ChaoticArmcandy

  Eventually it came time for Mi to untether herself from the web of spirit connection, shoot up from the Tides, and turn back to the world of Harmine. Carefully, she stilled the vibrating cpper of her bell, and tucked it away on her belt.

  The mist had burned away and the morning sun shone bright on the golden leaves and the muddy bank, as she followed it back along the river. As Mi stepped back onto the cobbled road, and began to climb the arch of the bridge, the conundrum of her new roommate rose up unbidden.

  When the bursar’s clerk, a guarded young man with hair like a cloud of golden wire, had given her the slip of paper (paper was more commonpce than crockery, here) with her room assignment on it, Mi’s heart had sunk at the list of titles and ranks next to her new roommate’s name. A noble, and only heir of a Countess, no less.

  Mi had resigned herself to sharing a sleeping space with a prissy, stuck-up brat at best, and a false-face bully at worst. Roxa, however—well, Roxa had defied her expectations. She made no attempt to conceal the fact that she wanted to be friends with Mi, and was deliberately trying to win her over.

  For her part, Mi couldn’t help finding Roxa very...charming. Her pointed chin, angur cheekbones, and easy grin recalled to Mi a golden-red grassnd fox, sunning itself on a wide, smooth stone. Her ughter was infectious, her attention generous. Some nights, when they pyed cards—Roxa loved games—the long, lingering, sidelong gnces she gave Mi over the rim of her cy mug of wine made Mi struggle not to blush. Such gnces in Opali could not be mistaken, but who knew what constituted flirting in the Duchy of Waterfalls? Certainly not Mi.

  And Mi was sharply aware of the propaganda about her home spread by Imperiat eugenicists on this side of the Whistling Sea. Opali was a stain on the map, an infestation of ill-breeding and ignorance, a den of piratical, loose-tongued whores, thieves, heretics, perverts and gender trash, predisposed to unhygenic degeneracy by racial type and bloodline.

  Mi smiled to herself, thinking of Simone cackling proudly, and then let the smile slip away with a sigh. The stupidity of this pce was a lot harder to ugh about without her friends here.

  At least Roxa was open about her own hatred of the Imperiat and all its worming forms of control. And while Roxa easily broke propriety to make lewd jokes at the expense of professors and prefects alike, or ugh so hard milk sprayed out of her nose, she never made advances on Mi.

  And Mi was too spooked by all the allegiance salutes she saw every day and the precarity of her position here to risk moving a muscle in anything resembling a gesture or a cue that might be construed as flirting back. Far too often, here at Harmine, she felt like a rabbit frozen in the heather as hawks circled overhead.

  And thus the conundrum—how much could she really trust Roxa? There were hawks above her—of this she was certain—but was Roxa one of them?

  Her worst fear boiled up to whisper that any dalliance between them would be powerful leverage indeed. Here in the Imperiat, even unproven charges of unhygenic fornication or degeneracy could be deadly for her. Roxa’s position was secured in ways that hers was most definitely not—if it came down to Roxa’s word against hers, accusations of unsanitary social behaviors—let alone being outed as a tea girl—would doom her faster than a barracuda snatching a bangle.

  No matter how much she liked Roxa, no matter how much she doubted Roxa would do that to her, such power was unwise to give to anyone here. Mi couldn’t afford to pretend otherwise. At Harmine, bckmail was as banal as plumbing. Being naive about the way things worked in the Imperiat could put everything she’d worked for in jeopardy.

  Even if Roxa went no further than a bit of light flirting, all it would take to ruin Mi would be one slip up in the intricate and careful system she had developed for dressing, undressing, shaving and washing. Just one glimpse.

  Mi let out a long shuddering breath and resolved that no matter how pretty and charming Roxa was, she had to keep her guard up. This edge she was treading was far too narrow for any missteps. Mi reached the back entrance of her House and began to ascend the staircase. Opening the door, shewas immediately confronted by a smooth expanse of skin rippling with well-defined muscle.

  Her gaze was immediately drawn to a fascinating py of taut lines that had her eyes skimmingsunlit hips and naked thighs. After a long moment Mi remembered herselfand looked up to find Roxa staring over her shoulder with a little smirk.

  Mi blushed but didn’t look away. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning!” Roxa smiled at her. “Did you sleep well?”

  Mi shrugged and moved to her desk. “Not especially. You?”

  “Um. I had...some dreams. Want to go to breakfast together before css?”

  Mi rexed a little. “Yes, thank you,” she said, trying to keep the fervor of her relief out of her voice.

  Roxa donned some clothes, finally. Mi carefully slung her bookbag over her shoulder and turned to find Roxa holding the door open for her, which sent a flush of pleasant warmth through her chest despite her best efforts to not be charmed. They joined the morning rush of girls going to css. Soon enough the rich, glossy wood-paneled hallways of Stormcroft House gave way to the wide, stone honeycombed passages of older buildings and they began to hear hoots and catcalls as more and more male students joined the fray.

  Harmine University had only begun admitting girls a decade ago, and Stormcroft and Fairhollow were the newly-created Houses that were intended for them. Of the other twelve, the youngest and smallest was five times older and three times the size. The University was the quintessential old boys club, older and richer than most nations.

  The cold stare of a young man wearing the gold tassels of a Prefect made Mi gd for the presence of her tall roommate beside her as the crowd carried them to a massive pair of oak doors and spilled out into a sunlit courtyard.

  As they crossed the fgstones to the other side, where broad, shallow steps led up to the dining hall, Mi noticed something familiar about one of the students perched there. And yet, she didn’t recognize them...at all?

  But there was something...the oversize, shapeless garment swathed around their hunched frame, their slender limbs emerging from the bulky pullover—it almost made them look like a storm-ruffled raven, except for the way they were curled in around their center, which reminded Mi of a shyer, less swaggering animal. A newly-hatched petrel chick, perhaps.

  As Mi drew closer she saw the person sigh and turn their face up, eyes closed, as if scenting the wind. She scanned their pale, heart-shaped face—well, as much of their face as she could see under that mess of dark curls—

  Then Mi realized what was familiar about this person and her eyes widened. The way they were holding themselves struck a deep chord in her own body. They were holding themselves so small and cramped—like someone trying to fold their body into negative space, to actual escape this dimension and slide sideways into another one, to disappear entirely.

  Mi breathed in sharply. She was remembering—years and years and thousands of miles ago, and just a small taste—the anxiety of her days before she’d changed her own body. The tea had helped, of course, but if that medicine even existed here it must be deep, deep underground. Growing up here must have been far, far worse—impossibly bleak. The Imperiat maintained a brutal monopoly on the regution and disciplining of the bodies of its popution, through the Ministry’s own licensed and tightly reguted corps of social hygienists and eugenicists. As far as she could tell, the free witches and herbalist-chemists had been all but stamped out.

  They would walk right past this person in only a moment. Thoughts darted through Mi’s head like tiny minnows in a tide-rock pool. She could stop and say something—say what, exactly? ‘Hello, d’you ever think you might be a girl, actually?’—but what conceivable reason would she give to Roxa for why her guarded, introvert roommate had suddenly struck up a conversation with a random boy-looking student on their way to breakfast?

  Mi was acutely aware of how many assumptions she was making, based on not-very-much. Literally just a hunch, actually. There were hundreds of other possible reasons someone would instinctively shrink themselves down. This made no sense, and yet here she was, waiting for this stranger’s eyes to open, searching for something, though she couldn’t say what.

  They would be past in five steps.

  Four steps. She knew her facewas too open, too readable. Mi fought toshutit again. It would be smart to look away, to stare straight ahead.

  Three. She was too damn curious. She couldn’t look away.

  Their eyes opened—mossy, tawny, softer than she could ever have expected or believed was possible in this pce of hard, nationalist might and cruel pride. For a split second Mi felt as if an ache of understanding flowed between them. Then they looked stricken, clearly not expecting to find her own gaze boring back at them, and looked away, blushing.

  Mi herself didn’t blink or look away. She was used to the disconcerting effect that her gaze could have on people. She only wished they would look back up so she could find out if they really were—Ah! The stranger gnced back up, shyly, and Mi drank in this eye contact like clear well water.

  And then, from one step to the next, Mi was past them, plunging out of the brisk sunlight into the crowded press of the dining hall. She could tell Roxa was looking at her, curious.

  Mi mastered her face, closing it safely behind a neutral expression, before she let herself look over at her roommate. Questions would come ter but for now, she needed to change the subject.

  “Would you like to eat outside?”