It wasn’t going to be Lillian’s first go at breaking and entering. Far from it, in fact. But, being as rusty as she was, she had to make some preparations.

So there she was, on the roof of Emma’s tower, watching the chapel with a spyglass.

“Means of ingress through the roof, perhaps?” she muttered. Mumbling and muttering and other ‘m’ words for talking to herself was a hard habit to break; it made her seem odd and eccentric, like a nail just begging to be hammered down. At least no one was there to--

“Whatcha doing?”

Lillian fumbled the spyglass, and Hannah, the source of her shock and surprise, caught it as it rolled down the incline of the roof.

“Bird watching. How did you get up here?”

Hannah narrowed her eyes.

“Bird watching.”

“Yes. I’m looking for the great northwestern booby.” Lillian snatched the spyglass back.

“I’ll bet you are.”

Hannah smirked, in a way that could only mean, ‘That was meant to be a horny joke, in case you missed it’. She was always so thoughtful about that sort of thing.

“Yes. Well. It’s a good vantage point for birds.”

“How’d you reach it?” Hannah asked.

“I asked you that first, if I recall,” Lillian said, with a hint of rhetorical play to her words. There was nothing quite like a good verbal sparring in her book.

In response, Hannah laid down across the incline of the roof and let out a contented sigh. This was a clever trick of rhetoric indeed.

“Bedsheet grappling hook. I’m shocked you didn’t hear me coming up.”

“You used bedsheets?”

“Yeah. Bailey’s.”

“Now hold on--”

If Hannah had used Bailey’s bedsheets… hm. Perhaps Lillian could get some laundry done. It would only be right, as a guest encroaching upon Bailey’s space, to pitch in somehow.

“How’d you get up here, though? And why are you totally barefoot? It’s freezing today,” Hannah asked.

Because Lillian had climbed using her dragon claws, and she didn’t want to ruin her good pair of boots. As it turned out, the problem of icy walls was no match for a frost dragon, adapted for the environment of glaciers, frosty canyons, and tundras.

It was a miracle that Hannah hadn’t noticed the clawmarks in the wall.

“I have my ways,” Lillian said, “what brings you up here?”

“You, you doof. We’ve barely had time to catch up.”

Oh, yes. True.

“Alright. Let’s catch up. How have you been?”

Hannah sat down and laughed like a squeaky wheel on cracked cobblestones.

“Honestly? Quite bad! Life in Lantern Springs wasn’t the same after you and Henry left. There was a real lack of schemes and troublemaking without you two.”

“What, you didn’t keep up the trouble on your own?”

Hannah shook her head, with a wistful sort of shrug.

“Couldn’t. Had a lot of eyes on me; Dad made sure of that. Course, he can’t see me now!”

Lillian laughed, but it was an uncomfortable chuckle; maybe Hannah’s father did possess some latent psychic nonsense. It would explain how she, Hannah, and Henry had been caught.

“So it’s back to the trouble, then?”

“Maybe, yeah,” Hannah smiled. “But this time I want to be more discerning. Constructive trouble is my goal, you know?”

“Indeed…”

It was odd, settling into the silence with Hannah. Being alone and silent was substantially different from being with another person and silent. Neither spoke for a good long while, watching the stillness and sitting around.

Hannah’s old habits kicked back in almost instantly; she hummed to herself in the quiet and tapped a finger against her thigh. It was a strange thing, to be without someone and their little quirks for so long, and then so suddenly to be back with it all.

At some point, when Lillian returned to gazing at the chapel building again, Hannah spoke up.

“So… if I’m recognizing the patches on your jacket right, you’re an inquisitor. That happened?”

Oh. That. Yes. Shame flushed through Lillian’s limbic system.

“Yes. It happened like an avalanche.”

“Ouch.”

Lillian adjusted her spyglass like a prisoner fiddled with their fork during their last meal.

“It was an inevitability, I’m afraid. Even if we’d managed to stay under the notice of…” Lillian bit her lip, “well, you know who, I would have been sent off to university young and then complete my training bouncing this way and that across the land.”

“But I can’t help but notice you were pointing that spyglass of yours at that big old chapel… What are you up to? Is there perhaps a little bit of trouble left in you?”

At this, Lillian gagged on her own spit like a prisoner choking on their steak during their last meal. How was she so observant? It took a great deal of analysis for Lillian to gather basic social information; how Hannah could draw any conclusion, let alone a correct one, was unthinkable.

“I’m bird watching,” Lillian lied.

“Yeah, and I’m a high luminary of the grand court. Lillian, you’re up to something. I want in.”

Lillian exhaled through pursed lips.

“I can handle this myself. The great northwestern booby isn’t that hard to find.”

Oh, good, Hannah was chuckling; the last time Lillian had heard that laugh, she’d been caught bluffing at cards. Or had it been spin the bottle with her and Henry?

“Lillian, when we broke into the church on a Saturday night, we used ‘birdwatching’ for an excuse to case the building. You can’t get this one past me.”

“Well, this time I mean it. I’m going to find this booby.”

“The way I see it, you’ve already found two, in that Bailey girl.”

Lillian snapped her spyglass shut.

“I’m sorry, I was too busy looking for birds, what did you say? I seem to have misheard you,” she said.

Hannah smirked.

“I said you’ve got the hots for the hot girl, you gay little creature.”

“Creature I may be. But am I really that gay? Am I? I don’t think I am.”

What came next was Hannah giving Lillian Stone a piercing look, the kind that made her feel less like an inquisitor and more like a sparrow about to be shot through the heart with an arrow.

“I have a scar on my neck from when you tried to give me a hickey and ended up biting me instead, Lillian. Come on.”

Of all the fucking stories to bring out, of all the things to remember, it had to be the damned hickey incident. Lillian scowled at the memory, because fuck it, it was so embarrassing. But also despite herself, she laughed. Her scowl couldn’t hold underneath the mirth.

“Alright, yes, yes. I may be a little gay. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Hannah’s smirk could have split wrought iron in half.

“What’s your favorite thing about Bailey? Or things, if there’s multiple.”

Her voice. Her style of dress. Her honesty. Her--

“I hardly know her, how could I choose a favorite?”

Bailey was the sort of person Lillian could get lost in; a whole universe of a person. Those soft expressions… Not to mention the little things that drove Lillian wild. “Stay, if you like,” Bailey had said, before changing in front of her.

“Damn it, I am a gay little creature,” Lillian said.

“Yeah you are. Emphasis on little. When did you get so short?”

“I’m tall and fearsome. Rawr.”

Hannah chuckled.

“Rawr indeed!”

Oh dear, Lillian had said that ‘rawr’ thing aloud. Fuck. Oh well.

“Rawr, yes,” Lillian said, “I could give a seminar on it.”

“You should!”

“I will.”

Silence passed between them for a second, but Hannah broke it with a direct hit to Lillian.

“So you’re breaking into that chapel, yeah?”

What… how?

“How the hell do you manage that? Are you psychic? You’re psychic, aren’t you?”

“No. I just want to break into something again, and I figure if there was some good trouble you’d know where it was.”

Well, fuck. Alright. May as well tell her what was up.

“Yes. I am doing that. But I don’t want anyone else getting in trouble for my foolish ideas.”

“Okay, fine. But what’s the motive?”

“There’s a person who has something I want. They want me to steal something from that building, and I get what I want in exchange.”

That was the best way to collapse the situation into a simple explanation. And when she framed it like that… this whole chore sounded kind of fun. Trouble was inevitable, after all, it was all about choosing the right trouble to take on.

“That sounds good to me. It’s worth the risk?”

Lillian let out a laugh, the kind that was red with embarrassment.

“Goodness, I hope so,” Lillian said.

“Can I help?”

It was an inevitable question...

Fuck it. It was everyone’s funeral/imprisonment!

“Only if you promise to not do the actual break-in part. I would hate to see you free from everything just to see you get entangled in law and the church all over again,” Lillian said.

“I won’t get caught, cross my heart.”

“You said that last time.”

“Well this time I mean it,” Hannah said.

 

*****

 

It came as some surprise to Lillian that none other than Sir Fucking Frederick was down in the dining room, conversing with Emma. He stood there, talking, as if he hadn’t been missing for the past two or so weeks.

“Good evening.” Lillian cleared her throat.

“You know, Emma, I think we should continue this--”

“Oh, no, never mind me, dear Sir Frederick. I’m pleased as punch to see you in good health.”

Lillian Stone’s mother tongue was anything but passive-aggression and insincerity, but she was extremely adept at learning new languages. With a smile that could only be plastered on and fake, she turned her attention right towards him.

“Yes,” said Sir Frederick.

“Indeed.” Lillian smiled.

“I’m going to… go make some tea,” Emma said.

She went over to the kettle and set it upon the stove.

“So, o sir knight, where have you been? I was terribly concerned for your health, you see.”

At that, the oh so brave sir knight who once led a murderous charge against a peaceful commune avoided Lillian’s gaze.

“I’ve been busy.”

“Too busy for chapel, even?”

“Exceptionally busy,” he said.

Maybe being mean was a bit much, but she simply couldn’t help herself.

“I have to thank you, you know,” she said, with soup dripping from her voice. “Being called here was the best thing that’s happened to me in a good while.”

He took a step backwards. Some fanged, hungry part of Lillian took great pleasure in his fright; cower, it snarled, cower little knight. See where your heroism falters before me.

“Well -- Yes. You’ve certainly made your presence known.”

“Now that I have you here, would you mind terribly if I asked you some questions? After all, you did send the summons. I should hope you could help me in my quest to right the wrongs your Order has wrought, yes?”

Emma cut in with two cups of tea in hand, one of which she handed to Sir Frederick. She drank from the other one, curiously leaving Lillian without a beverage of her own. Whatever could it have meant?

“Lillian--” Emma said, her voice censorious and laden with warnings.

“No, Emma, she’s right. It’s fine. I’ll talk.”

“Wonderful!” Lillian grinned.

 

***

 

“Why did you summon me?”

They were in, in a sense, Lillian’s domain.

Well, actually Bailey’s. It was Bailey’s bedroom in the tower. It was the one space where Lillian Andrei Stone felt truly comfortable, enough that she was ready to throw her power around.

“I didn’t summon you, necessarily. I was hoping for an inquisitor, not any specific one,” Sir Frederick said.

Ah. Okay. Right.

“Fair enough. That said, why summon an inquisitor, if you were going to hide the whole time?”

“I want no part in what comes next. You inquisitors are only good for something when there’s nothing worth salvaging.”

Was that a value judgment on Lillian’s worth as a person, or on her function as a cog in the church machinery? It was one of those ambiguities Lillian would have to study and dissect later. It was the only way she’d survived social interactions after being away from Henry and Hannah.

“What do you mean by that?” Lillian asked.

He clacked his teeth together and knotted his brow.

“To untie a knot, you’re going to burn the rope. My Order has its reckoning coming, but I don’t want to go down with it. I wash my hands of it all.”

“That really isn’t your choice. Are you innocent of your Order’s crimes?”

“I have no hand in the money, and our crimes are, as you should know, financial.”

Oh, financial, was it? Was that all? Lillian felt her canines and premolars sharpen. It was time to push a little further.

“What about the ‘battle’ of Ancient Gulch?”

Sir Frederick exhaled.

“I don’t want to--”

“You’re the one credited with that victory. You’re a hero on the back of the destruction of a decently large community. Sir Frederick Raymond, you are no innocent.”

He balked at her, mouth agape at the pointed finger at him.

“What kind of inquisitor are you? I was following orders from above. You ought to know that. You’re entangled in the same web as I am. We are both the spider and the fly, Lillian Stone.”

“May I share something with you, o sir knight?”

He said nothing, which was enough for Lillian.

“When I was a young,” Lillian’s mouth refused to utter the word ‘girl’, and thus filled in a substitute, “creature, I was on occasion taken to the world past the walls of the Inquisition headquarters.”

“Most of the time, these were visits to family in Watermilfoil. My uncle is a high-ranked member of the local clergy, as I’m sure you are aware.”

She breathed in, and let frigid air fill her lungs.

“During these visits I was forced to socialize with my cousin, Pietra. She’s a bloodhound hunting down dissidents for Internal Security, these days. But back then she was a but a whelp whose only form of play consisted of the perversely cruel; removing the legs of insects and watching them flail around helplessly was a favorite of hers.

“The longer I’m here, the more I feel that your Order is founded on this same basic impulse. You are, of course, beholden to the church and the high luminaries same as I…”

She frowned at it all; the High Luminaries in their judge’s chambers, Grand Inquisitor Roderick Stone collecting dust along with the ancient furniture in his office, Lord Gaius and his dead dragon merchandise.

“But the culture of fear among your initiates, and the bloody history that you and the other two men who run this organization have? They lead me to believe that you’re the children, pulling legs off insects. Except with swords, and more social power.”

Lillian smiled, but it was the sort of insincere smile that she’d learned by watching other people. A smile ought to have been a real thing, in her book; but being able to lie and be passive-aggressive had its upsides.

“I haven’t picked up a sword since that day,” Sir Frederick said.

“Does that help the dead? Or the kidnapped child who considers you her father?”

Perhaps it was a low blow. Lillian didn’t particularly care.

“You leave her out of this. I saved her,” he said.

This seemed to be a rhetorical move that switched the conversation from his crimes to a more personal realm… but Lillian was far too curious to hear his defenses. She indulged him, for the sake of that curiosity. Some intuition within her gnarled its teeth at Sir Frederick, even as she spoke again.

“You saved her? From what?”

“She got to transition young because I was there to guide her through the red tape. She’s normal, thanks to that. One day, she can find a respectable husband and live a holy life. I saved her from…”

A respectable husband. Lillian’s stomach turned, a little. Sure, she had a love for men, but it was her own; to have such a thing prescribed from the outside fucking sucked a whole lot.

“From the people who turn themselves into monsters in pursuit of transition. From the community that would taint her by association and risk her getting hunted by bloodhounds like your cousin.”

“Taint her,” Lillian echoed.

She considered that for a moment. Being one of the people who turned themselves into monsters in question (though not for the purpose of gender transitioning, wouldn’t that be silly)… hrm.

“You’re an odd, odd man. I think I may pity you.”

He frowned at her; Lillian’s face betrayed no emotion in return. Now was the time to turn back to business.

“But. If you want clemency when I am through with your little boy’s club, you had best make yourself useful to me,” Lillian said.

“Yes. I understand.”

She smirked. Her teeth were quite sharp beneath her tight lips.

“Good. You may go now.”

The second he was out of the room, Lillian collapsed onto the bed from a rush of social exhaustion.

 

*****

 

Bailey returned to the tower walking on clouds. A date! A real one! Yeah, yeah, she helped some probably-trans people out, which was cool, but the important thing was that she had a date with Henry!

So when she made it to her bedroom to find Lillian collapsed on the bed (and the bedsheets on the floor near the window?), she had to pause for a second.

“Hey there,” Bailey said, “what’s… what’s going on?”

“Too much talking today.”

“Want me to get you something to eat?”

Lillian nodded into Bailey’s pillow.

“Alright. Sit tight!”

She ran into a very pissed-off Emma in the common room, but she paid her bitter old hag of a sister almost no heed. Between walking on clouds because she had a date and the urge to look after Lillian… she was busy.

“What are you so happy about, huh?” Emma asked.

Bailey caught herself humming as she cracked some eggs open; it was probably irritating Emma.

She resolved to hum even more.

“First Lillian, now you. What’s got everyone so smug? Did I miss a memo?”

“No,” Bailey said, “I just have a date.”

“With ginger boy?”

While Bailey made an irritated noise, she also added some bread to the egg concoction. Emma knew Henry’s name, for fuck’s sake.

“Yes. With Henry.”

The eggs and bread sizzled in the pan, and neither sister spoke. Emma walked over to the counter and leaned against it, fixing her gaze upon Bailey’s whole peppy atmosphere.

“Took you long enough,” Emma said.

“I took it at the pace that made sense. If we’d rushed it…”

Emma shook her head.

“It was painful, watching you two dance about the issue.”

“Bite me,” Bailey said.

“Your eggs are burning.”

Oh fuck.

Bailey took the singed concoction off the stove in a jerking motion and set it down.

“Slick save, there,” Emma said, with an evil grin.

“You turned the heat up with a spell, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement disguised in the grammar as one.

At that, Emma only shrugged.

“Who’s to say?”

“Hag.”

“Brat.”

Both sisters frowned at each other, mouths pressed into straight lines and brows folded like sharp valleys in a mountain range. This went on for several moments, with Bailey straining not to lose her shit laughing.

Sadly, neither of them could last forever. Emma broke and laughed, and Bailey, in a cascading effect, laughed too.

“Thanks, Bailey. I needed this.”

“What, bullying your innocent little sister?”

“If that’s what you call it,” Emma laughed. “I’m just glad you’re here, you know?”

Bailey nodded.

“Me too.”

She took up the pan with the singed toast and eggs.

“Help me get this right this time? Lillian needs something to eat.”

“Sure.”