You do, and you have questions

"Where were you?" The question comes from your not a mouth the moment you feel yourself enter the not a place. You can see the not a place a fraction of a second after you finish. The same room as ever, you wonder if the clothes in the drawers you took will be present in this place since you know you took them out in the real one.

"At the royal baths, serious you have to go, just wow." Clare says as she appears on the bed looking very relaxed. "Where are you?" She asks as she notices your less than relaxed presence.

"At the Royal Palace."

She looks at you for a moment then gets out of bed. "Well that explains the weirdness I had been feeling in your aura. I had assumed Aurora had invited you to dinner but it looks more serious than that." She stands before you and wraps you in a hug. "You ok?"

"Yeah fine just," you put your arm around her but aside from the physical touch there is no warmth in the embrace, the down side of you knowing none of this real, "Ana got engaged."

"Oh shit." Clare answered. "That would be why Blue brought all of to the royal baths then." She clicked her tongue.

"Didn't you feel me trying to contact you through our aura?" If she ignored you for the sake of a bath you would be annoyed.

"Not even a little. Was your aura out at the time or held inside you?" She asked stepping back from the hug and sat on the bed.

Joining her on the bed she took your hand and played with your fingers. "Inside. How about you teach me how to contact you now."

"Tin can and a piece of string." Clare answered.

"You are overly fond of metaphors." You said back.

She rolled her eyes. "The metaphysical connection between the two of us is interrelated with our entangled cast off magic. Manipulations of ones cast off is mirrored by the others. If you have no cast off magic you cannot interact with the connection on a communicative level. While you are able to feel my manipulations you do not have the capability of manipulating something immutably inside you." She said clearly pouting.

"So with my aura caught between my internal magic and my will there isn't enough space to send any messages." You sum up making her pout even more.

"Take all the fun out of it, you know I spent a literal decade thinking up these metaphors to make things easier to understand."

You pat her head and she lays down putting her head in your lap. "Promise to go along with it next time. To make up for it there are four Koilio flowers in my wardrobe."

Clare springs up looking very excited. "I am going to **** so many people."

You blink at her feeling like there are many better ways in which she could have phrased her but not the concern right now. "About Ana's engagement." You bring the focus back to the topic. "Aurora said that if I don't interfere she'll have me marry Mary who is going to be arriving in a few weeks. Ana is going to be sent to her betrothed at the end of her time at the academy, if I get her pregnant she'll be sent right away. Aurora also burned the **** Contract and Eve knows what those contracts are and she might have killed the Queen and Lady Demise if I hadn't stopped her. She now seems very determined to find and likely excessively **** whoever created it."

"Lady Demise?" Clare asked with an amused smirk and and quirked eyebrow. "What is she an edgy teenager?"

"More important things than that in what I just said."

"Not really." She said putting her head back on you lap. "Marry Mary or don't. Knock up Ana or don't. End her engagement or don't. Help Eve or don't. No matter how you look at it none of this is happening with your consent. Aurora can act in charge all she wants but if you say no you have by my count two, depending on Eve three, untouchable immutable denials of whatever reality she wants to exist in."

"I am not fight anyone to get my way," you start stroking her hair out of habit, "nor am I going to impose my will on people. If Mary and I get along I might consider a relationship but I'm not letting Ana go for it. Finding whoever wrote the contract is important since if they can perfect them they can make more wraiths which is probably why Eve wants to find them. I am not on board with **** on any level but they have to be found and ... oh." You trailed off and stop idly stroking her hair to look down at the smirk on her face. "Thanks."

"Any time, my champion." She said patting your thigh. "And back to the head pats if you please."

"Does it even feel like anything in here?" You ask as your hand went back to it's petting.

"It does if you chose to believe it does." She answers. "Also you need to add what to do about Blue to that list. She brought everyone who would have gotten in the engagements way to the Royal Baths, she's clearly decided to side her mother, does that make her Blue Demise? Oh no Demise isn't the last name, who looks at their baby and says yep you look like a Demise."

"I doubt it's her real name. Probably supposed to put people off, either you think how weird that name is or how she might have earned it, either way it distract you. And I think Blue is going to be on Ana's side after tonight. I told her I nullified the contract, I also told Aurora and Eve to stop her from the aforementioned killing."

"I think everyone is giving Blue a lot more maturity than she has, you especially. She's in love with a boy who doesn't know it and who is in love with you. She isn't some roboticly loyal apparition. She has her own motivation and all of it is focused on Edin. You keep treating her like she's the same as you, that if you give her and Edin more time alone she'll confess but she is too deep now, admitting she has feelings for him, to both herself and him will take a lot more than time with him that only reinforces how he isn't in love with her." She sat up and rubbed your hair. "I love you Christopher, but you are wrong with her, if you don't change how you treat her it will come back to bite you."

You don't answer as she toys with your hair for a bit longer, you are trying to believe that you are getting more than just the slight pressure of contact but don't manage it. "She's been with Ana since she was a kid," Clare drops her hand in aggravation at you not agreeing with her, "I know things aren't going well with her, but when she knows I've supported Ana of my own free will she'll be on her side even if she isn't on mine."

"Right, she's going to stab someone sooner or later and don't get pissy with me when she does."

"Then what should I do? It's their lives not mine, if I stick my nose in the chances of being stabbed sooner get a lot higher."

"Or you could talk to Ana who told you in the first place. If you're right about Blue supporting Ana when she learns you weren't being puppeted by the **** contract then Ana will have no reason to hold Blue's love for Edin in her pocket in case it comes in handy to control her later. She can tell Blue she is in love with Edin and Blue can stop blaming you for her not understanding why seeing you together makes her angry." Clare got off the bed and was walking around the room.

"That's, not a bad idea actually. Thanks again." You feel bad for snapping at her, worse than you already did anyway.

"Well that is two you owe me now."

"Flowers."

"One you owe me." She corrected. "I'll be sure to collect at the best time." She smirked at you as her eyes danced. "Also I've had a few billion years around people, when I tell you something about someone, I'm right and you should listen to me."

You nodded, you'd gotten used to her being will Clare, the reminder that she was a literal Goddess was disconcerting. "How did the letter to the other champion go?"

"She's going to receive an invitation to study translocation magic at the royal library. It will get to her, provided she hasn't moved on by the time she get it, in a week thanks to royal messengers, speaking off if anyone at the palace asks why a messenger ran off without royal consent don't say anything I am sure Ana won't mind me borrowing her seal. After that I'd give her two weeks to get here, three if she is in the middle of something."

"So she'll get her the same time Mary might."

Clare shrugged. "I can look after one while you are balls deep in the other. But I should get an idea of how Ana is between my legs so I can compare the sisters, can't say who you should marry before I know which one can better satisfy me."

You laugh and she sticks her tongue out at you. "Come here." You say laying on the bed. She climbs into bed and you lay there hugging each other. "I really glad you picked me." You said.

"Same here." She said resting her head on your shoulder. She felt warm.