Marisa shifted away from Harley and got up, offering a hand.

Together, they faced what should have been the broad doorway to the dining room. Harley reached into both pockets and brought out the collection of glittering keys, five brightly-coloured glass disks.

“Presumably these go in the spaces with the right colours,” she said, and began to methodically fit them into place, one at a time. Marisa studied the arrangement instead: there were actually six sockets, linked by lines, but one had no colour.

As Harley dropped her hand from the last one, the crystal immediately around each began to glow, each a different colour—and none was the colour of the current disk.

“I think I know what this is, Mistress,” Marisa said. “Slide the disks along the lines until they’re all in the correct places. I’m good at this kind of puzzle.”

“Go to it, then.”

It only took her a moment to rearrange them.

A bell dinged somewhere, and the crystal wall in front of them simply melted away.

“This should be it,” Harley said. “End of the game, just whatever we were meant to be after.”

Marisa darted ahead, into the dimly-lit room—it might be reckless, but right now, she badly wanted to just do something.

The dining room was now... not really anything, just shadowy impressions within the darkness. There was a halo of white light immediately around the table, though, which currently looked like a simple stone column about the height of the backs of the chairs. Long swathes of silky fabric, black and red and pink, were draped around the edges, but the top was plushy padded white velvet.

Lying on it was a golden crown with stones set all around the outside. In the very centre was a large brilliant diamond; flanking it were a pair of rather pale pinky-purple amethysts, and just outside of them, a pair of watery-blue aquamarines. Other stones formed a bright rainbow the rest of the way around, growing gradually smaller as they got farther from the diamond.

Next to the crown was a large old-fashioned key, also made of gold.

Marisa picked up the key and turned it thoughtfully in her hands. The decorative end could, if she squinted, look like it had cat ears, and little glittery stones formed a green feline eye ringed with pink.

“It told me that this would make sure that, in character, I’d never have to depend on my mistress’ goodwill ever again, or have to be a servant any more. Complete freedom.”

“A key. Interesting symbolism, that. I was told that I’m supposed to be seeking that crown, because it will greatly improve my chances of taking over the whole draconic empire.” She picked it up, balancing it on her palms as she looked at it. “I was also told that if I had both objects, there would be no doubt at all.” She reversed the crown and set it on her head, where the diamond sparkled above the red stone on her forehead; absently, she twitched her long ponytail out from under it. “And all this cloth... I bet it could be used to tie up an impertinent cat.” She tugged one pink length free, and twisted it in her hands. “Serviceable, and soft enough to be comfortable.” Wings spreading slowly, she regarded Marisa measuringly, still playing with the fabric.

Marisa backed away, clutching the key. “Maybe, Mistress. Might not be that easy.”

Harley smiled. “True, but that’s not why I’m not going to.” She dropped the fabric on the pedestal. “I’d rather have it because you chose to give it to me.”

“What? Why would I do that, Mistress?”

“Because it would give me more power than either of us alone, which I could then use to make sure that we both have everything we want.”

“Which only works if I trust you to honestly have my best interests in mind, Mistress.”

“Yes. It does. And if you can’t trust in that, I’d rather you kept it.”

The key or something more metaphorical? Marisa wondered.

Either way, confronted with an immediate decision to make, she really didn’t have any doubts.

She came closer and offered the key on her open palm.

Harley laid hers over Marisa’s, and closed it with the key inside, the golden claws trailing ticklishly along Marisa’s skin.

“How would you feel about a kiss?”

“Uh... I think that’d be okay, Mistress.”

“Good, because that feels like the right next step.”

It was a very light and chaste kiss, despite that. Part of Marisa was disappointed; part of her was relieved. Too much still needed to be figured out.

“I believe we’ve finished the game, at this point,” Harley said, raising her head. “Shall we go see what Claudia says?”

“Sure, Mistress.”

“I know, all done,” Claudia said, when they returned to the living room. “And it’s reading as having achieved partial success.”

“So it will let us shut it down normally?” Harley asked.

“Um... I have to confess something.”

“Yes?”

“The, ah... the problem was a bit of witchy hardware. In extremely-simplified mundane terms, a circuit breaker tripped and took two others with it so it stopped responding to meta commands. I reset them just before I heard Ris say ‘Mistress’ the first time. I know what tripped it and by now, Sal and Juanita have probably already figured out how to keep it from happening again. Or at least know exactly what the weak spot was and are working on it.”

“What?” Marisa said, and heard her pitch and volume both spike on that syllable. “We could have ended it any time? Then why...?”

“Because I know what happened when we were testing it, and everything I saw and heard pointed towards you two being close to realizing something important? And I love you guys and I wanted you to have the chance to figure it out under, well, basically safe conditions, just each other and me here? Buried stuff coming to the surface can be awfully uncomfortable but tends to be a good thing in the long run, and I want you happy. So... I misled you about the glitch.”

“Claudia, I...” Harley started, then trailed off, and sighed. “Seriously, I don’t even know what to do with that.”

“Ditto,” Marisa said.

“Three out of nine at WyrdTech had stuff unearthed, too,” Claudia said, “but we thought it was because of interacting with it repeatedly. It was a bit rough at first but they’re all happier now. I can’t give you details, that’s way too personal. I honestly didn’t know it would go that deep in one session—if it even did, and if it wasn’t right near the surface trying to break through anyway?”

“It might have been,” Marisa admitted. “But I’ve been resisting pretty hard.”

“I don’t buy the cultural stuff about romantic or sexual relationships automatically being more intimate than a solid genuine friendship, even if we’ve devalued ‘friend’ completely these days. You two have a more intimate and supportive and honest relationship, by any name, than most people I’ve ever met. I’m actually a little jealous? Except not exactly because I know you’re both my friends and I’ve been waiting for life to be a little less insane so I can spend more time with you? Not saying I was matchmaking or anything, because that is always a train wreck waiting to happen, but you told me ages ago about why you decided to keep everything strictly non-romantic. Marisa being all submissive-cute, and the two of you acting like that... I’m sorry, I absolutely could not resist the possibility that those barriers are less absolute than they looked? I mean, choosing to still keep things strictly non-romantic is up to you, obviously, but, well, like you told Marisa, informed and deliberate decision, not denial or assumptions? I wanted you able to have, outside the game, what you stumbled over inside it.”

“There is some logic to that,” Harley admitted. “And I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done the same, in your position. Were you one of the three who had anything deep unearthed?”

“No. At least, not so far. I’m not saying that I don’t have anything that I’m not aware of, just that it wasn’t triggered by anything yet. The game part is proof of concept, and we weren’t planning on selling this as a home device anytime soon, not unless we can make sure we aren’t going to inadvertently trigger an epidemic of psychological crises. Setting up locations where people can come and play under controlled conditions, like an escape room or lazer tag, possibly, as a way to pay the bills and a demonstration that we really did it, although you’re right, we need to look at how to add even more constraints.”

“The mental health field is going to both love you and hate you. Don’t make a habit of lying. Once, in a complicated situation, I’ll forgive. Not repeatedly. Trust can’t survive that.”

“I know, and I’m sorry, I just... well... you know. I’m going to start repeating myself if I keep talking. I’m just... really sorry.”

“What Harley said sounds about right,” Marisa agreed. “I need to do some serious thinking, but I don’t think there’s any actual harm done, and it might lead somewhere good.”

Claudia let out a huge sigh that sounded relieved. “Oh, good. The questionable ethics and how mad you might be only occurred to me later. So. Go ahead and tell it to shut down. It’ll respond properly now.”

“But I like looking at calico Ris with kitty ears and a tail and dressed like that,” Harley chuckled. “All right, I suppose we can’t stay in it indefinitely, and we should save and all before the power runs out. Ready, kitty-cat?”

“Yes, Mistress.” Marisa wasn’t quite sure how she felt about her own ambivalence about being back in her own skin and jeans.

“Reverie, save and exit.”

“Saving,” a neutral, vaguely-feminine voice said. “Exiting in five... four... three... two... one... goodbye!”

Light flickered, and the living room went back to its usual comfy, casual, unglamourous self. So did the three people within it.

Harley looked down at his hands, and Marisa saw his expression change just before he sank down on the couch. “Oh fucking hell. I might know what we missed.”

“What? Are you okay?” Marisa hastened over to sit beside him and slip an arm around him; Claudia, getting up from the floor with care and several more steps than Marisa used, immediately settled on Harley’s other side.

“Just... give me a minute. Let me test a hypothesis in my own head before I say anything that might be jumping at nothing.”

“Being wrong’s okay. But whatever. Take your time.”

The room was quiet for a long few moments. Marisa did her best to shove her own tangled feelings away—if something was upsetting Harley, that was more immediately relevant.

Harley heaved a sigh that seemed to come from down around his toes. “There is a distinct possibility... nope, that’s not strong enough. I’m pretty sure I just had a sudden revelation, that sounds more accurate. That my avatar, despite the dragony bits, is more genuinely me than this,” he gestured vaguely at himself, “is.”

“Could be,” Claudia said. “I know mine is. But why?”

“You know how, when you’re swimming, you step into the water and become weightless and it just feels natural, but then you have to come out and suddenly it feels like you weigh half a ton and fighting gravity feels like the universe’s practical joke?”

“Yes,” Claudia said, and Marisa nodded.

“I’ve got a little of that,” Marisa said. “I really miss my tail and ears and my skin looks wrong. I guess I’ll have to get used to reality again. Really bad for you?”

“Pretty intense,” Harley said. “Like, almost feel like crying, intense.” Marisa tightened her arm around him, and felt Claudia do the same. “That quick trip to the bathroom earlier was... jarring, even kind of disorienting, but I pushed that away as just the quick swap back and forth and effects from Reverie. This is worse. Much worse. And now I’m wondering... how much of my aversion to cameras of any kind is not liking what they show? I chose a medium where it’s all text on a screen and no one sees me, except in a crowd at tech shows and such. I switched from using my unambiguously masculine first name to my neutral middle name, and I’ve given half a dozen reasons to people but I was never quite sure which was real. Honestly, a million little things that I never really thought about, but a million drops add up to a bucketful, even if some of them might be false positives with other explanations. Right now... I was perfectly happy two minutes ago. I should still be happy. We wrapped up the first beta-test of an amazing game, we have had an enormous amount of fun despite the glitch, Claudia has data to use to refine it further, we still have pizza and we can relax and debrief at will, I’m looking at an evening with my two favourite people. But I am feeling absolutely miserable all of a sudden, and everything feels wrong, and that has never happened before. Not like this.”

Marisa said nothing, just listening. This seemed like a bad moment to interrupt.

Another profound sigh. “Honestly, how deep can denial run? I’ve had a few trans friends and more acquaintances. I’ve done virtually every Hallowe’en as a woman, and the let-down after that is as close as I can think of to how I feel right now but I figured that was just because dressing up is fun and life doesn’t have enough opportunities. I virtually always choose female avatars in games and I told myself it was because it’s a good way to check how much the devs pay attention to detail, since male sprites are always considered the default. And it didn’t click until just now. But man, did it ever. I can’t even honestly say ‘I think maybe it could be possible but it needs some consideration.’ Now that it’s actually gotten through it’s just... just right.”

“Well, that’s going to have some tough moments,” Claudia said. “But you aren’t alone. I’m not going anywhere. And I’m pretty sure it would take a crowbar the size of the CN Tower to pry Marisa away from you. If then.”

“Not even then,” Marisa said firmly, resting her head on Harley’s shoulder. “Not sure what to say except that whatever it takes for things to feel right, I’ll do what I can.”

Harley wrapped an arm around each. “That’s plenty, Ris. Thanks. Both of you. Refusing to see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there, and Reverie didn’t create the situation. Figuring it out now, or in ten years... well, this might ultimately be the easy way. But I don’t think I’m looking forward to the near future. This house is going to be home to epic levels of thinking and re-evaluating, separately and together, for a while.”

“If you need me, yell,” Claudia said. “Even if it’s just to pick up takeout somewhere or to be a third-party shoulder to cry on. Whatever I can do.”

“We still love you but you were naughty,” Harley said. “I’m considering tying you up and tickling you mercilessly or making you watch UFO conspiracy videos or something so you remember about honesty in the future. Also because it would be fun and distract me from the mess in my own head right now.”

“Um... I’m okay with the first part of that...”

“She didn’t do anything that evil,” Marisa said. “I mean, c’mon, cruel and unusual punishment.”

“Well...” Harley drew out the last sound thoughtfully. “I’ll think about it. Right now, Ris and I have both had stuff ripped rather abruptly into the light and I think a bit of just chilling would be a very good plan. A bit of psychological aftercare for a power scene that wasn’t supposed to be one. Movie, more pizza, some friendly no-ulterior-motives cuddling, and maybe checking what we have for self-indulgent treats in the kitchen?”

“Also checking on the cats,” Marisa said. “They’re probably up in my bedroom in their favourite box and haven’t even noticed anything odd, but we should make sure. But the rest of that plan... sure, as long as Claudia stays.”

“That was part of what I was thinking, yes.”

“You sure?” Claudia asked. “I can go. And take this box with me. We’ll swap out the part that malfunctioned and make sure the new version will hold under more strain.”

“You can do that later,” Marisa said. “Right now, you can sit the heck down and watch a movie with us. There must be something on one of the streaming channels. Maybe on the silly side, not too heavy or emotional?”

“Agreed,” Harley said. “We need a break from heavy and emotional.”