hesitant. “Can I touch you?”
Caitlyn nodded and Vi’s palm settled carefully against her upper back, warm and broad, rubbing slow circles between her shoulder blades. Caitlyn tried to breathe. She really did. She drew air through her nose, held it, let it slip slowly between her lips, but her lungs seemed to have forgotten the proper procedure. Her breaths came too quick, too shallow, catching and collapsing somewhere in her chest.
“I’m here,” Vi murmured, tickling her earlobe, warm. Caitlyn fought the urge to shift or slide away, recalling the voice in her deep, dark dream. “You’re here. You’re in bed. You’re safe.”
Caitlyn swallowed. The word felt strange. Safe. She looked down and that was when she saw it. Blood. Blood, but only a small, unmistakable bloom against the pale sheets beneath her, dark red at the center and feathering outward into the fabric.
But, for one horrible second, Caitlyn thought she was back there. The harbor. The marble steps. The bodies. A flash of gold, gold like her mother’s coffin. Like the blade in her side, the blood soaking through everything, red and red and red until there was no other color left in the world.
“No,” she breathed.
Vi’s hand tightened against her back. “Cait?”
She gasped, almost a gag, bile rising up the base of her tight throat. “No, no, no.”
Her heart kicked violently. She shoved the sheets away and scrambled backward, nearly knocking into the headboard. Her breath came in ragged bursts again, and she stared down at herself with widening eyes, one hand flying automatically to her stomach.
“Shit!” Caitlyn nearly shouted, shaky hands pointing at the pile of soiled sheets. “I’m bleeding.”
Vi blinked down at said stained sheets, eyebrows furrowing even deeper. “I can see that.”
“I’m bleeding,” she repeated, the hand at her side sliding over skin again, searching, seeking the source. “Shit, my stitches—”
A hand at her shoulder prodded and pressed, keeping her down. “Cait, look at me.”
“I’m bleeding, Vi,” She snapped, trying to scramble up. “My father—”
A snort. “We’re not waking your father before the sun rises.”
“But something’s wrong!”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
Caitlyn shook her head, trying to stand again. “You don’t know that.”
Vi sighed with the effort of keeping her paranoid, petrified partner down on the bed. “I do.”
Caitlyn nearly scoffed, but stayed sitting this time. “You don’t—”
Vi finally reached over and caught her face gently between both hands. “Cupcake.” Caitlyn stopped, mouth still hanging open. Vi waited until her eye met hers, cold blue against cool blue. “You’re not dying.”
The words landed with such blunt certainty that Caitlyn almost laughed. Almost. Instead, her lip trembled. “How do you know?”
“Because I know what this is,” Vi replied, almost a retort.
Caitlyn stared at her, aware her singular eye was probably squinting and, therefore, straining. Vi glanced down at the sheets again, then back at her. “Cait,” she said slowly. Softly. “This is just your period.”
Caitlyn blinked. “My—”
“Your period,” Vi cut her off, still being careful and cautious.
“Oh.” It was such a small word. Another breath escaped her. “Oh.”
And suddenly, impossibly, Caitlyn understood. The cramps. The aching in her back. The peculiar heaviness that had settled in her pelvis over the past few days. The headaches. The strange fatigue. Her appetite being worse than usual, which was saying something. She had spent the better part of the evening insisting she was merely tired, merely sore, merely recovering, merely—
Her period. Her period.
She stared at the blood again. “It came back.”
Vi’s expression changed, insistently inquisitive. “Yeah.”
Caitlyn’s voice was barely there, bated and beady. “It came back.”
She had not had one in months, not since before the war and the rest and recovery that followed. Before everything, really. Her cycle had always been almost comically predictable, mechanical in its regularity, methodical enough that she never really needed to think about it. Every month, without fail, she would stand before the dressing screen in her bedroom and mark the little calendar tucked into its frame. She never wrote anything embarrassing or explicit. Just a tiny tally, one little line for the first day. Another for the next. Neat, narrow marks in black ink, each month measured out in tidy rows.
It had been one of the few things in her life that behaved. Then the war had come. Then her mother had died. Then Piltover had burned and Zaun had bled and Caitlyn had spent weeks sleeping in snatches, when she slept at all. Food became an afterthought, then an inconvenience, then something she could convince herself she did not deserve. The habits that had begun as simple stress had sharpened into something uglier, something she had needed help clawing her way out of afterward. Her body had been starved of rest and nourishment, wrung thin by grief and adrenaline and medication and all the other substances she had used simply to make it through one hour and then another.
So, the calendar had stopped. The tallies stopped. Her body, which had once been so methodical, had simply gone silent. Until now, she supposed.
Now, Vi’s thumb brushed beneath her eye. “Hey.”
Caitlyn blinked again, looking at her, straight and steady. “You’re alright.”
She sighed, the sound scraping the back of her throat as she swallowed past the lump that had made a home there. “I thought—”
“I know,” Vi cut her off again, not wanting her to have to repeat the words, to have to relive the weight of them either.
Caitlyn’s gaze dropped again to the drops of crimson beneath her. “I haven’t had one since before.”
“Yeah.”
“I thought perhaps…” She swallowed. “Perhaps it wasn’t coming back.”
“Well…” Vi's hand moved through her hair, pulling sticky strands away from the nape of her neck, deliberately avoiding the skin. “It did.”
Caitlyn gave a small, shaky laugh that sounded more like a sob. “It did.”
“I guess your body’s got opinions,” Vi said, then pressed a quick kiss to her temple. “Just like this beautiful brain of yours.”
That earned the faintest twitch at the corner of Caitlyn’s mouth.
And Vi smiled, just like the sun, shining in the dark room. “There she is.”
Caitlyn’s face crumpled. She bent forward, curling into herself, arms wrapping around her middle as another wave of cramps rolled through her. Vi immediately moved with her, one hand staying against her back while the other steadied her shoulder.
“Shit,” she muttered, and Caitlyn held her breath. It would hurt to laugh. “Breathe.”
Caitlyn nodded as best as she could. She breathed. In. Out. Again. The room slowly stopped tilting. Vi waited until Caitlyn’s breathing had evened before she carefully peeled the sheets away from her legs.
“Come on,” She called, the way she called the dogs in when she took them out to the gardens on the misty mornings.
Caitlyn stared at her again, probably tilting her head like one of the hounds.
Vi only offered her one short and simple word before she stood and started to slide her hands up Caitlyn’s waist. “Bathroom.”
“I can walk,” Caitlyn chided, face crinkled in confusion.
“I know you can walk,” Vi huffed.
“I can.”
“I know.”
Vi stood first, then offered both hands. Caitlyn rolled her eye, then took them. Getting out of bed was awkward, and she immediately became aware of the blood between her thighs, the strange warmth and stickiness of it, which made her cheeks burn despite everything else. She instinctively tried to close her legs.
Vi noticed. She said nothing. She simply helped Caitlyn pull off the sleep shorts and guided her toward the bathroom, keeping one hand at her elbow and the other hovering near her waist in case her injured side gave way. The bathroom was cold, the marble biting their bare feet, but they both held their tongue. Instantly, Vi turned on the water. The pipes groaned before the shower began spilling warm water into the tub, steam slowly gathering against the mirror.
“Sit here,” Vi said, patting the curved lip of the porcelain tub.
Caitlyn sat on the edge, grimacing and then grunting at the odd sensation of her silky shorts against the slippery slope of the tub.
Vi crouched in front of her for a moment, patting her knee in the same way she had done a lifetime ago. “You okay?”
Caitlyn nodded.
“Need me?”
Another nod.
There was only acceptance as Vi nodded herself. “Alright.” Vi stood, then hesitated, hovering as she waited, watching Caitlyn sit all straight and stiff, thighs pressed together and legs crossed at the ankle. Her brows climbed higher. “I’ll give you a minute.”
Caitlyn only watched her step away. Vi began pulling off her sleep shirt, a threadbare tank top, turning slightly as she did, and Caitlyn curled further into herself on the edge of the tub, taking another slow breath as the water rushed and roared beside her, registering that, for the first time in months, her body had done something ordinary, though it still felt as terrible, as terrifying as it had the very first time.
Caitlyn had gotten her first period at Piltover Preparatory, of all places to be.
The schoolyard was nearly empty by the time Beatrice Bellweather—an older pupil, a prefect— came strolling across it, the last of the afternoon light spilling gold over the stone buildings and catching on the brass buttons of her jacket, and Caitlyn noticed her before she had any reasonable excuse to notice her at all. Beatrice always seemed to move as though the entire world had been arranged for her convenience, one polished black boot after another clicking neatly against the courtyard stones, her honey-blonde hair gathered into a braided crown that had somehow survived an entire day of classes without coming loose, though a few soft strands had escaped around her temples and curled against her cheeks. She had her books tucked beneath one arm and her prefect sash slung perfectly across her chest, and there was something almost painfully picturesque about her, something that made Caitlyn feel ten years old and terribly tongue-tied despite being perfectly capable of debating a professor twice her age, and actually being thirteen years old, thank you very much.
Beatrice’s pale green eyes found Caitlyn from across the courtyard, and then came that smile, small and knowing and just crooked enough to make Caitlyn’s stomach perform an undignified little somersault, a welcome feeling compared to the other fluttering cramps, that twisting and turning low in her gut. Beatrice lifted one hand in greeting as she approached, her gold earrings catching the sunlight, and Caitlyn suddenly became acutely aware of everything about herself: the way her uniform collar sat slightly crooked, the ink smudge on the side of her hand, the fact that she had been sitting on the low courtyard wall with her satchel dumped beside her like some common street urchin. Her posture was horrible, hunched over, her shirt hiked up to her midthigh, askew as she pressed her knobby knees to her chest, trying to curl up and calm or control the cramping just under the stiff, starched fabric of her skirt, sticky from sweat from the hot, humid day.
Beatrice, naturally, looked immaculate. She always did. Her cheeks were pink from the brisk afternoon air, her freckles stood out faintly across the bridge of her nose, and she smelled faintly of rosewater and whatever expensive soap the Bellweather family apparently considered a basic human necessity. When she finally reached Caitlyn, she stopped directly in front of her and tilted her head, studying her with those startling green eyes, and Caitlyn had the absurd thought that Beatrice looked even prettier up close, which was deeply inconvenient because Caitlyn had already spent the better part of the school year thinking she was the prettiest girl in Piltover.
“You are Caitlyn Kiramman, aren’t you?” Beatrice asked, and Caitlyn, who had spent several minutes that morning imagining what it might be like to hear Beatrice say her name, discovered that actually hearing it was considerably worse for her composure.
She managed a stiff little nod, and Beatrice’s smile widened as she shifted her books against her hip, sunlight slipping through the leaves overhead and scattering little flecks of gold across her hair. There was something so effortlessly elegant about her, so polished and perfectly Piltovian, that Caitlyn could hardly believe this was a real person standing in front of her rather than some particularly cruel daydream conjured up by a lonely schoolgirl with an overactive imagination, and when Beatrice leaned slightly closer to say something in a conspiratorial voice, Caitlyn forgot entirely what she had been planning to say in response.
Beatrice’s expression softened, and Caitlyn braced herself for whatever wonderfully important thing she was about to say. She gave her a small, sympathetic smile, and Caitlyn waited, foolishly and hopefully, for whatever wonderful thing was supposed to come next.
Perhaps Beatrice had noticed her in the library. Perhaps she had heard Caitlyn answer a question in class and thought she was clever. Perhaps she had been looking for an excuse to speak to her all along. Caitlyn had constructed an entire collection of possibilities in the space of a heartbeat, each one more ridiculous than the last, and so when Beatrice finally opened her mouth, Caitlyn straightened expectantly, sitting a little straighter on the wall and tried to look as though she had not been holding her breath.
“Caitlyn,” Beatrice said gently, glancing over her shoulder before looking back at her. “I do not mean to embarrass you, but I think you may have had a little accident.”
“Pardon?” Caitlyn blinked. “A what?”
Beatrice hesitated, and for the first time since Caitlyn had known her, she looked almost uncertain. She carefully set her books down on the wall beside Caitlyn and lowered her voice. “You have bled through your skirt.”
For several seconds, Caitlyn simply stared at her. The words did not make sense. They entered her ears and seemed to stop somewhere between her brain and her heart, where they sat uselessly while Caitlyn tried to determine what Beatrice could possibly mean. Then Beatrice gave her another sympathetic little look, and Caitlyn glanced down.
There was a dark red stain spreading across the back of her school skirt. For several seconds, Caitlyn simply stared at it. Her entire body went cold. Then it went hot. Then, somehow, it managed to do both at once.
“Oh,” she whispered. She stared at the stain with the stunned horror of someone discovering a murder scene and slowly realizing she might be the murderer. “Oh.”
Beatrice immediately looked away, giving her the privacy of pretending she had not noticed Caitlyn's face turn scarlet. “It is nothing to be ashamed of. It happens to everyone.”
“Everyone?” Caitlyn squeaked, face as scarlet as her skirt.
“Well.” Beatrice cleared her throat delicately. “Every girl, eventually.”
Caitlyn’s stomach dropped. She suddenly understood. The strange cramps that had been bothering her since lunch. The dull, dragging ache beneath her ribs that she had assumed was something she ate. The fact that she had picked at her lunch and pushed half of it around her plate without realizing she was doing it. The crushing exhaustion that had settled over her during her final lesson, when she had nearly slumped forward onto her desk and fallen asleep while Professor Merriweather discussed trade tariffs.
She had thought she was coming down with something. She had started her period. Her first period. At school. In a white-and-blue Piltover Preparatory uniform. With Beatrice Bellweather standing in front of her.
Caitlyn wanted the earth to open.
“Oh, gods,” she muttered.
Beatrice gave her an encouraging smile. “It really is all right.”
“It is not all right!” Caitlyn squealed, aware she sounded like a screaming child, but not caring at the moment.
Beatrice tilted her head almost thoughtfully. “It is perfectly all right.”
Caitlyn grimaced, gesturing to the stain on her skirt. “There is blood on my skirt.”
“Yeah,” Beatrice said slowly, blinking. “I noticed.”
Caitlyn closed her eyes. That somehow made it worse.
Beatrice was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice was kind rather than teasing. “I have some things in my bag. You can use one until you get home.”
Caitlyn opened her eyes again. “You carry them around?”
“Usually.”
“Why?”
Beatrice gave her a tiny, amused smile. “Because I am a girl.”
Caitlyn stared at her again, then she looked away so quickly that her braid nearly smacked her in the face. “I knew that.”
Beatrice laughed softly, and Caitlyn wished she could disappear. She slumped, sliding further down the wall, expectations and etiquette lessons be damned.
Beatrice’s expression softened with immediate understanding. “I thought you might not have noticed.”
Caitlyn’s face went hot so quickly it felt as though someone had held a match to her cheeks. She turned halfway around, craning her neck as though she might somehow see the back of herself without the assistance of a mirror, and the movement only confirmed what Beatrice had said. There was no mistaking it. Still, a dark, unmistakable patch marred the pale fabric of her uniform, and suddenly every person still scattered around the schoolyard seemed impossibly close.
“Oh,” Caitlyn said again, much louder this time, and then, because apparently humiliation had not yet finished with her, she made the mistake of looking toward the steps.
Two girls were watching her. One whispered something to the other. Caitlyn’s stomach dropped yet again.
Beatrice lowered her voice. “It happens. You haven't done anything wrong.”
“I know,” Caitlyn said immediately, although she absolutely did not feel as though she knew anything at all.
Beatrice slowly reached into her satchel. “I have something you can use until you get home.”
Caitlyn looked up at her. Beatrice produced a neatly folded handkerchief, then seemed to reconsider and instead pulled a small wrapped packet from the bottom of her bag. “Actually, this will be better. You can go to the girls’ lavatory and take care of it, and I can ask one of the matrons to bring you a spare skirt.”
Caitlyn could barely look at her. “You carry those around? All the time?”
“I do now,” Beatrice said gently. “You learn to.”
There was no teasing in her voice, no hint of disgust, nothing except simple kindness, which somehow made Caitlyn even more embarrassed. She wanted Beatrice to laugh. Somehow that might have been easier. If Beatrice laughed, Caitlyn could be angry about it. She could glare and stalk away and decide that Beatrice Bellweather was actually a terrible person with terrible manners and terrible hair.
Instead, Beatrice was being perfectly lovely.
“I can walk with you,” Beatrice offered.
“No,” Caitlyn said immediately, instinctively.
The answer came far too quickly. Beatrice blinked.
Caitlyn swallowed. “I mean, thank you, but I can manage.”
“Of course.”
“And I know where the lavatory is.”
“I should hope so.”
Caitlyn looked up despite herself, and Beatrice gave her the faintest smile. That almost made it worse. Again.
Because for one foolish, humiliating moment, Caitlyn remembered why she had been so excited when Beatrice had crossed the courtyard toward her. She had thought Beatrice had come over because she wanted to speak to her. She had imagined the conversation afterward, imagined walking home with her, imagined telling someone someday that Beatrice Bellweather had sought her out after school because she wanted to know her.
Instead, Beatrice had come to tell her that she had bled through her skirt.
Caitlyn wanted the earth to open beneath her.
“Thank you,” she mumbled.
“You’re welcome, Caitlyn.”
Caitlyn snatched the little packet from her hand, shoved it into her satchel, and then turned sharply toward the school doors.
“Caitlyn?”
She stopped.
Beatrice was looking at her with that same gentle expression. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Really.”
Caitlyn nodded without turning around. Then she walked. Then she walked faster. Then she practically fled. Her satchel slapped against her hip as she hurried across the courtyard, face burning, shoulders hunched, desperately hoping that nobody else had noticed what had happened. Naturally, that was precisely when she became aware of every pair of eyes in the schoolyard. A group of older girls near the fountain glanced at her, then glanced at one another. One of them covered her mouth.
Caitlyn could not tell whether she was laughing or whispering, and she did not want to know. Near the gates, two boys from the upper forms noticed the stain and immediately began snickering, one nudging the other with his elbow before both of them dissolved into ugly, breathless laughter.
Caitlyn kept walking. She did not look at them. She did not look at anyone. Her eyes stung, although she refused to cry, because crying would make everything worse and because Caitlyn Kiramman did not cry in schoolyards where boys laughed at her. She marched through the gates with all the dignity she could scrape together, cheeks flaming and thoughts tumbling chaotically, while behind her the afternoon continued on as though nothing had happened at all.
And, somewhere back in the courtyard, Beatrice Bellweather was still standing there, watching her go, probably thinking Caitlyn was simply embarrassed about her first period. Which, of course, she was. But Caitlyn was also thirteen years old, painfully proud, hopelessly impressionable, and now utterly convinced that she had just suffered the most humiliating afternoon of her entire life.
And she knew with absolute certainty that she was still going to think Beatrice Bellweather was beautiful tomorrow. It was, Caitlyn decided miserably, the worst day of her entire life. And the worst part was that her stomach still hurt.
Caitlyn ran and rushed home as though the whole of Piltover were chasing her, her satchel swinging hard against her shoulder with every hurried step, the leather strap biting into the tender place where one of her blisters had split open beneath the collar of her shirt.
She kept her eyes fixed on the pavement, though her vision was blurred at the edges, her eyes shiny and sore from the tears she had refused to let fall at school, and every few breaths she sniffed sharply through her nose and wiped at it with the back of her hand. She could still hear those boys laughing. She could still feel the curious glances following her across the schoolyard.
She could still hear Beatrice’s gentle voice telling her that it happened, that she had done nothing wrong, and somehow that kindness was almost as mortifying as the laughter had been. By the time the Kiramman estate came into view, Caitlyn had worked herself into such a state that even the familiar sight of home failed to comfort her. The tall iron gates opened before her, and she hurried through without acknowledging the gardener tending the clipped roses beside the drive, though he lifted his head and offered her a cheerful greeting. She barely heard him. Everything seemed too loud, too bright, too close. The birds were chirping in the hedges, the fountain was splashing somewhere beyond the front steps, and the afternoon sun seemed to have followed her all the way from school and settled directly against her burning face.
Then the sensations she had managed to ignore during the walk home began piling up all at once. The sticky, uncomfortable feeling between her thighs made her want to squirm. Her cheeks were still hot and flushed, and the collar of her uniform suddenly felt too tight around her throat. Her braid, which had seemed perfectly ordinary that morning, now felt like a rope pulling painfully at her scalp, every neat little plait suddenly too snug, too scratchy, too much. The leather strap of her satchel scraped against the blister-broken skin on her shoulder, sending a sharp sting through her whenever she moved, and the ache in her stomach seemed to pulse in time with her footsteps. It was an unbearable collection of small discomforts, each one insignificant by itself and somehow enormous when they arrived together.
Caitlyn felt trapped inside her own clothes. She wanted to crawl out of her skin. She pushed through the front doors.
“Miss Caitlyn,” called one of the footmen from the entry hall.
She kept walking.
“Good afternoon, Miss Kiramman,” another servant said brightly.
Caitlyn lowered her head.
“Caitlyn?”
She did not stop.
The parlor doors stood open ahead of her, and she caught a glimpse of her parents seated inside, her mother with one hand curled elegantly around a porcelain teacup while her father was saying something that made the corner of her mouth twitch with amusement. The delicate clink of china reached Caitlyn's ears, followed by the low murmur of their conversation.
“Caitlyn, darling?” her mother called.
Caitlyn’s throat tightened. She kept going. She did not want to explain. She did not want to say what had happened. She did not want to hear her mother’s concerned voice or her father’s questions or anyone’s gentle reassurance that would somehow make the whole thing more real. She wanted her room, her bed, a locked door, and several hours in which nobody would look at her.
She passed Agathe in the hallway just as the maid came around the corner carrying a basket of freshly laundered clothes balanced against her hip.
“Good afternoon, miss,” Agathe said, stepping politely aside to let her pass. “Would you like me to—”
“No, thank you.”
The words came out small and strained. Agathe looked after her, concern flickering across her face, but Caitlyn was already climbing the stairs. Her shoes struck the polished wood in quick, uneven taps. She held her satchel against her side now, trying to keep it from swinging, but the effort only made the strap press more painfully into her shoulder. By the time she reached the landing, her breath was coming unevenly, and another tear finally slipped free.
She wiped it away furiously. She was not crying. She was simply tired. That was all. Tired and embarrassed and uncomfortable and angry, with a stomachache and a headache and a stupid school uniform that suddenly seemed designed specifically to make her miserable.
Caitlyn hurried down the corridor, passed the portraits lining the walls without looking at any of them, and reached her bedroom. She shoved the door open, stepped inside, and pulled it shut behind her with more force than she intended. The quiet that followed was immediate. For a moment she simply stood there with her back against the door, breathing hard. Then she slid her satchel from her shoulder and let it fall to the floor. The sound was satisfyingly heavy.
Caitlyn stared at it. Her lower lip trembled. “Oh, for goodness' sake,” she whispered to herself, and then the tears came.
She barely made it three steps into her room before she began to cry properly. It was not graceful crying, either, but the sort that came in hot, hiccupping breaths and made her shoulders shake. She scrubbed angrily at her cheeks with both hands, furious with herself for letting the tears escape at all, and then her gaze fell upon the stained skirt. That was enough to send another fresh wave of mortification through her.
“No, no, no,” she whispered, as though she could somehow undo the afternoon by refusing to look at it.
She hurriedly unbuttoned her skirt, stepped out of it, and carried the crumpled thing to the washstand. Her fingers were clumsy as she turned the faucet, and when the water began running, she shoved the fabric beneath it and started rubbing at the stain with the frantic determination of someone attempting to erase evidence of a crime. The water splashed over her wrists and onto the floor. She scrubbed harder.
Behind her, the bedroom door opened. Caitlyn froze and turned. Her mother stood in the doorway. Cassandra Kiramman took in the entire scene in a single glance: her daughter’s tear-streaked face, her rumpled blouse, the abandoned satchel on the floor, the skirt being viciously attacked beneath the faucet.
She sighed and Caitlyn’s stomach dropped. She immediately straightened, bracing herself for the lecture. She had been careless. She had embarrassed herself. She had ruined a perfectly good uniform. There would be questions, disappointment, perhaps that particular quiet maternal look that somehow made her feel guilty before Cassandra had even said a word—
Instead, Cassandra crossed the room. She said nothing. She went to the dressing screen in the corner, reached around it, and retrieved the shiny silk robe that had been draped over one of the carved wooden posts. Then she came back to Caitlyn and gently slipped it around her shoulders.
The silk was cool against her flushed skin. Caitlyn looked at her mother uncertainly.
Cassandra turned the faucet off and looked down at the skirt. “Cold water is better.”
Caitlyn’s hands were still shaking. “I can do it,” she murmured.
“I know.”
Cassandra did not take the skirt from her. She simply reached for the soap and worked a small amount into the cold water before easing the fabric into the basin. She left it there to soak. Caitlyn stood beside her in the silk robe, sniffling miserably.
Cassandra glanced toward the door. “Agathe?”
There was a pause, then a polite murmur. “Yes, Mrs. Kiramman?”
“Could you bring us some sanitary supplies, please?”
Caitlyn’s eyes widened. “Mother!”
Cassandra immediately raised one finger to her lips. “Hush.”
Caitlyn stared at her, scandalized beyond words. There was a small rustle in the hallway, and Agathe appeared in the doorway. She took one look at Caitlyn, then at Cassandra, and seemed to understand immediately.
She gave Caitlyn a small, soft smile. “There now,” she murmured.
She crossed the room, gave Caitlyn an affectionate little pat on the shoulder, pinched her cheek gently between two fingers, and then disappeared again before Caitlyn could protest.
Caitlyn stared after her. “She pinched my cheek.”
“She has known you since you were six,” Cassandra said.
“That does not make it less embarrassing,” Caitlyn sniffed, crossing her arms.
“No,” Cassandra agreed, and there was the faintest hint of amusement in her voice. “I suppose it does not.”
A few minutes later, Agathe returned carrying a small basket lined with folded linen. Inside were several individually wrapped bundles. Caitlyn looked at them suspiciously as Cassandra picked one up. “These are pads.”
Caitlyn nodded slowly.
“You wear one inside your underclothes,” Cassandra explained, carefully peeling back the wrapper. “It catches the blood, and you change it regularly.”
Caitlyn nodded again.
Cassandra began to explain something else, something about bodies and babies, but Caitlyn interrupted her quietly. “I know.” Her mother paused, peering at her curiously. “I have read Father’s medical books.” Cassandra blinked at her and Caitlyn looked down at the basket. “Some of them.”
There was a tiny silence, then Cassandra smiled. It was such a soft smile that Caitlyn immediately stopped looking at her.
“What?” Caitlyn asked.
“Nothing.”
“Mother.”
Cassandra reached out and brushed a loose strand of hair away from Caitlyn’s damp cheek.
“Nothing,” she repeated.
Caitlyn’s cheeks warmed again. Cassandra stood and cleared her throat, apparently deciding that whatever tenderness had momentarily entered the room had gone far enough. “You should shower.”
Caitlyn looked at her. “Now?”
“Yes, now.”
Caitlyn only sighed. Cassandra picked up the little basket and set it neatly on the counter. “And afterward, we’ll find you something comfortable to wear.”
Caitlyn glanced at the soaking skirt, then at her mother. Eventually, Cassandra gathered the little basket into her arms and gave Caitlyn one last look, the sort that lingered just long enough to make Caitlyn feel that perhaps everything was not quite as awful as it had seemed an hour ago.
“I will give you some privacy,” she said, smoothing the edge of the silk robe where it rested against Caitlyn’s shoulders. “Take your time.”
Then she turned toward the door. Caitlyn held back another sigh. The soft warmth that had settled somewhere behind her ribs disappeared the moment her mother stepped away, leaving a strange little hollow in its place. She hated that she noticed it. She hated even more that she wanted Cassandra to stay. She nodded instead, because nodding was easier than admitting anything else, and watched her mother leave with the basket tucked against her hip.
The shower helped. Not immediately, and certainly not magically, but enough. Caitlyn stood beneath the warm water until the heat loosened the ache in her shoulders and softened the tightness that had been sitting between them since school. She washed her hair twice, scrubbed her skin with a scented sugar scrub until her arms and legs felt smooth and clean, and used a ridiculous amount of lavender soap because she had decided that if she was going to have the worst day of her life, she was at least going to smell nice afterward.
She rubbed lotion into her elbows and knees, combed the tangles from her hair, and spent an unnecessary amount of time applying a little of her mother’s rose-scented body cream to her hands. By the time she finished, her eyes were still puffy, but the rest of her felt considerably less frantic. She dressed in her softest pajamas, a pale cotton set with little embroidered stars along the collar, and was buttoning the last button of her top when there was a knock at the door.
Caitlyn glanced toward it. “Come in.”
The door opened. Her mother stood there.
“Oh,” Caitlyn said, having expected Agathe.
Cassandra lifted an eyebrow. “Disappointed?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Caitlyn looked at her mother for a moment. Cassandra had changed out of her afternoon clothes as well, exchanging them for a simple dressing gown, her hair loosened from its usual arrangement. Somehow she looked softer like that, less like the formidable head of the Kiramman household and more like the woman who had wrapped Caitlyn in silk and told her cold water worked better.
“Come along,” Cassandra said.
Caitlyn blinked. “Where?”
“The kitchen.”
Weird, Caitlyn thought, but followed. The house was strangely quiet. Suspiciously quiet, in fact. Usually there would be footsteps somewhere downstairs, the muted clatter of dishes, servants moving between rooms, someone polishing silver or carrying messages from one wing to another.
Tonight there was nothing. The corridors were dim and still, and their footsteps seemed unusually loud against the polished floors.
Caitlyn looked at her mother. “Where is everyone?”
“I sent them home early.”
Caitlyn blinked again. “Everyone?”
“Everyone.”
“Why?”
Cassandra gave her a sideways glance. “Because sometimes a household can survive without being waited upon every minute of the evening.”
Caitlyn considered that. “Bà?”
Cassandra smiled immediately. It was the Ionian word for father, and Caitlyn had picked it up from one of the household tutors when she was little. She still used it occasionally, usually when she wanted something from him.
“He is in the study,” Cassandra said. “He has some scotch and a new puzzle.”
Caitlyn nodded solemnly. “Then he is unlikely to emerge for several hours.”
“Exactly.”
They reached the kitchen. Cassandra moved with faint familiarity, setting a large pot upon the stove and filling it with water. Caitlyn sat at the long wooden table, watching her mother work. There was something comforting about seeing Cassandra in a kitchen, though Caitlyn could not remember the last time she had actually prepared anything herself.
The water began to heat. Cassandra selected a tea sachet and dropped it into the pot once the water was steaming, then added a small spoonful of honey and a pinch of ginger. She stirred slowly, watching the ingredients dissolve into the warm water until the tea took on a shining sage color, pale green and translucent beneath the kitchen lamps. Steam curled upward in soft ribbons, carrying a clean, minty scent with something mineral beneath it. Caitlyn breathed it in. It smelled calm and clean.
Cassandra poured two cups and carried them to the table. “This should help with the cramps,” she said.
Caitlyn wrapped both hands around her cup, letting the warmth seep into her fingers. “Thank you.”
They carried their tea into the sunroom, where the last of the evening light had begun to thin across the windows, turning the glass amber and the garden beyond it into a hazy watercolor of fading greens and dusky golds. Caitlyn sat at the small round table with both hands wrapped around her cup, letting the warmth settle into her fingers, while Cassandra sat opposite her with one ankle tucked neatly behind the other. For a while, they simply drank in companionable silence. The house seemed unusually hushed without the staff moving through it, and outside, the first evening insects had begun their soft, persistent chorus among the hedges.
Caitlyn’s stomach still ached. Not terribly now, but enough that she kept shifting in her chair.
Cassandra noticed. Of course she noticed.
Without saying anything, she reached into the pocket of her dressing gown and withdrew a small silver compact. It was beautifully made, oval-shaped and cool beneath the lamplight, with a tiny engraved pattern along the lid. She placed it on the table between them.
Caitlyn looked at it. “What is that?”
“Open it,” was all Cassandra said.
So Caitlyn did. Inside were several dozen tiny, rounded painkillers, neatly tucked into the little compartment beneath the mirror.
She looked up, confused.
“For your cramps,” Cassandra said. “Take one if you need it.”
Caitlyn nodded slowly and closed the compact. “Thank you.”
Cassandra gave her a small smile. “You’re welcome.”
Caitlyn reached across the table and placed one hand on her mother’s shoulder. It was an impulsive thing. She almost pulled away immediately. Instead, Cassandra lifted her hand and patted Caitlyn's fingers where they rested against her shoulder. Then she covered them with her own and gave them a gentle squeeze. “You should get some sleep,” she added softly. “You still have school tomorrow.”
Caitlyn only nodded. She stood and carried the little silver compact with her, slipping it carefully into the pocket of her pajamas before beginning the walk upstairs. The staircase curled upward in a long, elegant spiral, its banister gleaming beneath the low evening lights. She climbed slowly, one step at a time, her body suddenly heavy with the peculiar exhaustion that came after crying. Her feet were warm from the shower, her hair still slightly damp at the ends, and her stomach gave another dull little cramp as she reached the first landing.
She paused and looked back. Cassandra was still standing below. She had remained in the large doorway leading from the kitchen, her silhouette dark against the warm light behind her. She looked smaller from the stairs, though still somehow imposing, a quiet, looming figure framed by the doorway and the deepening dusk beyond the windows.
Caitlyn watched her for a moment. Cassandra lifted one hand. Caitlyn smiled faintly, then she turned and continued up the stairs, taking each step slowly until the sound of her footsteps disappeared into the quiet upper floor.
Caitlyn jerked back into the present when Vi squeezed her shoulder. “Hey.”
Caitlyn blinked, looking up at her. The bathroom had stopped looking like a battlefield. There were no marble steps, no rifles, no red water, no cold hand at the back of her neck. There was only Vi, warm and solid and wonderfully, reassuringly real, standing in front of her with one hand held out.
“Come on,” Vi murmured. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Caitlyn took her offered hand. Vi helped her stand, careful of her side, and together they stepped into the bath. The water was warm enough to make Caitlyn sigh the instant it reached her waist, her muscles loosening beneath the heat. She settled against the edge, letting her head tip back, and only after a few quiet seconds did she notice the scent.
She blinked. There were clusters of citrus-scented soap suds drifting across the surface, bright and bubbly, and beneath it was the softer, sharper smell of bergamot, clean and faintly sweet.
Caitlyn smiled sweetly. “You added soap.”
Vi looked offended, flaring her nostrils. “Of course I did,” she replied. “Only the best for my girl.”
Caitlyn tilted her head, trying to ignore that tender heat that flared and fluttered in her belly, battling with the cramps, at the notion of being Vi’s girl. “You didn’t have to.”
Vi tilted her head too, mirroring her. “Didn’t have to make it smell nice?”
Caitlyn rolled her singular eye. “I didn’t say that, Violet.”
“Well,” she bit back. “You were thinking it then.”
“I was thinking that you have an alarming obsession with making everything smell like fruit, actually,” Caitlyn replied, which was true, not that she wasn’t adding fuel to the fire. She might have almost bought out the market booth that supplied artisan soaps and scrubs when Vi mentioned she loved using them in her long, steaming showers after even longer workout sessions.
“Citrus is good,” Vi mumbled, poking at a passing bubble and popping it.
Caitlyn nodded, agreeing. “It is.”
Vi grinned. For a while, they sat quietly.
Then Caitlyn spoke up, clearing her throat, trying to force the little lump there back. “I thought I was back there.”
Vi’s smile disappeared. “The dream?”
Nightmare.
Caitlyn nodded. She told her. Not everything at once, and not particularly well, but enough. The steps. The rifle. The blade. The woman. The voice. Her mother’s coffin, gold and gleaming and cold. The sensation of being unable to breathe even though there had been air all around her.
Vi listened. She did not interrupt. When Caitlyn finally mentioned the fingers at the back of her neck, Vi's breath changed. It shortened, then stopped, just for a second. Her gaze dropped to that small patch of skin.
Caitlyn noticed. She always noticed.
She blinked, eyelashes fluttering. “Vi?”
“Nothing.”
Caitlyn watched her carefully. Vi swallowed, then reached for the soap. “Come here.”
She helped wash Caitlyn's hair, fingers working gently through the dark strands, careful not to pull. Caitlyn closed her eye as Vi massaged the shampoo into her scalp, the familiar pressure soothing in a way she hadn’t expected.
“You know,” Vi said suddenly. “Powder and I used to have to share a tin tub.”
Caitlyn opened her eye. “A tin tub?”
“Yep,” Vi said, popping the p.
“Back in Zaun?”
“Yep,” Vi said again.
Caitlyn wrinkled her nose. “That sounds dreadful.”
Vi laughed, low and lanky. “It was.” She stopped scrubbing for a second, swallowing thickly. “We’d have to heat the water first. Carry it back, pour it into the tub, heat another pot, pour that in, keep doing it until there was enough to actually sit in without freezing your ass off.”
Caitlyn smiled softly. “And you did this every time?”
Vi shrugged. “Pretty much.”
“How did you wash your hair?”
“Same way you do.”
“That was not my question, Vi.”
Vi laughed again. “Powder always got hers sticky somehow. We’d wash it clean, and two hours later she’d have something in it. Grease, syrup, dirt, Janna knows what.”
Caitlyn snickered. “And you still helped her?”
Vi’s hands slowed momentarily, but when Caitlyn looked back, she was smiling, gentle and giddy. “Of course I did.” Vi rinsed Caitlyn’s hair, then began carefully braiding it, separating it into sections. “She’d sit between my knees, and I’d braid it after. Sometimes she complained the whole time.”
“I can't imagine why,” Caitlyn said when Vi tugged a little too hard.
Vi scoffed, her hand going slack, softening. “She was impatient.”
“So I’ve heard,” Caitlyn replied.
“Yeah, well.” Vi finished the braid and tied it off. “She’d squirm around until I’d threaten to shave it all off.”
Caitlyn laughed properly then, the sound small but real. “I used to hate wet hair.”
Vi looked at her over the slant of her shoulder. “Yeah?”
Caitlyn nodded along. “When I was little. I used to pin it up with a little silver pin my mother gave me. I couldn’t stand it touching my shoulders.” She looked down at the water. “The strands would stick to my back, or run down my spine. I’d squeal whenever it happened.”
Vi smiled. “You?”
“Yes, Violet. Me.”
Vi snorted so hard a strand of her hair nearly went flying. “I would’ve paid to see that.”
“I was very dignified,” Caitlyn snapped back. “Thank you.”
“Sure,” Vi mused.
Caitlyn held her chin high. “I was.”
“Absolutely.”
Caitlyn rolled her eye, but continued on. “I used to wrap myself in my towel and sit on my bed until it dried. Just staring at the wall.”
Vi reached for a towel with a grunt. “Sounds riveting.”
“It was,” Caitlyn countered, leaning back and closing her eye as Vi patted the end of her braid dry, gentle and methodical, until there was hardly any water left clinging to it.
Eventually, Vi climbed out first. Her eye opened as she did so. Vi stood beside the bath, droplets of water trailing down the planes and curves of her body before disappearing into the towel she caught around herself. Caitlyn leaned forward onto her hands against the ledge, watching her through the mirror.
Vi caught her gaze. She smiled. Caitlyn did not bother looking away. She pulled on her boxers and a loose, baggy tank top, then reached for Caitlyn’s robe where it had been left over the dressing screen.
She held out her hand again. “Come on.”
Caitlyn took it. She always would.
Vi pulled her gently from the bath and wrapped the robe around her shoulders. Caitlyn shivered, a tingle shooting down her spine. For a fleeting second, she remembered another robe, another evening, another version of herself standing somewhere in the past while her mother draped silk over her shoulders and told her she was alright.
The memory hurt, but this one did not. Vi’s hands lingered at her shoulders. Caitlyn looked up at her, eyelashes fluttering, then she leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.
Caitlyn took her time getting herself settled, partly because she was still a little shaky and partly because the whole process felt strangely foreign after so many months of not having to think about it at all.
She sat on the closed lid of the toilet first, staring down at the little wrapped packet in her hands, then remembered Cassandra showing her once, years ago, how to position everything properly. She unwrapped it carefully, peeled away the backing, and pressed the pad into place, smoothing the edges down with more concentration than the task probably deserved. It felt strange, bulky and unfamiliar, something she could suddenly feel with every tiny shift of her body, but at least it was clean, at least she was no longer sitting there worrying about blood getting everywhere.
Vaguely, somewhere through the quiet rustle of paper and fabric, she remembered that Vi was still there, standing by the sink and brushing her teeth, one hand propped against the counter while she scrubbed with exaggerated concentration. The sight made Caitlyn pause. There was something so oddly domestic about it, something almost painfully ordinary, that she found herself watching Vi through the mirror for a moment longer than necessary.
They had fought wars together. They had bled together. They had spent nights sleeping in ruined buildings and days picking their way through rubble and smoke, and now Vi was brushing her teeth while Caitlyn sat on the toilet fixing her sanitary pad, the two of them occupying a steamy bathroom in the middle of the night as though this were simply another quiet evening in a quiet life.
Caitlyn thought it was rather lovely. She did not say so. She would never hear the end of it.
Instead, she stood and washed her hands, then adjusted the belt of her robe before looking toward Vi.
Vi spat into the sink. “Still making pancakes tomorrow,” she announced loudly, as though she had been waiting several minutes for the appropriate dramatic moment.
Caitlyn blinked, and then she laughed. It slipped out before she could stop it, soft and breathy and slightly surprised, and Vi's grin appeared immediately in the mirror.
“You’re laughing at me,” Vi said around the toothbrush, feigning false offense. “Why?”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Pancakes,” Vi said pitifully, pouting and pulling on that look.
“At this hour, Violet?” Caitlyn asked, forcing herself to sound normal. “Pancakes?”
“Especially at this hour.”
Caitlyn shook her head, smiling despite the lingering ache in her stomach, the dull cramping still twisting low beneath her ribs. It was not gone, and perhaps it would not be gone for some time, but it no longer frightened her quite so much.
She leaned against the counter beside Vi, crossing her arms over the curve of her chest. “Fine,” she said, giving in.
Vi raised an eyebrow. “Fine what?”
“Pancakes,” Caitlyn muttered.
Vi beamed, bright and brave and beautiful. “Good.”
Caitlyn rolled her eye, but she was still smiling when she looked at her.