Rules Are Meant to be Broken

by MaskedDragoness

Summary:

“I’m serious.” She shoved the magazine at her. “This—this thing is everywhere. People were staring at me all morning, and now I know why. They think—” Her voice pitched up, incredulous. “They think I’m dating Phainon!”

Tribbie didn’t look near as scandalized as Stelle expected. Actually, she didn’t look scandalized at all. In fact, a smile creeped onto her face, the kind that suggested amusement rather than shock.

“Oh, is that all?”

“All?!” Stelle’s eyes went wide. “This is a disaster!”

Tribbie scratched the back of her head before managing a shrug.

“Little Gray,” she said at last, voice calm and annoyingly gentle, “it’s okay to have feelings for Phainon. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. We support you.”

For a full three seconds, Stelle’s brain refused to process the words. They just bounced around uselessly, echoing in her skull like badly thrown marbles.
Then her whole body jolted as the meaning sank in.
“You’ve got to be shitting me.” She dropped her head into her hands, voice muffled, the magazine crinkling under her arm.

Notes:

i realized i can't complain about the lack of Phaistelle fics if im not actively contributing to their creation. BE the change u want to see in the world #inspiration

Chapter 1: Prologue: Day 0

Stelle didn’t wake up until noon.

The sun was already high, a stripe of light cutting across her bed and landing right in her eyes. She rolled over, trying to burrow into the pillow, but the ache in her muscles made itself known the second she moved. Everything hurt– the kind of deep, dragging exhaustion that came after a day of pushing herself too far. She should’ve expected the soreness– Yesterday had been nothing but puzzles and strain, using Oronyx’s power to roll massive boulders through Styxian contraptions until her head throbbed. Hours of shoving those ridiculous orbs into their slots just for a handful of Stellar Jades. Her body had protested the whole time, but she hadn’t stopped.

And now, of course, she’s paying the price.

 

She lay there for a long moment, eyes half-shut, until her stomach growled loud enough to make her flinch. Great. Rest could wait—food couldn’t.

 

The room was quiet. Too quiet. Mem was curled up on the couch, still dead asleep, face pressed into the pillow like she hadn’t moved in hours. A little line of drool darkened the fabric beneath her mouth. Stelle blinked at her for a moment, equal parts fond and annoyed. Figures. If Mem had been awake, she’d already be lecturing Stelle about how she never paced herself.

 

She pushed herself upright, groaning as she rubbed her temples. Her head still felt heavy, like Styxia’s atmosphere hadn’t left her body. There was no way she was cooking, not like this. That meant the market.

 

By the time she made it outside, Okhema’s Marmoreal Market was bustling. The air was warmer here than Styxia’s damp chill, the scents sharper: grilled meat, herbs drying in the sun, fresh bread pulled from ovens. The marble paving beneath her boots gleamed faintly, and the clamor of voices rose and fell with the shifting crowd. She pulled her jacket tighter out of habit, but it was more for comfort than temperature.

 

At first, she thought she was imagining it—the eyes on her, the whispers that flitted just barely within earshot. She kept her pace steady, scanning the market stalls. A spice seller shouted his wares. A child tugged at their parent’s sleeve, pointing at candied fruit. Just the usual chaos. But the feeling lingered, prickling along the back of her neck just enough to make the hair there stand up.

 

Stelle pressed her mouth into a line and tried to ignore it. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe she’d brought some of Styxia’s paranoia back with her. That place was enough to warp anyone’s sense of normal. Still, when she stopped at a food stall selling dolmas wrapped neatly in grape leaves, she caught the merchant giving her a look that lasted a fraction too long. Not hostile, but sharp. Like recognition.

She paid quickly, muttered a thanks, and stepped away. The dolmas were warm in her hands, fragrant with herbs and lemon. She sat at the nearest open bench, hoping food would distract her. After all, nothing soothes the soul like sweet, glorious sustenance.

It didn’t work.

Even with her back turned, she could feel it—glances dragging over her like threads catching on fabric. A murmur here, a hiss of a laugh there. Her pulse picked up, sharp and fast. Was she imagining it? She stabbed a dolma with her fork and shoved it into her mouth, chewing hard.

For a few minutes, she forced herself to focus only on eating. The filling was savory and soft, rice mingling with pine nuts and herbs, but she hardly tasted it. Every sound felt magnified: footsteps scuffing, the metallic click of a teleslate camera, too close for comfort. She whipped her head around, but the crowd melted back into motion as though nothing had happened.

Her hands tightened around the food container.

Finally, the tension boiled over. She was starting to get pissed. She stood abruptly, voice cutting sharper than she intended.

“So is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?”

The market didn’t stop, not completely, but the silence around her spread in a ripple. A few heads turned. Some people ducked away. Others just kept staring, the corners of their mouths twitching like they were suppressing something. No one answered.

Her face burned hot, shame and frustration tangling in her chest. She sat back down hard, gripping her fork like a weapon. Fine . If no one wanted to talk, she’d eat, pack up, and get out before she did something stupid.

She forced down a few more bites, chewing fast, eyes locked on the stonework beneath her shoes. Her mind raced with possibilities: Bartholos getting back at her? Some lingering curse from Styxia? 

By the time her stomach couldn’t take any more, she was sick of the whole ordeal. She shoved the rest of the food into its container and snapped the lid shut. Standing, she scanned the crowd one last time. Nothing obvious. Just the usual swirl of strangers.

Her jaw clenched. Whatever this was, she’d figure it out. She wasn’t about to let paranoia eat her alive.

Clutching the bag tighter, she turned and began the walk back to her quarters.

Xx….o….xX

The walk back had been a blur. Stelle still carried the half-eaten dolmas in their container, her grip tightening and loosening as if she could wring answers out of the cardboard lid. She let herself into the suite as quietly as possible, hoping not to wake Mem, and set the food down on the counter. 

Routine steadied her hands: open the cabinet, shove a few plates aside, slide the dolmas into the cold box for later. It wasn’t much, but it gave her something to focus on other than the gnawing silence.

She had just closed the cabinet door with a firm click when the front door swung open. Dan Heng stepped inside, his expression unreadable as ever. He carried himself with the calm efficiency of someone who had already been awake for hours.

“Back late,” he observed, setting his satchel down.

“Don’t start,” Stelle muttered. She turned back toward the counter, trying not to show how unsettled she felt.

Dan Heng didn’t move right away, letting the door swing closed behind him. His gaze flicked over her, catching the faint tremor in her hands. “You look… uneasy.”

“Do I?” She forced a laugh that fell flat. “Maybe I should go see Hyacine. Get my head checked. Do they do schizophrenia diagnoses in Amphoreus?”

Instead of answering, Dan Heng reached into his satchel and pulled out a folded magazine. Without a word, he tossed it onto the counter. It landed with a slap that made Stelle flinch.

“What’s this?”

“The latest issue of Chrysos ,” he said simply.

She frowned, wiping her palms on her jacket before picking it up. The glossy cover nearly slipped from her grip the moment she registered what was staring back at her.

A photo — her photo — blown up and sharpened so much it almost gleamed. She and Phainon were seated side by side, mid-conversation. His head was tilted toward her, his smile crooked, eyes bright. She looked annoyed — or maybe flustered. The headline beneath screamed in bold gold lettering:

“CHRYSOS HEIR’S AFFAIR REVEALED? Girl from Beyond the Sky Linked to Phainon of Aedes Elysiae!”

Her blood went cold. The hell was this?

She blinked once, twice, rubbed her eyes, and looked again. Still there. The sharp serif font burned into her brain.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” she groaned.

Dan Heng didn’t answer, and just folded his arms

Stelle flipped the magazine open with shaking hands. Inside, entire spreads had been dedicated to moments . Grainy photos, clipped captions, timelines constructed like a puzzle that only lunatics would think fit together. It felt stalker-ish.

“The Heir and the Heroine: From Strife to Something More?”

Sources confirm that Phainon, heir to Kephale’s coreflame, was seen in deep conversation with Stelle mere hours before the most recent Strife Trial. Witnesses recall seeing the two exchange long looks and hushed words near the Dromas' enclosures, suggesting a closeness that defies mere friendship.

Her throat tightened. She turned the page.

“Caretaker or Companion? Phainon Babysits Stelle’s beloved Bubbles”

Just weeks ago, citizens spotted Phainon in the public gardens watching over Stelle’s peculiar chimera companion, nicknamed ‘Bubbles.’ The heir was reportedly seen feeding the creature candied nuts and laughing at its antics. Is it merely friendship? Or practice for parenthood?

"Parenthood?!" Stelle dragged her hands down her face. “Oh, for the love of—”

The next article was worse.

“Tender Touches: A Lion’s Bite and a Heir’s Concern”

After the infamous incident where Stelle suffered a bite from the ornamental lion ' Verax Leo' , witnesses recall Phainon ‘rushing to her side’ and ‘bandaging the wound with almost too much care.’ Phainon, although naturally kind, has never been observed tending such wounds so carefully— is this concern born from duty, or devotion?

By now she was ready to light the damn thing on fire. “Bandaging me because I was bleeding is not romantic!”

Dan Heng’s face didn’t shift, though his eyes flicked toward her clenched fists.

She kept flipping. Every page got worse:

“Defender of the Heart? Phainon Confronts Aglaea on Stelle’s Behalf”

Sources say that upon Stelle’s mysterious arrival into Okhema, Aglaea interrogated her intensely. Castorice, one of the Chrysos Heirs familiar to this interrogation, confirmed that Phainon rushed to defend her against the Goldweaver’s golden threads.  Does a Chrysos Heir risk his standing lightly — unless spurred by something deeper?

Poor Cas. She probably had no clue that her interview was going to be used to create such an outlandish story.

Stelle slammed the magazine shut.

“This is—this is bullshit, ” she spat.

Dan Heng nodded once, calm as ever. “It seems many people don’t think so.”

She glared at him. “Don’t tell me you believe this!”

“I didn’t say that.” His voice was even, but there was a weight in it that made her insides twist.

The magazine still lay on the counter, its headline taunting her. She pressed her palms to her eyes, groaning. The weight of the stares from the market suddenly made sense. Of course. She wasn’t imagining things at all. They’d all seen this .

Her thoughts spun, ricocheting between fury and disbelief. How could anyone twist things this far? How could anyone look at scattered, disconnected events and spin them into—

She exhaled sharply. “Dan Heng. This… this doesn’t mean anything.”

His only response was a measured look, one that told her he wasn’t convinced it mattered what she thought.

Her stomach dropped.

And then—

A muffled groan from the couch. Stelle turned sharply to see Mem stirring, one eye cracking open. She blinked blearily at them, her pink fluff sticking up at every angle.

“Why’re you yelling…?” Mem mumbled, voice thick with sleep.

“Because,” Stelle snapped, grabbing the magazine and waving it like a cursed artifact, “apparently I’m dating Phainon now, and no one thought to tell me!”

Mem sat up straighter, confusion knitting her brows as she rubbed at her eyes with her tiny paws.

Dan Heng didn’t move. The silence stretched, broken only by Mem’s sleepy, bewildered, “Huh?”

 

Xx….o….xX

Stelle didn’t even bother to shut the door behind her. The magazine was still clutched in her hand, pages bent from how tightly she’d been gripping it. She stormed down the marble hallway of the Marmoreal Palace like a woman on a mission — or a woman seconds away from gauging someone’s eyes out. Possibly both.

She needed answers. Now.

Mem scrambled after her, trying to keep pace floating through the air. “Stelle—hey! Slow down, you can’t just—”

“Nope.” Stelle didn’t break stride. “Not slowing, not stopping. Someone is going to fix this, and it’s not going to be me.”

The Marmoreal Palace’s corridors were as pristine as ever, marble polished so smooth her frantic footfalls echoed like a drumbeat. A handful of attendants and couriers glanced up as she stormed past, clutching papers or baskets, but none stopped her. She had one thought and one thought only: find someone sane, find someone official, fix this mess before it multiplies.

She turned the corner into a common hall and spotted her first unlucky victim: a junior clerk hunched over a stack of ledgers. He sat next to a particularly aloof-looking Dromas.

“You!” Stelle snapped, skidding to a stop.

The poor man nearly dropped his quill. “M-me?”

“Yes, you. Where do I go to report—” She flailed a hand, words tangling. “—libel? Defamation? Character assassination? Whatever the legal term is for a magazine lying through its teeth?”

The clerk blinked at her. Blinked again. Then said, with the absolute confidence of someone whose job did not, in fact, cover this situation, “That would be… not my department.”

Stelle threw her head back. “Of course it’s not.”

She spun on her heel before he could say anything else, stalking off down another corridor.

 

Xx….o….xX

The next candidate was a Chrysos guard posted near a gilded archway. Kremnoan, she was certain. He looked suitably imposing, armor polished to a shine.  Surely, surely , a guard could at least point her in the right direction.

“Hey! You!” she barked.

He straightened, saluting automatically. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Where do I file a complaint against Chrysos magazine?”

His brows knit. “…As in the publication?”

“Yes, as in the publication! They’ve decided to make me the star of their newest gossip spread. Apparently I’m—” she jabbed a finger at the floor for emphasis, “—involved with Phainon. Romantic undertones, longing gazes, the whole nine yards.”

The guard’s face twitched. She couldn’t tell if it was sympathy or the effort of suppressing a laugh. “I… don’t believe that falls under the jurisdiction of the palace guard.”

“Unbelievable.” Stelle raked her hands through her hair. “What does anyone here actually do besides look shiny?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, wisely choosing silence.

 

Xx….o….xX

 

Finally, after what felt like ages on a rampage, Stelle’s eyes landed on a familiar face. At the edge of the Garden of Life overlooking Kephale’s magnificent figure was Tribbie.

Stelle stomped up, magazine clenched so tightly it bent at the spine. “Tribbie, you’ve got to help me. You will not believe what just happened.”

She blinked at her, eyes bright yet surprised by her visit. “Well, hello to you too, Little Gray!”

“I’m serious.” She shoved the magazine at her. “This—this thing is everywhere. People were staring at me all morning, and now I know why. They think—” Her voice pitched up, incredulous. “They think I’m dating Phainon!”

Tribbie didn’t look near as scandalized as Stelle expected. Actually, she didn’t look scandalized at all . In fact, a smile creeped onto her face, the kind that suggested amusement rather than shock.
“Oh, is that all?”

“All?!” Stelle’s eyes went wide. “This is a disaster!”

Tribbie scratched the back of her head before managing a shrug.

“Little Gray,” she said at last, voice calm and annoyingly gentle, “it’s okay to have feelings for Phainon. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. We support you.”

For a full three seconds, Stelle’s brain refused to process the words. They just bounced around uselessly, echoing in her skull like badly thrown marbles.

Then her whole body jolted as the meaning sank in.

“You’ve got to be shitting me.” She dropped her head into her hands, voice muffled, the magazine crinkling under her arm.

Tribbie only hummed, as if she’d just confirmed her theory.

Stelle groaned. “This isn’t real. It’s made up—fabricated—complete garbage. I don’t like him like that!”

Tribbie tilted her head. “Your enthusiasm is noted.”

“That’s not—don’t do that thing where you make it sound like you’re humoring a child!”

“I would never,” she said cheerily.

Stelle let out a strangled noise, halfway between a groan and a scream. She turned on her heel, muttering under her breath. “Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. First the market, now this. Next thing you know, Aglaea’s going to tell me she predicted our wedding in the stars.”

Behind her, Tribbie waved. “Don’t forget to invite me!”

Her only answer was the sharp snap of the magazine pages as she furiously adjusted her grip and marched down the garden path.

 

Xx….o….xX

 

The bathhouse air was thick with steam, perfumed faintly by mineral salts and the floral oils poured into the pools each morning. Light refracted through the haze, scattering across marble columns and rippling water. The place should have felt tranquil, an escape from the marble din of the city above. Instead, Stelle stormed through its corridors like a thundercloud, magazine clutched under her arm, her boots clicking far too loudly against the polished stone.

If anyone had been hoping for peace and quiet, too bad.

She found Aglaea exactly where she expected: poised at the far end of the main pool, her robe pristine, hair pinned up with almost military precision. A few attendants hovered nearby but melted into the mist as Stelle approached, perhaps wisely choosing not to be collateral damage in whatever was about to happen.

Aglaea turned gracefully, smile already fixed in place. “Oh, esteemed guest! What a pleasant surprise. What brings you here today?”

Stelle slapped the magazine onto a nearby stone bench with a wet-sounding thunk . “This. This brings me here.”

Aglaea arched a brow, unhurried, as though she had all the time in the world. She picked up the magazine delicately, like it might disintegrate under her fingers, and flipped it open with casual interest.

Stelle crossed her arms. “Aglaea, this paper—I don’t know what to do about it!”

The Goldweaver’s eyes scanned the page, her expression infuriatingly calm. After a long moment, she closed it and folded her hands neatly atop it. “Well, Stelle, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It has been clear to me that your fates were woven from the very start.”

Stelle blinked. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Aglaea’s smile didn’t falter. If anything, it softened. “Perhaps this headline isn’t as misleading as you may think.”

Her jaw nearly hit the floor. “Excuse me? Did you read it? They’ve got me pegged as Phainon’s—” She gestured violently, almost losing her balance on the wet tile. “—whatever this is supposed to be! I didn’t ask for this. I don’t even like him like that!”

Aglaea tilted her head ever so slightly, like one might to a child insisting the sky was green.

Stelle groaned and dragged her hands through her hair. “Fine, whatever. Just—can you help me get it cleared? Retract it? Print an apology? Something?”

For the first time, Aglaea’s expression shifted. Regret touched her features, just faintly, before she smoothed it over. “I’m afraid not. Politically, the Council of Elders is watching my every move. Silencing the press may give them the fuel they need to turn the citizens against me, to paint me as an oppressive tyrant. I cannot risk that, not now. I’m sorry, esteemed guest. I wish there was more I could do for you.”

Stelle’s mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again. Her brain tried to summon words—any words—but all that came out was a strangled noise of disbelief. “So that’s it? That’s your grand wisdom? Deal with it ?”

Aglaea inclined her head politely. “I believe the followers of Aquila have a phrase: ‘You cannot put lightning back into the cloud.’”

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Stelle hissed, snatching the magazine back from the bench. “That’s your advice? Proverbs? ”

Aglaea, serene as ever, only clasped her hands and bowed her head slightly. “Good luck, esteemed guest. May your heart be guided by truth.”

Stelle turned on her heel before she said something that would get her exiled. She stormed into the mist-filled corridor, the sound of her boots echoing sharply, muttering under her breath like a broken recording: “You’ve got to be shitting me. You’ve got to be shitting me.”

Xx….o….xX

The bathhouse corridors stretched ahead, all misty stone and echoing footsteps. Stelle’s heeled boots clacked too loudly, each step announcing her foul mood to anyone within earshot. Mem, floating alongside, glanced down at her with the expression of someone trying to wrangle a typhoon into something manageable.

“You know,” Mem said slowly, “there’s always Cipher.”

Stelle nearly tripped. “ What? ”

“Cipher,” Mem repeated, as though it were obvious. “You know, professional liar. If anyone can untangle this mess, it’s her.”

Stelle pressed her palm to her forehead. “You’re seriously suggesting I ask Cipher for help with this?”

“Do you have better options?”

The silence that followed said everything. With a groan, Stelle dug her phone from her pocket. The Chrysos magazine cover still burned at the edges of her thoughts, Phainon’s smirking face mocking her from memory. She tapped open her messages and typed furiously.

—--------------------------

<STELLE> to <CIPHER>

Stelle: Cipher, I need your help

Stelle:  You can make lies into reality, right? Can you help me get that latest Chrysos volume scrubbed?

—---------------------------

The reply came almost immediately. Looks like the Dolosian had nothing better to do.

—----------------------------

Cipher: That one? Oh, I saw it this morning! Sooo interesting~

Cipher: But such a hot topic is no easy cover-up. How much are you offering?

—---------------------------

Stelle stopped dead in the hallway. “Offering?!”

Mem peeked over her shoulder at the screen. “She means money.”

Stelle typed back furiously.

—------------------------------

Stelle: To pay you??

Cipher: Well, yeah. My services aren’t free. You want me to erase half the gossip of Okhema, you gotta pay up. 

—----------------------------------

Stelle made a strangled noise. “What the hell does she think I have?!”

Mem deadpanned, “Not money. You’re broke, Stelle. And they don’t even take credits here.”

—--------------------------------

Stelle: …. I can give you a piece of pocket lint

Cipher : Ha! You’re funny, Gray Mystery

Cipher: Gonna have to pass though. Good luck!

—---------------------------------

The little typing bubble vanished for good.

Stelle gaped at her phone, shoulders stiff. “She hung me out to dry.”

Mem placed a small, comforting hand on her arm. “At least you tried.”

Stelle shoved the phone back into her jacket pocket with a growl. “I hate this stupid city.”

“Don’t take it personally,” Mem said gently, trying to coax a smile. “Cipher screws over everyone equally.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

They walked on in silence, the air thick with steam and irritation. Mem tried again, softer this time. “We’ll figure something out. You’re not alone in this.”

Stelle exhaled hard, letting her head tip back against the stone wall for just a moment. The thought of going back into the world, with everyone whispering about her and Phainon, made her stomach churn. But Mem’s voice was steady, grounding. It pulled her just far enough from the edge to breathe again.

“…Yeah,” Stelle muttered, dragging herself upright. “We’ll figure something out.”

By the time they left the bathhouse, Stelle was running low on patience and options. The magazine was still tucked under her arm like an explosive no one dared disarm, and her jaw ached from clenching it too tightly.

Mem, ever the strategist in disasters she hadn’t technically caused, spoke first. “So… we’ve established that everyone thinks you and Phainon are together.”

“Don’t remind me,” Stelle muttered.

“And,” Mem continued, ignoring her, “nobody believes you when you say otherwise. Not Tribbie, not Aglaea, not Cipher. Not even random market vendors.”

Stelle shot her a look. “You’re building up to something, aren’t you.”

Mem gave her a tiny, guilty smile. “Maybe.”

They turned a corner, the path dipping into the quieter back alleys of Okhema. Steam curled from vents beneath the cobblestones, leaving the air damp and heavy. Stelle adjusted her jacket, scowling. “Whatever it is, I already don’t like it.”

“Think about it,” Mem said, undeterred. “If nobody believes the truth, maybe the only way out is to lean in. Pretend. Act like it’s real—just for a little while. Then, after a few days, break up. Everyone sees the ‘relationship’ run its course, everyone stops caring, and you’re free.”

Stelle stopped dead in the street. “Mem. That is the worst idea I’ve ever heard. And I’ve heard some terrible ideas.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“It’s awful! ” Stelle snapped. “It’ll make everything awkward. He’s nothing more than a good friend. You expect me to fake date Phainon?!”

“Yes,” Mem said cheerfully.

Stelle groaned and covered her face. “Unbelievable. Completely un—”

Mem cut her off, voice gentler. “Normally, I’d agree this would blow over. But even the other Chrysos heirs are buying into this. That makes it political, Stelle. You can’t just ignore it.”

That silenced her. She knew Mem was right. If the other heirs had decided this was true, the rumor wasn’t going to dissolve on its own. It would spread. It would shape reputations. Maybe even affect alliances. Just her luck .

Stelle let her arms drop, scowling at the ground. “I hate it when you make sense.”

“I know,” Mem said lightly. “It’s one of my worst habits.”

Stelle pulled her phone out, intending to fire off the most awkward text of her life, but her screen lit up first. A new message blinked at her from an all-too-familiar name.

—---------------------

<PHAINON> to <STELLE>

Phainon: Partner, I hate to bother, but I think there might be a slight… issue.

—--------------------

She froze.

Mem leaned in, peering at the screen. “Oh my god . He texted first.”

“Shut up,” Stelle hissed, but her voice cracked.

Her fingers hovered, hesitating only a moment before typing back.

—---------------------

Stelle: Yeah. No shit.

Phainon : Think we should meet. Neutral ground. Cafe by Chartonus?

Stelle : Gotcha

—------------------

Stelle swallowed hard. Neutral ground. Café. Meeting Phainon, face to face, with this circus hanging over both their heads. She typed a stiff agreement, her pulse pounding.

Mem grinned, wiggling her eyebrows. “See? Fate.”

Stelle shot her a glare sharp enough to crack stone. “You start sounding like Aglaea, I’m leaving you here.”

 

Xx….o….xX

 

The café smelled like citrus and cardamom, and for two seconds Stelle wished she were here for a normal reason—coffee, a sweet, silence. Instead, she walked into a three-person disaster waiting to be named. Or 2 people and a fuzzy pink thing.

Phainon was already at a corner table, elbows on the wood, attention skimming the room the way a person measures exits. He’d ditched his formal knightly attire for a soft shirt rolled to the forearms. His sword wasn’t here, obviously, but he still sat like it was within reach. When he saw Stelle, something quick and warm flickered across his face before he locked it down to a polite smile.

Mem ghosted in behind Stelle and gave a tiny salute like she was reporting for duty.

“Partner,” he said softly, “you look… Rough.”

“I’m sure I do,” Stelle muttered.

Mem cleared her throat. “Good afternoon to you too,” she said brightly. ““We’re going to explain something, and I need you to keep an open mind.”

“That’s never good,” Phainon said, but he gestured for her to go on.

“So,” Mem continued, tapping the table with two fingers like a metronome, “we have a plan. It’s not… good, exactly—”

“It’s not good at all,” Stelle cut in.

“—but it’s better than curling up on the floor and letting Chrysos write your wedding vows.” Mem folded her hands. “You fake date. Briefly. Publicly. Then you break up, very publicly. The story ends on your terms. Clean line under it.”

Phainon blinked once. “So what you’re saying is, you want us to pretend the article is true so we can break up, and then everyone believes we’re single.”

Mem nodded, pleased. “Yes. See? You get it.”

Stelle pinched the bridge of her nose. “When you say it like that, it sounds dumb.”

“That’s because it is,” Phainon said, deadpan.

She shot him a look. “Do you have a better idea?”

He opened his mouth, paused, and then closed it with a sigh. “…No. Nobody believes me either.”

Stelle leaned forward, elbow on the table. “Not even Mydei?” she prodded.

Phainon huffed a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh. “Mydei just laughed at me and said it serves me right for being soft,” he said. “Hyacine and Castorice congratulated me. Anaxa rolled his eyes and said he’s not getting involved in such stupid drama.” 

He even put finger quotes around the last words, and for a second Stelle actually saw Anaxa’s unimpressed face superimposed over Phainon’s. It didn’t help.

“That tracks,” Mem said, nodding.

The server arrived with three glasses—unasked-for water, mercifully cold—and an apologetic smile that tried not to be curious. When he left, the table settled into a fragile silence.

“So we’re agreed the city has lost its mind,” Stelle muttered.

“Or,” Mem said gently, “it decided on a version of the truth and is sprinting with it. We can’t outrun that. We can only redirect it.”

Stelle sighed, leaning back in her chair. “I hate it when you’re right.” Mem spared her a sympathetic glance before spreading her paws across the table.

“Then here’s the outline. You two agree on ground rules. We stage a handful of ‘sightings’—nothing too dramatic. Breakfast here and there, a walk, some hand-holding, a couple of soft-focus moments for bored reporters to chew on. Then a visible breakup. No screaming match. Well—” She glanced at Stelle. “Maybe a teeny screaming match.”

“I don’t scream,” Stelle muttered.

Phainon coughed politely into his cup. “Mm.”

She glared at him. He lifted both hands, palms out, in surrender.

Mem continued, practical. “We keep it short. One week, max. Shorter if it starts to backfire. You both end with identical language—‘mutual,’ ‘respect,’ ‘different paths’—and we’re done.”

Phainon leaned back. “I can’t decide if it’s clever or a really bad idea.”

“Both,” Mem said. “But it’s doable.”

Another silence, this one heavier with decision. Phainon looked down at the coaster under his cup and traced the edge with a thumb. When he glanced up, his expression had settled. “Alright. I’ll do it.”

Stelle blinked. “Just like that?”

“You asked for a better idea. I don’t have one. Also,” he added dryly, “I’d like to be able to walk through the market without being congratulated on my imaginary relationship.”

Mem exhaled, relieved. “Good. Then we set rules.”

She pushed back her chair. “I’ll give you two a minute to hash out the details. If I sit here, I’ll start micromanaging. I’ll be—” she pointed at the counter “—over there, inspecting the pastry case.”

“Mem,” Stelle called after her.

Mem paused.

“Thank you,” Stelle said, the words sounding like she’d had to scratch them up from somewhere behind stubbornness. “I hate this. But…Thank you.”

Mem smiled before drifting away.

Stelle and Phainon stared across the table. He arched an eyebrow, inviting her to go first. She made a face that said, fine.

“Rule one,” she said. “No kissing.”

“Strong opener,” he said.

“I’m serious. Holding hands is fine. I can survive that. A hug I don't mind. But kissing opens the door to… other issues.” She waved a hand. “There will be absolutely zero circumstances in which we need to kiss.”

“Zero,” he repeated, nodding solemnly, though a small smile tugged at his lips. “What about cheek—”

“ No .”

“Forehead—”

“Absolutely not .”

“Copy.” He lifted his cup in a toast to the no-kissing clause and took a sip. “Rule two?”

“We break it off after six days,” she said. “That’s already longer than I like.”

“Six days,” he agreed. “If it feels off, earlier.”

She flattened her palms on the table to keep from fidgeting. “Rule three: No PDA in private. Obviously. We don’t add fuel to something when there’s no point.”

“In public, we sell it,” he said. “But when eyes aren’t on us—”

“We drop the act.” She nodded. 

A pause, and then—because logistics steadied nerves—she reached for the napkin dispenser and tugged one free. “We should also set a couple of practical boundaries. If a reporter corners us, we say we don’t comment on our private lives. If a friend fishes for details, we keep it light and vague. We don’t improvise too far.”

“Schedule,” he said, businesslike now. “If we’re pretending, we should be seen. Not constantly. Enough to be noticed.”

“Two, maybe three public appearances,” she said, scribbling with the edge of a dull pencil the server had left behind. “Breakfast, walk, something by the gardens. No grand gestures. If you start buying me jewels, I’m abandoning you in the fountain.”

He laughed, the first real sound of ease since he’d sat down. “I’ll keep my jewels in my pocket.”

“Please do,” she muttered.

He leaned forward. “What about… communication? If you need to abandon ship, what do you text?”

“‘Abort, abort,’” she said, following her comment with her own rendition of siren noises.

He shook his head, amused. “Something less dramatic that I can read in public without causing a scene.”

She thought, then wrote ‘change of plan’ on the napkin and underlined it. “If we need space or to end a scene early, we use that. No questions asked.”

“Good rule.” He watched her handwriting for a second. 

Stelle set the pencil down and leaned back. “That’s the basics.”
Phainon nodded.

A server stopped by to ask about refills. They both shook their heads. The sunlight had slipped lower, casting kaleidoscope patterns in the shadow of their glasses. On the wall, the clock hand nudged toward the five.

“It’s four,” Stelle said again, because the number anchored her. “We should… call it. Ten tomorrow.”

“Ten,” he echoed. He stood when she did.

He folded it carefully like it was worth something. “We should pick a place.”

She named one. He named another. They batted it back and forth until they settled on a café by the market with decent food and a polite staff that didn’t hover. They agreed on a time. He typed it into his phone. She typed it into hers. 

Mem drifted back, carrying a plate with three small pastries and the look of someone who’d kept herself from interrupting by inhaling sugar. “How’s the treaty?”

“We have terms,” Phainon said.

“No kissing,” Stelle said flatly.

Mem saluted. “Amen. Anything else?”

“Six days,” Phainon said. “Earlier if it… turns.”

“And public only,” Stelle added. “No acting when there’s no audience.”

Mem’s gaze flicked between them. “Good. Then your first appearance?”

“Breakfast,” they said together, then both grimaced at the unison.

Mem giggled. “Cute.”

“It’s not cute,” Stelle said.

“It is a little bit,” Phainon interjected unhelpfully. Stelle glared.

Mem clapped her hands once, decisive. “Then we’re done here. Hydrate. Sleep. Tomorrow you’re going to be perceived.” She waggled her eyebrows, deeply unhelpful, and scooped a pastry off the plate. “I’ll run interference if anything gets weird. Text me if you need a distraction. I can set off a small, socially acceptable disaster within a two-block radius.”

“I don’t want to know what that means,” Stelle said.

“You don’t,” Mem agreed, already backing away. “Four o’clock now. You two should clear out separately. If you leave together people will pry.”

Phainon stood, tucking the folded napkin into his pocket. He hesitated, just a breath, and offered his hand across the table. A friendly handshake.

Stelle eyed it, then took it. His grip was warm, steady. Neither of them squeezed. Neither lingered. They released at the same time.

“See you tomorrow,” he said.

“Don’t be late,” she said.

He gave a mock-offended gasp. “I’m never late.”

“You’re always late.”

He smiled—small, honest—and stepped back from the table. “Tomorrow, partner.”

The word twitched something in her chest. She ignored it. He left first, weaving through the late-day crowd beyond the glass. A minute later, Stelle went the other way, shoulders squared, the napkin treaty leaving a phantom weight against her palm even though he had it.

Outside, the flow of people kept moving. Inside, the server collected the empty cups and the abandoned magazine, glancing at the cover before dropping it—face down—into the garbage bin.

Chapter 2: Day 1

Summary:

Mem trailed behind them for a while, valiantly pretending to be a chaperone. But after twenty minutes of awkward stumbles and Stelle’s muttered curses, she just facepalmed before turning back towards the palace. “I’m going to go home before I rupture something. Text me if you need me.”

“Coward,” Stelle muttered.

“Says the woman quoting a foreign regulatory agency five minutes ago.”

“The EPA is universal.”

“What’s the EPA?” Phainon asked again, genuinely curious.

“Nevermind.”

The café sat on the edge of Marmoreal Market, its terrace spilling onto the cobbled street like a deliberate trap for gossipmongers. Marble balustrades framed the patio, and its wrought-iron tables were already crowded with patrons sipping at tea and coffee, forks clinking against porcelain. From where Stelle sat, she could see the press of market stalls down the street—jewelry gleaming on velvet stands, fruit vendors hawking in loud voices, peddlers shouting the merits of silk from Dolos. The whole place hummed with life.

It also hummed with attention.

Everywhere she looked, eyes flicked toward them: sideways glances that lingered too long, whispers caught behind hands, sly smiles that weren’t remotely subtle. Stelle swore she’d heard the click of a teleslate camera at least twice already, maybe three times. She tried to focus on her breakfast—eggs cooked until soft, thick slices of bread glistening with butter—but her jaw tightened until it ached. The whisper of fabric from people turning in their seats set her nerves on fire.

Her glare hardened.

It was instinct, more than anything—if they wanted a spectacle, she’d give them one. She scanned the crowd with narrowed eyes, daring them to look away. A group of young students ducked their heads. A woman at the next table flushed crimson, pretending to be very interested in her tea. Someone coughed loudly, nervous.

A nudge jolted her from the death-stare.

“Quit it,” Mem hissed under her breath, elbow sharp against Stelle’s side. “You look like you’re about to hurl your plate at someone. Remember the plan.”

Stelle grimaced, dragging her eyes back to the table. The yolk of her egg had burst into a puddle on her plate. She stabbed it hard with her fork, like it had personally offended her.

Across from her, Phainon leaned forward, his voice pitched low enough for only her to hear.

“Partner,” he said, the word lilting off his tongue with infuriating ease, “if you really want to sell this thing, you’ve gotta stop looking at me like that.”

Her fork froze. “Like what?”

“Like you hate every second of this.” He gestured loosely with his spoon. “I know it’s frustrating, but this isn’t gonna work unless you sell it.”

She gave him a flat look. “And what exactly do you suggest?”

He widened his eyes, exaggerated the downturn of his mouth, and somehow — somehow —managed to arrange his features into the most absurdly pitiful expression she’d ever seen. His lower lip trembled. His eyes went round and glossy. The kind of look you’d expect from a samoyed puppy begging for scraps at the table, not a grown ass man in designer armor. 

“You need to look like this.” He tilted his head, face tragic and adorable all at once.

Stelle choked, caught off guard by the pang of affection that tried to rise and which she promptly shoved back into a drawer labeled absolutely not . “How the hell did you do that?”

“Talent,” he said smugly. “And sincerity. And cheekbones.”

“Die.”

He didn’t. “Just look at me the same way you look at… what do you call them… ‘trashcans’?”

Stelle set her fork down with the gravity of a judge passing a life sentence. “Trashcans,” she repeated.

Phainon nodded. “You light up when you see one.”

“It’s appreciation,” Stelle said. “For infrastructure.”

Mem, flat: “I don’t understand your fascination with trashcans, Stelle. They’re just bins to place your items in.”

Stelle reeled back like she’d been physically hit. “ Just bins ? Just—Mem, they are the quiet backbone of civilization.The unsung heroes. Order, dignity, a promise that chaos can be sorted, contained, picked up in the morning. I mean, have you even seen them? The design, the convenience, the majesty, the way they sit so sturdy and—”

Mem blinked. “We just burn trash in the little Georios flames.”

Stelle stared. She had, in fact, not seen a single bin since arriving on Amphoreus because of course she hadn’t. “That’s gotta be a violation of the EPA.”

Mem frowned. “What’s the EPA?”

Stelle just sighed. Such simple minded creatures couldn’t even begin to understand the grace of trash cans if they tried.

Phainon just politely smiled, tilting his head. “See? That. Whatever you feel when you see a really efficient trash… receptacle. Aim it at me.”

She squinted at him. He puppy-faced harder, which felt unfair. Try harder. Be softer. Smile like none of this made her want to crawl out of her skin. She took a breath, lifted her gaze, and arranged her features into what she hoped read as “warmth” and not “constipation.” Eyebrows up, eyes softened, mouth… less line, more curve. She pictured a row of glittering steel bins lined up along a spotless curb. She pictured their fine steel glistening in the morning light. She pictured the way a lid sat perfectly flush. She pictured—

“Okay,” she said, her facial muscles starting to ache. “How’s this?”

Phainon considered her. “You look like you’re trying to remember if you left the stove on.”

She dropped it immediately. “I hate this.”

“You’ll get it,” he said, voice mild with the kind of impossible confidence that made her want to push him off his chair and also—unhelpfully—made her believe him for a second. “We’ll get better with practice.”

A little girl wandered past their table clutching a chimera plush by the ear; she stared openly at the three of them, then whispered something to her mother and pointed. The mother smiled apologetically and hurried her along. A couple at the next table leaned toward each other, both speaking behind their hands, both mistaken about how sound carries.

Mem nudged Stelle’s shoulder. “Eat,” she said lightly, smile fixed. “You frowning at the eggs makes people think you’re frowning at him.”

Stelle stabbed a piece of flatbread. “I am.”

“Not in public.”

“Fine.” She took a bite.

To their right, someone raised their teleslate at chest level and pretended to text while the camera lens pointed at the patio. The click was soft, but her spine heard it. The desire to whip around and show her most photogenic middle finger was almost overwhelming. Yet, she continued to eat.

“Partner,” Phainon said under his breath, “count three people you don’t care about and tell yourself they’re the only ones watching.”

“What.”

“It helps,” he said. “Pick three randoms and make them your audience.”

She glanced out at the walkway, fast. Beard-and-bread-guy with flour on his apron; tall-walking-lady with a hat like a halo; teenager-in-red with their hair tied up in a ribbon. “Three,” she said.

“Good,” he said. “Now pretend to laugh at something I said.”

“You didn’t say anything.”

“Then laugh at the fact that I didn’t.”

She stared at him. Then she made the smallest possible laugh—more an exhale with intention. It felt fake. Maybe it looked better than it felt. The teenager in red smiled automatically, caught up in the ripple of it. Okay. One point to him.

They ate. Slowly, the immediacy of being watched shifted into a background hum. Something about Phainon’s words– No, Phainon himself– was oddly comforting. How, Stelle wondered, was he so naturally good at comforting others? She began to understand how he became cemented as the most loved of the Chrysos Heirs.

Mem kept up the casual conversation—commenting on the bread, the weather, the comings and goings of people they didn’t know. Each time Stelle found herself glaring at a stranger, Mem would set her cup down a little too loud or touch the corner of a napkin to bring her back. It was like being trained by a very polite bell.

Phainon, for his part, played the role with irritating ease. He leaned in when he spoke. He laughed in a way that invited others to laugh with him. He looked at her when she didn’t expect it, and every time he did, she had to fight the reflex to check if she’d spilled something on her shirt.

“Sell the story,” Mem murmured at one point, eyes slanting toward a woman hovering three tables over. “But don’t overdo it. Pace yourselves.”

“I will pace him right into the fountain,” Stelle muttered.

“Not in public~” Mem sang.

“Partner,” Phainon said eventually, when the plates were suitably finished. “We should clear out before we turn into a display.”

They stacked plates, gathered utensils, and stood together in the narrow aisle between tables. A couple’s chairs scraped; someone scooted to let them pass; a man in a brown cloak said, “Excuse me,” without looking up.

At the return counter, she slid her plate onto the stack and wiped her fingertips on a napkin. Movement helped. Doing things helped. She breathed easier.

“So,” she said, turning back toward the patio, “what do you have planned for the rest of the afternoon?”

Phainon shrugged like a person untroubled by gravity. “Usually, on a beautiful day like this, I head to the market and appraise some antiques.”

She stared. “That’s it? That’s your hobby?”

She wasn’t sure what she expected out of Phainon, but it certainly wasn’t a hobby as mind-numbingly boring as antique appraisal.

“Yeah.” He gave her an adorable face she could only describe as a small puppy that knows he’s cute: mouth a small curve, eyes bright, shoulders up a centimeter, a subtle :3 if a face could make an emoticon.

Mem pressed her lips together to avoid laughing. “It’s endearing.”

“It’s suspicious,” Stelle said. “Who wakes up and chooses antique appraisal ?.”

“Someone has to keep the city from being scammed on foreign vases,” Phainon said, holding a hand over his heart in sincerity. “I consider it a public service.”

“You consider everything you do a public service,” she said.

He thought about it. “That’s fair.”

Stelle looked out at the market—at the sun throwing patterns through awnings onto the cobbles, at the color and motion of a hundred lives bumping and blending. She had, until five minutes ago, planned to find the deepest corner of a quiet room and sit there until the week ended. But the alternative was more staring and more whispers and more sitting still. If he was going to spend his afternoon inspecting dusty ceramics and pretending to argue with vendors, she could… stand there and make sure he didn’t get swindled. Or at least make fun of him when he did.

“Fine,” she said. “I guess I’ve got nothing better to do.”

“Excellent,” he said, with a brightness that felt disproportionate to the situation. They left the café. As the sunlight hit the marble streets, Phainon extended his hand toward her.

“…What?”

“We’re dating, remember? Supposedly. We’re supposed to hold hands.”

She glanced between his hand and his face. He looked perfectly serious. “It’s good PR anyway,” he added.

Stelle’s stomach twisted, equal parts dread and resignation. He wasn’t wrong. It was good PR. The entire point of this disaster was to be seen.

“…Fine.”

She slipped her hand into his. His palm was warm, his grip steady, and it was awful.

They stepped into the bustle of the market, hands linked. Immediately, she felt eyes on them. A passing merchant’s gaze lingered too long. A pair of students whispered behind their hands. Somewhere, definitely, a teleslate clicked. They started walking, and it was worse. They bumped into every stall edge and passerby, their arms swinging out of rhythm, hands sweaty almost instantly.

Phainon seemed oblivious, strolling with an easy gait like this was the most natural thing in the world. He even swung their joined hands once, lightly, like it was casual.At one point, Stelle tripped over a basket of oranges, and Phainon yanked her upright so abruptly she nearly flung herself into his chest.

Mem trailed behind them for a while, valiantly pretending to be a chaperone. But after twenty minutes of awkward stumbles and Stelle’s muttered curses, she just facepalmed before turning back towards the palace. “I’m going to go home before I rupture something. Text me if you need me.”

“Coward,” Stelle muttered.

“Says the woman quoting a foreign regulatory agency five minutes ago.”

“The EPA is universal.”

“What’s the EPA?” Phainon asked again, genuinely curious.

“Nevermind.”

Mem left them with a wave, dissolving into the crowd like she’d never been there. Without her running commentary, the market noise swelled to fill the space: hawkers calling out prices, the creak of cart wheels, the chirp of caged birds someone should probably release. Perfume from the soap vendor mixed with the sharper tang of grilled meat. 

Stelle felt herself stiffen as Phainon tugged her toward a stall laden with gleaming bronze trinkets.

They stopped at a stall draped with trinkets: bronze pendants, carved figurines, tarnished coins. Phainon released her hand only to pick up a small statuette of a chimera and turn it in his palm.

“Here’s the trick,” he began, slipping effortlessly into lecturer mode. “Real pieces have weight. The patina develops in layers. A fake will be too smooth, too light, or the engraving will look too clean. See here?” He held it out to her, fingers brushing hers as she took it. “That’s a casting seam. Dead giveaway.”

She blinked at the figurine, then at their still-warm palms. She heard his words but barely processed them.

“Uh-huh,” she said faintly.

He raised a brow. “You’re not listening.”

“I’m listening,” she lied.

“What did I just say?”

“…Something about patina?”

He chuckled, low and knowing. “You’re hopeless.”

She shoved the figurine back at him, staring at the ground. “You’re stupid.”

“Better than boring.” He set the trinket down and offered his hand again, casual as breathing.

This time, she didn’t argue.

They’d been weaving through the rows of stalls for long enough that Stelle was starting to lose track of which marble colonnade they’d already passed. Everywhere she looked, vendors leaned over tables piled high with everything from polished glass baubles to delicate embroidered silks. 

Eventually, he slowed at a table where blades were laid out beside delicate vases. The vendor had stacked them artfully—bronze gleaming in the light, edges catching like teeth. Phainon leaned in, one hand still linked with hers, the other picking up a long, slightly curved weapon. 

“Careful with that one, sir,” the vendor said, sliding around the table with a salesman’s smile. He was older, skin tanned to leather by a lifetime of sun, fingers stained dark with metal dust. “It’s a beauty.”

“This one’s old,” he murmured, ignoring the salesman. “Two hundred… no, closer to two-fifty years ago. Kremonan work. See the spine?”

Stelle squinted at it like she was supposed to. All she saw was a sharp piece of metal. The hilt was worn smooth, the edge dulled but intact.  He turned it over once, twice, running his thumb along the shallow engraving on the guard.

The vendor clapped his hands together. “Ah, sir has a good eye. Yes, a blade worthy of its heritage. Normally, I would charge full price, but for such a lovely couple…” His smile widened. “…I’ll provide a discount.”

Phainon barely blinked. Stelle, on the other hand, froze like someone had splashed her with ice water. Lovely couple. The words rattled around her skull like pebbles in a jar. Her brain lagged behind reality, buffering with that high-pitched whine she associated with broken machinery.The market noise around her—vendors hawking spices, children tugging at parents, musicians clanging out rhythm on metal bowls—muffled into static. She stared dumbly as Phainon chuckled and started haggling, his tone smooth, unbothered.

She stared down at the table, vision narrowing, as if that blade might cut through the fog in her head.It was like being underwater: her own body distant, the world distorted.

“Partner?”

Phainon’s voice cut through the fog. He was watching her closely, blade still in hand, the vendor waiting expectantly. She shook her head sharply, forcing herself back into her skin, back into the smell of cinnamon and roasting meat, back into Phainon’s easy voice.

The vendor named a price so inflated Stelle nearly choked, but Phainon countered easily, slipping into the back-and-forth like a seasoned haggler. By the time she registered the completion of the purchase, coins had changed hands and the blade was tucked under Phainon’s arm.

He turned to Stelle at last, unbothered. “What’s with the face?”

She realized she must be wearing every thought on her expression. She cleared her throat. “Nothing. Just… didn’t expect that.”

“Which part? The discount? Or the ‘lovely couple’?” he asked, entirely too casual.

She made her voice flat. “Yes.”

He shrugged one shoulder, the picture of unbothered. “They’ll say it a lot. Might as well benefit from it.” He adjusted the blade on his belt with practiced hands. “Come on.”

The next two hours might as well have been days. Stelle discovered a new flavor of boredom that sat somewhere between “waiting room at a dentist” and “watching paint dry while someone narrates dying times.”  Stelle also discovered, with mounting despair, that Phainon was less a shopping partner and more a very large, very energetic dog in human form. He dragged her from one stall to the next with boundless enthusiasm, each new table another bone to chew. Coins from ancient mints, ceramics with hairline cracks, figurines chipped at the base—nothing escaped his scrutiny.

Stelle followed, hands jammed in her jacket pockets, trying not to yawn. It was like walking an enormous, overexcited samoyed: he tugged her this way and that, tail wagging invisibly, every five minutes announcing, “Look at this!” as if she hadn’t seen him handle six variations already.

Her thoughts dulled. Each time he turned around to show her some cracked vase or corroded coin, his grin flared so wide, his eyes so bright, she bit her tongue on the complaint swelling in her throat. At first, she had considered faking a headache just to escape, but every time she opened her mouth, he turned back toward her—giddy, brandishing some obscure trinket like it was treasure. His excitement radiated, unchecked.

And she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t crush that kind of light.

“Partner?” Phainon said.

“Hm?”

“You zoned.”

“Mm.” She blinked, focus swimming back. “Listening with my… eyes.”

“That’s not where listening happens.”

“Debatable.”

He huffed a laugh, then gentled it, like he was trying not to spook a feral cat. “We can stop if you want.”

“No, it’s fine,” she said, and meant it in a weird way. “You’re… happy.”

He looked at her like she’d said something rare, something valuable. Then he ducked his head, as if embarrassed by being seen. “It’s nice to look at things built to last,” he said. “Even when they’re flawed.”

She refused to unpack that. “Congratulations on your antique knife.”

“It’s a household blade,” he corrected absently, and then, warmer: “But thank you.”

So she kept walking. Kept nodding. Kept praying for the day to end.His excitement was… kind of adorable, though.

She recoiled from the word. Absolutely not. No. Never. Unacceptable. She shoved it down hard, focusing instead on the clamor of the market. The minutes passed agonizingly slow.

“Partner?” Phainon’s voice reached her through the noise. He’d paused at a table of small brass objects—hinges, keyplates, something that might have once been a drawer pull shaped like a lion’s head. “You look like you’re plotting a heist.”

“I’m plotting my escape,” she said, monotone. “From this conversation about keyplates.”

He laughed. “Rude.”

“True.”

He returned to bargaining with the vendor about the lion’s head, clearly not taking offense. She drifted a step away, letting the edge of the awning shade her, and let her thoughts go fuzzy. If she was going to be dragged around this maze, she might as well look around.

The Marmoreal Market stretched like a labyrinth. Stone arches bridged stalls, each draped with bright cloth banners fluttering in the breeze. The air smelled of saffron, fried dough, and wet marble. Shouts overlapped in a dozen dialects: traders from Janusopolis hawking gems, local farmers displaying neat pyramids of citrus, Grove artisans holding up glass vials that caught the sun and scattered it across the pavement.

Stelle let herself drift in it, her focus slipping. The market was a kaleidoscope, spinning, spinning, her mind floating somewhere above her body while Phainon’s voice burbled distantly about inscriptions and alloys. Market calls—“fresh cut!” “best price!”—tangled with haggling, with laughter, with the short, sharp scold of a parent catching a kid’s sticky hand near a jar of sweets. Somewhere, a street musician plucked a stringed instrument and missed a note. Teleslate hawkers called out headlines with the smooth cadence of practiced gossip: Council deadlocked; see page three. Bathhouse prices changing; see insert. Affair revealed; collector’s edition cover!

Stelle grimaced at the last one and adjusted her jacket like it could shield her from prying eyes and baseless rumors.

If I keel over here, maybe Mem will drag me home and put me out of my misery.

Phainon stopped at a display of tiles laid out in messy rows, each square painted in patterns that had survived water, time, and wear. He crouched, balancing on the ball of his foot, and touched the corner of one tile with the back of his knuckle. “Old Styxian patterning,” he murmured. “Look at the blue. You can’t get this dye cheap anymore. This was someone’s kitchen floor.”

She surprised herself by crouching beside him. “How do you know?”

“Placement wear. You can see where the feet were. People stand in front of the oven the same way no matter the century.” He grinned sideways at her. “Also, the vendor told me.”

She snorted despite herself. “Fraud.”

“Enthusiast,” he corrected. He stood with ease, and his hand came with him, tugging her up.

“Why do you like this stuff so much?” she asked, unable to stop the question from slipping out. It came out tired, not mocking. Curious despite herself.

He considered, then shrugged. “Because it belonged to someone who cared enough to own it. Because it lasted. Because someone else will care again if I can get it into the right hands.” He looked at the line of tiles, eyes distant for a moment. “Some things you just… keep from disappearing.”

It was the kind of answer that made it hard to stay annoyed. She looked away first, annoyed at that instead.

They continued. He taught her how to feel the weight of a brass key to guess its age; she nodded along and forgot the information immediately. He pointed out that some pottery was glazed to fake age; she pretended to care and internally named three places her feet hurt. He bargained for a tiny bronze charm shaped like a crescent and didn’t explain why he wanted it. She did not ask.

And still, every time he turned to her with a “look,” she looked. Every time he laughed, she felt the aftershock, stupid and persistent. The sweaty palms from earlier had dried; the contact now was a steady pressure that anchored her even as it unsettled her. Stelle’s grip had relaxed enough that their hands sat together without tension. Not tight, not loose, just… there. Every so often, the awareness would flare again— oh, that’s my hand, that’s his —and she’d have to resist the urge to yank away because fleeing would be a worse look than enduring.

It happened just as she was starting to think she could breathe again. The market noise had blurred into the background—voices hawking wares, children darting between stalls, the occasional click of a teleslate lens that made her flinch. She’d been staring hard at a rack of ceramic jars, pretending she cared deeply about glazing techniques, when a woman’s voice sliced through the air.

“I heard they had sex in the baths!”

Stelle’s spine snapped straight.  White-hot heat roared up her neck, flooding her face until she was certain she’d gone scarlet with rage and humiliation. She almost lunged—fists clenched, words on the tip of her tongue, Are you out of your mind? Do I look like someone who’d— —when a firm grip closed around her wrist.

It was Phainon’s hand.

She hissed and tried to yank her wrist free. “Did you hear—”

“Let it go, partner.” His voice was quiet, too calm. He leaned in close enough that only she could hear, the warmth of his breath brushing her ear. “The more outrageous it is, the faster this works.”

She stared at him, speechless. This? He was calling this —this horrific slander, this disgusting assassination of dignity—“working”?

Her mouth twisted into a scowl, ready to fire back, but she stopped when she caught his expression.

Phainon’s smile was gone. His usual ease, the smirk he wore like armor, had slipped. He looked uncomfortable—jaw tight, eyes flicking briefly toward the knot of gossips and then away again. He wasn’t untouched by it, not really. He was just… better at hiding it.

It made her want to argue even more.

“Phainon,” she hissed, voice cracking with humiliation. “They’re saying—we’re saying—”

“Partner.” His voice cut in again, calm but firm. “Breathe. Don’t give them the satisfaction of seeing it get to you.”

Breathe. She wanted to laugh. Her blood was pounding so hard she felt it in her teeth. The words looped in her head like a broken reel— in the baths, in the baths, in the baths —each repetition more surreal than the last. Who said things like that in public? Who invented lies that specific?

He still hadn’t let go of her wrist. Not tight—just steady, anchoring her in place while the market shifted around them. He looked collected, but she could see the discomfort anyway, flickering behind his eyes. He was acting calm, the same way she sometimes acted unbothered.

Stelle’s free hand curled into a fist, nails biting her palm. She wanted to yell. She wanted to run. But Phainon’s grip stayed, and his voice kept circling in her head: The more outrageous, the faster it works.

Her voice cracked when she finally managed, “You’re seriously fine with them saying that shit about you?”

Phainon’s mouth tightened. For once, his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Fine? No.” He shook his head slightly. “But correcting them would be worse. Trust me.”

The words landed heavier than she expected. He looked uncomfortable—shoulders stiff under his jacket, gaze fixed a little too hard on the path ahead. 

The realization cooled her fury just enough that she let out a shaky laugh. “This is insane.”

“Mhm,” he agreed, tone dry. “But you wanted a plan. This is part of it.”

Stelle pressed her lips together and willed herself not to look back, not to search for the gossiper in the crowd. She imagined them dissolving into steam, their voice swallowed by the bathhouse mist they’d so helpfully invoked. It didn’t stop the burn in her face, but at least her steps didn’t falter.

Her shoulders sagged an inch. She exhaled shakily through her nose and let her gaze drop to the flagstones. “This is humiliating.”

“It is,” Phainon agreed quietly. “But it’s also just noise. We can’t pay it any mind.”

She chewed on the inside of her cheek, clinging to his words like they were some kind of raft. It didn’t make her less furious—her cheeks were still blazing, her ears ringing—but it stopped her from turning back and lighting herself on fire for the sake of winning a single argument in the court of gossip.

Instead, she squeezed his hand tighter, more a release of frustration than a gesture. He didn’t let go. Yet, the words lingered all the same. In the baths.

Her jaw worked, teeth grinding, until Phainon leaned closer again. “If it helps,” he murmured, “I’d never be that unromantic.”

Stelle’s head snapped toward him, eyes wide. “Are you seriously joking right now?”

His grin flickered, sheepish but genuine. “Maybe.”

She gawked at him for three whole seconds, then shoved her shoulder against his hard enough to jostle him into the crowd. He laughed—quiet, under his breath—but the tension between them eased just slightly. Enough that when another whisper skimmed the air, she didn’t combust all over again.

It still burned, though. God, it burned.

Xx….o….xX

This section of the palace grounds was quiet after dark, closed to the public hours ago. But they weren’t the public– not tonight.

Below them in the Garden of Life, the chimera roamed free across the wide lawns. Small ones—lion-bodied, tuft-tailed, big-eyed—tumbled into each other, yipping playfully. Two wrestled near a patch of glowing flowers, rolling in a blur of paws and fur until one squeaked in triumph and leapt away. A third darted after them, only to be intercepted by a gray chimera with wings too big for its body, which it flapped furiously before toppling onto its back.

Phainon leaned on his elbows, watching the chaos with a soft smile. Stelle tried not to notice how relaxed he looked in the orange light.

“Well,” she said finally, “that was a disaster.”

One of the chimeras headbutted another and went skidding across the grass.

Phainon didn’t even look away. “Was it?”

“Yes,” she snapped. “Yes, it was. People stared, people whispered, people—” she flushed at the memory “—people invented bathhouse rumors, Phainon.”

Another chimera darted between two larger ones, trying to steal a berry from their hoard, only to be immediately chased in a circle.

“Which means,” Phainon said cooly, “people were talking. Which was the point.”

Stelle turned toward him, incredulous. “The point wasn’t to be accused of—of—” She waved her hands vaguely, words failing her. “—things! In public!”

One chimera barreled into another hard enough that both went tumbling.

Phainon shrugged, not taking his eyes off of the creatures. “Gossip doesn’t stick if it isn’t outrageous. Today was loud. Tomorrow, it’ll be less. And in a week, it’ll be gone.”

“Or in a week, it’ll have evolved into marriage rumors,” Stelle muttered.

That made him laugh under his breath. The sound, low and unguarded, tugged at her attention before she could catch it. She realized, with a start, that she liked the sound—really liked it. Beautiful, even. Which was a ridiculous thing to think about Phainon of all people. She turned back toward the railing quickly, pretending the chimera had been the object of her attention all along.

“Anyway,” she said stiffly. “We need to talk about our acting.”

Phainon arched his brow. “ Our acting?”

“Yes. Because it was bad. Yours was bad.”

He leaned against the railing, one hand still tucked casually in his pocket. “Oh? Enlighten me.”

“You kept swinging our hands like you were walking a dog,” Stelle shot back. “No one does that outside of children’s books.”

“And you,” he countered smoothly, “looked like you were being marched to your execution every time someone looked at us. If I’m the dog-walker, you’re the dog that bites the neighbors.”

Stelle gaped at him. “Excuse me?”

A blue chimera pup tripped over its own paws and rolled into the fountain basin. It resurfaced moments later, soaked and furious, shaking itself dry.

“Don’t worry,” Phainon said with mock solemnity. “We’ll both get better with practice.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You sound far too confident about this.”

“Confidence sells,” he said with a grin. “Try it sometime.”

Her glare sharpened, but he only laughed again. That sound—carefree, genuine—made something strange catch in her chest. She shoved the feeling down before it could grow teeth.

The sun slipped lower, staining the marble golden. Shadows lengthened across the lawn. The chimeras had begun to settle, some curling into one another, others gnawing lazily at bones.

Stelle sighed, leaning forward against the railing until the cool stone pressed against her skin. “I still think today was chaos.”

“Chaos,” Phainon agreed. Then, softer, “But effective chaos.”

She didn’t answer right away. She was too busy watching one chimera roll over and let another crawl across its stomach, paw batting idly at the air. For a moment, it was easy to imagine none of this mattered—the gossip, the act, the ridiculous fake relationship. Just quiet, just creatures at play.

When she finally looked back, Phainon was stifling a yawn.

Stelle blinked at him. “Are you seriously falling asleep?”

He stretched his arms over his head, unbothered. “What can I say? Long day of antiques and a scandal.”

“You dragged me through every stall in the market.”

“And you survived,” he teased.

Another yawn broke through, less subtle this time. He rubbed at his eyes, smiling faintly. “Anyway. I should call it a night. If we’re starting again tomorrow, I’d rather not collapse on my feet halfway through breakfast.”

He straightened, brushing nonexistent dust from his jacket, and turned toward her. For a second, the lamplight from the garden lanterns painted him in a warm halo, softening the sharper edges of his expression.

“Goodnight, partner,” he said, voice quiet but steady.

Stelle nodded, too quick. “Goodnight.”

They parted ways at the garden’s gate. His footsteps faded first, then the sound of the chimeras rustling in the grass. Stelle lingered a moment longer, staring at the twilight, trying to decide if the knot in her stomach was anger or something else entirely.

She settled on anger. It was easier.

Notes:

ouuugh im back

Chapter 3: Day 2

Summary:

The headline font screamed in gold: THE CHRYSOS HEIR HEARTTHROB TO THE RESCUE! Beneath it, a subheading: Is it chivalry—or something more? Someone had even added a tiny pink heart over the blurred edge of her shoulder like a bad sticker.

“I’m going to kill myself.”

“You shouldn’t say that,” Phainon said immediately, soft and automatic.

“Fine,” she shot back, shoving the phone at him. “Then I’m going to go hug Castorice.”

Notes:

GUYS THIS IS WAY LONGER THAN I THOUGHT IT WAS IM SORRY OOPS

btw im too lazy to explore the map while i write this so locations/paths/etc may not be accurate

Stelle was barely awake when her door burst open. Not just opened—burst. The kind of slam-and-swing motion that sent the handle rattling against the wall, made the air rush with the force of intrusion, and almost startled her into falling out of bed.

Stelle groaned, face planting into her pillow. “Mem… it’s eight in the morning.”

“Eight-oh-two,” Mem corrected. Her fluff looked like it was frizzing from static, and the way her paw tapped against the notebook suggested she was running on something way stronger than pure adrenaline.

Stelle peeled one eye open. “…Mem. Are you on drugs?”

Mem tilted her head, confused. “No? Dan Heng made me some tea. He said it has something called… Caff…een?” She pronounced it like it was an exotic animal.

“Why would he do that?” Stelle groaned, scrubbing at her face.

“She asked,” came a voice so close and so calm that Stelle yelped.

There was a second where Stelle could have sworn the room was empty except for them—and then Dan Heng’s reflection appeared in the wardrobe mirror, like he’d spawned there. He was leaning against the doorframe, mug in hand, unreadable as ever. He’d been so quiet Stelle had almost missed the part where another living person existed in the room.

 “Jesus— You can’t just materialize. Wear a bell.”

Dan Heng just shrugged.

Mem clapped her paws together. “All right! As I was saying—training exercises. To make you two look like a real couple.”

Stelle blinked. “You’re kidding.”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Mem beamed. “We need to increase authenticity. That means practice. By the end of today, strangers will walk by you and feel compelled to sigh.”

“I already sigh when I walk by him,” Stelle muttered.

“Not like that.” Mem flipped open her notebook, revealing a chart. It had been drawn with three different inks and labeled with bubbling arrows: EYE CONTACT → PROXIMITY → TOUCHPOINTS → STORY COHERENCE. There were little doodles of two stick figures, one with obnoxiously spiky hair and folded dog ears, labeled “P,” and one with a square jaw and a permanent frown, labeled “S.” “We’re starting with three modules.”

“Oh gods,” Stelle said.

“Module One,” Mem announced, holding up a card that read EYE CONTACT in a bold, cheerful font. “Eye contact drills. Rule one: No glaring, Stelle.”

“I don’t glare,” Stelle said, immediately beginning to glare.

“Yes you do,” Mem said kindly. “Today we will look fondly . You’ll hold his gaze for five seconds at a time without looking like you’re about to rip his face off.”

“Five seconds is excessive.”

“Great, we’ll aim for ten.”

“Mem.”

Mem spread her paws. “Trust me.”

“I am going to strangle you,” Stelle said.

“Module Two,” Mem forged ahead, brandishing a second card: WALKING IN SYNC. Underneath, she’d drawn footstep patterns like a dance manual. “Walking-in-sync practice. Yesterday, you two looked like a three-legged horse.”

“We were holding hands for publicity,” Stelle said. “It’s not a sport.”

“It is now.” Mem tapped the chart with a pointer that she absolutely did not have five minutes ago. “We’ll practice starts and stops, gentle course corrections—” she turned, pointer now leveled sternly at Stelle “—and you’ll resist the urge to yank when he wanders toward shiny objects.”

“That happened one time,” Stelle said.

“Six,” Dan Heng corrected.

Stelle whipped around to glare at him. “How did you even know? You weren’t even there !”

Mem cleared her throat.

“Module Three,” Mem announced, and flipped a third card: PDA SCENARIOS (BEGINNER). 

Stelle blinked. “I’m leaving.”

Mem moved to block the door. “Wait! Scenario drills. Pretend I’m a stranger and you’ve just seen each other after a week apart. We’ll rotate variations—short hallway meet, marketplace pass-by, post-spar cooldown. You’ve got to be warm. ”

Stelle stared. “You want me to perform ‘warmth’ on command.”

“Yes!” Mem said brightly. “You will be so warm.”

“That’s not how I work.”

“That’s why we’re training,” Mem said, with terrifying cheer.

Stelle scrubbed a hand over her face and glanced sideways at Dan Heng, who had opened his book just enough to create the illusion of detachment. “Tell her this is insane.”

He didn’t look up. “It’s… thorough.”

Stelle covered her face with both hands. “I’m going back to sleep. Wake me when the city collapses.”

Mem ignored her, pivoted on her heel, and assumed a character—chin up, hand to chest, an expression of delighted surprise that would have killed at the theater. “Oh! It’s you,” she said in a dramatic imitation, sashaying (floating?) two steps closer to… no one, because Stelle wasn’t playing. “I thought you were on assignment in—” She waved her paw. “—somewhere dangerous and glamorous.”

Stelle peeked through her fingers. “This is painful.”

“Then join me,” Mem said brightly. “Come on. We’re on a schedule. And you’ve got to sell it– Really sell it!” Mem gave a fistpump– Perhaps an attempt at motivation.

Stelle flopped back against the couch and stared at the ceiling. The marmoreal inlay above caught the light in an old, patient way. Somewhere outside the window, the birds of Okhema sang their morning songs.

She sighed. “Is Phainon aware of your plans?”

Mem froze for the first time that morning. “No.”

A petty little spark flared in Stelle’s chest. “Perfect. Then he can bail me out.”

Mem looked mortified. “WHAT!?” She frowned.

Dan Heng coughed once to disguise a laugh and failed.

“I’m not doing PDA drills with you,” Stelle said, already reaching for her phone. “My dignity has suffered enough for one calendar year.”

“You did them with Phainon yesterday,” Mem countered.

“That was survival,” Stelle said, thumbing open her messages. “This is…Theater.”

“Same difference!”

Stelle typed without looking up, thumbs moving fast.

—---------------------

<STELLE> to <PHAINON>

Stelle: SOS

Stelle: Mem is gonna make us do much worse than yesterday if you dont get over here right now

Stelle: Please save me oh great deliverer

—----------------------

She hit send with more force than necessary and felt immediately childish about it. She stared at the read timestamp as if she could telepathically will Phainon to respond faster.

Mem wasn’t about to give up, though. She grabbed a pillow from the couch, planted it upright, and began hugging it like it was a person. “See? Look at how natural I am. ‘Oh Phainon , I’ve missed you so much!’” She pretended to bury her face into the pillow, swaying like she was enacting a dramatic reunion scene from some shitty romance play.

Stelle stared at her, horrified. “You’ve lost it.”

Dan Heng, still scribbling silently, muttered under his breath, “She lost it hours ago.”

“Not helpful!” Mem barked, then spun around. “Alright, new drill: spontaneous compliments! Stelle, say something nice about Phainon. Go.”

“Uh…” Stelle floundered. “He… has… functional shoes?”

Mem groaned and threw herself onto the nearest chair like a dying heroine. “Hopeless. Absolutely hopeless.”

Stelle fought back a grin. “Then cancel the drills.”

“No!” Mem shot back upright, caffeinated determination burning in her eyes. “We begin now .”

Just then, Stelle’s phone buzzed with a reply.

She peeked at the screen. A short message from the person she wanted to hear from the most:

—---------------------

Phainon: On my way to rescue you, partner!

—---------------------

Stelle had the first genuine smile of the morning.

Xx….o….xX

The café was just as busy as it had been yesterday, sunlight spilling through wide glass windows, scattering across polished stone floors.The little bell above the café door chimed when they stepped inside, and Stelle felt the scent of roasted beans and warm bread settle over her like a soft blanket. This place looked entirely different at midday than it had at breakfast yesterday: sunlight poured through the high-paned windows, catching on the glass vases that lined the shelves, and the chatter of market-goers spilled in from outside, blurring with the clink of silverware and the hiss of milk being steamed. 

 Their host recognized them immediately, though this time she ushered them not to the terrace but to a small table indoors, nestled beside a potted laurel. The midday crowd was heavier than yesterday’s breakfast rush, spilling out of nearby stalls, chatter rising above the clatter of plates and cutlery.

It wasn’t exactly private. Which, of course, was the point.

They ordered—nothing extravagant, just lunch: roasted lamb with herbs,a stew, flatbread, and a chilled drink that fizzed faintly at the surface. Stelle told herself she was here for the food. Absolutely nothing else.

They claimed the same table as before. “Creature of habit, huh,” she muttered, sliding into her chair.

“Or maybe I just like the light in this spot,” Phainon countered, the corners of his mouth twitching.

She wanted to approach today differently. Yesterday, she’d been stiff, borderline hostile, and every stare from the crowd had hit her like a needle under her skin. Today she would play it warmer, softer, more natural. Or at least, she would try. 

Mem’s words from the morning replayed in Stelle’s mind: “You need to sell it. You both need to sell it.” Fine. She could sell it. She wasn’t going to be the weak link. If Phainon thought she couldn’t play her part, she’d prove him wrong—so wrong it would wipe that smug little smile right off his face. 

When Phainon settled across from her with his drink, his white hair falling into his eyes in that careless way, she put her plan into motion.  Only now, sitting here with the sun hitting his cheekbones just so, she realized she had no idea how to calibrate that tenderness.

So, she overdid it.

She leaned forward slightly, clasped her hands together, and beamed.

“Phainon,” she said, her voice pitched in an almost saccharine lilt.

His fork slipped right out of his hand and clattered against the table.

Stelle blinked. Oh. Oh, that actually worked. Shit.

“Yes, partner?” His voice was careful, suspicious, as though he had just walked into a trap and wasn’t quite sure where it was set.

“Are you enjoying yourself, darling ?” she said, her voice tilting into a strange sing-song she didn’t recognize as her own.

Phainon, mid-sip, choked. The glass clicked hard against his teeth, and for a second she thought he might spill it down his front. He lowered the cup slowly, like he wasn’t entirely sure gravity would cooperate. “I—sorry— what ?”

She leaned her chin into her palm, smiling with a sugary sweetness that made her stomach clench in embarrassment. “I asked if you’re enjoying yourself. With me.” Her lashes fluttered once, then twice, and she immediately regretted it. Gods above, why did I do that?

Phainon blinked at her as though she’d just spoken in tongues. His ears were red, his grip on the fork so tight it looked ready to snap. “Partner,” he murmured, voice breaking halfway, “are you—are you mocking me?”

“Of course not!” She pitched her tone higher, the kind of voice you’d use on a toddler or a pet rabbit. The sound of it alone made her want to fling herself off the terrace railing. “I’m just being sweet.”

He sputtered into his drink again, coughing this time. A merchant at the next table looked over in concern, and Phainon waved them off, eyes watering. “Sweet,” he repeated hoarsely, setting the glass down like it was a weapon he no longer trusted himself to hold. “You—uh. That’s… new.”

She wanted to laugh, she really did. But instead she kept her tone steady, her expression bright and sweet, as though she were rehearsing for a play she didn’t particularly care for. Inside, though, her thoughts were spiraling. She was overdoing it. She knew she was. Yet she couldn’t stop. The more flustered he became, the more she leaned into it.

You’re taking this too far, she scolded herself. He’s practically melting into his seat. Pull back, idiot.

But then he’d glance at her again, his eyes flicking nervously from her face to his plate, and she couldn’t resist pushing a little more.

“Did you miss me?” she added, leaning a little closer across the table. Her tone was laced with syrup. “Because I missed you, Phainon.”

This time he did drop his fork. It clattered against the plate, bouncing once before hitting the table. Phainon scrambled to pick it up, muttering something incoherent that ended in a nervous laugh. His hair fell into his face as he bent down, and when he came back up, his cheeks were pink. 

The café air felt heavier with each exchange, as if the world itself was leaning in to listen. Whispered comments drifted from a nearby table, just audible enough to prove people were paying attention. A teleslate camera clicked.

“I—uh—sure. Definitely. Loads. Missed you… partner.” His voice cracked on the last word.

Stelle had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. It was working. People were watching; a woman by the door angled her teleslate just enough to capture them. Good, Stelle thought. Let them eat this up.   

The lie was obvious—half the café had their eyes on them, some not even pretending to be subtle—but Phainon’s face went scarlet. His spoon trembled in his hand. “I swear, partner, if you keep this up—”

“What? You’ll swoon?”

He groaned and slumped back in his chair, covering his face with one hand. “Unbelievable. You’re enjoying this. You’re actually enjoying this.”

“Maybe a little,” Stelle admitted, her smile widening.Stelle batted her lashes—an exaggerated, mocking flutter, though the performance was convincing enough that the couple at the next table “awwed” softly. The sound made Phainon wince, dragging a hand down his face.

They ate in silence after that, though “silence” was relative—their table was quiet, but Stelle could practically hear the whispers circling them. People glancing over, nudging their companions, a camera flash going off near the fountain. Her chest tightened, but she forced herself to keep her eyes on Phainon, who was studiously pretending his stew was the most fascinating thing in the world. She took notice of his shifted focus.

Stelle gave an exaggerated little hum of delight, brushing her hair back over her shoulder as she glanced at Phainon through her lashes. “Oh, yours looks delicious. You always know just what to order, don’t you?”

Phainon froze mid-motion, spoon hovering an inch above his bowl. “I—uh—I just picked it—”

She leaned in closer, lowering her voice to lay it on even thicker. “You really take such good care of me.”

That was it. He coughed again, practically choking on a piece of bread this time, and had to grab his glass to down half of it in one go. His hand shook enough that condensation slid down onto his sleeve.

Why am I still talking? Why can’t I stop talking? Oh gods— he’s actually dying. What if I killed him by flirting? What if I have to explain to Aglaea that her flamechaser choked to death on bread?

The people at the table beside them turned to stare, whispers barely masked by their half-raised menus. Perfect. Let them talk. Let them speculate. Stelle batted her lashes at Phainon like she’d just said something tender and private instead of orchestrating his slow public breakdown.

“Partner,” he muttered hoarsely, eyes darting everywhere but her face. “You—you don’t have to—”

“But I want to,” she cooed. “You make it so easy.”

Phainon made a noise somewhere between a groan and a strangled whimper. He looked like he wanted to sink under the table. His knee jiggled against the leg of his chair, restless energy betraying how nervous he was.

She sat back, pressing her lips tightly together, trying to suffocate the avalanche of words threatening to spill out. But then Phainon finally set down his napkin, eyes watery, and tried to speak again—only for his voice to crack horribly on the first syllable.

Stelle lost it. She snorted, loud and ungraceful, drawing even more stares.

Phainon groaned, dropping his forehead onto the table with a dull thunk . “I can’t do this,” he muttered, muffled against the wood.

“Yes, you can,” she whispered back, leaning in again just to make him squirm. “And besides, think of how convincing this must look to everyone else. We’re nailing this.”

He lifted his head just enough to glare at her, hair falling messily over his face. Phainon just shook his head. 

“I… I don’t like that voice.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What, you don’t like it when I sound affectionate?”

“I like it when you sound like you, ” he shot back.

The words disarmed her. She stabbed at her roasted lamb instead of replying, cheeks heating in spite of her best efforts. For all her attempts at overcompensating, she’d managed to derail herself more than anyone else.

The meal went on in that strange, awkward-but-not-unpleasant rhythm. Phainon fell back into chatting about the market and the antiques he wanted to see later; Stelle half-listened, half-focused on projecting what she imagined “normal couple warmth” was supposed to look like. She toned back her flirtation accordingly. She reached for her drink a little more slowly than usual, brushed her sleeve against his once or twice as if by accident, tried to laugh at his dry little jokes. Each time she did, Phainon glanced at her with an expression caught somewhere between mild amusement and mild horror, like he couldn’t believe she was putting this much effort into playing her role.

The server who served them yesterday was the one who came to check to present the bill. Recognition lit her face instantly, and her smile widened in that conspiratorial way people had when they thought they were part of something special. “Ah, welcome back!” she said. “I remember you two from yesterday. You were so cute sitting out there. Already engaged?”

The words hit Stelle like a bus. Her fork clattered against her plate. “What—?!”

Before she could summon a denial, Phainon’s voice slid smoothly over hers, deadpan and effortless: “Not yet.”

Her brain short-circuited. Heat surged to her ears, and she nearly knocked her chair backward in her sputtering. “Not—?! Excuse me?!”

Phainon didn’t flinch. He held the server’s gaze with perfect poise, a small polite smile curling at his lips, as though this were the most natural answer in the world. The server giggled, clearly delighted, and bustled away to fetch the bill.

Stelle turned on him the instant the woman was out of earshot. “Not yet?! What was that supposed to mean?!”

Phainon sipped his drink with all the serenity of a monk who had transcended mortal concerns. “It’s called playing along, partner. You should try it.”

Her hands clenched in her lap. “Playing along?! That’s not ‘playing along,’ that’s— that’s—” She couldn’t even find the word. “Do you know how that sounded?!”

He tilted his head, the faintest trace of mischief glimmering in his eyes. “Convincing?”

Her mouth opened, closed, opened again. She could feel the stares on her from other tables, people who had overheard the server’s question, who had heard his calm response and seen her sputter. 

And Phainon—curse him—just leaned back in his chair, utterly unbothered, while she fought to gather the shredded remnants of her composure.

The bell at the door jingled as another couple entered. Stelle pressed her hands against her face, groaning into her palms. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t,” he said lightly, and the smile that followed was just subtle enough to make her wonder if he had enjoyed every second of watching her combust.

The server returned with their bill, still beaming, and Stelle barely managed to mutter a thanks before fleeing toward the exit. Phainon, naturally, took his time paying, leaving her stewing outside in the sunlight, cheeks still blazing.

When he joined her, Stelle was still sputtering, fists clenching at her sides. “What the hell was that?! ” she hissed the moment he joined her outside, the cool air hitting his face.

“That,” Phainon said, slipping his hands back into his pockets, “was good PR.”

“You nearly killed me!”

“You nearly killed me with that voice,” he shot back. “Consider us even.”

She groaned, dragging her palms down her face. He was impossible. Impossible!

The man had the nerve to stretch his arms lazily as though nothing at all unusual had happened. “So,” he said after a pause, “I’ll take that as your agreement, fiancée .”

She nearly strangled him.

Stelle adjusted her jacket even though she didn’t need it for warmth. She needed something to do with her hands that wasn’t throttling Phainon for the deadpan “Not yet” he’d delivered to the cashier. He was walking like he carried no consequences at all—loose shoulders, hands in pockets—and it made her jaw clench.

“So,” she said, catching up to him, “what’s the plan for today? If you say ‘antique coins’ I’m turning around and throwing myself into the nearest fountain.”

“Tragic,” Phainon said, looking unbothered. “But also a waste of a good fountain.”

“Phainon.”

“Well,” he said, “you looked about two seconds from a coma yesterday. Perhaps we should try something less…intensive.”

“Like?”

“The baths,” he said, as if it were obvious. He wrinkled his nose at her. “Also, you stink.”

She stopped dead, hand flying to her chest. “Wow,” she said, scandalized. “So cruel to someone who’s supposed to be your ‘girlfriend.’”

“Honesty is the foundation of all great romances,” he replied smoothly, already shepherding her across the plaza.

“Fake romance,” she muttered, but her feet followed anyway.

The path to the baths took them under shaded galleries that turned the outside heat into something more bearable. Servants moved past carrying folded linens tied up with twine, their sandals slapping against tile.

“Wait,” Phainon said, throwing his arm out as if to bar a charging chimera. The gesture was so reflexive she almost ducked.

“What—”

Her left boot slid. She had time to register a slick shine on the floor—a trail of water leading from a doorway where an attendant had just walked through with a dripping pail—and then the world pitched. The ceiling jumped; her stomach dropped. Her appetite and dignity flung themselves off a balcony in perfect synchronization.

A hand closed around her wrist, firm and strong. It yanked her upright and planted her center of gravity back where it belonged.

“Careful, partner,” Phainon chided.

The heat flared across her face, embarrassment punching through with a second wave of adrenaline. She hadn’t realized how fast her heart was going until it had something to bang against. “I’m fine,” she said quickly, testing her footing and finding marble under her again. He let go as soon as she was steady. She smoothed her palms down her thighs even though there was nothing on them to smooth away.

“Thanks,” she added, and the sincerity surprised her by not tasting like humiliation. “Really.”

They passed through a carved archway into the center of the bathhouse, and the air changed. Warmer, humid, carrying the clean mineral scent of the pools. 

An attendant bowed with the practice of someone who had done it a thousand times. “Esteemed guests,” she said, and her eyes did that tiny flicker that meant she definitely knew who Phainon was and was being professionally cool about it. “Towels to your left; fruit and mineral drinks to your right; we have the north pool quiet this hour if you want less company.”

“We’re fine,” Phainon said. “Thank you.”

They took the long way around a central pool where a handful of children were trying to see who could hold their breath longer while their grandmother pretended to be exasperated and was in fact delighted.

Stelle felt her shoulders loosen. The baths always did this to her. “I miss Bubbles,” she said, abruptly, because the thought surfaced and then refused to go back down.

Phainon’s mouth crooked. “Bubbles misses destroying your schedule.”

“Bubbles misses destroying your schedule,” she corrected. “Last time you watched them I came back to find three stolen towels, half a tray of figs, and one very angry lifeguard.”

“To be fair,” Phainon said gravely, “the figs were excellent. I’d understand their choice to eat them.”

“Bubbles doesn’t even like figs. Your fat ass ate them.”

“Guilty as charged , ” he said with a shrug, and that made her laugh, the sound escaping before she could stop it.

An attendant appeared with a round wicker tray loaded with grapes so cold a little frost still sat on the skins. The green was almost unreal against the white of the towels stacked below. “For you,” she said, and set the tray on the low table by the bench as if it had always been theirs. Stelle thanked her.

Being famous in Okhema sure was awesome.

They didn’t soak. Neither of them had come to submerge; they’d come to sit near the water, to breathe the steamy air and relax. Still, the heat got into her, sunk through her jacket and shirt, softened the muscles underneath. She stretched her toes toward the bath until steam dampened the skin of her ankle.

“You ever bring Bubbles here when it’s this crowded?” he asked, and there was genuine curiosity there, not small talk.

“On purpose?” she said. “No. On accident? Twice.”

“And?”

“First time, they stole a bucket from an attendant and tried to make their own personal pool. Second time, they discovered they could surf on a towel if the floor was wet enough. I had to pay for two pots and a flower arrangement.”

His laugh was quick. “Of course you did.”

She chewed and swallowed and let herself drift. The baths had always been a place where Amphoreus turned the volume down. You could be in the city and outside it at the same time. If anyone recognized them—and of course they did; you couldn’t walk into a public space with Phainon and not be seen—the looks were seemingly unconcerned. A few nods, a handful of second glances, and then everyone returned to their own business.

The tray of grapes made quick work of their mutual fidgeting. 

“Do you come here often?” she asked, then winced at herself. “Not— That’s not—”

“Sometimes. When I can dodge being stopped every ten steps.” He glanced back. “And you?”

“I like it when Bubbles is here to terrorize the staff,” she said, because it was safer to make a joke out of truth than leave it alone. “And when you’re not around to inform me that I stink.”

“To be clear,” he said, “I was joking.”

“You absolutely were not.”

“Fifty-fifty,” he conceded.

She found herself smiling again. It came easier in this room. She watched an attendant set a small copper kettle on a brazier and add dried leaves to it with the care of a ritual. She watched a girl with wet hair tilt her head back and shake it like a dog, and watched her friend shriek in laughter. The world here had a logic she liked: rules enforced and bent in equal measure, everyone complicit in the bending.

An attendant came by with a pitcher of mineral water that had been steeped with something green. Peppermint, maybe, or one of the local leaves that did a good impression of it. She poured them each a cup. 

Stelle set hers down and leaned forward, elbows on knees, head angled toward the crowd. “What do we do after this,” she said, not meaning today. “When this week is over?”

He picked at the grape stem, separating it into green, clean bits with the absent-minded precision he applied to everything he didn’t want to look squarely at. “We stick to the plan,” he said, and she knew he was choosing that answer because it was the one that didn’t open a door.

She accepted it because she was not about to be the person who opened it, either. “Right. The plan.”

Stelle wrung a bead of water from the end of her sleeve and flicked it toward Phainon’s shoulder on principle. 

Her phone buzzed.

She glanced down automatically. 

“Dan Heng,” she said, thumb swiping to open. “Probably to ask if we drowned.”

The message thread was already stacked—three gray bubbles in a row.

—---------------------

<DAN HENG> to <STELLE>

Dan Heng: Thought this might be useful.

Dan Heng: [link] 10 Ways To Get To Know Your Partner Better (Without Making It Weird) [/link]

Dan Heng:  I like number 8 — Take turns saying things you like about each other. I’m sure you both have no shortage of that!!!!

—----------------------

“…What?” Stelle said, holding the phone away from her like it was contaminated.

Phainon tilted his head like a confused puppy.

She stared at the text for a full two seconds, then turned the phone toward Phainon like it had grown a second head.

“Did… Dan Heng get possessed?”

Phainon leaned in to read, his hair still damp enough that one strand had decided to curl toward his temple. He blinked slowly. “If he did, he’s still very polite.”

Before Stelle could reply, she felt another buzz.

—----------------------

Dan Heng: Also--!

Dan Heng: [link] How To Make A Date Romantic In 7 Easy Steps (Scientifically Proven, Probably)  [/link]

Dan Heng:  Try feeding each other in public!!

Dan Heng:  OR

Dan Heng:  wait

Dan Heng:  Try holding hands but interlock fingers!! It’s more romantic!!!

—----------------------

Stelle’s jaw unhinged. “Dan. Heng?? What’s gotten into you???”

Three dots. She could imagine him not typing at all, and Mem typing extremely.

—----------------------

Dan Heng: Oh sorry stelle, it’s Mem!! I didn’t have a phone so I used Dan Heng’s. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind

—----------------------

Stelle put her free hand over her eyes. “Of course.”

Phainon snorted under his breath. “We should tell him to change his password.”

“He probably doesn’t have one.” She sighed, typing back a response to her small pink companion.

—----------------------

Stelle: Mem, I appreciate the thought. Really. But I’m handling everything just fine.

Dan Heng: Well, you certainly are!

Dan Heng : [link] The Chrysos Heir Heartthrob Protects His Beloved! (photo attached) [/link]

—----------------------

Stelle did not open it right away. She closed her eyes, counted to three, and then tapped the preview like she was defusing a mine.

The photo filled the screen: earlier, in the corridor—the slip, the spill of water, the split-second where she had ceased to be vertical. The angle wasn’t perfect, just a hair too low, but somehow that made it worse; it caught the shock in her face, the stutter of motion, the exact moment Phainon’s hand closed around her wrist. The article had circled their wrists in a yellow ellipse and added an arrow, as if no one in Okhema had any media literacy. The headline font screamed in gold: THE CHRYSOS HEIR HEARTTHROB TO THE RESCUE! Beneath it, a subheading: Is it chivalry—or something more? Someone had even added a tiny pink heart over the blurred edge of her shoulder like a bad sticker.

“I’m going to kill myself.”

“You shouldn’t say that,” Phainon said immediately, soft and automatic.

“Fine,” she shot back, shoving the phone at him. “Then I’m going to go hug Castorice.”

Stelle scrolled down into the article before she could talk herself out of it. The body text was a flood of, quite frankly, nonsense:

Witnesses report that Phainon of the Aedes Elysiae acted “with lightning reflexes” to prevent his beloved ‘Partner’ from a dangerous fall within the hallowed corridors of the Marmoreal Palace Baths. “His hand just—whoosh,” said one onlooker, charmed beyond reason, “and then he looked at her like—well…”

We all know what we saw.

Below that, a pair of opinion boxes with nauseating titles: WHY IT’S LOVE and WHY IT’S CHIVALRY. The “love” side listed things like “hand-to-wrist contact sustained for over six seconds” and “intense eye contact indicative of prior intimacy.” The “chivalry” side had “Likely trained fast reflexes” and “we all slip sometimes (relatable!).” A poll at the bottom already showed a lopsided percentage. She refused to look at the numbers.

She scrolled past the article itself, because the paragraphs were worse—the faux empathy, the invented quotes. In the comments a stranger had written love how he looks at her, and for a second she saw the photo as someone else might: the angle making a story where there had been only momentum and reflex, the distance compressing into closeness, the way his jaw looked set like he’d decided to take a hit in her stead. She hated that it worked even on her. She shut the screen off like that could shut the feeling down with it.

Phainon rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish. “Mem did say she wanted ‘controlled sightings.’”

“This was a controlled fall,” Stelle said confidently.

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“It wasn’t.”

—------------------------------------

Dan Heng: [link] 7 Body-Language Secrets of Couples Who Last (“From mirroring to micro-touches!”) [/link]

Dan Heng: Mirroring!!! Try walking in step!!

Dan Heng: Oh wait 

Dan Heng: you already do that :) proud of you both <3 <3 <3

—----------------------------

Stelle typed because otherwise she was going to hurl her phone into the fountain and then throw herself in after it.

—---------------------------

Stelle: Mem,i WILL block you

—-------------------------

Phainon tipped his head toward the corridor, an offer to leave the bathhouse. She pocketed the phone and pushed off the bench.

“Interlock fingers,” he said, almost as if he was suggesting they follow one of Mem’s stupid instructions.

“Do not,” she said.

“Noted.”

They turned back into the palace, footsteps soft on the stone. When the phone buzzed again in her pocket, Stelle didn’t throw it. She kept walking. She breathed, in and out. She chalked one up for survival.

“Number eight,” Phainon said as they passed a shaft of light. “Taking turns saying things we like.”

She shot him a look. “Try it and I will feed you to Mydei’s dromas.”

“Understood,” he said.

Xx….o….xX

They dried off near the doorway where warm air drifted out from the pools and cooler air slid in from the corridors. Water beaded and ran from the ends of Stelle’s hair, tickling the back of her neck. Phainon raked his own hair back with his fingers, a useless gesture given how it fell forward again, slightly darker and flatter when wet. He shook his head, drying off like a wet dog. The water sprayed towards her, and Stelle lifted her arm over her face to protect herself from the droplets.

By the time they stepped outside, the palace had changed tone. It was 5 p.m. by the nearest bell, and the glow of Kephale’s dawn device had shifted to parting hour. Stelle tipped her head back, walking to the nearest marble railing and propping herself up on her elbows.

She didn’t want to talk about rumors or schedules or the next practice drill. The quiet made room for something else.

“Can I ask you something?”

Phainon’s hair was still damp. A strand clung to his temple. He followed her gaze up, then back to her. “Ask.”

“Do you really believe in the Era Nova?”

Phainon didn’t answer right away. His hands were in his pockets. He kept his eyes on the light. When he finally spoke, his voice was plain.

“Yeah,” he said. “I have to.”

Something in the way he said it made her straighten. “That’s not an answer.”

“It is,” he said, but without the usual defensiveness. He searched for words and didn’t try to dress them up. “Belief isn’t a feeling for me. It’s a decision. I can’t afford to wake up and weigh it every day. If I do that, I’ll hesitate. If I hesitate, I start thinking of all the reasons not to try. And there are so many of those already.”

He looked at her then, not dramatic, just steady. Honest. His mouth was set into a thin line, a manifestation of determination.

He let that sit. “So I believe there’s another era coming. Not because it’s easy. Not because someone promised. Because if there’s only hell beyond the door, then I will be the one holding the door and telling the others to go. If the only way through is a fight, I’ll fight. I’ll build the road with whatever we have. Stone, ash, pieces of ourselves. I don’t care. I want a place where the people I love can live, not just fight to survive.”

He looked down at his hands, turned one palm up like he was weighing it. “I don’t say that because I think I’m special. I say it because I know my friends. I know what they want. I know what keeps them up at night. I know what they’re afraid to ask for out loud. They hand those things to me in a thousand small ways and pretend they didn’t. I can’t fail them. I won’t .”

He swallowed. “So I choose to believe. And on the days when it feels stupid, I still choose it.”

Stelle’s throat felt tight. “That’s a lot to carry.”

He gave a small shrug. “It’s lighter when I’m moving forward.”

“That’s not how weight works.”

“It is for me,” he said. No smile. Just that. 

She watched him for a long beat. The device’s light put a thin edge on his jaw. He looked tired in a way she hadn’t let herself notice before. Not the kind that a night’s sleep fixed. The kind you only see in a mirror when no one’s near you. His blue and golden eyes seemed almost sunken.

“I can’t give any of them everything,” he said. “But I can carry the weight toward it. That’s what believing does. It points your feet.”

Stelle swallowed. “And if the Era Nova isn’t real?”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Then I’ll make it real,” he said simply. “If there’s only hell beyond that door, I’ll cleave through the monsters and build the paradise myself, brick by miserable brick, until there’s somewhere worth shouldering the dreams I’ve been handed.” He stopped, inhaling sharply. “And, if there’s another door after that, fine. I’ll keep going. I don’t need a reward at the end. I just need them to get there.”

The words were plain. They made her chest hurt.

She didn’t want to ask the next question. She asked anyway. “What about your dreams?”

He frowned like the question didn’t fit in his mouth. “What more could I want than to make everyone else’s dream come true?”

“That’s not an answer either,” she said, softer now.

When he spoke again, it was quieter. “I grew up being told what my role was. Every room, every meeting, every coreflame we surrendered to the Vortex of Genesis. You learn early that wanting the wrong thing costs other people. So you stop letting your wants grow past what you can carry without dropping someone. You keep the small ones.” He lifted a shoulder. “A morning with no appointments. A good blade with honest work in it. Grapes that Bubbles doesn’t steal. Dinner where everyone is loud and no one is afraid. Those are mine. They’re not grand, but they add up.”

He let out a short breath. “But if you’re asking whether I want a life that looks only like me—no. I don’t think I’m owed that. I don’t think I need that. I want a life that holds the people I care about. If that means I am a piece that holds other pieces together, I’m fine with it.”

She wanted to press. To say: that isn’t a dream. To ask him when anyone last asked him what he wanted that didn’t serve a larger shape, whether he kept a box for himself anywhere inside that enormous house he was building for other people’s hopes. It was on her tongue. But she bit it down.

“Doesn’t it make you angry?” she asked. “That people expect it from you? That they’ll keep handing you their hopes and not even notice they did it?”

“Sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes I want to walk out without a word and disappear into the ruins beyond Okhema.”

“Why don’t you?”

He looked up at the sky again. His voice thinned a little. “Because the minute I imagine it, I picture who has to pick up what I put down. And it’s always one of them.”

He shook his head once. “I can live with being tired. I can’t live with watching someone else break because I set mine down.”

They went quiet. The air moved a little, just enough to cool the back of her neck where strands of hair stuck to the skin. Somewhere a gate clanged shut. Someone laughed when they shouldn’t have laughed and got shushed. The palace did its evening work. And Stelle? Her gut twisted.

She felt the truth of his words in her own bones and hated it. Hated that the world built for itself a man who had to plan how to believe and then called him heroic for carrying the load well.

They stood a while longer. People passed and didn’t interrupt them. The light kept doing its job.

Stelle’s head was noisy. She tried to picture him in a life where he got to set the weight down. She tried to picture him without the room bending toward him, without everyone reaching for his steadiness. She couldn’t. The image wouldn’t stay. Not because he didn’t deserve it, but because the world here wasn’t built to allow it.

“You shouldn’t have to build it alone,” she said finally.

“I’m not alone,” he said. “Even when I feel like I am. That’s why I can say all this. Because I know if I fall,my friends drag me back up and be mad about it later.”

“Still not a dream for you.”

“I already told you mine,” he said. Not defensive. Just simple. “If they get to live the lives they want, I’ll be just fine.”

Stelle nodded because arguing would only turn this into a debate and it didn’t deserve that. Her chest hurt in a way she couldn’t fix. Not pain exactly. A pressure. The kind you get when you realize the person next to you is better than the world around them knows how to handle.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

She could have listed a dozen things. The fake dating plan. The jokes. The times she’d made it harder because it was easier to make it hard than to look at what was actually happening to him. She kept it contained. “For adding to the noise.”

He shook his head. “You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“You made today easier, Partner.” he said. “Even with the articles. Even with the… engagement thing.”

“That was your fault,” she said automatically, and he huffed a small laugh that didn’t quite make it to his eyes.

“I know.”

They let that sit.

He glanced sideways. “Does that answer it– Your question, I mean?”

“It does,” she said. “Thank you.”

He gave her that small smile again. His blue eyes sparkled in the light of the dawn device.  “You can ask me anything, Partner.”

She almost said Why me? She didn’t. The words jammed at the back of her teeth and stayed there. Instead, she just nodded.

Stelle’s thoughts went to places she’d been dodging all day.

He meant every word. He wasn’t performing for her. He wasn’t trying to win her over. He wasn’t using a line. He was saying the plain truth of how he lived, and it wasn’t glamorous. It was hard. It was heavy. It would grind a person down if they didn’t watch themselves. Most people learn to stop giving that much because no one gives back. Most people learn to close the door sooner. He hadn’t. He stood there telling her he would build a road out of himself if that’s what it took, and he smiled like it was obvious.

She didn’t know what that would do to him in ten years. She didn’t know what it would do to her to stand next to it. She did know this: whatever the world had done to make someone like that, it hadn’t earned the right to keep him. It didn’t deserve him. Not the council, not the papers, not his friends who congratulated his determination. Maybe not even her.

The thought landed clean. It didn’t make her feel small. It made her careful.

“Thanks for telling me,” she said.

He nodded once. “Thanks for asking.”

She didn’t let herself cry. It wasn’t that kind of moment. It was the kind that lodged in you and wouldn’t move. The kind that meant enough without the tears.

They didn’t hug. They didn’t reach for hands. They didn’t do anything that would look good on a teleslate. They stood there a little longer until the light from the dawn device shifted again, and then they walked. He matched her pace without thinking. She matched his without trying. The path down from the terrace wasn’t long.

They paused once at a cart selling sesame bread. The baker offered the day’s last two rolls at a discount. Phainon took them and passed one to her with a look that said no argument. They ate as they walked. The bread was still warm in the middle and a little tough at the edges. It quieted the last of the bathhouse hunger and gave their hands something to do. 

Neither of them mentioned the conversation they’d had at the overlook. The words didn’t need rehashing. They lingered in the quiet like a weight set down between them that neither of them minded holding up. Stelle kept replaying one line: I have to. It was simple, but it stuck anyway.

When the garden of life finally came into view, the foot traffic around them thinned. Guards stood at attention, barely sparing them a glance before opening the way. Within the palace walls, the noise of the market faded into the background. The wide stone corridors gleamed faintly under lamplight. Servants moved in and out, finishing their last errands for the day, but most of the palace had already quieted.

Stelle finished the last of the bread and wiped her hands together. “Thanks,” she said, a little late.

“For what?”

“The bread,” she said. “Not letting me faceplant earlier. Both.”

“It’s nothing,” he said.

They kept walking side by side until the hall split. Her corridor veered left, his went right. Stelle slowed to a stop at the junction, shifting her weight, trying to figure out how to say goodbye without making it awkward. Phainon seemed to be having the same problem. He hesitated, his hand half-lifted in something that might’ve been a wave but never fully became one.

She turned to say goodnight and found herself looking up at him from closer than she expected. He had a damp strand of hair that hadn’t decided what to do. He looked tired around the eyes in a way she hadn’t noticed while they were moving. She thought of everything he’d told her, and everything he hadn’t put in words but had said anyway by the way he carried himself.

“Goodnight,” she started, and it came out thinner than she wanted. She swallowed and tried again. “I’m going to head back.”

He nodded. “I’ll walk this way.” He gestured down the other hall. “Text if Mem tries something weird again.”

“Don’t jinx it,” she said, and almost smiled.

They were both still standing there. A beat stretched. She could have left. She didn’t. She couldn’t understand just why her feet stayed planted to the floor.

When she finally moved, it was before she could really understand what she was doing.She stepped in, closing the small gap between them, and wrapped her arms around him in a hug.

The motion startled him. She could feel the way his whole frame stiffened—shoulders locking, breath halting for a split second. It was like hugging a statue.

Then, slowly, the tension eased. His arms came up, tentative at first, then more certain, circling her back in a steady hold. It wasn’t crushing. It wasn’t even particularly long. But it was solid.

When they pulled apart, Phainon’s expression was unreadable for a moment, like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to comment. He didn’t.

Stelle cleared her throat, stepping back. “Goodnight,” she said, forcing a small smile.

“Goodnight, partner,” he replied.

The word lingered between them as she turned down her hall, footsteps echoing lightly against the marble. She didn’t look back, but she didn’t need to. The warmth of the hug still pressed faintly at her arms, stubborn and impossible to shake.

And for the first time that day, she didn’t feel tired.

Chapter 4: Day 3

Summary:

“Well, yeah,” she said, exasperated despite herself as she remembered Theodoros was still in front of them. “But why give me the sun and keep the moon? Shouldn’t it be reversed? You’re the bringer of dawn and all that.”

He shrugged. “They’re a pair. They’re meant to remind you of the other half.” He lifted the moon charm and let it swing once from his finger, the silver catching the light. “I’ll keep the moon. It’ll remind me of you. You keep the sun. You get a piece of me to take with you. See?” Stelle followed with her eyes as light glinted off the moon charm as he held it up to the sky.

“That’s so sappy,” she blurted.

Notes:

sorry for the wait! heres food

Stelle woke up to the sound of knocking.

 

It wasn’t particularly steady or frantic, just three heavy raps against the door to her room that were enough to drag her out of the depths of sleep. She groaned, rolled onto her stomach, and put a pillow over her head.

 

“Door’s open!” she shouted, her voice muffled by the pillow. She assumed it was Dan Heng, back from one of his ungodly early morning runs, or Mem returning with something equally ridiculous.

 

The latch clicked. The door creaked. Footsteps padded across the stone floor, steady but careful.

“Rise and shine, partner!”

Her eyes shot open.

Phainon stood in the doorway, grinning like he had just won something. He wasn’t empty-handed either. Balanced in both of his hands was a tray—a tray piled with food. A neat glass of orange juice with not a single drop down the side, a small bowl of grapes glistening like polished jewels, and a stack of golden pancakes drizzled with honey.

She blinked. Rubbed her eyes. Looked again. The tray was still there.

“…Am I still asleep?” she croaked.

Phainon laughed, walking in and setting the tray carefully on the low table by her bed. “Nope. You’re very much awake, and very much late to breakfast. But don’t worry. I made these golden honey cakes fresh for you. My own mom’s recipe.”

The words “mom’s recipe” barely landed before Stelle was dragging herself upright, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose to shove away the lethargy. Dan Heng wasn’t there—no surprise, he was probably already halfway through his run across Okhema. Mem was sprawled across the couch with one arm hanging dramatically over the side, a snot bubble rising and falling in time with her snores.

Stelle rubbed her eyes. “You—” she started, words sticking in her throat, “you cooked? For me?”

“That’s usually how breakfast works, yes.” He plucked a grape off the bunch and popped it into his mouth.

What the hell was happening?!

Stelle’s not one to complain about free food, but this? This was weird, man. Weird in a nice way,  her brain unhelpfully supplied, and she decided that she was not going to entertain such a thought. 

“Phainon,” she said slowly. “Nobody’s here. You didn’t have to do all of this,” she said, gesturing to the tray on her nightstand. “The boyfriend stuff, I mean.”

Phainon only shrugged, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

“I know,” he said simply. “I’m doing it as a friend.”

She looked at him— really looked— and noticed the details she might’ve skimmed over otherwise. The pancakes were stacked evenly, every layer aligned. The juice glass was spotless, not a single fingerprint. Even the grapes were arranged in a neat little crescent, as though he’d thought about balance on the tray. For someone usually so clumsy, she didn’t expect this kind of attention to detail.

But food was food, regardless of presentation. The room smelled faintly of citrus now—fresh from the glass—and she realized she was hungry enough to eat the napkin. She pulled the blankets off, shifting to sit at the edge of her bed.

“Thanks,” Stelle muttered, picking up her fork and knife. 

She stabbed the fork into the top pancake. The knife slid through clean; steam lifted. She cut a corner, blew on it out of habit, and took a bite.

‘ Good’ was an understatement. Stelle had no idea that pancakes so thin could be so fluffy. They melted in her mouth. It was sweet, but something more than that– something bright that made the honey taste round instead of flat. She did not make a sound, because she had pride, but something must have happened to her face because Phainon looked deeply satisfied with himself.

“Good?” he asked, proudly crossing his arms.

Stelle, her cheeks stuffed with the fluffy pancakes, made a series of sounds that were intended to be words but came out as muffled noises instead.

“Thank you,” he said, delighted.

It wasn’t long until Stelle dug into the second pancake. She barely had time to breathe as she continued to stuff her mouth, inhaling the food like she hadn’t eaten in days.She barely noticed how quickly she was cutting through the stack until Phainon chuckled.

“Partner, slow down.”

She froze with the fork halfway to her mouth and smudges of honey around her lips. Then she took a breath she hadn’t noticed she needed and lowered the fork. “Sorry,” she said. “They’re just so good.”

Phainon hovered a second like he was deciding whether to sit, then pulled over the chair from Dan Heng’s desk, turned it backward, and rested his forearms along the top. There was flour at the base of his thumb, a faint dusting he’d missed. A tiny dark mark on one knuckle—burn, maybe, or a brush with a hot pan. His white hair was a little chaotic, like he’d run his hands through it on the way over and didn’t care enough to fix it. 

Phainon smiled to himself, propping his head up on his hand. “Mom used to make them when I got back from working in the fields. She said the honey helped relax your muscles. That might be fake science.”

Honey ran toward the edge of the plate; she cut across it with her fork so it wouldn’t drip. “What’s in them?”

“Ground almonds instead of some of the flour,” he said. “Lemon zest. You can do orange, but lemon is better. Cardamom if you want to be fancy. I didn’t, because I couldn’t find the jar I stole from Mydei.”

“Of course you lost it.” She shoved another piece in her mouth to avoid accidentally asking questions like ‘ how do you know your mom’s recipe by heart?’ or ‘ how many times have you made this for the people you care about?’ or ‘ why are you like this?’. She chewed, scowled at nothing, and chewed again.

“You know,” Phainon said after a long while, “If you like them, I can always make them for you anytime.”

Stelle lifted her gaze from her food to meet his eyes. She froze, fork hovering halfway over the plate. He seemed genuine about the offer. Yet, he said it like he’d already decided he was okay with this becoming a habit.

“You’re gonna regret offering that,” she said, trying to sound flippant.

“We’ll see.”

The food was too good to dwell on anything else for long. She finished most of the stack without realizing how much she’d eaten, only slowing down when her stomach gave the first small warning signs. She pushed her plate back, glass now half-empty, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“So,” she said, words muffled slightly because she hadn’t waited long enough after swallowing, “what’s the plan today?”

“Sparring,” he said, as if he’d already decided.

She raised a brow. “Sparring?”

“It’s been a while since I’ve trained properly,” he explained. “And I need to stay sharp. I’d usually ask Mydei, but he’s busy today.” Phainon shrugged. “He said something about helping Hyacine test her medications on him.”

Stelle tried imagining it– Hyacine, pink and sparkly, tapping Mydei on the head with her magic wand. She could see the battle hardened man sitting crosslegged and stoic on the grass as bubbles drifted around him. She almost wished she could be there to witness such an occasion.

“So, wanna join me?” Phainon said, tilting his head. “Unless you’re scared, that is.”

“Please.” She rolled her eyes, tossing the fork onto the empty plate. “I’ll knock you flat before you even pick up a blade.”

“We’ll see,” he said, standing smoothly. He reached for the tray and began stacking the dishes, his movements as precise as when he’d carried them in.

She watched him carry the tray toward the door.  He didn’t have to do this. He didn’t have to do any of this. But he had. Something twisted in her chest. 

“Phainon,” she said, before he could open the door.

He looked over his shoulder. The morning light really did flatter him, making his gaze look kinder, his face softer. Even with his hair slightly messy, he never looked unpresentable. Maybe it was the way he carried himself, with his unabounding love for this world, that made him fit so perfectly in it. She wished she could bottle up the way he looked at her and hide it under her pillow, a small gesture only she could be privy to. Stelle bit the inside of her cheek. 

“You missed a spot,” she said, and pointed to the flour on his thumb.

He glanced down, huffed, and scrubbed it away on the side of his shirt.

When he reached for the door handle, Stelle piped up once more. “Hope you’re ready to get your ass handed to you.”

He shot her a grin over his shoulder. “Hope you’re ready to eat dirt, partner.”

“Where should we meet?” she asked, wiping her mouth again with the back of her wrist. “Gardens? Training yard?”

“Training yard,” he said. “Less crowd. Ascent hour?”

She checked the slant of light against the wall, not a clock. “Yeah. Noon’s good.”

The door clicked shut behind him, leaving the room quiet. The faint smell of honey still lingered, and the sunlight had shifted just enough that the curtains glowed faintly around their edges. Stelle dragged a hand down her face, standing up to grab her clothes off the back of the chair Phainon had sat in. She dropped her jacket onto the bed, and held the rest of her clothes in her arms.

From the couch, Mem’s voice floated up, quiet but cutting through the stillness. “Stelle…”

Stelle froze with her clothes in hand. Mem’s tone was soft, full of pity in a way that made her teeth grit. She didn’t want that—not from Mem, not from anyone. She held up her free hand sharply. “Please. Don’t say it.”

For a second, she thought Mem might push anyway. The quiet stretched, long enough that Stelle started to feel the weight of it in her chest. Then Mem exhaled, a long sigh that seemed to deflate into the couch cushions.

“Alright,” Mem murmured. “I won’t.”

The silence that followed wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t hostile either. Stelle ducked behind the bed to get dressed, tossing her pajamas back onto the bed when she was finished. She shoved her foot into the boot and tugged on the laces a little harder than necessary, as if cinching them down could quiet the strange tightness that had been following her since breakfast.

She pulled her jacket from her bed, shaking it out before slipping it over her shoulders. The fabric was still cool to the touch. She was almost at the door when Mem stirred again.

“Wait,” Mem said.

Stelle paused, one hand on the handle. “What?”

“You got a teleslate message while you were sleeping.” Mem sat up just enough to fish around in the pile of blankets, producing Stelle’s phone. “I didn’t open it—swear—but I saw the header. The Daily Dromas wants an interview with you tomorrow.”

She stared at Mem for a long second, then dragged a hand down her face. “Of course they do,” she muttered.

Mem tilted her head, watching. “You’re gonna do it?”

“I don’t have a choice,” Stelle said, voice muffled by her palm. “If I ignore it, they’ll just print whatever the hell they want anyway.” She let her hand drop, eyes narrowing. “Why did I think fake-dating was less exhausting than just… ignoring all of it?”

Mem didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

Stelle tugged her jacket tighter, tugged at the collar like it might keep the world out. “I’ll deal with it,” she said finally. “One thing at a time. Right now, I’ve got a sparring match to win.” 

Her tone was sharp, but her movements weren’t. She looked more tired than annoyed as she picked up her phone and slid it into her pocket. She moved to the door, opening it.

Tomorrow's problem, she told herself firmly.

“Stelle,” Mem said one last time, softer now.

Stelle stopped in the doorway, not turning around.

Mem tilted her head, watching as Stelle paused with her hand still on the knob. “You sure you’re okay?”

“No,” Stelle said bluntly. She forced a wry smile, the kind that looked steadier than it felt. “But I’ll handle it.”

Mem’s eyes softened, but she didn’t say anything else.

Stelle stepped into the hallway. 

Xx….o….xX

By the time Stelle pushed through the palace’s side gates, it was past noon, the light sharp on the stone, shadows cast short and dark. She tugged her jacket a little tighter, hoping it made her look less like someone who’d overslept.

Phainon was already there. He was stretching his hamstrings with the kind of patience that drove her insane. Arms overhead, fingers interlaced, spine long—then down to one ankle, then the other. A water bottle sat at the base of the wall with a towel folded beside it. He had opted to shed his jacket, instead wearing the tight-fitted black shirt he kept on underneath it. Stelle hadn’t seen him wear it before, but it certainly made clear the physical benefits of fighting with a greatsword as tall as she was. It was deeply flattering, to say the least.

“You’re late,” he called without looking over.

“Barely,” she said, and checked the sun just to be difficult.

He straightened, rolled his neck, and finally turned. Sweat slicked his hairline already from the warm-up. He smiled like he’d expected her exactly now. “I hope you’re ready to lose.”

Stelle snorted and shrugged her jacket off, tossing it against the wall. It slid to the floor.  “You forget I’ve fought actual emanators. Planet-annihilating monsters.”

“Yet here you are,” he said, stepping towards the center of the yard with the unhurried walk of someone giving her one last chance to back out, “about to lose to me.”

She met him in the middle, boots knocking up dust. “Talk less.”

“Convince me.”

She didn’t bother answering. She dragged her hand through the air, summoning the familiar weight of her bat. It appeared in her grip with the same low hum that had carried her through more battles than she could count. 

She gave it a test swing once, twice, felt the pull across her shoulders, the old rhythm slotting back into place. When she looked up, Phainon was watching her with open amusement, the kind that said he’d already clocked fifteen mistakes she hadn’t made yet. She grit her teeth.

“Rules?” he asked.

“Don’t stab me,” she said.

“Don’t break my ribs,” he returned, then turned and picked a training sword from the rack—bladed but dulled. He rolled his wrist once, testing the balance, then brought it up in an easy guard that put the edge angled away, his stance narrow and light.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Finally,” she said, and stepped in.

They opened simple—testing range, testing timing. He flicked the sword tip toward her hands and she slid the bat up to meet it, the wood knocking against dull steel with a satisfying clack. A ring of dust leapt from the ground under her lead foot. He circled left; she matched; he prodded down at her knee; she hopped out and answered with a horizontal sweep meant to check his balance, not take him out. 

“Your stance,” he said as they reset, “is atrocious.”

“My stance,” she said, “is just fine.”

“It’s sloppy,” he said, amused, and retreated two steps to pull her into the lane he preferred.

The weapons clashed, their clattering echoing across the empty yard.

They traded blows. She caught his wrist once and felt the tendon pop under her thumb as he broke free. He clipped her shoulder on a turn hard enough to sting. Breath got louder in the space between hits.

“You’re dropping your left when you sidestep,” he said, and punctuated it by snapping a quick thrust at that exact gap.

She jerked the bat vertical and caught it on the barrel. “Stop coaching me.”

She stopped talking. Talking wasted air. She worked instead: feet first—heel-toe, heel-toe—cutting the circle the way Dan Heng always told her to, never crossing, knees soft. She made Phainon chase the wrong signals. Twice he didn’t buy it. Once he did. She carved across his guard and felt the bat block clatter into his blade and drive it aside, the opening bright for a single beat—she went for it and he rotated his hips and let her momentum pull him past.

“Clever,” he said.

“Shut up.”

She reached for his ankle again and nearly got it; he skipped and laughed under his breath. She hated that it made her want to laugh too. 

“Relax your wrist,” he said, sword kissing the bat and ghosting away before she could trap it. She lunged with a particularly heavy attack. Phainon blocked it, but she pushed hard, causing him to stumble back.

“Stop teaching me while you’re losing,” she shot back as she drove him back three steps with a combination that would have landed if he didn’t know her well enough.

Murmurs started up on the far side of the yard. She ignored them. A few palace staff had slowed at the wall to watch. Spectators had a way of materializing when two people as famous as they were just wanted to live their lives.By the time she noticed faces—two familiar palace guards, one of yesterday’s bath attendants, and a Dromas keeper– there were at least a dozen of them.

Phainon clocked the spectators without moving his head. “So,” he said, “what would your loyal fanclub like to see?”

“My bat in your ribs,” she said.

Stelle tuned the crowd out. Or tried to. The bat felt good, honest. It always did. She let herself lean into that—simple mechanics, force traveling through bone to steel to air.  

Phainon tried to bait her into her favorite low sweep with a bit of lazy footwork. She took a step toward it out of habit and stopped because she hated being predictable. He saw the abort, grinned, and in the same breath changed his angle and drove for her shoulder with a short, ugly burst that was less heir and more field. She let the bat take it, felt the hit rattle through her arms and into her spine. He took the time to swing forward quickly, and she barely sidestepped, hissing curses under her breath. 

“Language,” he said.

“Eat dust,” she said, and obliged him with a swing that kicked enough dirt to sting his ankle.

They broke for exactly three breaths. Neither said it was a break. They took it anyway. She rolled her shoulders and let her jaw unclench. He shook his wrists and his mouth set into a line that said: okay.

As much as she hated to admit it, he was right about her stance. She tweaked it. Lowered her center. 

“Eyes up,” he said a minute later when she got too focused on his hands.

“I know,” she said, eyes up.

A clean clash—bat to blade—sent a bruise into the heel of her palm.

They both started to feel it. His shoulders dropped an inch lower with each step. Her calves lit up when she had to explode forward. Water became more important; words less. He stopped critiquing; she stopped retorting. 

An hour had ticked away. Maybe more than that. The shadows from the training rack had doubled in length in the meantime. They’d kicked up enough dust to sting their eyes in the fray. The crowd had grown to a number Stelle didn’t care enough to count. 

He pressed; she answered. She pressed; he parried. They were both heaving, sweat dripping down their backs. Stelle surged forward, this time determined to end this. Launching herself off the ball of her foot, she lunged, only to change direction and swing low. However, Phainon pivoted, bringing his blade down to knock her bat to the side. She stumbled, then fell, her bat clattering against the ground. 

It was over.

They both heaved.

Phainon towered over her, triumphant. Against the wall, the eyes of the now silent observers bore into her. Only then did she realize how many were watching. Faces in layers. 

Phainon didn’t pump a fist or point at his own chest. He didn’t gloat. He just let the dust settle between them. Then he reached out a hand for her.

It was steady. Not tentative. Not the kind of hand you offered someone you were worried would refuse and make you look stupid in front of a crowd. A hand like a step you’d already decided to take. Something reliable. Solid.

She looked at it longer than she needed to. Then she took it.

He hauled her up in a way that respected the fact she didn’t need hauling. She let herself use it anyway. It was soft but calloused, warm in the way that sunlight was. When she stood, the noise at the rail finally resolved into what it had been building toward for the last ten minutes: applause, scattered at first, then gathering into something that sounded like approval rather than gossip. It wasn’t a stadium roar. Just a lot of palms hitting a lot of other palms in a space that made echoes. 

Heat crawled up Stelle’s neck. Her grip loosened on Phainon’s hand because it had done its job, and because she suddenly felt skinned by attention.

“That’s it, everyone,” she called, too bright. “Thanks for coming. The show’s over. Any tips can be dropped off at my door. I only accept cash.”

People started to break off in twos and threes, the way crowds do when the reason to stand there is over. It was a slow shuffle out, people talking amongst each other in a low murmur.

As the space around them emptied, the yard refilled with its usual sounds—footsteps, distant voices, a door closing. Stelle rolled her shoulders and walked over to pick up her bat. She weighed it in her hands before finally letting it vanish, her palm remembering its weight a second longer than necessary. She didn’t realize how loud her breathing had been until it was the loudest thing left.

“Good match,” Phainon said again, softer, as if the first one had been for the crowd and this one was for her. Sweat ran in a line down his temple and broke at his jaw; his chest rose and fell in a hard rhythm he wasn’t hiding.

“No it wasn’t,” she said.

He huffed something like a laugh and reached for the water. He took a long drink, throat bobbing, then held the bottle out. “Share?”

“Please,” she said, and took it without another word. The mouthpiece was still wet from him; she ignored it and took two long gulps, the water so cold it shocked her teeth. She wiped her lip with the back of her wrist and handed it back. He didn’t wipe the mouthpiece before drinking again, which she noticed and filed away because noticing seemed to be her hobby now.

They stood in the thin shade for a minute, doing the small things—loosening straps, rolling wrists, catching breath. The crowd had gone. The few who remained were far enough away to not be noisy.

She rolled her shoulders. “You went hard.”

“So did you,” he said, not praising, just stating it like a fact.

“Still lost,” she said, because calling it herself took away the sting.

“You made me work,” he said, and the way he said it felt like a more important fact.

She rubbed the back of her neck, before reaching forward to interlace her fingers and crack her knuckles.

“Why the sword?” she asked finally, eyes on the ground between her boots.

He tipped his head like he was deciding how to answer. “Because I like it,” he said, simply.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” He took another sip, capped the bottle, and spun it lightly by the neck. “When I was a kid, we had three wooden blades for the whole village. The headsman kept them in the storehouse so we wouldn’t break them on each other and do double damage—splinters and bruises. I volunteered to sweep the storehouse so I’d have an excuse to take them out.” He looked faintly guilty and faintly proud of younger-him at the same time. “When I wasn’t in the fields, I’d go behind the granary and set up straw dummies. Someone cut an old rope into pieces for me so I could tie arms on the dummies and pretend they moved. I’d come home with blisters and straw in my hair, and my mom would always scold me.”

“Did it pay off,” she asked, and her voice came out softer than she meant. “All of that?”

He laughed, a small sound that didn’t get past his teeth. “I guess so,” he said, and the words were honest enough to land without wobbling. “I’m not swinging at straw anymore.”

“You’re swinging at me,” she said dryly.

“Upgrade,” he said with a warm smile.

“And the village?” she asked. “What did they think about you’re adventures?”

“They told me to study,” he said, rolling his shoulders. “A few of the elders would say ‘the best heroes read.’ Others would say ‘the best heroes don’t exist, so maybe get good at something else.’” He met her eyes. “Both were right.”

“You listened to neither.”

“I listened to both badly,” he said, and laughed at himself. “I did my homework and then hit the dummy until parting hour. Then I’d sleep like the dead.”

She could see it if she tried: the patch of dirt behind a house; a boy with a too-long wooden sword cutting lines into the ground; a mother pretending not to see from the kitchen; a father sanding a splinter out of a handle while telling him to stop swinging in the house; the neighbors rolling their eyes and then bringing over old cloth for bandages when he inevitably scraped himself raw.

She swallowed, pulling on her jacket.  “I’m telling you. It paid off.”

He made a face like it didn’t sit right. “How?”

“You just made me work for an hour,” she said. “You can pull your hits and still make them count. People watch you fight and don’t feel scared; they feel like they’re watching something practiced. And you learned it in a field with a bad wooden sword and straw dummies.” She shrugged. “It’s stupid to call that anything but what it is.”

“What is it?” he asked, cautious.

“Being a hero,” she said, dead on.

He barked a laugh, startled and embarrassed, and shook his head. “I guess so,” he said, like he didn’t quite believe it, and also like maybe a part of him wanted to.

“Don’t get weird about it,” she said.

“I won't.”

Xx….o….xX

They decided to take the long way back—down the palace steps, across the sun-warmed plaza, into the Marmoreal market where the day thinned into evening. If they were doing this stupid “public couple” thing, they might as well get the exposure. Luckily for Stelle, Phainon didn’t lead the way this time. He stepped back, letting her explore.

Stelle stopped at the first table of snacks like she’d been magnetized. She reached for a triangle of dried flatbread and the vendor flicked a paper napkin toward her with a practiced snap.

“Triple-baked,” the woman said. “Pita chips. Sea salt and oregano… Or the chili if you’re brave.”

Stelle snagged a salted one and bit down. It shattered loud and clean, salt blooming across her tongue. “Oof,” she said, delighted in a way that felt embarrassingly obvious. “That’s good.”

Phainon leaned in, amused. “Are you going to carry a bag of those around like a squirrel?”

“Absolutely,” she said. The woman weighed out a paper sack of each, folded the tops tight, and tied them with string. Stelle tucked the warm little bags into the pocket of her jacket like contraband as she exchanged the currency needed to make her purchase.

Two stalls down, trays of dried fruit glowed like stained glass: Sagelore slices the color of amber with their ringed seeds intact, sticky apricot halves, tight coils of candied lemon peel. The vendor held out a slice of Sagelore on a pick. “Try,” he insisted.

Who was she to say no? She bit down. It was sweet.

Phainon took one politely, chewed, nodded, and then looked at Stelle to see what she thought before he decided if he liked it. She pretended not to notice the check-in and asked for a small paper envelope of the stuff. 

The lane bent. A chalkboard announced AMBROSIA SHOTS in big letters, with a row of squat glass cups lined up. The woman behind the counter wore a headscarf and the unblinking expression of someone who had been asked too many questions and just wanted to go home.

“What’s in it?” Stelle asked, peering at the golden liquid.

“Honey, citrus, crushed root,” the woman said. “Recipe’s ours. Good for the road. Non-alchoholic. Good for the bones. Good if you fought someone in the yard and want to walk tomorrow.”

She said it without a smile. Phainon’s mouth twitched anyway.

Stelle pointed. “Two.”

They knocked them back together. It wasn’t liquor; more of a cider than anything. Heat moved down the throat, then bloomed across the chest. 

“Okay,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her wrist, “I get the hype.”

Phainon just hummed.

All of it was easy—too easy—until a voice cut from behind them, pitched cheerful and loud enough to carry over the clink of glass.

“Phainon! Young lord!”

He turned automatically, shoulders relaxing. “Theodoros!” he called back, and the sound of his voice when he said the name told Stelle this wasn’t a stranger. There was familiarity in it. He lifted his chin toward a stall halfway up the lane where a young man with brown hair and a blue sash stood under a string of hanging amulets.

Theodoros spread his arms like a host greeting a favored guest. “I was about to send someone to drag you here.”

Phainon glanced at Stelle, a quick check for permission. She caught it, appreciated it, and made it easy. “Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll catch up.”

“You sure?”

“I’m going to stare at food and make some poor economic choices,” she said. “You have five minutes.”

She let herself wander—not aimless, but pretending she was. The act worked on the crowd, too; the minute she looked like she had somewhere unimportant to be, people noticed less. She stopped at a tiny stand where a grandmotherly woman sold paper cones of spiced nuts. She bought one and used the heat of the packet to warm her fingers. Next, a table with little glass bottles—cordials, the label said, one with a tiny sketched pomegranate, another with something that looked like a star. She held one up to the light and watched syrupy legs crawl down the inside of the glass. Not bad.

The wine stall wasn’t fancy. No marble, no glass case. Just dark bottles with handwritten tags and a clerk who looked like he’d been bored since sunrise. She asked for something “Good and cheap,” and the clerk obligingly nudged a mid-range bottle across the counter.

“Table red,” he said. “Easy. Won’t argue. A good deal, too.”

“Perfect,” she said, and paid. The bottle was cool in her palm and heavier than she expected. She pictured it later—night, quiet, the door shut, the first glass unclenching parts of her head that had been sealed for days. Not a plan. A possibility. She slid the wine into her bag and adjusted the strap so it didn’t clink against her hip. She’s sure she’s used up the little funds she had left to buy all of this, but she couldn’t care less.

She could hear Phainon’s voice again before she saw him. Theodoros had him near the center of the stall, gesturing at something on the table while Phainon nodded thoughtfully. The table wasn’t antiques; it was a rummage of jewelry and charms—strings of beads, small carved charms, a brass bell with a nicked rim.

As Stelle stepped up, Theodoros turned and lit like a lantern. “Ah! And this must be your lovely girlfriend I’ve heard so much about.”

It didn’t hit like it would have yesterday. She’d had practice now. Stelle stuck her hand out first. “Stelle,” she said, steady. “Nice to meet you.”

Theodoros’s shake was warm and dry, his palm callused from work. “You handle the market like a local already,” he said approvingly. “You eat?”

“Constantly,” she said, and lifted the cone of nuts as evidence.

“Good,” he said. “Hungry people tell the truth.”

Phainon made a faint choked noise that might have been laughter, might have been terror.

On the table in front of Theodoros, a shallow wooden tray held a pair of beaded bracelets. Not high-end jewelry. Simple things. Strung glass and stone with one charm hanging from each: a glass sun on one, and a silver moon on the other. The beads themselves were a mix of dark blue and warm amber with a few off-white stones like ivory. 

Theodoros saw where she was looking and moved a finger to stop her in place. “Couple charms,” he said. “Old custom. You buy them together, two parts of one thing, you each wear one. Sun and moon. Balance.”

Stelle felt her mouth prepare a refusal on muscle memory.

Phainon had already reached for his coin pouch.

“Wait—” she started.

“I’ll take them,” he told Theodoros, easy, like he was buying an apple. He didn’t even haggle, which told her everything she needed to know about why Theodoros had called to him in the first place.

“Good taste,” Theodoros said, pocketing the coin. “Genuine glass, not the brittle cast. Cord won’t fray. If it does, you bring it back and I’ll retie it. Family guarantee.”

He slid the pair into a small cloth bag and passed it across the counter. Phainon didn’t put the bag away. He pulled the ties loose right there at the table, tipped the pair into his hand, and took half a second to think.

Then, without saying anything, he turned and pressed the sun charm into Stelle’s palm.

It surprised her. Not the buying. The choice. The charm was warm from his hand—tiny weight, cool edges, the stamped rays a little rough under her skin. The cord was soft. She felt the urge to close her fist around it before any of the onlookers could see the expression on her face.

“Why did you—” she started.

Phainon raised his brows. “You’re my girlfriend, aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” she said, exasperated despite herself as she remembered Theodoros was still in front of them. “But why give me the sun and keep the moon? Shouldn’t it be reversed? You’re the bringer of dawn and all that.”

He shrugged. “They’re a pair. They’re meant to remind you of the other half.” He lifted the moon charm and let it swing once from his finger, the silver catching the light. “I’ll keep the moon. It’ll remind me of you. You keep the sun. You get a piece of me to take with you. See?” Stelle followed with her eyes as light glinted off the moon charm as he held it up to the sky.

“That’s so sappy,” she blurted.

Theodoros looked very pleased with his work. “Wear them,” he said sternly. “On the wrist is fine. Belt loop if you hate jewelry. The trick is you don’t put them in a drawer. They’re not supposed to be secret.”

“Right,” Stelle said. “Of course.” She didn’t move to tie it on immediately. She slid the charm into her jacket pocket, feeling the cord drag gently across her palm.

Theodoros’s eyes had that particular shine people got when they thought they were part of a story. “You two make a good picture,” he said, not in a creepy way, just as a man pointing at a scene and naming the composition. “I’ll tell my sister I sold the first of the new batch to the dawn boy and his outlander.” He grinned at Phainon’s expression.

Phainon shook Theodoros’s hand again with real gratitude in it. “I’ll come back for the bell.”

“It’s waiting,” Theodoros said, and raised two fingers in a short salute as they stepped away.

They walked without talking for a bit. The charm in Stelle’s pocket felt more present than its size should allow, like it had claimed a corner of her attention and was sitting there quietly, content to be heavy. She was tempted to pull it out and actually look at it, away from other eyes. Instead, she focused on walking. The wine bumped gently against her hip. The paper cones of chips crackled when her jacket brushed them.

Phainon glanced sideways. “If you hate it—”

“I don’t,” she said, too fast. She cleared her throat. “I’m just… pocketing it. To keep it safe.”

Phainon looked at her for a moment. She met his gaze, and she could’ve sworn she saw something strange behind those ocean blue eyes of his. It was gone before she could think too hard about it.

“Ready to go?”

Stelle nodded.

A pair of kids ran past, feet slapping, one with a ribbon trailing from his hand like a comet tail. Their keeper yelled after them and then gave up, watching them vanish into the crowd with resigned fondness. The market was clearing out, slowly but surely. ‘

She stopped under an awning to adjust her bag—really to give herself cover. She reached into her pocket and brought the sun charm out into the light. Up close, it wasn’t perfect. The glasswork was slightly crooked, a few bubbles frozen in time within the shard. The beads weren’t uniform; a few were chipped. It looked like something you wore, not something you kept in a velvet box. She liked it more the longer she stared at it.

“Try it,” Phainon said, and offered his wrist, bare. “I’ll go first. If it looks stupid, you can eat the cord.” In his other palm, he offered the moon bracelet for her to put on him.

“Do not tempt me,” she said, but she wrapped his anyway—two loops around, a firm knot under the silver crescent. It sat snug against his skin, the moon charm resting against the inside of his wrist where the pulse beat. It looked right in an annoying way.

He lifted his arm and rolled his wrist to test the fit. “Not bad.”

She swallowed. 

He held his palm out for her, open. She hesitated exactly one second too long and then gave him her left wrist while fishing in her pocket to pull out her sun charm. He didn’t fumble. He wrapped the cord with ease—two even loops, firm knot, ends tucked so they wouldn’t snag. The sun charm settled against her skin with a weight that felt bigger than it was. 

“There,” he said, satisfied.

Stelle turned her wrist palm up, then down. The charm flashed once in the slant of light. If she pressed her thumb alongside the edges, she could feel the tiny ridges of the rays. It would be impossible to forget it was there. It was warm in the same way as the hand he offered her after the sparring match. That irritated her. It also did something strange in the center of her ribs—like a hand closing gently over a noise and telling it to take a breath.

“Too sappy?” he asked, quiet.

“Yes,” she said automatically. “... but it’s okay, I guess.”

They started walking again. She kept her hand near her side so the charm didn’t swing and announce itself to everyone within three steps. It still caught the eye of a passing auntie, who smiled in that infuriatingly approving way that made Stelle want to turn into a puddle.

“Wine?” Phainon said, noting the bottle neck poking out from her inside jacket pocket.

“For later,” she said.

“Emergency rations?”

“Something like that.”

“We can open it tomorrow night,” he said. “If you want.”

She clicked her tongue. “You’re making a lot of plans for someone who ‘ doesn’t need to do this because no one is watching .’”

“I’m doing it as a friend,” he said, in the same tone as the morning. She hated that she couldn’t argue.

They cut out of the food lane and back toward the wide steps that climbed to the palace. The market noise tapered to a hum behind them. The charm brushed her wrist bone with each swing of her arm until it stopped feeling like a foreign object.

She raised her wrist and looked at the sun again. “If this thing breaks,” she said, “I’m blaming you.”

“If it breaks,” he said, “we take it back to Theodoros and he fixes it. Family guarantee.”

“That wasn’t the point,” she said.

“I know,” he said, gaze steady. “It still stands.”

The Garden of Life was quiet by the time they wandered back. The last of the visitors had filtered out; the keepers had done their rounds and left the chimera to curl into themselves along the grass. The dawn device had shifted to parting hour, its light dialed down to a softer wash that took the edge off the stone and left everything a shade gentler than daytime. You could hear small sounds again—water moving in the fountain, a leaf scraping the path, the rustle of fur down in the shrubs.

They didn’t talk on the way in. They didn’t need to. The day had been full enough. They leaned on the railing at their usual spot, the same stretch that gave a clean view of the lower lawn. The metal felt cool under Stelle’s forearms. Her wrist brushed against the sun charm when she moved, another reminder that it was there.

“I forgot to tell you,” Stelle said suddenly. “Daily Dromas emailed. They want an interview with us.”

A look of surprise flashed across Phainon’s face. He angled his body toward her a little, enough to listen without crowding. “When?”

“Tomorrow.”

Phainon nodded before looking out at the Chimeras once more. A few had started to curl up with each other, lazily batting their paws back and forth. 

“We should figure out what to say.” She watched two chimera chase each other in slow, lazy loops. “Or at least what not to say.”

“We can prep in the morning,” he said. Calm, like always. “No need to rehearse a script. If we sound like we wrote lines, it’ll feel unnatural.”

“They’re going to push us.” She didn’t mean it as defeat. Just fact.

“They will,” he agreed. “So we make it boring to dig. Answer what we can answer. Don’t lie. Don’t give them new toys.”

Stelle exhaled slowly. “You make it sound easy.”

“It isn’t,” he said. “But we’ll be naturals.”

“Are you capable of being nervous,” she asked, looking at his profile. “About anything?”

“Plenty,” he said. “Just not you and me answering questions about breakfast places and whether we hold hands.”

Conversation thinned out after that. The lawn hummed with small life. Someone far off—one of the late-shift attendants, maybe—crossed a path and disappeared behind a hedge. A chimera rolled onto its back and scratched along the gravel until its paws gave up and flopped.

Phainon pushed off the railing first, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “I should go get ready for bed,” he said. “Do you know what time the interview is?”

“Not sure yet. Mem only saw the request flash across my slate. She didn’t open it.” Stelle exhaled.

“Well, don’t forget to text me when you find out.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

He turned, started to step away.

Stelle’s body moved before her head did. She reached out and caught his wrist.

The shock of it hit her a second later. She didn’t hold on hard, just enough that the silver crescent on his cord pressed against her thumb. His skin was still warm. He stopped immediately, not jerking, just looking down at her hand and then up at her face.

For once in her life, she struggled to form words. Her mouth opened once, closed, opened again. She swallowed and heard it. “Thank you,” she said, rougher than she intended. “For breakfast.”

Something flickered in his eyes—quick and unguarded. He didn’t smile. He didn’t look away. He just let himself be seen for a breath, the surprise and the something else under it. Confusion? Appreciation? Acknowledgement? She couldn’t put a finger on it. But what she did detect was a visible hitch in his breath.

She let go like she’d been caught doing something she wasn’t allowed to want, and the moment faded. “I guess I owe you one,” she added flippantly, dragging this conversation back to somewhere safer. 

It seemed to work. He laughed softly, not the public kind, just the small one that belonged to here. “Anytime,” he said. He lifted his hand a fraction, as if to show her the moon charm and make a joke about it; then he seemed to think better of it and just let his wrist fall. “Goodnight, partner.”

“Goodnight,” she said.

He left across the flagstones, steps unhurried. She watched until the shadow took him and then looked back down at the lawn. The chimera had settled into a pile, tails twitching. The fountain kept doing what it always did.  She stood there until the parting-hour light shifted one notch darker and the air got cold enough for her to shiver.

Mem was awake when she pushed the door open, propped against the couch arm with a blanket over her legs, Dan Heng's phone glowing cold light across her face. Her ears twitched in greeting. Dan Heng wasn’t visible; either he’d retreated to the balcony to sleep or he was in a chair behind a book, indistinguishable from the furniture.

“You’re late,” Mem said, not accusatory, just observant.

“Got distracted,” Stelle said, kicking off her boots by the door. She set the wine on the low table and the paper cones of chips beside it. “Here. Brought some stuff back.”

Mem’s eyes lit up. “Chili?”

“Don’t eat all of them,” Stelle warned.

Mem accepted one cone with both paws like a sacred object. She sniffed theatrically, then popped a chip and fanned her tongue. “Incredible,” she declared, faking dramatic tears. “So?”

“So?”

Mem tilted her head. “How’d it go? The market? The sparring? The ‘not murdering anyone’?”

“Fine,” Stelle said, tugging at the knot on her wrist. “We’re getting better.”

Mem’s gaze slid neatly to the charm. “Oh,” she said, and she didn’t do the whole squeal-and-point routine. She just took it in. “That's new.” She did smile teasingly, though. Stelle should’ve known she wouldn’t have gotten off scot-free.

“Vendor sold ‘couple charms,’” Stelle said, feigning disinterest. “Phainon bought them before I could say no. He kept the moon.”

Mem’s mouth did a thing—something between a smile and a sigh. “Sun suits you.”

“Don’t start,” Stelle said with a groan. She picked at the knot. It was tight but not impossible; he’d tied it with practical hands. After a minute of plucking, she got it loose and slipped the cord off. The small sun rested against her palm for a second like it had weight again.

She crossed to her bed and set it on the nightstand, just above the line where light from the window cut across the wood. It looked wrong there the first second—too intimate for a table that held a water glass and the knife she kept out of habit. Then it looked right. Like it was meant to be somewhere she’d see when she opened her eyes.

Mem watched, too quiet for Mem. When Stelle sat down to tug her hair tie loose, Mem finally said, “You two are getting good at this.”

Stelle made a noncommittal sound.

“Maybe too good,” Mem added, like she couldn’t stop herself.

Stelle blew air through her lips and flopped back onto the mattress, arm thrown over her eyes. “Don’t start, Mem.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Mem replied, wounded. “I made an observation.”

“Observe less.”

Mem clicked Dan Heng's phone off and set it aside. The room dimmed a step. “Daily Dromas pinged again,” she said. “Confirmed time. They’ll send a coach.”

“Phainon said we’d prep in the morning.” Stelle rolled onto her side to face the table. The charm caught the small light and gave it back in a thin line along one ray. “Keep it simple.”

“Keep it simple,” Mem echoed, wary. “Don’t let them box you into hypotheticals.”

“I know.”

Mem considered her, and for a change she didn’t follow up with a lecture or a set of laminated notes. “You look tired,” she said instead.

“I am,” Stelle said, and it felt better to say it out loud.

“Sleep, then.” Mem tucked the blanket up around her own shoulders. “I’ll set an alarm.”

“Don’t you dare set it to that stupid ass car horn sound.”

Mem deflated. “But it's funny!” she protested. Alas, such pleas fell on deaf ears. Under no circumstances would Stelle allow her small companion to subject her to such an annoying wake-up alarm. Not if she had anything to say about it, at least.

There was a little shifting in the doorway; Dan Heng appeared with a cup in his hand, as if he’d been standing just out of sight listening to determine whether he needed to intervene. He nodded at the charm on the nightstand, neutrality painted neatly across his face. “New,” he said, which was apparently as much commentary as he was going to offer.

“Don’t you start either,” Stelle muttered into the pillow.

“I wasn’t starting,” he said mildly. “I was just observing.”

He retreated, footsteps quiet. Mem snorted, then yawned herself, enormous and unselfconscious. “Okay,” she said, halfway to sleep already. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Stelle agreed.

She reached for the bedside lamp, plunging the room in darkness. She lay on her side and stared at the shape of the charm on the nightstand until her eyes blurred. She tried not to think about breakfast. She tried not to think about his wrist under her hand. She tried not to think about the way his eyes had changed for just a second when she said thank you.

It didn’t matter if she succeeded. The charm sat where she’d put it. It would be there in the morning. That was enough for right now. She pulled the sheet up to her chest and breathed slowly. 

If anyone had asked, she would’ve said they were doing what they had to do, nothing more. She would’ve been stubborn about it. But alone in the dark, with the hint of metal catching the last spill of hallway light and the day finally done, she let herself admit one small thing she wouldn’t say out loud: the thank-you had been overdue. And it had landed. It meant something.

She closed her eyes around that. Sleep took its time coming, but it came.

Notes:

i swear to god when i find the person responsible for not making them kiss in this fic already they'll pay.....

Chapter 5: Day 4

Summary:

They were two stalls past the ring toss when the smell of grilling meat hit again. Phainon’s head turned like a dog’s at a whistle.

“Don’t you dare,” she said.

“What,” he said, already veering. “I’m hungry.”

“You ate.”

“I ate dinner. This is a festival. Different stomach.”

“You’re just a fatass.”

“I’m a growing boy,” he said with such stupid confidence she wanted to push him into a barrel.

“You’re twenty-five.”

Notes:

emanators of voracity the both of them damn

Stelle’s morning started like most mornings do for her– Chaos. Oh how she longed for the day she can awake to morning sunlight streaming through the blinds, illuminating her room in a peaceful, romantic manner. But alas, this is not the life of a trailblazer such as her.

 

“Stelle. Stelle. Wake up— I’m so sorry— please don’t kill me— wake up.”

 

Stelle groaned and burrowed deeper into the blanket. She reached for her phone without opening her eyes and didn’t find it. Mem shook her again.

“What,” Stelle mumbled into the pillow.

“The interview is earlier than I thought,” Mem blurted. “We have an hour.”

That was one way to get her attention. “An hour—” The sentence didn’t finish. Her body did it for her. She shot upright so fast the room tilted. 

“Fifty-six minutes,” Mem corrected, eyes huge. She frantically floated around Stelle, clearly stressed. “I misread the time slot. It was listed in palace schedule notation and I— it doesn’t matter. I sent Dan Heng to fetch Phainon. We told him to meet us at the gardens. They’ll do the interview there.”

“Mem.” Stelle blinked hard, trying to force her brain to line up. The night came back in fragments: Garden of Life. Thank you for breakfast. The way she’d reached for his wrist without thinking. The charm on the nightstand. “We—there’s no time to prep. We didn’t prep.”

 Stelle swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. The floor was cold. Her body reminded her of yesterday’s spar with a full-body ache; her calves protested; her shoulder ached. She staggered three steps toward the dresser and dragged the top drawer open. 

“You said gardens?” Stelle said, her brain finally kicking into motion.

“Yes. Garden of life, north side,” Mem said, quickly flitting to float next to her. “They’re setting up a table. I messaged the interviewer and told them we’re already on route,” she said, waving Stelle’s phone in front of her. They'll delay five, ten minutes if needed, but—”

“Don’t count on it,” Stelle said. She yanked open the wardrobe. The usual options stared back at her: two shirts that looked like they’d gotten dragged through the mud, a clean one, three pairs of skirts that looked the exact same, her jacket,and the white dress she’d snagged from Aglaea’s shop because she’d liked the cut and then immediately stuffed into the back and never planned to use.

She grabbed the white dress and held it up to herself. She couldn’t remember the last time she had worn anything other than her usual getup. It was simple. Above the knee. Sleeveless. A high collar. It would photograph well, and that thought annoyed her enough that she almost stuffed it back again. Stelle reached for a shirt instead, but caught sight of herself in the mirror—sleep hair, pillow line on her cheek. She looked like total shit. She shoved the shirt aside.

“It’s just for the interview,” she told herself, out loud. She didn’t look at the charm on the nightstand. She unhooked it, fast, slipped it into the small pocket inside her jacket before she could think about it.

She stripped and pulled the dress over her head. Cool fabric fell into place, mercifully forgiving. She smoothed the hem with both hands and fought the urge to second-guess. Dressing up always felt like a waste of time. She’d rather spend that time bashing in voidrangers with her bat.

Mem appeared at the bathroom door with a fist full of makeup sticks and a hair tie clenched between her teeth. “Sit,” she said around the elastic. Stelle groaned.

Stelle sat on the edge of the bed because arguing would waste time they didn’t have. Mem slapped a cool wipe across her face, dabbed something under her eyes, tapped color back into lips and cheeks with quick, light touches. It made Stelle feel itchy.

“You don’t have to—” Stelle started.

“I know,” Mem said. “But if we can make you look not-homeless, we will. Look up. No, not that far. There.”

Stelle watched Mem work reflected in the mirror: brow furrowed, tongue pressed to her cheek in concentration. There was no triumph in it. Just focus.

“Boots,” Mem said instead, tossing a brush at the bed. “I’ll do the back of your hair.”

Stelle reached for her heeled boots and jammed her feet in, cursing when the left refused to cooperate with the angle she was trying. She stood, stomped her heel into place, almost twisting her ankle in the process. Stelle winced as she felt the hairbrush drag through her knots. 

“Done!” Mem clapped her paws together. She handed Stelle the hair tie, and the latter quickly tied her hair into a high ponytail.

“Jacket,” Mem said, thrusting her signature black-and-yellow baggy jacket into her arms.

Stelle slid her arms into the sleeves and felt the weight settle across her shoulders like a familiar argument. She zipped and unzipped once to make sure the front lay flat. She checked the pockets: charm tucked inside. Wine receipt crumpled. She tossed the receipt into the bin– Last thing she wanted was for it to fall out and for everyone to think she was a raging alcoholic.

Mem hovered uncomfortably.

“If they try to corner you with a personal question, pivot to the flame chase. If they ask how you met, don’t tell them about how Phainon stole your bat and broke Dan Heng’s spear—“

“Mem,” Stelle said, hand up. “We don’t have time to rehearse. I’ll handle it.”

Mem nodded fast, swallowed, and—quietly—“Sorry again.”

“Stop apologizing and grab the keys,” Stelle said, softening it with a look. “We need to go.”

They were halfway to the door when she caught herself in the mirror one more time. The dress made her look like a person she didn’t usually let out. It annoyed her how much she didn’t hate it. She pulled the jacket tight to fix that. 

“This is stupid,” she muttered, twisting the strap of her bag across her chest. “This is exactly how people end up humiliated in the media.”

Mem grabbed her friend’s phone and handed it to her as she pushed open the door.

Xx….o….xX

The north gardens weren’t empty anymore. A camera rig had been wheeled in, cords snaking across the stone, a sound tech fiddling with levels while the host smiled at nothing in particular. She could’ve never guessed Amphoreus had this kind of technology.Stelle adjusted the lapel of her jacket again, trying to will her nerves into silence. 

Then a voice called her name.

She turned—and nearly lost it right there.

Phainon jogged toward them, his hair half-tamed like he’d only shoved a hand through it once, a piece of toast hanging absurdly from his mouth. He looked like someone who had been shaken out of bed and sprinted here without a second thought. Yet, as soon as his eyes landed on her, his whole face lit up, like none of that mattered. He waved to her, beaming widely.

He pulled the toast from his teeth long enough to smirk. “Oh… so that’s the dress you save for big moments.”

Heat rushed to Stelle’s face before she could help it. “Shut up before I choke you with your own breakfast.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, still grinning around the crust of bread.

Dan Heng appeared behind him, as steady and quiet as always. “They’re almost ready for you,” he said flatly. “The interviewer will be here in a minute.”

Stelle groaned under her breath. “Perfect.”

Mem had already made herself scarce, thank the Aeons. She was probably circling with the producers, trying to negotiate angles and questions. Stelle envied her. At least Mem could leave when this imploded.

Phainon leaned against the railing beside her, still chewing like nothing was amiss. He looked irritatingly relaxed, like this was another stroll through the market, like they weren’t about to be grilled by the most-read paper in Amphoreus.

Stelle shot him a sideways glare. “Do you take anything seriously?”

His eyes softened, and for a second his smile faltered. “I do,” he said. “But if I start showing it now, you’ll panic. Better one of us acts like it’s fine.”

She didn’t have a comeback for that.

The interviewer approached them, flanked by two assistants. The woman’s blonde hair gleamed under the artificial sunlight, her smile honed into a weapon of comfort. She carried a notebook tucked against her side, pen already poised.

“Stelle. Phainon,” she greeted brightly. “So glad you could meet us. We’ll keep this quick, I promise.”

Dan Heng shifted just enough for Stelle to catch the look he shot at her: the resigned look of a man already preparing to watch a disaster unfold in real time.

They made them wait fifteen minutes while the crew did the last-minute shuffle.They were seated at two chairs with a small coffee table between them. The chairs faced each other at a flattering angle with the Garden of Life blurred prettily behind them. An assistant handed them two glasses slick with condensation—iced tea with slices of lemon—and a little plate of butter cookies on the low table. Stelle made quick work of the cookies, dropping crumbs all over her dress.

The reporter settled opposite them at last, a bright, unthreatening presence in cream. Her smile lived in the space between sincere and practiced. “Thank you for meeting us on such short notice,” she said, stylus poised above her slate. “I promise to be gentle.”

“Appreciated,” Phainon said, sounding like he believed it.

Stelle forced a small smile and took a sip of the tea. Cold, tart, distracting enough to buy two seconds.

“Let’s start simply,” the reporter chirped. “How did you two meet?”

“Ruins,” Stelle said.

“Market,” Phainon said, cleanly over her.

They both stopped. The reporter’s eyebrows climbed half an inch. A boom mic drifted closer, like a curious fish. They had fumbled immediately.

Phainon cleared his throat. “Ah—ruins near the market,” he amended, nodding with excessive confidence. “There was a… small misunderstanding. She hit me with a bat.”

“You deserved it,” Stelle said; the shovel was already in her hands, she might as well dig an honest hole.

The reporter’s smile widened. “Wonderful. Colorful beginnings! Now, first impressions. What did you think of each other that day?”

“Annoyingly clingy,” Stelle said before she could stop herself.

“Beautiful,” Phainon said, without a heartbeat’s hesitation.

Stelle choked on the iced tea. The reporter made a delighted sound that might have been legally classified as a squeal. “Oh, that’s adorable,” she breathed, scribbling.

Stelle coughed into her fist, trying not to look at Phainon’s face, which was carefully neutral in the way of someone who had been a bit too honest.

“And when did you realize it was more than friendship?”

This was the first truly dangerous curve. Stelle’s brain blanked. Never, it wanted to say, which was not the plot. She darted a look at Phainon.

He leaned in, chin propped on one fist, entirely too composed. “When she finally admitted she liked bossing me around.”

The host gasped, delighted. “Spicy! We won’t unpack that.” She winked at the camera. Stelle’s foot found Phainon’s ankle under the table and pressed. Hard. He didn’t flinch, which made it worse.

“Next,” she said, clicking her pen, “what do you love about each other the most?”

Stelle opened her mouth. Her panic grabbed the wheel. “He… has nice hair?”

A cameraman coughed. Dan Heng, stationed behind the camera, pitched the bridge of his nose, his eyes shut tight.

Phainon, unflappable, leaned in just a fraction. “She has the strongest heart I’ve ever met,” he said, tone soft enough not to sound like a line. “She doesn’t quit. Not when it’s hard. Not when the odds are stacked against her.”

Heat climbed up Stelle’s neck so fast she had no defense. Stelle stared at him. The reporter stared at her.

“Wow,” she breathed, delighted. “There’s our pull-quote.”

Stelle’s face burned. She took another sip she didn’t need. The tea was suddenly too sweet.

The reporter flipped to the next page. “Okay. Love languages?”

Stelle blinked. “What.”

“Words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, gifts, touch,” she rattled off. “Pick two.”

Phainon considered. “Acts of service,” he said, glancing at Stelle in a way that made the morning’s pancakes flash in her skull. “And quality time.”

Stelle swallowed. “Not gifts.”

The reporter noticed the moon charm on Phainon’s wrist when he lifted his glass. She nodded towards it.  “Oh, that’s lovely,” she said, pouncing with a practiced blink. “Matching?”

Stelle’s hand twitched toward her jacket pocket. “They were a gift,” Phainon said, smoothly non-specific. “Sun and moon. Balance.”

“Wearing yours?” the reporter asked, tilting her head at Stelle, who suddenly hated the invention of jewelry.

“In my jacket,” Stelle said, neutral. “Didn’t want it to catch the mic.”

“Practical,” the reporter said. “And where was your first kiss?” Her tone was all brightness, as if she hadn’t just lobbed a grenade.

Silence. The lens seemed to lean closer.

Phainon’s mouth opened like he might invent a place; nothing came out. Stelle felt every gear in her head strip at once. Mem, floating behind the camera, made a frantic slashing motion near her neck.

“We—” Stelle began, then pivoted midair. “We like to keep some things private.”

The reporter took that in, filing away the lack of answer. “Of course. “Nicknames?”

“Partner,” Phainon said.

“Unfortunately,” Stelle muttered.

“First date?” the reporter pushed, relentless but still cheerful.

“Breakfast,” Phainon said.

“Not a date,” Stelle corrected.

The reporter’s smile didn’t falter. “Most romantic moment so far?”

Stelle considered: the market, wine, laughter. The garden at parting hour. The way his fingers had closed around her wrist in the corridor before she fell. She went with something safe. “He makes good pancakes.”

“Golden honey cakes,” Phainon said, as if adding specificity would earn him brownie points.

“How do you handle conflict?” She asked. “Real question.”

“We stop before we say anything we can’t take back,” Phainon said, nodding thoughtfully.

“Or we hit each other with padded sticks,” Stelle said.

Across from them both, the woman scribbled down some notes.

“Okay,” the reporter said, cheerful again. “Lightning round. Ready?” She didn’t wait for consent. “Morning person or night owl?”

“Night,” Stelle said.

“Yes,” Phainon said, which earned him a laugh.

“Public displays of affection: yay or nay?”

“No,” Stelle said, too sharp.

“Occasionally,” Phainon offered, a diplomatic bandaid.

“Finally,” the reporter said, settling back, “where do you see this relationship going?”

The question hung for a beat that turned into two, then three. Stelle’s mouth went dry. She glanced at Phainon. He glanced at her. Their earlier bravado evaporated like mist. We did not plan for this.

Fuck.

“Uhh—” Stelle started.

“…” Phainon contributed eloquently.

Stelle’s stomach rumbled.

“Dinner,” Phainon blurted. 

Stelle blinked. “Dinner?”

“We’re going to dinner,” he said, straightening like that had been the plan all along. “After this. That’s where it’s going. Next.”

Xx….o….xX

“Dinner? Seriously?!” Stelle flung her arms up.“She asked us where the relationship was going, and you said dinner!? That doesn't even make sense!”

Phainon wilted instantly. His smile slipped into something uncertain, his shoulders folding inward. The picture of a kicked puppy—ears down, tail tucked. “I was hungry too, okay?” He rubbed the back of his neck, cheeks faintly pink. “And it’s no big deal. They’ll love us anyway.”

The faint glow from the dawn device caught on his hair, giving him an annoyingly angelic outline.

Stelle pinched the bridge of her nose, muttering something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like unbelievable. The cafe around them bustled with the soft chaos of the early dinner crowd. The waiter had set down a jug of water for them to fill their own glasses.  Phainon poured water into her glass before touching his own.

“They’re going to spin it into a headline,” she said finally. “‘Chrysos Heir Phainon Equates Love With Dinner.’ That’s going to be your legacy.”

“Better than starving.”

Before she could retort, a server slid plates onto the table—stuffed vine leaves, two orders of roasted fish with herbs and potatoes, and baskets of warm bread. Steam curled invitingly from every dish, and Stelle’s anger lost a little of its bite when her stomach growled on cue.

They dug in without restraint, both too hungry to pretend at table manners. Sometime amidst their shoveling, the waiter returned to place two side salads on the table.

Between mouthfuls, Phainon tilted his head, considering. “It didn’t go that badly, you know.”

Stelle gave him a look sharp enough to cut the fish in half. “We contradicted each other, fumbled questions, and you basically confessed to liking it when I boss you around.”

“They saw what I see,” he said simply, shrugging one shoulder as if that were enough of an explanation. “That’s what matters.” Stelle could swear there was red on his cheeks. 

I liked the part,” he said around a mouthful of fish, “where you threatened me on camera.”

“Which time?”

“The book,” he said, grinning. “Beating me over the head with a book. That was my favorite.”

“You deserved it.”

“Apparently,” he said cheerfully.

They drifted into easy talk, the way people do when the worst part of the day is over and food is in front of them. He told her how Dan Heng burst into his room that morning, and how he had never seen the man stressed before. He recounted, with dramatic flair, the sprint from his rooms to the garden with toast clenched in his teeth. She snorted into her water and he looked unreasonably pleased.

“You have food on your face,” he said suddenly, and before she could swat his hand away, he leaned across the table and brushed his thumb along her cheekbone, catching a fleck of herb. The move was thoughtless, automatic—a friend fixing a friend. He rubbed his thumb against his napkin, sat back down. She didn’t comment. Her pulse did a weird little jump.

New normal, she thought, and tried not to look at it too hard.

She stole a roasted potato from his plate while he was distracted refilling their water. He saw her hand and let it happen. No attempt to slap her wrist, no territorial huff.

“I thought you’d get mad,” she said, chewing.

“About what.”

“Stealing.”

He shrugged, golden and guileless. “We’re friends after all.”

The word should have slid off. It didn’t. It sat there between them, simple and clean. She took another potato to have something to do with her mouth.

“You’re going to eat all of those,” he observed, delighted.

“Nuh uh.”

“Yes huh.”

She licked lemon from her thumb, realized that drew his eyes, and pretended she had an urgent text to read that did not exist. He took the hint and started telling a story about Theodoros trying to sell him a bell etched with a constellation that was actually a stain. She laughed in the right places and found herself relaxing enough to admit a thing she would have swallowed yesterday.

“I tried today,” she said, low. “With the dress. I wanted to look… good.”

He looked at her for real then, the joking stripped out. “You don’t have to try.”

“I know what I look like most days,” she said, deflective. “Crumpled jacket. Scuffed boots. Eyebags. Mem says I look homeless.”

“Sure,” he said. “And you look good.”

She waited for a laugh, for the little spin that would allow her to toss the compliment back without touching it. It didn’t come. He stayed there, steady, not teasing. “You always look good,” he added, quieter. “Dress. Jacket. Boots. Messy hair. Doesn’t matter.”

The sentence landed in her chest and hit a switch she didn’t know was there. She didn’t have a defense ready that wouldn’t feel cheap.  Heat pricked the back of her neck so fast she had to look away. The space between them changed shape. Not bigger. Not smaller. Denser, like the air in a room that had just been closed. She could feel his eyes on her, dissecting her reaction.

“Okay,” she said finally, eloquent as a brick.

He nodded like they’d concluded a business transaction. “Okay.”

They both looked down at their plates in the same instant, the food suddenly complicated and fascinating. She chased a bean around with her fork. He cut his fish into precise, unnecessary squares.

When the server returned to clear plates, he lingered in that way servers do when they have a recommendation they’re schooled to deliver exactly once per shift. He smiled as he stacked the dishes. “If you’ve still got time tonight, you should check out the festival by the palace gates,” he said. “It started this afternoon, but it’s best after dark. Lights, music, dancing—it’s beautiful.”

Phainon perked up instantly, like someone had dangled a treat. “Festival?” He turned to Stelle, eyes bright.

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t look at me like that.”

His grin widened anyway.

The waiter left them with the bill and another smile. Phainon covered the cost without saying anything, sliding coins across the table. Stelle tugged her jacket tighter, her hand brushing the sun charm hidden in the pocket.

“Please?” He pleaded, looking absolutely pathetic. His pleading face and its effectiveness should be studied.

“Fine,” she said. “But if you say ‘date,’ I’m going home.”

“Not a date,” he said, easy. “Just dinner going… somewhere.”

“Don’t start.”

He put his hands up: fair.

They stood. He reached for her jacket out of habit and held it while she slid her arms in. The sun charm pressed against her wrist through the lining, a small, steady tap she couldn’t shake. When she turned, he was already at the door, holding it with his foot, waving her through. Somewhere, music was already starting—faint drum, a line of melody pulled taut like a string. The gates would be lit by now; the first lanterns would be up; the crowd would be thick enough to disappear in.

“Five minutes,” she reminded him.

“Five,” he agreed, and fell into step at her side.

Xx….o….xX

The festival at the Marmoreal gates was already underway when they reached it. Lanterns bobbed from tall poles and from strings knotted between pavilions, their light warm and steady like small moons against the darkened sky. Children ran everywhere with ribbon wands and sparklers that hissed faintly when they passed; a chimera in festival collars ambled along, snuffling at fallen pastry. Stalls were set up in rows that led all the way to the Dromas’ Workshop. Musicians tuned in a cluster near the steps, one plucking at a lute, another testing a drum with the heel of his hand.

Phainon pulled her quickly out of the way of an overeager customer. The crowd was thick– Not too thick, but enough that you’d have to navigate with some sense of purpose. Someone laughed. Applause erupted from a different side of the street– Most likely a result of a street performer’s set.

“Okay,” Phainon said, taking it in like it was his job to be delighted. “Five minutes.”

“Maybe five,” Stelle corrected, but she was struggling to hide her smile.

The first game stall they passed was one of those cheap rigs you could feel in your joints: a heavy bag hanging from a chain with a slate above it that promised to calculate your “strength index.” Someone had painted tiers on the board—Twig | Sturdy | Granite | Titan—with a little cartoon showing a stick figure flexing. A teen in a festival vest was taking people’s coins, resetting the bag, and yelling out numbers with the devotion of a town crier.

Phainon steered that way like it had called his name. “Come on.”

Stelle eyed the queue and smirked. “What, you need a public measure of your masculinity?”

“I need to see if I still have elbows,” he said, paying for two tries before she could stop him. “And you—” he gave her a look that was equal parts fond and annoying “—will top out at Sturdy. Maybe Granite if you stop scowling.”

“You’re incredibly brave today,” she said. “Do your little test.”

He stepped up first. The teen swung the bag gently to kill its motion and backed away. Phainon set his feet, rolled his shoulders like the yard had taught him, and snapped a straight right. The bag thudded back on its chain; the slate flickered and spat out a number. The teen whooped: “Ninety-one! Granite! One more!”

“Ninety-one,” Stelle said, unimpressed. “My turn.”

Phainon lifted both hands in surrender and stepped back. “Please, Miss Twig,” he said. “Set the record.”

She ignored the stance lectures she heard in her sleep. She didn’t wind up. She just let her weight drop into her hips and drove her fist through the bag like it had insulted her boots.

The chain screamed. The slate stuttered, skittered through digits, and then the little lights all lit at once and a tinny horn went BEE-ooop! The teen stared like he’d witnessed a small crime. “Uh… one hundred,” he said, voice cracking. “Titan. That’s the… that’s the top.”

Someone behind them clapped. Someone else tried to pretend they hadn’t flinched. Phainon put a hand over his heart, wounded to the point of comedy.

“I stand corrected,” he said solemnly. “On all fronts.”

“You doubted me,” she said, pleased in the way that felt petty and pure. “Apologize to my bat.”

The teen recovered enough to offer a prize token. “You can trade it for a small thing,” he said, pointing to a bin of keychains. “Or keep it for bragging.”

Stelle eyed the bin and the token and put the coin back into the kid’s hand. “Buy some water,” she said. “You’re about to lose your voice.”

The teen blinked, surprised into gratitude. “Thanks.”

They drifted on, Phainon making a point of looking at the slate every time they passed another rig like he was personally offended by its scale.

“Don’t worry,” Stelle said. “You have other talents.”

“Like?”

Stelle opened her mouth, and then closed it. Being a good fake-boyfriend was what immediately came to mind, but that felt too weird to say out loud. Instead, she opted for an easier option: “Making damn good puppy eyes.”

He accepted that with a nod so grave she snorted.

A ring-toss booth sat under a banner painted with cheerful coloring: WIN A FRIEND! The prizes were a ridiculous menagerie—all sorts of plush animals. The rings themselves were thin rope coated in something tacky, meant to catch on the necks of glass bottles arranged in a tight grid.

Stelle stopped and planted her hands on her hips. “Behold,” she said. “Skill.”

Phainon glanced at the prize wall, then at her. “You’re going to fail spectacularly.”

“I’m going to win you something embarrassing,” she said, already throwing coins on the counter. “And you’re going to have to carry it through the crowd.”

The attendant slid her five rings. Stelle turned sideways, tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, and focused like the bottles were insultingly smug. The first ring landed on the neck, slid down, and hit the tabletop with a sad clatter. The second bounced off the lip. The third somehow ricocheted off two bottles and committed to rolling under the booth. The fourth did a beautiful arc and then popped off at the last possible second because physics is a hater. The fifth… well, she missed her own lane.

Phainon waited exactly until the last ring hit the boards to make noise. Then he made a sympathetic face that didn’t even attempt to be convincing. “So brave,” he murmured. “So close.”

“Shut up,” she hissed. “You try it.”

He paid for one toss. One. The attendant raised a brow like he’d seen this movie before.

Phainon didn’t stage a whole production. He just held the ring like it was part of his hand, picked a bottle that wasn’t in the front row, and sent the ring in a lazy, ugly arc that should not have worked. The ring caught, hesitated, and then settled like it had been meant to be there.

The attendant clapped twice. “Big prize,” he said, and gestured up.

Phainon scanned the wall, skipped the obvious choices, and pointed… at the stuffed seal. It was oversized without being monstrous, with stupid little flippers and a dopey stitched smile. The fabric was a soft gray; the weight of it looked like something that would be ridiculous to carry and comforting to hold.

He took the seal with both hands and immediately turned and offered it. “For you.”

Stelle recoiled like he’d tried to hand her a baby. “Absolutely not. I’m not a charity case.”

“It’s not charity,” he said, baffled and amused. “It’s a seal.”

“I can’t carry that. I’ll look ridiculous.”

“You’ll look like someone with a seal,” he said. “Classic look.”

“You carry it,” she said.

“I won it for you,” he countered.

“Then win yourself one.”

The attendant watched this exchange with the haunted expression of a man trapped in a very silly argument. “You can trade down for two smalls,” he offered tentatively.

“Absolutely not,” both of them said in unison.

Phainon shifted tack. He tucked the seal under his arm, like you’d carry firewood, and tried to hand Stelle a flipper. “Hold it for me while I tie my boot.”

“You’re not even wearing laces.”

“Metaphorically.”

She stared him down for a full five seconds. Then she sighed in defeat and grabbed the seal by the neck like a cat. “Five minutes.”

“Five minutes,” he agreed, beyond pleased with himself.

They merged back into the current. A few unbothered kids pointed at the seal. One very small chimera waddled over to sniff it, decided it wasn’t edible, and sneezed.

“Congratulations on your new child,” Phainon said.

“You’re paying child support,” Stelle said.

They were two stalls past the ring toss when the smell of grilling meat hit again. Phainon’s head turned like a dog’s at a whistle.

“Don’t you dare,” she said.

“What,” he said, already veering. “I’m hungry.”

“You ate.”

“I ate dinner. This is a festival. Different stomach.”

“You’re just a fatass.”

“I’m a growing boy,” he said with such stupid confidence she wanted to push him into a barrel.

“You’re twenty-five.”

The skewer stall ran a compact operation—three grills, a dozen sticks across each, fat flicking fire, a line that moved with gratifying speed. The vendor had that fast rhythm in his hands that comes from a hundred nights of the same motions. He looked up, clocked Phainon, and then forced his face back to neutral professionalism.

“Two beef, one chicken,” Phainon said before Stelle could choose.

“And a veggie,” she added, purely to be contrary.

The vendor’s brows furrowed. “Three beef, one chicken, one veggie,” he repeated, and his assistant was already turning sticks, brushing them with a glossy sauce that smelled like ginger and char and something smokey.

They paid and stepped aside to wait on a churn of flattened cardboard where drippings wouldn’t make the stone slick. Phainon watched the process like it was a lesson. Stelle adjusted the seal under her arm and gave in to curiosity.

“What are you staring at,” she asked.

“Every one of his turns is the same length,” he said. “He’s keeping the heat even so the center doesn’t—”

“I regret asking.”

The vendor handed over the skewers wrapped in paper. Phainon immediately passed one across. “Here.”

She accepted it without protest.The veggie one crackled—mushrooms, peppers, a square of something she couldn’t name that had eaten sauce like a sponge. The first bite burned her tongue just enough to swear softly under her breath and keep going. He noticed, wordlessly shifted his own skewer, and nudged the one without obvious chilies toward her. She pretended not to see the exchange only to mirror it anyway a minute later—sliding him the spicier one because she didn’t think her tongue could take much more.

The fireworks crew started their work—one, two, three pops that were more announcement than show, sending a little shiver across the plaza. Bright lights bloomed in the sky, the embers sparkling before blending back into the black sky.

“Crowd’s going to double in five,” Phainon said.

“We were going to leave in five.”

“We’ve been here for—” he checked the moon charm out of habit and then laughed at himself— “a little more than five.”

“Close enough.”

They walked the long side of the ring, letting themselves be pulled to the edge where crowd was thinner. A small boy with a wooden sword whacked Phainon in the calf and ran away. Phainon yelped, laughed, and then made an exaggerated show of being mortally wounded until the boy’s dad scolded him and the boy shuffled back to tap the sword against Phainon’s shin in apology. Phainon knelt to the kid’s height, showed him how to hold the grip with both hands and tuck his elbow. The dad beamed. Stelle rolled her eyes.

“Stop being nice,” she said when he rejoined her.

“No,” he said, stealing a bite off her skewer with terrifying precision.

She let him, mostly because she was busy making sure the seal didn’t get sauce on its dumb face. 

The first real fireworks went up just then—the test pops giving way to a low boom that shivered in her sternum. The sky cracked open into white, then gold. 

Phainon tipped his head back to watch. Stelle tracked the first two volleys. It was fine. It was pretty. It was loud.

By the third, the noise had gotten painful. Not just the fireworks—the layer of people below them, the clatter of vendors, the too-bright chatter of a hundred people. It wasn’t bad. It was just… a lot. The seal had turned into a whole arm. Her ears started to ring. Her head hurt.

Phainon noticed before she said it. He always did. He looked down, not up, and watched her jaw rather than the sky. “Too much?”

She delayed half a second out of stubbornness. “Little,” she admitted.

He angled his body so anyone behind him would have to work to read her face. “Want to bail?”

She exhaled. “Yeah.”

Phainon nodded his head to the entrance to the city. The musicians had since cleared out, leaving ample space for them to make an escape. Stelle glanced down at the seal in her hands, and then shrugged. She grabbed the shoulder of a nearby kid– Startling her– as she shoved the oversized stuffed toy into her arms. She muttered something like a ‘here you go’, eager to get this off her hands. The girl’s eyes sparkled as she looked up to Stelle to thank her, but the pair had already disappeared back into the crowd.

“Balcony at the Marmoreal Palace?” he offered as they made their way to opposite of the gates

She looked up at the streaks and then back at the dark curve of the palace. Somewhere quieter was the only thing that sounded like an actual reward. “Balcony,” she said.

“Five minutes to get there,” he noted, as if she’d said five minutes only. “We’ll still count this as ‘festival’ if we can hear the last fireworks from the rooftop.” 

“Works for me.”

They chose to relocate to the marble railings at the edge of the Marmoreal palace, where small streams trickled into the empty outdoor pools.The bathhouse was mostly empty now, no doubt due to the activity happening on the other side of the holy city.  Down below, the festival was still in full swing—music pulsing, fireworks bursting against the artificial night—but up here, the noise was a soft hum, distant enough to feel like it belonged to another world. 

Two round cushions sat waiting near the edge of the pools, positioned to give a wide view of the city and the sky. Stelle dropped onto one, brushing back her hair, and gestured at Phainon to stay put. “Wait here.”

“Suspicious,” Phainon said, but he didn’t move. He leaned back on his palms and tipped his face toward the sky, the neck volley of fireworks lighting his face for a second and then letting it go.

Stelle jogged up the steps two at a time, cut through the corridor, and let herself into the room long enough to fish the wine bottle from where she’d stashed it under the bed. It was still cool from the stone floor. On impulse she grabbed a corkscrew from the drawer—then realized the cork was a stubborn wax-sealed kind and jammed the screw in anyway, working it out with violence fitting for a warrior.

Phainon was exactly where she’d left him when she came back—legs stretched out, arms braced behind, the moon charm catching occasional light. He turned his head when he heard her footsteps and smiled.

“You came prepared,” Phainon said, grinning as she sat back down.

“Hardly,” she said, twisting the cork free. “But desperate times, right?”

She took the first swig, the wine sweet and heavy, and passed it across. He didn’t hesitate before drinking. For a moment they just sat like that, shoulder to shoulder, passing the bottle back and forth while bursts of color bloomed across the sky.

They let the silence sit for a minute. Another spread of fireworks went up—three white fountains, a gold palm, a crackling ring that dissolved into sparks before it could fall. The reflection hit the pool and broke into fish-scales of light on the tile.

When she looked back down, Phainon wasn’t watching the sky. He was watching her with that open, unguarded attention he got when he forgot anyone might be looking. It put too much electricity in the air.

“What,” she said. “Is there something on my face?”

“No,” he said, too quickly.

She let that sit. “Then stop staring.”

“Working on it,” he said, and found somewhere else to look: the sky, the pool, his own wrist where the moon charm sat against the pulse.

She held out a hand for the bottle. He surrendered it without games. They passed it back and forth like kids at a sleepover.

“So.” She set the bottle between them for a second. “We bombed so badly I’m surprised she didn’t just walk out.”

“Nah,” he said, and she hated the immediate gentleness in it because it worked. “They loved it.”

“You’re delusional.”

“Couples never sound that genuine unless they’re lying through their teeth,” he said. “We sounded like two people telling the truth badly. It reads.”

She made a face that meant he might not be wrong and that fact was annoying. “You were smooth.”

“I panicked less,” he said. “It’s not the same thing.”

He tipped the bottle and drained a thin mouthful. The fireworks cracked, briefly washing his face in white. He nodded at her and handed it back.

“You know what else?” he said. “I haven’t seen you in a dress before.”

Stelle rolled her eyes so she wouldn’t have to have a feeling. “Don’t start.”

“I’m not starting,” he said, hands up. “Just observing.”

“I wanted to look the part,” she said, quickly. “For the interview.”

“You did,” he said. “That’s all.” Phainon turned his face away from her, careful to hide his expression.

“Don’t make it a thing.”

“I won’t,” he said, and meant it. He could be infuriating that way—deciding not to take advantage of an opening you’d assumed he would, letting the moment lie there like it didn’t need to be turned into leverage.

Another round. The music below came and went under the boom. Stelle picked at the label on the bottle and couldn’t quite get an edge.

“…You’re not half bad at this,” she said finally, grudgingly. “Pretending.”

He laughed under his breath, not trying to make it sting. “Funny.”

“What?”

“Half the time,” he said, quieter, “it doesn’t feel like pretending.” Phainon’s eyes softened with something gooey and unfamiliar.

The sounds from the festival seemed to drop out for half a second, like someone had cut the wire to the speakers. Stelle felt that little truth land and refused to say ‘same’ even though the word knocked against the back of her teeth like it wanted out. She looked down at the bottle and made a very elaborate business of turning it to read the label as if that information might save her.

Silence again, but not empty. She could hear the water kiss the tile, the distant stutter of a snare, someone far below laughing too hard at a joke they’d tell badly later.

“You know,” she said, surprising herself with the softness in her own voice, “out of everyone, I’m glad I’m doing this with you.”

He didn’t immediately try to turn it into a joke. He didn’t press. He just breathed out once, steady. “Me too,” he said.

They sat in that and didn’t move. It would have been easy, sitting like that, to say something you couldn’t take back. The words lined up on the inside of her mouth—You know, if this weren’t fake——and then she let the rest of the sentence burn up before it cleared her lips. It would only complicate everything. It would be unfair. It would be true in a way that would make tomorrow awkward.

She took a bigger swallow of wine than was reasonable.  Phainon held his hand out and she passed the bottle back to him. He took a large swing too, and she watched his throat bob as he wiped his lips.

The warmth in her bones settled into something low and steady. “I’m surprised you haven’t gotten sick of me,” she said, not fishing, genuinely curious about his stamina for other people.

He didn’t even let the question land. “Not possible.”

“You don’t have to be nice all the time.”

“I’m not,” he said. “I’m honest.” Stelle reached for the bottle and took another sip, smaller. 

“That’s worse.”

“Sorry?”

“Don’t be,” she said, and realized she meant it. “It’s just… ridiculous.”

“The whole thing?” he asked.

“The whole thing,” she said. She waved the bottle in a wobbly circle to indicate the night, the city, the stupid seal, the rumor machine, all of it. “Us. This. The plan.”

“Yeah,” he said, and the agreement did more to steady her than any argument would have. “But maybe… not all bad ridiculous.”

She chewed the inside of her cheek, then: “Don’t say things like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ll start thinking you mean them.”

He stared at the pool for a second. When he spoke, it was quiet and not aimed at her like a dart, more like a thought he’d let escape because he’d forgotten to hold it. “What if I did?”

Stelle felt the floor drop a fraction. Not a plunge. A lift of weightlessness that made her aware of every place her body met the world. She stared at the line of light along the pool’s edge and told herself she was not going to answer that. She didn’t know the rules if she did.

She swallowed. Her throat went tight. “Then you’re worse at this than I thought,” she said, aiming for light and missing. She put the bottle down between them and let her fingers hold on to the neck until the shake in them stopped.

“Maybe,” he said. She couldn’t read him like this. Maybe it was the poor lighting, or something about how his voice carried something disgustingly sweet that scared the hell out of her.

They sat like that for a while, not looking at each other. The bottle made its way back and forth when it needed to. 

The next round of fireworks rescued her by being weirdly loud. A scatter of silver sparkles chased each other and then stitched themselves into a burst. 

They passed the bottle again, and Stelle downed the remaining wine. She propped her chin on her hand and let her eyes do half the work of staying open. The alcohol had softened the hard corners of the day to something her head could stand. Her muscles had cooled enough to stop shouting. The cushion under her hips felt like a very good idea someone had had on purpose.

“You’ll fall asleep sitting up,” Phainon said after a while, sounding more fond than bossy. “Your neck will hate you.”

“M’ neck already hates me,” she said, the words slurring at the edges more from softness than from the wine. “It can get in line.”

He made a small noise. She ignored it and inched her elbow closer to his sleeve because it was there. Her chin slid off her palm; she caught it, then didn’t. The second tilt landed her temple against his shoulder.

He went very still.

She stayed that way, eyes on the horizon, because moving would be making a decision and she didn’t have a spare for that. His shoulder was warm. The jacket did its job. She felt his breath in the fabric before she felt it anywhere else.

“You can—” he started, then stopped, and adjusted without moving. “I’m not going to move,” he said instead.

“Good,” she said. Her voice had that thick edge that comes before sleep. She didn’t care. It was better than the knife edge of earlier. “Don’t.”

He shifted just enough to make the angle better for her neck, a small roll forward and back, then the slightest lean toward her so gravity would do the rest. He didn’t put an arm around her. He didn’t put a hand anywhere. He set himself and let her decide what to do with the space, terrified to shatter this sacred moment.

“Wine thief,” she mumbled into his sleeve.

“Food thief,” he said. “We’re even.”

The fireworks went toward their last fever—booms overlapping, the sky refusing to go dark between them. 

Her eyes shut again. She knew there were things inside this moment that would require naming later. She could name none of them right now. She liked the thought that morning would arrive whether she figured it out or not. She was tired of thinking, of feeling, of losing every moment of her life to prying eyes and her own fear.

“You okay?” he asked, not for the answer so much as to give her a way back if she needed it.

“Mhm,” she said, which could be yes, could be a placeholder.

He let his head tip half an inch toward hers without letting it touch. “You’re going to be hungover tomorrow,” he said quietly. Stelle shushed him.

“Don’t make me talk,” she said, already losing the thread.

He smiled. “Okay.”

The finale finally came to a close. The smoke drifted and made a thin fog over the plaza lights. People clapped.The music stumbled and then picked up something slower.

Phainon reached for the bottle with his free hand and capped it with the cork she’d left stuck halfway. On the rim were lipstick stains— Something he was certain Stelle would never wear. He set it on the stone where it wouldn’t roll and knock. Then he turned his head toward the entrance of the palace and sat the way he did when he was keeping watch on purpose: not rigid, not on edge— just present.

Stelle breathed against his shoulder. He didn’t try to figure out what came next. That was tomorrow’s job. Tonight his job was simple: don’t move. Don’t disturb this hard earned peace. He watched the terrace door in case someone wandered out. He watched the path in case a drunkard decided he needed the quiet end of the night. He watched the way the light slid along the edge of the pool and thought, absurdly, about the knot he’d tied in her charm and whether it would hold.

He let himself look at her face once, quick, the way you glance at a clock to check the time. It wasn’t for him. It was a desperate commitment to memory: lashes, a tiny crease at the brow that had finally smoothed out, the set of her mouth when she was genuinely asleep. He filed it next to the hundreds of other small facts he’d collect and never say out loud.

“Partner,” he murmured, leaning just close enough that she might hear him over the fading noise. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Stelle mumbled something that wasn’t even a word—just a string of vowels tangled into refusal—and burrowed her face deeper against his shoulder. Her arm stayed stubbornly limp where it had fallen across her lap.

He tried again, gentler. “Come on, you’ll be sore if you sleep out here.”

“Nngngngnnhnhnnnhngn,” she said, which he guessed translated to no.

Phainon sat back, torn between amusement and exasperation. She could be fierce enough to swing a bat at monsters three times her size, but try to convince her to move when she was half-asleep and she might as well have been carved out of stone.

“Of course,” he muttered under his breath. He waited another few seconds, hoping she’d come to. She didn’t.

So he hesitated, then slid an arm under her knees and another around her shoulders. Carefully, he lifted. Her head lolled against his chest as though it had always belonged there, her hair brushing his jaw.

Bridal-style. Definitely not the plan, but leaving her on a cold cushion wasn’t an option. He shifted his grip so she was steady, her weight surprisingly light, and started toward the palace’s inner halls.

The corridor was quiet, lanterns dimmed for evening. His footsteps echoed in a rhythm that felt louder than it should. Stelle stirred only once, tightening her fingers reflexively in the fabric of his jacket before going slack again.

When they reached her quarters, he nudged the door with his foot. Nothing. Locked. He tried again, harder this time. Still locked.

“Of course,” he repeated, voice lower. He stood there for a long moment, jaw set, debating whether to knock Mem awake—or Dan Heng, who would undoubtedly deliver one of those pointed stares that could flay the skin off a man.

He sighed. No. They deserved their rest, and dragging them into this would just make it harder for her tomorrow.

Adjusting his grip, he shifted her a little higher against his chest and turned down the hall toward his own quarters.

Xx….o….xX

Inside, the room was simple but comfortable: a neatly made bed, a couch against the wall, a desk with a scattering of half-finished notes. He hesitated in the doorway, then crossed to the bed and set her down gently. She didn’t stir, except for a small sigh when her head touched the pillow.

He pulled the blanket up around her shoulders, careful not to trap her arms. For a long second, he stood there, watching her. The sharpness she carried during the day—the dry remarks, the constant walls—had gone completely slack in sleep. She looked ethereal, vulnerable in a way she’d never allow anyone to see.

His hand twitched before he let it move. He brushed a strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. She didn’t react.

“Don’t…” he whispered to himself, pulling his hand back, “…don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

The words felt like a warning, though he wasn’t sure if it was meant for him or for her. He turned quickly, heading to the couch. Grabbing one of his pillows, he tossed it down, followed by the spare blanket folded on the armrest. The couch wasn’t long enough for his height, but it would do.

He paused once more, glancing back. Stelle had rolled slightly onto her side, her breathing steady, the blanket rising and falling. The sun charm he’d given her glinted faintly where it hung from her jacket pocket, catching the low lamplight.

Phainon sat heavily on the couch, rubbed a hand over his face, and lay back. The distance between them felt shorter than it was, the silence heavier.

Sleep didn’t come easily. He stayed awake long enough to hear her shift once, murmuring something unintelligible into the pillow, before he finally closed his eyes.

Notes:

they make me SO mad (affectionate)

Chapter 6: Day 5

Summary:

Phainon walked beside her, hands tucked casually into his pockets, his eyes scanning the rows like he was on some kind of treasure hunt. He looked too happy, too carefree, considering they were supposed to be gathering dinner supplies.
“So,” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him, “what exactly do you know how to cook?”
Phainon puffed up a little, like this was his moment. “Lettuce salad, tomato salad, green bean salad, and, um… we could even make a steak salad?”
Stelle stopped dead. Her boots scuffed against the stone. “…Are you fucking joking?”

Notes:

Hi guys! Sorry for the wait, but I come bearing good news: I am an offical HoyoCreator now! Absolutely insane that i've partnered with hoyo...what the flip...

Come follow me on tiktok!! I'm a very cool very awesome editor trust..... https://www.tiktok.com/@obsidianndragon

anyway heres your (newly state sponsored) phaistelle. This is my favorite chapter in this entire fic so i went a lil crazy its like 15k words sry

Stelle woke up with her head pounding. The light filtering in through the curtains was too sharp, too merciless. She groaned and pulled the blanket over her head, but the ache in her temples didn’t fade.

Where the hell was she?

The sheets weren’t hers. They smelled different—cleaner, maybe even faintly herbal. And the pillow under her cheek was firm in a way the Marmoreal Palace’s standard bedding definitely wasn’t. It took her sluggish brain a moment to register the fact that she was not in her own room.

She cracked one eye open, squinting against the daylight. The walls weren’t familiar. Neither was the desk, cluttered with parchment and trinkets. Then she heard it—the sound of running water, the faint scrape of bristles against teeth.

Her stomach lurched.

Sitting up too fast was a mistake. The hangover slammed into her like a train. She winced, clutching her forehead, and tried to make sense of it. Her head was foggy, scattered memories floating up like scraps of paper in a windstorm: the wine, the fireworks, laughter, leaning too close to Phainon. Then black.

Oh. Oh no.

The bathroom door creaked open. And there he was, standing in front of the mirror.

Phainon, bare-chested, towel slung around his waist, brushing his teeth like this was the most normal morning in the world. His hair was still damp, beads of water running down over his shoulders, his chest, down the ridges of his abs.

Her jaw slackened.

She stared. Not at his face. Definitely not at his face. Her eyes had wandered down to his chest before she realized it, and by the time she noticed, it was too late to look away naturally. Broad shoulders, defined muscle—what the actual hell?

Phainon—golden retriever energy, puppy-eyed, armor-clad Phainon—was built. His chest was broad and well-defined, his shoulders solid. Every muscle along his torso seemed to move with casual precision as he shifted to spit into the sink. His back flexed when he leaned forward, the play of muscles beneath his skin catching the morning light.

It was… kind of hot.

She tried to look away. She really did. But her gaze lingered in traitorous silence.

He turned, catching sight of her awake at last. His smile bloomed instantly, warm and unguarded. “Morning, partner! You’re alive.”

She didn’t answer. She was too busy staring like a complete idiot.

Phainon grabbed a small glass from the counter, filled it with water, and rummaged in a drawer. A moment later he padded out barefoot, still damp, still towel-clad, holding both the glass and a pair of pain relievers. “Here,” he said, kneeling slightly to set them on the nightstand. “Headache, right? You drank about seventy percent of the bottle last night before passing out on me. Impressive, honestly.”

She blinked, still trying to piece together the night. Seventy percent? That explained why her skull felt like it had been split in two. She muttered a thanks, downed the pills, and took a sip of water.

“You could’ve—”

“Carried you back?” Phainon interrupted, raising a brow. “I tried. Your door was locked. So you got the deluxe suite instead.” This oversized dog looked unbelievably proud of himself.

Stelle covered her face with one hand. “Kill me now.”

He laughed—loud, warm, infuriatingly cheerful for someone who’d apparently spent the night on the couch.

When she peeked through her fingers again, she wished she hadn’t. Her eyes landed on his torso yet again. He turned slightly, reaching for a comb, and the muscles in his back flexed.  Her throat went dry.

“Holy moly,” she muttered without thinking, watching as he turned to grab something from the desk. The muscles across his back flexed with the movement, clean lines shifting under his skin. It was—

Shit. She had said that out loud.

Phainon froze mid-motion. He turned his head, confusion painted across his face. “What was that?”

“Nothing!” She shot upright, heat blooming across her ears. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just—put a shirt on, for fuck’s sake.”

He blinked at her, then tilted his head. Slowly, a grin spread across his face. “Oh.”

“Don’t you ‘oh’ me,” she snapped, flustered. “I said put a shirt on!”

“Yes, ma’am.” He chuckled, pulling a tunic over his head, though not fast enough to save her from seeing how it stretched across his shoulders.

Stelle covered her face with her hands, groaning into her palms. This was not how she had planned to start her morning.

Once dressed, Phainon raked his fingers through his damp hair and leaned casually against the wall. “Feel better?”

“No,” she muttered from behind her hands.

“Good enough.” His grin softened then, turning a bit more genuine. “Come on. I’ll walk you back before Mem or Dan Heng think I kidnapped you.”

It was a miracle she managed to swing her legs out of bed and shove her boots on without falling flat. He didn’t comment on how unsteady she was, just adjusted his stride so she wouldn’t have to rush to keep up.

The palace corridors were blessedly quiet, the dawn device already glowing brighter to simulate late morning. Her headache nagged, but the water and pills were beginning to work their magic. By the time they reached the branching hallway toward her room, she felt almost functional again.

Phainon stopped, hands in his pockets. “Sparring today. Noon,” he said, tone light but firm enough to leave no room for refusal.

Stelle squinted at him. “Sparring? Really?”

“You’ll thank me,” he said with that too-bright smile, the one that made her suspicious. “Work the hangover out of your system. I’ll go easy.”

“But I’m tired.”

“And yet, you’ll be there,” he said with certainty.

She hated that he was right.

“Fine,” she said, brushing past him toward her door. “I won’t go easy.”

Phainon chuckled, already turning down the opposite corridor. “Wouldn’t dream of it, partner.”

The door creaked open, and two pairs of eyes locked onto her. Mem sat cross-legged on the couch, wide-eyed and immediately on her feet. Dan Heng stood against the far wall, book in hand, gaze cool as always.

“Stelle,” Mem said, rushing over to steady her as she stumbled inside. “You look like a mess.” Her voice was equal parts concern and exasperation, hands hovering like she wasn’t sure whether to hug Stelle or shake her.

“I’m fine,” Stelle muttered, waving her off, though her attempt at standing tall was ruined by the way she swayed slightly in place.

Mem didn’t buy it. Her brows knitted together, worry written plainly across her face. “You weren’t here this morning. You stayed in his room, didn’t you? This is… Stelle, this is crossing a line.”

Stelle’s stomach twisted. She opened her mouth to snap back, to insist it wasn’t what it looked like—but her throat went dry. She couldn’t even remember enough of last night to argue properly.

Dan Heng’s voice cut through the silence, calm but edged with something sharper. “Stelle.” He closed his book, resting it on the table with deliberate care. “Remember what this is and what this isn’t.”

Stelle knew that Dan Heng only ever meant the best. He was saying the truth— The same mantra she had repeated to herself five days ago.

She looked away, throat tight. She wanted to roll her eyes, make some joke to deflect, but nothing came. Because he was right. Because Mem was right. She wasn’t supposed to blur the lines. She wasn’t supposed to let herself get swept into this mess.

“Pshh, I know, you guys!” Stelle smirked, waving a hand dismissively. “Phainon? Ha. Never.”

It seemed that her denial was at least partially convincing— Enough that Mem looked relieved. Dan Heng didn’t quite seem to buy it though, instead just raising a suspicious eyebrow. 

It all left a bitter taste in her mouth.

 

Xx….o….xX

The training yard was bright and empty when she arrived. The chalk circles had worn down, the marks barely visible. The racks of practice weapons threw narrow shadows against the wall. A pitcher of water sweated on the low table by the entrance, a towel neatly folded beside it. Of course he’d folded it. Of course he would make everything look so perfect.

Phainon was already there, of course.  He was in a black training shirt and light trousers, hair pulled back at the nape, bare feet on the line. He looked up when she hit the arch’s shadow and lit up out of habit. Then his smile stalled a millimeter, like he’d registered something off in the way she was holding herself.

“Partner,” he called. “You made it.”

She didn’t answer. She tossed her jacket at the walk. It fell to the ground, crumpled, as she walked to the center mark. The sun felt too close. Her skull felt one size too small. Her chest had that tight, mean knot that made it hard to draw a full breath without feeling like she’d swallowed a stone. She couldn’t name it. She didn’t want to.

Phainon watched her face for a beat longer than usual, then picked a blunt training sword off the rack and stepped to meet her. “Rules?”

“Don’t talk,” she said.

Phainon opened his mouth like he was going to say something, before promptly shutting it. Instead, he nodded shortly. “Don’t talk,” he agreed, and set his feet.

She called the bat. It snapped into her hand with its familiar weight, the grip sticky where her palm had sweat before she’d even swung. She rolled her wrist, brought it up to guard, and charged.

It was fast. It was brutal. Phainon barely had time to register her blow before making a desperate block, the sheer force of her strike sending him stumbling back a few steps. The clang of a bat on steel rang across the yard. She didn’t let the recoil set; she took it on and sent the next strike to his ribs, then his shoulder. The blows had muscle behind them, ugly on purpose. Any less technique and they would’ve bordered on animalistic in nature.

Phainon had no time for offense. Blow after blow may have left her open, but he had no chance to exploit it.The ground under their feet spit dust around their ankles. His breath changed early, not from effort but from bracing for the fact that she wasn’t fighting the way she usually did.

“Partner—” he tried, concern etched across his features.

“No talking,” she snapped, and swung.

He shut up. For a minute he just worked: Tracking her bat, setting his feet, balancing his weight to stabilize. He needed to regain his footing so he could strike back.

She barely saw him. She saw targets—wrist, rib, thigh—and drove the bat at them with unrestrained force. Her muscles remembered things on their own, which was good, because she was only half in the yard. The other half was still in a room with Mem’s pity and Dan Heng’s steady eyes. Remember what this is. The words made her swing harder, like she could knock them out of the air. She wasn’t interested in tidy. She wanted the thud of steel on steel and the air moving fast in her lungs.

“Are you—” he tried again, out of breath already.

She swung for his head.

He had to duck so low it scuffed dust off the crown of his hair. He came up into a guard with the sword high and his left hand in against the flat for leverage. The bat smashed into the blade and rattled it down into his shoulder. He hissed and used the bounce to push her off a fraction.

Stelle didn’t blink. She reset and swung again.

“Partner,” he said, louder. “Whats going on?”

Stelle feinted a high cut so obvious it wasn’t a feint. He didn’t bite. It only served to infuriate her more— But why should it? Why should she care? Nothing that Phainon could do right now could appease her, and she knew that. The low shot came right after, predictable as ever. She swept at his front ankle, the bat’s lower third sliding across the ground, skipping on the rocks. Phainon sidestepped with ease. Her back was open and he took his first offensive swing of the match, which she barely cared enough to block. 

Stelle fell back, momentarily offset by his blow. She shook her head and spit onto the ground, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. They circled. Dust rose. His calves burned from the constant retreat. She started to pant, but it didn’t slow her. Her blows stayed heavy even as the timing fell apart.

“Stelle.” He used her name like a brake. “Talk to—”

She stepped inside his reach and clubbed the bat up under his guard. He snapped a half-turn to bleed it off and rolled the blade down to pin and slide. She tore free and came back over the top with an overhead that forced him to take two quick backpedals, eyes flicking to make sure he didn’t ram the rack. He shouldn’t have looked. She hammered the opening. The bat smacked the side of his sword and carried through into his shoulder hard enough to make him grunt.

His eyes sharpened. He went quiet, abandoned the talking, and settled into defense. He wasn’t struggling—he was too good for that—but he had to work. She wanted him to work. They carved the yard in fast slices. Her boots chewed the dust. His feet drew clean marks in it, then smudged them when she forced him to give ground.

She broke the bind and ripped the bat straight across. He barely got the sword up. The clack stung both their hands.

He broke again to try talking. “Hey. Take a breath. What is this?”

She attacked his words. He blocked on muscle memory, mouth still parted, and she almost got his elbow. He tucked it in, blade angling down to trap her bat. She wrenched it out and felt the tape twist under her palm.

A minute turned into five. Sweat ran cold down her back. The bat got heavier in a way she liked, the kind of weight that made choices simpler: hit clean. Don’t think. The headache from the morning had moved to the edges of her vision and turned into a fine, angry buzz.

“Stelle.” The name came out sharper. “What are you doing?”

She didn’t know. That was the problem. She wanted to break the noise in her chest. She wanted to feel her body do something simple. She wanted him to stop talking like everything was as neat and tidy as the towel he had left folded on the floor.

In the end, Stelle didn’t answer. She charged. The sudden angle forced him to scramble. He brought the sword up late and caught the bat wrong. The impact knocked his edge off the line and bent his stance. She followed with a body shot—bat butt into his abdomen.

He backpedaled, hand up again for a break he didn’t get. She hammered his guard. He shook his head once to clear it and went back to work, now breathing hard enough that she could hear it.

“I know you too well,” he got out on an exhale, meeting her bat high and shunting it away. “You always go for a low sweep when you’re upset.”

They were both sweating hard now. The neat chalk circles were wrecked into a pale smear. No one stood at the wall. She lunged again. He braced. She didn’t stop pressing. Their forearms locked, his blade flat against her bat, faces too close, breath hot. She smelled steel and sweat and the faint soap from his morning. In the back of her mind she saw him wrapped in that towel, so bright, so unbothered.

“Partner,” he said, quiet now, throat tight, “look at me.”

She did. Neither of them liked what was in the other’s eyes. He saw the heat. She saw concern. It made her angrier.

She broke the bind first with a half-step back and then a fast, direct strike to his shoulder. He caught it but the force carried through and staggered him. She pivoted and slammed the bat down at his wrist. He yanked back and almost lost the sword entirely. The next exchange left him open: she clipped his fingers with the barrel. He hissed and dropped the blade a centimeter.

She finished it.

She stepped through with a short, brutal swing and set the bat across his chest, pinning him with the bar and her weight. He stumbled back, dropping his sword and raising his hands in surrender.

“Match,” he said, breathless.

She held him there a second longer than she should have, bat tip pressed firm against his sternum, enough pressure to make his breath catch again. His eyes flicked from the cold metal to her eyes. Both were equally unforgiving.

She lowered her weapon and stepped away.

They stood and breathed. Sweat crawled down her neck. He wiped his forearm across his temple and left a pale line in the dust on his skin. 

He found his voice first. “Why were you pushing so hard?” His tone wasn’t anger. It wasn’t coaching. It was concern wrapped in confusion. “That wasn’t you.”

She rolled the bat in her palm and stared at a spot on the dirt where they’d smeared the chalk. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”

He took that, turned it over, didn’t throw it back. His breathing had evened out. His voice didn’t sharpen. “I think I know you better than you want me to.”

The words landed. They put something on the ground between them that was heavier than the bat.

She swallowed and looked away. The knot in her throat tightened. It hurt the way a held breath hurts when you’ve kept it too long.

“It’ll all be over soon,” he said, gentler, like he was offering her a life raft. “The plan. The noise. Six days. Less if you want.”

She nodded without looking up. It didn’t help. If anything, the knot pulled tighter, like her body had rejected the comfort on instinct.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “I’m not trying to—”

“I need air,” she cut in, voice too quick. She swung the bat down and set it on the rack with enough force to make the pegs rattle. “I’m going to take a walk.”

“Stelle—”

“I’ll meet you later.” It came out like a half-true promise.

He didn’t reach for her. He didn’t try to block her path. He swallowed his next sentence and nodded once, as if to say go, then. He watched her pick up her jacket and move toward the arch. She didn’t look back.

The yard held the heat she left behind. He stood in it with the sword hanging useless at his side and watched the doorway long after she was gone, trying to decide if the thing he’d seen in her eyes was something he could name.

Xx….o….xX

 

Air. That was the excuse she gave him, and it was all she could think about as she cut out of the yard—air and distance and something that wasn’t the pressure of his eyes on her face asking a question she didn’t have any words left to answer. The palace corridor hit her with a cooler draft that felt like someone had finally cracked a window in her skull.

Down the steps. Across the flagstones. Into Okhema.

It should have helped. The market always did—noise thick enough to drown your own, a hundred small stories yelling over each other, something to look at that wasn’t a person’s face. Today the first stall she passed punched her in the stomach with a memory. The pita chips. She could still hear the crack of the first bite. Then the nuts in paper cones. Everywhere she looked was a landmark of the week she’d spent learning how to play a part.

She shoved her hands into her pockets and told herself to walk, just walk. Look at anything but that yard. Don’t think about the way he’d said your name. Don’t think about the way his arms had started to shake toward the end because you wouldn’t stop pushing. Don’t think about the way his voice went gentler, like he was holding out a hand like a guardian angel.

One shopkeeper was desperately trying to wave a hungry Dromas away from their collection of gemstones. It seemed unbothered, sniffing curiously and moving aside the distressed man with its big purple snout. Vendors called prices, teased regulars, and sounded exactly like they had yesterday and three days before and on the same day she arrived in this city for the first time, Phainon gripping her hand so she didn’t fall off of the Dromas they rode.

Fine. Look harder. The old woman who sells beads had reorganized her table; the blue glass was up front now. 

“Where’s your young man?” a voice asked at her shoulder, bright with familiarity.

Stelle turned. The dried fruit vendor—the Sagelore slices guy—had clocked her. He’d been nice. He was still nice. He held up a sliver of candied peel like he’d been saving it.

“Which one,” she said, dry.

He laughed. “The deliverer boy. The market one. He usually walks behind you like a chaperone.”

She took the peel, chewed, and looked past the vendor’s shoulder at the sweep of stalls. “He’s… not here.”

“Mm.” The vendor’s eyes crinkled, reading the wrong story and deciding he liked it anyway. “Tell him I got a new batch in. The good syrup. He’ll try to haggle. Don’t let him.”

“He doesn’t haggle,” she said. “He just smiles until you drop the price.”

The vendor laughed again, pleased. “That too.”

She moved on before the man could ask anything else. At the corner, she stopped because the shop with the brass bells had hung something new in the door—tiny suns etched into the metal, no bigger than thumbnails.

Keep moving.

She cut left where the lanes narrowed. It was near the Dromas workshops— This was where the repair stalls lived—hinges, wheels, broken handles, cracked glass. At the far end of the lane, the crowd thinned around a stall that had collapsed at one corner. One of the legs had kicked out; the tabletop listing had dumped half its goods into the dust. An elderly woman stood there with her hands in the air, clearly having a rough day. Two kids tried to shove the leg back in. It slid, caught, and slid again.

Stelle would have stepped in. She didn’t get the chance.

Phainon was already there.

She didn’t expect to see him. That’s the honest part. She hadn’t come looking.

He had both hands on the crossbeam, shoulder under the weight, talking to the old woman in a tone that made people trust him. “I’ve got it,” he was saying. “You, get back, please—yes, you—no, don’t lift, I’ve got it.” He shot one of the kids a quick grin and the kid stood taller like he’d been knighted.

He didn’t see her. Why would he? He was busy. Happy, even. He laughed when the leg finally seated with a sharp little pop, then braced the table with his hip while another familiar face— Hyacine, standing out from the crowd with all of her pink like a sore thumb— retied the rope that kept the legs from splaying.  Mydei stood on the other side, arms folded, pretending not to be invested in the entire situation. 

He looked… happy. That was the irritating part. As if their fight in the yard hadn’t meant a single thing. As if nothing inside him had gotten rattled. 

A voice in her head—Mem’s, probably—said you can be happy and hurt at the same time. She told it to shut up.

“Try now,” Phainon said, easing the weight onto the leg. The table held. The old woman put both palms on it and pushed, testing. It didn’t wobble. She clucked, satisfied. Phainon brushed his hands off on his trousers and said something that made her hand fly up to smack his arm in that fond, reprimanding way elder women had when you were being too charming. He laughed again, wide and unashamed. Stelle wanted to bottle the look on his face and put it on a shelf where no one else could reach.

Which was insane. You didn’t bottle smiles. You didn’t keep them. You didn’t start thinking about sunlight like it was something you could own.

Stelle stopped just past the mouth of the lane. Watched. She shouldn’t have. She did anyway.

He was good at this—this exact thing. Being useful. Being easy to like. He crouched to help the kids restack whatever had spilled. He let Mydei tug a rope tighter and shake the stakes to ensure its stability. He took a folded bill from the old woman and tried to hand it back. She shoved it into his pocket anyway; he gave up like she’d bested him in fair combat.

“Who’s that one?” someone at Stelle’s shoulder murmured to their companion. “Always helping, that boy.”

“The dawn heir,” the second voice said, and the way they said it had more fondness than awe. “The loud one.”

Loud. She almost snorted. Not wrong.

Phainon straightened. Hyacine said something and pointed to a stall across the way—the wine shop with the handwritten tags. He lifted a brow in a really? that read clear even from here. She insisted. He went, with Mydei in tow, who looked unimpressed as always.

Stelle drifted five steps to the side like the motion would make her less obvious. The wine clerk did his bored routine. Phainon said something that made the man’s mouth twitch. He looked at the rows, didn’t reach automatically for expensive. He asked a question—she could tell by the way the clerk actually set a bottle down. Phainon picked one, turned it in his hands like he was checking the label for a code. He paid, and when the clerk tried to upsell with a second or a sweet, he shook his head and patted the neck of the bottle like it was already chosen and that was that.

Who’s that for, something in her asked in a tone that didn’t sound like her. It was petty and hot and stupid. She refused to name it jealousy because jealousy sounded teenage and pathetic. This was… awareness. Of the fact that other people liked him. That his life had scenes that she wasn’t in. That he could take a bottle somewhere and open it with someone who wasn’t her.

He rejoined the others, holding the wine like the spoils of war. Mydei teased him. He nudged his shoulder. Hyacine smiled at something Mydei said.  They moved down the lane as a unit, easy in a way that could only be cultivated from years of this. 

A stupid, sharp feeling hit Stelle under the ribs. It didn’t announce itself. It just sat there and pulsed once. Her first instinct was to call it something simple—annoyance, maybe. The kind of irritation you get when someone’s voice is too loud in a library. It wasn’t that.

She kept walking. Not toward them. Away, at a relaxed, normal pace that was definitely not hurried. She didn’t glance back– Or at least, she tried not to. Her efforts were in vain, and she did anyway. They were small again, just more people in the crowd.

Jealousy, her brain supplied, unhelpful and late.

Jealousy is an ugly word. It didn’t feel like what she’d been taught it did. It wasn’t an urge to pull him away from them; she didn’t want to grab his sleeve and claim anything. It was more an ache, low and mean, like she’d been left out of a joke she’d helped set up. 

“Shut up,” she told it, out loud. A woman carrying a tray of peaches looked at her funny. Stelle kept moving.

She passed Theodoros’s stall. The couple-charm bin had been refilled. The sun and moon pairs dangled in a line, simple and blunt, like the city had stamped out another dozen versions of a thing that had already happened to Stelle. In her pocket, the knot of cord pressed back against her palm. She didn’t take it out. She didn’t need to see it to know it was there.

Ridiculous. All of it. A week hadn’t even passed. This was the day before the end. They had planned it that way. Six days. Maybe shorter. She’d reminded him. He’d agreed. Her hands had still shaken after.

This was supposed to be easy. Fix the rumor with a story that fit. Somewhere between the ugly ring toss and a beaded cord and a stupid stuffed seal, the story had stopped living only in the places people could see.

Stelle didn’t do ‘mushy’. She didn’t do shelf space in her chest for anything that wasn’t going to pull its weight. What he was—was useful. Good at being a friend. Good at being reliable, a warm presence and someone she could fight beside. Good at making old women feel like someone cared whether their stall stood. Good at catching her before she cracked her head on marble. Good at making pancakes and getting her through interviews.

She could like those things. She could appreciate them. She could even want them to keep happening. None of that meant she felt anything that required a name.

Her brain chased itself in circles as she walked. Take it apart. Put the pieces on a table. Jealousy. Fine. Name it or don’t. What else? Relief when he showed up at the gardens, even with toast in his mouth. Annoyance when he said “dinner,” which had turned into actual dinner and not a disaster. The way her stomach had dropped when he said “what if I did.” The way she’d fallen asleep on his shoulder. The way he brought her painkillers this morning when she woke up wrapped in his sheets.

It hit her, halfway down a lane lined with woven baskets, that the irritation wasn’t really about anything he’d done. He’d told her what he was about. He’d shown up. He’d fixed a table, bought nuts for a kid, won her a giant plush seal, and made a vendor feel smart about wine. He’d made her breakfast and then asked her to fight like she could take him apart, and then he’d let her do it. He was perfect in every infuriating way. That wasn’t the problem.

The problem was what she’d let happen in the quiet around that. 

…There were a hundred reasons to stop this early. There were also hands on her back pushing her toward the edge of the days they’d counted off. Over soon, he’d said. It had sounded like a promise. But it only made her gut twist, and Stelle would give anything to know why. If this was the last day that made sense, how did she want to spend it? Walking in circles and watching him laugh with people who knew him far longer, far better than she ever could?

She stopped fighting herself, because it wasn’t working. She dug her teleslate out of her pocket and stared at his name for longer than she’d ever admit. The stupid contact picture Mem had insisted on setting—Phainon with a fork, mid-bite, surprised and laughing—didn’t help.

Her thumbs moved like they had a mind of their own.

—---------------------

<STELLE> to <PHAINON>

Stelle: you alive?

—--------------------

She watched the three dots appear, disappear, appear again like he’d started typing two different answers and deleted both.

—--------------------

Phainon: Barely. was just accused of haggling with ‘puppy eyes’ as Hyacine says

Stelle: Sounds accurate

Phainon: Rude

—--------------------

She smirked, then caught herself. The stall keeper across from her smiled back like he thought it was for him. She hid behind the phone.

—--------------------

Stelle: Lunch?

Phainon: Yes. Where?

—--------------------

She typed, erased. Typed again.

—--------------------

Stelle: Garden of life??? same spot as before. 30?

—--------------------

The longest pause yet. She could see him deciding whether to push for more information. He didn’t.

—--------------------

Phainon: I’ll beat you there, Partner!

—--------------------

If this was the last day before everything got messy on purpose, fine. She could at least not waste it walking in a circle pretending the market wasn’t full of ghosts they’d both made. She could go see the chimeras tackle each other and call it a tactical meeting. She could sit on the rail and pretend the word friend covered the way she felt when he stepped into a room.

She cut back toward the palace. The dawn device had the light of 2pm—soft, a little gold at the edges. The crowds thinned in the lanes closer to the Garden of Life. Good. She needed peace and quiet.

The chimera garden wasn’t crowded yet—keepers doing rounds, a couple of palace staff rerouting small beasts out of flower beds with practiced clucks. Stelle leaned on the rail and watched two of them struggle over a reed the length of her leg. One pulled. The other planted and stubborned his way into a draw. It was dumb and pure and exactly what she needed.

She heard footsteps behind her. She didn’t have to look to know who it was. She didn’t turn until she could feel him stop at her elbow.

“Told you I’d beat you,” he said, as if he hadn’t been waiting, as if his cheeks weren’t a little flushed from sprinting.

“Congratulations,” she said, unable to suppress a smile. “Your prize is paying for lunch.”

Phainon hummed, brushing a loose bit of hair from his forehead. He looked like he hadn’t just been on the receiving end of her temper earlier. He didn’t look angry. He didn’t even look tired. Instead, he gave her that easy, bright grin.

“You must’ve worked up an appetite,” he said lightly, voice teasing in the gentlest way. “The way you went at me earlier? I’m starving just from blocking.”

Stelle blinked, caught off guard. He was laughing it off. He wasn’t holding it against her, not even a little. That made her chest ache worse than if he’d snapped back. Her throat tightened. She hadn’t just fought recklessly—she’d turned him into a punching bag because she couldn’t untangle her own mess of feelings. And still, he was smiling at her like it was nothing.

She straightened, forcing herself to meet his eyes. “I’m… sorry,” she said, the words coming out rough. He tilted his head, surprised. She pushed on before she could stop herself. “I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

For a second, Phainon said nothing. The surprise was clear on his face, the way his eyebrows lifted and his lips parted just slightly. Then his shoulders eased, and that blinding grin softened into something smaller, warmer.

“Hey,” he murmured, voice quiet now. “Thank you. But don’t beat yourself up. We’re in this together, partner. If it’s hard on you, then it’s worth it for me to carry some of that weight.”

Stelle swallowed hard. She wasn’t used to people answering her anger with kindness. It made her feel raw, seen in a way she didn’t know how to handle. She looked back down at the chimeras, who were now collapsing in a pile of fur and wings, panting like exhausted dogs.

“…Still,” she muttered, “you didn’t deserve me being a jerk.”

Phainon chuckled under his breath. “Then you’ll just have to make it up to me by indulging me in lunch today at a place of my choosing.”

That startled a laugh out of her, the tension in her chest cracking a little. “You gave this thought?”

“Yeah. Food solves everything. Come on, let’s grab something. My stomach’s been complaining since you nearly took my head off.”

She glanced at him, and the look on his face was all brightness again, as if her apology had genuinely lifted something from him. For once, she didn’t feel like arguing.

“…Alright,” she said quietly.

They turned away from the railing together. As they made for the palace paths, Phainon nudged her shoulder with his. “Dawncloud? Best view in Okhema.”

Stelle rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t stop the corner of her mouth from twitching. “Fine. Dawncloud it is.”

And just like that, it felt like the knot in her chest had loosened, if only a little.

Xx….o….xX

Phainon liked Dawncloud best when it was empty. Normally, the council of elders filled this plateau with their debates and proclamations, but today the only sound was the faint whistle of the wind and the hum of Kephale’s energy thrumming overhead. The banners that lined the marble railings swayed lazily, their colors dulled by the fading sun. From here, the great device filled half the sky.

They sat cross-legged on the broad stone benches, their lunch laid out between them in little cartons—grapes, warm skewers wrapped in paper, a loaf of bread dusted with flour so fine it clung to their fingers. Phainon tore the bread carefully, handing half to her. 

“I… I really wasn’t fair to you earlier,” she said, voice low. “I forget this is hard on you, too.”

His hands stilled. He glanced at her, startled by the admission.

“…You thought about that?” he asked softly.

She gave a half-grin, but he saw the tension behind it. “Of course I did. Eventually.”

Warmth bloomed in his chest, unexpected but welcome. For a moment, he didn’t trust his voice. The apology wasn’t much, not to anyone else. But from her, it meant she’d considered him—really considered him, even after walking away angry. That was rare with Stelle. Most people got deflections, sarcasm, or silence. He got… this.

“Thanks, partner,” he said finally. It came out quieter than he’d intended, but he meant it.

They ate in silence for a while. The food was lukewarm by now, but he hardly noticed. His mind was still turning over her words, replaying them like a treasured memory.

Stelle broke the quiet first, as if she couldn’t help herself. “Okay. Hypothetical. Who’d win: one Dromas, or sixty chimeras?”

Phainon snorted so hard he nearly inhaled a grape. “That’s the dumbest question I’ve ever heard.”

“I’m serious!” she said, pointing the grape at him like it was an extension of her finger. “You’ve seen chimeras. They’re scrappy. Sixty’s a lot.”

Phainon blinked, caught off guard by the pivot. Then he grinned. “No way, the Dromas would win. No contest.”

She shot him a look like he’d just insulted her ancestors. “What? No way. Sixty chimeras would swarm it. Easy.”

“Sixty chimeras would get distracted chewing each other’s tails before they even noticed the Dromas.” He popped a bite of bread into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “Besides, a Dromas doesn’t even need to fight. It just has to sit down. Those things weigh, what, four tons? Five? The chimeras would tire themselves out trying to push it over.”

She rolled her eyes, but he could see the corner of her mouth twitch into a smile. “Fine, then they’d both lose. They’d just nap until everyone watching got bored.”

“Now that I believe,” he said with a laugh.

They bickered playfully for another few minutes—whether chimeras could stack into a tower, whether a Dromas could roll and flatten them like bread dough. 

The sound of her huff, half a laugh itself, sent something sharp and warm through him. He tamped it down. He couldn’t afford to dwell on how much he liked making her laugh, not at a time as precarious as this.

As they cleared their plates, he leaned back on his hands, gazing up at the looming Kephale. “Strange, isn’t it? How fast a week goes by.”

Phainon tilted his head, studying her profile. The faint crease between her brows. The way the glow caught in her hair. “Feels longer,” she added softly. “Like I’ve been stuck with you forever.”

He grinned, seizing the opening with a mock-wounded tone. “Stuck with me, huh? That’s one way to say you’ll miss me.”

Color rose to her cheeks. She glanced away sharply. “...Don’t start.”

He let the smile linger but didn’t press. He knew better. She’d retreat if he pushed. So he tucked the moment away, storing it with all the others he wasn’t brave enough to say aloud.

Instead, he shifted gears. “We should cook tonight. My wallet’s still crying from all those meals out.”

Her groan was immediate, dramatic. “Do we have to? I’m so full. The last thing I need to think about right now is more food.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and gave her a grin. “I agree, partner. But if we don’t get to the market before it closes, we’re stuck with ration packs tomorrow. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to die that way.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Ugh. Fine. But you’re carrying everything.”

“Gladly.” He reached down to pick up the empty containers. He didn’t mind carrying the weight, not when she was willing to walk beside him.

As they rose and headed for the stairs, he caught himself glancing at her again. The way the light from Kephale caught in her hair, the way her scowl softened when she thought he wasn’t looking — these were details he wanted to keep. Things he knew he’d replay later, when this all ended and she went back to treating him like just another friend. He’d turn them over in his mind before he fell asleep he was sure. 

Xx….o….xX

The food stalls outside the bathhouse were alive with noise and color. Even at this hour, Okhema seemed incapable of slowing down; merchants shouted over one another to advertise their wares, children darted under tables chasing each other with sticks, and every few seconds the sharp crack of oil or the hiss of steam punctuated the air. The scents tangled together—savory meats, honey-soaked pastries, herbs both sharp and sweet—and Stelle felt her stomach betray her with a low growl.

Phainon walked beside her, hands tucked casually into his pockets, his eyes scanning the rows like he was on some kind of treasure hunt. He looked too happy, too carefree, considering they were supposed to be gathering dinner supplies.

“So,” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him, “what exactly do you know how to cook?”

Phainon puffed up a little, like this was his moment. “Lettuce salad, tomato salad, green bean salad, and, um… we could even make a steak salad?”

Stelle stopped dead. Her boots scuffed against the stone. “…Are you fucking joking?”

Phainon’s grin faltered, but only for a second. He scratched the back of his neck, sheepish but still amused. “What? I’m good at salads. You’ve got to admit, there’s an art to balance.”

“Balance?” Stelle threw her hands up. “That’s not cooking, that’s chopping shit up and putting it into a bowl. That’s survival food. The cafeteria in Herta’s space station had more culinary depth.”

“Harsh.” He laughed, unoffended. “Anyway, salads are foolproof. Nobody’s ever gotten food poisoning from a salad.”

“Pretty sure you could make it happenD,” Stelle muttered.

They weaved deeper into the stalls. She refused to let him near a lettuce head—he’d probably end up making her chew leaves like a rabbit. Her gaze skimmed past bright pyramids of citrus and barrels of olives until it caught on something that made her stop: neat bundles of spinach stacked high beside bottles of olive oil. A memory surfaced, hazy but sharp enough to sting—something she’d seen once in the express data bank, flaky pastry crumbling between her fingers, the salty bite of cheese and herbs layered beneath.

“Fine,” she said suddenly, turning toward the vendor with determination. “We’re making spanakopita.”

Phainon blinked. “Spana-whatta?”

“Spanakopita,” she repeated, already reaching for the spinach. “Spinach pie. You layer phyllo dough with butter, add spinach, feta, onion, parsley—it’s actual cooking. Not whatever sad excuse you just listed.”

His brow furrowed, then smoothed with intrigue. “Spinach pie, huh? Never had one. Sounds fancy.”

“It’s not fancy,” Stelle shot back, inspecting the leaves like she knew what she was doing. “It’s food.”

The vendor watched her with amusement. He wrapped the spinach into a neat bundle while Phainon leaned over her shoulder, clearly entertained by how serious she was about this.

“Alright, spinach pie it is,” he said brightly, handing over the coins. “But I’m still making a side salad.”

“Over my dead body,” she muttered.

They moved from stall to stall, ticking off ingredients. By the time they’d finished, her bag was stuffed, and Phainon carried the heavier load without a hint of strain. He juggled olive oil bottles and butter in one arm while still pointing at passing displays. At one point, he stopped dead in front of a stand covered in sticky pastries, their tops glistening with honey and crushed nuts.

“Do we need those too?” he asked hopefully.

“That’s baklava,” Stelle said flatly. “Not even close.”

“Looks tasty though,” he said, already half-reaching for his wallet. Stelle slapped his hand away.

“You’re not getting dessert until you survive dinner.” 

He sighed dramatically, but followed her as she strode away. “You’re cruel, partner.”

By the time they reached the edge of the stalls again, the sun—or rather, the dawn device—had shifted to a softer glow. Phainon shifted the bags in his arms and flashed her that infuriatingly bright smile.

“Lucky for us, I’ve got a kitchen in my room,” he said casually. “We can make it there.”

Stelle blinked. “…Wait. You’ve had a kitchen this whole time?”

“Of course,” he said, already heading toward the palace halls. “Where else would I make my world-famous salads?”

She groaned loudly, clutching the eggs to her chest like a lifeline. “If you so much as say the word salad while we’re cooking, I’m dumping olive oil on your head.”

He laughed, the sound echoing through the corridor as he walked ahead.

Xx….o….xX

“Here’s the thing,” Phainon said, holding up the recipe on his teleslate. The text was small. The steps weren’t quite clear. “Do you butter every layer of phyllo, or do you do two stacks, then butter the top?”

The kitchen in Phainon’s quarters was smaller than she’d expected: one narrow counter with a single sink, racks of pans and knives above, and a small oven built into the stone wall. She had passed by it on her way out this morning, but her hungover brain didn’t really pay attention.

Stelle frowned. The recipe was contradictory. One version said brush oil or butter on each sheet, another said you could stack a few. “I… think it’s safer to butter every layer,” she said, voice clipped. “Crispier that way.”

1. She stabbed a finger at the phyllo stack, gently unwrapping the first sheet.  She dipped a brush in melted butter and swabbed it along the edge. It glistened in the light, and Stelle turned to look at him for approval. Instead, disaster struck. 

Her elbow caught on an unattended egg and it rolled before slipping off the counter, cracking on the tiled floor.

Stelle jumped. “Shit!”

Phainon dropped the butter brush and rushed to grab a rag. “I’ll clean it up.”

“Sorry, sorry.” She backed away. Her hands trembled slightly from adrenaline, from trying not to mess things up. She watched him kneel, wiping up the egg. When he straightened, there was no scold in his eyes. Just fondness.

They continued. She diced parsley while Phainon wilted spinach and garlic. 

When the filling was ready—spinach, onions, herbs, crumbled feta, beaten eggs—Stelle stirred it, tasting a sliver. Salt, olive oil, tang of cheese, green bitterness of spinach. Not bad.

Then came the phyllo layering. The phyllo wanted to tear. Edges crinkled. Phainon helped, folding edges over neatly, making sure top sheets were laid smooth.

They filled the baking dish. They had to decide: score the top now or after baking. She looked at the recipe. It said partially through the top layers. She grabbed a sharp knife and very carefully scored diagonal lines across the top phyllo—just enough to make the squares later, but not so far that the filling would leak out.

All the while she was aware of Phainon moving in the soft light of his kitchen, butter brush in hand, flour dusted on his fingers, sweat at his hairline. He paused to brush a loose strand from his forehead. She almost reached out—to steady him? No. To steady herself.

Finally, they slid the spanakopita into the oven. She closed the door and wiped sweat from her brow. Timer set: forty-five minutes.

Phainon exhaled, leaned against the counter. “We did it,” he said softly.

“It wasn’t a disaster,” she said, voice quieter than she wanted.

He laughed. “Not at all. It looks good. Smells good.”

Stelle's stomach twisted at the sound. Phainon pulled out his teleslate. 

“Rematch?” he asked, grinning at her. Stelle tilted her head, before he continued: “I want to fight you properly this time.”

She nodded, unable to hold back her own smile. “Fine, I owe you a do-over. Set the timer, we’ve got some time to kill.”

Xx….o….xX

Kephale Plaza felt like a different city at parting hour. Usually you couldn’t cross it without bumping into some crazed priest, a titankin guard, and five rowdy kids. But at a time like this, it was empty. The dawn device itself loomed above them, the core dimming to that blue-gold twilight that washed the stone in lavender.

They set their stuff at the base of a column—water bottle, a small towel, Phainon’s teleslate with the timer already pulled up. 

Stelle remembered when she had asked him about his phone case weeks ago. It was a rolling wheat field with a scarecrow adorned with colorful flowers. He had smiled, pointing to each flower in the illustration and listing off the names of his friends. Hyacine, Tribbie, Aglaea, Anaxa– And Cipher was the cat. ‘Where are you?’, she had asked him, ‘in the photo?’ And Phainon had laughed like she had asked the dumbest question in the world. He had told her he was the sun, the little squiggly yellow near the camera lens. That all he needed to be: Someone who could protect these stolen moments. She had elbowed him and asked where she was in the photo, never really expecting an answer. But he had turned serious, and looked at her with something she didn’t recognize back then before pointing to the scarecrow. ‘The most important one’, he had told her. She didn’t understand it then. 

She understood it now.

Stelle rolled her wrists, then the bat in her palms, testing the tape. No heat under her skin this time. 

“Ready?” Phainon asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s keep it light. Don’t want to keel over before dinner.”

They circled each other for the first few minutes, the clash of wood against steel echoing in the plaza. The sparring was nothing like this morning. Her swings were more controlled, less frenzied. The rhythm felt… casual, in a refreshing way. There was nothing at stake here.

About five minutes in, Phainon lowered his sword. “Wait, wait. Stop for a second.”

Stelle blinked, slightly out of breath. “What?”

“Did anyone ever actually give you formal combat training?”

Her brow furrowed. “Not really. Why?”

“Because your stance is atrocious.” He gave her a mock-serious look, but there was no malice in it. “I’m surprised you’ve made it this far.”

Her grip tightened around her bat. “Gee, thanks.”

“Here,” he said, stepping forward. He gently tugged her bat out of her hands and set it aside on the ground. Then, without another word, he handed her his sword.

Stelle took it and immediately staggered under its weight. The tip of the massive claymore fell onto the ground with a loud thud, and it almost dragged her body down with it. “Are you kidding me?” she gasped, both hands straining to pull the blade off the ground. 

No wonder he was so fit, her brain unhelpfully supplied, flashing her images of this morning. Stelle mentally smacked herself.

Phainon scratched the back of his neck, laughing awkwardly. “Sorry, partner. I forget how heavy it feels if you’re not used to it.” He reclaimed the weapon before she could drop it on her foot and handed her bat back. “It’s okay—we can still use your bat to demonstrate.”

Rolling her eyes, she took the bat again. “Fine. Show me what I’m doing wrong, then.”

“Gladly,” he said, stepping close. Maybe too close. He nudged her feet apart with the tip of his boot. “First—bend your knees a little more. You’re standing like you’re posing for a portrait, not about to swing.”

She shifted uncomfortably, trying to follow his instructions. He reached forward, gently adjusting her grip. Her breath caught, though she masked it quickly by muttering, “I don’t see how this is supposed to help.”

“You’ll see.” He guided her through a slow motion swing, his hand brushing against her arm as he corrected the angle. “Don’t just throw your arm into it. Step forward—swing with your whole body.”

Every time he leaned in to adjust her stance, Stelle’s face grew hotter. She kept her mouth shut, cursing whatever strange disease had caused her to act like this.

They reset, and she tried again—this time putting her weight into the swing. The bat cracked against his blade with a satisfying thunk. Phainon’s eyes lit up.

“See? That’s it! Wow, you’re really getting the hang of this!” His encouragement was so genuine, so effortless, that she had to look away to hide the stupid grin tugging at her lips.

They sparred a little longer, Phainon mixing instruction with teasing comments about her footwork or the way she squinted before every swing. She shot back with insults of her own, but she found herself listening, actually trying his advice.

The plaza grew darker, the last traces of daylight slipping away. Then Phainon’s phone buzzed, vibrating on the ground where he’d left it.

He lowered his sword. “That’s the timer. Dinner’s ready.”

Relieved, she let her bat fall against her shoulder. Her arms ached, her legs burned, but it wasn’t the draining exhaustion from earlier in the day. This was… better.

They gathered their things—bat, sword, bottles—and started back toward his quarters. The night air was cool, and the faint scent of butter and spinach drifted down the hall as they approached.

As soon as they set their equipment aside, Phainon slipped an oven mitt onto his hand and pulled the spanakopita from the oven. The golden top crackled as it shifted in the heat, filling the kitchen with a smell so rich and savory that Stelle’s stomach growled.

Phainon grinned at her. “Worth the wait, right?”

She had to admit—it was.

Phainon set the tray on the counter and, for a second, they both just stared at it like they’d conjured a miracle. Phainon slid a metal spatula along the cuts while she steadied the pan with a towel, and together they carved out the first square. The corner snapped clean and steam unfurled.

“It actually looks…” Stelle took out her phone because she needed proof of this kitchen victory. She adjusted the angle of her photo so you could see the layers. “Edible.”

“High praise,” Phainon said, looking just as surprised as she was.

“Shut up.” She took the picture and, high off of pride, shot it to Dan Heng with the caption: made this. didn’t set the kitchen on fire.

He reached for the spatula to plate more, but she stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “I’ll go set up outside. You cut. I don’t want to ruin the good corner.”

He put a hand over his heart. “I can handle it. Balcony. Go.”

She pushed through the sliding door.

His suite’s balcony was wide and private, set at an angle that gave a sliver of the Garden of Life and, above that, just enough of the dawn device’s glow to paint the rail in warm light. Two reclined cushioned chairs faced the view, each with a little side table that looked like they’d been designed for a night like this. Stelle dropped into the left chair, kicked her boots off, and sank into the cushions. Her head still had a faint ring around it from earlier, but it was dull now, tolerable.

She opened her conversation with Dan Heng.

—--------------------

<STELLE> to <DAN HENG>

Stelle: behold: spanikopitta

Stelle: spannakopta

Stelle: span

Stelle: spanakopita

Stelle: fuck it. Its the spinach thing

Dan Heng: …

Dan Heng: That looks… legitimately good.

Dan Heng: Surprised you figured out how to cook.

—--------------------

Stelle snorted.

—--------------------

Stelle: don’t be rude. i can cook just fine.

—--------------------

A lie.

—--------------------

Stelle: i’ll bring leftovers if there are any.

Dan Heng: I don’t know if I should be afraid or intrigued.

Stelle: both.

—--------------------

The door slid open. Phainon stepped out carrying two plates, each balancing a square cut of their creation.  He handed one to her, then set the other on the empty table. She opened her mouth to say thanks, but he held up a finger.

“One sec—I’ll be right back.”

He vanished inside. She looked down at the food and tried not to let her stomach audibly celebrate. The top had cracks where the knife had touched it, and the layers underneath showed as neat, pale strata. She prodded the corner with her fork and watched the top shatter into delicate golden flakes.

The door slid again. Phainon returned with a bottle of wine and a corkscrew tucked between two fingers. The bottle looked like last night’s, the label a little scuffed. He held it up with a small, hopeful smile. “Went to the market earlier. Found the one you liked.”

Oh. So that's who he bought that wine for. Me.

It shouldn’t have made Stelle’s stomach flip the way it did.

“Promise me you’ll make sure I don’t pass out like yesterday,” She said, watching him place the bottle on the table to uncork it. “Don’t let me drink seventy percent.”

“Don’t let me drink seventy percent again,” she added, pointing her fork at the bottle.

He grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll cut you off at sixty.”

Stelle rolled her eyes. “And if I do drink too much again, don’t let me hog the bed this time.”

“You’re assuming I minded,” he said, as he eased the cork out.

She blinked at him. The joke should’ve landed and rolled off her shoulder, dismissed. It wasn’t. “... Did you?”

He looked at her, then down at the cork in his hand. When he answered, it was simple. “Not once.”

Heat crawled up her neck. She stared down at the spanakopita, like it held some sort of answer to what she was feeling. Phainon poured modest amounts of wine into two short cups he’d grabbed from the kitchen—these weren’t exactly wine glasses, but they worked. Then he sat down, his chair angled towards her. She took her cup from him, setting it next to her food.

They tried the spanakopita at the same time.

The top gave way and crackled with ease. The first bite was buttery without being greasy.The filling was soft and bright—spinach sweetened by the onion, the feta salting the dish. It wasn’t restaurant perfect; some bits of phyllo were a shade darker, and one corner had more filling than crust. But together it worked.

“Oh,” Stelle said, unable to help the surprise in her voice. “That’s… actually good.”

Phainon chewed, then nodded happily. “It’s really good.”

She took another bite, and another, and only stopped because she thought Phainon having to stop her from choking would be embarrassing.

“Full disclosure,” she said, “I had no idea what I was doing.”

“I figured,” he said cheerfully. At her glare he put his hands up. “For the sake of your ego, I let you take charge.”

“I guess it was just the deaf leading the blind.”

“I’m pretty sure the saying is ‘the blind leading the blind,’” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“Where was that consideration for my ego that you had earlier?” she shot back.

“It took a dinner break,” he said, and clinked his cup against hers before taking a sip.

Five days. It hit her not as a number but as a messy film reel. Mem barging into her room with “training exercises,” the stupid ring toss, the way he’d pressed the sun charm into her palm and said it like it meant nothing: That way you have a little piece of me to bring wherever you go. The interview with the too-bright host. His shoulders shaking when she nearly fell in the corridor and he caught her by the wrist. Her head on his shoulder while fireworks tried to split the sky. Him in a towel this morning and the way her mouth had said holy moly before her brain could get a handle of it. The yard today; the look he’d given her when he said I think I know you better than you want me to. The market after, and him laughing with his friends like he was the origin of happiness itself.

Some of it was a mess. A lot of it was fun. All of it had been her idea.

He set the bottle between their tables and tipped a little more into her cup. She took a small sip and passed it back; her mouth moved before she could put any brakes on what was about to exit it.

“You know this ends tomorrow, right?” She hadn’t meant it to come out so soft. She internally cringed.

He smiled on reflex, but it didn’t make it to his eyes. “Counting down the hours already?” He looked down at his plate. “...But yeah. That was the deal.”

Stelle’s fork hovered over the square. The words came out smaller. “Are you okay with that?” The audacity of the question startled her sober. She hadn’t earned the right to ask it. She’d spent half the week dragging him into rooms and the other half dragging herself out of them.

Phainon looked up, a flicker of surprise crossing his face. Then he looked down at his lap, carefully considering his response. “Doesn’t matter if I am,” he said. “You’ve got your mission. I’ve got mine. We’ll both keep walking.”

She nodded like that made perfect sense. Of course it did. It was everything it was supposed to be. Under her breath, almost bitter without meaning to be, she said, “You make it sound really simple.”

If Phainon heard it, he didn’t say anything.

They finished eating, lost in their own minds. She found herself tracing a flake of phyllo around her plate with the tines, her brain spiraling into the same unproductive loop it had been on since the yard. She wasn’t about to assign a label to this. It didn’t deserve a label. It was a week-long job. A fix. A choice with an end date. Only an idiot got hung up on that.

Apparently, she was an idiot.

She thought about the plan and how clean it had looked on paper. Six days. Then a staged fight. Then distance. Easy math. She’d told herself it would wash out. She’d be back to normal. She could catalog all the disasters from the week and tell them all to March 7th when she returned to the Express. They could both lay down together, drowning in stuffed animals, laughing about how dumb the whole thing was. She could go to sleep on that. She could. 

They didn’t drink as much as last night. The bottle got drained halfway and then Phainon set it on the floor quietly.

The fuzz that crept in around the edges was gentle this time. It made the chair a little softer, the railing a little farther away. She leaned back and let the cushion hold her shoulders.

“You know,” Phainon said after a stretch, voice lighter like he just wanted to humor himself, “for a fake relationship, we’ve done a pretty convincing job.”

Stelle snorted. “Convincing enough to fool a city, maybe. Not sure about us.”

Stelle doesn’t know why she said that.

“Says you,” he said, grinning. “I was ready to propose back at lunch.”

She rolled her eyes so hard she wouldn't have been surprised if they popped right out of her head. “You’d make a terrible husband.”

“Maybe,” he admitted softly. “But I think I’d make a decent partner. At least… to you.”

Something clenched at the back of her throat. He said it without the flourish that would have made it a line, without the timing that would have made it a joke. She looked down at her empty plate because anywhere was safer than his face.

“Don’t say things like that,” she managed.

“Why?” He tilted his head. Not a challenge. A real question.

“Because I’ll start thinking that you actually mean them.”

He didn’t try to answer the thing she’d laid down between them. He didn’t press. He had never pressed. It made her want to both shake him and reach across the small table for his hand. Instead, she pulled out her phone with the safety of habit and snapped another picture—this one of the plate after, the crumbs scattered everywhere. She typed to Dan Heng: edibility confirmed. She didn’t send it.

“Tomorrow,” Stelle said, not sure if she was warning him or herself.

“Tomorrow,” he echoed, as if it were a place they were both already walking toward.

They sat there a while longer, listening to the small sounds—A bird chirping, a muffled conversation from the gardens below, the soft glug of the bottle when the breeze nudged it. 

If this was the last night where she could pretend the tension under the surface was just a trick of the light, then she would do it properly. She would memorize the clean line of his profile against the glow, the ridiculous way his hair never did what it was told, the way he always forgot to clean off flour from his thumb when he cooked. She would burn the way his gaze softened when he called her ‘partner’ into her mind. She would pack those things into a quiet place and close the door, because tomorrow they would have to make a different kind of scene in a different kind of light.

“Good spanakopita,” she said finally.

He huffed a laugh. “Not bad for two frauds.”

“We’re not frauds,” she said, surprising herself. “We didn’t lie.”

He turned his head at that. The look he gave her was too tender to stand. “We didn’t.”

They stood at the same time without meaning to, plates empty, chairs creaking. For a second they were too close in the doorway. He stepped back. She went in. The bottle stayed where it was, half full and forgotten.

Phainon insisted on walking her back, the leftovers balanced in the crook of his arm. The container was wrapped neatly and held together with a rubber band, a sticky note slapped across the lid in handwriting that was surprisingly neat.

For Stelle!! ♡

She read it once, twice, then looked away quickly, as if the words might burn a hole straight through her chest. The heart was messy, but intentional. At her door, he handed it over with that same steady smile she had grown so used to. A smile that went back weeks, months, maybe even years. 

“Don’t let it sit out all night,” he said lightly. “I put effort into that.”

She managed a small laugh. “You mean I did most of the work.”

He tipped his head, not willing to put up a fight. “Goodnight, partner.”

“Goodnight.”

He lingered half a second before turning away. She stayed in the doorway long enough to watch him walk the length of the hall, his shoulders relaxed, stride unhurried, until he turned the corner and disappeared. Only then did she close the door.

Inside, the room wasn’t dark. Dan Heng was perched on the arm of the couch, a book balanced on his knee. Mem practically launched herself upright, her eyes lighting up when she spotted Stelle.

“There you are!” Mem chirped, rushing over like she’d been gone a month instead of a day. “I missed you!”

Stelle let herself be pulled into a brief hug, her muscles sluggish but willing. “Hey, Mem.”

“You were gone all day. I thought maybe you’d been kidnapped by an Amphoreus street gang or something!”

“Relax. No kidnappings. Just… busy.”

Behind them, Dan Heng closed his book with one hand. His gaze flicked down to the container in her grip. “Is that food?”

“Leftovers,” Stelle said, lifting it slightly. “Spanakopita. We tried.”

He raised an eyebrow but didn’t mock. “Put it in the fridge. I might feel daring enough to try it later.”

She rolled her eyes, but carried it to the small fridge anyway, tucking it on the middle shelf. “I didn’t poison it.”

The moment she shut the fridge door, exhaustion hit like a punch. The long walk, the cooking, the balcony talk—every piece of the day landed all at once, dragging her limbs down. “I’m changing,” she muttered, already halfway to the bathroom.

The mirror showed her hair a wreck, eyes rimmed dark, shoulders slouched. She didn’t bother fixing any of it. She changed quickly, pulling on softer clothes, and padded back into the room.

Mem looked like she wanted to chatter more, but Stelle only managed a half-wave before collapsing face-first onto the bed. The mattress gave with a sigh, and she let herself sink into it, arms sprawled, a dying fish flopping into its final resting place.

The room went quieter. She felt their eyes, but neither pushed. Mem mumbled something, Dan Heng answered low. Stelle’s ears tuned it out.

She lay belly-down, cheek mashed into the pillow, and let her gaze drag sideways to the nightstand. The charm sat there, the one Phainon had pressed into her hand at the market—the sun, gold and simple, meant to match the moon he kept. It caught the lamplight, a faint gleam at its edges.

Her chest tightened.

Dan Heng’s earlier words repeated in her mind, irritatingly steady: Remember what this is and what this isn’t.

She clenched her jaw. She did remember. This wasn’t supposed to matter. It was just a plan, a role she played for a week. Nothing more. Meaningless. 

And yet—her eyes wouldn’t leave the charm. It felt heavier than it should, even sitting on the table. She didn’t want to admit that she liked it there, that she liked knowing it was hers. She didn’t want to admit that she didn’t want to let go.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

But that would be dumb, wouldn’t it? 

 

Notes:

they aint even pretending no more bro.... theyre just doing it for the love of the game 💀💀💀

Notes:

im so cooked my outline alone is 11k words... lord give me strength to finish this