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[Tom Cooke]

En Route to the Tea Shop • Two Falls

Afternoon on the 4th of Bethas, 2720

T
here was pain in her voice.

It was raw and ragged. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t heard it earlier, but he’d thought it none of his business; he’d thought it the prerogative of an angry girl, the sort of girl who’d wanted nothing to do with her father for a year, to have her feelings in all their complexity, and none of his flooding business to ask. Whatever she’d felt, she’d come there to ask for his backing, or his money, or a nod in his will.

Or something – he still wasn’t sold she wouldn’t come out with it at the end, pull out some juicy scrap of information to blackmail him with. Pull the curtains aside, and have done with all this mung dancing-around; she was after something, and she’d show him what it was, eventually, and it’d be no better or worse than any other Brunnhold brat looking for a foot in the door of da’s wallet.

So he told himself, walking beside her close enough their shoulders brushed. There was no avoiding caprise now; the monic particles sought each other, unfamiliar, meeting noses and whiskers and jumping away and creeping back.

He didn’t know what to say, other than – Diana had told him Cerise didn’t want to see him. He thought of saying so; he wasn’t sure why he hesitated. It wasn’t as if he liked Diana any more than any of the rest of them, and it was the truth, after all. Maybe it was because he’d shrugged, in those days, and thought: one less thing to worry about.

Rain tapped the umbrella. Cerise had broken off; he didn’t think she’d continue. “Work’s not the same as,” he started, and broke off himself. There was a tightness in his throat; his own voice was as raw as hers.

Can’t you see? I didn’t even flooding recognize you when you walked in the door, he thought. Only because you looked like him, he thought again. Surely you can see it? Surely you’d recognize your da, and you’d know if the man standing beside you with an umbrella over our heads wasn’t him? Surely you’d know if there was something living in his –

His breath came in shuddering; he let out a sharp exhale through his nose. “I didn’t want you to see your father like this,” he said simply, honestly, after a long pause.

He picked up the hem of his coat, stepping over a puddle as they crossed the street. Looking left and right for coaches, he didn’t get a glimpse of her face; her heavy hood was in the way, and the frizzy edges of a few curls.

This street was narrower, he noticed, as he followed her on. Street lamps glowed blue through the rainy haze, and the facades on either side were cozy brick, lights in some of the windows. They passed under awnings rippling with the onslaught of the rain, glass bay windows reflective and dark; he couldn’t see himself past her, and he didn’t try.

“Easier to get by at work,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Harder at home.” A carriage rattled past, showering him with a thin mist. “Diana tells me we had a falling out; I don’t remember. I didn’t know where we stood, but I assumed – I was the last person you’d want to hear from, least of all recovering from something like that.”

He swallowed, looking down at his feet. “Did nobody – tell you?” he asked suddenly, the realization wincing across his face. He looked over at her. “She told me she wrote you, but...”

He hadn’t asked to see either of the girls; he realized he’d no clue what she’d been telling them. He’d the sense she didn’t trust him – she’d been trying to keep them away – but –

What do you say, when your husband drops off the face of Vita for a month and comes back acting like somebody different? He’s disordered, maybe; he’s still recovering. He needs space. And he hadn’t asked to see the girls, not even once, not even when he’d set himself to pretending at normalcy. What do you even write?

She wanted something, he told himself, swallowing tightly, trying to resist the hot prickling in his eyes. She wants something still; there’s no love among these people.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

En Route to the Tea Shop, Two Falls
Bethas 4, 2720 - Afternoon

Cerise had been trying to ignore it, the strangeness of the field that surrounded him now. Standing so close like they had to in order to share the umbrella, ignoring it became impossible. Easier to wave off inside, back at the museum, when she was angry about so many other things. Soft and clairvoyant, and weak--like a student's, like someone just learning to cast. She couldn't recognize it and she couldn't read it; now she couldn't pretend it away, either. Like the new and strange expressions on his face, more similar to hers than she'd like to admit. Eleanor was lucky she looked like her mother and not so much like their father, Cerise thought--there was something painful about looking into a mirror and seeing a stranger.

Work wasn't the same, he'd started to say, as--as what? Cerise didn't need to ask. She doubted very much she would have liked the answer. And he'd stopped himself, anyway, so what was the point? It was true enough. Work was different. Work had always been different. And he was different, too, but Cerise didn't understand how or why.

"I suppose that's fair enough," she said, regretting the hardness in her voice as soon as it left her mouth. She had just meant to accepted it as true, and leave it at that. The steel that had crept in had just escaped her somehow. They stepped over a puddle and crossed the street, allowing Cerise to busy herself with lifting the hem of her dress and concentrating on not soaking her shoes any more than they already had been. Her stockings were a lost cause; she did her best to ignore them. Nothing could be done to change her discomfort, so there was no point in thinking about it.

She couldn't help the sharp intake of breath and the way her head turned, involuntary, to look at him. He didn't remember--he didn't know where they stood. Which one? She thought she knew which Diana had meant--it had been, after all, the most recent of them. She had heard... When Diana had written her, to tell her that it was best not to contact him for a while, she'd said something about his memory. It had been vague; she supposed now that it had been Diana's attempt not to frighten either of them. And for a while, she had thought that was wise.

Cerise had been beside herself with worry the month he was missing. Her classes had suffered, her performance on the team too. Still she was angry beside it all, so for the first three or four months after she thought--yes. That was fine. It made sense to her, then. But four months became five, and six, and then Cerise had started to feel like there was something nobody was telling her. Everything she heard from home had carefully avoided much mention of Anatole Vauquelin; he was a ghost in his own home.

"Diana wrote me. But even Eleanor can probably tell she's leaving something out. A lot of somethings." Cerise's jaw had not yet loosened from where it had set; the muscles in it had begun to ache. Whatever she had thought it was that was being kept from her, this wasn't it. She had wanted to know, she reminded herself. She had wanted to hear this. At least she'd thought so.

"Since you don't remember, I'll tell you: you didn't like the company I keep. I disagreed. You won in the end," she added, bitterness coloring her voice and her field. "I was extremely angry with you. I'm angry with you about it still. I will be angry about it for the rest of my life." Her sharp chin was held high and she looked at him unflinchingly. It galled her to hear he had forgotten--how terribly convenient, when it didn't matter anymore.

They turned a corner onto another narrow street. In the distance, not too far away now, she saw the sign: The Golden Rose Tea Room. The name of the shop was in curling, elegant script above an elaborately carved rose. At some point, it must have been painted gold to match the name. Some of it still clung to the corners and edges of some of the petals, but most of it had been worn away to a soft yellow. Cerise rather liked the lived-in sort of feeling it gave the place. Cerise was torn between longing for those low tables and mismatched chairs and a desire to stay out here on the sidewalk. She wasn't sure she could say what she wanted to, in that quiet shop where she'd spent so many hours.

"I'm glad, at least, to hear you're doing better." Cerise looked away as she said it, embarrassed to have admitted such sentiment out loud.

[Tom Cooke]

En Route to the Tea Shop • Two Falls

Afternoon on the 4th of Bethas, 2720

A
lot of somethings. He walked beside Cerise, silent; he listened, his lips pressed thin, the set of his jaw tight. He’d never thought about this before – he’d never had to – Diana contending with all this vodundun and madness, mulling over letters, thinking on what to say or what not to say. If she had been a little apart from Cerise, or so it seemed to him, Eleanor had been her baby; he thought of Diana telling Eleanor – well into the second year of this – not to come for summer break, not to come for autumn, or Clock’s Eve.

There was nothing to look at but the mist and rain, the dark glass of the shops gliding by. He stared into the grey. Stop it, he got the urge to say. Don’t say another word. Don’t make me –

He looked at her. Oh. Bitter-dark curled out into her field, swept up the physical mona; it was anger left to steep too long, muddy-dark green, clinging to both of them and to the umbrella, prickling the hairs at the back of his neck. She jerked her chin up and looked at him, and he had to look back at her.

For a moment, he couldn’t feel anything but – that familiar floating-outside feeling, the turning of his stomach – not looking at the familiar curl of her lip, the tentative lines it made on her young face. Then he took a deep breath, and laid that feeling aside as best he could. He nodded, once, and looked away; a little bitterness shivered out into his field, a flicker of red-shift.

The implications washed over him slowly. You won, in the end. He glanced down at the hand on the umbrella, thin and manicured.

Hypocrite, he wanted to mutter under his breath. They turned down another side street, another whisk of grey facades glimpsed through sheets of grey rain.

The company she kept could mean a lot of things; he didn’t feel at liberty to ask, being honest. It could’ve meant more spoiled duelist gollies, of course, the sort he’d seen hanging round the lawn with slicked-back hair and cigarettes, uniform jackets draped round their shoulders like kings’ cloaks.

Somehow, he thought she meant something different by company. And what had the incumbent had done, to ensure his daughter stayed away? It would’ve been either humiliating for her, or dangerous to somebody else; or both, maybe. He didn’t think Cerise was the sort who’d hear a stern, Don’t go, Cerise, and say, All right, Father.

He forced himself to breathe steadily, to unclench his jaw. I’m sorry, he thought to say, but he didn’t want to; he didn’t want to ask her to forgive Anatole. He never would, not for a single thing.

When she finished speaking, at last, he looked over at her. He couldn’t see her face now, with the hood where it was. Your Father’s not doing better, he got the awfulest urge to say. He’s dead.

“Be angry,” he said instead, something that wasn’t quite a smile twitching at his lip. “Stay angry. It’s good. I deserve that.” His field gave a little pulse against hers; he looked away, swallowing a lump.

They’d come to a stop below a sign. He could see, now, though his poor eyes and the mist had obscured it from him. The Gold Rose Tearoom, he read, glancing over the worn rose – still glittering in patches, he didn’t know if from the rain or from bits of old paint – then down, at the faint phosphor light coming from inside the window. He got a dim glimpse of a scattering of low tables and chairs, mis-matched, and a mant manna worn, comfortable-looking cushions.

He felt like everything in his head had come loose and was rattling about; he took another breath, four seconds in and four out, and stepped under the awning with her. Here, he folded up the umbrella, shook it out on the stones; he looked at Cerise, a shadow and some curls under a heavy green hood, a glitter of gold hugged up under her cloak.

“That wasn’t such a walk,” he said, with a sheepish, apologetic smile in her direction; he was a bit winded. He tucked his umbrella under one arm. “Do you want me to go in? I wouldn’t blame you for knocking me on my erse and sending me right back to the museum.”

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Golden Rose Tea Room, Two Falls
Bethas 4, 2720 - Afternoon

Letting him forget would have been easier for both of them. But of all the things she had yet to forgive him for, that was one of the newest and the most raw. It had been some time, really, but the bitter sludge of that feeling hadn't abated. She would not allow him the luxury of not knowing.

She couldn't see him now around her hood or the way it pushed her hair all forward. That was good, considering she didn't know if she would snarl or cry, or which she would rather happen. The worst part was that he let her say it, quietly and without interrupting, and didn't fight her back. It's good, he said. Magnanimously, understandingly. For her concern, however, it seemed he had no regard. It prickled at her skin, even before she felt the pulse of his strange, airy field.

"I'm so grateful to have your permission." Cerise snorted, and her voice came out a sarcastic drawl. Well--he'd told her to stay angry, hadn't he? She was going to do it anyway--he was only getting what he asked for.

They had arrived at the tea room. It had been a stranger walk than she had expected, in a stranger day. Cerise hesitated under the awning, trying to decide if she wanted to go in anymore while her father shook out the umbrella onto the stones. Did she want to have lunch with this bizarre new version of her father? With his strange field and even stranger moments of understanding? The rain poured down and obscured the end of the street.

But he had asked her to lunch, and she couldn't remember the last time he had done that. Even before the stroke and the last year. Even before their latest fight. There was a little girl somewhere inside of her who wouldn't let her say no. Memories worn soft with age. Cerise pushed back her hood and shook out her hair.

"I remembered it being longer," she lied. She didn't smile back, but she didn't precisely frown. She shifted her weight uneasily, absently stroking Sish's soft, scaled side. The miraan was cool under her fingers. She sniffed and pretended it was the cold.

"I said I would never forgive you, not that I didn't want to get lunch. And..." Cerise hesitated, her hand on the door. It was carved crystal; on a sunny day it cast rainbows onto the sidewalk and all over the entryway of the shop. "You're still my father. Besides, I haven't brought any money with me."

Cerise pushed open the door and went inside, without looking to see what he made of that.

[Tom Cooke]

The Golden Rose Tea Room • Two Falls

Afternoon on the 4th of Bethas, 2720

H
e did smile, this time. It was unbidden; so was the snort, right on the heels of her own. He opened his mouth to say, oes, oes, boemo, and only just caught himself. She was a slim-small figure all swathed in a great green cloak, then, with a bundle in her arms, with a little dark hair peeping out of the hood. It was when the hood came down under the awning that he saw the cascade of dark curls and the narrow pale face. He met her grey eyes for a moment, then looked away, toward the door. He did not speak.

But he wasn’t frowning, either, not really. There was another twitch of a smile at his lips as he raised an eyebrow at her, and – he couldn’t’ve said what he felt, but it sank in his stomach like a stone. He watched her run her fingers over Sish’s flank, her head hidden someplace in the cloak, and sniff.

He took a deep breath; the air was damp and cold and clinging, and didn’t do much but make his chest ache. He looked inside the window, at the blurry glow of a gold phosphor lamp. His hip ached. If she told him to dust, he’d wait until she’d got inside, then walk to the mouth of the street and call himself a cab. Only once he was out of sight, of course.

She didn’t; she took the crystal door-knob and pushed inside, punctuated by the rattle-jingle of a bell. Still my father, she said. He hesitated, looking down the street. The wind picked up, whisking the rain this way and that; the awning ruffled and snapped, and he caught a spray of water.

Then she spoke again, and he caught the door and laughed, finally, shaking his head. The warmth washed over him; he shut the door quickly, and shut out the rainy chill with it.

The two of them were dripping on the tatty old carpet in front of the door. The tables were low to the ground, looking almost, he thought, like some he’d seen in Hox. He didn’t think there were two alike down the whole small room; some were glossy-dark, some light – though not so light as calypt, and none for kofi har’aq – some covered with cloth printed in lovely patterns. The chairs all looked soft and comfortable as they had from outside.

The counter was empty, for now; the space behind it disappeared round a corridor, and he could see nothing of the shadows there. Silent, catching his breath. He didn’t move until she did, and watched her carefully in the corner of his eye, even as he looked at each table, each scattered chair, some in the grey light of the bay windows and some tucked into shaded nooks.

There weren’t many others here, not in the pouring rain. A young man – a galdor by the looks of him, with a sweep of dark red curls – was napping in a chair near the windows. On his table, smooth wood speckled with raindrop shadows, was a bowl with what looked like the dregs of soup in the bottom, along with a pot and a small porcelain cup.

As they moved through the room, he studied the wall hangings, brow furrowed.

“What do you usually get here?” he asked as they found a seat. He peered over at the counter, then made himself look back at Cerise. He didn’t have to brace for the sight, this time, though it sat uneasy with him, like looking into a strange mirror.

He’d hung his coat on the rack near the door; now, as he sat, he shivered into his dinner jacket. He felt ridiculous, all trussed up in his finery; he wished he’d had the chance to change. Neither of them’d quite prepared for this.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Golden Rose Tea Room, Two Falls
Bethas 4, 2720 - Afternoon

The inside of the Golden Rose was warm and bright, a complete contrast to the pounding rain outside and the museum party both. Cerise couldn't help but smile a little as they stepped inside, and even Sish seemed happier to be there. Her little golden head untucked itself from the crook of Cerise's arm and she chirped happily.

It wasn't the sort of place she could picture her father in. None of the tables or chairs matched each other, let alone anything else. Cerise liked it; the whole place had the faint air of a slightly mad literature professor. They dripped all over the carpet that was in front of the door for just such a purpose; Cerise tried to quietly tap the excess water off of her shoes. Her cloak was a lost cause. She just hung it up on the hook by the door.

There was nobody behind the counter, but that wasn't terribly unusual. Not with weather like this, especially. The Golden Rose was a sort of out-of-the way destination for most Brunnhold students, and the tables and chairs proved a challenge for many of the faculty. For all the charm Cerise thought the place held, it was generally fairly sleepy, even in the best of times. She was glad it was deserted now, but for a single man asleep near one of the deep bay windows.

Cerise led them both to one of her favorite corners, tucked near a set of bookshelves. They contained mostly curios--preserved animal skeletons, strange and exotic things in jars, geodes, and the like--but also a few actual books, with a sign in neat handwriting that proclaimed them for common reading. The chairs in this corner were overstuffed and the upholstery had been repaired more than once, at varying levels of expertise. One was a violent green, and the other a more restrained deep yellow. Cerise sat in the green chair, and gestured to her father to take the yellow.

Both chairs also had small cushions on them; she moved hers aside and set it gently at the small round table between the chairs. Sish happily took the cushion, as was her preference. Cerise sighed and rolled her shoulders back before giving the miraan a fond rub against her cheek. Sish circled around a few times, prodding the pillow this way and that, before evidently becoming satisfied enough to settle herself down. Her tail draped over the edge of the table.

Cerise looked at her father, and she wasn't sure what to make of the picture. His narrow, freckled face, so like and unlike her own; his fancy dinner jacket, too nice for The Golden Rose Tea Room. He looked out of place, and cold. Part of her was gleeful; she really was very angry with him still, for everything. Another part was concerned that he was being entirely too cavalier with his health; a third and smallest part, the one that had made her open the door and invite him inside after her, was merely happy to see him in this place where she was not-quite-a-regular, with no reason for her to snarl at him quite yet.

"I usually make them choose for me," Cerise confessed with a small smile hooking at one side of her mouth. "When it comes to tea that is. And lunch too, come to think of it." Cerise shrugged her shoulders and tossed her hair back. It was sliding out of the ties again. "But they do have a menu--it changes quite often. I'll go get one."

Cerise hesitated only for a moment before she leapt to her feet and darted away to the counter. She hadn't given her father time to respond. It felt a little bit like an escape. She hoped Sish would behave. When she returned, she had a small menu in hand. It was hand-written in the same neat script that had written the sign on the shelf. The selection was small, soups and sandwiches mostly, but on the back it boasted of their many varieties of tea to be ordered by the pot.

"Here," Cerise handed the menu over. Suspicion creased her forehead. If he complained about the Golden Rose, then she really might toss him right back out. If he didn't, that would be an entirely different problem. "I can give our order to Alain... Wherever he is."

Alain de Lyon was a cheerful man in his early thirties; he had inherited the Golden Rose from his mother. Or so he told Cerise--Alain was a bit of a chatterbox when he had a mind to be. But he didn't mind that she brought Sish, and he knew when to leave well enough alone, so Cerise liked him. Besides, sometimes he would ask her what she was reading and actually listen to the answer. Once he had put one of the books she recommended out on the shelf. She was fairly certain no other patron had picked it up.

[Tom Cooke]

The Golden Rose Tea Room • Two Falls

Afternoon on the 4th of Bethas, 2720

H
e felt like he’d been tossed into unfamiliar waters. The chair was a sort of deep mustard, low enough to the ground his knees weren’t quite level with the table; it creaked as he sat in it, and – sank. He pushed himself up on the arm, shifted, got himself a modicum of comfortable. He glanced round, first, at the shelf; his eye caught on what looked like a tangle of tentacles bunched up in a jar, one single glassy eye glimpsed through hazy solution.

He blinked and looked back at Cerise, sitting in the bright green chair. She was looking at him; he was looking at her. He couldn’t tell much about her expression, other than it didn’t look much more certain than hers.

She was – hard to read, he thought, with an uncomfortable sinking feeling. There was always something a little petulant about her face, a little go-ahead-and-try-me-kov; it was something about the thin, expressive lips, the large, slightly slanted grey eyes. There was a curl to the edge of her smile when she said, I usually make them choose for me.

He’d seen concern there earlier, for Sish; it did something to her whole face, as if glimpsed in a different light. It would’ve been easy to see every expression as some sort of sneer –

She hopped up just then, eyes flicking away, before he could reply. His mouth was slightly open; he shut it, watching her jaunt off to the counter, frizzy curls bobbing.

Sish still lay where she’d so delicately set her, curled on the cushion. He propped his head up on an arm, watching the miraan. “You’re in a heaven,” he murmured.

He felt uneasy being left alone with the thing, but he found himself wondering if he mightn’t reach out, scratch the plume of feathers at her brow with one fingertip. She’d so looked like a cat when she’d curled up there, turning round and curling her tail.

Instead, he shifted back toward the bookshelf with a creak. He squinted at the hand-written note first, then – tentative – reached out to slide a worn, red book from the shelf, with gold ornament on the spine and the cover.

He ran a fingertip along the gold, then opened the book. He hadn’t read a word before she came back with the menu; he glanced up, shut the book – though he kept his place with a finger – and murmured, “Thank you,” taking it.

He studied the curly handwriting on the page. In the corner of his eye, Cerise was looking at him intently, with her brow furrowed; the back of his neck prickled. “Soup of the day, with toasted rye?” He folded the leaf back, then extended it back to Cerise. “I think I’ll let them choose for me, too,” he said, trying very hard not to think about how the smile on his own face looked.

At the name Alain, he’d lifted an eyebrow, half-wondering. He found himself more than half wondering, being honest – it was strange, to think his host had a daughter; a daughter who’d had friends – friends of a sort Anatole hadn’t approved – favorite places of a comfortable sort, nothing like the pristinely-matched Uptown establishments Diana had taken him to dinners at.

“I can see why you like it here,” he said, then reminded himself where he was, and who he was, and who she was; his smile flickered sadly, and he looked back down at the book in his lap.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Golden Rose Tea Room, Two Falls
Bethas 4, 2720 - Afternoon

Leaving Sish alone with her father had been something of a gamble. She had trusted that the golden miraan would remain just where Cerise had left her, curled up so happily on one of her favorite cushions; Sish had seemed so tired by the day, and she was always more groggy in cold weather. She wouldn't have put it past her though to misbehave while her mistress was out of sight, just to remind her that she could.

Cerise had focused more on the menu and her own unaccountable discomfort when she returned than anything else. So it wasn't until he took the menu from her hand with a murmured thanks that she saw he had pulled a book off the shelf. There was a pang when she saw which it was--the sole contribution she had made to the selection. She didn't think he'd had time to read any of it, in between her bouncing away to get the menu and returning.

Should she ask why he'd picked that one? Cerise tried to form the question and found she was afraid of the answer. Feeling like such a coward annoyed her; normally, she thought, she was more straightforward than this. It was just disconnect she was feeling in every part of this... this...

This perfectly normal lunch date with her father, who hadn't even so much as written to her himself in a year. Who had exchanged some very specific words with her shortly before that, who was infuriated with and dismissive of her in turns. Who she never, in a thousand years, would have imagined sitting in that saffron-colored chair now, smiling at her and saying he wanted the soup of the day in one of her more favorite places. Cerise smiled back, but she wasn't certain it sat quite right on her narrow face.

"You do?" Cerise couldn't help but squeak in surprise. His smile had turned sad and he looked back to the book when he said it. Cerise frowned, a more natural gesture for her to make than the smile had been. Yet another expression she didn't understand. What had happened, in that month he was missing? In the year she'd stayed away from the house, even on breaks? Who is this person, who looks so much like Father, and acts nothing like him at all?

That was a silly thought; she shook it away. Who else could he be?

"I only started coming recently." Cerise tried to cover her confusion with chatter; it was not her strong suit, but she would do her level best. "I had to find new places where I was less likely to run into certain friends." Oh, but Cerise just couldn't resist the barb, could she? She didn't think it would land; she didn't think he really cared, even with what he'd said outside. And it didn't matter even if he did now, because the damage had already been done, hadn't it? To be magnanimous only in victory was cowardice.

Alain was absent still from his customary place behind the counter. The rain drummed on the great bay windows of the Golden Rose, a sleepy tattoo. It made everything seem even more quiet inside than usual. She tapped a foot awkwardly, not knowing what to do or say now. She could go wait by the counter, but she didn't want to disturb Sish, and she wasn't sure she could be trusted to behave a second time. At least not for how long she could be up there--if Alain was wrapped up with a project in the back, it could be fifteen minutes or so before he thought to reappear. He had no doubt heard the bell of the door when they entered, but if she had learned anything over the last eight months it was that the man had a deeply poor sense of elapsed time.

"He should be back out soon," she muttered, and then slouched back into her chair.

[Tom Cooke]

The Golden Rose Tea Room • Two Falls

Afternoon on the 4th of Bethas, 2720

H
e started to open the book back up to the page. There was a delicate sort of crackling, as if it’d taken some water damage some time ago. Somebody squeaked; he’d’ve thought it was Sish, if he hadn’t heard the voice. He glanced up, slow-like, and blinked at Cerise, who had in turn something like a smile on her face. Her lip was curled oddly, as if the muscles couldn’t quite redirect themselves away from a sneer, for all they were trying. He felt – bizarrely – sympathetic, and offered a tentative one of his own.

It dropped off in an instant, and she looked down, a familiar frown furrowing its way onto her face. He frowned, too, well enough; he turned the page once, twice, past the soft, browning-edged blank pages at the start, and to the title.

He fumbled as if to reach inside his waistcoat, then remembered he was in his dinner suit; he reached into his pocket instead for his gold-rim reading glasses, settling them on his nose.

Mircalla of Neze Nor, and Other Strange Tales, he read, mouthing the title, and then the author, M.H.H. Gondouin.

His glance flicked up again, and he tried not to wince. He deserved it, he reckoned – or somebody did; Anatole deserved it, and he deserved worse, so there wasn’t much he could say.

What had the old incumbent done, to drive a wedge between Cerise and her friends? Or Cerise and her – more-than...? He glanced down at the book open in his lap, propped on his knees. He smoothed the left-hand page; framed in an elaborate tangle of roses, thorny-stemmed, was a woodblock-print ink castle, its silhouette picked out stark against a drift of heavy clouds. On the opposite page, the first chapter started – in Hesse, we, while by no means a magnificent people, inhabit a castle…

He thought to say, whatever happened, I won’t stand in your way now; the words rang oddly hollow, and he’d a feeling they came much too late. How can I undo it? he might’ve asked, but the question soured before it hit his tongue. You can’t, he knew the answer would be. Find me another Ever, maybe.

I fed your da to the hours, he thought sourly; I wonder if you’d be so angry with him if you knew. His fingertip, which had just been tracing the words – I have said that this is a very lonely place – shook slightly. His skin crawled; he felt suddenly disgusted looking down at it, at the hand that perched on the page, just above a pristine white cuff and black sleeve, the thin shaky hand with its well-trimmed nails and its tracery of veins.

He curled the fingers, flexed them as if to ward off the shakes; really, to remind him it was him – him – a reminder which did nothing for the sinking, curling, curdling of his stomach. This is wretched, he thought. What you are doing right now is beyond profane. What choice did he have?

Cerise tapped her foot, once; the back of his neck prickled, and he glanced up again, lips pressed thin, brow furrowed. He peered at her over the rims of his glasses.

“I’m happy to wait,” he said, clearing his throat; he glanced back down at the book, turning a few more pages. Another woodblock print – he raised his brows – it was hard to figure out what was happening; it looked like a carriage on its side, a handful of burly natt pulling a fainting-pale young woman from it; another young woman and an older jent rush out to meet her.

It struck him strange; he didn’t know why. Without letting a whit of it touch his face, he glanced up, smiled faintly at Cerise’s scowling slouch and sick-green chair, at happy-curled Sish. His eyes wandered again toward the shelves, packed with books and other oddities; he blinked at the pickled tentacles again – wo fucking chet, but he didn’t much like that; Ezre’d have a field day here.

He smiled at a tiny bird skull. “Not a hard place to wait, mind, all these books and oddities,” he remarked, raising an eyebrow at Cerise. “I’d come here myself, if I didn’t think it would embarrass the hell out of you.”

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Golden Rose Tea Room, Two Falls
Bethas 4, 2720 - Afternoon

The Golden Rose Tea Room was not the sort of place Cerise Vauquelin would have found, a year ago. The little shop was too quiet, too out-of-the-way, and entirely too restrained to have suited the company she kept then. That was part of why she had started coming--in all of Brunnhold, she could not imagine such a wild group coming here. Cerise imagined Jax settled into one of the alcoves, quietly reading a book and having a blooming floral tea with a glass pot; the picture was so ridiculous she nearly laughed out loud. Merrity, maybe, she could see liking it here. Younger but steadier than the rest of them; Cerise thought she would have rather liked Alain and his absent-minded charm. But Merrity wouldn't come on her own, and none of the boys would have liked it much.

Sometimes Cerise thought she missed the whole of them together more than she missed him alone; but they had been his friends before they were ever hers, and it had been easier to let them all go at once.

The Cerise Vauquelin of a year ago would not be sitting here with her father in the chair next to her, gold-rim reading glasses perched on his sharp nose and frowning at a book she had placed on the shelf with her own hands. A sort of calm settled over her that didn't show on her face; it fell too easily in to sullen angles. The golden phosphor light glinted off the glass of them, and Cerise saw a stranger behind them.

What kind of expression was that, in the thin press of his mouth and the furrow of his brow? Had she ever really known, or had she just pretended to? Objectively, she didn't know why this last year of silence had bothered her so much. It was inconvenient, not being able to go home, that was true. Would it have mattered if she had, though? Or would they just have fought again?

He cleared his throat and spoke; happy to wait. Cerise came back to herself. It was just the rain, making her sentimental and soft. It was coming down now even heavier than it had been before they arrived. She could hardly see the shop across the street through the window. There was nothing beyond that glass but a curtain of grey and the unending drum of it.

"It would be a long trip from Mugroba--so there would be no fear of our paths crossing for several months at least." Cerise remained slumped back into her chair, though she arched her eyebrows like she was attempting a joke. "Besides, who would you embarrass me in front of? I always come alone." Her disaffected drawl cracked just a little over the word "alone".

Alioe, didn't that sound just terribly soft of her? What was she expecting, for him to... to feel bad, that she came here alone? She liked being alone! She came here to be alone. Even if she had anyone to bring here with her, which she didn't. Cerise looked at the print in the page he had reached, and found herself wondering what he thought of them. The illustrations had been one of the appeals of this particular edition for her; they were strange and aggressive, skilled and yet with an off-putting feeling of rawness to them all. Brutal and beautiful.

Cerise was saved from further contemplation by the reappearance of Alain in his rightful place behind the counter. There was a dreamy sort of look to his face, and a smudge on the edge of his sharp waistcoat. Alain de Lyon was not a slender man by any means, but he had a kind of lightness in the air around him that made him seem as if he could float away at any moment. He saw Cerise and waved; eyebrows raised at the sight of her with company.

"I'll go place the order, then. Er. Sish should be fine, here. If she starts to..." Cerise paused, considering what advice she could possibly offer. Finding none, she shrugged instead. He would figure it out. Or he wouldn't; it would be educational for them both either way. Cerise rose from her chair and went to the counter, menu in hand.

"Why if it isn't Miss Vauquelin! I haven't seen you in a while; has that fortress of yours kept you busy?" Alain's hazel eyes glittered with the warmth of a joke. Cerise snorted and laughed, shaking her head.

"No fortress can contain me for long, you know that." She liked the way Alain talked to her, like she was an adult who could make these sorts of jokes with him. He had the manner of a somewhat absent-minded uncle. Theoretically, anyway--Cerise didn't have any direct experience with such things. His mouth pulled into a fond sort of smile; he didn't ask about her father. That was another reason she liked coming here--he liked to talk, but had a knack for knowing when not to ask questions.

"What would the pair of you like then, Miss Vauquelin?" Alain held up a hand. "No, wait, don't tell me--you would like a soup of the day, and whatever tea I think would catch your fancy, hmm?" Cerise laughed again and nodded.

"With rye, please. Two of them." There was a little more chitchat at the counter, mostly from Alain with Cerise nodding at appropriate intervals, and then he promised to bring it over to them when it was ready. Cerise set the menu back on the counter where she had retrieved it, and moved back to her seat. She could only hope that Sish had behaved while she was talking to Alain. There had been no screaming or angry miraan squeals, which struck her as rather a good sign.