[b]Handmaidens![/b]

“We are protecting love,” the maid says, simply. “Always.” There is steel in her resolve, and passion enough for a heartblade. She would die before she allowed intruders into the Mansion, and consider it nothing more than the duty that love is owed. As would the maids in the room beyond. As would, well, at least some of the maids throughout the Mansion.

When the Order of the Aurora contracts, they contract as hard as diamond. That the two of you were allowed this close was a tactical error on their part, and they do not intend to make that mistake again – not easily. Not here. Not when the stakes are so high.

If Heron were slumbering in the heart of the Stacks, would not each and every one of you do the same? Wouldn’t you keep her secret then, as you keep her secret now? Look at her again. Look at the maids beyond, trying not to be caught peering into the room. Do you recognize yourselves in the mirror?

“You will have no barriers to exit,” the Serigalamu maid says, even as Kalentia’s tablet pings.

On it, an unfamiliar handle, and a heartfelt message:
>[moreofamorsel]
>If you can save Eclair – from the Civils, from Timtam, from herself…
>Please. I’ll pay anything. I’ll make sure you can get in.

[hr]
[b]Eclair Espoir![/b]

You do not see, I think, the way that Mayzie plays with a curl of her hair. You do not see the way that she looks away, self-conscious, unsure of how many layers of herself you have penetrated, unsure how many layers she has to be penetrated in the first place. Oh, there is something of my camp in her, my darling: she is a creature of masks and dreams and beautiful illusions.

“You’ll need a new disguise,” she says, primly, chin in the air. “I can’t have the most wanted woman in Thellamie dragging me down to Civil prison with her.” And, yes, Hazel, she did have to specify the most wanted woman – but this isn’t even the part about you, so sit back down. And, yes, Civil prison does involve tea and biscuits and lectures about the need to work together as a society, but while you’re squirming upside-down, so do your best to avoid it. As fetching as you’d look with a serious expression, attempting to convey the seriousness with which teatime is meant to be treated.

By the time you look over at her – once you’re done, of course, of course, you need time to type, no ability to get distracted by another task until you’re finished – then you’ll see her hard at work, already sketching, trying to transform your black-and-whites into a truly durable disguise. This is a way for her to express what her words cannot. I hope that you appreciate it properly.

Take a String on her, if you would. Tangle her up in it, until the two of you cannot break free.

[hr]
[b]Hazel Valentine Fletcher![/b]

She does not hold you down and stab you. She could, you know. It wouldn’t even be particularly difficult. A whistle and she’d have more guards in here. An order and Juniper would be dragged out, and if Olesya ever wanted to see her again, she’d have to pin your arms while the Khatun showed you the shape of her wicked heart. And she’d carve into your feelings, your dreams, your very heart, until it hurt to think, it hurt to breathe, it hurt to be wanted but not for yourself, it hurt to be carved and cut into a good boy.

It would be the magic of the Stars against the magic of one particular Fallen Star, true. But she would have an advantage here, where it is swelteringly hot, where she rules by strength, where the Stars cannot see you. She knows a rite that would send you tumbling down into… well, you would call it Hell. The prison of a fallen Star, where there is fire and darkness and fury forever.

But sometimes she wants to win fairly. She wants to win, oh, she needs to win. She will do anything, anything, to win, Hazel. But if she has to toss you down into Hell immediately to win, that would be unbecoming of a Khatun. It would be an acknowledgement that you are more than a pretty little trophy.

And what a trophy you will be, on the wedding day with her daughter. You will give her good grandsons and strong granddaughters. You will give them your silly flushed cheeks and your adorable voice, and if she were young and endlessly powerful again, she would be the one competing for you, to own you, to make you proof that she can have whatever she wants, that life is a series of hunts for what one’s heart desires, that the strong rule and the weak obey, that she decides who is predator and who is prey. But she is old now. And she will not let time take her achievements and undo them.

You will give her a dynasty.

Is that not attractive enough?

“Carpets. Well. I’m sure that Olesya can arrange something if you are attempting that reversal psychology, Cutie.” She says it with a Capital. Because she is a huntress, and having the right bait is important, and seeing the look on your face when she uses Yaz’s name for you as a knife…

That’s its own victory. And that’s enough for her.

For now.

[hr]
[b]Yuki![/b]

Purnima does not give this more than a moment of consideration.

“But if anyone else tries to make my statue,” she says, with an airy wave of her hand, with a squeeze of her coils, already envisioning it in her thoughts, how golden it will be, how it will be the centerpiece of Crevas, how it will immortalize her forever, how even if the Outside were to rush in and drown the world in subjectivity her statue, [i]her[/i] statue, would be the last one that stood when even the Nails were drowned and Sayanastia could celebrate a victory without joy over that hated thing, Existence, and she would lie in her own arms and, oh, she would miss your statue when it went, probably, but the true tragedy would be the loss of one Purnima Karn-Pana…

“They might not get it [i]right![/i]”