"Look on the bright side. At least they’re treating us well. See? They even left us little castanets to kill time, like toys in a traveling trunk."

Adelaide scooted over to Mira like a cat seeking a warm patch. She lifted two round, hard discs from the table, their deep-brown faces like dried bark, and tapped them together. The crisp click chimed like pebbles in a stream.

Compared to the carriage wheels rumbling like distant thunder, those tiny discs sounded almost pleasant, like bells under rain. But Mira kept a stone face and turned away like a shutter closing.

"That’s hard biscuit," Mira said, flat as flint in cold wind.

"Huh?"

Adelaide glanced at the “castanets” in her hands, then tapped them again, like testing the shell of a nut. The dark-brown faces obeyed the physics of two stones colliding, and rang true.

She brightened, like a lantern suddenly lit. "Ah, I get it. Northerners call their castanets by this name, right? So witty—"

Mira cut her off, sharp as a knife. "—That’s our dried rations for the road."

"This… is really for eating?" Adelaide asked, the word tasting like sand.

At the word biscuit, her mind drifted like steam to butter cookies and scones—some airy and crisp like puffed clouds, some dense and tight like packed earth—with a rich milk scent swirling like warm dawn. The gourmets of Balad often said biscuits and tea treats shift with a chef’s temperament and touch, like a river changing course, and their charm lies in the idea that any texture is possible.

Adelaide had thought that a bit of poetic exaggeration, like a mirage over sunlit stone. But now, staring at the two things that could crack walnuts like cobbles, she realized they were probably right. A biscuit’s texture really is an open sky.

"So hard—can anyone even swallow this without breaking like brittle ice?"

Even counting what Jiaqi had shown her in the Dream, this stuff still sat outside Adelaide’s idea of food, like a stone in a soup. She turned to Mira, wanting the comfort of agreement, but Mira only sent her a cold look, like frost on glass.

"Thirty hard biscuits, two slabs of salted pork, fifty erke of dried peas, fifty erke of carrots, fifty erke of turnips." Mira’s voice was a ledger etched in iron. "The carrots and turnips will be gone in two weeks, like autumn pulled fast. After that only the first three remain. That’s our weekly ration for the next few months, and it’s the contract you signed with General Slandor, Adelaide."

Mira’s voice climbed like a stormwind. By the end it almost matched the clipped steel she’d used back at Holywell Academy. Adelaide knew opening up was better than that recent heavy silence, like a locked lake. But she couldn’t feel happy.

The reason was simple, clear as noon light—Mira was truly angry.

At Holywell Academy, Mira’s haughty edge had been a mask, like a painted fan, to help rebuild Adelaide’s reputation. Now there was no theatrical flourish, no sweeping gestures—only eyes fixed on her like twin green blades, the message matching the knitted brows: disapproval of Adelaide’s choice.

Adelaide sighed inside, like a reed bending under wind. She’d thought asking General Slandor to act like an old friend before Mira would ease that knot. Turns out it was only mist in sunlight.

"Have you forgotten? General Slandor stood on Rockridge’s side, looking down on us like hawks over mice. Why agree to her terms? What if it’s a trap?"

"If she wanted the bounty on our heads—enough to arm a regiment—she wouldn’t waste time sending us out of the country. One letter to Balad, and we’d be taken in our sleep like fish in a net. The fact we’re still here says she’s trying to keep us from being seized as mediums. She offered the deal to push us far from Rockridge."

Helplessness shaded Adelaide’s voice, like cloud over glassy water. Since she’d learned what “medium” truly meant, the reason reality had slipped from the “script” became plain as chalk lines.

In the Dream, there clearly weren’t enough people to use as mediums, so Rockridge held back like a wolf pacing the fence. But in reality, Adelaide lived. That’s why Rockridge tried to cage her the moment Skela enrolled—eager to pin her under his hand—because the extra Adelaide fit the missing medium slot, letting a plan from the shadows march early into daylight.

That night’s trap sprang for the same reason, like a snare set under dark leaves. Once she saw that, Adelaide had more to fear than the blow her exposure would deal the Reformists. There was the looming chance that colossal spell would ignite, its effect unknown, like thunder under the ground.

For her and Mira, the safest path was to flee Rockridge’s reach like birds from a net, and not show their faces again until the Reformists pulled him down.

She had already talked this through with Mira. Mira understood. She wasn’t against leaving the country. She just didn’t trust General Slandor, like a wolf eyeing a smile.

"Or maybe that woman just wants a deserted place to do it, so she won’t scuff her precious furniture. Did you consider that?"

Adelaide shook her head, firm as a stake. "She won’t."

"Why? Because she told you so?"

"Because I’m close to Skela," Adelaide said, the name dropping like a stone in still water.

Mira’s expression froze at the sound of Skela, like frost racing over a pane. Adelaide didn’t see her hand clench in shadow. She went on.

"General Slandor listens to a nun named Manny—put simply, she takes Manny’s words like winter law. And Manny is like a foster mother to Skela. Slandor won’t risk clashing with Manny by moving on us rashly. Even if she does, we can reverse the field and pull word through Manny to Skela. We’ll hear first."

Her tone gentled, like a veil falling. "Listen, Mira. I know the General made a bad first impression. But this is the best road we have."

Adelaide leaned so close her chest brushed Mira’s arm like warm silk. When Mira didn’t answer, she simply hooked her arm into Mira’s elbow and made her turn to face her.

"Trust your sister," she breathed, soft as dusk. "I’ll handle it. Okay?"

At that distance Adelaide’s breath was audible, like a tide in a shell. Color rose on Mira’s pale skin, a blush like peach bloom. She turned her face aside, refusing those pleading eyes.

After a span of heartbeats, she answered, muffled as a cloak. "Suit yourself…"

Adelaide smiled and let her head rest on Mira’s shoulder, half her weight settling like a cat by a hearth. "Thank you, Mira~"

There was no reply. Mira held silent, breath seeming to pause like snow in air. Only the beat of her heart tapped through thin fabric to Adelaide’s chest.

Adelaide didn’t rush to break the hush. She simply listened to the warmth in Mira’s arm like embers, and her mood loosened like knots undone. She lifted a few black strands that hung over Mira’s front.

The strands felt dry, split at the tips like frayed twine, nothing like Mira’s true hair—no silky flow, no river-gloss.

Still, Adelaide stroked the black wig meant to hide her identity, tender as a keeper polishing jade. A glint of longing crossed her eyes, and she murmured without thinking, "You with black hair… you look beautiful too, Mira."

Right as her words faded, the carriage rolled to a halt. The brake’s jolt covered the instant Mira’s body went rigid, like a deer hearing a snap. Two knocks thumped against the front door. Adelaide dispelled the soundproofing array, and the driver’s voice drifted in like smoke.

"We’re camping here tonight. You ladies can step out, stretch your legs, and rest."

Mira rose and crossed two steps to unlatch the door, quick as a bird. "I’ll… go check dinner. Don’t wander." She turned her back, spoke, and left, abandoning Adelaide to blink alone in the carriage like an owl.

**

Mira braced a hand against an empty wagon, head bowed, breath ragged like after a hard run. She forced calm first, like cool water over coals. One… two. One… two.

She whispered the deep-breath rhythm Adelaide had taught her as a child, counting in her mind like beads, trying to feed air back to the brain starved from holding breath.

But as the tightness in her chest thinned like fog in morning, the impulse she’d barely chained by pain surged up again, wild as spring flood.

Adelaide’s warmth pressed against her, the white-jade fingers drifting through black hair, the stray words that brushed like feathers—just a few careless touches, and Mira almost couldn’t stand. Desire leaked from the seams, hot as wine. She could barely keep down the urge to pin Adelaide beneath her, to end the ache.

She endured with teeth clenched, and it hurt like biting on ice. In that underground cave, solitude and amnesia had been a reason she could use to pull back, like a rope. Now that excuse was gone. Two months living together—every small motion Adelaide made felt like deliberate charm, like a candle luring moths. Mira’s heartbeat rose and fell like drums, and the desire at her core grew harder to reign.

Mira bit her lower lip until the taste of blood bloomed, metallic as iron.

Calm… one… two. One… two. One…

Just as Mira reached some nameless count, other voices snaked through the wagons like smoke.

"Bro, did you see the two women in wagon Eight? Especially the brown-haired one with the big hat—those breasts. Phew~ my gods!"

A low whistle cut the air, bright as a reed pipe. It sounded two or three wagons away. Another man answered, wary as a deer.

"I’d keep it down. The General invited them specially—"

"—Ah, come on, I know. Some sheltered lady who read too many stories and begged the General to let her join some grand tour." The light, greasy voice didn’t care, sliding like oil. "I’ve seen lots like that. In two days they’ll be bawling they can’t take travel. You give ’em a bit of convenience, and they’ll lie in your bed like kittens."

"No, you’re not getting it. They’re not sightseers—"

"Whatever. The black-haired one looks a little fierce, but the brown-haired one? Easy pickings. I’ll teach you—stash a recording stone nearby when you’re at it, get their moans on crystal. Then you say you’ll send it to their husband or their dad, and they’ll go tame like a she-orc with her fangs pulled. You can have your fun a few times more. Don’t doubt me—I brought a few back last time, and none of them dared say a word!"

"…I said they’re not ordinary. They’re the General’s hired guards."

"Guards?" The man barked a laugh, slapping his thigh like a drum. "Guard with what—have the brown-haired one choke a monster with her chest? Hahaha—puh-ha!"

Mid-laugh, the sound flipped to a scream, raw as torn cloth. His body slammed into the iron wagon behind him with a clang, and his eyes went white with shock. Before he could slide down boneless, a hand clamped his neck and lifted him like a rag.

"Wh… wh… what the hell…"

He took a few seconds to crawl back to himself, vision clearing like frost melting. And then he saw her—the black-haired girl he’d just mentioned. Pretty as his memory said, but her face was bare of expression, and the emerald eyes fixed on him held no warmth at all, like winter glass staring at a corpse.

“Let your eyes land on her again, and I’ll cut your life short.”

“L-Let go of me, you bastard—my throat’s burning.”

He clutched Mira’s wrists, his legs scissoring in the air. Mira didn’t budge, a pine rooted in stone. He clawed and scratched, but her grip kept tightening, until storm-dark blue and purple pooled across his face.

“I... I was wrong... I—I—please...” His voice rasped like a fraying rope.

The smirk drained from his face, fear creeping like frost as death edged near. He begged in broken scraps. The other man shook off his first shock and rushed in, words flapping like torn flags.

“H-he’s a new food supplier, doesn’t know the rules. He shoots his mouth off, but a woman’s face freezes him up like ice. Miss, please spare him...”

Mira flicked him a glance, cool as moonlight, and finally let go.

The lecher crashed to the ground and coughed in harsh barks. Snot and tears smeared his face; a red ring burned on his neck. Before relief could bloom, Mira crouched before him like a shadow falling. He tried to scuttle back, panic buzzing, but the carriage wall pinned his spine.

“I—I won’t, I swear I won’t... don’t come any closer!”

“You’re a food supplier?” Mira let his stench of fear slide past like rain off stone. “Those ‘conveniences’ you bragged about—what do they include?”