Aelfeva stopped in her tracks.

“If you don’t keep walking,” Josceran added, “then your brother and Teoda are probably going to race to see who can catch up with us first to smack me for upsetting you.”

He had a point. She had no doubt at all that even though they couldn’t hear, Richold and Teoda were keeping watch.

The problem was, about all she could formulate as a reply, once moving again, was, “How? And when?”

“I just spent over a year in the north. I think I have a better idea what any seidkona can do, let alone one as powerful as Herlinde. I’m quite sure that the only reason Guillen, Ferrand, and Dara have missed it is because it hasn’t occurred to them that it could be possible, and they’re finding ways to explain to themselves why you are still very much you but can’t be you. The attempt at being shy and modest slips badly every time you forget. It’s very obvious that Rich and Teo know. As for when, call it a growing suspicion. So, not a silence curse, just the usual. Gods forbid that you actually tell your friends that you are understandably scared half to death and let them try to do anything silly like, oh, support and help you. I suppose you didn’t actually tell Rich or Teo either, they saw something. I’d say that it’s nice things didn’t change much while I was gone, but you could maybe have considered outgrowing that one.”

“Nobody told me I was doing that until last night! I didn’t know I was doing it!”

Well, if the earlier question hadn’t been a confirmation, that outburst certainly was.

Not that it appeared to matter.

Just like it appeared not to matter to Josceran that she was currently a woman.

“Real story, please?” Josceran said.

Aelfeva drew her scattered thoughts firmly back together.

“We got separated not far into the city. Leo told our parents she was going with Rich and I, but we thought she was with our parents. By the time we all got to the house and found out she wasn’t with either, she must have been well on her way to Fritha’s sanctuary. Herlinde showed up to check that we’d arrived.”

She felt Josceran flinch. “Us too. She wasn’t pleased we were late.”

She hoped she’d remember to ask later about that. “When she found out that Leo was gone, she said that the weddings were all happening anyway. I guess with Rich and Teoda already paired up, I was... available.”

“What conditions did she give?”

“Seven days and it breaks, except that no one can change anything recognized in Aelautha’s temple.”

“And Leo is so determined not to marry that she’s decided to take vows to Fritha. I’m not taking it personally, it isn’t really a surprise, although I wasn’t really expecting her to go that far.”

“Not a surprise?”

“Have you ever in your life heard Leofeva say a single word about looking forward to getting married, having a family, anything like that? Even when we were small, do you recall her ever being willing to pretend to be anyone’s wife or mother? Have you ever heard her even express an interest in any man, even with other girls her age cooing over someone?”

Aelfeva pondered that. “Nothing comes to mind. I knew she was mostly interested in healing, but you’re right, now that you pointed that out, I don’t think she ever has.” That only made the thought of forcing her to come out of the cloister worse.

“It’s not obvious unless you look.”

“Which you did?”

Josceran made a derisive snorting noise. “My father wanted me to court her. Marry into the Glaedwins, the only local pairing that wouldn’t be marrying down in wealth or social status. Flatly refusing wasn’t the final straw, but it was part of the bundle.”

“You didn’t tell us about that.”

Josceran shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now. I planned to talk to Leo today and promise her that I would never push her into anything and I’d absolutely support her wanting to keep learning. It was the best way I could think of to try to minimize the damage. I didn’t think the current situation could get worse, but I should have known better.”

“Well, if we can’t sort things out any other way, you can promise me you’d never mess with Dragon or my sword.”

“Do you actually need me to? Seriously?”

Aelfeva sighed. “No, not really.” She sank down on a bench they were passing; Josceran joined her. “I genuinely do not know what to do. Either Leo or I ends up with the wrong future, and either way, you’re stuck with one or the other of us. How do we find even a tolerable ending in all that?”

“I don’t know. But I know that over a year without my friends made me promise myself not to take them for granted ever again, that I’d do anything possible for the people who matter to me and that I’d try my best to set a good example by telling the truth and asking for help when I’m stuck.”

“Jos... what in all the hells happened to you up north?”

“That’s a really difficult truth. Can we start with an easier one? I’ve only been back for a couple of days and only saw anyone except my brother this morning.”

“You were just supposed to be staying with your mother’s family, helping them out and learning... something, Giefroi wasn’t quite clear on that and I don’t think Ferrand knew more than the rest of us.”

“I would be very surprised if he told Ferrand all of it. Not my mother’s family. His. It’s hard to talk about. I honestly can’t escape mixed feelings about this arranged marriage mess from any direction, since at least it forced my father to bring me home, and I am very grateful for that.”

Aelfeva couldn’t think of a response other than, “It’s good to have you back.”

“Plus I get to see you as a really pretty girl.” He turned halfway, pulling one knee up onto the bench, so he could look her over, head tilted.

“Oh, well, I’m glad you’re enjoying that!”

“Between you and Leo, I know who I’d rather wake up to every morning.”

That was too much. Aelfeva twisted in place. “I’m not quite resigned to a future as your wife instead of...”

Josceran leaned forward, slid a hand around her cheek, and kissed her.

The world stopped.

Or it might as well have: her mind simply refused to acknowledge anything except that kiss. Somewhere there was a thought that she should pull away, that a brief chaste kiss was harmless but this needed to end, but one of them was prolonging it and making it much less chaste and it might have been her doing it, and she didn’t actually know how to end it or why.

Except that somehow, one of them did. Or maybe both.

“Just in case I don’t get the chance again,” Josceran said, and there was something like his old grin lurking under it.

“Dammit, Jos...!”

The grin came all the way to the surface. “And some things never change. I do something outrageous, you get exasperated, and I have something I can brace myself against and orient myself by. That doesn’t work if you’re on the edge of giving up. Irritation is better than despair.”

“I...” She stopped, and heaved a sigh. “I did not tell you that you could do that!”

“You didn’t last time, either, and that was arguably more outrageous, but I survived it.”

“The last... oh.” She actually felt her cheeks getting warm. They’d been by an irrigation pond they often swam in; Aelf had lost Richold along the way when they’d passed the inn and he’d seen Teoda, and he’d admitted to Josceran that the fascination with stealing kisses and holding hands was a complete mystery.

“You weren’t in any particular hurry to stop me either time. I got to be the first person, at least, to kiss Aelfric and the first, maybe only, person to kiss Aelfeva. I’ll take blessings where I can find them.”

“You’re impossible.”

“That’s hardly news.”

“And we aren’t in any less of a bad situation.”

“I know. But there’s definitely no solution if you’ve already decided there isn’t.”

“I’ve been trying!”

“‘You or Leo’ isn’t a solution, it’s a setup for a tragedy all around. And not much better for Ferrand and Ilduara, each with the wrong person and everything complicated with the right one.”

“Wait... what? What right one?”

Josceran just looked at her blankly for about two heartbeats, then he laughed. “I know you’ve always been terrible at figuring out when a girl is flirting with you and you look right over signs of pairs that are courting or have called it off, but that’s right in front of you and I knew before we left for the bathhouse that it hadn’t changed.”

“What hadn’t changed? Stop being deliberately annoying!”

“Not telling someone else’s secret. We have more privacy here than we do anywhere back at the townhouses. Why don’t we go rejoin the others and see if we can get all the secrets sorted out, shall we?”

“I... sure, why not? I can’t think why Ferrand and Guillen and Dara would actually believe me about who I am, but we can try.”

“I know. Rich and Teoda know. We’ll convince them.” Josceran got up and offered her a hand. “This is going to be easier to cope with if you have more people to help.”

“I am really not sure this is a good idea.”

“It’s one of the very few things that I am sure about right now.”

That felt weirdly discordant. She was supposed to be the one who stayed calm and confident in a crisis and supported anyone distressed in getting through it, not edging her way through one step at a time and praying fervently with each that she wasn’t about to put a foot wrong. She wasn’t supposed to have to lean on someone else’s certainty. Even Josceran’s.

What had she been missing?

For as long as Aelfeva could remember, much of the group had fallen into the same order when sitting down together. Always, it was Leofeva beside Ilduara beside Ferrand beside Guillen, with usually but not always Aelf next to Guillen, Josceran nearly always next to Aelf regardless of where, and Richold and Teoda side by side somewhere.

Did that mean something that she’d been oblivious to? She’d just tended to sit next to either of her closest friends, or maybe between them. Was there more going on?