For Old Times' Sake

The terrace had been set up for the event with an exactness fit for Hosts: tablecloths squared to the millimeter, lanterns arranged in perfect alternating heights, even the string lights had been triple-checked so that none of the bulbs hung out of line. Arabella was aware, in the back of her mind, that the level of fuss was a little absurd, but she could not bring herself to stop. She’d spent the last half hour uncoiling and recoiling the same bolt of fabric over the central runner, and only when Anna cleared her throat—quiet, but in the way that left no room for ignoring it—did she let herself move on.

Anna had not been invited to help. Anna simply helped. Tonight she had chosen to blend in, wearing a white tunic and loose pants with the quiet practicality of someone whose idea of elegance was never getting caught with a stain. She carried the fruit bowl to its proper spot, hands careful and precise, then reached for the bottle of red, which had been breathing on the lowest table since early afternoon. “You can let it go,” Anna said. “It looks perfect. Unless you’d rather do it all again?”

Arabella stopped fussing. She let both hands rest on the back of the nearest chair, nails digging into the soft wood, and surveyed the terrace as if it were a chessboard about to be overrun by a hundred unpredictable pieces. The volcano had gone dark for the evening, its red glow damped down to an occasional throb, and the world outside the balustrade was nothing but sky and the faint suggestion of waves far below. It was a good place for a last party. “I always overdo it,” she said, “but it never helps.”

Anna shrugged. “At least if the night goes badly, you’ll have a faultless runner.”

Arabella snorted. “Is that the standard now?”

“I just work here,” Anna said, but she was already opening the wine.

The first guest through the arch was Genet, resplendent in a skintight cream dress and heels. She carried herself as if the air itself was scented for her benefit, and maybe it was, given the trailing perfume of incense, myrrh, and the dense warmth of a resin Arabella well remembered. Genet’s arms were open long before she arrived at Arabella’s side. She swept her up in a hug that was unhurried and absolute, pressing their cheeks together, breath warm in Arabella’s ear. “It’s so good to see you, dear,” Genet said. The scent of her, the grounding resins and bright citrus, was so sharp it made Arabella’s eyes sting for just a moment.

“I haven't kept in touch as much as I should have, I know,” Arabella said, “and you know what it’s like, trying to keep up with the news from your own set, let alone anyone else’s.”

Genet smiled and pulled away, examining Arabella at arm’s length. “The real news is you look perfect, as always. Even if you do make the rest of us feel underdressed.” Her gaze lingered for a second, a careful, professional scan—then she grinned, bright and genuine, and let herself be swept off to the drinks table by Anna, who’d appeared at her elbow with a glass already half poured.

“Tell me everything,” Genet said, and Anna, who never needed a prompt, started her on the history of the vintage.

Nimue was right behind, her blue skin catching the gold of the lanterns and refracting it into strange, luminous shadows. She wore a deep blue gown, bare shoulders tucked under one arm, and her eyes, surprisingly gentle, softened even further when she saw Arabella. They embraced, and if the last hug had been warm, this one was eternal: neither of them in a hurry, neither wanting to be the first to let go. When they did, it was with hands lingering on forearms.

“How was the crossing?” Arabella asked, voice a little rougher than she’d meant it to be.

Nimue’s smile was dry, tired. “Slower than it used to be. All the interesting time streams have been swept up by some new seasons, apparently.” She looked past Arabella to Anna, who’d just handed her a glass. “Thank you.”

Anna smiled. “I’m just the help tonight.”

Nimue studied her, open and unselfconscious. “Then you are the best kind of help. Thank you again.” She sipped her wine, considered, then turned back to Genet, who had already begun a story about the time she single-handedly resolved a feud between two rival harems by staging a fake wedding. Nimue listened, laughing softly at the punchlines, letting Genet’s theatricality fill the air between them.

The third to arrive was Cassandra, tiny as Arabella remembered, her hair in an intricate braided crown, dress blue and sharp as a punctuation mark. She came through the arch, crossed the terrace in four strides, and folded Genet into a hug. When she pulled back she caught sight of Nimue, and her expression shifted—not cooler, but recalibrating, the way a person looks when they recognize a name made suddenly flesh. “Oh,” she said, with real pleasure. “You’re exactly what I expected, which almost never happens.”

Nimue considered her. “Should I be flattered?”

Cassandra’s smile widened, a genuine, uncalculated flash of teeth. She reached out and briefly touched Nimue’s wrist, her fingers cool against the blue skin. “You should,” she said, her voice dropping to something more intimate beneath the terrace’s gentle clamor. “It’s rare to meet a legend who doesn’t disappoint.”

Then she turned, letting the momentum of the compliment carry her toward the wine and the rising noise, and she was still mid-story when the next guest arrived.

Vizkoroth came through the arch. She did not knock and she did not hesitate, but she also did not simply appear. She used the door. She ducked to do it, and she came up on the other side with her hair very nearly in the lanterns.

Her skin was a deep, perfect red. Her hair hung loose down her back, silver as drawn wire. Her eyes, burning and ferocious, swept the terrace once and stopped when they found Arabella. Who was possibly the only Host in attendance to understand the significance of the dress.

Matte black. Slit high. Tailored so tight around the hips that it read as a dare, except that it wasn't one. There was nothing performative in the way she wore it. It had the effortful correctness of homework — of a woman who had asked what one wears to a wedding on this world, in this century, at this hour of the evening, had gone and gotten it right, and was now standing in it with the faint rigidity of someone waiting to learn whether right was going to be enough.

She stopped just inside the threshold and came no further. Arabella set down her glass and crossed the terrace herself. She did not hurry and she did not make anything of the crossing. She simply arrived, a foot and a third shorter than her guest, and tipped her head back without any apparent sense that the difference was worth minding.

“Vizkoroth,” she said. “Welcome. You wrote to me.” Arabella's smile arrived slowly and then stayed. “Come in properly, or do you need to be asked? I have never known which of the stories about your kind are true.”

“Some of them,” said Vizkoroth, and came in.

Arabella put a hand very lightly on her forearm and steered her toward the drinks table.

“Anna. This is Vizkoroth. It's her first season.”

Anna finished the pour and held the glass out at the full stretch of her arm, unbothered by the reach. “Then you get the good bottle,” she said. “First seasons are the only ones you remember all the way through.” Vizkoroth took it.

Ginelia arrived next, her pinkish skin radiant in the sunset, hair up in an elegant twist, and a magenta dress that looked like it was woven from pure light. She stepped through the arch, stopped at the edge, and tilted her head back to admire the string lights overhead. For a moment, Ginelia seemed to forget she was supposed to move at all. “These are beautiful,” she said, her voice carrying the particular warmth of someone addressing a room rather than a person. “I’ve seen the old stories about this terrace, but I didn’t expect—” She gestured upward, at a loss.

Arabella accepted the compliment with a small nod. “They run on something older than electricity,” she said. “They’ve never needed much tending.”

Ginelia nodded, and there was a glint of something like nostalgia in the way she traced the lines of light, as if she wanted to memorize them in case the world changed again and she never got to see another terrace like this. “I’m going to have to steal this idea,” she said, then floated toward the drinks table, where Anna greeted her as if she’d always been there, already ready with the correct glass and just the right pour.

Ava arrived with the timing of someone who’d been watching the whole thing unfold from just out of sight. She made a point of pausing in the arch, one hand on the warm stone, eyes sweeping the terrace in a single, practiced motion—every guest already present, the drink table’s traffic, even the way the wind tugged at the tablecloths, all of it registered in an instant. She wore a sleeveless champagne gown that flashed silver every time she moved, and her hair, perfectly curled, did not move at all. She crossed to Arabella with the unhurried confidence of someone who had done her research, extended a hand, and said, “Ava. I don’t think we’ve actually met.” The handshake was brief and firm.

“No,” Arabella agreed. “But I’ve heard enough to be glad you came.”

Ava received this without visible reaction, neither flattered nor suspicious, just filing it away. She let her eyes linger on Anna for half a beat, as if she were about to say something, then thought better of it. Instead, she let Anna pour her a measure of the house white and settled into the periphery, watching the other arrivals like a sports commentator pre-gaming a championship.

The next to arrive did not so much arrive as appear: Scarlet slipped in somewhere behind Ava, her red leather jacket a flare of color in the lantern haze, hair wild and unbrushed in defiance of the night’s dress code. She made no sound, but within a few seconds had moved through the outer fringe of the party and inserted herself near the drinks table. She plucked a glass with one hand, drained it, and then poured her own second, a small smile quirking up at the left side of her mouth. Arabella watched the whole maneuver, not missing the way Scarlet’s eyes lingered on Genet, or the way she seemed to avoid looking directly at Nimue. It was a relief, in its way, to see Scarlet alive in a room again, though the sight made something in Arabella’s chest go tight.

Verena was next, and her arrival—if it could be called that—was so silent that only Arabella saw her coming. The woman was tall, severe, and looked as if she’d stepped from the catalog of a high-end law firm. She stopped two paces past the arch, registered the full scene, and then moved directly to Arabella’s side, heels not making a sound on the glass. “Thank you for the invitation,” she said, voice as clear and precise as a gavel. “I understand it was meant to be discreet.” She flicked her gaze to the others, then back to Arabella, and the message was clear: nothing in this room would leave it.

“I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t come,” Arabella replied, with only a trace of the old velvet Host in her tone.

Verena allowed a micro-smile. “I don’t like to be disappointed, either.” With that, she moved to the edge of the group, not quite joining, not quite observing, her attention everywhere at once.

Sera’s entrance was a study in contrast. She wore an ivory dress that swept the floor, and her hair—green, thick, and brushed to a glossy curtain—was adorned with a single perfect red flower behind the left ear. She glided through the archway and, out of habit, said, “Good evening, Arabella,” with a blinding smile.

Arabella laughed, genuinely. “Welcome, Sera. How is your first season going?”

Sera let the briefest flash of tiredness sweep over her face. “It's been a balancing act. My contestants have been well-behaved for the most part, but they've found ways to test me. Not to mention forces behind the scenes, but you know how it is.” She found a spot near the rail and settled herself, eyes bright and curious, as if she wanted to watch rather than be watched.

The last to arrive—though Arabella suspected she’d been waiting nearby for some time—was Lily. Wings folded as tight as they would go, she held herself in the shadow of the arch for a good minute before stepping through. Her dress was black velvet, short in the front and feathered in the back, a clear echo of her own wings, and her hair was slicked down to a perfect, wet shine. She didn’t approach, didn’t greet, just stood for a moment with her eyes on Arabella, expression unreadable.

Arabella caught her gaze, and for a split second the whole room seemed to tilt toward the two of them. Lily gave a small, almost imperceptible nod, then drifted into the party without ever quite joining a cluster, always at the edge, always looking like she was about to leave and then choosing not to.

With the assembly finally complete, Anna passed among them with the effortless assurance of someone who belonged, topping up glasses, setting out trays, pausing to introduce people who had never actually met, despite having heard each other’s names for centuries. If anyone found it odd that a non-Host was handling the introductions, nobody said so. Anna did not seem to mind the scrutiny. She poured a glass for herself, then left it untouched on the table.

For a moment, the party was a study in geometry: clusters forming and dissolving, old rivalries and allegiances simmering just under the surface, everyone marking each other’s positions like ships in a convoy. Arabella took the measure of the whole terrace, letting the hum of conversation build, the wine flowing, the lanterns catching the best lines of everyone’s face.

When the time felt right—just a beat after the last glass had been filled, just before anyone had a chance to start a new story—Arabella climbed the low step at the edge of the terrace and tapped her glass with the tines of a fork. The sound was not loud, but it was the kind of sound that silenced a room.

She waited for the quiet, then spoke in a tone meant to be warm and even, giving away nothing more than what the words themselves said. “Thank you all for coming, especially on short notice. I know it’s been a while since some of you have shared a room, let alone a table. And for some of you, this may be the first time you meet.” She let the line settle, and there were a couple of half-laughs, the sort of sound made by people who remember the last time with equal parts nostalgia and dread. “I know there’s a lot to catch up on, and we’re not here for a show tonight, but I did want to mark the occasion.”

She raised her glass. “To old loves and new friendships.”

There was a moment’s silence, as if everyone wanted to see who would respond first. Then, all at once, the terrace clattered with the sound of raised glasses, the voices layering in on each other, and a half-dozen private toasts made in the space of a breath.

Arabella stepped down, letting the party resume its own orbit. She felt Anna’s hand, brief and reassuring, touch her elbow as she passed. It was a small thing, and it left no mark, but it meant more than any toast or speech could have. The night was going to go however it wanted; at least, for now, it had begun with all the right people in the right place.

---

When the terrace had fully committed itself to noise and warmth and old arguments rediscovered, Arabella left the center of it and found the darkness at the edge. She followed the railing around the curve, away from the string lights, until the only illumination was the distant orange glow of the volcano and the weak reflection of lanterns in the glass.

Scarlet was there, one boot hooked over the lower rail, arms braced against the top, her body angled toward the night but her eyes set directly into the slow pulsing of the magma below. She didn’t react to Arabella’s approach, not until the Host came to stand beside her, just close enough that their shoulders could have touched if either leaned a degree toward the other.

They stood together for a long time without speaking. The air was cool and smelled faintly of burnt sugar and cedar, and the low rumble of the volcano made a perfect silence.

“Nice night for it,” Arabella said, voice low and meant for two.

Scarlet let out a short laugh. “If you like watching things burn, sure.”

A long pause. Arabella glanced at her, let the line sit. “I always wondered if you missed it. The burn, I mean.”

Scarlet’s jaw flexed once, the only sign she’d heard. “You tell me.”

Arabella smiled, but there was nothing sharp in it. “I think you never really left it behind. You just got better at hiding it.”

This time, Scarlet looked at her, a sidelong flick of yellow eyes. “Is this where you ask me if I’m happy?”

Arabella shook her head. “No. That’s never been my question.” She watched the magma below, the slow current of light. “What I want to know is: How long did it take you to break the lock?”

Scarlet’s lips parted, then pressed together again. “What lock?”

Arabella’s easy calm wavered. For half a second, her face collapsed inward, something deeply tired and hurt beneath the Host mask, but it was gone before it finished forming. She looked away, out over the edge. “Never mind. A figure of speech. Doesn’t matter.”

Scarlet pressed, voice softer than before. “No, say it. What lock?”

“Your memory,” she said. “That's all. They took it, and I keep expecting to find it grown back, the way you grow everything else back. It was a poor way to put it.”

Scarlet's jaw did the thing again. “Right. That.”

The quill turned over once in her hand, twice, orange in the up-light.

“I'd like to tell you something anyway,” Arabella said. “Not to fix anything. It isn't for you.”

Scarlet raised an eyebrow. “Charming.”

“It’s for me,” Arabella said, and this time there was no mask of the perfect Host, no careful arrangement of tone or posture. She said it the way someone might admit to a petty crime, or to missing the sound of a certain voice in a house now always quiet. Before Scarlet could reply—before she could make a joke or deflect—Arabella began to talk, voice low and even, like she was reading it from somewhere inside her chest.

“There was a rooftop in—” she hesitated, searching for something that would resonate, “—a city long since gone. We’d been up all night. The air was cool, the night was ending, and you had a bruise on your cheek that was stubbornly refusing to heal quickly, but you didn’t care. You were still laughing, not even at anything, just at the fact of being alive.”

Scarlet made a dismissive sound deep in her throat, but she didn’t break in, and she didn’t look away.

Her voice softened. “We stayed up long enough that the sky started going gray. I don’t know if you were tired, but you never stopped talking. You were always working some angle, but that morning you did the thing—” she gestured vaguely at her own mouth, “—the little twist, like you’d seen it all from above and you were just waiting for the rest of us to catch up.” She smiled sadly. “I never told you. It used to drive me insane. I'd have paid a great deal never to see it again. Then I didn't see it again for a very long time, and it turned out I'd have paid considerably more than that, to see it once more.”

Scarlet’s brow knit. “I—” She started to say something, but the words dropped out of the air. There was nothing to finish the thought. She barely nodded, but it was enough to show she was listening.

Arabella’s hand curled over the rail, knuckles pale. “There was a joke between us,” she said. “Stupid, recursive, didn’t even have a punchline. You’d say something, I’d say something, and we’d both pretend to be too clever to laugh at it. Then we’d both laugh anyway.” She shook her head, the motion small and fond. “But if I tried to tell it now, I’d ruin it. You were always better at jokes.”

Scarlet’s voice was tiny, almost unrecognizable. “Can you tell it anyway?”

Arabella closed her eyes, just for a second. “Okay,” she said. “But only if you promise not to judge.”

Scarlet nodded. “Okay.”

Arabella took a breath, then let it out in a single rush: “The joke is that there’s never been a night I liked more than the last one you broke.”

The silence folded over them, weighted and warm. Somewhere down in the garden, a bird called and went unanswered.

“I'm not getting anything,” Scarlet said at last. Flat. She didn't do apologetic, but she said it carefully, which amounted to the same. “I want to be straight with you. There's nothing there.”

“I know.”

“Then why?”

“Because it happened.” Arabella let go of the rail and flexed her fingers until the color came back. “It happened, it was good, and you were there.” Arabella went on, slower this time, like she was dragging memory across a gravel road. “I don’t expect you to remember it. I know the difference between a memory and a story. But I would like to give it to you anyway. Not to fix anything. Not for you, really.”

Scarlet’s jaw moved, but she didn’t speak.

Arabella met her eyes. “That’s why I’m giving it to you: so it can be yours again, if you want it.”

Scarlet waited. Her whole posture said she didn’t trust it—didn’t trust anything that came at her straight—but there was nothing in her face except a slow, rough hope.

“Would you like it?” Arabella asked.

There was a long beat before Scarlet nodded, once.

For a moment, Arabella raised her hand, as if she might touch Scarlet’s cheek, or brush her hair back, or do anything to close the unbearable, invisible gap between them. She didn’t. Instead, she rested her hand back on the rail, and when she spoke, her voice was gentler than before.

“I’m sorry. I can’t give you back all of it,” she said. “But I can give you one night. The real thing, no edits, no softening. Just as it was.”

Scarlet’s voice was so small it almost didn’t make it across the space between them. “Will it hurt?”

Arabella smiled again, and this time it was sad and fond in the same breath. “It’ll hurt, but not in a way you need to worry about.”

She reached out, just once, and cupped Scarlet’s face in both hands. “May I?” she whispered.

Scarlet didn’t move, but she didn’t flinch, either. “Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”

It arrived all at once, the memory: The room was dark and close, air thick with sweat and ozone, and the firelight made shadows crawl in ways that didn’t match any logic of candle or sun. Arabella’s hands were on her, moving with a need that was more than hunger, an urge to memorize and mark every inch of skin before morning. The feel of teeth at her throat, the bite that hovered at the edge of violence but never crossed, the press of hips and hands and the impossible tenderness in the touch that followed each bruise. There was a voice, low and breathless, saying her name as if it were the only word worth saying. The burn was there, yes, but so was something that made the burn worth having.

Then the memory shifted: same bodies, same room, but now they were tangled together under a sheet, heat spent, the world outside faded to nothing. Arabella’s arms around her, slow and possessive, not letting go even as they both drifted toward sleep. Scarlet’s head on her chest, and the sound of the other woman’s heartbeat was slow, so slow, as if she’d finally found a place she could rest.

The same room, but later, the fire lower and both of them loose-limbed and half-covered, the sheet twisted somewhere around their ankles. Arabella had said something dry and throwaway—a joke with no setup, the kind that only landed because of who was in the room—and Scarlet had laughed before she could stop herself, a real one, the embarrassing kind that came out of the chest. Arabella had propped herself up on one elbow just to watch her laugh, not saying anything, her hair a disaster and her expression completely unguarded, and when Scarlet had finally gotten herself under control and looked over, Arabella had said, very seriously, “Again.” And Scarlet had laughed again, helplessly, and Arabella had dropped back down beside her still smiling, and they’d stayed like that until the fire went out.

Then, again, a terrace rail, much like this one. Arabella behind her, arms wrapped around her waist, both of them looking out over the city, or maybe the whole world, silent and together. The sky was alive with stars, and words had been exchanged, and neither made the first move to leave.

It was real. Every sense of it, perfect. The sweat, the ache, the laughter, the sound of Arabella’s voice in her ear. The way her own body felt safe and wanted in a way she’d never understood until this second.

Scarlet’s breath caught, a single, hard shock, though her face was as unreadable as before.

Arabella stepped back, eyes bright, hands falling away. “That’s yours now,” she said. “You can keep it, or not. I just wanted you to have something real. Since I won’t be here next time, to remind you.”

Scarlet wanted to say something clever, something to break the tension, but the words didn’t come. She managed, “Not much of a parting gift, is it?”

Arabella’s smile didn’t quite make it to her eyes. “Depends who’s doing the parting.” She leaned in, pressed a quick, unguarded kiss to Scarlet’s lips, then let her fingers drift down the other woman’s arm, brief and careful, before stepping away. “I’m sorry, Scarlet. I wish we could pick up from where we left off, but… this is it.” She smiled, and for a moment, her eyes glimmered, wet. “Try not to set the table on fire,” she said, voice already back to the Host register, but softer, almost kind.

Scarlet watched her go, eyes following every step. When she was alone at the rail, she looked out at the volcano and let the memory find its place, somewhere private, somewhere she could hold it and not have to explain.

For a long time after, she stayed there, watching the slow pulse of orange in the dark, feeling the heat of a hand on her skin that wasn’t quite gone, not yet.

---

The party had thickened into its second, more chaotic shape by the time Arabella found her way back to the center. Anna was still working the table like an old-world sommelier, pouring without ever asking what anyone wanted, always getting it right. Nimue was perched on the low wall at the edge of the terrace, legs tucked up and a plate of something sweet and sticky untouched beside her. Genet glowed with laughter, arm pressed companionably to Cassandra’s as they swapped stories at a pace only Hosts could manage.

Arabella slipped a glass off the drinks table before Anna could hand it to her—somehow, Anna only smiled wider, as if she preferred the Host to think she’d gotten the drop for once.

Scarlet drifted into the group last, the memory still hot behind her eyes, but her hands were steady as she reached over Nimue’s shoulder to claim a glass for herself. She downed half of it in a swallow.

Nimue caught Scarlet’s arm before she could draw it back, her blue fingers surprisingly gentle. “You never said if Embros ever followed up with that second invitation,” she said, voice light as wind. “Or did he finally get the hint after the first wedding?”

Genet made a sound between a gasp and a cackle and nearly lost her drink to the spill. “There was a wedding? Why am I only hearing this now?”

Scarlet looked between them, genuinely at a loss. “Who the hell is Embros?”

Nimue tilted her head, enjoying the moment. “Minor fire-god. Ran the house odds at one of the netherworld’s least reputable gambling dens. You lost a card game to him bad enough that it ended with a wedding, not a debt. Ceremony was in his own forge. Wedding party was living coals.” She considered, then added, “It was the hottest ticket of the decade.”

Genet was riveted. “This is incredible. Please tell me there was a cake.”

Nimue said, “There was. Gunpowder in the frosting. Tradition, apparently.”

Cassandra cut in, laughing, “And who officiated? Was it Arabella? Don’t tell me it was Arabella.”

Nimue shrugged. “Death himself. He was between jobs, so to speak. Complained the whole time about the temperature, but officiated with style.”

Scarlet tried to object, but the words stuck somewhere in her throat. “I don’t remember a second of this. Are you sure it was me?”

Arabella interjected, voice gentle and just a little too careful. “I’ve actually heard a version of that story before. Long time ago, and never from you. And you’ve never wanted to talk about it. So I have no idea how much of it is true.” She smiled, just a line of it. “But I always liked the idea that it could be.”

Genet was still caught up in the cake. “Did the gunpowder go off?”

Nimue’s eyes sparkled. “Perfectly on cue. Took out half the guest list and the groom’s entire left arm. It grew back, of course, but he milked it for years. Best wedding I’ve ever attended.”

Arabella muttered, not quite under her breath, “I’m glad the terrace is insured,” and was rewarded with a low chorus of laughter.

Scarlet set her glass down harder than she meant to. “I refuse to spend the rest of this party married to a complete stranger,” she said, her voice more brittle than sharp.

“Don’t worry,” said Nimue, “it doesn’t count unless you eat the ceremonial pepper. And I’m pretty sure you skipped that part.”

Cassandra snorted, draining her glass. “World’s worst luck, but never a dull day.”

There was a pause, long enough for the sound of the volcano to fill in behind it, before Scarlet finally said, “How do you even remember any of this?”

Nimue shrugged, unbothered. “I wasn’t in reality for a while. Erased, actually. That’s why it stuck. Nobody ever got around to scrubbing my version.”

Genet leaned in, breathless. “Was the marriage ever dissolved?”

Nimue looked up, pretending to think. “I honestly have no idea. Might still be pending.”

Scarlet stood, abrupt. “Well, I’m not finishing the night as Mrs. Embros, so if anyone needs me, I’ll be at the food table.” She made her escape at a pace just shy of undignified, and Nimue watched her go with open, unashamed fondness.

Arabella caught Nimue’s eye. “You could have made that easier for her.”

Nimue’s smile was soft. “She likes it better this way. Fire’s no good if it doesn’t burn.”

Anna drifted by, offering a tray of cake. “There’s no gunpowder in this one,” she said. “But it’s probably explosive anyway.”

They took pieces, the whole cluster: Arabella, Nimue, Genet, Cassandra, and even Anna herself, who finally let herself have a sliver.

Behind them, the party roared on, but for a moment the table was its own perfect island. The sky above was black and clean, the volcano below a steady throb, and every Host present exactly where they were supposed to be—even if they didn’t quite know how they’d ended up here.

---

Arabella slipped away from the party a little before midnight, the ambient noise of the terrace replaced by the softer hush inside the suite. She let herself into the Aludel off the main hall—a room built for the comfort of a Host, windowless and lined with books, its only concessions to the outside world a scatter of invitations and half-finished correspondence on the desk.

She didn’t bother with the lamp; there was enough light from the volcano’s glow to see by. She opened the desk drawer and took out the ribbon-tied bundle of old letters—her own handwriting, in a strange chronology that made perfect sense only to some of the older Hosts. She sat at the desk, untied the ribbon halfway, then hesitated with her thumb pressed against the neat, blue handwriting on the topmost page.

A soft sound in the doorway—Nimue, blue skin gone shadow-dark in the low light, moving with the fluid certainty that never left her, even in exile. “Ditching your own party?” she asked, the tease gentle, but unmistakable.

Arabella didn’t turn, only smiled. “Just giving the rest of them time to catch up. Some of these stories take years, you know.”

Nimue slipped into the room, letting the door click shut behind her. She didn’t ask about the letters; her eyes found them instantly, and there was no judgment or question, just a quiet knowing. She leaned her hip against the edge of the desk and waited.

Arabella was the first to break. She set the letters down and looked at Nimue, her expression losing all the Host armor it had carried on the terrace. “Can I ask you something?”

Nimue gave a slow nod. “If it’s about Scarlet’s wedding, I already told you I wasn’t invited.”

Arabella huffed a breath, then grew serious. “How do you remember? Those years you weren’t anywhere at all—does it feel like a gap? Or do you dream your way through it, and wake up already knowing?”

Nimue thought about it, head tilting in that way she had. “For a while it was nothing at all. Then, sometimes, there’d be a sense of—” she paused, searching for a word, “—like a hand reaching through the dark. Not enough to pull me back, but enough to know I hadn’t been lost completely.” She shrugged. “It isn’t the answer you wanted, but it’s the only one I have.”

Arabella nodded, silent.

Arabella let the silence stretch, watching Nimue’s profile in the faint orange light. On the terrace, the laughter and clink of Host voices sounded like an entirely different world. Here, inside, with the door drawn, the room felt so still the ink on the letter bundle might have been the only thing still alive in it.

She finally looked up, letting the real words surface. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “I’m glad Shar brought you back before I had to go.”

Nimue didn’t answer right away. Her eyes stayed on the ribbon in Arabella’s hand. “You know, for a while, I told myself it didn’t matter whether anyone was out there. That if I was gone, it would just be a pause, like falling asleep on the wrong side of a dream.” She gestured, open-palmed. “But there was something. Just the sense of someone, somewhere, carrying a grief she had no object for. Walking around a hole she couldn’t find the edges of.” Her hand closed slowly. “That was all of it. Someone missing me who didn’t know my name. The thinnest thread you could imagine, and it was enough that I never quite finished going.”

Arabella’s hands stilled, and she set the letter bundle down. “It was Shar,” she said.

Nimue nodded. “She couldn’t have told you who she was missing. She missed me anyway.”

Arabella looked at the letters a while before she answered. “I kept writing you,” she said. “The whole time. I had nothing to say half the weeks, but I kept writing.” Her throat tightened, just a little, and she laughed at herself, embarrassed. “And not one page of it ever sent. I remembered everything. Your name, your voice, every argument we ever had, kept perfectly, the entire time you weren’t anywhere.” She pressed her palm flat against the bundle. “And she forgot you down to nothing. Hers was the one that held.”

Nimue looked at the bundle, and this time her smile was so gentle it almost didn’t show at all. “It’s never really over. You and I both know that.” She picked up the top letter, careful not to tear the edge, and read the first line, lips moving but no sound coming out. She closed it, then tucked the whole bundle under her arm, just above her heart. “It’s strange,” she said, “how much a thing can weigh, even if it’s mostly air.”

Arabella tried to laugh, but her face slipped before it could finish. “They’re yours,” she said. “Always were. I kept them because I thought it was the right thing, but it was never for me.” She pulled the ribbon the rest of the way loose, then reached out and pressed the bundle into Nimue’s hands, a little more forceful than she’d meant to. “You should have them.”

Nimue took the bundle with both hands, thumb running along the curve of the topmost envelope. For a moment, she looked like she might say something serious, something final, but instead she gave a brief, huffing laugh. “You kept me alive in your own way too, you know,” she said. “With Nimwen. That’s what sisters do.”

Arabella’s own laugh, when it came, was equal parts relief and exasperation. “Sisters would have at least grown up in the same house. We grew up in different universes.”

Nimue grinned, then stepped closer and pressed a kiss to Arabella’s temple—quick, businesslike, but with a warmth in it that left a mark anyway. She straightened, then said, “We should get back before Genet decides we’ve eloped.”

Arabella’s laughter chased Nimue all the way to the door. When she was alone again, she closed the empty drawer, sealing away the years that had lived there, and let herself sit for a minute, breathing in the faint, lingering scent of ink and ribbon and everything that had never found a proper place in the world until now.

---

Vizkoroth found her place at the far end of the terrace, a faint eddy in the air the only sign she’d crossed half the width without anyone noticing. The glass balustrade caught the light of the volcano, the glass floor warm underfoot even after dark. Arabella waited for her there, her silhouette elegant and spare against the banded horizon, both hands resting on the cool of the rail.

Vizkoroth stood beside her, not quite mirroring the posture but close enough for symmetry. They didn’t look at each other; there was no need. The air was clean of party scent, save for the faint salt of wine and the electric sharpness of the volcano below.

“How’s the rest of the evening treating you?” Arabella asked, voice pitched for just the two of them.

Vizkoroth kept her eyes on the water. “I survived a second round of Cassandra’s introductions. I’m told this means I’ve been promoted from rookie to ‘problem child.’” She considered, then added, “Better than I expected. Still a little… unusual.” She gestured at the gown—matte black, precisely tailored—then shrugged, as if to say: I wore the uniform, did my homework, still not sure what I’m doing.

Arabella’s smile was easy. “You do realize you’re not being graded on this, yes?”

Vizkoroth’s mouth quirked, just a line. “I’ve read the evaluations. There’s always a grade. Even when they say there isn’t.” She turned her head then, eyes meeting Arabella’s for the first time. “That’s not what I’m here about.”

Arabella nodded. “I know.” She let the pause hang for a few beats. “You want to know what comes after.”

“I want to know what to do with it,” Vizkoroth said. “I had a letter. From you.” She looked down, and her hands flexed at her sides. “I keep thinking about the last part. The part you didn’t finish—about who you wrote to, when you got stuck.” A beat. “Or did you ever get stuck?”

Arabella’s eyes flickered, surprised and, for a second, unguarded. “I never wrote to anyone for that,” she said. “But I did write. For myself, mostly. So I could see whether the problem changed after I read it back with my own hands.” She glanced at Vizkoroth’s profile, all edge and intent. “The letter had its answer already. There’s never going to be anyone to tell you how to do it. You have to be the one who risks getting it wrong.”

Vizkoroth’s jaw worked. “That’s a trick answer. You know that. I was built for punishment, not guidance. I can run a sequence for ten thousand years, but I can’t just—” She made a frustrated sound, low in her chest. “I’m not like you. I wasn’t made for care.”

Arabella’s smile stayed, but it tilted. “Neither was I, at the start. It doesn’t matter what you’re made for. It matters what you do when it stops working.”

Vizkoroth let that settle. “I’ve tried. With Felix.” The name came out sharp, but not hard. “I catch the old instinct, every time. I want to bend him, to see if he’ll break. But I make myself wait, now. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes I just… want to see if he can handle the room as it is, without me running the outcome.” She looked away, almost embarrassed. “It’s not always clear if I’m helping or just delaying the inevitable.”

Arabella watched her, letting the silence shape the rest of the reply. “If it was clear,” she said, “it wouldn’t be worth doing. There’s no virtue in being a Host who never doubts herself. That’s what makes the worst of them—the ones who never once think they might have gone too far.” She reached into the fold of her gown, fingers closing over a small, perfectly round stone. “I brought you something. For when you need to know if the waiting is real, or just another kind of delay.”

She held out the onyx sphere, its surface dark enough to turn the lantern light into a single, gleaming eye. “It’s not a map,” Arabella said. “But it’s a sampler. A handful of my own best and worst mistakes, sized for exactly this sort of question. Nothing you’re not ready for, but enough to show you the line if you can’t see it on your own.”

Vizkoroth accepted it with both hands, cradling it in her palms. For a moment, the sphere caught something inside: a blurred vision of a courtroom, stone pillars and a Host standing alone against a thousand voices, all of them judging. Then, a memory of a season gone wrong, a woman’s face twisted in triumph at the moment she realized she’d never have to answer for what she’d done. And finally, a strange warmth: a night at a table, two Hosts drunk on homemade wine, arguing for hours about whether justice was the same as mercy.

Vizkoroth let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “You curated this.”

Arabella nodded. “Very carefully. Not everything. Just the things that match what you’re dealing with, right now.”

Vizkoroth tucked the sphere away in her gown’s single hidden pocket, the motion oddly reverent. “I will use it,” she said. “Thank you.”

Arabella grinned, sudden and wide. “Don’t be in a hurry to ruin the surprise for yourself.”

They stood like that, the noise of the party drifting just out of reach, neither in a hurry to break the moment.

Then, with her usual deadpan, Vizkoroth said, “Unrelated question. Did your harem ever consider implementing a harem-wide matching breast expansion?”

Arabella burst out laughing, head thrown back, and the sound was so clean and delighted it almost startled them both. “You never change, do you?”

Vizkoroth’s grin was unrepentant. “There’s always room for innovation. Even in retirement.”

“I’ll leave that for the next Host,” Arabella said, wiping her eyes.

They stood a little longer, watching the world below.

When they rejoined the party, Vizkoroth’s hand closed around the sphere, her stride easy and sure. Arabella walked beside her, the last of the volcanic light smoldering in her hair.