Day 8 — Afternoon 2/2

The dining facility was quiet between meals, all polished tables and soft light and the faint lingering smell of the lake drifting in from somewhere far behind them. Evelyn had expected to find Pixie behind the main counter, perhaps preparing dinner or arguing with one of the kitchen machines.

Instead, they found her at an open wall panel beside the prep area.

The rectangular opening revealed a narrow hydroponic garden built into the partition, three shallow tiers of dark trays glowing under strips of pale green light. Tiny leaves crowded the nearest row. The second held something purple and feathery that Evelyn did not recognize. At the back, climbing vines had been trained along silver wire in neat little spirals.

Pixie stood on a low stool with both hands buried carefully among the roots of one of the plants. She was humming to herself.

Mara stopped beside Evelyn. “That is adorable.” Katherine looked at her, and Mara covered her mouth with both hands.

Pixie glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “Hello.” She pinched something from a leaf, flicked it into a small bowl, then hopped down from the stool. “You three survived the beach.”

“Debatable,” Evelyn said, the word escaping before she could replace it with something less dramatic.

Pixie’s smile widened by a fraction. “Can I get you anything? Water? Tea? Something salty? You were in the sun for a while.”

“We need you to fix us,” Evelyn said. Mara winced beside her, while Katherine folded her arms and observed, “That may require a more specific diagnosis.” Evelyn gave her a look. “She means the drink.”

“Ah. Loose Lips.” Pixie closed the garden panel, hiding the green light behind the wall. When Evelyn said they wanted the effect stopped, Pixie leaned one hip against the prep station and shook her head. “I’m afraid there isn’t anything I can safely give you for that.”

“There is always something,” Evelyn said.

Pixie reached for a towel and wiped a smear of damp soil from her fingers. “I can counter ordinary intoxication. Loose Lips is a magical potion, and it is already doing what it was made to do. I know how long it lasts and what its normal effects are. I do not know how a second magical effect meant to force it out early would interact with three different Empowered women, so I am not going to improvise a cure because the afternoon became embarrassing.”

Evelyn’s fingers pressed flat against the counter. “I think you simply enjoy leaving us like this.” Mara made a small warning sound, but Pixie only nodded.

“I understand why you would think that,” Pixie said. “Being unable to filter your words can feel awful, especially if you are used to choosing them very carefully. I am not teasing you, Evelyn. I am telling you I would rather let an unpleasant effect wear off normally than add another unknown effect on top of it.”

Evelyn made herself relax her hand. “I did not say it because I was frustrated. I mean, I am frustrated. Extremely. But that does not mean I am wrong.” She drew a measured breath. “The problem is that the drink does not seem to be removing all filters equally. It is making the focus almost entirely inappropriate.”

Katherine touched two fingers lightly to Evelyn’s arm. “I was already considering that. I’m not sure the drink is selecting the subject matter at all.”

Katherine continued. “We are adults with healthy sex drives, and for the better part of a week we have been trapped in a system that sexualizes clothing, food, competition, training, sleep, privacy, and every relationship in the building. That creates tension even before the Hotel starts deliberately prodding at it. Then every ordinary way of dealing with that tension feels suspect because the Hotel would approve. I think Loose Lips is removing our ability to redirect the subject, not choosing the subject for us.” Mara’s face warmed halfway through the list, but Katherine did not tease her for it.

Pixie nodded. “That is closer to what it does. Loose Lips is not an aphrodisiac and it does not manufacture thoughts. It makes it harder to filter your thoughts before they become words.”

“I am not walking around all day thinking about Van’s arms.” The words left Evelyn before she could stop them. None of the other women rushed to fill the silence.

Mara lowered her eyes. Katherine turned her head slowly toward Evelyn, then reconsidered whatever she had been about to say. Pixie concentrated on folding the towel in her hands. Evelyn closed her eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake.”

“For what it is worth,” Katherine said after a moment, “I understood your intended point.”

Evelyn looked back at Pixie. “If you cannot remove the effect, what do you suggest?”

Mara covered her mouth again. Pixie caught the movement and tilted her head. “What do you think I am going to suggest?”

“Relieve the tension,” Mara said through her fingers. Pixie nodded, and Mara’s expression changed as the next thought arrived without its usual brakes. “So the Hotel wants us to masturbate.”

Pixie stared at her for half a second and then folded over laughing against the counter. Mara looked betrayed. “You asked.”

“I did.” Pixie straightened and wiped at one eye. “No. That one really was just the drink talking. I was going to recommend a massage, a hot soak, maybe a mud bath—something that lets your body relax from all the unconscious tension.”

Mara hesitated over the words mud bath, visibly decided not to finish whatever association had followed them, and nodded. Evelyn spared her the question. “Is there somewhere here that does that?”

Pixie gave her a sympathetic look. “There is somewhere here that does almost anything if you’re willing to spend BP. There’s a small spa deeper in the Hotel. It doesn’t get much use. The basic treatment is two hundred and fifty BP each.”

Katherine exhaled through her nose. “I only have one hundred.”

Evelyn glanced toward the nearest wall panel. “Then Mara and I will split the difference.” Mara agreed before Katherine could object.

“You don’t have to pay for me,” Katherine said.

“Yes, we do,” Mara replied. “Because if we leave you alone while we go relax, you will find something illegal to do. We are being responsible friends.”

Katherine considered the accusation, then gave a small nod. “That is difficult to refute.” Evelyn divided the remaining cost without ceremony. “One hundred twenty-five each.”

Pixie tapped a few controls on the nearest wall panel. “I can process the split when we get there.” Mara immediately demanded confirmation that there would be no surcharge for saying something obscene, which made Pixie grin.

“That's a money making scheme if I ever heard one. It's like a sexy swear jar,” Pixie said. She pushed away from the counter and gestured toward the corridor. “Come on. I think the three of you need mud very badly.”

Evelyn gave Mara a long look as they followed. Mara lifted both hands. “I know. I need to stop giving the staff ideas.”

***

Lyra had barely looked up from the folded stack of shirts in her arms when Cassie raised one hand. “Before you say anything, we have a list.” Fiona stopped just inside Haven Fabrics so abruptly that Claire had to sidestep her.

Cassie produced the small pad she had been carrying since leaving her room and opened it with ceremonial importance. “Suggested upgrades for Fiona Kavanagh: fishnets, fake eyelashes, and go-go boots.” Claire’s shoulders began to shake before Cassie reached the third item.

Fiona took the pad from Cassie, tore the page cleanly from the binding, and held it between two fingers. “The next thing I tear off is hair.” Cassie broke into helpless laughter and caught Claire by the shoulder for balance.

Lyra waited for them to recover. “I take it those are not the actual requirements.”

“No,” Claire said. “We need something normal. Something Fiona will actually like wearing.” Fiona crumpled the page and tossed it at Cassie, who caught it before it hit her face.

“You say normal now, but you haven’t seen her in a feather boa yet,” Cassie said.

“I have several boas,” Lyra replied, perfectly mild. “And fishnets, false lashes, and some very good boots. If any of those were things you wanted for yourself, I could certainly help.”

Cassie raised both hands. “I surrender. I lack the necessary personality to survive in go-go boots.” Fiona snorted despite herself, which was enough to make Cassie grin, but Lyra had already set the shirts aside and turned her attention back to the actual problem.

“Something Fiona likes wearing,” Lyra said.

“That category seems to require multiple people,” Fiona replied glancing around.

Cassie leaned against the counter. “Only because you reject everything on principal. I suggested one perfectly good miniskirt and a vest—”

“A vest that ends above my ribs. You are trying to humiliate me by pretending my clothes have to shrink too.”

“A little,” Cassie admitted.

Claire stepped in before the argument could build momentum. “What about something softer? Not frilly. Just comfortable, feminine, something you don’t have to fight with.”

Fiona frowned at the word. “I don’t want to feel comfortable.” When Claire paused, Fiona exhaled and tried again. “I mean I don’t want clothes that make me feel tucked in. Like they are trying to calm me down by wrapping me up.”

Claire nodded. “That makes more sense.”

Lyra watched Fiona for another moment, then lifted one hand. “Would you mind if I tried something?”

Fiona eyed Lyra. “Worse than those two?”

“I hope not.” Lyra’s smile was small. “Where I come from, clothes are often treated as a kind of introduction. Not a disguise. Just a way of deciding which things strangers notice first.”

Cassie pressed her palms together in exaggerated appeal, and Claire added, “Give her a chance.” Fiona looked between them, muttered that they both looked ridiculous, and finally stepped onto the raised platform beside the mirrors.

Lyra folded her hands. “How do you think people see you?”

Fiona looked at her reflection rather than at Lyra. “What does that have to do with clothes?”

“More than measurements do. Humor me.”

Fiona took the question seriously despite herself. “Dangerous. Honest.”

“Both true,” Lyra said. “But are those the first two things you want everyone to know?”

Fiona’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand the distinction. I am dangerous, and I am honest.”

“I believe you. You are also loyal, intelligent, skilled, brave, and beautiful. None of those cancels the first two.” Lyra stepped a little closer, careful not to crowd her. “Clothing cannot tell a stranger everything about you, but it can influence which part they think is the whole. The question is which things you want people to notice before they decide they understand you.”

Cassie’s next joke never made it out. She looked down at the crumpled list instead, while Claire leaned against the edge of the display and waited.

The store was quiet enough for Fiona to hear the faint hum of industrial lights somewhere behind them. In the mirror she folded her arms, then let them fall again. “I don’t know.”

“That’s more common than you might think,” Lyra said.

Fiona studied herself for several more seconds. “I don’t want people to think I’m just angry.” The admission came out lower than the rest of the conversation. She did not look toward Cassie or Claire. “I am angry. I have reasons to be. I just don’t want that to be the only thing anyone sees.”

Lyra nodded once. “I think I know where to start.” Then she turned and disappeared between two racks.

Fiona watched Lyra disappear. “That was too fast.” Cassie suggested that perhaps elves were simply terrifying; Claire agreed so readily that both women turned toward her. “What?” Claire said, just as Lyra returned with clothes draped over one arm and a pair of boots in the other.

The top was green, but not the flat institutional green of the Hotel’s generic clothing. It was deep and warm, knitted from something soft enough to move without looking delicate. The wide neckline folded at an angle that left one shoulder bare without threatening to drag the whole garment down. The jeans were dark and close-fitting through the hips and thighs, cut low enough to feel modern without becoming another shrinking-clothes joke. The boots reached mid-calf, with a short solid heel and enough structure to survive an actual street.

Fiona took the set into the fitting room without comment. When she returned a few minutes later, Cassie and Claire both went quiet enough to make her suspicious before she even reached the mirror.

The sweater moved with her shoulders without hiding her build. The jeans fit close but did not limit her legs, and the boots restored some of the grounded, ready posture the Hotel’s generic shoes had never managed. She turned once to the side, then back again, testing the clothes more than admiring them.

Cassie studied her gravely. “It needs one thing.” Claire immediately said no. Cassie raised a finger. “Feather boa.” Claire smacked her lightly on the arm before she could elaborate.

“It looks great,” Claire told Fiona, and this time Cassie did not turn the compliment into another joke.

Fiona faced the mirror again. The outfit had not tried to reduce her in any way. It also didn’t feel like someone had dressed her for display. The bare shoulder was there because she liked the fall of the fabric; the rest of the clothes moved when she moved and had a satisfying weight. “This is good,” she said.

Cassie blinked at the understatement. Fiona caught the beginning of a response in the mirror and added, “Don’t make me regret letting you do this.”

Lyra smiled. “Anything you want changed?”

Fiona tugged once at the sweater’s hem. It stayed put. “Is any of this enchanted?”

“None of it,” Lyra said. “I assumed you wouldn’t want enchantments unless you requested them. I can add practical ones later—reinforcement, temperature control, cleaning, fit retention—but they are optional.”

Fiona turned from the mirror. “No secret magic underwear rules?” Cassie made a strangled sound behind her.

“No secret magic underwear rules,” Lyra confirmed with a straight face.

“Good. I’ll take it.”

“Five hundred BP for the full set.”

That finally made Fiona wince. “Five hundred?”

Cassie shrugged. “You can afford it. You won’t regret this purchase, I never get returns.” It was close enough to Fiona’s own thought that she abandoned the argument, followed Lyra to the register, and confirmed the purchase. Five hundred BP disappeared from her balance.

She left the register wearing the new clothes. Cassie picked up the discarded Hotel outfit and stuffed it into the small bag Lyra provided. “Look at that. You now own pants with attitude, just like you wanted.”

Fiona took the bag from her. “I hate that this worked.”

“You hate that it was my idea,” Cassie corrected, smiling.

“That’s closer.”

Claire checked the time. “We should go. Dinner isn’t that far off.” Cassie headed for the door and announced that Fiona had a terrified young man to locate. Fiona caught the back of her collar before she made it two steps, and Cassie laughed all the way out of the shop.

***

Naomi watched the other groups disappear into the Hotel until only she and Lizzy remained near the corridor leading away from the lakeshore. After the noise of the beach, the sudden quiet felt almost artificial.

“I’m going to the Archive,” Naomi said, adjusting the strap of her bag. Lizzy looked tired merely hearing the plan.

Lizzy had something else in mind. “I want to find a television, sit down, and be useless for a while.”

Naomi’s smile turned knowing. “You mean you’re going to look for Van.”

Lizzy had already begun to turn away when her surprise made her next steps pass cleanly through both shoes. The shoes remained on the floor behind her with her socks inside them, while Lizzy completed one bewildered barefoot step before stopping.

Naomi covered her mouth. She lasted perhaps a second before the laugh escaped. Lizzy turned around with wounded dignity. “My feet fell out.”

“That’s what made it funny,” Naomi admitted.

Lizzy stalked back to the abandoned shoes and crouched, frowning while she dragged the socks on again. Naomi crouched beside her and offered one hand.

Lizzy looked at the offered hand. She took a moment to concentrate, closing down the familiar internal valve until the constant pressure of her ability narrowed to something she could trust. “It's okay.”

Lizzy accepted the hand. Naomi pulled her upright while she stepped carefully into her shoes, then let go only after Lizzy had tested the fit of both heels against the floor.

“I hate this place,” Lizzy said.

“Reasonable.” Naomi’s smile returned. “And for the record, I am sure you were not going to look for Van.”

“You literally said I was.”

“That doesn't sound like something I would do.”

Lizzy pointed down the hall. “Go read something.” Naomi left, laughing to herself.

Once she was alone, Lizzy pulled out her phone. Van’s contact was already on the screen; she had opened it without consciously deciding to call. His small photo showed the same awkward half-smile she had seen at breakfast, and her thumb hovered over the icon.

She could invent a reason easily enough. She could ask where everyone was, what dinner plans looked like, or whether the suite had done anything new recently. Each excuse sounded worse the the one before it.

Lizzy locked the screen. “No,” she told the phone, put it away, and headed in the opposite direction.

***

The spa was far enough from the occupied sections of the Hotel that Evelyn began to suspect it had not existed until they asked for it.

The corridor narrowed, then curved beneath an arch of pale stone. The temperature changed first. The air was warmer and carried the faint mineral scent of wet earth after rain.

Pixie stopped beside a small reception alcove set into the wall. “Payment first,” she said apologetically as a translucent panel appeared. Evelyn approved three hundred seventy-five BP, and Mara did the same.

Katherine watched both transactions complete. “I dislike owing people money.”

“You don’t owe me money,” Mara said. “I wanted you with us, so I paid for part of it.”

Katherine gave her a sidelong look. “You may call it whatever makes you happy. I am still going to remember the debt.”

Evelyn started walking before they could turn the question into a contract negotiation. “You can settle the philosophy of debt after we become less unbearable.”

Mara immediately informed Katherine that she was, in fact, currently unbearable, then blamed Loose Lips when Katherine looked at her.

“I assumed,” Katherine said, and followed.

Beyond reception, the floor changed from polished tile to smooth dark stone. Low amber lights glowed in recesses along the walls. Water could be heard moving somewhere out of sight.

Pixie brightened visibly as they entered the main chamber. “This was more common where I grew up,” she said. “Not this exact style. The stonework is Hotel nonsense. But the mud treatment itself.” Three deep tubs had been set into the floor in a shallow arc, each one broad enough for a person to recline without feeling trapped. The mud inside was dark gray-brown and perfectly smooth, giving off steady warmth.

Mara leaned over the nearest tub with open suspicion. She admitted she had never tried a mud treatment; Evelyn and Katherine both had. Mara studied them and said, “Of course you have. Look at your skin, you both look like women who paid for the imported mud. None of the common local mud for you.”

Katherine almost smiled. Evelyn pointed at Mara. “That type of sentence is exactly why we are here.”

Pixie began setting folded towels on a stone bench. “My food magic actually started with earth magic. When I was little, I was good with soil first, then plants—growing things, keeping them healthy, figuring out what they needed. Food came later.”

“That explains the wall garden,” Evelyn said.

“Partly. Some of the ingredients are difficult to grow, and I prefer handling them myself.” Pixie smiled as she arranged the towels. “Magic makes people think growing a plant means convincing it to become large. Usually the complex part is convincing it to become healthy in the right ways.”

She gestured toward the tubs. “The treatment is simpler. Mineral balance, heat, and a little earth magic to keep the mud consistent. It is a separate service, not another potion.”

Evelyn gave her a pointed look. Pixie raised both hands. “And no, it does not have any unintended consequences.”

The three women changed behind separate stone screens and returned wrapped in towels. Katherine stepped into her tub without hesitation and lowered herself until the mud reached just below her shoulders. Evelyn followed. Mara remained at the edge of hers, studying the surface as if it might reveal a hidden rule.

“How bad is it?” she asked.

“It’s just warm mud,” Evelyn said, which did not seem to reassure her. Pixie laughed and showed Mara how to sit on the edge first rather than trying to stand in the middle.

Mara obeyed with extreme caution. Her first contact produced a startled squeak, followed by a careful shift downward. “It feels like being hugged by a swamp.”

“There are worse things,” Katherine said, already leaning her head back.

Pixie passed out soft cloth head wraps, eye masks, chilled bottles of water, and smaller towels. Once everyone was situated, she dimmed the lights and started soft music. Mara peered out from beneath the edge of her eye mask. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Nothing,” Evelyn said with a grateful note.

Mara looked genuinely doubtful, so Katherine adjusted the wrap over her hair and translated. “Lie back. Breathe. Stop thinking so hard for ten minutes.”

“I’m bad at that,” Mara admitted.

“Yes,” Evelyn said. “We are all over-thinkers. That’s why we need the spa.”

Mara settled back, but not before sliding Evelyn’s water bottle within easy reach along the stone rim. “Hydrate,” she murmured. The caretaking impulse survived relaxation more easily than the rest of her vigilance, and Evelyn took a drink without argument.

Mara sank lower. For several minutes, only the low music and the faint movement of water broke the quiet. The mud held heat against Evelyn’s shoulders and back; the tension there had become so constant she had stopped recognizing it as tension. Now, slowly, muscles she had been carrying like clenched fists began to release. Across from her, Mara’s breathing deepened.

Katherine eventually broke the silence. “What did you mean about Van’s arms?” Mara made a sleepy sound beneath her eye mask, and Evelyn groaned.

“Katherine, I already regret introducing that subject.”

“The potion may have introduced it,” Katherine said, “but it did not invent it. Tell us more.”

Evelyn shifted deeper into the mud. “Please don’t bring it up again. It’s bad enough that I have been handed over like a prize mare to a young man who has no idea how to manage his own emotions, much less eight women.”

Above Mara’s tub, the air shimmered. Pixie looked up as a translucent image unfolded silently from nothing.

Dream-Evelyn stood under a bright theatrical spotlight wearing an elaborate black harness over an otherwise ridiculous approximation of riding tack. A silver bit sat between her teeth. An unseen pair of hands passed the reins toward a visibly panicked Van, who stared at them as though someone had presented him with an unexploded bomb and a certificate of ownership.

Pixie’s eyebrows climbed. Evelyn, blindfolded, continued without noticing. Katherine said, “It is not exactly like that.”

The image remained above Mara, swaying gently with the room’s warm air.

“To me,” Katherine continued, “it feels more like being assigned a handler. Or a case manager. I still do the field work. I still make the decisions that matter in the moment. But there is someone I am expected to report to occasionally, someone the institution insists has a relationship to my conduct.”

Evelyn considered it. The imaginary bit vanished from Dream-Evelyn’s mouth. The harness remained for another second, then the entire image dissolved into pale dust. “That is not terrible,” Evelyn admitted. “If you discount the system trying to turn everything into an erotic parody of itself.”

Mara laughed softly. “Like the cartoon versions of us in Wai-Fu Quest?”

The air shimmered again. Pixie’s ears went rigid as this time the image arrived with scenery.

A nighttime city spread itself above the three tubs, all glass towers and exaggerated neon. Dream-Katherine slipped through a high-rise window in a sleek black catsuit. With every silent step toward the enormous bed at the center of the room, some piece of the outfit disappeared in an impossible flourish until the spy fantasy had become less covert operation and more animated seduction.

At the far side of the room, Dream-Van waited in an absurdly expensive suit, one hand in his pocket, looking like the cover model for a romance novel written by someone who had watched too much television.

Dream-Katherine reached him, grabbed his lapels, and the image mercifully blurred before deciding how much further to go.

Pixie stared at Mara, who floated peacefully in her tub with an eye mask over her face. Pixie opened her mouth, closed it again, then reached for another towel and let the image fade on its own.

Evelyn sighed. “It is not the first time I have been a cartoon character. It is, however, the first time anyone has put me in a corset.”

Pixie glanced at the fading high-rise illusion and let the comment pass.

Mara shifted lazily. “I can feel this working.” Pixie assured her that was the mud, which Mara declared wonderful before suggesting they should have forced Fiona into a treatment before her date.

“We would have had to throw the mud at her from a safe distance,” Katherine said.

Mara laughed, then grew thoughtful beneath the mask. “I keep wondering if some of the anger is coming from somewhere else.”

“Some of it is,” Katherine replied, “That doesn't make the anger false.”

“I know. I mean if she could actually relax for a while—if she stopped feeling like she had to be ready for a fight every second—would she and Van get along?”

Evelyn considered it. “So far they mostly get along when they are not discussing whether they get along.”

The air above Mara’s tub brightened again. Pixie straightened as Fiona and Van appeared walking side by side through a sunlit park. The scene shifted almost immediately: dinner at a tiny table, Fiona laughing at something Van had said; then the two of them sitting close on a sofa; then Fiona asleep against his shoulder while Van sat rigidly still, apparently terrified that moving would constitute some new offense.

Mara murmured, “I think she respects strength.”

“She does,” Katherine said.

The illusion changed to a training room. Van held his ground when Fiona stepped into his space; he met her stare, and dream-Fiona’s irritation shifted into surprise and attention.

“If he were a little more forceful, she might respond better,” Katherine said. Pixie glanced toward her, but Katherine continued, unaware of the image overhead. “Not controlling. Not overriding her. Just less likely to fold every time she pushes. If he held his ground and made her decide what she wanted instead of retreating before she could—”

Mara's projection answered before anyone else could. The training room vanished. For one instant Fiona and Van were kissing against a wall; then another image bled through it, Fiona pulling Van down by the front of his shirt tearing the fabric in her haste; then another followed, pale skin and soft curves, Fiona’s muscles taut with release and dripping with sweat.

Pixie stepped forward. “Mara.”

Mara didn’t hear the warning in her voice. “Maybe he would have to be very direct,” she said drowsily.

“Mara.”

The illusion settled into its final form. Van, stripped and covered in scratches, bright pink lines crossing the lines of his chest and back. Fiona, bent forward on her hands and knees breathing raggedly with her head tipped back. His muscles trembled with exertion as he thrust into her from behind. He had one hand tangled in her red hair while his other gripped her hip with bruising force. The whole image was rendered with the exaggerated softness and impossible beauty of Mara’s drifting dream logic rather than anything resembling reality.

Pixie moved around the tubs. “Mara, I think we should talk about literally anything else.”

The door opened, and Pixie stopped.

Lizzy stood in the entrance. She had gotten lost looking for the TV lounge and decided to explore. When dinner crept closer and Mara still had not appeared, Lizzy had checked the Facility Map and decided that finding her roommate was better than wandering aimlessly.

Now she stared across the warm stone room: Mara blindfolded and sunk almost to the shoulders in mud, Evelyn and Katherine in the other tubs, Pixie frozen between them—and above Mara, an enormous translucent image of Fiona and Van.

Her face went white. Nobody in the tubs could see her, but Pixie could.

The illusion continued to move and Lizzy could feel the edges of her power unraveling.

BONUS PICS!

CASSIE’S SUGGESTED OUTFIT -

CLAIRE’S SUGGESTED OUTFIT -

EVELYN’S ILLUSION -

FIONA’S ILLUSION - (Be patient, I’m still learning a lot with these.)