"...Aha."

Eclair's summoned heartblade is a match for the one she pulled in Mayzie's presence back during the duel in Vespergift. Her second heartblade matches it, now mirroring the two she wielded against the Architect Knight. Her third and her fourth are new to anybody she has met since she ventured forth from the Manor on this ill-fated mission. These beautiful, curving, single-edged blades join seamlessly together to form a pair of double-bladed polearms, which she twirls with such adroit cleverness that they seem to slice the idea of sound from the air itself. 

She tosses the pair of them up into the air and they separate back into swords once more before burying themselves into the floorboards down to the hilt. One in the North. One in the South. One in the East. One in the West. The floor of the room lights up like a stormy sky, flashing pearly and purple lightning across the meager bedroom and turning it into an arena of legends.

She pulls a fifth sword from her heart, this one as pliable as a whip, and wraps its edge around her left fist.

"A contest between heartblades is not a contest of skill or experience. It is merely an expression of willpower. If yours remains inviolate, then even if your entire body should fail you, victory is still possible. Conversely..."

There is some clever and possibly horrifying bit of Maid-Knight magic to the technique of Reduced Earth. Whatever that is, it is not to be revealed here. Still, Eclair is an adept student: in a single violet blur of motion she crosses all the distance between herself and Mayzie, and now looms large and imposing in her glittering dress and armor in front of her childhood friend.

"--If one heart is defeated..."

Her sword-hand grapples Mayzie around the wrist, seizing control of her dawn colored knife.

"--Before the fight begins..."

Their faces are touching now. Eclair plants the softest and sweetest of kisses on Mayzie's cheek.

"--There is no need..."

She pulls Mayzie's arm forward by the wrist and thrusts the dagger through the crack in her armor.

"To fight in the first place."

Eclair takes three slow steps backwards, pulling free from the kiss. Free from the knife. She stands there in silence with her back as straight and proud as can be, and everything about her stance and expression exuding the confidence and power of a Maid-Knight in full standing who truly believes she could fight the entire world and win. At least with preparation.

She snaps her fingers and all of her weapons dissolve into mist. Then she dips into a low curtsy. 

"Once again I have underestimated you, Mayzie. I was all too aware that the money I had offered you could not be stretched far enough to repair a broken city and I confess that restricted my thinking. No wonder I found you working another service job. You fool, what was there to be embarrassed about? You should have been gloating!"

She reaches for a mop and begins to clean up after herself until the room is spotless, well beyond the level of clean she found it in. She glances often at Mayzie's reaction as she continues, most especially to make sure she's still standing there. With a single relieved huff, she finishes and draws out her tablet in its place.

"A moment, if you please. Your heart is as beautiful as you are, and I can only hope to match it. I am going to inform my Order of the current status of my investigation. I am also going to requisition time off to accompany you until the restoration of Vespergift is well in hand. To arrange the transport of all the food and materials a clever mind might have purchased will take more work days than you can possibly afford right now. But if you simply hire me, I can accomplish all of this trivially. Distribution, construction, and especially cleaning are also skills I possess at a passable level."

She turns her head away and blushes, visible despite her very valiant attempts at hiding it.

"I am... sorry that this means you will be forced to continue looking at my face. I can wear a mask if that will help. I have... mmf. Simply realized there is no honor or kindness in disappearing or in aiding your dreams if I do not at least fix the things that are holding your dreams hostage in the first place. So I will. Be there. To pay back all the pieces that loved me. And t-the... ones that hated me as well. If I wish for you to think well of the Aurorae it is my job to prove you should. Not yours."

With a single, awkward glance at her friend she buries her nose in her tablet and begins writing with quick and feathery taps. For all her speed it's a thing that still takes quite a while, because in writing any missive to the entire Manor at once she will always find she has a lot to say. There isn't enough time or space to write down all the little bits of love and longing or every fastidious detail she copies from her notebooks, but the basic thrusts are these:

1. That Timtam is very decidedly not acting alone, though the full extent of her resources remains unclear
2. That she has employed multiple channels of misdirection, and that her sisters-in-arms to take care to scrutinize the rumors that filter in from the world
3. That even if she has betrayed the Order utterly, Timtam's heart remains her own. It is Eclair's recommendation in the meantime that the Maids and the Dreamers at the very least do not give up on her just yet.
4. That Timtam is limited enough after current events that Eclair feels comfortable prioritizing the wellbeing of Vespergift, recently destroyed by the sudden reemergence of the Rot Star. 
5. If anybody from the Order wishes to criticize, chastise, or otherwise admonish her, they can find her in the city that fights the forest. Where there will evidently be a ball of some sort? She will be in attendance if there is any chance it could be mission relevant to either of her current goals.
6. Though owing to a mysterious and unprovoked aggression from the Civils, she may be forced to don a disguise or four. Send only Maid-Knights or couriers who could know her by her eyes.

It goes on like this, for endless paragraphs that name over six dozen individuals she wishes to send her love to. She asks if anybody knows whether Evening liked her picture. And for endless paragraphs more she begs everyone for their patience and understanding as she unwinds these unexpectedly complex threads. Then she (quite unnecessarily, given the... everything else about it) puts her signature on the bottom in her usual idiom.

As if anyone at the Manor wouldn't know the title she gave to herself when she was barely more than a squire.