Chapter 118: Watching

Three days before the festival, our class held the dress rehearsal on the real stage in the actual great hall.

I sat by myself in the middle of the empty seats, about ten rows back, with my feet up on the chair in front of me. Four hundred empty chairs stretched out around me in the dark. Up on stage, everyone was in full costume for the first time, under real lights, with a real rain machine hanging from the rafters instead of a bucket with holes in it.

I had missed every single rehearsal of the kiss so far. I’d been hauling tea trays up stairs, or getting choked in classrooms, or grabbing Sabine’s wrist with a tray in my other hand. So far, everything I knew about it came from Fenna, Marisol, and Odette.

Tonight, I was finally going to see it with my own eyes.

"Final scene!" Hugo shouted from the wings. "Rain, please!"

Somebody pulled a lever, and the rain machine opened up. Water poured down in a silver sheet across the middle of the stage, glittering under the lights.

Lily stepped into it in her princess gown. It was pale blue, with silver stars sewn all over the skirt, and the rain soaked it through in seconds. Her hair stuck to her cheeks. She looked up at the edge of the stage with her hands clasped against her chest.

"Sir Knight," she called. "You came!"

Serena walked out of the dark.

She was wearing the knight’s armor, polished silver with a dark blue cape, and a black velvet mask over the top half of her face. Her white hair was tied back. She crossed the stage in five long strides, without hurrying, and stopped right in front of Lily in the pouring rain.

[Holy crap, she looks incredible.]

They said their lines. Lily’s voice shook in all the right places, and Serena’s voice was low and steady, and for once, the words I’d written at fifteen didn’t sound stupid at all.

Then Serena reached up and pulled off the mask.

She dropped it on the stage, took Lily by the waist, and dipped her back. Lily’s hand went up to the back of Serena’s neck. Serena leaned down and kissed her, slowly, deeply, right in the middle of the rain, while the water ran down both of their faces and the stars on Lily’s dress sparkled under the lights.

I was on my feet before I even realized I’d stood up.

[CINEMA!]

I was clapping like I’d just walked out of a Christopher Nolan premiere. My tail was swinging so hard it was hitting the seats on both sides of me.

"YES!" I shouted into the empty hall. "BEAUTIFUL! INCREDIBLE! TEN OUT OF TEN!"

Up on stage, still in the middle of the kiss, Serena opened one eye.

It was red, it was furious, and it was staring straight at me across ten rows of empty seats.

I kept clapping, but a little more slowly.

She held the kiss for another few seconds without blinking even once. Then the curtain came down, and I heard Hugo sobbing somewhere in the wings.

After the run-through ended, I hung around near the stage steps while everyone changed out of costume. Lily waved at me, still dripping, then got dragged away by two girls with towels. A minute later, Serena came down the steps with her cape over her arm and her hair soaked.

She stopped right in front of me.

"Were you cheering?" she said.

"Maybe a little!" I grinned. "Serena, that was amazing! You were amazing! I always knew those lines could work if the right person said them!"

She didn’t respond to that. Instead, she looked at me for a long moment, with water still dripping off the end of her nose.

"Will you be watching on the night?"

[Oh, crap.]

On the night of the play, I wasn’t going to be anywhere near the audience. I was going to be up two flights of stairs, in the royal box, standing beside a side table with a tray of lemon cakes and my eyes on Pryce’s coat. Nobody could know about that, and Serena least of all, since the man I was planning to stop was standing right next to her sister.

"Yeah!" I said brightly. "Of course! Front row!"

Serena’s eyes narrowed.

"Of course you will," she said flatly.

"Front and center! Best seat in the house! I’ll be cheering the whole time!"

Her jaw tightened. She glanced back up at the stage, at the spot where she’d been kissing Lily a few minutes ago, and then she looked back at me. She didn’t look pleased at all.

"Wonderful," Serena said. "Then I’ll have to look at your stupid face the entire time."

She shoved her wet cape into my arms and stalked off toward the dressing rooms.

I stood there holding it, with water soaking into my sleeves.

I’d just promised Serena I’d be sitting right in front of her. When she walked out into that rain on the night of the festival, she was going to look at the front row, the way she’d looked at me tonight.

In other words, she was going to look down and find my seat empty.

---

On the first morning of the Cultural Festival, the maid café opened its doors, and my tail was finally free.

Marisol had cut the hole the night before, after I begged her for the fifth time. It was a neat little slit at the back of the skirt with lace sewn around the edges, and the moment I put the uniform on, my tail popped out and swished back and forth in pure joy. The top was still too tight across my chest, but at least only half of me was suffering now.

"Doors open in one minute!" Marisol called from behind the cash box. "Smile, ladies! Every smile is money!"

Lily was standing next to me in her own uniform, holding a tray. She looked so cute in the little white headband that I almost forgot what I was supposed to be doing.

"Are you ready, Kohaku?" she asked.

"Born ready!"

Then the doors opened, and the regulars arrived.

Fenna was first. She walked straight in, sat down at the biggest table, and didn’t even look at the menu.

"Everything," she said.

"Everything?" I asked. "Like, one of everything?"

"Yep. I skipped breakfast for this." She stretched her arms over her head, and her chipped fang showed when she grinned at me. "Your tail looks good out. You should keep it out all the time."

[It literally is out all the time. What do you even mean?]

I brought her one of everything. It took three trips and two other girls to help carry it. Fenna ate all of it, from the sandwiches to the custard to the entire pot of honey, and when she was done, she stacked the plates neatly and asked for seconds of the cakes.

Next came Sabine.

She sat alone at a small table by the window, ordered a single cup of black tea, and spent the entire time watching me walk back and forth across the room. When she finally left, she pressed a gold coin into my palm and closed my fingers over it.

"For the excellent service," she said.

"I just poured you one cup of tea!"

"Mm-hm~" Sabine patted my cheek and swept out.

Marisol snatched the coin out of my hand before I’d even turned around and bit it.

"Real gold," she breathed. "Kohaku, darling, I want you on her table every single day."

Then, around noon, the Wildfolk delegation came in.

There were five of them, all tall, all wolf or fox beastkin, and all wearing formal sashes. They sat down at the table nearest the counter and ordered nothing. Instead, the tallest one stood up, bowed deeply to me, and unrolled a scroll.

"Kohaku Sakana," he announced to the entire café. "On behalf of the House of the Gray Ridge, I offer you a formal proposal of union. Our terms are generous. We open at four pups."

The whole café went silent.

"Oh! Uh..." I clutched my tray. "That’s very sweet, but I’m kind of working right now..."

He nodded seriously, rolled up his scroll, and sat back down. I thought that was the end of it.

Ten minutes later, a fox girl from the same table stood up, bowed, and unrolled a different scroll.

"Kohaku Sakana! On behalf of the House of the Red Hollow, I offer..."

That was when I remembered the rule. Among beastkin, a polite excuse didn’t count as a refusal. If I didn’t say no in the proper way, every single one of them was going to keep standing up until the café closed.

"I COUNTER-DECLARE!!!" I shouted, slamming my tray down on the counter. "Both proposals! Formally! Counter-declared!"

The fox girl blinked, bowed again, and sat down. The whole delegation nodded to each other, looking satisfied, and then they finally ordered tea.

Lily was standing next to me, completely pale.

"Kohaku," she whispered. "How many proposals have you gotten?"

"I... don’t really keep count..."

The bell over the door jingled, and Hexilia Frostfall walked in, wearing her Guard uniform with the collar unbuttoned.

"There’s my fox! And look at you, you’ve got your tail out!" She sat down at the counter and leaned on her elbows. "I’m here on official business. I need to taste-test the lemon cakes before I let them anywhere near Her Majesty."

I put a plate in front of her with three lemon cakes on it. My hands were shaking a little.

Hex picked one up, looked at it carefully from every side, and took a big bite.

She chewed slowly. Then, she closed her eyes.

"Oh, these are dangerous," she said.

"Is that good!?"

"That’s very good! The Queen is going to love these. She might actually cry." Hex stuffed the rest of the cake into her mouth and grabbed a second one. "Approved, by order of the Captain of the Queen’s Guard! Bring a whole plate on the final night!"

"I will!"

She paid, waved to the whole café, and headed back out the door with the third lemon cake in her hand.

I looked around the room. Fenna was ordering her third round of cakes. The Wildfolk delegation was sipping tea peacefully. Marisol was counting coins, and Lily was smiling at me from across the counter.

The Cultural Festival had begun. In other words, there were two more days until the final night, and the play, and the box.