The winter afternoon leaked through the tall windows in pale, watery streaks, doing approximately nothing to warm the cavernous sitting room. The cold simply sat there, smug and immovable, like an old duchess refusing to budge from her favourite chair.
"Mistress, luncheon is prepared," a voice announced as the door opened with a soft creak.
I turned, expecting some plain, quiet servant — but the woman who entered looked like she'd stepped out of an aristocrat's framed portrait. Her maid's uniform was immaculate, pressed so sharply it could probably slice bread. Her posture was flawless, every step elegant as clockwork. But it was her eyes that made my breath hitch — deep red, catching the lamp's glow like drops of garnet suspended in water.
"Oh. So she's not alone in this great echoing house," I thought, glancing at our hostess.
"Oh, Halle, thank you," Miss Lakshmi replied. Her tone softened instantly, warmth blooming where there'd been nothing but crisp, polite frost earlier.
Halle — the maid — did not move like a simple domestic. She carried an invisible weight, a quiet gravity. The sort of presence that could hush a crowd simply by entering the doorway. She stood there, poised, and the room felt suddenly smaller.
Out of habit, my qi unfurled, brushing outward the way I had earlier with Miss Lakshmi. With her, I'd found nothing. A void. An unlit room. But when my qi grazed Halle—
There it was. A pulse. Controlled, refined, potent. Sharp like a blade kept sheathed yet oiled daily.
Her red eyes snapped toward me immediately.
My shoulders locked. "Brilliant. New place, new terrifying woman who could probably fold me like poorly pressed laundry."
"I see our guests have arrived," Halle said, her voice smooth as polished stone. Her gaze drifted over the rest of our group, assessing, cataloging, deciding whether any of us were a threat — or worth her time. Then she turned to Paige. "Good afternoon, Miss Paige." She offered a small, precise bow, graceful as a noblewoman's curtsy. "Would you and your companions care to join us for luncheon?"
Paige agreed before she'd finished the sentence — blissfully unaware she was dining beside a woman who could probably duel half a regiment before dessert.
Miss Lakshmi was already at Halle's side, taking her hand with an ease and familiarity that said this household ran on its own quiet rules. They walked together as though the rest of us were just decoration.
"Let's go. I'm starving," Paige said brightly — then switched tones so fast I nearly tripped. She fixed me with a scalding glare. "And maybe don't go poking at everyone's essence with your qi like you're testing their stitching. Miss Lakshmi wouldn't notice if a cannonball rolled through her parlour, but Halle? She'd feel even a whisper. And she could have ended you for it."
My pulse went from anxious flutter to full stampede. Breath tightening, chest constricting—
Victoria's fingers slipped between mine. Warm. Steady. A quiet anchor.
My lungs remembered their purpose. We followed Paige into the dining room.
"Can you sense qi?" I whispered, mostly to distract myself from the fact that my mortality had just been politely acknowledged.
Paige shrugged without looking back. "Whether I can or can't is beside the point. Actions mean something. Anyone with eyes could've predicted that."
Lunch was simple in its elegance — roast chicken lacquered with honey and pepper, soft white rice (expensive enough to make any merchant grin), a sharp salad whose spice carried consequences, and a glass of imported wine dark enough to stain the soul.
Halle stood behind Lakshmi like a guardian statue sentient enough to judge our table manners. Her stillness was unnatural — disciplined to the point of artistry.
As I lifted my cup, something on Lakshmi's hand caught my eye: a tattoo, delicate yet striking. A lotus shaped like a tiara, its petals forming an ornate crown or what it a tiara shaped like a lotus. On her other hand, another mark — a henna, but stylised, with sharper lines and an almost ceremonial air as it usually is.
Twin symbols.
Adornment, yes — but also something else. Something weightier and I could be certain what as I did not know brush the subject
When she finished eating, Lakshmi placed her teacup down with a measured grace that suggested she had been raised around etiquette manuals bound in gold.
"So, Princess," she said lightly, "what is it you seek from me today?"
"Thank you for the meal, dear. Exquisite as always," she added to Halle.
Halle's expression barely changed, but her posture shifted — subtle, satisfied, almost pleased.
I straightened. "We… need help getting to the capital."
I skipped everything else — the city's attitude, the annoyances, the provocations. None of it mattered anymore. Not when war simmered on the horizon like a pot threatening to boil over.
Lakshmi leaned back in her seat, her small feet just barely brushing the air above the floor. "The capital…" She tapped her lip. "Travel fare is usually about six hundred yen."
My stomach dropped so fast it could have cracked marble.
Six hundred.
For one person.
We needed two.
"We don't—" I began, panic coiling tight.
Victoria stepped in. "We understand business," she said evenly, though strain tightened her words. "But reaching the capital is urgent. And you know exactly why."
Lakshmi's eyes danced from Victoria to me.
Yes. She knew.
"We… don't have that money now," I admitted. "May we repay it later? Or… compensate you in another manner?"
During all this, Paige happily continued eating, removing herself entirely from the negotiation. Meanwhile Halle stood by Lakshmi, holding a neat stack of papers and a slim case for her reading glasses.
Silence settled. A soft, heavy thing.
Then Lakshmi smiled — slow, calculated, the kind of smile a chessmaster wears right before moving the queen.
"Very well," she said. "You will owe me a favour. One that I may call upon at any time."
She lifted her tea again, calm as morning frost.
We signed her agreement — ink, paper, the whole ritual — while Halle handed us documents with an efficiency that bordered on supernatural. Afterward, she leaned down and whispered something into Lakshmi's ear.
Lakshmi nodded, then looked at us.
"As a gesture of goodwill," she said, "I shall offer you one piece of information to aid your journey."
Victoria inhaled sharply, then shot me a look best described as 'oh sweet heavens why do you do these things.'
The look a governess gives a child holding a candle too close to the drapes.
So it was done.
We owed her — not just by word, but by formal contract.
Halle escorted us to the guest room. The long hallway swallowed our footsteps, echoing with the solemn hush of a cathedral.
"You never give a businesswoman a blank cheque," Victoria muttered when we were finally alone.
But the ink had already dried.
And whatever we had just bought—
or sold—
We would not understand until much, much later.
---