Matchmaker

Alice breathed in.

Slowly.

It did not help as much as she wanted it to.

Alice did not remember deciding to open the oath panel again.

One second she was leaning against the hallway outside Nia’s old room, breathing through the cold pressure in her chest while The next, the minimized silver-gold icon pulsed brighter at the edge of her vision, and Alice realized her fingers were already moving through the air.

[Oath Selection Pending.]

The words unfolded in front of her again.

Personal.

Dice.

Liliana.

Self. Mischief. Love.

Alice stared at the three choices until her eyes hurt.

Alice rubbed the heel of her palm against one eye.

Before seeing Nia’s room, the third option had felt frightening in the abstract. Love as a divine principle. Love as duty. Love as an oath. Love as something strong enough to protect people instead of just making them stupid and ****. Now it felt like a knife she had found handle-first in the dark, and the blade was already wet.

Her first instinct was to close the panel again.

She almost did.

Then she looked back at Nia’s door.

Behind it was a room full of Alice’s stolen life. Photos. Notes. A shrine. A future written without her consent. Fear crawled up her spine again, but underneath it came something else. Not forgiveness. Not romance. Not some sudden softening where she decided obsession was beautiful because the girl doing it was sad and pretty.

Something more practical.

Nia needed help.

Not Alice’s love. Not Alice’s body. Not a promise Alice could not give. But help. A way out. A way to redirect all that hungry, terrifying devotion before it ate Nia alive or swallowed someone else with her. Alice did not know how to fix that. She did not know how to untangle love from worship, loneliness from destiny, want from possession.

But the oath might.

The thought made her laugh once, breathless and bitter.

Of course.

Of course she had rejected Necromancer, rejected Shadow Monk, chosen Paladin, stumbled into a shrine built by a lovesick stalker, and now found herself seriously considering the Goddess of Love as a crisis management strategy.

“I can’t fix that,” she said.

Mako looked at her.

Her voice sounded smaller than she wanted. “Nia. That room. Whatever she thinks I am to her. I can’t fix it by loving her back. I don’t. Not like that. Maybe I wanted her. Maybe part of me still does, because I’m apparently a disaster with legs and a type, but that isn’t the same thing. It can’t be the same thing.”

Mako nodded slowly.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

Alice laughed once, without humor. “Do you?”

“No,” he admitted. “But I’m trying not to be an idiot for, like, five minutes. New personal record.”

That actually got a breath out of her. Not quite a laugh, but close enough that Mako’s mouth twitched like he would take the victory.

“I think,” Alice said slowly, “I may be about to make a very bad decision for very good reasons.”

Mako blinked. “That is how most familys start.”

“Comforting.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be.”

Alice drew in a long breath.

[Personal Oath: The Mirror Within]

[Divine Oath: Dice, God of Games]

[Divine Oath: Liliana, Goddess of Love]

Alice stared at the third.

Rose-gold petals drifted across the text, slow and soft, almost shy.

[Divine Oath: Liliana, Goddess of Love]

[Swear to remain true to your chosen lover, honor love in its many forms, and help others find lovers of their own.]

[Core Principle: Love is not weakness. Desire is not shame. Bonds are sacred.]

Then she selected Liliana.

The hallway went silent.

Not quiet.

Silent.

The hum from the shop vanished. The distant mall noise disappeared. Even Alice’s own breathing seemed to pull away from her for one suspended instant as the system panel froze, its silver-gold Paladin interface trembling at the edges.

Then the color changed.

Rose light bloomed across the panel like ink dropped into water. Soft pink, deep red, warm gold. Petals unfolded along the borders, not in the smug theatrical way Dice’s windows liked to appear, but shyly, almost nervously.

[Oath Accepted.]

[Divine Oath Selected: Liliana, Goddess of Love.]

[Core Principle: Love is not weakness. Desire is not shame. Bonds are sacred.]

Then a voice appeared in text.

Not Dice’s mockery.

Something gentler.

Almost nervous.

[Oh. Oh, darling, you chose me.]

Alice’s breath caught.

The words trembled slightly before settling.

[I’m sorry. That sounded far too startled, didn’t it? A goddess should be composed. Regal, even. I had a line prepared. Several, actually. They were very moving.]

A tiny pause.

[Then you looked so sad, and I forgot all of them.]

Alice blinked hard.

Mako stared at the panel, eyes wide. “Is that...?”

“Liliana,” Alice whispered.

A second line appeared in familiar red and blue.

[Dice: Awww. She practiced.]

[Liliana: Dice, please.]

[Dice: No, no, continue. This is adorable.]

The rose-gold text brightened, flustered in a way no system notification had any right to be.

[Liliana: Alice Inspira, Paladin Initiate, beloved child of a chaotic world, I accept your oath.]

The words struck deeper than Alice expected.

Beloved.

Not useful. Not entertaining. Not broken. Not dramatic.

Beloved.

Her eyes stung again.

[Liliana: Your oath shall be witnessed beneath rose and thorn. Love must be free, or it becomes hunger wearing a pretty mask. Desire must be honored, or it curdles into shame. Bonds must be chosen, or they become chains.]

[Liliana: You have seen the danger tonight. So have I.]

Alice’s gaze flicked toward Nia’s door.

The panel pulsed softly.

[Liliana: You cannot save someone by becoming the shape of their obsession.]

Alice sucked in a shaky breath.

[Liliana: But perhaps you can help them find a love that sees them clearly.]

The rose-gold light intensified.

[Oath Accepted.]

[Paladin Path Established: Matchmaker Paladin]

[Divine Patron: Liliana, Goddess of Love]

[Primary Guidance Reassignment: Liliana]

[Dice retains superior administrative access, because apparently the universe is not merciful.]

[Dice: Correct.]

The floor beneath Alice’s feet vanished in a rush of petals.

This time the transformation did not feel like the class settling into her bones.

It felt like something opening her blood.

Alice gasped as warmth poured through her chest, down her spine, into every limb. Her heart beat once, hard enough that she staggered. Mako reached for her, then stopped just short, like he remembered at the last second that grabbing someone mid transformation might be a terrible idea.

“Alice?”

“I’m okay,” she said.

She was not sure that was true.

Her skin prickled. Her teeth ached. Her ears burned with sharp pressure, like invisible fingers were pulling their shape longer, finer, more delicate. The world sharpened in layers. The scent of metal became a hundred smells: iron filings, brass oil, old copper dust, warm circuitry, Riven’s workshop soap, Kaia’s tea, the faint ghost of Nia’s scent clinging to the door.

Alice’s breath hitched.

Then hunger hit.

Not stomach hunger.

Something lower. Deeper. A sudden awareness of pulse and heat, of blood moving beneath skin, of life as something scented, bright, and terribly close. Mako’s mechanical heartbeat filled the hallway for one dizzy second, steady and anxious and so loud Alice’s mouth watered before horror snapped through her.

Mako went very still.

“Uh,” he said carefully. “Alice?”

The rose-gold panel unfolded in front of her again.

[Race Change Initiated.]

[Human Variant → Dhampir]

[Living Vampire Variant.]

[Oh, please don’t panic. I know that sounds dramatic. It is dramatic. But not as bad as it sounds.]

[Dhampir are living descendants or divinely modified variants of vampiric lineage. You have received a lesser form of vampiric blessing with reduced weaknesses and moderated hunger.]

[Living vampire variant. Very important distinction. You will not be dead. You will not combust in sunlight. You will still be able to eat normal food, enjoy ridiculous soda, and be dramatic in public without needing a coffin.]

[Dice: Coffin bed DLC still available.]

[Liliana: No.]

Mako looked from the panel to Alice. “Okay, I’m only getting bits of this, but did you just get offered vampire?”

“Dhampir,” Alice said faintly.

“That sounds cooler.”

“It does not help that you’re right.”

[Benefits Granted: Enhanced Strength, Enhanced Agility, Enhanced Appearance, Enhanced Charisma, Heightened Senses, Blood-Linked Regeneration, Minor Night Affinity, Predatory Grace.]

[Weakness Package: Limited.]

[Required Selection: One Vampiric Limitation.]

Alice stared at the words while her body kept changing.

but sharper somehow, more predatory. Her vision flashed silver. For a second, the hallway went painfully bright, then adjusted. The dim corners bloomed with detail. Dust motes drifted like tiny stars. The grain of the wooden door stood out in fine lines. Mako’s face looked almost too vivid, every flicker of worry visible.

Then his eyes widened.

“Your eyes,” he whispered.

Alice swallowed around her fangs. “What about them?”

“They’re silver.”

A reflective pane opened without her asking.

Alice saw herself.

Still Alice.

That was the first relief.

Her black-and-red hair remained the same messy, punkish shape, though the shadows in it seemed deeper now, the red underneath richer, like dried rose petals beneath moonlight. Her skin had gone a little paler, smoother, with a faint cool glow that made the flush in her cheeks stand out harder. Her ears were pointed. Her pupils had narrowed into vertical slits, black cuts through luminous silver irises. When her lips parted, small vampire fangs gleamed against her lower lip.

She looked like a horror movie princess who had mugged a punk guitarist and stolen their wardrobe.

Alice stared.

“Oh,” she said faintly.

[Dice: Goth girl accidentally becomes hotter by making a commitment to healthy relationships. Nobody saw this coming.]

[Liliana: Dice.]

[Dice: I’m being supportive.]

[Liliana: You called her “accidentally hotter.”]

[Dice: Was I wrong?]

Alice covered her face with both hands. Her fangs pressed awkwardly against her lip.

“I do not have time to be hot right now.”

Mako made a strangled sound like that sentence had physically hurt him.

[Liliana: Please select one limitation, darling. I made the options gentle. Well. Gentler.]

Three options opened.

[Vampiric Limitation: Sun Sensitivity]

[Direct sunlight causes discomfort and reduced regeneration, but not combustion. Hats, shade, tinted windows, and dramatic parasols recommended.]

[Vampiric Limitation: Invitation Law]

[You cannot enter a private home for the first time without invitation.]

[Vampiric Limitation: Silver Aversion.]

[Silver causes increased pain and slows regeneration around wounds.]

[Vampiric Limitation: Running water.]

[Vampiric Limitation: Blood Hunger Cycles]

[Hunger intensifies periodically and must be managed through voluntary blood consumption or approved substitutes. Feeding remains optional for survival but difficult to ignore under stress. Regeneration is stronger after feeding.]

Alice read them twice.

Her mind immediately rejected Sun Sensitivity because Ikos was a desert city and she refused to become someone who hissed at breakfast. Invitation Law was interesting. Powerful, maybe, in the symbolic sense. But also inconvenient enough to get her killed if a party member got dragged into a building and she had to wait for manners.

Blood Hunger Cycles made her stomach tighten.

Then her new senses caught Mako’s heartbeat again.

She flinched.

She selected Blood Hunger Cycles.

[Limitation Accepted.]

[Vampiric Hunger: Active.]

[Approved Feeding Sources: living donors, preserved blood packs, alchemical substitutes, monster blood subject to compatibility, dungeon boss blood subject to extremely questionable judgment.]

[Dice: Please drink weird boss blood at least once. For science.]

[Liliana: Please do not.]

[Dice: Coward.]

Alice lowered her hands slowly. “I’m going to need blood packs.”

Mako blinked rapidly, still staring at her eyes. “Yeah. Sure. We can get those. Probably. Mall has everything. There’s definitely a vampire convenience store somewhere.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“It is absolutely a thing.”

The system continued before Alice could spiral.

[Minor Night Affinity.]

[Unique Vampiric Ability: Dormant.]

Alice blinked at the last line.

“Dormant?”

[All vampires possess one unique expression of their bloodline. Yours has not yet awakened.]

[Dice: Mystery box! Could be mist. Could be charm. Could be turning into sixteen emotionally needy bats.]

[Liliana: It will not be that.]

[Dice: You don’t know that.]

Alice barely glanced at that last part.

Normally, a unique vampire ability would have made her stop everything. She should have been thrilled. Curious. Terrified. Ready to open seventeen menus and start testing edge cases like a proper Mytherion-trained overthinker.

Instead, all she could see was Nia’s room.

Mako opened his mouth.

Alice barely heard him.

The transformation hit.

Her heartbeat slammed once, hard enough that she felt it in her teeth. Then again. Then again. Each pulse pushed rose-red mana through her veins in bright, liquid waves. Alice staggered back into the wall, one hand braced against the hallway plaster, her other clutching her chest as warmth poured through her body and rewrote details she had never realized were editable.

Her ears changed first.

A sharp pressure built along both sides of her head, not pain exactly, but an intense pulling sensation, like her bones had been caught between careful fingers and drawn into new shape. Her ears lengthened, tapering into elegant points, sharper than human, almost elven, sensitive enough that the faint brush of air against them made her shiver.

Then her teeth.

That was worse.

Alice gasped as her canines pushed down, lengthening into small, sharp fangs. Not monstrous. Not huge. But unmistakable. Her tongue touched one on instinct and nicked itself against the point.

The taste of blood filled her mouth.

Everything stopped.

Heat rolled through her stomach.

Not arousal. Not exactly. Hunger. Sudden, intimate, and terrifyingly specific. Her mouth watered around the tiny cut, and for one awful second Alice understood with perfect clarity that blood was food now. Not metaphorically. Not horror movie pretty. Food.

Her knees nearly buckled.

[Easy, darling.]

Liliana’s message appeared larger, softer.

[You are safe. This is new hunger, not loss of control. Breathe. Let the sensation pass through you, not command you.]

Alice breathed.

In.

Out.

The hunger did not vanish, but it folded inward, settling somewhere beneath her ribs like a sleeping animal lifting its head.

Then her eyes changed.

The hallway sharpened.

Colors deepened first. Reds became richer, golds warmer, shadows more layered. She saw the faint pulse beneath Mako’s glowing joint seams. Saw heat along the edges of the doorframe where his hands had touched. Saw tiny motes of dust drifting through dim air like silver pollen.

Her pupils narrowed vertically.

Her irises brightened from red into luminous silver, glowing faintly enough that she could see the reflection in the darkened glass of a framed caravan photograph across the hall.

Alice stared at herself.

Pointed ears. Silver slit-pupil eyes. Small vampire fangs parted beneath her lip. Her black-and-red hair seemed darker by contrast, her skin smoother and paler, her expression sharper, more dangerous, almost knightly despite the lack of armor.

For half a second, she did not recognize herself.

Then she did.

And that was worse.

“Oh,” she whispered.

Mako was staring.

Just stunned.

“You look,” he said, then stopped.

Alice narrowed her glowing eyes at him. “Choose your next words very carefully.”

“Like someone who should absolutely not be allowed near dramatic lighting.”

She blinked.

Then huffed a laugh despite herself.

[Race Evolution Complete.]

[Race Updated: Dhampir.]

[Appearance increased.]

[Charisma increased.]

[Agility increased.]

[Strength increased.]

[Vampiric Hunger active.]

[Blood Regeneration active.]

[Unique Vampiric Ability dormant.]

The rose light did not fade.

Instead, new symbols unfolded around Alice’s hands. Thorn patterns, black-green and red-edged, curling around her fingers like living tattoos before sinking beneath the skin.

[Oath Skill Granted: Thorn of the Devoted Rose]

[You may conjure and control rose-thorns as extensions of your oath. These thorns may bind, lash, shield, pierce, or form temporary weapons. Growth improves with Charisma, Magical Control, and emotional clarity.]

A faint pressure curled around Alice’s wrist.

She looked down.

A black vine emerged from the air beside her hand, thin and delicate at first, then darkening into something stronger. Tiny thorns grew along it, glossy as obsidian. A single blue rose bloomed near her knuckles, impossible and beautiful, its petals the same shocking shade as Liliana's own roses.

The thorn-vine curled around her fingers like it was waiting for instructions.

Alice forgot to breathe for a second.

Mako leaned closer. “That’s extremely cool.”

Alice flexed her hand.

The vine snapped outward.

Not far. Only a few feet. But the motion cracked through the hallway with a sharp whip-sound, striking the floor hard enough to leave a thin black mark in the wood before retracting to curl around her wrist again.

The vine hung in the air, thin but wickedly sharp, lined with small hooked thorns and tiny red rosebuds that glowed faintly at their centers. Alice stared at it. The vine moved when she thought move, curling once around her wrist without cutting her. It felt like an extension of her hand. A weapon. A leash. A shield waiting to learn how to become one.

Alice stared.

“Okay,” she whispered. “That’s extremely cool.”

[Liliana: I’m glad you like it.]

[Dice: Goth girl picks Paladin and still gets thorn whip. Balance restored.]

Alice ignored him because the next window opened.

Another panel opened.

[Primary Oath Skill Granted: Matchmaker’s Sight]

[Current Rank: I]

[Effect: Allows comparison of two individuals for romantic and sexual compatibility.]

[Output: Percentile rating, affinity notes, major conflict warnings where visible.]

[Growth Method: Successfully support healthy bonds, introduce compatible partners, resolve romantic misunderstandings, and generally make love everyone’s problem.]

[Future Upgrades May Reveal: Favorite foods, hobbies, fetishes, emotional wounds, relationship needs, love languages, courtship triggers, long-term bond stability, emotional needs, preferred courtship styles, ideal date environments, relationship risks, hidden crush detection, and additional personal insights.]

Alice stared at that.

The whole hallway seemed to go quiet.

This was it.

Not the fangs. Not the thorns. Not the stat boosts. Not the predatory senses making the world too sharp around the edges.

This was the reason she had picked the oath.

The skill sat in front of her like a tool and a temptation.

A way to help.

A way to interfere.

A way to turn the impossible mess of wanting and guilt and loneliness into numbers.

Alice’s stomach twisted.

“Can I use it now?”

[Liliana: Yes, darling. But please remember that compatibility is destiny. It is only information. Love must still be chosen.]

Alice nodded, though her mouth had gone dry.

“Right. Information. Not destiny.”

[Dice: She says, while absolutely about to weaponize romance.]

“I heard that.”

[Dice: Good.]

Alice stared at the floating panel for one more second.

Then she closed her hand around the thorn-vine and dismissed it.

The blue rose dissolved into petals that never touched the floor, fading into glittering motes before they could land. Her fingers still tingled afterward, like the weapon had left roots beneath her skin, waiting for the next time she needed it. The hunger remained too, tucked low and patient beneath her ribs. Her new senses made the hallway feel too alive: Mako’s anxious movements, Riven and Kaia speaking quietly in the shop beyond, the old metal smell of the walls, the faint lingering trace of Nia clinging to the sealed door behind her.

Nia.

Alice opened her system panel.

Mako noticed immediately and straightened. “What are you doing?”

“Calling her.”

His eyes widened. “That is either brave or the worst possible idea.”

“Probably both.”

“Alice.”

She hesitated with her finger hovering over Nia’s contact, because that tone was not Mako being funny. It was Mako trying very hard not to sound scared.

Alice glanced at him.

He looked pale under the shop lights, orange eyes fixed on the panel like he expected it to bite. His usual grin had disappeared completely now. Without it, he looked less like a chaotic workshop gremlin and more like Nia’s brother. Someone who had seen this before. Someone who knew how badly things could go when Nia’s feelings became a locked door with no handle.

Alice swallowed.

“I’m not going to lead her on,” she said quietly. “I’m not going to scream at her either.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“I know.”

Mako rubbed both hands over his face. “Do you?”

Alice looked back at Nia’s old room.

The photos. The notes. The shrine. The words written under her face.

My future wife.

“No,” she admitted. “But I don’t think waiting makes this less bad.”

Mako did not argue.

That made her feel worse.

Alice tapped the call icon.

For three rings, nothing happened.

Each one stretched too long.

Mako shifted beside her, quiet and tense. Alice could hear his internal mechanisms now, subtle little clicks beneath the softer rhythm of whatever passed for his heartbeat. Her new senses kept grabbing details she did not want. The warmth of his worry. The faint smell of oil and sugar and static clinging to him. The pulse of old magic under the floorboards.

Fourth ring.

Fifth.

Alice almost ended it.

Then Nia picked up.

No image at first.

Just sound.

Breathing.

Too quiet. Too controlled. The kind of breathing someone did when they were trying very hard not to make noise.

Alice’s throat tightened.

“Nia?”

For a second there was no answer.

Then the call opened visually.

Alice saw the Velvet Bottle.

Not the whole bar, just a dim corner booth tucked under amber light, the background blurred with jazz, moving bodies, bottle-glow, and the soft red-gold shine of home. Nia sat alone in one of the back booths, shoulders hunched despite her size, white hair falling around her face, long rabbit ears low and rigid. Her crimson eyes were bright in a way that made Alice’s stomach twist. Too focused. Too wet. Too feverish.

Nia blinked.

Her gaze fixed on Alice.

Then widened.

“Alice.”

The way she said it hurt.

Then Nia’s eyes shifted past her. To the wall. To the room behind Alice.

The photos.

The notes.

The shrine.

Nia went completely still.

Alice saw the moment understanding hit.

Nia’s face emptied first. Then cracked.

“You’re in my room,” Nia whispered.

Alice looked around despite herself, as if there were any way to soften what Nia was seeing from the other side.

“Yeah.”

Nia’s breathing changed.

Not faster exactly.

Sharper.

“Alice, I can explain.”

Mako made a small sound beside her.

Alice lifted one hand slightly, telling him not to speak.

Nia’s gaze darted toward him. Recognition flashed across her face. Shame followed instantly, burning hot and ugly.

“Mako took you there.”

“I asked to come.”

“Mako shouldn’t have opened it.”

“He disabled the trap on your door, Nia.”

Nia flinched.

Alice hated that it hurt to say. Hated that every word felt like stepping on glass and hearing someone else bleed.

Nia’s hands gripped the edge of the booth table hard enough that the wood creaked. In the background, a waitress passed by with a tray of drinks, glanced toward Nia, clearly thought better of asking questions, and kept walking.

“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” Nia said quickly.

Alice closed her eyes for half a second.

“That’s not the only thing that matters.”

“I know it looks bad.”

“Nia.”

“I know.” Nia’s voice sharpened, frantic now. “I know it looks bad, but I wasn’t doing anything to you. I never touched you. I never broke into your home. I never took anything that mattered. I just watched. I just wanted to know you. I needed to know you.”

Alice’s chest clenched.

“Nia, that’s not better.”

Nia’s ears flattened harder. “You don’t understand.”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

“You saved me.”

The words came out so abruptly that Alice stopped.

Nia leaned closer to the screen, eyes burning.

“You saved me before you even knew I existed. You were proof.” Her voice shook. “You were proof there was something else. Someone else. Someone who could be different and still walk around like the world had no right to look away. You were messy and angry and beautiful and alive, and I saw you and I thought, there. There she is. That’s the person. That’s the reason.”

Alice’s breath caught.

Nia kept going.

The words poured out of her now, too fast, too raw, as if she had finally been cut open and everything inside was spilling at once.

“I was nothing before that. I was a weapon they found and fed and trained and patched together until I could stand in the shop without breaking things. Riven and Kaia loved me, I know they did, I know they do, but I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t know how to be a daughter. I didn’t know how to be a person.”

Her voice cracked.

“You were the world to me.”

Alice went cold.

Not because she did not believe her.

Because she did.

Nia was not performing. She was not trying to be pretty. She was unraveling in a booth at the Velvet Bottle with Maria’s bar lights glowing behind her, saying the sort of thing no one could take back once spoken.

“You made everything make sense,” Nia whispered. “Ikos made sense because you were in it. Training made sense because I needed to be strong enough for you. Waiting made sense because someday you’d see me and understand. I thought if I became enough, if I was strong enough, beautiful enough, loyal enough, you’d look at me and just know.”

Alice’s eyes burned.

“Nia.”

“I love you,” Nia said, almost violently. “I love you so much it hurts. I know it’s too much. I know I’m too much. But I can be better. I can make it smaller. I can wait. I can be whatever you need. I can be gentle. I can be patient. I can share if you want Nell. I can learn how. I can love him too if that helps. Or not love him. Or stay away from him. Just tell me the shape and I’ll fit into it.”

Mako looked away.

Alice felt something inside her break quietly.

That was the problem.

Nia meant it.

She would carve herself into whatever Alice asked for and call the bleeding devotion.

Alice’s voice came out soft.

“You can’t do that.”

“Yes, I can.”

“No. You can’t.”

Nia shook her head hard. “Alice, please.”

Alice swallowed, then **** herself to say the cruel thing because it was also the honest thing.

“You fucked my mom.”

The silence hit like a slap.

Nia froze.

Mako’s head snapped toward Alice, eyes wide, but he did not speak.

On the screen, Nia’s face went blank with horror.

Then shame hit so hard Alice could see it move through her body.

“That,” Nia whispered, “wasn’t supposed to matter.”

Alice laughed once, brittle and disbelieving. “How the hell was that not supposed to matter?”

Nia’s voice rushed out again, ****. “Because it wasn’t you. It wasn’t about her. It was never about her.”

“That is not helping.”

“She reminded me of you.”

Alice’s stomach twisted.

Nia’s eyes were wide now, frantic with the need to explain herself into forgiveness.

“She smelled like you. Moved like you. Looked at me with your eyes, easier, not scared. I was wound up and hurting and she knew exactly where to press, and I thought if I couldn’t have you, maybe being with the person who made you would be close enough to quiet it for one night.”

Alice stared at her.

For a moment she could not speak.

That explanation was somehow worse than every answer she had imagined.

Nia seemed to realize it as soon as she finished saying it.

Her mouth trembled.

“I know,” she whispered. “I know how that sounds.”

“It sounds like you wanted to get as close to me as possible without me being there.”

Nia’s eyes dropped.

That was answer enough.

Alice pressed her free hand against her mouth, careful of the fangs.

A part of her wanted to scream. Another part wanted to cry. A third, more vicious little piece wanted to laugh because of course her life had become this. Of course the girl with a shrine to her had slept with Maria because Maria was the closest available version of Alice that would not run.

Gods.

Her mother was going to need to answer some questions too.

Later.

Not now.

Now, Nia was staring at her like a condemned woman waiting for the blade.

Alice breathed in.

Slowly.

Her new hunger stirred at the smell of her own bitten tongue, but she ignored it.

“Nia,” she said, and tried to make her voice steady. “Whatever chance there might have been between us, I think it’s over.”

Nia flinched like Alice had hit her.

“No.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No.” Nia’s voice sharpened. “No, don’t say that. Don’t make it final.”

“It is final.”

“No.No.No.No.No.No.No.No.No.”

“It can’t be.”

“It has to be.”

Nia’s hands tightened around the table edge again. The wood groaned. Someone in the bar looked over. Nia did not notice.

Alice **** herself to keep going.

“Maybe before all this, maybe if you had told me honestly, maybe if there hadn’t been the stalking and the shrine and my mom and Nell and every other impossible thing stacked on top of each other, maybe there was a version where we could have figured something out. I don’t know. I can’t know anymore.”

Nia’s breathing turned ragged.

Alice’s own voice almost broke.

“But I love Nell.”

The words landed differently than she expected.

Simple.

Terrifying.

True enough that her oath icon pulsed faintly in response.

Alice touched her chest without thinking.

“I don’t know exactly what that means yet,” she admitted. “It’s new. It’s probably stupid and too fast and I’m probably going to panic about it seventeen different ways. But I know how I feel when he looks at me. I know I don’t feel trapped. I know I don’t feel watched. I know I can breathe.”

Nia’s eyes went glassy.

“That makes me angry,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“I hate him.”

“I know.”

“I want to hate him more than I do.” Her voice shook with something ugly and honest. “But he was kind to you. And he looked scared when you looked sad. And that makes it worse.”

Alice looked down.

“He’s not the reason I can’t love you back.”

Nia made a broken sound.

Alice looked up again.

“You are not unlovable,” Alice said firmly.

Nia went still.

Alice stepped closer to the call, silver eyes bright in the dim hallway.

“You are not unlovable,” she repeated. “But I am not the person who can love you the way you need. And if I tried, because I felt guilty or scared or because part of me wanted you physically, it would destroy both of us.”

Nia shook her head weakly.

Alice’s voice softened.

“I picked a whole class for you, you idiot.”

That made Nia blink.

Mako stared at Alice too.

Alice let out a small, exhausted laugh.

“Yeah. I’m probably crazy too. I saw the shrine, had a panic attack, and responded by swearing a divine oath to the Goddess of Love so I could maybe help you find someone who won’t feel like they’re being swallowed by everything you are.”

Nia stared at her like she could not understand the words.

“You... what?”

Alice opened her hand. A tiny rose-gold system sigil formed above her palm, soft and glowing. The Matchmaker’s icon shimmered there like a heart wrapped in thorns.

“I’m a Matchmaker Paladin now.”

Mako muttered, “Still insane when said out loud.”

Alice ignored him.

“I can compare compatibility,” she said. “Romantic and sexual. Not destiny. Not some gross soul-binding nonsense. Just information. A way to find people who might actually fit. People who might want what you want. People who can handle your intensity without being hurt by it.”

Nia’s expression twisted.

“You’re trying to give me away.”

“No.”

“You are.”

“I’m trying to help you live.”

Nia bared her teeth. “My life is you.”

“No,” Alice said sharply.

The word cracked through the call.

Nia fell silent.

Alice’s fangs ached. Her new eyes burned. The oath beneath her ribs flared warm, not painful, but insistent.

“No,” Alice said again, quieter. “That is the part we have to fix.”

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Alice drew in a breath.

“I tested it once,” she admitted.

Mako’s head snapped toward her. “Alice.”

Nia looked startled despite herself.

Alice rubbed her forehead. “I saw enough to know how it works. Mako has zero romantic chemistry with you. Obviously. But weirdly high sexual compatibility, which we are never discussing again.”

Mako made a strangled sound.

For the first time, something like a tiny confused laugh almost broke through Nia’s misery.

It died quickly.

Alice continued before the moment could vanish.

“Jen has high romantic and sexual compatibility with you.”

Nia’s eyes sharpened.

“Mako’s martial artist friend?”

“She chased after you.”

“She was angry.”

“She was worried.”

Nia looked away.

Alice watched her carefully.

“But there’s volatility there,” Alice said. “A lot. The skill didn’t give me full details, but I can feel it. It could get messy. Maybe good messy, maybe bad messy. I need to look at more people before I decide anything.”

Nia’s gaze snapped back. “Before you decide?”

Alice grimaced. “Bad wording. Before I recommend anything.”

Liliana’s rose text appeared at the edge of her vision.

[Better.]

[Dice: Barely.]

Alice’s eye twitched.

Nia stared at her through the call, still trembling with anger, grief, and something that looked horribly like hope trying to crawl out from under a collapsed building.

“You would do that?” Nia whispered.

Alice’s throat tightened.

“Yes.”

“After seeing my room.”

“Yes.”

“After what I did with Maria.”

Alice looked away for half a second.

That one hurt.

Then she looked back.

“Yes. But not because I owe you. Not because I’m secretly accepting your feelings. Not because I’m yours.”

Nia flinched.

Alice **** the rest out.

“Because I don’t want you to ruin yourself loving a version of me that doesn’t exist.”

Nia’s eyes filled.

For a moment, she looked younger. Not the towering Bloodbreaker. Not the terrifying bunny-horse barbarian who could cross rooftops like a storm. Just a lonely girl sitting in Alice’s home, being told the only religion she had ever built was false.

“I don’t know how to stop,” Nia whispered.

Alice’s face softened despite everything.

“Then don’t do it alone.”

Nia’s breath hitched.

Alice glanced toward Mako.

He nodded once, small and tense.

Alice looked back to the call.

“Come back here,” Alice said. “Or let us come to you. No running. No grabbing. No begging me to love you. We sit down. We talk. In person. With Mako there if you need him. Nell if I need him. Maybe Jen if she doesn’t punch someone first. We sort this out.”

Nia’s lips parted.

Alice lifted one finger, stopping her before she could speak.

“And if you try to turn this into another confession spiral, I will hang up and send Mako to annoy you until you surrender.”

Mako blinked. “I am willing to serve my city.”

Nia let out a sound that might have been a sob or a laugh.

Alice’s own eyes burned.

“I’m serious,” Alice said. “I can’t be your future wife. But I can be someone who helps you find a future that isn’t built around a shrine.”

Nia looked at her for a long, aching moment.

Then her eyes moved over Alice’s face again.

Really moved.

The silver eyes. The slit pupils. The pointed ears. The fangs. The new stillness under her skin.

“You changed,” Nia whispered.

Alice swallowed.

“Yeah.”

“You’re beautiful.”

Alice closed her eyes briefly.

“Nia.”

“I know,” Nia said quickly. “I know. I’m not trying. I just... you are.”

Alice opened her eyes.

Nia looked down at the table.

“I’m at the Velvet Bottle,” she said quietly, even though they already knew. “Back booth. Maria isn’t here. I checked.”

Alice stiffened.

Nia looked ashamed again.

Alice did not soften that one.

“Stay there,” Alice said. “We’re coming.”

Nia nodded once.

Then hesitated.

“Alice?”

“Yeah?”

Nia’s voice dropped to almost nothing.

“If you find someone perfect for me... and I still want you?”

Alice’s chest hurt.

“Then we keep working on it,” she said. “But you still don’t get to make me responsible for your heart.”

Nia stared at her.

Then, slowly, painfully, she nodded.

The call ended.

The hallway returned all at once. The smell of metal. The muted mall noise. Mako’s anxious mechanisms. Nia’s old door behind them.

Alice stood there with her new silver eyes glowing faintly, her fangs resting against her lip, the rose-gold Matchmaker icon pulsing in the corner of her vision.

Mako stared at her.

“You picked a whole class to fix my sister.”

Alice exhaled and leaned back against the wall.

“No,” she said. “I picked a whole class because I’m an idiot.”

Mako tilted his head.

Alice looked toward the shop exit.

“And because your sister isn’t the only one who needs to learn love.”

Liliana’s text bloomed softly in the corner of her vision.

[That, darling, is an excellent beginning.]

A second line appeared beneath it.

[Dice: Still betting this ends in chaos.]

Alice sighed.

“Yeah,” she muttered, starting toward the front of the shop. “Me too.”

Alice made it three steps out of the hallway before the new skill started feeling like an itch behind her eyes.

Not painful.

Worse.

Useful.

The Matchmaker’s Sight sat in her awareness like a freshly installed app that knew far too much about everyone in the room and politely waited for her to make bad choices with it. Rose-gold threads shimmered at the edges of her perception whenever she looked at someone too long. Riven at the counter, pretending not to watch her. Kaia beside him, arms folded, face composed in the way mothers got when they were trying not to ask seven dangerous questions at once. Mako at Alice’s side, still tense beneath his jokes, still glancing toward Nia’s old room like the door might open and accuse him personally.

Alice knew she should ignore the skill.

She absolutely knew that.

Which was why, naturally, she lasted about six seconds before trying it.

She looked from Riven to Kaia.

Just a glance. A harmless little comparison. A perfectly reasonable test of the divine relationship analysis system she had just sworn herself into while emotionally unstable in a mall workshop hallway.

The panel bloomed immediately.

[Matchmaker’s Sight: Compatibility Analysis]

[Target Pair: Riven / Kaia]

[Romantic Compatibility: 82%]

[Sexual Compatibility: 88%]

[Bond Stability: Strong]

[Major Notes: Long-term trust foundation. Shared trauma history. High adaptability. High tolerance for eccentricity, mechanical disasters, improvised parenting, and emotionally volatile children.]

Alice blinked.

That was actually sweet.

Then the next line appeared.

[Additional Note: Riven displays high swinger compatibility.]

Alice’s face went hot.

“Oh no.”

Mako turned toward her. “What?”

Before she could close the window, more text unfolded.

[Additional Note: Kaia displays high cuckqueen affinity and enjoys open relationships.]

Alice made a strangled sound and slapped both hands over the panel like that would somehow hide divine text from existence.

Mako stared at her.

Riven looked up from the counter.

Kaia narrowed her eyes.

Alice stood frozen in the middle of Riven’s Rivets, newly vampiric, newly holy, newly cursed with the knowledge that Mako’s adopted parents apparently had a healthier and more adventurous relationship than most people she knew.

“I,” Alice said carefully, “am learning that my new skill has terrible boundaries.”

Mako’s eyes widened in slow horror.

“What did you see?”

“Nothing.”

“Alice.”

“Healthy marriage statistics.”

Mako paled. “That sounds like a lie.”

“It was mostly sweet.”

“Mostly?”

Alice looked at Riven and Kaia, then immediately looked away so fast her pointed ears burned.

Kaia’s expression shifted with sudden understanding.

Then, to Alice’s absolute horror, the woman smiled.

Riven glanced at his wife, then at Alice, then groaned and dragged one hand down his face. “System told her something, didn’t it?”

“I didn’t mean to look,” Alice said immediately.

Riven muttered, “That clown god needs a hobby.”

Liliana’s rose-gold text bloomed politely at the edge of Alice’s vision.

[That was not Dice, darling.]

Alice shut her eyes.

“Worse. That was my god.”

Mako made a sound like someone had removed a support beam from his soul. “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know anything. I am leaving this shop with my innocence violently defended.”

“You work here,” Riven said.

“Not spiritually.”

Alice decided, very firmly, that she was never testing anyone’s parents again.

Then, because she was apparently incapable of learning any lesson cleanly, she immediately wondered about Nell.

The thought rose before she could stop it. Nell’s shy smile beneath the theater sign. His sleeve brushing hers. The soft way he looked at her like she was not an accident he had to politely ignore. The taste of his lips. The feeling of his hand hovering at her waist because he wanted to touch her but still cared more about whether he was allowed.

Alice’s chest went warm.

Her fingers twitched.

A comparison between herself and Nell would be harmless, right? Reassuring, maybe. Just a number. Just a little divine confirmation that she had not made another catastrophic emotional choice because someone was nice to her and smelled like coffee and old books.

She opened the comparison instinctively.

[Matchmaker’s Sight: Self-Target Analysis Requested.]

The panel flashed rose-gold.

Then locked.

[Denied.]

Alice blinked. “What?”

Liliana’s text appeared immediately, gentle but firm.

[No, darling.]

Alice frowned. “Why?”

[Because testing your own compatibility with someone you are already emotionally attached to will not help you love more. It will teach you to stare at a number until your fear turns it into a weapon.]

Alice stared at the words.

Mako leaned closer despite himself. “What’s happening now?”

“Liliana won’t let me check me and Nell.”

“Good.”

Alice shot him a look. “You don’t even know the reason.”

“I heard enough.”

Liliana continued.

[If you were entirely unattached, I might allow limited self-analysis for guidance. But you are not. You are already afraid. You are already hopeful. You are already inclined to treat information as a verdict.]

Alice’s mouth pressed into a thin line.

That was deeply unfair.

Mostly because it was accurate.

[Take my word for it.]

[The two of you are doing just fine.]

Alice’s throat tightened so suddenly she had to look away.

“Oh.”

Mako’s expression softened. “Good oh or bad oh?”

Alice cleared her throat. “Shut up oh.”

“Classic.”

She dismissed the panel before it could make her cry in front of Mako’s parents, which felt like a level of vulnerability she had not unlocked and did not want to purchase from the Dice Cash Shop. The hunger beneath her ribs stirred faintly again, not demanding, just present. New body. New rules. New god. New emotional disaster to drag into the Velvet Bottle and try to survive before closing time.

They were almost out of the shop when Alice stopped.

Mako nearly walked into her. “What now?”

“Nia’s at the Velvet Bottle.”

“Yeah.”

“She’s probably miserable.”

“Definitely.”

“We should bring something.”

Mako stared at her. “You want to bring snacks to the girl who had a shrine to you?”

Alice grimaced. “When you say it like that, it sounds insane.”

“It is insane from every angle.”

“People are easier to talk to with food.”

“That is annoyingly true.”

“And she likes strawberry stuff,” Alice added before thinking.

Mako went still.

Alice slowly turned toward him.

“Why do I know that?”

“also said she secretly likes carrot things but is embarrassed because bunny-horse hybrid.”

Mako’s mouth twitched.

Alice pointed at him. “Do not laugh.”

“I’m not.”

“You want to.”

“I desperately want to.”

“I will thorn-whip you.”

“Fair.”

They left Riven’s Rivets with Riven and Kaia promising to call if Nia contacted them. Riven gave Alice one last unreadable look before she stepped out, the kind that made her think he understood more than he wanted to say in front of Mako. Kaia, meanwhile, pressed a small wrapped packet into Mako’s hand and told him to make sure Nia ate something if he found her. Mako accepted it with quiet obedience.

The mall swallowed them again.

Bright lights. Moving crowds. Floating ads. Artificial constellations drifting overhead. Alice felt too sharp inside it now. Her new eyes caught every glimmer. Her ears picked up snippets from three levels above, a child begging for a clockwork dragon, a couple arguing about armor polish, a vendor calling out a discount on mana-infused dumplings. Under it all were heartbeats. Warmth. Life.

She tried not to focus on that part.

The pastry shop sat near the central fountain, tucked under a curving balcony with a sign shaped like a tiny dragon curled around a cupcake. The lettering read Embercrumb Confections in glowing orange script. Behind the glass display were rows of pastries arranged like treasure: strawberry cream horns dusted with powdered sugar, chocolate magma buns with molten centers, cinnamon scale twists, little fruit tarts shaped like flowers, and carrot-honey cakes with pale orange frosting roses on top.

A cute goblin girl stood behind the counter, though not quite goblin in the usual sense. Alice recognized the signs after a second. Kobold. Not the old-world reptile people from fantasy games, but the modern system mutation: goblins born near too much dragon mana, or descended from someone who had been. Scaleborn, but goblin-shaped. She was small and sharp-featured, with little horn nubs peeking through her hair, patches of fine coppery and pink scales along her cheeks and forearms, and bright gold eyes that tracked customers with cheerful predatory business instincts.

“Welcome to Embercrumb,” she chirped. “Everything is fresh, nothing is cursed, and the lava glaze only bites if you insult it.”

Mako leaned toward Alice. “I like her.”

Alice was already studying the display. “Strawberry. Carrot. Something chocolate. Maybe something that says ‘sorry your life is collapsing’ but less depressing.”

The kobold girl nodded solemnly. “We have breakup boxes.”

Alice winced. “Not exactly.”

“Unrequited love boxes?”

Mako made a small **** noise.

Alice covered her face. “Closer, but please don’t call it that.”

“Yandere recovery box?”

Alice’s hands dropped.

The kobold girl smiled brightly. “I work retail near the adventurer district. I know patterns.”

Mako pointed at her. “You are terrifyingly good at this.”

“I have excellent customer intuition and no legal obligation to be subtle.”

Alice sighed. “Strawberry assortment, carrot cakes, and whatever you think helps someone calm down without feeling pitied.”

The kobold nodded and began packing a glossy black-and-red box with surprising care.

That was when the front door banged open behind them.

“Tell me you still have the chili-chocolate bat wings!”

The voice was loud, bright, and reckless enough that Alice turned before she meant to.

A woman strode into the pastry shop like she expected background music to follow her and was mildly disappointed the room had failed to provide it. Long dark hair with a blue-black sheen fell around her shoulders in messy waves. A hot pink X-shaped eyepatch covered one eye, matched by black-and-pink striped sleeves, fingerless gloves, black nails, a choker, and a cropped punk shirt stretched across a wiry, compact frame. She was short, petite, flat-chested, and carried herself with the dangerous confidence of someone who had mistaken “bad idea” for “warm-up act” too many times to stop now.

Alice recognized her a second later.

Not personally.

Everyone in Ikos knew Jett Havoc.

Local rockstar. Axe-guitar maniac. Stage-diving hazard. Occasional public nuisance. Rumor claimed she once fought a chimera in the middle of a concert because canceling the show would have been “bad for the energy.” Another rumor said she had been banned from three venues and worshiped by five small cluts.

Jett spotted the kobold and slapped both hands on the counter.

“Please, Embery, I need enough sugar to keep thirty roadies from mutiny and one drummer from realizing he’s been awake for two days.”

The kobold, apparently Embery, did not blink. “The drummer knows.”

“No, he suspects. Different thing.”

“You already placed an order.”

“Yes, and then tragedy struck.”

Mako perked up despite everything. “What kind of tragedy?”

Jett turned toward him with a grin full of sharp teeth and terrible promise. “Flaming chainsaw accident.”

Mako’s whole face lit up. “Go on.”

Alice muttered, “Of course that’s the phrase that revives you.”

Jett leaned one elbow on the counter. “Main roadie lost both legs. Freak accident. Completely not my fault.”

Embery stared at her.

Jett paused.

“Mostly not my fault.”

Embery kept staring.

“Legally unclear.”

Mako whispered, “I love this story.”

Jett grinned wider. “Anyway, prosthetics are being fitted, but it’ll take a while for the new legs to settle, so I’m doing roadie work before my own gig like some kind of humble, community-minded professional. Which means I need a massive tray of treats for backstage before everyone remembers they can quit.”

Alice should have ignored it.

She really should have.

But Jett was standing there, bright and chaotic and bizarrely magnetic, and the Matchmaker’s Sight itched.

Nia needed someone intense. Someone not easily frightened. Someone chaotic enough to interrupt obsession before it turned inward. Someone who would not treat Nia’s hunger like a sacred doom, but also would not be delicate enough to break under it.

Alice glanced at Jett.

Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she compared Jett and Nia.

The panel opened.

[Matchmaker’s Sight: Compatibility Analysis]

[Target Pair: Nia Caerwyn / Jett Havoc]

[Romantic Compatibility: 76%]

[Sexual Compatibility: 91%]

[Bond Volatility: High but Energizing]

[Affinity Notes: Jett’s chaotic confidence may disrupt Nia’s obsessive fixation patterns. Nia’s intensity may provide Jett with a grounding **** she would normally resist but secretly benefit from.]

[Potential Conflict: Both possess strong impulse drives. Supervision recommended during courtship. Property damage likely.]

Alice stared.

Mako leaned in. “You’re doing it, aren’t you?”

“I’m gathering data.”

“You’re looking at Jett Havoc like she’s a prescription.”

Alice kept reading.

[Additional Note: Jett’s body type overlaps with Alice enough to redirect initial fixation without fully reinforcing replacement fantasy.]

Alice’s face went nuclear.

Mako squinted. “Why did you turn red?”

“Nothing.”

“Alice.”

“Nothing.”

But she could not stop looking.

Because the system was right, which made it worse. Jett was short and petite, flat-chested in a way that made Alice feel suddenly, humiliatingly aware of her own body. Jen had that too, compact and sharp and built like a coiled strike. Jett was taller than Alice, but not by much, with the same kind of lean, scrappy, punkish energy Alice sometimes tried to pretend she had on purpose instead of by accident and laziness.

Nia had a type.

Apparently, it was “dangerously small women with enough attitude to pick fights with weather.”

Alice wanted to be offended.

She was too embarrassed by how accurate it felt.

Liliana’s text appeared softly.

[Careful, darling. Similarity can help bridge attraction, but it should not become substitution.]

Alice swallowed.

“I know.”

Mako sighed. “That goddess is already giving you warnings, isn’t she?”

“Constantly.”

“Good. Somebody should.”

Jett noticed Alice staring.

Of course she did.

Her grin turned sharp and delighted as she leaned closer. “Hey, silver eyes. You need something, or are you just enjoying the view?”

Alice froze.

Mako made a tiny sound of pure joy.

Alice’s new fangs pressed against her lower lip. “I was thinking.”

“Dangerous hobby.”

“You’re Jett Havoc.”

“Depends who’s asking and whether they have a warrant.”

“I’m Alice.”

Jett’s grin flickered with recognition. “Velvet Bottle Alice?”

Alice blinked. “That is a category?”

“In Ikos? Absolutely. Your mom makes the only drink that ever convinced my bassist to apologize.”

Jett’s visible eye drifted over Alice’s new pointed ears, silver eyes, and fangs with open appreciation. “You look freshly cursed.”

“Blessed, technically.”

“Same aesthetic family.”

“Unfortunately true.”

Embery set a pastry box on the counter between them. “Your Yandere recovery box.”

Alice winced. “Can we not call it that?”

Embery added a ribbon. “Too late. It’s in the register.”

Jett looked from Alice to the box, then to Mako, then back to Alice. Her grin softened by half a degree, becoming nosy instead of purely predatory.

“Rough night?”

Alice picked up the box. “You could say that.”

“I usually scream into an amp.”

“I picked a divine oath.”

Jett paused.

Then nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s worse.”

Mako pointed at her again. “See? She gets it.”

Alice looked at Jett, then at the compatibility panel, then back at Jett.

An idea started forming.

A terrible idea.

Possibly a useful one.

“Do you ever go to the Velvet Bottle?” Alice asked.

Jett’s grin returned. “Before, after, or during a gig?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes.”

Alice glanced at Mako.

Mako’s eyes narrowed. “Alice.”

“What?”

“You have shortlist face.”

“I do not have a shortlist face.”

“You absolutely have a shortlist face.”

Jett looked delighted. “Am I on a list?”

“Maybe,” Alice said.

“What kind?”

Alice sighed.

“The kind that might save someone’s life,” she said.

Jett studied her for a moment.

“Well,” Jett said, grabbing her own enormous pastry order as Embery slid it across the counter, “I do like dramatic stakes with my dessert.”

Mako leaned close to Alice and whispered, “I cannot believe this is working.”

Alice stared at the pastry box in her hands.

“It’s not working yet.”

Liliana’s rose-gold text bloomed faintly.

[No. But it is a beginning.]

Dice added beneath it.

[And statistically, a very funny one.]

The Silver Serpent slid away from the Radiant Bazaar with a soft electric hum, carrying Alice and Mako through the upper veins of Ikos.

Outside the monorail windows, the city stretched beneath them. The mall’s artificial starlight faded behind them, replaced by real desert night and the restless glow of streets that never fully slept. Towers rose from the circular city. Smaller buildings clustered between them, their rooftops crowded with water tanks, mana repeaters, garden boxes, laundry lines, and the occasional idiot adventurer using a roof as a shortcut. Farther off, the parks glowed softer, patches of green and blue amid the hard sandy city of Ikos, while the elevated rail curved toward the districts around the Velvet Bottle.

Alice sat beside the window with the pastry box balanced on her lap.

The box was glossy black and tied with red ribbon. Embery had stamped a tiny dragon-cupcake sigil on the corner and written YANDERE RECOVERY BOX in neat gold ink across the top, because apparently subtlety had died in the same dungeon as Alice’s original life plan.

Now she leaned her head back against the seat and dragged one hand through her hair, pushing the black-and-red strands away from her face. Her fingers brushed the sharp point of one new ear, and she flinched a little. Still sensitive. Her silver eyes caught her reflection in the dark window, slit pupils narrowing against passing lights.

She looked like someone else.

No.

That was not true.

She looked painfully like herself, only louder.

The fangs. The pointed ears. The glowing eyes. The smooth, predatory edge to her face that made every tired expression look a little more dramatic than she intended. A horror movie version of Alice. A Paladin who looked like she should be standing in fog with a thorn-covered shield, not sitting on public transit with an emotional support pastry box and a robot chaos gremlin who had accidentally revealed his sister was a lovesick stalker.

Her life had gotten extremely stupid in record time.

At least she had Jett’s contact info.

That was something.

Alice had not expected the local rockstar to actually hand it over so easily, but Jett Havoc apparently treated mysterious divine matchmaking lists the way normal people treated concert flyers. She had scanned Alice’s contact code with a grin, told her to call if the situation involved danger, drama, or “hot people making terrible decisions,” then left with enough pastries to sedate a stage crew.

Alice should have felt victorious.

Instead she felt tired.

Deeply, bone-level tired in a way the Dhampir stat boost had done absolutely nothing to fix.

“I wanted to be an adventurer,” she muttered.

Mako looked over from where he had been trying to balance one of Kaia’s wrapped food packets on his knee without opening it. “You are an adventurer.”

Alice gave him a flat look.

He considered this.

“Technically.”

“I spent my first dungeon run punching chocolate slime, kissing Nell, choosing the wrong right class, becoming a vampire, finding out my party leader has had a shrine to me for years, and trying to build a romantic shortlist before level two.”

Mako nodded slowly. “Okay, when you put it like that, you are less an adventurer and more a disaster with class features.”

Alice groaned and slumped harder into the seat.

The train curved, and Ikos tilted outside the window, lights sliding across her reflection.

“I’m going to be stuck at level one forever.”

“Probably not forever.”

“Until Nia stops being obsessed with me.”

Mako made a face.

Alice closed her eyes. “So forever.”

He did not have a joke for that one.

A nasty little thought crawled up from the back of her mind then, unwelcome and warm and embarrassing. It sounded too much like the worst parts of herself. The horny, stupid, reckless parts that wanted everything complicated to become simple.

A small part of her thought maybe she could just sleep with Nia and get it over with.

Not because it was smart.

Not because it would fix anything.

Because Nia was beautiful. Because Nia was powerful and tall and terrifying and looked at Alice like she wanted to devour the world just to make room for her. Because Alice’s body had wanted Nia before her brain caught up, and because that desire had not vanished just because Alice had seen the shrine. If anything, shame had tangled with it and made it worse.

Alice hated that.

She hated that attraction could survive fear.

She hated that her body did not care.

She hated that some stupid, reckless, heat-drunk part of her still wondered what it would feel like to be wanted by Nia with that much ****.

Then she opened her eyes and stared at her own reflection until the thought burned out.

No.

It would not get anything out of Nia’s system.

It would feed it.

It would confirm every fantasy Nia had built, every picture on that wall, every note, every imagined destiny. It would turn Alice into proof. Into a reward.

And Alice knew herself well enough to admit that the temptation was not compassion.

It was attraction.

Just attraction.

Strong, messy, shameful attraction.

There was no romance there.

Not the kind that mattered. Not the kind she felt when Nell looked at her. Not the kind that made her want to protect him with a shield so badly she had chosen Paladin before her dream class. With Nia, what Alice felt was hotter and sharper and much more frightening.

She was scared of Nia.

More than she loved her.

That had to matter.

And she was angry. Gods, she was angry. The thing with Maria still sat under her ribs like a swallowed blade. Nia’s explanation had not helped. It had made it worse in a way Alice could not stop replaying. She only did it because Maria reminded her of Alice. Because Maria was close enough. Because Maria was available and Alice was not.

Alice pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Ugh.”

Mako glanced at her. “Internal screaming?”

“Professionally.”

“Nice.”

“She’s a great leader, though,” Alice muttered, hating herself for the thought as soon as it formed.

Mako leaned back against the seat. “She is.”

“She held the party together in Candy land.”

“Yeah.”

“And she explained the dungeon well when she wasn’t busy **** on eye contact.”

“Also yeah.”

“And she didn’t push me in the bathroom when she could have.”

Mako went still.

Alice did not look at him.

“She stopped,” Alice said quietly. “When I backed away, she stopped. That matters too.”

Mako’s voice softened. “It does.”

Alice stared at the glowing city.

“Maybe we can be friends someday.”

The words sounded absurd the second they left her mouth.

Friends with the girl who had built a shrine to her.

Alice gave a humorless little laugh.

“I don’t know.”

Mako shrugged, but his expression was gentler now. “Nobody knows anything. We’re all just doing suspiciously confident improv until the system rewards us or kills us.”

“That is the worst philosophy I’ve ever heard.”

“My dad says it’s how civilization started.”

“Your dad is terrifying.”

“Correct.”

Alice rubbed both hands down her face.

Her thoughts were starting to annoy her.

Not one thought in particular.

All of them.

Nia. Nell. Maria. Paladin. Dhampir. Liliana. Jett. Jen. The possibility of being a Matchmaker Paladin who could not even fix her own romantic life. The fact that she had a vampire hunger now and would have to buy blood packs like some gothic health supplement.

Her system panel pinged.

Alice nearly jumped out of her seat.

Mako looked over. “Nell?”

Alice’s heart had already kicked against her ribs.

The call window opened, and Nell’s face appeared in soft blue light above her palm.

He was in the guild hall, judging by the background. Not the polished public lobby, but one of the equipment annexes behind it, where lockers and supply shelves lined the walls. His feathered brown-and-white hair was slightly mussed, his glasses a little crooked, and he looked both nervous and excited in a way that made Alice’s chest hurt stupidly.

“Alice?” he said. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” she said, sitting up so fast the pastry box nearly slid off her lap. “Yeah, I hear you. Are you okay? Is Nia there?”

“No. I checked the housing rooms first. Jen left a message saying she lost her near the lower rooftops, but she’s still searching. I haven’t found Nia.” He hesitated. “But I found something else.”

Alice frowned. “Something else?”

Nell’s expression brightened with shy, earnest pride.

“Armor.”

Alice blinked.

Mako slowly turned his head toward her.

Alice ignored him. “Armor?”

“Yes. For you.” Nell shifted the call slightly, and the image turned toward a mannequin standing beside him. “I know that sounds presumptuous, and I’m sorry if it is. But after you selected Paladin, I thought you would need equipment eventually, and there was a requisition listing for unclaimed beginner Paladin gear in the guild storage. I asked the quartermaster if we could inspect it, and he said it had been set aside for new Inspira-affiliated rookies, but apparently no one had claimed it yet, so technically it was available through the general adventurer support allotment if the paperwork was filed correctly.”

Alice stared at the armor.

For a moment she forgot how to breathe.

It was white plate over deep red underlayers, elegant and sharp, with a high red cloak-like mantle and silver detailing across the chest. Blue rose accents sat near the shoulders like impossible little bursts of color against the white and crimson. It looked too specific. Too dramatic. Too tailored. Like someone had designed a Paladin set after glancing at Alice once and deciding subtlety was for people without money.

Her father.

Obviously.

Quin’s fingerprints were all over it, even if he had never touched the metal himself.

Not literally. The style was not his. But the move was. The quiet handout disguised as opportunity. The equipment left somewhere she could “earn” it by technically signing the right form. The plausible deniability. The way he always managed to give her something without giving her the satisfaction of refusing him directly.

Normally, Alice would have been furious.

Actually, she still was.

A little.

Her jaw tightened on instinct.

Then she looked at Nell.

He was standing beside the armor like he had just pulled off a minor miracle for her. His eyes were bright behind his glasses, his mouth pulled into the smallest hopeful smile, shoulders tucked in like he was trying not to seem too proud of himself. He had no idea. No clue who had arranged that armor or why it fit her new aesthetic so perfectly it bordered on insulting.

He just thought he had found her something wonderful.

And he had.

Damn it.

Alice’s anger hit the wall of Nell’s sincere happiness and shattered into something softer and infinitely more inconvenient.

“You did this?” she asked quietly.

Nell looked embarrassed. “I mean, I didn’t make it. Obviously. But I negotiated the claim. Sort of. Not very aggressively. The quartermaster was mostly nice.”

Mako leaned into frame from Alice’s side and whispered loudly, “That is adorable.”

Nell startled. “Oh. Hi, Mako.”

Alice pushed Mako’s face away without looking at him.

“It’s amazing,” she said.

Nell’s face went red.

“Really?”

Alice looked at the armor again.

Her armor, apparently.

White and red. Thornless for now, but she could already imagine black rose-vines curling around the shield.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “It’s amazing.”

Nell’s smile hit her directly in the heart.

“I’m glad.”

Alice had the sudden, overwhelming urge to hug him.

Not kiss him, though yes, also that. Hug him. Wrap both arms around him and bury her face against his shoulder and let him be warm and real and safe for exactly thirty seconds. Maybe longer. Maybe until the world stopped being insane, which meant forever, so that was probably impractical.

Unfortunately, he was on the other side of town, and she was on the monorail with Mako and a Yandere Recovery Box.

Life was cruel.

“I wish I could hug you right now,” Alice said before she could stop herself.

Nell froze.

His blush deepened so fast Alice worried he might actually overheat.

“Oh,” he said.

Alice went still.

“I said that out loud.”

Mako nodded. “You sure did.”

Alice glared at him.

Nell smiled down at the floor, shy and pleased in a way that made Alice want to melt through the train seat.

“I would like that,” he said softly. “When you get here. Or when I get there. Whichever happens first.”

Alice’s throat tightened.

“Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”

Nell finally seemed to notice her properly then.

His eyes moved over her face, and Alice watched the exact moment he saw the changes. The silver glow of her irises. The vertical slit pupils. The pointed ears peeking through her hair. The little fangs in her smile.

His eyes widened.

Alice’s stomach dropped.

She straightened, suddenly self-conscious. “So. Small update.”

Nell leaned closer to the call.

“You have fangs.”

Alice tried to laugh. It came out thin. “Yeah.”

“And vertical pupils.”

“Also yeah.”

“And pointed ears.”

“Very observant.”

He blinked once.

Then smiled.

Not nervously. Not politely. Not like he was trying to hide discomfort.

Actually smiled.

“Now we match.”

Alice stared at him.

Nell touched his own mouth, a little embarrassed. “I mean, not exactly. Mine are from my snake side. And my pupils too. Yours are much brighter. The silver is very pretty.”

Alice’s entire brain stalled.

Mako looked between them, then silently put a fist against his mouth like he was physically holding in commentary.

Alice’s voice came out smaller than intended. “You’re not weirded out?”

Nell looked genuinely confused by the question.

“Why would I be?”

Alice laughed once, startled and helpless. “Because I got surprise vampire features in the last twenty minutes?”

“Dhampir, right?”

Alice blinked. “How did you know?”

“System class evolution patterns,” he said, then immediately looked embarrassed. “Also, your ears are pointed but your complexion hasn’t shifted into full undead pallor, and you’re still breathing normally, so living vampire variant seemed more likely than full vampire. I could be wrong.”

Mako whispered, “Nerd romance.”

Alice kicked him in the ankle.

Nell continued, softer now. “I think they suit you.”

Alice’s new heart, traitorous and dramatic, did something stupid.

“They do?”

“Yes.” Nell adjusted his glasses. “You look... more like yourself, somehow.”

That was not fair.

That was so not fair.

Alice looked away, biting the inside of her cheek and immediately regretting it when one fang nicked skin. Hunger stirred faintly at the taste of blood, but even that felt distant beneath the warmth spreading through her chest.

“You’re ridiculous,” she muttered.

Nell smiled. “Probably.”

Alice glanced back at him. “Did people ever mistake you for a vampire?”

Nell blinked, then made a thoughtful little face that almost killed her.

“Sometimes when I was younger. Mostly other children. The fangs and pupils made them assume things. But vampires usually have a different scent profile, and I don’t have the cold-skin temperature markers unless I’m anxious, which made the confusion worse because I was anxious frequently.”

Alice stared at him.

Mako leaned in again. “That is the most Nell answer possible.”

Nell flushed. “Sorry.”

“No,” Alice said quickly. “No, that was cute.”

Nell went silent.

Mako made a wheezing sound.

Alice buried her face in one hand.

“I am terrible at this.”

Liliana’s text bloomed faintly at the edge of her vision.

[You are doing just fine, darling.]

Dice appeared beneath it.

[Debatable, but entertaining.]

Alice ignored both of them.

Alice ended the call with Nell only because the monorail announced her stop.

The Silver Serpent eased into the station near the Velvet Bottle with a soft sigh of brakes, doors sliding open onto a raised platform washed in amber streetlight and the distant red-gold glow of her mother’s sign. Alice stepped out with the pastry box tucked under one arm and Mako trailing beside her, still carrying Kaia’s wrapped packet like it had become a sacred family burden. The city air hit cooler up here, desert night slipping through the rail station in clean gusts that tugged at Alice’s hair and made her new ears twitch in ways she had not given them permission to do.

She hated that.

She also kind of loved it.

The Velvet Bottle waited below, warm and alive, music spilling through its reinforced windows into the street. Jazz tonight, not too loud yet, smoky horns and a lazy bass line under the murmur of customers. The sign glowed in red and gold above the entrance, making the wet pavement shimmer like spilled liquor. Usually, seeing it made Alice feel like she could breathe. Tonight it felt like walking toward a courtroom, a hospital, and home all at once.

Nia was inside.

That knowledge sat heavy in her chest.

Alice tightened her grip on the pastry box. “Okay.”

Mako looked at her. “That was not an okay that sounded okay.”

“It was a structural okay.”

“Ah. Load-bearing denial.”

“Exactly.”

She started toward the front door.

She made it as far as the first step before the door opened from the inside and Maria appeared like she had been waiting for the timing to get dramatic.

Alice stopped dead.

Maria stood in the doorway beneath the bar lights, black-to-gold hair spilling loose over one shoulder, makeup still perfect in that unfair way only Maria could manage after an entire shift. She looked beautiful, of course. She always did. But there was something different tonight. Not the surface details. Not the smile, because she was not really smiling. Not the outfit, because Maria could make a button-up shirt and leather skirt look like a runway model.

It was her eyes.

Too sober.

Too focused.

Too scared.

“Alice,” Maria said.

Alice’s stomach sank immediately. “Mom, I need to talk to someone inside.”

“I know.”

“No, like actually need to. It’s urgent.”

Maria stepped fully into her path. “So is this.”

Alice opened her mouth to argue.

Maria’s hand closed around her wrist.

Just enough to stop her. Enough to say, I am not playing right now.

“Upstairs,” Maria said quietly.

Alice stared at her.

The street noise faded around them. Mako stopped moving behind her. Through the open door, Alice could see the bar beyond, warm and crowded and normal. She could not see Nia from this angle, but she could feel the pull of the conversation waiting inside. The disaster. The promise she had made. The whole terrible shape of the night still unfinished.

“Mom,” Alice said, softer this time. “I really can’t just leave her sitting in there.”

Maria’s expression tightened.

“I know,” she said. “Trust me anyway.”

That hit harder than it should have.

Alice trusted her mother.

Not because Maria always made good choices. Gods no. Maria made terrible choices with the confidence of a woman who assumed the consequences would at least be entertaining. But when Maria used that voice, when the party-girl shine fell away and the mother beneath it looked out, Alice listened.

She swallowed.

Then turned and shoved the pastry box into Mako’s hands.

Mako blinked down at it. “Am I being entrusted with the Yandere Recovery Box?”

“Yes.”

“That feels above my rank.”

“Do not eat it.”

“I was not going to.”

Alice narrowed her eyes.

Mako held the box closer to his chest. “Okay, I was not going to eat most of it.”

“Mako.”

“I will guard the trauma pastries with my life.”

Maria glanced at him. “And if Nia asks?”

Mako’s grin flickered and failed. “I tell her Alice is upstairs with you and coming back.”

Maria nodded. “Good.”

Alice looked between them. “That sounds ominous.”

“It is,” Mako said.

Maria pointed at the stairs inside the side hall. “Up.”

Alice hated how quickly her body obeyed.

The apartment above the Velvet Bottle had always felt like a second version of the bar, quieter but made of the same bones. The stairs creaked in the familiar places. The walls held old framed pictures, some straight, some forever crooked because Maria liked them that way. The muffled sound of jazz followed them up through the floorboards, softening as they reached the landing. The apartment smelled like Maria’s perfume, and the faint ghost of **** that had seeped into the building over years of parties, late nights, and emergency hangover breakfasts.

Alice stepped inside and immediately felt younger.

That annoyed her.

The living room was a mess in the exact way home always was. A blanket thrown over the couch. A pair of heels abandoned near the door. Half a dozen magazines on the coffee table, one of them open to an article about celebrity adventurer divorces. A small stack of clean glasses sat on the counter because Maria always brought them upstairs and never remembered to take them back down until Alice complained.

Maria went to the kitchen cabinet and pulled down a bottle.

Alice watched her.

Then watched her pull down one glass.

Only one.

The world shifted.

Maria poured amber liquor into the glass and slid it toward Alice across the counter.

She did not pour one for herself.

Alice stared at the glass.

Then at Maria.

Maria did not say anything.

Alice’s new senses caught too much. The faint warmth under Maria’s skin. Her pulse, a little too fast. The nervousness in the way her fingers rested against the counter. Something else too, subtle and strange beneath the familiar scent of her mother. A new thread. Tiny. Hidden. Alive.

Alice’s mouth parted.

“Oh my gods.”

Maria’s expression broke.

Alice forgot everything.

Nia. The shrine. The pastries. The Matchmaker’s Sight. The whole monstrous knot waiting downstairs.

For one bright, impossible second, there was only Maria.

And the truth.

“You’re pregnant,” Alice whispered.

Maria let out a shaky laugh. “Yeah.”

Alice stared at her.

Then the joy hit.

It hit so hard it actually hurt. Alice made a sound that was embarrassingly close to a squeak, crossed the kitchen in two steps, and threw her arms around Maria so fast her mother stumbled back against the counter.

“Careful!” Maria laughed, breathless.

Alice squeezed her anyway, though she loosened immediately after remembering there was now a very small person involved. “You’re pregnant!”

“Yes, baby, that is what that means.”

“You’re pregnant!”

Maria laughed again, but there was wetness in it this time. “I had gathered.”

Alice pulled back just enough to look at her, both hands on Maria’s shoulders. Her silver eyes burned. Her fangs pressed awkwardly against her lower lip, and she did not care. “I’m going to be a big sister.”

Maria’s face softened.

“You already are.”

Alice shook her head fast. “Not like this.”

That was true.

She had Reed and Rose. Younger siblings, technically. Half siblings through Quin’s side of the family, d Alice cared about them.

But she had not been there.

Not really.

She had not watched them grow up. Had not been there for the first steps, the first words, the first stupid baby illnesses, the first time they learned to weaponize crying. Seraphina had made sure of that. Her older sister, elegant and awful and sharp in the way only someone raised too close to Quin’s empire could become. Seraphina had a gift for making distance look like propriety and cruelty look like family management.

The bitch.

Alice laughed suddenly, bright and a little wild.

Maria blinked. “What?”

“Seraphina is going to be furious.”

Maria raised an eyebrow.

Alice gestured vaguely at herself. “Your daughter became a Dhampir tonight I may actually be closer to Seraphina’s whole vampire princess nonsense than ever before. She’s going to hate that.”

Maria’s gaze sharpened slightly. “You became a what?”

Alice waved that off with the frantic energy of someone refusing to let the subject change. “Later. Goddess thing. Paladin thing. Blood packs are probably in my future. It’s fine. Focus. Baby.”

Maria stared at her. “You cannot say blood packs are in your future and expect me to focus.”

“I can and will.” Alice grabbed the drink Maria had poured, took a swallow, coughed once because her throat was still not used to whiskey plus fangs, then pointed at her mother. “Baby.”

Maria sighed, but there was a smile hiding under the nerves now.

Alice leaned against the counter, mind racing ahead in bright, ridiculous fragments. A crib in the apartment. Maria pretending she was not tired. Alice learning how to hold a baby without panicking. Little socks. Tiny bottles. First words. A kid growing up above the Velvet Bottle like Alice had, only this time Alice would be older. Present. Able to help. Able to be the cool big sister who knew where Maria hid the emergency sweets and which bar regulars could be trusted to babysit and which could absolutely not.

Her chest ached with it.

“I’m happy,” Alice said suddenly.

Maria looked at her.

Alice swallowed, surprised by how badly she needed to say it clearly.

“I’m really happy. I know this is probably complicated, because everything in our family is legally required to be a mess, but I’m happy.”

Maria’s face crumpled for half a second before she caught it.

“Oh, baby.”

Alice hugged her again, softer this time.

Maria held on.

For a few breaths, it was easy.

Then Alice’s brain, because it was terrible and overfilled with every disaster of the night, wandered directly into the worst possible lane.

She pulled back, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “Okay, deeply morbid thought, but imagine if Nia could humble Seraphina.”

Maria froze.

Alice did not notice fast enough.

“She’s got that whole terrifying Bloodbreaker thing, and Seraphina has that vampire superiority complex, and Nia has...” Alice gestured vaguely, then grimaced. “You know. A lot going on. It might be fun watching someone break my sister down a peg. Or several pegs. Maybe all the pegs. Honestly, Seraphina could use a life-altering amount of humiliation.”

Maria’s silence became loud.

Alice stopped.

Her hand lowered.

The warmth in the room shifted.

Alice’s stomach dropped.

“Mom?”

Maria took a breath.

Then another.

Alice’s new senses sharpened against her will. Maria’s pulse. Her nerves.

Alice’s brain tried to connect the pieces.

It refused.

No.

No, that would be too much.

Even for tonight.

Maria looked up.

“The father,” she said softly, then stopped.

Alice stared at her.

Maria tried again.

“The baby’s sire is Nia.”

Alice’s brain skipped.

Not one beat.

Several.

The apartment seemed to tilt sideways, though the floor did not move. The music downstairs became a distant smear. Alice’s hand tightened around the glass until she heard it creak and **** herself to set it down before she crushed it.

Nia.

The baby.

Nia and Maria.

Maria pregnant.

Nia as the other parent.

Alice’s mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

Maria watched her with the expression of someone braced for impact.

Alice held up one finger.

Then lowered it.

Then held it up again.

“No,” she said.

Maria blinked. “No?”

“Not no as in denial. No as in my brain needs a second to reload.”

“Okay.”

Alice turned in a slow circle, then faced the kitchen again. “Nia.”

“Yes.”

“You.”

“Yes.”

“Baby.”

“Yes.”

Alice pressed both hands over her face, careful of the fangs this time.

“I hate tonight.”

Maria let out a weak laugh. “That is fair.”

Alice dropped her hands.

The shock did not leave. Not even close. It sat in the middle of her chest, huge and blinking. But around it, other truths began arranging themselves with uncomfortable clarity.

This did not change the baby.

That was the first thing.

The baby was still her sibling. Still tiny. Still wanted by Alice with a sudden, fierce joy that surprised her. Nia being involved made everything complicated to the point of absurdity, but it did not make the baby less real. Less family. Less precious.

Alice exhaled shakily.

“Okay,” she said.

Maria blinked.

Alice nodded once, as if convincing her own nervous system. “Okay.”

Maria’s face twisted. “That’s it?”

“No. Absolutely not. There is a whole screaming council meeting happening in my head.” Alice pointed at her. “But the baby is the baby. That part doesn’t change.”

Maria’s eyes glistened.

Alice looked away quickly because if Maria cried, she might start too, and then the night would collapse into fluids and feelings.

“What changes,” Alice continued, voice strained, “is that Nia is somehow now my party leader, my stalker, my almost-lover, the person I am trying to matchmake away from me, and also the father of my baby sibling.”

Maria winced.

Alice stared at the ceiling.

“I need a flowchart.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I need several flowcharts.”

“I know.”

“And a drink.”

Maria glanced at the glass.

Alice immediately pointed at her. “Not for you.”

Maria made the guilty face.

Alice’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh my gods, you wanted one.”

“I poured yours and regretted every life choice I’ve ever made.”

“You are pregnant.”

“I’m aware.”

“You are a bartender. You know better.”

“I said I wanted one, not that I was going to have one.”

Alice folded her arms.

Maria looked away.

She was scared. Confused. Wanting advice. Wanting permission, maybe. Wanting someone to sit across from her and talk through the disaster like an equal because Maria did not have many people she let see her without the glitter.

Alice felt it settle over her slowly.

She was not being asked as a child.

She was being asked as Maria’s best friend.

That should have sounded strange.

Maybe to other people, it would.

Alice did not care.

Maria was her mother, yes. The woman who had raised her, fed her, fought for her, embarrassed her in public, and taught her that love could be messy without being absent. But Maria was also the person Alice had dragged home drunk, made hangover tea for, laughed with, fought with, cried against, and survived beside. Their relationship had never fit neatly into the little boxes other families used. It was too close, too tangled, too honest in the wrong places.

Alice loved her.

Maria loved her.

They were always going to be there for each other, no matter what shape the world tried to twist them into.

Alice picked up the glass and took another careful sip.

Then she set it down.

Maria watched her.

“So,” Maria said quietly. “Now you know.”

Alice nodded.

Maria rubbed her hands together, nervous energy leaking through every elegant line of her. “I didn’t plan it.”

“I figured.”

“I’m not saying that as an excuse.”

“I know.”

“It was one night. A stupid, reckless, extremely complicated night.”

Alice gave her a look.

Maria winced. “Yes, I know who I’m saying that to.”

“Good.”

Maria leaned against the counter, staring at the empty space beside Alice’s drink like she could imagine her own glass there. “I thought I was fine with it being one night. I usually am. You know me.”

Alice snorted softly despite everything. “Yeah. Tragically.”

Maria’s mouth twitched, but it faded fast.

“But then the system message came,” she said. “And I thought, okay. Baby. I can do baby. I’ve done baby. I can do it better this time too. I’m older. I have you.” Her voice softened on that last part. “But then I kept thinking about her.”

Alice went very still.

Maria looked ashamed of the admission, which was rare enough to scare Alice more than the words.

“Nia?” Alice asked.

Maria nodded.

Alice’s jaw tightened.

Maria noticed. Of course she did.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“No,” Maria admitted. “Probably not.”

Alice waited.

Maria’s fingers tapped once against the counter, then stopped. “She’s not just some girl I slept with. That would be simpler. She’s hurting. She’s dangerous. She’s fixated on you in ways that make my skin crawl if I think about them too long. But she’s also...” Maria closed her eyes. “Gods, Alice, she’s lonely.”

Alice laughed without humor. “That doesn’t make it safe.”

“No.”

“It doesn’t make it romantic.”

“No.”

“It doesn’t mean you should try to date her.”

Maria looked at her then.

There it was.

The question.

Not spoken yet, but sitting between them.

Should I?

Alice stared at her mother and felt the night get heavier.

“You’re actually considering it,” Alice said.

Maria’s eyes dropped.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not no.”

“No,” Maria whispered. “It’s not.”

Alice turned away, pacing three steps into the living room because standing still had become impossible. Her new ears picked up the sound of people laughing downstairs, the clink of glasses, Mako’s voice faintly saying something to someone, probably trying to stall Nia or failing to stall himself. The Velvet Bottle continued under them like the world had not just become impossibly more tangled.

Alice wanted to say absolutely not.

That was the easy answer.

The daughter answer.

The jealous answer.

The angry answer.

Nia slept with her mother because Maria reminded her of Alice. Nia was unstable. Nia was tied to a pregnancy and a heartbreak and a party Alice was still supposed to somehow adventure with. Dating her sounded like pouring liquor on a grease fire and then asking the grease fire if it wanted to move in.

But Maria was not asking for the easy answer.

Maria was asking Alice, not as the girl wounded by Nia’s obsession, but as the person who knew Maria best.

That was harder.

Maria liked intensity. She always had. She liked danger when it smiled at her. She liked people who made the room feel hotter by existing. She liked being wanted, not politely, not safely, but with appetite. Maria could handle things that would crush other people and laugh while doing it. She was not fragile. She was not naive. She was also not immune to making terrible decisions because they felt alive.

Alice rubbed both hands over her face.

“I hate this.”

Maria’s voice was small. “I know.”

Alice turned back.

“You don’t get to use me as permission.”

Maria flinched.

Alice hated that too, but kept going.

“If you want to try something with Nia, it can’t be because you’re pregnant. It can’t be because you feel bad for her. It can’t be because she’s intense and lonely and you think you can fuck the broken parts into place.”

Maria’s cheeks colored faintly.

Alice pointed at her. “I know you.”

Maria looked away. “Yeah.”

Maria swallowed.

For once, she looked genuinely shaken.

Alice stepped closer.

“But if you strip all that away,” Alice said carefully, “if you look at her as Nia, not my disaster, not the baby’s other parent, not the girl who looked at me like destiny, but Nia, and you still want to know her...” Alice took a breath. “Then I can’t tell you you’re not allowed.”

Maria stared at her.

Alice’s throat tightened.

“I don’t love her,” she said. “Not like that. I can’t. Whatever chance there was, it’s gone. But you’re not me. And I’m not going to make you live around my feelings if yours are real.”

Maria’s eyes filled.

“Alice.”

“I am mad,” Alice said immediately.

Maria closed her mouth.

“I am very mad. I am mad that she slept with you. I am mad that you slept with her, actually. I am mad that everything in my life keeps becoming some horrifying relationship diagram Dice probably has framed somewhere.” Alice inhaled shakily. “But I love you more than I’m mad.”

Maria pressed a hand over her mouth.

Alice stepped in and hugged her again.

This time Maria clung to her.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Alice rested her chin against Maria’s shoulder, staring over her at the apartment she had grown up in. The couch. The messy table. The kitchen. The home that had held them both through every stupid, wild, painful year.

“I’m happy about the baby,” Alice whispered.

Maria’s arms tightened.

“I really am.”

“I know.”

“And I’m going to be here. I mean it. I missed Reed and Rose growing up, and I hate that. I’m not missing this one.”

Maria laughed wetly against her shoulder. “You’re already planning to be the cool sister.”

“I’m going to be the best sister.”

“You say that like you won’t teach them crimes.”

“Only useful crimes.”

Maria choked on a laugh.

Alice smiled despite herself, then pulled back just enough to look at her.

“But Mom?”

“Yeah?”