Hey, wait: this wasn't what Lily had planned for... not at all!
She'd fantasised about this day for the past three weeks, truly fantasised. Each fantasy would begin with Kusunoki croaking out: "Oh, sure, I'll help you talk to March! She's cooled off. She's less angry at you now... you just needed a little time apart. I'm sure things will work out," something Kusunoki would never ever say but the only thing Lily needed to hear. Sadly, Lily wasn't stupid. Realism crept in. This was March she was dealing with, even by proxy. Everything dissolved and rotted.
Yes. Lily had rehearsed it so many times. Kusunoki and McNamara, totally ensnared by March's sobbing, pleading, singing plaidoyers, her cute cruel coughs, her begging for clemency: charmed, totally trapped, they would turn around and put her on trial!
It was as if April were guilty. It was the total inversion of what should be: that was March's curse, that was March's ill-nature. April had only ever sought to right what was wrong. She was only implementing divine law, and the universal part of it shared both by the Old Faith and the secular authorities: there wasn't any reason to oppose April.
April had judged March rightly. All-too-gently, considering the gravity of her sin, but she was March's only judge. Maybe sophetha, pronounced in the post-Babylon shin-to-sin sliding fashion? Maybe? In any case, the other four could not bear her, and could not bear the mass of violence needed to deal with her or the world.
In the simulation her judgements had all been wrong. If they were right, she wouldn't be in this situation. Kusunoki on March's behalf attacked her over and over again. March, Lily had only ever hurt you a fraction of the amount you hurt everyone around you. March, your unfidelity and ungratefulness threatened to hurt everything. March, don't cry. Endure it. A better world is possible…
Lily shouldn't be condemned for that! She ran the scenario over and over again and never ever expected Kusunoki to understand her, never ever.
Those who were born and permitted to dwell on the surface of the Earth didn't even understand the obvious things about the Acacia. They were baffled by the persistence of small towns, and by the chou-new chou-archaic industrial balance where the manual-preternatural dominated over the automatic-mechanical. Talking to them about gender relations and social organisation, about the 'forge' / 'weave' divide that cleaved through house, hearth and industry was difficult. They understood linguistic allegiance quite easily, since they had it on the surface, but they failed to understand the principle alternately rendered as sade/sadame, sade to/va sadame or s?de-sadame, even though they had that on the surface, too.
March was not something obvious! She was unique, so special. None of the six were, really.
Was Lily's love obvious? March couldn't feel it. McNamara knew; Lily had read the texts where McNamara, loathing Lily, tried to explain what Lily felt to March with the little evidence March would give to her or that McNamara could tease out. Any understanding disappeared into March's event horizon.
McNamara never forgave Lily for it. Wasn't Kusunoki much more permeable to McNamara's feelings, ideas, ideologies—all of her lazy light—than March?
So, yes, Lily hadn't planned for this. Lily didn't expect this: Michiko miserable in front of her, open, defeated, despairing.
She should gloat.
Everything was weird, though. She didn't want to.
She reached out to Kusunoki. The other girl let her hold her hand.
What the hell? Muri muri…
"It'll be okay," Lily said, April said, her sense of self sliding. Maybe she had forgotten how to speak, as Kusunoki had said. Maybe she was shy.
"It won't!" Michiko said.
Rebuff her, Kusunoki. That was what you were meant to do. It had been determined. Perhaps April's divination was not as good as March, who was surely wrong and sure of what was wrong, and could work in reverse, but it had been determined.
"March is quite mercurial. I'm sure you both were straightforward with how you felt."
"Reiko's power harmed her, so much..."
"As much as I think what McNamara wants to do with March is utterly menardic, I know you both always meant well, as I always did, and her revealed preference is you."
"You meant well? March believes that, but she's so stupid. She doesn't recognise danger."
What was Kusunoki saying? Lily had tried so hard to keep March, but failed in the end. March's malice ran out.
"What do you mean?"
"I don't even want to—say it," Michiko said. "She likes you, in spite of everything you did to her."
"Did she?"
"Yes! She likes us! And yet... stupid masochist! She's such a stupid masochist."
"What are you talking about," Lily asked, as if she did not know March was perverse.
Michiko's hand drew away; Lily let it. She sat up.
"Um, so, Reiko tried to fix Nina's curse with her power," Michiko said.
"I assume it didn't work," Lily said.
"Don't brag."
Lily should!
"I'll listen," Lily said, for some reason.
"Wasn't expecting you to," Michiko said.
"March made up mean things about me."
"Nina made up nice things about you, but Reikocchi rifled through her memories and unveiled the truth."
"Kimoi!"
"I don't know what that means...?"
"Ah," Lily said. "Gross."
Kusunoki spoke English fluently, and her mother's Chinese less fluently. Her father was Japanese-American; Lily's understanding was that her great grandfather was the last fluent speaker of Japanese. Sad! Shinkei had kept its Japanese fluency perfect, despite the political-preternatural switch to English to signal allegiance with San Francisco over Shanghai, and the fifty percent plus one dominance of English as an everyday language.
"Not inherently," Michiko said.
"So you do find it gross," Lily said.
Michiko gave Lily quite a weird look. Something told Lily to reach out again; Michiko accepted again.
Huh? Huh.
"Whatever," Michiko said. "In any case, it didn't work out quickly... it disorganised Nina's thoughts, caused her pain. Her ability became more sensitive... since she was already very powerful, I don't know whether it was course-correcting, or whether Reiko perfected it... and, maybe you already know this because you're a creep who rifles through her phone, but Heather is... she's my best friend, but she's a handful, really..."
March should be left to the experts.
"Hm, don't you three hate me? Why... confide..."
"That's a great question, April."
"What's the answer—"
"I wish Nina stuck with Reiko. I, obviously you'll disagree, as if your opinion matters, but I think it would have been the best option for both of them. I can understand why she didn't, though. She didn't argue with her, like she said she didn't argue with you. She packed her things, and said she found an opportunity to make things right, with herself."
"What does that mean? That's not... how? McNamara is already a unique problem."
"Yeah, I was fucking wondering this! She hugged us goodbye, at least. I don't think she wanted to, but Reiko demanded it."
"With her ability?"
"I won't comment."
"Kimo..."
"If your talents lay in that domain, you would have done the same as Heather. Nina's memories of you say as much. You're certainly tainted, like the rest of us. You're not innocent, and you're not unblemished."
"Stop holding my hand, then," Lily croaked out.
"You're holding mine," Michiko said.
"Stop letting me hold your hand."
"I won't comment."
Ugh. They stayed in the same position.
"I didn't get a goodbye hug," Lily said.
"It was nice," Michiko said. "Although it was more Reiko feeling that than anything."
"Your loss...?"
"If only that were the loss. I really wondered, what had Nina been doing? Since she left. It really irked me. She scarcely texted us. She had been smothered by Reiko... I knew she wanted alone time... she's the type of person to shut out others completely when stressed."
"It's awful."
"Don't stress her?"
"I did everything in my power to relieve her stress."
"Did you?"
"Yes."
"You don't seem certain."
"I-I am!"
"Didn't you cause the stress, yourself...?"
Lily stared, vacantly. Michiko squeezed her hand a little, called her back to reality.
"Well, whatever, I called her, periodically. She didn't usually answer. I got an answer yesterday afternoon."
"What did she say?"
"Who said that she answered? You got her so used to others having her belongings, after all."
"Whatever do you mean," Lily said.
"I'm saying that you're the lesser evil."
Michiko squeezed her hand a lot.
"I don't even want to say this. It's weird, I'm such a shitty psychic. If I ever do anything, it's through leeching off Reiko, or using Reiko to leech off Nina. But since yesterday, with the Russian bitch, and now today, with you, I've—I'm understanding things! I'm getting results without going through the proper process. I'm reaching compacts."
Oh. A compact. Michiko and Lily were colleagues. March had befell them and fled fugitive and they lay together in the wreckage.
"Russian..."
"The girl who answered. I don't even... have you ever spoken to someone, and realised that you hate them, and what they stand for? So totally."
Lily could not say: Yes, March.
"The Senklerov Biomedical Corporation; have you heard of it?"
"No...?"
"It was a heiress to that who answered the phone."
"What is the Senklerov Biomedical Corporation?"
"Have you heard of Haze House?"
"One of the 108?"
"Yes!"
"Obviously I remember all 108."
"I don't."
"March does."
"But do you know anything about them?"
"Atlantic Ocean House with redoubts in Francia: particularly Lyon, Nice, Montreux, Russia: Leningrad, and New England: Ramsdale. Their reward for a lack of presence in Mesopotamia was a limited physical demesne, and an unstable conceptual platter."
"Oh. What state is Ramsdale in?"
"I don’t know."
"New England is too close to upstate New York…"
"What’s special about upstate New York?"
"Reiko moved there, when Nina came to reality."
Oh.
"Um," Michiko said, "what I was also going to say is that they're also a publisher. I didn't realise that the publisher was also a House until yesterday, actually."
"I didn't know that they were a publisher," Lily said.
"But you've probably seen their name on books?"
"Do they export to the Acacia? I doubt it."
"Ah. Sorry, April. Sorry… what I want to say is, Haze House, the publishing house, or I guess the conglomerate with the publishing house at its centre, owns a number of companies, and one of those is a biomedical technology company. The girl I spoke to gave her family name as Senklerova, so I think she's a big deal."
"And, what? March is ruining her?"
"She's ruining Nina! Haze House is!"
"I'm lost," Lily said, though she began to grip Michiko harder. 'March was a masochist,' 'lesser evil', quo vadis, Michiko?
"She didn't tell me these things. There was this black web connection, right?"
"What's the black web," Lily said.
"What do you mean what's the black web?" Michiko said.
"What's the black web?"
"It's like, um, it's this new... protocol? Technology? It's meant to put humanity on even footing with the outside. It uses human hatred to compete with the enmity of the outside."
"What?"
"I'm not lying! It's an important political development! It's like, an alternative to the intranet system. It has... it probably has side effects, but it's the best anyone's come up with. Have you really not heard of this?"
"No?"
"Um... Reiko can probably give a better explanation. She's an expert."
"Is she?"
"Oh, but she hates you, properly, so she won't bother to tell you. Sorry."
"I'm really confused," Lily said. "So you called March, and someone else was on her phone, and you felt this weird presence related to her aspect. How do you know that it was this black web? It's March."
"Because I've felt Nina, and I've felt the black web?"
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"You're not very psychically sensitive."
"I'm not dumb."
"Does March know about the black web?"
"We've never spoken about it?"
"So there's this new technology related to her evil aspect, which is supposed to be corralled and controlled and sequestered outside of human space, and you didn't think to warn her about it?"
"I assumed she knew? April..."
"Okay, I don't really know where this is going," Lily said.
"She... it was weird. I wasn't in a good state. I was so excited to speak to Nina again, and then that didn't happen, and then I felt psychic phenomena and now I can't really tell what I deduced from what the Russian bitch told me from what I saw through the black web haze from Reiko's divination."
Michiko suddenly hugged her own head, mad. Lily reached out to reassure her, automatic. There, there. It'll be okay, Michiko, even deprived of her. Only…
"She's in danger! She's in so much fucking danger!" Michiko said. "I know she wants to get rid of the curse... they're looking for something that I don't think is anathema to her. I don't think the Russian girl said its name. Nina said it wasn't unlike Reiko's power, but that it was totally different! I don't know! I don't know enough. I don't know..."
"Calm down," Lily said. For some strange reason, this never seemed to work, but she said it anyway.
"They're on a quest, or something? I think the Russian girl said that. Her name is Emiliya! She said her name is Emiliya."
"So, like Emiliya Senklerov?" Lily said.
"Senklerova," Michiko said. "Russian has gendered surnames, right?"
March ran away before they could learn Old Church Slavonic together, see. Wait, wasn't that closer to the language of the Yugoslavian cities? Lily didn't know.
"This fucking bitch started speaking about how nice and devoted Nina was, about how we all hurt her unduly..."
"I certainly didn't," Lily said.
"She doesn't even know about you!" Michiko said.
"What, really?"
"I don't know? You're hard for her to talk about, even for us. Some random girl she's known for a few hours..."
"I suppose she doesn't think about me that much."
"Fuck off," Michiko said.
Lily groaned.
"And anyway, I got super mad, because I just knew, based on the way the connection was set up that they wanted to use her for their black web matrix?"
"They?"
"The Russian bitch and the other girls, I barely caught their voices. Everything got so twisted down the line. They just wanted to use her for her devotion, because she has so much of it, because it overflows! That was all them, that wasn't even their House. I wanted to turn her words around on her... I knew that fucking House was so, so willing to hurt Nina unduly, that Nina was willing to be hurt unduly because she has always been willing, because you made her willing—"
"Did I?"
"You idiot! You're such a fucking idiot." Holding Lily's hand Michiko said, "You did. You made Nina Nina, with all of your pain, with all of the pointless, pathetic, things you thought were necessary... you created the person that Reiko loves, my best friend—"
"Do you love her?"
"I..."
"She demands obsession, even if she doesn't realise it. That was always May's theory, anyway. Hatred is her aspect; it overflows, inverts. You know?"
"I don't know! I was happy to leave her and Reiko together..."
"She's a slut. She ran away from me. If you wanted her—"
"She was convinced that you hated her, nothing else! Despite everything! She can't comprehend it—there's a conceptual hole. Thanks to her aspect."
"I know, Michiko."
"Not Kusunoki?"
"Shut up," April said. "Nothing ever goes her way, but her way is hatred."
"Do you believe that?"
"Not really. I hear it was how May explained my breakdown. As if she would have done a better job with her..."
"Nina forgave all of you. For a girl who you constantly call evil, who commands hatred in every sense, she's very kind and very forgiving. She said that none of you chose to be born in Shin Kumamoto, in the... arrierated, she said? East Acacia."
"Backwards," Lily said. "She meant 'backwards.' 'Underdeveloped.'"
"Ah..."
"You're avoiding my question," Lily said.
"I don't know! I like her a lot, and I want her to be safe! I want her to be safe from these girls on some quest with her who want to use and abuse her for her devotion! I want her to be safe from being used by the Nobility as a mercenary and executioner! I want her to remain the person I like. I don't want her to distort, to be transmogrified into something..."
Anything would be better than March, Lily could not say, since March was the very worst—she deplored good, and emptied the world of it.
Lily couldn't say anything.
"Different? Worse? Just because this world deems that any other aspect is better than hers... I hate that! I hate that for her. I like her... I like the current her, even if she cannot live with herself, even if the world cannot live with her! Don't you? Despite everything you said? You hate that for her."
"I..."
"You do!" Michiko shouted.
"I do."
"You do."
"I wish you would stop. I hate hearing about this. Only I should..."
"Nobody should. It's your fault. It's all your fault. And it's your responsibility," Michiko said to Lily, or maybe April had said to March, not maybe—certainly! Her sin, her fault, her responsibility, her inherent evil and defect, the world emptying around her, the world empty without her. "You have to help me make this right."
"You want to... retrieve March from a Great House."
"Yes. I need the world's number one Nina expert to do so."
"Why number one, and not number two? Again, McNamara is full of haughty statements and menardic efforts. Is McNamara not your best friend?"
Michiko looked away, a little. "I... Heather will drag me along with her efforts. I just don't think they'll end well. Maybe I don't want Nina to end up all hers?"
"I doubt you want March to be all mine."
"No, not really! I do know that Nina wants you to be happy..."
Something shone in Michiko's eyes. It was sharp, a spearpoint. It glistened golden.
"April, you're not a good person."
Lily did not contest this.
"Nina wants you to be redeemed, I think. She wants to be redeemed herself, certainly. That's why she's on this stupid quest... that's why she loves Reiko. She wants to be capable of believing in the power of redemption, and the power of love. She's so skeptical of it, though... I do wish she could accept it. Reiko's power could help her accept it, but it registers as anathema to her."
"You said," Lily said.
"I don't think Nina believes that she can save anyone. But I have Reiko's power, as well. You want to save her, I want to save her, I want... do I want to save you? I want to carry out my best friends' wishes, though."
"Reiko doesn't want to save me," Lily determined.
"Yes; Reiko wants you dead or destitute. She represents such a high principle, but she just wants you to suffer as much as it takes to make Nina happy, haha..."
"It's March's nature to make others suffer. This is miasmic; it includes goading others into creating suffering, it includes usurping and degrading those of high fates."
"Is that why you did all that?"
"Maybe," Lily said.
"You're so irresponsible!" Michiko said. "Take responsibility for her, and for what you did to her..."
"I tried to! I really did! She fled..."
"Real responsibility—I'm being annoying," Michiko said.
Was she? April was irritated, but it felt necessary to hear about this: about Senklerova, the interloper.
"I'll go along with your stupid plan," Lily said. "I don't know if you know what opposing the Nobility entails. Unless McNamara showed you Lady Gifu through March's eyes?"
"Lady Gifu... I—I think I know what you're talking about? That scene was incomprehensible to me. Reiko and Nina understood it just fine."
"It's interesting that McNamara understood it, if you're right about that—if that isn't just your impression. I was there, and I really could not comprehend what March pulled out of Tsumugi."
"You did something evil," Michiko said.
"Tsumugi deserved it. March certainly tempted me into it—"
"Do you really believe that?"
"Michiko, you're a Japanese girl, aren't you?"
"Half."
"That's enough. Weird old men may disagree, but it's enough. You're Japanese, and you're an esper—you're an esper at a prestigious program. That means you should know about Izanami, surely?"
"What about her?"
"Izanami is likely derived from izanau: to invite or ask; alternatively, to tempt, lure, entice or seduce. Izanami, of course, died during the birth of flame, Kagutsuchi. Burnt out her corpse produced water, Mizuhanome and went to the underworld."
"I'm not an Old Faither."
"Neither am I! I'm Japanese, though. The yamato nadeshiko shan't disappear in the post-Babylon vortex; if you intend to become a woman, then you become a Japanese woman—you retain the obligation to know these things."
"Is this what Nina put up with?" Michiko said.
"Yes!" Lily said.
"No wonder she ran away..."
"Just listen! Fire is light and warmth, water is the abyss—everything about this world shows that. The countries in the abyss are represented on your maps as points in the ocean; the oceans are claimed by the abyss, the Nobility assigns itself to oceans to represent their custody of outside knowledge. The sky was one with water when it was all chaos; we speak of seas of stars; the space colonies in the Earth's orbit, about the moon and at the Lagrange points are vessels."
Michiko... followed, as March had. That was better than Lily had been expecting.
"Izanami inverted in the underworld: her aspect became tsumi, sin, and kegare, impurity. Izanagi illuminated her; he discovered her true nature. She dwelled beneath his demesne; she had stepped out of bounds, and could not be allowed back in. This is where harai stems from, though humanity had forgotten its importance until 1997..."
"Well, I don't know what harai is, but I guess Izanami is Nina here?" Michiko said.
"Yes! Well done! I didn't expect you to get it, not really."
"So, what? You're going to blame her for all of the weird ideas you got, made her do or inflicted onto her?"
"I'm saying that she has a divine aspect—that divine plus sin plus impurity plus curse plus death or beneath death plus outside equals—"
"When Reiko first started infiltrating Nina's memories, I was like, 'oh, Nina's right, April wouldn't hurt her so much if she loved her, Reiko's projecting,' but seeing how much brain damage you have, I'm willing to say that you're in love."
Lily felt a little sorry for Michiko. Even when she saw something impossible, she did not have the faculty to understand it. Alas!
"What? I'm not brain damaged. Michiko, I'm normal."
"April, you're fucking weird. I'm not one to speak."
"Why? You're a pretty boring, normal girl. If I am weird, then March—who is a little fucking freak, mind you, has always preferred weird girls..."
"I think you're the only person in this godforsaken university who thinks I'm a normal girl. Thanks for being an ally, April."
"Ally? Are we going to destroy Haze House militarily? That doesn't seem feasible."
"Huh, no?" Michiko said.
"They would deserve it, though," Lily said. "For violating my March. Hey, Michiko, if you think what March did to Tsumugi was evil, are you willing to do it? For her sake? That evil?"
"Yes! In a heartbeat. I felt their evil down the phone line."
"Ah."
Lily stood; Lily bowed.
"I already was, you didn't give me much of a choice, but—certainly, I'm happy to work with you, for March's sake," Lily said. "Despite our differences."
"For Nina's sake," Michiko said. She offered a handshake.
How boyish, and Western! Lily returned it. Michiko firmly shook her hand, too... go back to the soft handholding, Michiko. It suited you better.
"Nina won't want to leave or be torn away from Haze House," Michiko said. "I hate it, but you are quite good at forcing her to do things."
"I certainly am," Lily said. "Would she be able to figure out that we're working together?"
"Not immediately... I ended up hiding where I got accepted into from Reiko, so I had to hide it from Nina, otherwise Reiko would find out."
"Why?"
"Heather is not a normal person," Michiko said.
"I don't know what that means?" Lily said.
"You say a lot of nonsense; don't complain," Michiko said.
"Ah... if you didn't know I was here, I suppose she would think I didn't apply to Lydia Wark, given that I had no plans to before she left."
"Okay, we have that information advantage. If she knew we were in the same school, she's paranoid and she knows that I know, 'cause I shouted at the Russian bitch and then texted her a bunch, and Reiko texted her too, so she'd assume we were working together. She couldn't act on it... I don't really know how to wage a war against a House."
"President Dieudonné and others are listening, by the way."
"And what, will they be angry at us? It's fine, April. The Black Web Research Group said much worse! Wasn't Society's Therapists founded in the Second City? They've definitely said more controversial, and more destructive, and baser and more based and more debased. I'm not the type of person anyone pays attention to, anyway."
"Society's Therapists?" Lily asked.
"Anti-Nobility group that promotes black web technology."
"Anti-Nobility group!?"
"Do you know anything?"
"Evidently not!"
"Well, it's not like the Second City is involved in whatever Haze House's quest is, and Society's Therapists probably doesn't have a concerted interest in it, so that's probably not a problem," Michiko said.
"If you say so. I'll respond to whatever you order, Michiko Kusunoki," Lily said.
"You act so unlike the you in Nina's memories," Michiko said.
"I don't. I haven't changed, even a little. Again, it was so surprising you didn't realise it was me."
"You really have," Michiko said. "I'm not a good enough esper to receive memories like video recordings, anyway."
"Then get better," Lily said.
Michiko did a little petulant huff. She let herself droop backwards on the chair.
"You're not her! It's 8 AM. Stay awake!"
"It's closer to 9 AM... I got three hours of sleep," Michiko said. "I don't have Nina's narcolepsy."
"It's not narcolepsy," Lily said.
"If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck..."
"You won't make it in this world."
"Is that right?"
"Mhm."
Michiko shook her head. "Lily, I... do you just need me to be awake because you'll get lost without me?"
"No?" Lily lied.
She looked outside the frosted glass of the study room.
This place was back to usual activity.
"I definitely don't..." Lily said, again.
"It's okay to be socially anxious," Michiko said.
"I don't—I don't need—"
"I need you. We need each other, for Nina's sake."
Lily shut up. She shrunk behind Michiko.
Maybe Lily should hold her hand. She had made March let her squeeze her hand many times, for comfort.
How strange, that Lily sought comfort in such a gross, disquieting girl.
So strange, that the armies of the abyss were so easy to fight against, and yet the waking world the six of them had sacrificed their childhoods to defend was... scary? Noisy. Many men and women mingling, and laughing, working without friction, functioning correctly. They could take in this world's pleasures without fear of or need for punishment.
April resented it. She shouldn't, she should bless it. The resentment was March's job or purpose or role. It put a little pit in her stomach, or perhaps a big one, an awkward gulf.
Lily wasn't shy, March was shy: wouldn't she be doing worse?
Lily couldn't see it.
Lily would see it again.
Lily…
The warmth of all the other students was absent, suddenly.
"I think I took a wrong turn," Michiko said.
Lily nodded.
Had the architecture changed? What was plain became palatial. They were outside, though where? The floor was marble, the walls were now brick. The light of the ███ filtered through fluted columns, Doric, adorable architecture. Those who were attuned—and that was April Kauzaki alone, her Lydia Wark-unassigned partner Michiko Kusunoki unwilling, incapable—could see the original polychromy: lilac, lavender, azure, perfect purple.
Look outside, and she could see it: more lantern light, and a flower garden filled with carnations, and lilies and lilies and roses.
There were twins there. Both had auburn hair; both wore white dresses. They played with each other.
Lily watched, rapt.
"Oh. The girls from that photo," Michiko said. "An illusion? We... why is this here?"
"Which photo?" April asked. Born in the Acacia, April reacted a little less strongly to mirages and maboroshi than the denizens of the surface.
"The one in Levy Hall, for all the saluvale pairs. Hasn't Nexhmije mentioned it to you? The twincest photo?"
Saluvale was a stupid term: it referred to the student pair who graduated top of their year. One opened the graduation ceremony; one closed it. (April was meant to open spring's loop; March was meant to close it. March abdicated her duty, leaving a hateful hole in the seasons.)
"Oh." Were they really? There were a lot of brunettes, and neither of them could see their faces. "Why does everyone insist on calling it that?"
"Because they're twins, and they're obviously flirting?"
"They're not twins," Lily said.
"What are you talking about? They literally look identical?"
"Connor wants to become saluvale, and he didn't even bother to find out their names? He's such a joke."
"He is, but what? I didn't think you cared about stuff like that. You're the most chill of the rank 7s."
"I think all of the personality cults at this school are fucking dumb, but I care about lesbian relationships, and I got curious. No, they're not twins. As far as I'm aware, they're not genetically related at all."
"Why do they look so similar?"
They really did, didn't they? Mirrored maniacally beneath the light of the ████.
"Black magic, I assumed. They were a rank 7–rank 0 pair, like Brackash and Perrera are, today."
"I knew Lily was curious about Lily."
Annoyingly, there was another girl called Lily: Elyssa Perrera. She was a Sinhalese-British girl from Harrow in London. She was selectively mute; their classmates called her autistic, as though that classification did not belong to the old psychology proven inept by the Babylon War. In any case, Perrera had an aversion to speaking.
Her telepathy had side effects, like March's: whatever condition she had affected the manifestation of her preternatural ability, hence her classification as rank 0. She had an awakened preternatural ability, able to be used on her own and of her own accord, so she was an esper by Second City standards and needed a classification, but her ability 'did not belong to humanity' and was 'unable to be classified by humanity's standards.'
This was a political classification, really. Such abilities were easy to classify in terms of power: March would easily make rank 7. Humanity was weak and fragile, though. They needed a reminder that evil things needed to be contained.
The Republic of London had put Perrera under the custodianship of her elder sister, Lavinia. Did you see the pattern? The Aeneid? Don't worry, Elyssa Perrera had a younger sister called Camilla, too. Their mother, Vijita, had been a classicist. Their mother had also had a 'bloodline ability,' passed down 'genetically' like Nobility itself. Lavinia had taken good care of Elyssa until Elyssa had entered Lydia Wark; she then willingly relinquished her to Carmen Brackash.
Carmen Brackash was of part European American, and part Sabian heritage.
The Sabians were well-recorded in the annals of the Babylon War.
It had been overdetermined; they were
- converts of a sect written about in the Old Faith's Book of Recitation, the "Qur'an."
- citizens of the city of Mygdonius, now Nisibis.
- those who served the stars; victims of the heavenly hosts.
- the 'gnostic' Old Faith oppositionists in the cities of Mesopotamia.
- those members of the old Old Faith who followed the exaggerator Abdullah ibn Saba', who had declared Ali ibn Abi Talib Noble.
- further north, a people ravished by the holy Roman Republic.
Brackash was really annoying! She was social, and overly interested in people. She expected Lily to be friends with her just because they were both at the top of the Second City's psychic hierarchy.
Brackash at least understood what custodianship meant. She was all yuriyuri nadenade with Perrera. She spoke about the 'propagation of the species' like everyone else did, yet held Perrera's hand all the time, never took her paws off Perrera, pet her—Lily swore Brackash had nuzzled her. Lily saw Brackash would eventually jump her.
Lily was jealous. Unlike Lily, she even got to keep her childhood companions; she mentioned some Noble girl. Gross! Stay loyal.
"I suppose I am curious about the other one," Lily said. "A little. A lil'."
Michiko snickered.
"My point is," Lily said, "like Brackash and Perrera, a greater level of censorship than usual for the Autotechnological institutes was applied to these two. Being rank 7 does not let me bypass it. I wasn't really interested in speaking to the class of 2063, so I gave up there."
"Oh, alrightie. Wouldn't Carmen be able to get past it?"
"Wouldn't McNamara?"
"Yeah, but..."
"But?"
"Do I want to share the Lydia Wark experience with her?"
"She's your best friend."
"Hah. Totally. She is."
"You keep saying that weirdly."
"It's nothing. Well, Lily, I'd need to know who we're looking at."
They kept playing together, in the garden, the girls. They were flush in the morning light; the cold tones of their skin shimmered.
"Ah. I wouldn't be able to tell which one is which. One is Audrey Adelaide Haenel; the other is Kornelia Junkersheer. Haenel was the daughter of a soldier and a man of letters, born in Lausanne; Junkersheer was born and left in a convent in Yaoundé."
"That's kind of a depressing backstory..."
"Whatever," Lily said. It sounded just like every family history in Shinkei. "In case you care, their final project was a presentation of proofs for new optimal bounds for information corruption problems in communication networks, and various algorithms for implementing these bounds. They were the class of 2061."
"I knew that!" Michiko said. "Connor mentioned it."
"Haenel was seventeen when she entered, though. I believe she turns twenty-eight this August."
"You can enter Lydia Wark at seventeen?"
"You can do many things at seventeen," Lily said. March had been seventeen when she ditched Lily, after all. March was seventeen now, still.
"Ah, yeah. Um... thanks for telling me this," Michiko said.
"It's nothing. It'll continue to be nothing until we dredge her out of Haze House's clutches. This mausoleum isn't relevant to that," Lily said.
"I like hearing things, from absolutely anyone. You do have redeeming qualities."
"Why wouldn't I?"
"All the obvious reasons. Oh, and thanks for keeping me grounded."
Grounded.
April had almost forgotten that this was all unreal. A vision of some cut away time? Someone else's forlorn frolicking? These girls were now women. Were they still together? Were they not apart? Was Lydia Wark's purpose not to foster psychic power through lasting union. They went beyond colleagues, beyond roommates... they lost themselves to love. It was apparent in that photo. How brazen.
Lily grabbed Michiko's hand. Michiko let her.
"You're welcome. Thanks for making the waking world less scary," Lily said.
"Waking world?"
"Did March not—"
"She did," Michiko said. "You're kinda pathetic."
"Perhaps," Lily said. "But you need me, so you'll stick with me."
"Yeah, I do."
"Please stick with me," Lily said. Her voice quietened. "Don't you want this? They partnered you wrongly out of malice. She ditched you, like she ditched me. You came here for a reason too, right? Hoping to fill the void, before reality struck you and you realised that this place wasn't an ideal but was as boorish and stupid as the rest of reality. We'll dredge her out together. We'll make her see what's right. We'll defeat Haze House. Please stick with me..."
"You're utterly pathetic," Michiko said, and then she led Lily a little further astray, and then she hugged Lily tightly—collegially, heartfelt.
"Say it," Lily said. "Or... or I'll..."
"I'll stick with you," Michiko said. "Yeah. I will."
"Thank you..." Lily said.
"You're welcome. Let's save Nina," Michiko said.
"Don't we need to find Berisha and—"
"No."