"W-why are we headed back to the castle?" Renea asked, out of breath. "Safi and Ceric—haah—there's no way they wouldn't keep meddling! I-I don't mean that in a mean way or anything, but…!"

"You're not wrong," Ailn said, scanning the different checkpoints which branched off from the main thoroughfare. There were only so many ways up to the castle. "What matters is how they're trying to meddle."

He caught sight of familiar faces bickering near one of the guard posts and sighed. "Because I'm sure from their perspective, they're just stopping a dangerous villain."

A number of Azure Knights stood by awkwardly, as Safi and Ceric confronted Ashton.

"The jig's up, Ashton!" Safi declared, dropping all formality. "We know what you are!"

"...Oh?" Ashton replied, his smile quite strained as he turned to look at his accusers. "Tell me, Lady Fleuve. What am I?"

"Young master ark-Chelon," Ceric started gravely. "We are quite certain that you are a rein—"

Safi hurriedly covered his mouth. "W-we can't tell you what you are, but you know what you are, and we know what you are, and now you know we know what you are!"

One of the knights cleared his throat loudly, trying to head off what looked like a brewing diplomatic incident. "Perhaps the walls of the castle would better suit discussion—"

"By the gods, speak normally or don't speak at all—" Ashton cut himself off, palm held to his face as if to steady a slipping mask. He took a deep breath. "Let me reason with you, Lady Fleuve. Normally, I would find your antics amusing. But tonight, I simply wish to find Viscount Gren, who I lost in the crowds. Would you be so kind as to let me do that?"

"It's what you're gonna do after you find him that we're worried about!" Safi bristled.

This was roughly what Ailn had expected to find coming to the castle.

Safi and Ceric's behavior in the plaza made it easy enough to guess what they were thinking. Which meant they'd try to follow Ashton.

And Ashton, Ailn guessed, would probably head back to the castle. If he was worried about Horace, the most sensible thing to do would be to get the assistance of the White Knights. If he didn't care, then… well, he'd probably just go home and sleep.

Ashton didn't really strike Ailn as the festival-enjoying type.

"I'm just gonna cut in here, since we don't really have the time," Ailn said. As he and Renea approached the group, he turned to Safi and Ceric. "Ashton isn't what you think he is."

"What?!" Safi cried out. "He is! I have proof! He was in the plaza playing chess!" She hesitated. "Okay that doesn't sound very convincing but he was acting really shady!"

"Well…" Ailn cast a look at Ashton. "He does have a talent for that."

"Indeed, he played with himself for quite some time," Ceric nodded sagely. "In full view of everyone in the plaza."

There was a beat of hesitation. "Phrasing, Ceric," Ailn coughed.

"Am I hearing this correctly?" Ashton asked with a cold smile. "That playing chess is now deemed suspect?"

"Yes! It's suspect that you were playing yourself when you could have just done that in your room in the castle! And you just happened to be there at the same place at the same time when Lady Ennieux and Lord Gren were on a date!" Safi insisted, pointing her finger as if she cornered him.

"And you, Lady Fleuve, just so happened to be there as well," Ashton remarked. He gave a muted, contemptuous shrug. "Care to explain?"

"All of you, stop!" Renea blurted. She'd been fidgeting the whole time, and her nerves could take no more. "If we don't do something now, Ennieux and Horace's marriage is going to fall apart!"

Everyone turned to look at her. Safi broke the silence with a gasp. "Hold on… Were you two at the plaza, too?!"

Ashton couldn't help but drag a hand down his face. "The better question is this. What makes you two so certain?"

"O-oh, you know, anyone w-who watched that scene can tell their marriage is already on the rocks," Renea stuttered. "W-with the big fight and all."

"Then tell me, " Ashton started. "Am I to believe you possess the means to mend it?" His gaze drifted to Ailn, but it didn't warm up any.

"...It isn't me or Renea who can fix things," Ailn said, scratching his cheek. "It isn't you, either."

"Attempting to 'fix things,' is precisely what caused our present troubles," Ashton lectured, tone incredulous. "To begin with, it was by your and Lady Renea's contrivance that a mug of mulled wine found its way into Lady Ennieux's hands. Were the consequences not sufficiently instructive?"

Safi gasped again.

Ailn winced. The man wasn't wrong. Without the context of Bea's precognition, their actions could only be read as exceptionally poor judgment. And given how finicky the future seemed to be, maybe even that wasn't a great excuse.

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"There were some coordination issues," Ailn said, averting his eyes. He racked his brain for a palatable way to frame the absurd, prophesied solution, but came up empty. "Look. I'll keep it simple. Safi and Ceric need to talk to Horace and Ennieux."

"Huh?" Safi blinked.

"...What?" Ashton's voice rang sharper than Ailn had ever heard it. "I'm meant to defer to the two who sincerely believe I subjugate minds by pushing pawns forward?"

"Or diagonally," Ceric said, his expression grave.

There was a twitch in Ashton's eye.

"Wha—?! AGH!"

Ennieux woke to the sound of children screaming, smacking her head against the pillar she'd been using as a head rest. She scrambled to a crouch, peering over the low wall into the cloister's green.

"Yes, dear children, the shadow beasts had driven Varant to the brink," an old man narrated. "The tide came from the depths of the dark, threatening to swallow all who stood in its path."

The children squealed in delight and terror as shadow upon shadow took shape. Their cries rose with the swelling horde, then fell silent, breaths held as light was smothered.

Then, when the darkness suddenly began to stir and wriggle, one boy's scream set the rest shrieking again.

"Nnngh…" Ennieux groaned, head slumping forward over the low wall.

Yes, it was a shadow puppet play. And the puppeteers had created an effect most grotesque, shaking their cutouts in synchrony. The little glimpses of white through the linen backdrop were more dreadful than the total dark—as if the pitiful light was still fighting, struggling for breath.

It made Ennieux a little nauseous, actually.

Like many a drunk before her, she'd been struck with the terrible dilemma of sudden drowsiness, and absolutely zero desire to go home.

So, she found herself at the cathedral. The nave and all the chapels were still filled with tourists, but the courtyards were mostly empty. She'd just been unlucky enough to doze off in the one slated for a shadow play.

"That was when one young maiden, no bigger than any of you little ones gathered here, rose against the darkness," the old man told the children, voice full of reverence, hand held yea high. "That girl… was Saintess Celine."

As he spoke, the light that had been quivering began to glow brighter, a white silhouette emerging clearer and clearer. A little girl stood bravely amidst the beasts, hand raised as if to forbid their advance.

The children cried out in excitement.

"Was she really that small?!" one girl bellowed, unable to contain herself.

"Why, I saw her myself," the old man said. His voice was warm with memory, his cadence slowing wistfully for a beat. "She was such a brave young soul."

He cleared his throat, remembering he had to finish the play. "Bravery dwells in all of our hearts, little ones. And so it was on that day that the Saintess Celine…"

Ennieux turned away from the green, lying back against the pillar as the old man told the rest of the story. She couldn't quite bear listening to it—besides, she'd heard the story a thousand times before.

Celine had walked onto the battlefield before Ennieux was even born.

"Bravery dwells in all of our hearts, is it…?" Ennieux murmured to herself.

Gazing at both of her hands, Ennieux tried what she hadn't in years: to manifest her divine blessing. A faint trace of light shimmered in them. The very air seemed about to sing.

And then it stopped. Fear made her light falter. Shame strangled the melody before it ever began.

"Then where is mine hiding?" she muttered.

"The mystery of the heart is as grand as any in the world, Lady Ennieux."

"Ack!" Ennieux's mysterious heart nearly leapt out of her chest as she smacked her head against the pillar again. "For God's sake, who—"

Her eyes flew wide, hand clutching her increasingly tender temple. Yet the throb only worsened when she saw who it was.

"You?!" she fumed. "Just why—o-oh?"

Cyril, or Erik, or whatever his name was handed her a waterskin. "Wine is a fine fellow for revelry. But water is the friend that heals," he grinned.

Deep in the forest which approached the castle, Horace sat numbly on the ground, hands resting on his knees as he stared into the brush. He'd found his way there after his fight with Ennieux—aimlessly drifting through the festival to lose himself in the clamor, turning back in despondence when he simply couldn't handle the cheer. He strayed off the main path, halfway up, because he needed somewhere to sit.

He needed somewhere to be alone.

His feet were heavy. Worse was his slogging heart. And he found comfort in the thick of the forest, where only a trickle of moonlight seeped through the trees.

'Just leave me be, Horace!'

"Haven't I always?" Horace murmured, hanging his head in his hands.

No matter how he tried to clear his thoughts, the memory of her eyes brimming with shame wouldn't leave him.

How much further could he keep away?

He was a stranger in his own family. His wife withered in his presence. His children seemed to barely endure him. He loved them from afar, and thought he'd never asked for anything in return.

"Viscount Gren?"

A voice he faintly recognized called out, followed by rustling in the brush behind.

"...Lady Fleuve," Horace said tiredly, not bothering to look up. "May I ask how you found me?"

"I just thought about where… where I would go if I felt sick of myself and creepy," Safi admitted. "I used to go in the woods a lot, actually."

Horace mulled over her words in silence.

"I saw you in the plaza," he finally said

"I'm really sorry for how that went," Safi said quietly. She stood beside him, not quite meeting his eyes. "It should have been a nice time, and it turned into a disaster…"

Then her hands began to fidget together. Her expression squirmed, mouth twitching as if words were trying to escape zipped lips.

"But you really should have gone after her!" she burst out. "Sorry! I shouldn't be telling you what to do. I shouldn't. But you're kind of frustrating all of us here. A lot!"

"'All of us?'" Horace repeated lifelessly. "Is our marriage a spectacle?"

"That's—" Safi flinched, her voice shrinking until she was quiet as a mouse. "It's not like we were trying to… no, um, that's a fair point. Sorry. I'm really sorry."

Horace felt a pang of regret, hearing her draw into herself. The last thing he wanted was to browbeat her. At last he lifted his head, his gaze drifting blearily over.

"Ours is a union of necessity, not love, Lady Fleuve," Horace said. "She never wished to marry me. And I'm the last person she'd want to see this moment."

"Um, I really don't think that's true," Safi mumbled. "I really think she wanted you to chase her…"

"She asked to be left alone," Horace said, his tone weary. His head fell back into his hands. "All I could do was oblige."

"Well, Lady Ennieux's a bit of a hot mess," Safi interjected faintly, hands beginning to pull at her hair. "You kinda gotta translate…"

"If there were a way to free her from this marriage without tarnishing her reputation, I'd do it," Horace said, with a cracked voice and a rueful expression. "I want her to be happy—"

"She's just being a tsundere, Horace!" Safi blurted out.

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