The Glaedwin reception room was, to say the least, crowded.

They’d moved any chairs down that could be easily relocated, and even brought the furniture in from the garden; there was little space to move around, now, and still not enough seating for everyone, but it would do. The door to the sitting room at the back was open, as was the door from there to the garden—they were all going to be grateful for the fresh air.

Einwulf and Melisend were there already, on side-by-side chairs, and Ximeno and Vituccia on the comfortable bench, and their respective children scattered around.

Giefroi’s complaints were audible even before Richold alertly opened the front door to let the Denisots in.

“Again,” Josceran said patiently, “there are things that you need to know that Herlinde said this morning, and we are not repeating them multiple times. You can come and listen with everyone else.”

Scowling, Giefroi dropped into a chair that had been left for him, positioned where he wouldn’t be directly beside anyone else.

“That’s everyone,” Aelfeva said. “Except Leofeva, obviously.”

“I’ll make a quick run over once we’re done here,” Guillen said, sliding out of his chair to the floor casually to leave it for Ferrand; the latter laid a hand on his shoulder briefly in what Aelfeva thought was thanks, and Guillen leaned back. “I can’t go in but I’m sure they’ll let me leave her a message.”

“I think they will,” Ilduara said. “They were very helpful.”

“Which means,” Aelfeva said, “we can get caught up completely. All right. You aren’t all going to like all of this, but at this point, that doesn’t matter. Your eight children collectively had the responsibility slammed onto us of fixing a situation that we didn’t create. If you’d all made some kind of effort to sort out who owns that damned bridge instead of mostly ignoring the issue for the past decade, we wouldn’t have suddenly found ourselves being betrothed regardless of whether we want to or not, with no question of consent or otherwise. We managed to salvage our futures out of that, thanks to a few changes in the original plan. Herlinde has approved all of them. You are not allowed to argue, because this is what is happening tomorrow and afterwards. No negotiation, no more changes.”

“That’s fair,” Vituccia said, raising her voice over the beginning of Giefroi’s protest. “Tell us.”

Start with the one that wasn’t a surprise and involved little to object to.

“Herlinde insists that there have to be three marriages to link all three families each way. Cristoval and Glaedwin is easy. Teoda and Richold getting married is still absolutely happening, nothing is touching that and we’d all have objected if anything would. They’re taking over the Orchard Cottage when we get back. Any further settlement for Richold can be decided later, there’s some reassessment that needs to happen there, but Rich is willing to wait.”

Richold nodded. Without enough seats, he’d made sure Teoda had one, and had placed himself at her feet, a familiar location where he could lean against her leg and she could run her fingers affectionately through his hair.

“Leofeva is staying in Fritha’s cloister until she learns what she needs to learn about medicine and midwifery. The current plan is that she’ll come home and practice under Osgyth to gain practical experience, and eventually take over Rosebridge. This is where it starts to get complicated, because we still need a Denisot-Glaedwin pairing. Because Leo isn’t here, Herlinde changed me into a girl so I could marry Josceran.”

Giefroi started upwards in his chair.

Josceran, behind him, slapped both hands onto his shoulders and forced him back into it. Giefroi fought his hands briefly, but all that physical labour up north had definitely made Josceran stronger, and Giefroi quickly gave up.

“That’s Aelfric,” Ferrand said helpfully. “We’ve known that for a couple of days now. Well, was Aelfric.”

“Now Aelfeva,” Aelfeva said. “The spell would have broken after seven days. It never will if I marry Jos as a girl. Which I am going to do tomorrow. Jos and I are both good with this. Actually, I’m looking forward to it even more than I’m nervous about it.” She traded quick smiles with Josceran. “I would appreciate it if everyone who knows could just accept that and not gripe at me that I should have used any means fair or foul to drag my little sister out of the cloister, where she really wants to be, and force her to marry one of my best friends, which she really does not want to do. I decided. I am not changing my mind. Just come to terms with the fact that I am now and am going to stay a woman but I’m still the same person. I don’t consider it some sort of unbearable horrendous curse but I suppose you can see it however you want.”

“We’ll work out the details,” Josceran said. “That includes things like property. But we’ll be taking the Glaedwins up on the offer to live there when we get back to Rosebridge, until we can arrange something more permanent. This also means working out relationship details, but those are really no one else’s business.”

Aelfeva nodded. “And please don’t try telling me, but you can’t really mean that, what about... whatever reason you think it’s a bad idea. Because believe me, I have thought of all of that and then some that I guarantee didn’t occur to you. And I decided anyway. I don’t know why it actually feels more natural to be a woman than it ever did to be a man, but it does, and I’m not going to lie to myself about that. This is the first time I can remember really truly wanting something for myself and my own future. I didn’t expect it, but it got thrown at me and I am not letting it go just for the sake of not upsetting other people.”

“Pervert,” Giefroi snarled. “Always knew there was something wrong with you.”

“That’s my betrothed you’re calling names,” Josceran said levelly. “Or possibly me. Either way, try to act at least somewhat civilized, would you? No one is impressed. I doubt anyone in this room sees you as a noble and honourable man wronged by two sadly disrespectful and twisted sons.”

“Two? At least your brother’s marrying an actual woman.”

“Actually, no,” Ferrand said. “Leofeva was able to confirm that there are laws in Eadwald that allow vows between two men or two women that work more or less identically to conventional marriage, including marriage settlements, and as usual, consummation is irrelevant and personal choice. Even more, I suppose, since there’s no implied need to have children together. Herlinde and the Queen verified that, for which I’m grateful since I’m sure they have other things to do and they didn’t have to, and consented to another change. I’m not marrying Ilduara. I’m marrying Guillen. Which means that we can stop hiding and finally just be together.”

Giefroi’s response was loud and venomous and nearly drowned out Einwulf. That disrupted the storytelling for a moment.

Vituccia finally stood up and shouted, “Be still!” In the sudden silence, she reseated herself and said, more quietly, “Thank you. Ranting will not change it. Guillen and Ferrand have been hiding their relationship for, to my knowledge, over two years. Enough is enough. I want my children happy, and if it’s going to make two of them happier for Guillen to marry Ferrand than for Ilduara to do so, then I am absolutely in favour of that. They are breaking no laws and they have a perfectly legal way to set up a household together, although they are going to be living with us for the time being. But it doesn’t actually matter what I think or what any of us think. They are getting married tomorrow. We are legally required to provide a marriage settlement. We will, as of the moment they are married, no longer have any legal authority over them. And there is nothing we can do to stop this. So celebrate your son’s happiness, or sulk about it, Giefroi, it will change nothing other than wearing on the nerves of everyone in this room.”

“Thank you,” Ferrand said quietly.

“You promised me you’d take good care of Dara. Take the same care with Guillen, and I’ll be satisfied, dear.”

“I intend to.”

“If two men can...” Einwulf began, his tone somewhat more moderate in volume and inflection than it had been a moment before.

Aelfeva sighed. She’d been afraid of this. They hadn’t been sure which would cause more of a disruption, Ferrand marrying Guillen or Aelfeva’s decision. It still wasn’t entirely clear, but the latter wasn’t going to be just accepted as smoothly as she’d fervently hoped. “Stop. No. Herlinde was willing to change me back to Aelfric before the ceremony tomorrow. I do not want her to. I’m going to repeat this. I feel better as a woman. I do not have an explanation for that, but there are... feelings and responses and things that didn’t work before, or they did but they were uncomfortable, and now it all seems to work right.”

Giefroi muttered an extremely unpleasant word. Josceran tightened his hands until his fingers dug into his father’s shoulders, which at least meant the next word ended with a gasp and there wasn’t a third one.

“Don’t be vulgar,” Melisend snapped.

“Pardon me, your ladyship,” Giefroi snarled at her. “Unlike some, I’m not about to smile and hand out blessings when it turns out that both of the sons I’ve been supporting for a couple of decades are bloody deviants.”

“Shut it,” Einwulf growled. “I’m not happy either but you’re not helping anything.”

“You were saying, Aelf?” Ximeno prompted.

Aelfeva took a deep breath, and picked it up again, though she’d lost her train of thought. “I have spent my whole life doing my best to be a loyal and respectful and dutiful son, and I never stopped to think about whether there was anything that I wanted or needed for myself beyond that. It turns out that there is, although realizing that before Herlinde changed me might not have gone well. I don’t know how many more ways I can say this. When she asks I am going to tell her no. I will tell her that because I know exactly what I want and I think I’m starting to figure out who I am although that’s going to take more than a few days. I made a major decision for me, possibly for the first time in my life, and I stand by it. As of tomorrow, there will be no way to undo it, and that is actually going to be an enormous relief.”

It was, but it was still an overwhelmingly huge choice.

Aelfeva and Josceran had been in the garden playing nine men’s morris with a kiss for each piece taken—it didn’t really matter which side the piece was on, they weren’t taking the game itself all that seriously—when Herlinde’s messenger arrived. That had made Aelfeva’s heart sink, until the messenger handed her a folded rectangle of parchment to read hastily.

Herlinde went so far as to apologize for something else requiring her attention. She and Radegunde had confirmed the laws Leofeva had described, and Ferrand marrying Guillen was completely acceptable. She would be at the temple the following day to make certain nothing went wrong, and if Aelfeva chose, she would undo the spell before the ceremony.

It would have been good to give Herlinde her final answer, a weight off her mind, but it wouldn’t really be irrevocable until after the ceremony anyway.

“This is a mistake,” Melisend said, and she sounded honestly distressed. “And by the time you realize that, it’ll be too late.”

“Then I’ll just have to deal with that myself,” Aelfeva said. “I can face the consequences of my own choices. But I really don’t think that’s going to happen. I can keep repeating myself, I suppose, and saying in as many ways as I can think of that it somehow feels more than just natural to be a woman, it feels right, but I’m not sure anyone’s hearing me.”

“I can’t say I entirely understand,” Vituccia said, “but it’s your body and your future and I’ve never known you to make decisions lightly. I believe you that you’ve thought this through. You and Jos aren’t technically my children but you’ve been underfoot so much your whole lives that it feels like you are, and I’d like to see you both as happy as possible.”

“We plan to be,” Josceran said. “And I think we can get there.”

Ximeno nodded. “I didn’t expect you to ever voluntarily marry, Aelf, to tell you the truth. And wasn’t really sure you would, Jos. I’ve travelled enough to know that what makes men men and women women is a lot more complicated than what you’re born with, and so is what draws people together. It’s not the first gender-change spell I’ve ever seen, either. You might consider explaining to those who don’t know how magic works on people.”

“Did I miss that?” Aelfeva said, running hastily back through what she’d said so far.

“I think we might have,” Josceran said. “In simplest terms, magic cannot work on a person unless it has something within that person to attach itself to. Some part of you has to want it to work, even if the rest of you has very good reason to want it to fail.” Aelfeva saw him blink, saw his eyes widen, and then they met and held hers. “A silence spell keeping you from talking about something will work if it’s linked to something that you feel you can’t talk about. You can break it for yourself if you make the choice to talk about the thing you couldn’t say.”

Aelfeva thought back hastily. They hadn’t even noticed! Josceran had told her about Giefroi, and the silence curse hadn’t interfered after that with talking about what had happened up north!

She wanted to give him a hug and celebrate. This wasn’t the moment, though. She just smiled and hoped he understood.

“Or,” Josceran added, “an infertility curse on a woman who loves children and wants to do her duty by her family but deep down is terrified of dying in childbirth. The spell is hard to break because there’s that part of you that really wants it to continue and it’s sort of a relief to have an excuse that isn’t your fault. Herlinde’s spell would almost certainly have failed on any other man in this room. It would almost certainly have failed to change any woman in this room into a man, for that matter. There’d be nothing for it to stick to.”

“It worked on me,” Aelfeva said, “because deep down some part of me accepted it and let it work when she first cast the spell, and is holding onto it for dear life. That doesn’t mean that it instantly felt amazing and the sky filled with rainbows and butterflies. I have been trying desperately to understand this. But I’ve gone really quickly from deciding I could bear it long enough to find Leo and drag her home, to questioning whether that’s the right thing to do, to deciding that I could not do that to her and would have to make the best of marrying Jos myself, to looking forward to marrying Jos, to actively choosing not to break the spell. I am very sure that I’m not talking myself into believing anything for the sake of coping with a complicated situation. It’s more like... starting to relax and let go of more and more of the fear.”

“If it helps,” Teoda said, “I’ve been helping Aelf with the practicalities since immediately after that first change. She’s never been particularly upset that I’ve seen, just understandably confused. And it’s a remarkable thing to see a friend you care deeply about suddenly, and under circumstances that could be expected to have the opposite effect, blossom like a flower in the garden starting to show the real colours inside.”

“We’ve been watching,” Ferrand said, “and it’s been, to say the least, startling, but also really hard to explain away or deny.”

“I’m the one Aelf has mostly been talking to about feelings,” Josceran said. “Which isn’t exactly new. Which means I’ve been hearing about the fears and the doubts and the confusion. And I’ve been hearing about everything pulling in the opposite direction. If I had any reason to think my best friend was about to make a catastrophic decision, I’d have said something by now. What I have is many reasons to be absolutely and unconditionally supportive.”

“This is happening,” Aelfeva said. “I am staying a woman. I am marrying Jos tomorrow. This is, from our perspective, an unequivocally good thing. If anyone has a different opinion, you’re entitled to that, but it isn’t going to change anything. However, I will do my best to answer questions but there is still a lot that I don’t understand yet and there are things that are private.”

“You’re throwing away your entire life unnecessarily,” Einwulf said. “Every plan.”

“No. I’m just switching my future to one that I like better. One that’s my choice, not just doing my duty. Besides, would you really want your oldest son and the oldest Denisot son marrying? That’s an enormous amount of real property, probably better than half of Rosebridge, eventually all joined into one, and that tends to attract attention that none of us need. It would be smarter to give most of the land to Rich anyway. So I won’t get elected as reeve. Rich can, or it can go to another family, and about time, too. Other than that, well... it’s not likely to change much. I am still me.”

“Possibly even more you,” Josceran said affectionately.

“Even if it’s a mistake, it’s mine to make.”