Day 5 - Afternoon 1/2

Van found Evelyn near the edge of the dining corridor, not quite entering and not quite avoiding the room beyond it.

That was how she looked to him, at least: paused in a way that did not read as hesitation. Evelyn Cross did not hover. She selected positions. She stood where the hall widened, one shoulder angled toward the doors, eyes moving once across the visible corners before settling on him.

For a second, Van considered retreat. "Evelyn?"

Her attention sharpened. "Van."

"Could I ask you something?"

"You just did."

He stopped. Looked at her. "I walked into that."

"You did." Her mouth almost changed shape. Almost a smile, a filed-down version of one. "But I assume that was not the question."

"No." He glanced toward the dining room doors, then back down the hall. "Privately, maybe? If you have a minute."

Evelyn's expression didn’t change. That was how anyone else would have seen it.

Inside, something went very still for a different reason.

The request landed against the place she had been refusing to examine since the end of the last class. Since he had caught her in his arms. Since she had felt the contact through her practiced calm and learned, with unwelcome precision, that her body remained perfectly capable of registering a young man's strength and heat as something other than just data.

She had controlled it, of course. Evelyn Cross had controlled boardrooms, collapsing evacuations, unstable ministers, frightened heroines, her mother's polished cruelty, and her own mind under psychic pressure strong enough to drown a lesser telepath in Van's trauma. She could certainly control the aftershock of one accidental touch.

She only disliked that control had become necessary.

Van was watching her with that wary earnestness of his, as though expecting her to refuse.

"This way," she said.

They moved to a side alcove where the Hotel had placed two chairs, a low table, and a vase of white flowers whose presence seemed calculated to make any conversation feel more comfortable. Evelyn didn’t sit. Van noticed and remained standing as well.

That was annoyingly considerate. "Is this about the class?" she asked.

Van rubbed the side of his thumb against his palm and stopped when he noticed himself doing it. "Sort of." Then, when she looked at him archly, "I know." He took a breath. "I don't want to make this worse by phrasing it badly."

Evelyn folded her hands in front of her. "Then phrase it badly. We can repair it from there."

His shoulders loosened by half an inch. That, too, annoyed her. He had no right to be so easy to direct. Or perhaps he had every right and the irritation belonged entirely to her.

"Tonight’s bond assignment or date night, or whatever with Mara," he said.

Evelyn waited.

"I don't know what to do."

Evelyn's first reaction was so immediate and physical that she disliked it before she had finished feeling it: relief, clean and humiliating, uncurling beneath her ribs. Not about the date. Not about Mara. About the fact that he had not pulled her aside to discuss her reaction when he touched her. About the fact that Van remained, in this one narrow mercy, oblivious.

She kept her face composed. "You are asking me for date planning assistance," she said.

He sighed. "I know," his face showed defeat.

The laugh almost escaped her. It didn’t. Evelyn allowed herself one slow breath instead, which was safer and less informative.

"Why me?" she asked.

Van looked briefly confused by the question. "Because you understand people."

"I read people. That is not always the same thing." She considered him before continuing. "You have successfully completed several bond assignments already."

He gave her a look so openly miserable that it might have been comical if the misery had not been real.

"Claire picked the malt shop," he said. "I followed. Cassie's hibachi dinosaur restaurant was mostly an accident I survived by not making it more romantic than she could tolerate. Naomi's picnic was triage. I don't mean that in a bad way. It mattered. I think it mattered. But I didn't plan it like a date. I mostly tried to make sure she had room to breathe."

Evelyn's eyes narrowed slightly. "That sounds like you are trying very hard, Van."

"Trying isn’t a plan."

"Often it is the only useful one."

He absorbed that, but did not seem satisfied by it. "Mara is different."

"How?"

"I have no idea what to do. I didn’t date before all of this." He stopped, as if the next word had turned sharp in his mouth. " This system, I mean. I keep guessing, but that kind of success won’t last."

Evelyn looked at him more closely now.

He continued before she could interrupt. "That makes me more worried, not less. If I pick something too polished, it feels like the Hotel is using her. If I pick something too ridiculous, it feels like I didn't listen. If I pick something private, that might be a trap. If I pick something public, she may feel like she has to perform at being OK."

"You have been carrying all of that alone?" She asked.

Evelyn glanced down, briefly, so that he would not see everything her face almost did.

There was the danger of him. Not sexual danger in any simple form, though her body seemed interested in making its own arguments on that point. The actual danger was that he kept being offered power and sharing it out, using it to make others comfortable.

It disarmed too many instincts she had spent decades sharpening. "You want me to coach you," she said.

The words came out a little drier than necessary.

Van blinked. "I suppose so."

"I am not certain you are ready for seduction theory."

His face went blank with panic so clean that she nearly forgave herself for the line.

"That is absolutely not what I meant."

"Good. The remedial section is extensive."

He stared at her for a second. Then, to her surprise, he put his face in one hand. "You're enjoying this."

"Moderately."

"That seems dangerous,” he groused.

"For you, perhaps." The next line arrived before she fully decided to allow it. "Less so for me. I have better discipline."

His hand lowered and for one fragile second, Van looked at her as if he had heard the second meaning and could not decide whether it had been placed there on purpose.

Evelyn held his gaze with perfect composure. Coward, some private part of her thought to herself.

Then Van looked away first, which was both merciful and, for reasons she refused to analyze in this alcove, faintly disappointing.

"I'm not trying to impress Mara," he said.

"Yes, you are."

He looked back. "I mean, not like that. I don't want her to think I'm trying to make this romantic."

"That is not the same as not wanting to impress her."

Van stopped.

Evelyn let him have the silence because watching him work through his own assumptions was more useful than handing him a polished conclusion too quickly.

"I want her to know I tried," he said at last.

"There. That is closer to being honest."

"That still doesn't tell me what to do."

"No," Evelyn said. "Because I don’t know Mara well enough to prescribe pleasure for her."

His expression fell.

"Don’t make that face. I’m not finished."

He closed his mouth.

"You are attempting to solve a person as though she were a set of hidden requirements," Evelyn said. "That is understandable, given the circumstances. It is also the wrong approach. Stop trying to impress her with the correct answer. Ask her what she wants."

Van stared at her. "Just ask her? That’s the advice?”

"Yes."

"Is that even allowed?"

The question was so absurd and so sad that Evelyn's answer softened despite her.

"Van. You are not asking whether the Hotel allows it. You are asking whether asking a woman what she wants is permitted."

"When you say it like that, I sound stupid."

"You sound conditioned."

He looked toward the dining room doors, then back at her. He looked stricken.

"I keep thinking the choices have to come from me because the schedule says they are mine."

"The schedule also calls you Master. You have not found that persuasive."

He was quiet for a long moment.

Then he laughed once, under his breath, almost disbelieving. "Ask Mara. That's the whole strategy?"

He looked at her then with open gratitude, which was worse than the fear in several ways.

"Thank you."

"Don’t thank me too warmly, or I will become difficult."

"You already are."

The words escaped him before fear caught up and Evelyn's eyebrows rose.

Van froze. "I meant--"

"No," Evelyn said. "You meant it. And you were correct."

His look of relief was nearly comical.

"Go find Mara," she said.

"Right. Yes." He took one step back, then stopped. "And Evelyn?"

"Yes?"

"About earlier, in class. If I was too rough when I caught you--"

The relief vanished instantly, "You didn’t injure me."

He understood the boundary, or at least understood that there was one. His shoulders lowered in apology he did not speak aloud. "All right," he said. "I'll go ask Mara."

He left her in the alcove with the white flowers, the controlled lighting, and the lingering warmth of an exchange she had handled competently enough that no one but her would ever know it had been difficult.

Evelyn remained still until he turned the corner. Then she hugged herself, unconsciously rubbing where he had held her. "Better discipline," she murmured.

________________

Lizzy had a plan. That was the important part. Plans made things less like panicked improvisation and more like deliberate action taken by a person with a spine.

The plan was simple; find Mara, ask if they could speak privately, explain calmly that Mara's dream illusions had become visible while she sleeps, that Lizzy had seen something she did not think Mara meant to show, and that she was not angry or disgusted or blaming anyone, but they should probably know what had happened before the Hotel decided to make it worse.

That was the plan. It had sounded almost mature when Lizzy rehearsed it alone in the hallway.

It sounded less mature now that she had reached the dining room and discovered that Mara wasn’t there.

Lunch was underway without feeling like lunch. The dining room had bright windows showing a garden that might or might not exist, long counters of food arranged with offensive abundance, and clusters of contestants spread across several tables. Claire sat with Naomi and Katherine near the far side. Cassie had claimed a chair backwards, arms folded over the top, while the empty places around the table looked less like absence and more like a warning that people were beginning to scatter.

Mara's seat was empty, so was Fiona's. Lizzy stopped just inside the door. This, she thought, was fine. This was not a failure. This was a temporary absence.

Temporary absences were normal. People were allowed to move around. The Hotel had made a prison out of impossible luxury, but it had at least expanded the prison enough that temporarily absent people could happen.

Cassie noticed her first. "You look like someone who just walked into the wrong funeral."

"I'm fine." Lizzy immediately regretted saying it because no one believed that sentence anywhere in the Hotel. "I mean, where's Mara?"

Katherine looked up from her plate. "Shopping."

"Shopping?"

"With Fiona," Cassie said.

There was a brief silence.

Claire set down her glass. "Mara wanted to check the stores before the afternoon schedule tightened. Fiona went with her because someone should be present if a shop tries to sell Mara a personality defect with ribbon on it."

Cassie pointed at Claire with one fry. "That sounds like Fiona."

"It was nearly a direct quotation."

Lizzy tried to smile. It came out thin. "Do you know which store?"

Naomi's fingers tightened around her cup. "Clothing, probably. Lyra's."

"Thanks." Lizzy turned too fast, then turned back because leaving without food seemed both rude and tactically foolish. She grabbed a small roll from the nearest tray and hurried out before anyone could ask a better question.

The roll vanished somewhere between the dining room and the shopping corridor because she ate it in three anxious bites but couldn’t remember tasting any of them.

Find Mara. No dramatic introduction. No apology spiral. No fainting. No phasing through anything.

The shopping area looked almost cheerful in the afternoon light. The corridor had the same real-world nostalgia she remembered from Lyra's shop, the strange softness of a place designed to make shopping feel like a childhood memory. Window displays glowed. Signs curved in gold lettering. The air smelled faintly of cedar, sugar, and polished floors.

Haven Fabrics waited at the end in pale wood and moss-green curtains.

Lizzy approached the door carefully, because hurrying into a clothing store while trying to discuss accidental dream erotica felt like the sort of thing that could only end with the Hotel awarding points for emotional slapstick.

The bell above the door chimed when she entered.

Lyra looked up from behind the counter, honey-colored hair spilling over one shoulder, sweater sleeves falling past her hands. Her smile arrived warm and immediate.

"Lizzy," she said. "Hello."

"Hi. Sorry. Is Mara here?"

Lyra's smile turned apologetic. "She was."

Lizzy felt her stomach drop. "Oh."

"She and Fiona left a few minutes ago."

"Did they say where?"

Lyra's ears shifted slightly, which Lizzy had learned was either sympathy or the elven equivalent of trying not to wince.

"Mara wanted to see the transformation shop."

For one second, Lizzy's body forgot how to organize itself. "Oh," she said again, less intelligently.

Lyra came around the counter but stopped well short of crowding her. "You don't have to follow them if you don't want to."

"I do." Lizzy heard how fast the answer came out and tried to slow the next one. "I mean, I need to talk to Mara."

"In Nixie's store?"

"Not in the store, necessarily. Maybe outside the store. Or near the store. Or after they leave the store."

Lyra's expression softened. "That sounds like a difficult conversation."

Lizzy laughed once. It was not a happy sound, but it was not entirely despair either. "You have no idea."

Lyra tilted her head. "I possibly have some idea."

"Right. Magic elf shopkeeper. Sorry."

"No apology needed."

Lizzy nodded, whispered a thank-you that came out too small, and left before courage could wear off.

The corridor to Nixie's shop did not use soft wood or green curtains. The light cooled by degrees as Lizzy approached, not enough to become dramatic, just enough that her skin noticed. The sign above the storefront read The Atelier in clean silver letters. The display windows were black-backed and brilliantly lit, each containing a single crystal figure on a velvet stand.

Lizzy didn’t look closely at the display.

The bell didn’t chime when she entered. The door opened with a faint crystalline tone that seemed to come from inside the shelves.

The transformation shop was beautiful. Black shelves rose in precise rows, each one holding crystal figures shaped with impossible care. Some were abstract enough to suggest bodies only in outline. Others were detailed enough that Lizzy's eyes skated away from them on instinct. Plaques waited beneath each display, polished and readable, names in bright lettering followed by descriptions short enough to feel cheerful until the meaning arrived.

Power Cycle Page Turner Chipset Memory Lace Second Wind Velvet Reflex Clean Bill

Some of them sounded like miracles. Some sounded like dares. Some sounded like jokes told by someone with bad taste.

Fiona and Mara stood near one of the center displays. Nixie faced them from the opposite side with her hands folded, posture elegant and expression untroubled. She looked nearly enough like Lyra to be disorienting at first glance, but the difference showed immediately in the temperature of her attention.

Mara noticed Lizzy enter. Her face changed with immediate warmth and a flicker of concern.

"Lizzy."

Good. There. Mara had seen her. The plan remained possible. "Hi," Lizzy said. "Could I maybe--"

"Read this," Fiona said, voice dangerously flat.

Mara's eyes flicked back to Fiona. The plaque in front of them glowed as if pleased by the attention.

PACK HUNTER

Reduces possessive jealousy and encourages cooperative pursuit of intimate encounters.

Fiona stared at it while working her jaw. Mara had the expression of someone trying very hard to decide whether touching Fiona's arm would prevent **** or cause it.

Nixie looked composed. "It is an unusually efficient social stabilizer for contestants with high territoriality or who struggle with competitiveness."

Fiona slowly turned her head. "Say that again with less evasive jargon."

"It reduces jealousy and makes group intimacy feel natural."

Lizzy took one small step toward Mara. "Mara, I just need--"

Fiona pointed at the crystal figure. "You are suggesting I buy a transformation that turns very reasonable anger into an orgy schedule."

Nixie considered that. "That is a hostile simplification, but not entirely unrelated to the end result."

Mara closed her eyes. "Nixie," she said carefully, "perhaps this is not the ideal recommendation."

"It’s a compatible solution. Ideal is a question of values, timing, and willingness." She shrugged helplessly. “That’s not really my strong suit.”

Fiona's hand twitched. It wasn’t a large movement. Unfortunately, Fiona's small movements had begun to carry more threat than most people's speeches.

"I could shatter every piece of glass in this shop with a single word."

Nixie did not move. "You could. It’s not a good idea, but you could."

The temperature of the room dropped. Lizzy stopped moving. Mara stepped between them by half a pace, not fully blocking Fiona because Fiona would hate that.

"Fiona," Mara said.

Fiona did not look away from Nixie. "What?"

"She wants you to be angry for some reason."

"I am aware."

"Then don’t give it to her."

Nixie smiled faintly. "I don’t want her to be angry. I want her to be accurate."

Fiona's eyes narrowed. "You are about to need a broom."

Nixie lifted one hand and gestured toward the wall behind the counter. A small plaque there brightened from dark crystal to silver lettering.

DAMAGED STOCK WILL BE CONSIDERED PURCHASED.

Fiona read it.

Nixie lowered her hand. "Commonly phrased in less formal markets as: you break it, you bought it."

Mara put both hands over her face for one second.

Lizzy, who had spent the last several minutes trying to assemble enough courage to discuss accidental dream illusions, found herself abruptly distracted by the possibility that Fiona might purchase several thousand points worth of erotic self-modification through property damage.

"Nobody’s breaking anything," Lizzy said.

Fiona finally glanced at her. "Noted."

Mara looked at Lizzy with apology already in her eyes. "I know you want to talk."

Lizzy's stomach tightened. "It's not urgent urgent."

That was a lie. Or at least it was not true in the way emotional things refused to obey clocks.

"I want to hear it anyway." Mara glanced back as Fiona shifted one step closer to the Pack Hunter display. "But I need to make sure Fiona doesn’t become a cautionary sculpture first."

Fiona pointed at Mara without turning. "I heard that."

"I hoped you would."

Lizzy tried to smile and almost managed it. "It's fine. I'll just look around for a minute."

This was a poor choice. Looking around a transformation shop while nervous was like browsing a gun store during an anxiety attack. Every plaque seemed to show worse and worse versions of herself.

Some of the figures were beautiful enough to hurt. One showed a woman with translucent wings folded around herself like moonlit glass.

SKYFLOWER

Lightness, balance, and agility improve. Increases sensitivity when undressed and exposed to outdoors environments.

Lizzy moved on quickly.

Another figure showed a woman reading with floating pages arranged around her like a halo.

PAGE TURNER

Languages become easier to learn and remember. Written material feels more inviting, though unfinished texts may nag pleasantly at attention.

That sounded nice. Suspiciously nice.

She made herself step away. No purchases. No touching. No staring too long at things that knew her.

Behind her, Fiona said, "If you call me territorial again, I am going to find out how good your dental insurance is."

Nixie answered, "Dental loss is usually covered under medical repair unless self-inflicted for erotic or symbolic reasons."

Cassie should have been here, Lizzy thought wildly. Cassie would know what to say to that.

Mara's voice came softer. "Nixie, do you understand that being technically informative is making this worse?"

"Mara, I would not lie about the work we do here. Honesty is critical.”

Lizzy moved down the next aisle.

This shelf held smaller figures. More personal stock, perhaps, or more specialized. The lights were lower here. Crystal bodies gleamed under narrow beams, each one isolated in its own little pool of attention.

She didn’t mean to look at the figure on the third stand. Her eyes caught the shape before her mind could realize what it was. Then she went perfectly still.

The crystal figure was her. Not perfectly. The scale was wrong, the style too elegant, the face softened into symbolic suggestion. But the hair, the slight slope of the shoulders, the narrow build, the shape of the hands. Her.

Naked. Kneeling behind a nude male figure whose broad shoulders and messy hair made the identity impossible to miss even before Lizzy's panicked mind supplied the name. Van sat with his back turned in a bathing posture, one arm braced loosely on his knee. Crystal soap bubbles obscured just enough to make the display more embarrassing rather than less. Crystal-Lizzy knelt behind him with a cloth in both hands, washing his back with an expression rendered in delicate, unbearable devotion.

The plaque brightened.

SHOWER CADDY

Once per day, the subject will be called to assist a harem member while bathing. The subject gains a strong pleasure from providing this service.

Lizzy's entire body flushed so hot she thought for one impossible second that Cassie had entered the store and set the air on fire.

No no no no no. She looked away. Then looked back because looking away had somehow failed to make the figure stop existing.

The little Van statue remained turned away, which made it worse. He wasn’t leering. He wasn’t demanding. He was simply there, being cared for, while crystal-her knelt naked and pleased behind him like the shop had found the softest possible humiliation and polished it until it shone.

Lizzy reached for the plaque, then yanked her hand back because touching anything was forbidden by every sensible part of her brain.

Unfortunately, every sensible part of her brain was no longer in command.

Her power flickered. She felt it first in her shoulders. A cold looseness, like her body had become a suggestion and her clothing had failed to receive the update. The fabric of her shirt shifted strangely against her skin.

"No," she whispered.

She grabbed at the hem with both hands, but the shirt didn’t quite obey. For one horrifying second, her fingers passed partly through the fabric before catching it again. The garment slipped from her shoulders and arms allowing the cool air of the room to run down her spine and around the gentle curve of her ribs.

Behind her, Mara said, "Lizzy?"

Lizzy jerked, clutching the falling shirt to her chest. Her elbow struck the stand. The crystal figure tipped.

Time did something cruel and educational.

The statue seemed to fall slowly enough for Lizzy to understand every consequence and too quickly for her to stop any of them. Crystal-Lizzy and crystal-Van tilted together, bubbles catching the light, plaque still glowing with that awful cheerful name.

Shower Caddy.

Damaged stock will be considered purchased. Lizzy's hand shot out and passed through empty air.

"No!" she cried as the figure dropped past her fingers.

A hand caught it inches above the floor.

Not Mara's hand, it was larger. Male. Coming from the side aisle with sudden, breathless timing, as if the Hotel had opened a door exactly where she felt weakest.

Van crouched there with one knee nearly on the floor, the crystal figure held carefully in both hands.

For a second no one spoke. Lizzy stared at him. He stared at her. At her bare shoulders and his eye followed the slope of her back down to her hips before widening.

Then his eyes lifted toward her face, caught the reddened cheeks and shameful expression. His gaze snapped immediately back to the statue with the horrified discipline of a man choosing the less invasive disaster.

"I caught it," he offered weakly, before finally looking at the tiny glass tableau. He jerked upright and held the thing out to Mara, then thought better of it and looked helplessly for a place on the shelf to dispose of it.

Lizzy realized, with a kind of full-body despair, that Van was holding a crystal statue of her naked, kneeling behind him in a shower, washing his back while a magical plaque promised to train her into enjoying it.

Her shirt flickered again. She clutched it against herself with both arms and made a sound too small to qualify as speech.

Van's face had gone so red that even the black shelves could not make him look pale. "I wasn't--" he began, then stopped, apparently recognizing that every possible ending to that sentence was a bad one. "I'm sorry."

Nixie's voice came from behind them, calm and precise. "Thank you for preventing damage to the stock, Van."

Lizzy made another sound.

Mara was already moving toward her. "Lizzy."

That broke whatever thin thread was still holding Lizzy in place.

"I need air." She said before she turned and fled.

Not dissolving through the floor, which honestly deserved recognition under the circumstances. She simply ran, shirt clutched in both fists, face burning, past the displays of miracles and humiliations and Nixie's composed attention, out through the door and into the cooler corridor beyond.

Mara started after her but Fiona caught her wrist in a gentle grasp.

"Let me go," Mara said, but not angrily.

Fiona shook her head once. "Not you."

Van rose slowly, still holding the crystal figure as though it were both fragile and cursed. He kept his eyes on the nearest shelf, careful not to look toward the door Lizzy had used.

"Fiona," Mara said.

"She likes you," Fiona said. "Trusts you. That is exactly why you will make her feel like she has to explain herself before she can breathe."

Mara's face shifted with pain.

Fiona released her wrist. "I'll go."

"Are you sure?"

Fiona's mouth tightened. "Yeah. But I won't make it delicate."

That, Mara seemed to understand.

Fiona turned toward the door, then stopped beside Van just long enough to look at the object in his hands.

"Put that down before you hurt yourself."

Van didn’t argue.

Nixie extended one hand. "I can return it to display."

Van hesitated but he had no better option. He placed the crystal figure into Nixie's hand without letting his fingers brush hers.

The shop felt much larger with fewer people in it.

Mara stood between the aisle and the door, hands half-curled, every part of her pointed toward the girl who had fled. Then she **** herself to turn back toward Van.

"I was looking for you," he said.

Mara blinked.

The sentence was so small compared to the disaster that had just occurred, so plainly the remnant of a different scene that had wandered into this one by mistake, that her mouth curved despite herself.

"You found me."

"I did." He glanced once toward the door. "At a bad time."

"There may not be good times here,” she said.

Van looked toward the shelves, then deliberately away from them. He seemed to gather himself by deciding what not to see.

"Tonight," he said. "The bond assignment. I was trying to figure out what to plan, and I realized I was making assumptions. Or Evelyn realized it for me."

Mara's smile warmed by a fraction.

He continued, awkward and sincere. "So I wanted to ask what you want to do. If you know. If the answer is nothing, or something quiet, or something specific, or something that makes this less like the Hotel. I don't want to guess at you."

Mara stared at him for a moment.

Behind him, Nixie returned the crystal figure to its stand with unbearable care.

Mara heard the soft click of crystal settling into place. But Van was standing in front of her, red-faced, shaken, careful with his eyes, asking a question that should have been ordinary and had somehow become almost radical inside the machinery around them.

What do you want? Mara looked toward the door one more time. Then back at Van.

"I don't know yet," she said honestly.

His expression didn’t fall. "Then we can start there," he said.

The transformation shop gleamed around them, full of futures priced and waiting, while somewhere down the corridor Fiona followed Lizzy into whatever privacy could be stolen from the afternoon.