Christie would love to say that she was a composed girl, that she excelled in etiquette and that she never lost her cool. Yet, as Agatha meekly pressed her lips against hers, all those preconceptions about herself shattered, and many other things started to make sense.

  She had felt it before, the blonde’s radiance. But now she realized that there was more to it; it wasn’t a passing feeling that was swaying her thoughts around, but a yoke in her every decision. A yoke she accepted with every fiber of her being.

  “Sorry! I do not know what happened. I think I tripped, ha, ha…” The seamstress spoke, but the nouveau riche didn’t listen to her as she was fully submerged in her thoughts. “Uh… Christie?”

  Christie led a finger to her lips and caressed them. The peck had been shallow, so there was unfortunately no residue on her lips, yet that didn’t stop her from trying to scoop up something. What that something was, the redhead couldn’t say. She was drowning and flying at the same time, her thoughts and actions an incoherent mess.

  “Like I said, I am so sorry, I do not know why I did that.” Christie did not give a single thought to Agatha’s words, for she only had one thought at the moment.

  A single yet incommensurably powerful thought.

  Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Agatha.

  She had been caressed by the blonde’s radiant flames, and she had found them wanting. She wanted them more. Closer. Hotter.

  Brighter.

  Christie raised a hand, and the seamstress amusingly flinched, which made it easier to lock her neck and steal her lips. At first, Agatha resisted, but soon she also drowned in a sea – that for the first time – wasn’t made from stone. Christie too drowned in the pristine waters that were Agatha. A pond, but what a marvelous and breathtaking pond blessed by nature it was. Wilderness at its finest.

  Christina Valasela didn’t care for anything else in the world. Her dreams vanished, leaving only desires behind. This was where she was supposed to be; she didn’t need anything else. She wanted to bask and be fulgurated by that radiance.

  She didn’t know how or when, but Agatha escaped from her grasp. Christie would have tried to catch her again, but she noticed how sluggish her body was and how grey her vision had become. Not a trace of oxygen remained in her system, yet she still ached to take a swim in that pristine pond of sapphire waters.

  “Ah… ah…” Agatha panted heavily.

  “Ah… ah…” Christie panted heavily.

  “I…” The sweaty and exhausted blond panted again. That sweat only made her radiance shine even brighter. “What was that, Christie?”

  There were no lies that she could utter. Christie didn’t know why she had done it, but she was completely conscious of the fact that she had dived headfirst into the deep end. So she decided to speak honestly.

  “Set me ablaze, Agatha.” Christie yearned to be incinerated by the radiance that was Agatha of Malachite.

  Without any hesitation, Agatha pounced on her, making Christie’s back drop on the bench. And in her prone and defenseless position, the seamstress had no mercy as she kissed the nouveau riche nonstop. Her kisses were shallow pecks, nothing as gripping as Christie’s dive, but they were plentiful and warm. Agatha kissed her everywhere. On her cheeks, on her lips, on her nose, on her forehead, on her chin, on her ears, on her neck. If Christie had one lament of that onslaught, it was that Agatha could have kissed even more places.

  Then the blonde finally retired as she panted heavily. Christie was panting too, but more softly, and her exhalations were laden with amused giggles. Her whole body itched, and she felt like a preternatural force was tickling her everywhere, even if the seamstress had stopped with her meek pecks.

  “What is so funny?” Agatha pouted.

  “Nothing, nothing,” Christie continued giggling as she stood up and sat properly on the bench. “Just you,” and she kissed the blonde on the forehead.

  It was a quick peck like the villager had done, but a single one. Yet that didn’t stop Agatha from blushing as deeply, if not more than, when Christie had looked at her in a kiss that dragged on for eternity. Or at least, that was what Christie wished that would have happened.

  Instead of countering her peck, Agatha snorted and looked forward to the sea. The sky was colored by the pastel palette of twilight with its oranges, pinks, and purples, and an arch of light in the horizon instead of a crown as half the sun submerged into the sea.

  “See,” Agatha pointed at the horizon with a sway of her head. “Now this is a romantic landscape, and not like before.”

  “When I took you here before, it was not supposed to be related to romance,” Christie countered as she looked at the sunset.

  “It was for me,” the blonde responded as a matter of fact.

  “Oh,” the redhead was left agape and turned her head to face her roommate. “So since then…?”

  “Yes,” Agatha interjected before Christie could finish her question. “Since then.”

  “Huh…” The nouveau riche turned her gaze again towards the ocean, as she didn’t know how she could respond to that.

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  Christie had felt loved all her life, but this type of love she only thought existed in fiction, so experiencing it firsthand was… confounding. She looked at the setting sun for answers, for she was currently a mess.

  ***

  Agatha was ecstatic. She could die happy now. Her dreams of becoming the world’s best lithorist were now far away, but not because they were impossible – as they were more likely than ever before – but because it didn’t matter to her any longer. She was full, fulfilled in other dreams, and her satisfaction was so stuffed that she just couldn't think of other dreams. Like a stuffed belly would make someone retch at the thought of dessert.

  And yet as they both fell silent as they observed the setting sun, Agatha knew she had to ask one dreadful question, one that may shatter her heart.

  “So,” she started, already mentally prepared for the inevitable impact, “what is our current relationship?”

  “I…” Her roommate partially deflated on the bench, a drowsiness befalling the tall girl. “I cannot say I know. I… guess that we are girlfriends?” She chuckled.

  “Is that…” Agatha gulped down saliva, her whole body trembling. Christie’s confirmation was far from being reassuring. “Is that okay?”

  “Why should it not be?” The redhead turned to face her, and she looked even more beautiful than ever with that messy hair from their previous tumble.

  “Well… are you not the heiress of a house? Are you not expected to have… well… descendants?” From the very beginning, Agatha knew that was her limitation. Perhaps they wouldn’t be persecuted like they would do over in Secto, but in Crocheta progeny was key. Both for commoners, as that meant extra helping hands; and for higher strata, for that meant continuing the lineage.

  “Hmm… that is… something I would not rather think about,” Christie said with great lament.

  “Is it because of your father?”

  “My dearest father? No, not at all,” the redhead swayed her head and sighed. “If anything, I think he would love you. He always pestered me on how boys were evil and how he might kill anyone that dared to lay a finger on me, his dearest daughter, but I guess he will not have as many problems with a girl,” she chuckled again.

  That melodious chuckle was one of the many things that had bewitched Agatha.

  “Then what is the issue?” The dirty-blond girl asked hesitatingly. “Or rather, what ails your thoughts?”

  “It is… well, just a personal fear rather than an actual limitation.”

  “And that might be?”

  “I killed my mother.”

  Christie uttered those words so dryly that Agatha’s thoughts just completely stopped dead in their tracks. That was something she would have never expected. But there was also something in that tone that incentivized her to speak. That wasn’t the tone of a killer, accidental or not.

  “If I may ask, how did it happen?”

  “You already asked,” Christie chuckled again, though this time was more derisively. “I believe you guessed as much, but ‘kill’ is a bit superlative. My mother simply died during my birth. It is… common, but still, that has marked me. I do not condemn myself for doing so, I know you cannot blame a baby for being born, but I hate not being able to have met her. And even more, I hate that I stole her from my father.”

  “That is…” Understandable, Agatha wanted to say, yet she failed to do so. That was a hateful word; she could do better. “It is good that you are well aware that it is not your fault,” the seamstress-in-training beamed a smile at her… girlfriend. Depths, I still can’t believe it. It’s so strange thinking of Christie as my… beloved. Agatha did her best not to blush as the situation called against it.

  Part of her felt that she still didn’t deserve this happiness. That she wasn’t worthy of it. And what was more, it didn’t feel real. It was too sudden, too easy. A part of her being had expected more difficulties, more challenges. But this wasn’t about her now; this was about Christie.

  “Yes, in a way, I take pride in that. But it still makes me scared. Childbirth.”

  “Why? Because you might also die?”

  “No, Agatha,” Christie said in the most somber tone she had heard the girl utter. “It scares me that I might kill someone yet again. And this time, my child.”

  ***

  Hasel Valasela found himself looking at his wife’s mausoleum from the tea table they had at the garden’s gazebo. Yet again, Miss Diorite continued to do a fantastic job with the shrubberies and the flowers, making the garden of the Valasela Estate a paradise on earth. One that Cordellia would have loved.

  He carelessly drank honeyed jasmine tea as he had in his hand the letter his dearest daughter had sent him. It had been a week since he had received it, and he had sent Adrien away the moment he read it, so his dearest Christina had a safe and hasty way home the moment the academic year ended. One week passed, and yet he still clutched the paper as if he had just received it.

  These last months without his dearest daughter had been an eternity. He felt so alone, and it was no one’s fault but his own. But he refused to fill the Valasela Estate with more servants. He had too many enemies, and even if a lot of people would love to be his allies, manpower was a perfect way for spies to infiltrate. Christie was safe at the Skyscraper Academy by virtue of sheer intimidation – no one would dare to piss off the Shining Knight, even less with the assistance of the Reaper of Aneolopolis – but the same couldn’t be said here. Whenever she would return to the Valasela Estate for holidays, she would be in danger if he hired people. He doubted people would be as intimidated before the Great Prospector.

  Miners were ferocious, but he was known as more of an explorer than a fighter. That was what Cordellia had liked about him.

  “Again with that fractured letter?” Miss Diorite grunted behind him. That woman had partied with the Shining Knight when the man was already an established hero, and she still looked as young as a milkmaid.

  “What can I say?” Hasel snorted. “My dearest Christina is coming back home after almost a whole year. That is the longest I have spent without her since she was born.”

  “Yes, I know that much. I have spent more time with the young Christina than you, Hasel.”

  “A thing that I will regret until my last breath,” the patriarch chuckled. “I wonder how my soft girl will have hardened and matured. Will she have remained the same, or will she have eaten the world?”

  “I doubt that she can eat the world in a single year, especially the first one of her instruction, but I believe she might be able to do so.”

  “Yes, she is Cordellia’s daughter after all.”

  “I said it mostly because she is your daughter, Hasel,” the maid corrected. “You spoil her too much and are unable to see how strong she really is.”

  “She does not need to be strong.”

  “She does not because she already is,” Miss Diorite smiled softly. “And talking about spoiling her and being unable to see her strength… Hasel, when will you tell her the truth?”

  “Never,” the miner instantly responded without any hesitation. He was well aware of what truth the head maid was talking about.

  “She deserves to know the truth.”

  “I do not care about what she deserves!” Hasel raised his voice, implicitly stating that her dearest daughter indeed deserved it.

  “She will end up finding out about it, and the longer you wait, the more she will resent you,” the old maid continued speaking softly.

  The Valasela patriarch hit the diorite garden table. “I do not care if I am resented, Paciencia!” He spoke the maid’s name for the first time in ages.

  “And that is the issue with you, Hasel.” True to her namesake, the brunette woman didn’t lose her temper. “You are willing to sacrifice anything to protect your daughter, but some sacrifices cannot be made by you. Some, she must choose herself.”

  “So what am I supposed to tell her? That she murdered her mother and crushed her under tons of stone? Do you really want me to tell her that?” The vulpine man was panting by the moment he finished speaking.

  Paciencia Diorite looked at him calmly but with a crushing gaze and taciturnly said, “Yes.”

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