At dawn, Yekase headed to Arcadia to check the harvest, her hopes rising like mist over a river.

Before she even pushed the chamber door, she heard a muffled sobbing leaking through stone, thin as rain through moss. Her heart dropped like a stone—had the four painter sisters played themselves into a mood and actually taken her?

She’d meant to crack Artemis’s defenses, not shatter the porcelain; if they broke the mind, there’d be no deal left to sign.

Bang!

Yekase kicked the door open—

Beelzebub was cradling a small golden figure; Mostima’s hand moved like wind over a wheatfield, smoothing her hair.

Oh no. That’s the afterglow vibe, the room warm as embers.

The door groaned behind her; three gazes turned, sharp as arrows, landing on Yekase.

“Elder Sister, you’re back.”

“You… you all…”

“Ar, say it now ❤,” Mostima smiled, a cat with cream on her whiskers.

The golden puffball swaddled in an oversized white dress, eyes rimmed red, stammered in a voice soft as a moth’s wing.

“Elder Sister didn’t hear you ❤.”

She finally drew in a breath like a diver and shouted:

“I agree to cooperate! Let me go home!”

“Uh…”

“What should she call her?” Beelzebub pressed, persistent as tide on stone.

“………”

“Hmm?”

“Lu… Luciferin Elder Sister…”

“That’s right.”

Yekase hunched her neck like a turtle into its shell, fear pricking her skin.

Last night she’d only wanted them to hold the stage and paint the picture—no one was supposed to actually do anything. Why did this feel off? Or was it that Endymion already had that itch tucked under the robes? Is that why he hadn’t visited the bedchamber for years?

Either way, the deal was struck (kind of). Yekase traced a contract array once used by Sandryon, and she and Artemis signed their names; the Arcane Nexus drank the ink and acknowledged the pact.

Yekase looked around the room for the second and third sisters; no sign. Beelzebub, reading the question, opened a door into the painted world.

Inside, the waterfall and cliff had changed; the sky, once black as wet ink, now wore a thousand blinking stars sewn into the curve of the Milky Way. They’d put the relics of the Galactic Federation to work.

Azazel and Apollia sat on a lawn dusted with starlight like frost.

“What did you do to her?” Yekase cut to the bone.

Azazel said, “We brought her in to look at the stars.”

Apollia said, “She felt the weight of the world, like a mountain on her chest, and she went under.”

Azazel said, “Like an alchemist’s sensitivity to concepts, I guess. She cried—just like that.”

Apollia said, “Then we soothed her, and painted all sorts of little dresses onto her.”

“…Body paint?”

No—that which they painted could manifest, making real arcane attire. Still, whichever way you flipped it, it looked like body painting.

At least nothing indecent had happened; Yekase finally let her breath out, a winter bird freed.

…

After a while, a maid automaton walked up to Artemis and dipped a perfect curtsey, ribbons fluttering like swallows.

“Greetings, Princess Artemis.”

“What now?” Artemis’s face set like someone walking toward the gallows.

“I am Princess Dorothy’s maid automaton, Lymriel. I will deliver you back to Mysidia.”

“Oh…”

With her Sorcery stripped, Artemis saw nothing out of place and missed Beelzebub’s and Mostima’s snickers, sly as foxes behind a hedge. She only wanted out—fast as wind down a valley.

As long as she reached Mysidia—as long as she reached that place—

Lymriel lifted the petite princess in both arms. The softness pressing along Artemis’s side made her crawl out of her own skin, like plunging back into the little painters’ costume hell—weird arcane devices tracing ink across her, pictures turned into clothes, mirrors and poses like puppets on strings… No one could ever know.

Thankfully they gave her a “normal” garment at the end; even if it was a white dress like sleepwear, she swallowed it like bitter tea.

Lymriel reached the airstrip, spoke no spell, and fired thrusters from heels and lower back, taking to the sky on twin comets.

The whole way to Mysidia, it stared straight ahead, stiff as a statue, no breath, no unconscious motion; that chill steadiness soothed Artemis like cool shade.

They dropped onto the Krasus Platform.

Artemis’s lost, fragile look melted; she wriggled free and flashed a fox’s grin. “Heh, you fell for it! This is my escape route!”

“…………”

Lymriel folded its hands and stood, obedient as a shrine bell, no reaction to the proclamation.

So the alchemical mind had no script for this scene.

Artemis picked a mage guard nearby and ran up, little legs drumming like a sparrow’s. “Guard, I’m issuing the city’s highest order! Declare Arcadia permanently non-allied, and ban Luciferin from entry forever!”

The guard lowered his gaze like a winter sun.

What… what was this…

Usually, being sized up from above would stoke fury like dry pine. Now, something strange fluttered in her chest.

“Little sister, do you need help? Lost your family?” the guard asked, voice gentle as worn leather.

“I am—”

…No. Wait.

Little sister. Everyone would see her as a little sister.

If she said “I’m Endymion” here, wouldn’t she turn into the world’s punchline?

The revered, lofty lord of Mysidia; Dean of Lamaison Mage Academy; Magus-King Endymion, whose streams run bottomless and whose knowledge spreads like a sea—

Broken into his office by three intruders at midnight; Sorcery sealed by wicked rites; trussed like zongzi and hauled off… then turned into a girl who couldn’t cast a Tier-One heal, and skittered home in disgrace?

Should anyone know? Should this go public?

No! Absolutely not!

“I… um…”

“Look closely—you and Her Majesty the Queen are cut from the same mold. That gilt hair, those deep blue eyes… Might you be…?”

Lightning cracked through Artemis’s mind; the sky opened a path.

“Yes! Take me to my empress—my mother!”

To reach the right people, Artemis threw the veil aside.

“Eh? But your ID…”

Artemis sketched a rune in the air, a sigil only she and the empress could use, then wiped it in a heartbeat. That flash hit the guard like a drumbeat.

“Yes, I’ll take you at once!”

Artemis nodded with borrowed majesty, a crane wearing a crown.

“What about the maid automaton who returned with you?”

“Mm, bring it.”

Evidence of Luciferin’s crime, pinned like a butterfly.

The guard ran his eyes over Lymriel; she wore a perfect smile, unblinking as porcelain.

“Automaton, come with us.”

“Lymriel is in public mode. Receiving command from unfamiliar user. Executing.”

Mysidia’s alchemical automata—especially maid units—carry, besides the normal owner-only mode, a public mode. In public, anyone can command them, handy as lanterns at large gatherings.

Lymriel followed them through winding halls into Mysidia’s highest tier, the mage tower built among tree crowns like a nest of glass.

The guard stopped at the door; Artemis took Lymriel inside, steps tiny as rain.

The rumor Yekase heard—Endymion hadn’t set foot in the bedchamber for years—was true. He was a classic workaholic, his rest carved thin as paper, all poured back into craft. Now, walking the tower’s living quarters, she felt alienated, like returning to a hometown after a flood.

No—besides long absence, there was something else…

Her lowered eye line and shrunken body skewed the world, furniture looming like cliffs.

The rooms felt bigger; the skirt drifted like a cloud; the underside was empty as a hollow gourd. Every sense whispered she was barely a girl past ten.

Damn it. Once I’m restored, they’ll pay in stones and blood—

…Empty?

Artemis froze and looked down.

Two small buns, just budding, pushed at the air, stubborn as first shoots. Below, a concave curve nearly made her faint—there was no white dress. Only white paint the little painters had brushed onto her skin!

Why had she believed they hadn’t used their power?

Because her Sorcery sense was gone?

What do I do what do I do what do I do—

Scholar of ten thousand volumes, and not a single page held a solution for this hell.

“—Who’s there?”

!!!!!!!

That voice—the Magus-Queen Selene.

“Who trespasses in my bedchamber, sneaking about, behavior ill—”

The voice drew near like nightfall.

To be seen by one’s wife, even if marriage was politics, with a butt painted white—

“Hmm? You are…”

Selene paused at the sight of the same gilt hair, reached past Lymriel—watching like a theater mask—and gently, firmly turned Artemis’s face toward her.

Two pairs of sky-blue eyes met.

One pair bright with curiosity; the other skittering with anxiety.

“Ah… you’re frightened. Come to my room. I’ll find you a pretty dress, and brew you flower tea.”

“I…”

“Maid, you come in too.”

“Lymriel is in public mode. Receiving command from unfamiliar user. Executing.”

Selene took Artemis’s hand and led her deeper into the bedchamber; the corridor felt like a dusk river, and Artemis’s heart went gray.

Ha. Find a chance to end it.