Avaritia dragged me through the portal and into a strange not-place that was neither dark nor quiet, but a place where sight and sound lacked any meaning whatsoever. I could have lost my mind there, if we’d stayed too long. Instead Avaritia Wolf pulled us both out on the far side of nothingness.

We stumbled into a dimly lit palace. It was a horrible place, but at least it was a place. That made it comparatively comforting. It was, however, not so comforting that I didn’t fall to my knees in a nauseous dizzy mess.

Something brushed against my back, surprisingly gently. Avaritia’s claws were weapons that could block even the Saints’ powers, could cut through concrete or steel or even that strange void itself. It was easy to picture them tearing through my spine and ending everything. And yet, she rubbed my back with surprising delicacy, a moment of quiet care utterly incongruous with her past actions or her attitude toward me.

“It’s not so bad once you get used to it,” she said, not unkindly. It seemed even knowing exactly what kind of pond scum I was deep down didn’t stop her from expressing some kindness in the wake of that terrifying nothingness. Perhaps monsters simply knew their own.

Eventually I managed to stand. I wanted to run, whatever compulsion to obey that let her bring me here having faded in the void. But, where would I even go?

We stood in a profoundly ostentatious hall. It was wide, but poorly lit, and I couldn’t see the ceiling in the gloom. Cyclopean columns held up, strange monoliths to some forgotten age. We stood on a long purple carpet leading to a massive set of double doors on one side, and a much thinner hall on the other.

“Come on,” Avaritia stepped past me and grabbed my arm, roughly pulling me toward the doors. Whatever moment of shared suffering had stretched between us was gone now.

They parted before her, groaning loudly as they allowed us into a polished throne room. It was illuminated by pale blue lanterns attached to the walls. At one end stood a throne, carved from what seemed to be solid obsidian. Sitting in it was Mr. Noir.

I had no clue why Avaritia had grabbed me and my poor innocent school guidance counselor, but if one of us was going to escape it was clear that he deserved it more than me. I could tolerate being kidnapped. This was hardly the first time, even if it was the most extreme. I couldn’t let them involve an innocent (in whom I’d confided all my darkest secrets.) I smiled at him in greeting and then, just as he started to speak, threw myself at Avaritia with every bit of force I could muster.

“Run!” I shouted desperately, “I don’t know why they captured us, but it can’t be good. I’ll hold her off! There has to be a way for you to escape.”

I failed to budge Avaritia, who mostly ignored the attempt. For a moment, she looked more surprised than offended. Then she doubled over laughing.

Mr. Noir, for his part, looked mildly offended, “I assure you Charleton,” he said, with a disapproving glare at the greedy wolf, “that I have no need to run! For I!” he paused dramatically, “Am the master of this domain!”

“What,” I shook my head, “Look, this is no time for jokes! You need to run while she’s distracted!”

Mr. Noir shook his head, “I suppose your loyalty is admirable, if not your intellect.”

Behind us, Avaritia finally got herself under control, only to break out into giggles again at Mr. Noir’s aside.

Then he raised a hand; the light took him and Avaritia’s laughter died. It swallowed him up from head to toe in apocalyptic glory. I closed my eyes and turned my head and still found myself blinking dark spots from my vision. Only when it faded did I dare look back.

Mr. Noir had become a demon. Still thin and reedy, he was even taller now, with his hands and feet replaced by scaled claws and a set of large golden curved horns on his head. A massive pair of bat-like wings tipped in spikes of protruding bone adorned his back. His eyes were slit like a snake’s, but there was something wrong in them; like they held something that was not at all known to life. Those eyes were eerily familiar.

“I,” he said in the same reedy voice, “am Superbia Dragon, Beast of the Abyssal Forest! Viceroy of Sin!”

I bit my tongue to prove I wasn’t dreaming. I wasn’t a magical girl at the moment, so I obviously wasn’t having one of those dreams. But the idea that Mr. Noir was evil was simply so impossible. I guess it made sense that he kept asking about sin and becoming a beast and destroying society’s rules and living a life of pure egocentrism. And he was always saying nasty things to me while trying to help. Okay when I put it like that it seemed pretty obvious, but he just seemed so...

Moments ago it had been beyond doubt that he was good, that I should trust him. And now I found any attempt to think back on our conversations tinged with fear and disgust in equal measures. I remembered where I had seen those eyes.

“You messed with my head,” I accused. I was terrified of course. This was worse than any monster attack yet. But the betrayal left me too hurt to give in to fear. I didn’t open up about my feelings. It never worked out and even Inessa didn’t get to hear everything going on in my head. Mr. Noir had knocked down those walls and dredged up thoughts better left sleeping on the promise of helping me. And then he’d used them to twist me around in the worst ways.

He shook his head, “Only to help you of course! You weren’t yet ready to face your true potential, to open yourself to the power of Luxuria and take all those things you’ve denied yourself for so long.”

Avaritia rumbled behind me, a low menacing growl that left little mystery of how she felt about that proposition. I guess it made sense. This probably wasn’t how they made normal monsters, so Superbia was trying to turn me into a new lieutenant or something. And obviously Avaritia wouldn’t want to work with someone like me. Noir must have told her about all our talks; another betrayal for the pile.

Superbia paid no attention to my simmering mix of fear, disgust and self-loathing. I hated how easily I was lulled into going along with his manipulations. Magic or no, I knew the desires that he spoke of were all too real. His influence had found purchase because a part of me craved that kind of easy self-realization.

“You see, when you kept getting attacked by monsters it was plain to me that they were drawn to you because of the great potential hiding in you. When we met, I was able to confirm your potential and verify the presence of a satisfactory darkness in your heart. It was just a matter of divining its form in its nascent state—lust of course—and drawing enough out to the surface that you would be a qualified vessel for this!”

He held something up to the sky: a large black seed about the size of a finger. “Behold! the Seed of Luxuria!”

I tried to break and run past Avaritia. No matter how useless, there was no way I was going to let them turn me into fertilizer.

Naturally, it took her all of a second to sweep my legs out from under me, then grab my arm and drag me to my feet, twisting it behind my back as she held me up to face Superbia Dragon.

“I can forgive your disrespect in light of your unfamiliarity to our cause, but I assure you that you’ll appreciate this in time Charleton,” even now I winced at the name. I didn’t even let dad call me that. Everything else he’d done was disturbing in the worst ways and somehow that pushed it over the line. What kind of terrifying magic had let this guy pass as anything but an absolute creep?

The seed floated up from his hand, bleeding darkness into the throne room as it floated slowly toward me. I struggled with everything I had, but couldn’t escape Avaritia’s vice-like grip. She seemed all too glad to see me suffer.

Slowly it crossed the distance, pausing ominously in front of my forehead for just a moment.

I screamed, I begged. Neither Superbia nor Avaritia nor the seed paid my pleas the slightest attention.

With a crack, the seed shot at me. Then it thudded painfully against my head and bounced to the ground where it rolled harmlessly to the side.

For one agonizingly long moment all three of us stood there in silence.

“Was that supposed to happen?” I asked awkwardly.

The scathing look Superbia sent my way provided a strong indication that no, that was not supposed to happen, and also that it was probably my fault. That would show him for having expected anything from me.

“Obviously our estimations of his readiness were premature. No matter, my plan is perfect and he shall come to harbor Luxuria in due time.”

“Avaritia Wolf,” the girl dropped to one knee, leaving me unguarded. I wasn’t brave or impulsive enough to take the chance to run, “this is your fault for grabbing him before he was ready. Push him over the edge and I will allow this mistake to go unpunished.”

She froze, cold sweat visible on her brow, and lowered her head. “As you command Lord Superbia.” I wondered how much worse he must have been to her than me if the fierce wolf who happily fought three against one with Inessa, Temperance and Ida was so terrified of disobedience.

With an imperious wave of his hand, Superbia dismissed us. Avaritia wasted no time silently dragging me out of the throne room and down the long corridor in which we’d materialized into the rest of the demented castle..

The palace was impossibly labyrinthine, full of all sorts of strange rooms. Avaritia marched quickly. The layout proved no obstacle to her. Her strong grip on my arm as we went kept me from getting lost or making an escape. I had room to absorb very little of our surroundings in any depth. But I spied glimpses of boxing rings and swimming pools and studio stages, all in the same brooding gothic aesthetic.

The one thing I didn’t see was another living being besides Avaritia and me.

“Look,” she said with a grimace, “I have stuff to do and I’m sure neither of us wants to spend any time with each other.”

I winced at that, “Sorry,” I offered reflexively, then winced again as I realized I’d just apologized to my kidnapper for being an inconvenience, “I can’t imagine you’d want to be stuck dealing with me.”

Avaritia’s lip twitched into the beginning of a smile that she ruthlessly tamped down.

“Look, just, nap or something or whatever you need to get a handle on yourself and I’ll be back once I’ve done some other jobs. Then we can hash out exactly what we’ll do with you.”

I tried to thank her, out of reflex as much as anything else, but found my room door slammed in my face before I could manage a word.

I waited a few anxious minutes, then tried the knob. The door was locked and throwing myself against it proved entirely useless.

The room had nothing in it but a carpet and a large four poster bed. That left me with little opportunity for anything but my own thoughts and fears. Mr. Noir had betrayed me; I’d opened up to him in a way I barely opened up to anyone—and okay most of that was probably mind control or hypnosis or whatever—and he’d used that to drag me here. And I’d just let him do it. I’d looked up to him and…

I threw myself at the door in frustration, earning nothing but bruises for my efforts. Eventually I tried punching a pillow instead. That also didn’t help, but it was a lot less painful.

After who knows how long, the roaring fire of betrayal that threatened to burn my heart gave way to a much slower and colder feeling. I was trapped and not even Inessa could save me here. They would try to use me and then, because I was me, probably fail. Then they’d get rid of me and I refused to imagine that outcome as anything but a negative.

I should have spent my time trying to find my way out. I did manage the door a few more times, but it proved resistant to my nonexistent lock-picking skills. Besides, there came a point in worrying where it was easier to turn my head and stop thinking about things I was powerless to change. Eventually sleep claimed me.

---

I woke to the sight of Avaritia’s lupine eyes staring down at me.

“Wha?” I asked awkwardly as I recalled exactly where I was and why.

“Feeling better?” she asked, sounding marginally less upset at my existence than she had earlier.

“No,” I admitted after taking a few moments to process the question, “bad dreams.”

“Okay fine,” she accepted, “maybe kinda our fault, but I’ve officially run out of other things to do. Believe me, I’d rather be anywhere else but, well..” she shrugged. Superbia’s orders were not to be disobeyed.

“Okay,” if I wanted to escape, I needed to lull them into security. That meant playing along, “so now what?”

“What’s your deal?” she asked, crossing her arms defensively in front of her chest.

“What?” I asked cleverly.

“Look, whatever Superbia said, we can both sense the darkness radiating off of you. You’re practically coated in sin and if anything it’s only gotten more intense since you’ve gotten here. Now, sure, neither of us is as good as Gula was at interpreting that, but you’re more than ready enough! So what’s your deal? Why didn’t Luxuria bind to you?”

I hesitated, “I don’t know? It probably should have. You said it yourself, I’m a sick freak right? I’m not hiding that anymore after I basically shouted it to the entire school, so, no, I don’t have a clue why that didn’t work!”

She bared her teeth for a moment. I flinched. She sighed, then shook her head energetically from side to side, clearing her thoughts.

“Okay,” she said, “let’s take a step back. What did you shout to the entire school?”

Great, now even Lupin’s evil doppelganger wanted to catch up on gossip. Still, I’d said everything I’d been holding back to people whose opinions I valued far more. I’d admitted what Mr. Noir had pointed out to me. And I was more than bitter enough at Avaritia and all of her monsters: the endless kidnappings; the powerlessness, the harm they did to everyone around them. I could inflict my issues on her and feel only a little guilty about it.

“I told the entire school that I’m a pervert,” I thought I had, I honestly couldn’t remember exactly what I’d said to Temperance’s impossible suspicion. “I see girls, even ones who I’ve known so long and been so close to for practically my whole life and I can’t stop thinking about how beautiful they are. I get fixated on it and no matter how hard I try the thoughts just keep bouncing around my skull. And I just end up wishing…”

Avaritia’s claw reached out toward my throat before she visibly restrained herself. “Wish what Charleton? Do you want to kiss them? Date them? Sleep with them? Own them? Tie them up and keep them in your basement?”

Despite the sudden panic, the knowledge that I was inches away from death, I couldn’t help but recoil at that last image.

“No, that feels gross to even think about! I just want, you know, something!”

“Something perverted,” she said slowly, “but nothing romantic or sexual?”

“Exactly!” Finally someone got it! Perhaps she should have been the sham guidance counselor instead of Superbia.

For what it was worth, I seem to have succeeded in leaving Avaritia exactly as mystified as I was by all of this. And, well, it was oddly relieving that even an otherworldly incarnation of sin would find me as puzzling as I found myself.

Slowly, she withdrew her arm and placed her palm to her forehead, “Okay. First, we really need to get you a dictionary. Second, take a step back. Who do you think you’re fixating on here the most? Who makes these feelings the strongest?”

The answer was as easy as it was uncomfortable, “Castitas,” I mumbled. I’d had fantasies involving Temperance and I. I’d told Mr. Noir that I dreamed of being with her the most; and it was true. But it wasn’t her image that worked its way into my thoughts and refused to leave.

“Right,” she flicked an ear, “And how, exactly do you feel when you imagine Castitas.”

“It’s,” I hated admitting it. I hated bottling it up even more, “She’s beautiful and strong and powerful and she always knows what to do to save the day and here I’m just useless garbage who keeps getting kidnapped, who can barely keep his grades up and always needs to be rescued. Like, I see her and it’s not even worth trying really, because I’ll never manage to be half of what she already is.”

Avaritia’s eyes softened and something unrecognizable made its way across her face, “So you admire her. And that makes you a pervert? Walk me through that,” the anger was mostly gone now. Confusion having supplanted it so thoroughly, there was little room left to look down on me.

“I, uh,” I couldn’t hide it unless I was ready for her to tear me to pieces. “I dream about being a magical girl all the time, about joining them and getting to be that strong, heroic and cu-cool and that’s weird because I’m not a girl, so I definitely don’t get to be a magical one and boys shouldn’t want to be magical girls in the first place! And even if I somehow could, it’s not like someone who only wants to show off or be special would deserve it. ”

There, I’d said it, now Avaritia could go back to treating me like the scum I really was. Instead, She stared at me in absolute bafflement for what felt like hours. Finally, something seemed to spark in her eyes. It spread throughout her face, which obligingly morphed into a knowing grin.

Her smile was wide and enthusiastic and showed altogether too many sharp teeth for my comfort. Somehow she seemed to have looked at me and seen an entirely different person.

“Ohhhhhh, no I take it all back,” she was practically bouncing in place for some reason. “This is great! We’re going to be the best partners ever and wow did Superbia misread you.”

“I, uh, wha?” I offered lucidly.

“See C!” she paused at that and then giggled, “See C that’s pretty good. Anyway! The seeds look scary and Superbia explained it badly but that’s mostly because he’s kinda a pretentious old guy and honestly your earth books have only made him worse since we got here..”

She shook her head, “What I’m saying is that this will be good for you! And, like, you have a real need for the power and I just so happen to need a cute partner now that Gula’s,” something caught in her throat and she shook her head side to side. “Nope, not moping about her right now, this is C time!”

And then the enthusiastic gremlin was back. Her tail was wagging.

“You have to understand that a sin, at least as far as the Forest is concerned, isn’t an act. It’s not hurting others or making things worse. It’s a state of mind, you know? And, like, take wrath. Lots of people get very angry, but some of them have a good reason and some of them have really bad ones and maybe sometimes you should be a little wrathful, or maybe you need to take a break and sleep it off even if that makes you feel guilty.”

She nodded, clearly satisfied with this explanation. “Everyone has feelings and some of those feelings are dark and they hurt but that doesn’t make them fake or worthless. It’s just a part of you and one you just don’t get yet.”

Okay, yes, she had realized something (or thought she had) and immediately changed the subject and I had no idea why, but that did almost sound plausible. But Superbia’s nonsense had sounded plausible too. I wish I could write off my feelings like that. It would be nice if there was some benign truth I had yet to understand. I couldn’t make myself believe it; not after Superbia had tried the same line, not after Temperance had gone looking for it and gotten so obviously wrong. Also my main experience with Avaritia bringing people’s sins to the surface involved her turning them into monsters and sending them out to wreak havoc.

Heedless of my disbelief, Avaritia continued.

“Some of us need that emotion to face ourselves. There’s a power in it, and maybe it has some barbs, but sometimes people need those barbs to hold themselves together. I used to try to deny my own desires. But Superbia gave me the seed of greed and,” she sighed. “It taught me how to admit to wanting, to be okay with it and it gave me the power to seize what I needed for me and mine, to embrace that desire and make that desperation into a power all its own.”

She smiled at me, “Now, if you were like, a weird creepy incel dude, having to work with you would just suck because who wants to team up with some weirdo perv, but that’s not you C and I’m forbidding you from beating yourself up like that!”

“I, what!?” She had been the one doing most of the beating! Both verbally and threatening the physical. Also I had literally zero idea how we had gone from her figuring out my deepest issues not even I understood to her trying to build a philosophy of sin.

She hugged me, careful to avoid impaling me on her horrifically sharp claws, “Yep, yep! This is going to be perfect. Like, once we get you the right sin it’ll help you out so much and I’ll get a partner who will get it and understand how good all of this is! We can plan together, fight together and go shopping and hang out on weekends. Anyway the point is this will be great for both of us, so just let me stick an evil seed in you!”

“I, uh, I’m not joining you or turning evil? You’ll have to kill me first,” I tried to find some scrap of defiance. Superbia’s violations had raised my hackles in a way I shouldn’t, couldn’t, forgive.

But between the surreality of this conversation going from interrogation to recruitment speech and the way Avaritia seemed so perky, it was hard to keep track of what emotions I was supposed to be enacting here. I could see why Inessa was always complaining about how someone so evil could be so cute.

“Sure you are. Trust me, sin will be a great look on you!”

Somehow, Avaritia being enthusiastically supportive was far eerier and more threatening than her murderous rage. “Besides,” she continued, heedless of my deer in the headlights look, “even if you try to resist, I’m a greedy greedy wolf and that means I take the things I want! And I want you to be my partner and figure yourself out and stop with the whole self-loathing thing and just relax and start indulging in all the cute stuff you’ve never been allowed to have. And once you’re sorted we can show those pesky Saints that actually I’m doing great and I am not at all in the wrong here! Besides, our team is the best; you’ll agree once you get it.”

It was hard to keep up with the conversation. Avaritia was in her own world and I was merely allowed to spectate.

“But, like, let’s take a step back.” she said, “I’m Avaritia Wolf, any pronouns.”

“Oh no!” I flailed, “Everyone’s been misgendering them? Him? Uh, You, right that’s how it works. It’s still ‘you’ when I’m talking to you and, umm, sorry!”

They laughed and patted me on the head, “No worries. I said any so I mean any and that means she is fine. I mean, honestly, I’ve been liking the idea of trying out Spivak a lot lately” I had no clue what that word meant, “But, well, Superbia’s himself and you gotta be careful how you talk to him. And coming out as an enbie would be hard while, you know, just saying that ‘oooh, look at me I am soooo greedy. I have to have alllllll the pronouns all to myself, how strange the nature of sin’ is pretty easy, and he will absolutely roll with basically anything you justify like that.”

“That’s awful,” I winced, wondering what it would be like to be unable to tell your closest companions who you really were. If Gula was gone (I wasn’t going to think about what that might mean just now) I could see why Avaritia craved a friend so badly. Her only remaining companionship was a superior who bossed her around and yelled at him all the time and didn’t even accept them for themself.

“Nah, it works out in the end, he’s totally chill with basically anything you can justify under feeding your sin. Like, with you, when you turn into a girl, we’ll just lie and say you were so overcome by the inertia to fit in that you turned into one of them as completely as possible, and need to use she/her pronouns to affirm your sin or something. He’ll get confused and have a boomer moment and then shrug and go along with it.”

I, what. GIRL? How could they just say that he was going to turn me and I was, how, why, what. That. Thoughts; I couldn’t do them.

“Anyway,” Avaritia grinned despite the grave psychic damage he’d just inflicted, “You’re going to be the cutest bestest teammate who I can spoil and who’ll stick with me to the end unlike that pesky shark!”

Intellectually I knew Avaritia Wolf was evil. Intellectually, I knew she was directly responsible for at least three situations where I’d gotten attacked by a monster. He cooperated with Superbia, who I definitely hated. It was extremely hard to remember that when they looked like an excited puppy at greater risk of chasing their own tail to let off energy than actually hurting anyone.

“And I am so sorry I just assumed you were a piece of garbage who wasn’t even worth scraping off my boot before! Honestly, I should have known better than to trust Superbia over my own instincts on you.”

Okay, it was oddly nice that she wanted to make me a girl friend… A friend! Not a girl, well, she did seem to want to make me both a friend and a girl but not like that and also that second part was very weird and I must have just misheard her. Right; that was just me being weird again, she had definitely said something else. I was not going to ask what because that would be awkward and even if all of this was strange, showing her what a pervert I was wouldn’t actually improve my conditions over whatever idea she’d worked into his head.

But this wasn’t actually good because I still didn’t want to turn evil and hurt my actual friends, even if I did feel a little bad for the wolf now and even if my friends didn’t want to be my friends anymore after what I’d admitted. They were still the good team. I had to delay him until I could find a way out.

“Can we take a step back a bit. You think you know what’s wrong with me?”

They shook their head frantically, “No, no, you see C, there’s nothing wrong with you! Or well, nothing wrong with your head or your feelings. You just can’t want the things you want yet!”

She paused and looked at me hopefully. I shook my head. He hung his theatrically.

“Maybe you can’t explain how you could have it, so you think about it, but you can’t bring yourself to admit you want what you want and legitimize yourself and I could just tell you but then you’d just growl and resist and bite me and then go all guilty and be all ‘woe is me’ for a month and shut down and refuse to think about anything. Gula did that back in the day before we got her sorted out! Anyway, that’s what the seed will help with! It’ll feed on your sins, those nasty dark longings you can’t deal with and then it’ll use that power to give you what you need even if you’re still scared to want it!”

I gave up following Avaritia’s words around the fifth time she said want.

“O-okay, so you’re going to stick one of those seeds in me then?” I couldn’t afford to be passive, and I couldn’t stand against Avaritia. However much they’d inexplicably decided they actually liked me, he could still crush me like a bug. I had to outthink her here, “So I guess you should go get it and I can wait. I’m not sold on joining you or anything of course, but I don’t have a choice so we may as well get it all over with and,” I spoke a little more honestly than I wanted to admit, “if it actually can help me get past whatever this is, I’m willing to try most anything.”

If she thought I was resigned, and left me alone, I could try to run or hide while they went to grab the seed. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the best I had.

Naturally, it immediately crashed and burned as Avaritia snapped her fingers and a dark green seed that looked just like Luxuria appeared in the air between us.

“No need to wait! We’re in the Forest and Sin is fond of its beasts. The seeds are only ever a moment away!”

I had just enough time to regret my chosen plan before she grabbed the seed out of the air and slammed it into my chest with what had to be all the force he could muster.

Sleep’s comforting embrace kept me from worrying what horrors might come.
---

I dreamt of dark roots spreading throughout my body like a second nervous system. They twisted around my spine and stuck barbs into my veins to sup my blood. I tried to scratch myself, to tear at my flesh until I could get them out of me, but the plant would not be stopped. Threadlike tendrils perforated my muscles, seizing control of my body from me. They surrounded my heart in a protective sphere of dark green brambles that tore my insides to shreds with every breath so they could spread more, devouring me inch by inch by inch, until nothing of Charlie remained but a thin skin hiding a twisted sapling.

At least, I thought, I could help a beautiful tree grow.

I awoke to find myself on a soft bed in a brightly lit room surrounded by familiar plushies and pink walls stenciled with all sorts of flowers. I turned to glance at a nearby desk and chair, wincing at how sore my body felt. A redhead sat there, slumped over and snoring lightly, her head cradled in her arms.

So Inessa had saved me again then, her and her friends. They’d charged into danger just to rescue me. There was what looked like the start of a horrible bruise on Inessa’s arm, so it wasn’t even like they’d made it out unscathed; I’d hurt them again with my uselessness.

Something about the thought sent a wave of aching pain throughout my body and I failed to muffle a groan.

Inessa, a light sleeper at the best of times, bolted upright, lifting her arms into a defensive stance and then, without a hint of chagrin, turned and practically sprinted to my bedside.

“C?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” I muttered, “I think. Just a little sore unless I’ve lost a leg or something beneath these covers or they did something else to me.”

“Oh, I’m glad I, uh,” she paused and self-consciously cradled her bruised arm, “Castitas said that she couldn’t find anything wrong with you when she dropped you off and that you seemed to be fine, but that you might need to rest up.”

I nodded. There was no way Inessa hadn’t heard me call her by name earlier, but we still kept the fragile lie between us, “Castitas dropped me off here?”

She couldn’t meet my gaze, “R-right, she probably had, like, magical girl powers to find your home or something.”

“Magical girl powers to drop me off across the street from my house.”

“W-well,” Inessa shifted uneasily, “We, I mean, they couldn’t just leave you with your dad like this. Who knows what he’d do if you needed help or weren’t okay or…”

“He’s not that bad,” I said reflexively, “He’s never actually hurt me or anything. He just hasn’t dealt with mom leaving that well either.”

“C…” she looked like she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.

“Sorry, I don’t want to start a fight about that again. He’s going through a tough time too,” I trailed off awkwardly. This was hell; she knew I knew, she had to. And yet neither of us could bring ourselves to say it.

“Inessa,” I managed at last, “thanks for saving me.”

She eeped and froze, “I didn’t, I mean, what, saved, but Castitas, what I mean is….” she sought futilely for an explanation before sagging into the desk mortified, “You’re welcome.”

“Really, thanks. I’m sorry that I’m always making more work for all of you.”

“C you’re being ridiculous,” she mock glared at me, and just like that the wall was gone and we could go back to being us, “it is not more work to save you from the monsters we’d be fighting anyway. If anything I’m sorry you keep getting stuck in our fights even though you’re not involved.”

I winced as my attempts to shake my head furiously at Inessa’s completely misguided suggestion that somehow she owed me an apology set off another burst of aching pain.

“Umm, C,” she asked hesitantly, “W-when did you figure it out?”

I couldn’t meet her gaze, “I think it was when you were fighting B-Baller? Ida called you by your name and you kept slipping up on calling me C when you tried to get me out of that giant basketball. And then you outed Temperance on her first day of school and also her name is Temperance”

She stared at me quietly, as her face contorted into a rictus of terror, “B-B-B-Baller was NOVEMBER!”

I winced, “You, uh, didn’t seem to want to share and I felt like I had to respect it if you wanted to keep me out of things.”

She hung her head, “Michael thought it would be safer to keep things secret and, well, I can’t tell my parents or they’d worry and I didn’t want to worry you and then it had already been so long and I couldn’t bring myself to say it even if I was worried that you would think we were all hiding stuff from you.”

“That sounds rough,” I offered.

“W-wait, if you knew then then it means that you knew, like, every time you said all those nice things about Castitas or all those times I pretended not to recognize you when I saved you and acted like you were a stranger?!” Inessa flushed bright red as I chuckled awkwardly.

“Well, you know how it is, it seemed important to keep the secret and I didn’t want to put more pressure on you or anything!” I offered a weak defense.

“C,” her voice was cold as she pouted, “That’s not fair! Here I’ve been agonized about having to put on a mask and act all mysterious and you’ve known and been laughing at me this whole time!”

I fought through the soreness to sit up, “Inessa, I knew you were silly long before you were a magical girl.”

She marched over to the bed and thwacked me with a pillow. I did my best to ignore it.

“You’re a hero you know. My hero,” I stifled a groan as I forced myself up and patted her gently on the head. “To think that little girl I had to protect from bullies would grow up to fight monsters.”

“I’m glad,” she hugged me, practically falling onto the bed, “I’ve worried that, with so much time doing this and not being able to say anything and that we’d drift apart or stop being friends or….”

“Inessa,” I smiled indulgently, “you’re like my sister; you know, a bratty baby sister that’s kind of embarrassing because she won’t stop blatantly crushing on every pretty girl at school.” Inessa did not stop hugging me, but she did pinch my side lightly, “I mean,” the words dried up in my mouth. It was hard to reassure her when I knew she’d probably be right in the long term. But that was a thought for another time.

“I mean, I said a lot of pretty nasty stuff before I got caught. I want to blame that all on Mr. Noir brainwashing me, but if you don’t forgive me or you don’t want to see me again or you want me to not be around you in public or anything I’d totally understand. It’s what I deserve.”

The urgency, the pressing need to resolve everything now had faded, but the desires and drives that had made me so vulnerable to Mr. Noir’s influence hadn’t gone away, for all they’d returned to the point where I hadn’t thought of them until I thought about them. Could I trust Avaritia’s words that I had misunderstood myself? I hadn’t turned into a catgirl and Inessa didn’t seem to think I would, so it had probably been another mistake.

Inessa just hugged me tighter, sniffling a little, “Idiot,” she said affectionately, “like whatever you said could be any more embarrassing than that time in fourth grade you said you wanted to grow up to be Princess Sirius.”

“A-anyway, if I’m fine and I have a Castitas approved bill of health, I should probably get home,” I cut that line of conversation off as hastily as I could.

“Nope,” she answered, “not happening.”

“I can’t just steal your bed and what will your parents say if they find out I was in your room at night!?”

“Putting you up here tonight was their idea,” Inessa noted, “they were just super insistent that you stay the night after we managed to talk them out of dragging you right to the hospital. They gave me specific orders to stop you from being an idiot and trying to go back to your place and everything.” The last sentence was delivered with an air of triumph.

“Why?” Why would they feel comfortable letting someone like me here when I could just as easily go home to dad?

“Oh come on, it’s not that hard!” Inessa smiled, “They’ve known you since you were tiny and they adore you, honestly probably more than they like me. When I came out, my mom literally said her only regret was that this meant she wouldn’t get to have you as a son in law. And, well, you don’t talk about home much, but, we know you C.”

Oh. Of course I wasn’t doing a good job at hiding how bitter things had gotten. Of course I was just inflicting myself on more people, when it wasn’t like they could actually change anything or even understand really. Here I was, making myself into a problem they were obligated to look after. I hated feeling like that, especially when things weren’t that bad in the big picture and the plan was to move out in fall to go to college anyway.

But, I was too tired to think about that. And, pity or not, unhelpful or not, the fact that they were looking at me enough to notice, that they cared enough to pity, that felt good.

“Did they really think there was actually a chance we’d end up together?” I didn’t have the energy to process things, and juicy gossip about Inessa’s agonizingly wonderful family was a more than welcome distraction.

Inessa laughed, “I know right!”

We lay there, whispering and giggling next to each other for a long while, using quiet gossip to heal a bond that had begun to fray and to avoid thinking about the larger thoughts lurking deeper in our heads. Somewhere in the middle of that I fell back into a quiet dreamless sleep.

NEXT WEEK ON SHINING VIRTUE ANGELIC HEART!!!

Ida is looking forward to the first lacrosse match of the season. However, her teammate’s fatigue proves just the thing for Avaritia Wolf to create a powerful new Resinner! And, what’s this?! Just as the Angelic Saints think they have the upper hand against Avaritia Wolf, a new warrior from the Abyssal Garden appears!

Tune in for Episode 16: Night-Time Terror; A New Beast takes the Stage!