The hard part wasn’t getting past the security check, at the castle gates. Nor was it making a wrong turn from the open to the regular path to reach the gala. It wasn’t sneaking into the stable, either. No one was home other than the horses that night.

But.

The hard part was getting Apple Sauce into the fucking elevator.

“Can’t we give her an apple or something to help?” Henry asked.

“Absolutely not. Apples are good for a sweet treat; but they need oats and grains more than they need--”

Bailey caught herself and scoffed, which made Henry a little sad. Was she undermining her own horse girl expertise?

“Okay. Whatever. I’ll get the carrots…”

The carrots helped, but only so much. It was a damned thing to get her even close to the elevator. There was a profound humbling feeling to it.

They got her into one of the elevators. She huffed as the door closed.

“Thank goodness the elevators are big enough for this,” Bailey said.

“What, that they fit her?”

“Yeah. If they didn’t, I’d never have thought to bring her into this…”

With that, the pair got into the other elevator. When they emerged from it, they would do so as Sorceress and Knight, which was completely surreal and totally silly.

Weird.

Actually, ‘weird’ was an understatement. To take a mantle as heavy and loaded as that, to take on the role of an Enemy of Society itself… it was a little exciting. Perhaps, somehow, it was even nostalgic.

He recalled sitting in church, back in Lantern Springs, hearing about how horrible the Knight was. Oh, look, this man… listened to his wife? Did what she asked? What was so bad about all that?

“You alright, Henry?”

He snapped back into the present, in the elevator, with Bailey. Her hand was on his shoulder, resting there like it was always meant to be there, like the pair of them were meant to exist in the same space together.

“Just thinking about the past, I guess,” he said.

“Oh?”

“Church and everything.”

Bailey nodded. Her hand stayed where it was, and Henry was so thankful for that fact.

“We’re going to be… we’re going to be Knight and Sorceress. When these doors open.”

“Yeah…”

She laughed, quietly, like how a person laughed when they wanted to avoid their voice carrying. It was a secret laugh, between only her and Henry.

“You know, I had the damndest dream the other night,” she said, “I… I talked to her. The Old Sorceress. She…”

Bailey huffed.

“I don’t think it was just a dream. She said some things, you know. About… all four of us. About who we could be, if we wanted to.”

“Who we could be?”

“Regardless of whatever was in our pasts, we don’t have to do this. Being one of the Enemies… I don’t know. It’s a choice. It’s a role we can play, pick up and put down.”

Henry nodded.

“Well, I’ll choose to be your knight as long as you choose me to be yours.”

She took his hand in hers… she was so warm against his skin. Her dark dress glittered like a night sky of a summer evening.

“I hope you’re ready, my knight,” she whispered, right in his ear. The whispering made him feel all tingly inside.

“Ready for what?”

“To fuck shit up, love.”

And with that, she gave him the biggest, wettest kiss, and then put on her masquerade mask.

“I was ready before I was born,” he said, and put on his helmet.

***

They burst through the ballroom doors, the two of them, atop their grand steed. Apple Sauce reared up on her hind legs and kicked up at the air, making a grand whinny. Henry damn near fell off, but he managed to clutch his arms around Bailey’s stomach and hold tight.

Whatever the hell was happening at the dinner table in the party stopped dead, and all eyes fell upon Sorceress and Knight on Apple Sauce the horse. The stares were multiple in their meanings; relief, or terror, or anger, or (in Lillian and Hannah’s cases) lust.

Bailey waved, and Henry got off Apple Sauce.

He said, with a dark delight to his voice, “Ladies, Gentleman, and those who know better! Introducing She who needs no introduction: Her Lady the Sorceress!”

This went over as well as could be expected. The Order guys all freaked out, in their own special ways. Sir Byserson, who was on the floor for some reason, stood up and took a long pull of his beverage. Sir Frederick’s fists balled up tighter than a locked deadbolt. Lord Gaius stood up and glared at Bailey. The various underlings of theirs, their weapon-men, all echoed these three responses in some measure. 

There was a great sound, made of many concurrent sounds. Party guests yelled, or laughed, or screamed. Glasses were knocked over, plates clanged against, feet or fists met floor and table. A couple of weapons were drawn, sheathed, and drawn again.

Then, when Henry offered his hand to Bailey, and when she took it and dismounted Apple Sauce’s saddle, there was a great silence. The shine of drawn blades was a glare in Bailey’s eye.

“Hello,” she said.

No one responded. Bailey’s smile found a nice sharp angle to rest at as she took a step forward.

Several people moved back, so as to maintain distance from Bailey. This was her cue to keep on approaching, with her giddy heart in her churning stomach. A few of the shining blades found their sheathes again– no one was ready to actually fight the Sorceress and Knight. Three and a half centuries of waiting, and no one was prepared to do the deed.

At least, not yet. 

There were two unoccupied seats, at the far edge of the table. Henry went up to them, and pulled out the chairs in advance of Bailey’s ambling arrival. 

“Oh! How chivalrous,” Bailey said.

“Of course, my lady.”

She took a self-satisfied seat, and he followed suit. Every single one of the table’s occupants looked at the two of them. Most eyes were the size of saucers; others were obscured by furrowed brows or angry little squints.

“So! What’s for dinner?”

“This audacity is astounding,” Lord Gaius said, “what makes you think you can just barge on in like this?”

Bailey leaned back in her seat, so as to really make herself at home. Her blood was pounding in her ears, cold terror in her veins, and she was smiling through it.

“Your flyers proclaimed this to be a public event, o good knight. I consider that as good an invitation as any. After all, isn’t it said that I am among the public? That I am forever at risk of emerging from the masses? Well, here I am! Emerged! And I’m hungry. What’s this everyone’s having?”

“Chicken,” Lillian offered.

“Perfect! Let’s eat!”

A member of the staff (who looked suspiciously similar to Yulia) brought her and Henry plates of chicken, soup, and vegetables. Said member of the staff also gave them Looks, and it was hard to not say ‘Hi, Yulia’ in response. Bailey kept her cool, though, and pretended to have no idea who this woman in the black-and-white dress uniform was.

The table returned to dining, but conversation did not spark again. When people did speak, it was with their bodies angled away from Bailey and Henry, like that would protect them from their corruptive influences. The joke was on them, of course. The corruption had already begun.

Dinner ended abruptly, when Bailey wasn’t even halfway through her soup. 

“I’m still eating this,” she said.

“There’s snacks,” Belladonna, who was for some reason the staff member collecting her food, hissed. “Don’t -- don’t get me in trouble. And don’t touch the white wine.”

Fair enough. Bailey didn’t want to get anyone fired, even if it was unclear how the hell they were actually there and working that job in the first place. She let Belladonna collect the plates, and soon Yulia and Carly (and some other staff Bailey didn’t quite recognize) came and collected the chairs and silverware.

Bailey pondered, for a time, what the hell Yulia and Belladonna were doing there. Was a week and four days really enough time to get work at the castle? Or… what…

She put that thought on the shelf, because Emma approached her with a cross look on her face.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry,” Bailey said through her Sorceress smile. “Do I know you?”

At this, Emma fumed. This put a spiteful joy in Bailey; if she couldn’t get her sister to feel familial love for her, hate would make an acceptable ersatz. Either way, it sure beat no feeling at all from her sister. Neutrality was the worst of all possibilities.

“Oh, fuck off. ‘Do I know you?’ Who do you think you’re fooling? I see right through this shit, Bailey. You can play immature dress-up all you want, but I know it’s you there.” Emma was using her glass to gesture about in various orthogonal lines. It made her anger more palpable.

‘Immature dress-up’, hm? Bailey chuckled, in that way a villainess of some power might. Could this stunt be called immature, or perhaps emotionally unhealthy? Eh. Who cared?

“What is this you’re doing, here, anyway? Are you trying to embarrass me? Make me say ‘sorry’? Because I won’t. This dumbass stunt is only embarrassing yourself.”

“Well,” Bailey laughed.

She smoothed some creases out on the surface of her dress. This was an intentional move, because if she wasn’t using her hands for anything else, she might wring out Emma’s neck and yell at her. But Emma wasn’t the central person she was mad at… So her wrath was staid.

For now.

“You seem to think that my presence here is about you, stranger. So let me give you a word of advice: most things in this world are not about you at all. I’m here to cause a ruckus, yes, but I don’t know you, you didn’t factor into my being here, and the second you exit my line of sight I will forget you exist. Do we understand each other?” She smiled, but not out of joy or mirth. It was a dare, in a way. Yell at me, the dare said, tell me how much you despise me, Emma. Resolve the superposition that’s haunted the life of Bailey Thistle; are you her sister, who cares for her, or are you her sister, who despises her?

Instead of resolving this question, Emma screwed her mouth shut and spoke but one sentence:

“You suck, Bailey.”

And with that, Emma turned tail and walked off to another part of the ballroom.

It was only a few seconds after that that Bailey noticed her muscles quivering and her fists balled up. She had to inhale and exhale about a dozen and a half times before she could relax her shoulders or let her stomach muscles loosen up.

“Are you alright?” Henry whispered.

Bailey set her jaw weird and exhaled.

“I will be. Let’s get some snacks.”

***

Emma Raymond drained her fourth glass of wine. Whatever cosmic force had decided that that night was ‘kick Emma in the face over and over’ night was starting to fray her nerves.

She felt, with white grape alcohol swimming in her stomach, like a house just about to catch fire. She felt like an oven seconds before it imploded due to faulty design. Emma felt like she was going to…

It was okay. It wouldn’t matter soon.

The machine was ready to go, after all. Dorian was ready to go. All she had to do was have a few more glasses of delicious white wine and--

Woah.

Her dad was sitting on the ground, cradling a whole bottle of white wine in his lap. Most notably, he was sitting smack dab in the middle of the floor. Her father wasn’t leaning on a wall, or sitting in a chair, or anything else. He was a self-supporting tower, on the edge of teetering over into ruins.

“Dad? Are you alright?”

“Hmm?”

The world was swimming around Emma a little, but she could stay stable. Her dad, on the other hand, could do no such thing. He was not moving from his spot, because sitting on the floor was the height of his abilities at the time.

“You… that speech. Are you okay? You don’t usually talk about… all that.”

“Oh! That! Yes. I’m wonderful!”

She was unsure about that, to be honest.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah! Got it all off my chest,” he smiled, for some reason, “Oh… you know. I miss your parents.”

“You’re my parent. There’s no one else on this wretched rock who raised me.”

He exhaled.

“I guess I am. I’ve done as close to -- as close to right by you as I can. But, damn, I’ll always miss…”

He didn’t say their names, which was a thankful thing indeed. If Emma had to hear ‘Ozma’ or ‘Patrick’ she would vomit on the spot… or was that the wine? It was a little hard to discern where one reason to throw up ended and another began.

“You know, Emma, you know. Your mother was ready to do it. To give me… es-- a potion. Woman potion.”

Emma had these neat little mental partitions going. Most of them concerned her dad, honestly. Any time he said something like ‘Your bio mom was going to help set me up with estrogen’ or other such thing, she put that in the ‘straight to incinerator’ partition. Considering this fact made her feel things, things she would not allow. The anger and despair, that strange little feeling that something was wrong and that she had been wronged in some way and that everything was unfair...

No. She’d already forgotten it. If she let the words sink in, if she pondered her dad’s little speech, she might lose her cool. So, boom! Up in smoke it all went. What speech? 

It was that easy!

“Anyways, Emma, how are you?”

“Bad. Everything sucks.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Her dad drank to that.

She cast her eyes over to Bailey, in her stupid little costume. Both intruders to the party were gathered round the horse they rode in on; Bailey patting its flank, Henry feeding it a carrot.

“What the hell do they think they’re doing?” she wondered aloud.

“Who? The Sorceress and the Knight?”

Her dad made some noise, like maybe he was in pain, or like the wine was really seeping into his body.

“That’s not them. That’s Bailey and Henry doing some dipshit scheme.”

“Probably revenge then.”

Emma sighed, “Yeah. That’s childish enough to fit the bill.”

Childish, like a kid crying for her mother. Childish, like shouting ‘I hate you, I want my real mom and dad’ at one’s parental figure. Childish, like trying to avoid going to church. Bailey was going to have to grow up one day; she would see the value in drying the tears, quieting one’s voice, and going to church and folding one’s hands and paying attention to the sermon.

“I don’t think that speech was a good idea,” Emma said, “You made it sound like a confession of guilt.”

“I had to say it. I couldn’t… hold it back.”

“Dad.”

Her father frowned at that word.

“Yes, I am that, aren’t I?”

“What else would you be?” Emma asked.

Before he could answer, something unfortunate happened. The unfortunate thing was that Lillian was approaching, wearing her smile as smugly as her silvery vest and Inquisition jacket.

“Well,” Lillian said, “Sir Frederick. Quite the show you gave us all.”

“Piss off, Lillian,” Emma spat.

Lillian didn’t even look Emma’s way. What a bitch!

“I have to say, for a man who wants to escape my report unscathed, you are doing a wonderful job handing me ammunition for your downfall.”

“For my sins,” said Emma’s father, “I will not be judged. You must know this. The violence I have done is what the church wants. I am a hero, in the church’s eyes. Feel free to judge me, Inquisitor, but you won’t sink me.”

“Yeah, so shut the fuck up,” Emma put in.

Lillian Stone bit her lower lip; was that a fang, or just a long incisor?

“Mmm, I suppose. We will see.”

“I feel sufficiently threatened,” said Emma’s father; “are you done?”

“Oh, this is no threat.”

Her grin was fang-toothed, that much was clear. Not only that, but her eyes crinkled a little. She was feeling genuine joy at this scenario! How dare she?

“It’s a promise, Sir Frederick. Good evening!”

 

***

 

There was a wide berth given between Bailey and Henry and the greater mass of the party, but it grew less and less wide with time. People seemed to be, if not more comfortable, at least less uncomfortable with their presence. 

This was a bit of a mixed bag. Lord Gaius (with a crowd of Order men clustered around him) was drawing near, over the course of long minutes, which was not great. The good news, though, was that other people were also coming closer. There was curiosity in their eyes; whether this was a violent curiosity or not was the question.

It made Bailey quite nervous. Thankfully, brushing Apple Sauce’s mane proved a quiet comfort. It let her channel her focus and energy away from the eyes (eyes like blades, stares like primed arrows) that stared and into something more constructive.

“Psst,” Henry said, “Lord Gaius inbound. Game faces.”

She kept on brushing Apple Sauce’s mane, but she wore a more arrogant and tyrannical smile and body language as she did it.

“And who is this?” she asked, when Lord Gaius’ shadow was over her back.

“Your sworn enemy,” said Lord Gaius.

“Be more specific. I have a lot of those.”

This prompted an exasperated noise from him; Bailey laughed, quietly, but with an evil tone. Advice from her predecessor echoed in her head; when it comes to church people, talk to them as you might an ant. It really gets on their nerves.

Or, to say it was ‘echoing’…

Her and her predecessor in the Sorceress role would take a great deal of time to sort out and untangle.

“I am Lord Peter Gaius of the Order of the Platinum. I am the latest of a long line of heroes, dragonslayers.”

“Oh, you’re the one from earlier. From dinner,” Bailey chuckled, “ah. Yes. This is quite the party. I thought you dragon slaying types would be just fuddy-duddies.”

“You’re scaring away my sponsors.”

“Good,” Henry said.

Lord Gaius’ hand reached for the blade at his side -- but he didn’t draw it. The men behind him followed his cue, and had their hands ready to commit grievous violences. But the Lord of the Order’s hand sat there, at the sword’s hilt, and kept on sitting and sitting and never removing it.

“My sponsors will probably complain if I rearrange your arteries into a straight line, so I will let you live,” he said, “but I have my eye on you, and my hand at my hilt.”

“How magnanimous of you,” Henry replied, with a sweet tone to his voice.

Out the corner of Bailey’s vision, she could see Lord Gaius glare at Henry. Was this sizing Henry up? Because there was no point in it. There wasn’t a competition (and Henry would win it if it was a competition).

“I always hated the Knight the most, of the Four.” Lord Gaius said, “I kill dragons for a living, but I have a deep abiding hatred for a man who follows his heart over his duty.”

“And yet there you are, following your heart’s hatred!” Henry replied.

Damn. Henry was beating Bailey in the ‘haughty villain’ affectation. She’d have to step up her game!

“Watch your step, monsters.”

“Perhaps we will! Thank you for the advice! Enjoy the party!” Bailey said.

‘Enjoy the party’ was a very fun way to say ‘fuck you’, as it turned out. Lord Gauis stalked off, and for a moment, it looked like one of his followers might take a swipe at them…

One of them did, but before the man could draw his blade on the pair, his face grew sickly, and he grasped his stomach, and ran for the ballroom doors.

Huh.

 

***

 

Emma wasn’t feeling so hot.

She had thrown up once or twice… but so had several other people at the party, too. There was a line of unwell-looking people in front of the washrooms.

“Did you have any of the white wine?” someone had asked her, while waiting in line. “I had eight glasses, and I’ve had to run here three or four times.”

It was a short trip back to the ballroom from the washroom corridor. But between the twin turmoils of stomach and emotions, the trip could have taken all thirty years of her life. She kept walking, though. Emma would make it back, and she would have more wine, and…

Was it the wine? Was it a bad batch of it? She probably should go and warn her dad about it, just in case.

Oh, whatever. Bad wine or no bad wine, she still felt like a sack of rocks tumbling over each other as they fell down a hill.

She made it to the hallway leading to the ballroom; the doors were at the end of the hall. Dusty hoofprints were there, tracing their way back from the doors to however the hell Bailey got a horse to the tenth floor.

But there was something else unfortunate there, by the doors.

“Hi, Emma,” Alice said.

Enough was, as they said, fucking enough. Emma could put up with only so much before she just gave up. She was going to go to Dorian and be rid of this whole version of the world. Some other version of the here and now would have to do.

“I’m done. Fuck this. I’m going to Dorian and turning his blasted machine on now. Goodbye.”

“Machine?”

“Yes. This is the last time you and I will ever see each other. Good riddance, Alice. I hate your hair and you dress like a stereotype.”

Emma left her unfortunate twin with a rude gesture and a slight wobble to her step.

***

 

Wreckage.

A woman who refused to say who she was.

That was where the dream went next.

“You have to guess,” she said.

“Dorothy Gust?”

“Never heard of her.”

Bailey took to examining the woman’s office in search of clues. The first thing she looked at was the graphite etching of the four nude figures, tangled in each other’s embraces, since that seemed like a good starting point.

The mysterious woman was there, in the etching, naked as hell. With her was a bearded man, also naked, but with his lower half obscured by a bedsheet. Near both of them was a woman with feathers on her chest and clawed hands… and then another woman, with a crown of flowers weaved into the top of her hair.

“I like this etching,” Bailey said.

“Thank you! My partners and I love our silly little memorabilia.”

“These three are all your partners?”

The woman nodded, with a smug twinkle in her eye.

“You know… I guess we have a lot in common, whoever you are.”

“You seriously don’t know? This is a mystery to you?”

“It’s on the tip of my tongue.”

The mysterious woman stood up, and came to examine the etching alongside Bailey. There was a slight grin on her face, but it was unclear what the grin was about, exactly.

“I’ll tell you, then. I’m the S--”

“No, no, I’ll get it! I just…”

Okay, what did Bailey know about this woman? She looked a lot like Bailey...she was a leader of a revolution… hmm. Who could this be?

Wait.

Wait!

“No…”

The woman smiled, “Yes, Bailey.”

Okay. Leader of a failed revolution; she looked a lot like Bailey, who people called ‘The Sorceress’ sometimes, for mysterious reasons…

“You’re the Sorceress.”

“I was the Sorceress, past tense! But yes. Or… okay.”

The Sorceress, the Enemy of Nation, Church, and Light, the woman who the Church’s whole religion was organized around hating, rubbed her hands up and down her nose. A deadly sigh escaped her as she did it, too. It was akin to the noise someone made when rubbing at an old wound that still hurt some days.

“Mm. I’m what’s left of her, rather. No matter! I’m enough of her for this conversation, at least.”

“Left of her?”

“I already said no matter!” The Sorceress smiled.

Bailey rolled her eyes. All right.

“The key point that I need to impart on you is this: this little idea of yours, this revenge scheme? It’s a bad idea.”

“You said you would tell me how I would succeed, though!”

The Sorceress let out a sigh as great as the carnage outside.

“You really are my successor, aren’t you?

“Bailey, it’s a bad idea; but if you’re like me, you’re about to do it anyways. I may as well intercede and make sure you don’t totally screw up.”

Bailey balked at that, “Excuse me?”

“Listen. You saw what happened when me and some friends of mine tried to build a better world! That was a bad idea, too. But damn it, we did it anyway.”

Silence passed between them for a moment or two. Bailey got restless and looked around the office some more, since that was a better pastime than wrenching answers out of a dead(?) woman.

“The point is,” the Sorceress said, “I know a thing or two about fucking up the church. There are some things that are tantamount to kicking a hornet’s nest. Plus…”

Plus?

Bailey cocked her head Sorceress-ward. For some reason, there was a contrite look hanging over the dead woman’s face. She didn’t look particularly dead, then and there, but she did seem awfully haunted.

“If you haven’t gathered as such, you’re asleep. This is all in your mind. I… I’m a ghost, essentially. Haunting your brain. I’ve been haunting your brain since the day you were born.” Then she added, “Sorry.”

“No harm,” Bailey said.

Wait. Bailey’s brain was haunted? She had to chew on that for a second. Or… a lot of seconds. It crawled into her frontal lobe and got comfortable in the bends and twists in her mind.

“Wait…”

“Okay, not haunted, as such. It’s more like, you got most of my soul after I died? And I’m the leftovers. I’m the echo in the concert hall after the orchestra’s begun to leave, while you’re the main show.”

Okay. So…

Bailey…

“What are you… saying? I’m the…

“No. Wait. No! Nope.”

The Sorceress clicked her tongue, and shrugged.

“You’re saying,” Bailey said, “I’m… the… reincarnation. Of… you. Or the rest of you, while you’re the leftovers?”

All this got from the dead woman was a sharp nod, and a “Yes.”

Bailey wished, more than anything else in the world, that that didn’t make sense. If there was a single objection she could raise…

No. It made sense. For some reason, it clicked. How many times had people/talking plants/various entities called her ‘sorceress’? Why did the idea of claiming the title of ‘villain’ seem so familiar and… almost comfortable?

Yeah.

Fuck.

“So me coming up with this idea… I was,” she sounded like a deflated cushion, “just. Following a predetermined path?”

At this, the Sorceress put her arm on Bailey’s shoulder.

“No, Bailey. Do you know how many lifetimes I’ve echoed across? No one else has been like you. No one has been like me. We’re mirrors, you and I, but… you make choices all the time. Decisions on decisions. Nothing is set in stone, not even the church’s power. Okay?”

“Okay. So… what, then? What do I make of this, then?” Bailey asked.

The Sorceress grinned.

“If you’re going through with your ‘take on the role of the Sorceress and ruin this party’ idea… I am more than happy to assist. The mantle is yours to take. Hell, I’m not doing anything with it!”