Chapter 124: OCs in The Bedroom

"I’ve seen things," I said quietly, "that no one in this world would ever believe."

I was standing at the window with my hands clasped behind my back, staring out at the gray morning sky. My bandaged arm ached a little. A light drizzle was falling on the academy grounds.

"I’ve seen silver stars scattered across velvet. I’ve seen armor shining in the lamplight, worn only halfway, by someone who could not wait to take off the rest. I’ve seen a princess bow down lower than any princess has ever bowed..."

I closed my eyes.

"All those moments will stay with me forever. I’ll carry them to my grave."

There was a long silence.

"Please stop talking to me," Odette said.

I turned around.

Odette was sitting at her desk with four textbooks open in front of her and a pen in her hand. She had dark circles under her eyes and an ink stain on her cheek, and she had not looked up from her notes once since I’d walked into her room forty minutes ago.

"Odette! I’m having a moment!"

"You’ve been having a moment since breakfast. I have my alchemy exam in two hours." She finally looked up at me, completely flat. "I don’t know what you saw. I don’t want to know what you saw."

"C-Come on! That was very moving!"

Odette put down her pen, stood up, took me by the shoulders, and steered me toward the door.

"W-Wait, Odette, I’m not done!!! I haven’t even gotten to the part about the cape!"

"Out. You’re breaking my focus."

She pushed me into the hallway and shut the door in my face. A second later, I heard the lock click.

I stood there for a moment. Then I sighed and started walking.

The academy was quiet this morning. The festival was over, and everyone was sleeping off the after-party, so the halls were empty except for a few servants sweeping up confetti. I walked slowly, with my hands in my pockets and the weasel riding on my shoulder, and I let myself go back over everything that had happened.

Last night, I’d climbed two flights of stairs with a tea tray, grabbed Pryce’s wrist, and gotten my arm sliced open. Then I’d blinded the whole room with a weasel and killed a Church assassin with a cake knife. Hex was alive, and so was the Queen, which meant Serena had no reason at all to hate the world.

I still hadn’t opened my Status screen. I was scared to look. Somewhere in there, there was a number telling me what it had cost to break the biggest thread in Serena’s story, and I wasn’t ready to see it yet.

After that came the infirmary, and then the poison, which I definitely could have avoided by staying in bed.

And then, in between those two, there was the dressing room.

My mind went straight back to that couch, the way it had every few minutes since I’d woken up this morning. I saw the stars all over the cushions. I saw Serena with her cape hanging off one shoulder. I saw Lily, the perfect heroine I’d written at fifteen, with her face buried in a pillow, and Serena, the villainess I’d accidentally turned into my dream woman, holding her by the hips...

"Hehe..."

It slipped out of me before I could stop it.

"Hehehehe... Heheheheh..."

A servant sweeping the hallway stopped and stared at me. I was standing in the middle of the corridor with both hands pressed to my cheeks, my tail swishing back and forth, and a big, wobbly grin on my face.

[NO! Stop giggling like some weird otaku!]

I slapped both of my cheeks, hard. The weasel squeaked and nearly fell off my shoulder.

"Sorry!" I said to the servant. "Allergies!"

He went back to sweeping, very quickly, without looking at me again.

I took a long, deep breath and made myself think like a grown-up. I’d survived a heart attack (well, technically... perhaps), a monster attack, a forest warden, and a Church assassin. I could handle this.

In other words, I owed Lily a real conversation, all the way to the end this time.

I straightened my uniform, scooped the weasel back onto my shoulder, and turned toward the dorms.

I was going to find Lily, and we were going to talk about this like two proper adults.

[Without giggling. Absolutely no giggling.]

---

{Serena}

The whole thing had started with an argument.

After the bows, I’d stormed into the dressing room and torn off my breastplate so hard that one of the straps snapped. Lily followed me in a minute later and shut the door behind her, still in her star gown, with her hair coming loose from the comb.

"She wasn’t there," I said. "The seat was empty. She swore to me, Lily. She stood right in front of me and swore she’d be in the front row."

"Maybe something happened!" Lily clasped her hands. "Maybe she had an emergency!"

"An emergency." I laughed, and it came out ugly. "She’s a fox with no family, no title, and no responsibilities. What emergency could she possibly have during the one hour that mattered?"

"I don’t know! But Kohaku wouldn’t just leave us!"

"Wouldn’t she?" I turned around. "She talked me into this ridiculous play. She talked you into kissing me in front of the whole kingdom. Then, when it finally happened, she couldn’t even be bothered to watch it. She doesn’t care about either of us, Lily. We’re entertainment to her."

"That’s not true!" Lily’s eyes filled with tears. "Take that back!"

"I won’t!"

"Then I’ll make you!"

She grabbed my collar with both hands, exactly the way the fox had taught her, and kissed me. Then, before I could even think about pushing her away, she sank to her knees, shoved up the chainmail skirt of my costume, and took my cock into her mouth.

I grabbed the edge of the dressing table to stay upright. Her mouth was hot and eager and completely untrained, and she made up for it by being enthusiastic about everything. She hummed while she sucked, and the vibration went straight up my spine. When she looked up at me with her eyes still wet and her lips stretched around me, I forgot what we had been arguing about.

Eventually, we ended up on the couch, which was exactly where we were when the fox opened the door and fainted on the floor.

The next morning, I stood in the front hall of my sister’s townhouse in the capital, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, and I was furious.

I didn’t know who I was furious at.

A palace runner had found me at dawn and told me only two things. Captain Frostfall had been injured in an incident at the great hall last night, and the healers were with her now. When I asked what kind of incident, he said he wasn’t permitted to say. When I asked whether she was dying, he said he wasn’t permitted to say that either. I nearly put him through a wall.

Then there was the fox. After she’d collapsed in the dressing room doorway, someone had come running from the infirmary and carried her away, and I’d smelled blood all over her. Nobody at the infirmary would let me in. Corvaine had stood in the door with her arms folded and said "academy custody" at me until I left.

"Pup! Is that you? Come in here!"

I followed Hex’s voice into her sitting room.

My sister was propped up on the sofa in a loose white shirt, with her left arm resting on a cushion. Two healers in gray robes were bent over a shallow cut on her forearm, dabbing it with something that smelled bitter. Hex waved at me with her free hand like nothing in the world was wrong.

"Look at you! You look terrible! Did you sleep at all?"

"What happened?" I crossed the room. "The runner said you were injured. Who did this? Tell me who did this, Hex!"

"It’s just a scratch. They’re only fussing because the blade had something nasty on it." Hex grinned. "Now, sit down and tell me about the play. I heard you were wonderful. I heard the kiss went on for so long that three noblewomen fainted."

"I don’t care about the play!"

"Oh, really?" Hex raised an eyebrow. "Is that why your ears are red?"

I clenched my jaw and sat down hard in the armchair across from her.

"Let me guess." Hex leaned back. "Somebody promised you she’d be in the front row, and she wasn’t."

"How do you know that!?"

"Because you’ve been glaring at nothing since you walked in, and the only person who gets that particular glare out of you these days is a fox." Hex waved the healers away, and they stepped back. "So? Go on."

"She’s a liar! She swore she’d be there, and she wasn’t, and she didn’t even send a note. She just vanished, and then she showed up covered in blood, and then she fainted, and nobody will tell me anything!"

Hex’s grin softened.

"Serena," she said gently. "Do you want to know where your fox was during the third act?"

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

"She was in the royal box, standing next to the Queen’s secretary with a tray of lemon cakes." Hex held up her bandaged arm. "When he pulled a Church blade out of his coat and went for Her Majesty, she was the one who grabbed his wrist. When he came at me, and I couldn’t stop him, she was the one who killed him."

The room went completely silent.

"She didn’t watch your play, pup," Hex said, "because she was busy saving my life."