The outer hallways of the Silver Star Tower were light and airy, pierced along their length by high, arched windows that let in the sun and fresh breezes. The ivy that clung to the walls and the dozens of trees that had taken root on the outside ledges of the huge castle helped to relieve the artificial feel of the man-made edifice, providing a reminder that the enclosed world of the tower was merely part of the greater world beyond. Depending upon how high one was, the views ranged from impressive to spectacular.
Lillet sat in one of the casements, dangling her legs over the edge. Usually it was one of her favorite places, but today the fresh air and the view did nothing to lighten her mood. She was so caught up in her misery that she didn't even hear the click of bootheels until they were almost on top of her.
"Hey, Lillet. Why so glum? Isn't this supposed to be your big day?"
"Oh, Margarita."
Margarita Surprise had been Lillet's first friend at the Magic Academy. The apprentice witch was a study in contrasts: her short red hair, the pince-nez spectacles perched on the end of her nose, her dowdy brown dress, and above all her lace cap like a spinster or dowager's suggested a conservative, shy, introverted frump. Only her boots, sleek black leather that came up past the knee, laced up their split sides with rows of deep green ribbon, hinted at her outgoing, vivacious nature. She plopped herself down on the window ledge next to Lillet.
"Come on, out with it," she urged. "Keeping secrets from friends never helps. I ought to know. So what happened? Did Ms. Opalneria decide to flunk you in Necromancy at the last minute or something?"
Lillet shook her head.
"No, nothing like that."
"Well, that's good, because it won't be much of a party tonight if there's nothing to celebrate, and I'm hoping to meet a cute guy. Not that you'd care," Margarita added with a wicked grin, "but the rest of us need to look after ourselves."
Lillet let out a deep sigh.
"Hey, wait, is that the problem? You and Amoretta didn't have a fight or something, did you?"
"No, that's not it...at least that's not it yet." Lillet sniffled, feeling her eyes start to tear up.
"You're going to have a fight? Does this mean you can schedule them in advance now? Is this some kind of advanced divination magic?"
"Margarita!"
"Sorry, just trying to lighten the mood a little, but I guess it fell flat, huh? Seriously, though, come on and tell me what's wrong."
"Professor Gammel recommended me for a post at the Royal House of Magic."
"And they turned you down? Those lousy rats! You're twice the magician any of them are. They'd have been hiding under their beds if they'd had to face off against the Archmage!"
Lillet couldn't help but smile, just for a moment, at her friend's immediate defense of her ability.
"That isn't it, Margarita; they accepted me as a Royal Magician."
"Full-fledged? Not just an apprentice?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well, that's more like it! I told you the first day we met that we'd get a chance to work at the palace someday. Of course, I didn't expect you'd make it so soon--but then, it hasn't really been soon for you, has it, with that weird time loop stuff you told me about? Except you said you only remember, what, five times, so you're only like three weeks ahead of the rest of us in your mind. Anyway, so what's the problem? This is great news, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Lillet said, brushing away a tear. "It is. This is what I've dreamed of, ever since I first learned I could do magic. I wanted--I want--to become a great magician, to make my family proud and insure my brothers' future."
"So how is this a bad thing?"
"If I become a Royal Magician, I'll have to move to the palace. I'll have to leave here."
"Ohhhh, I get it. You're afraid Amoretta won't want to go?"
Lillet looked at her oddly.
"What was that, Margarita?"
"You're afraid Amoretta won't want to go, right? That she'll have some dream of her own that involves staying here, or that she won't want to live in the city or whatever? Though I have to say, for someone who likes other girls and isn't even human besides, Amoretta is the most traditional girl I know. I think her childhood dream, if she'd had a childhood, would be to be a bride." Margarita paused, and adjusted her pince-nez to get a better look at Lillet's face. "Lillet, why are you staring at me?"
"Margarita, do you mean that...you think she might want to come with me?"
Margarita snorted.
"What, you didn't think so? That's what all this gloom is about? You were playing out the big goodbye scene in your head?"
Lillet nodded.
"It's a sad thing," Margarita declared, "to learn that one's best friend is an idiot right out of a romantic novel."
"Margarita!"
"Well, it's true. That girl is soppy for you to a degree I cannot believe. It's embarrassing to be in the same room with two people who are so much in love. She'd walk into fire for you; I can't believe the capital would be that bad. At worst you'd have to turn a couple of loudmouth conservatives into toads before they learned to ribbit and let live. The least you can do is go ask her before getting all depressed."
"You're right! I'll go ask her right away." Lillet gave her friend a grateful hug. "Thank you so much, Margarita."
"Any time. And if you want to return the favor, once you get settled in there, invite me to visit and fix me up with some cute baron or duke."
Lillet laughed.
"I'll see what I can arrange. Oh, but what if--"
"No 'what ifs'!" Margarita pointed down the hall. "Go get an answer and then you can worry about the problems that actually happen."
Knowing good advice when she heard it, Lillet darted off down the hall.
Chartreuse Grande's alchemy laboratory was filled with flasks and beakers, bubbling retorts full of strange fluids, and a massive furnace capable of providing the raw heat and power necessary to fuel several of the professor's arcane experiments. Alchemy unnerved some people, since it involved the creation of life by manipulating the basic laws by which the universe functioned. Elves, fairies, and similar creatures of Glamour, which were tied much more closely to the ebb and flow of nature than were humans, feared and disliked alchemical creations for this reason. Lillet, though, always found the alchemy lab a friendly, even comforting place. The absence of creepy ghosts and frightening devils was part of it, but most of all the hustle and bustle of constant activity reminded Lillet of her mother's kitchen on the farm.
"Ah, Miss Lillet! Excellent timing. Could you please add three measures of the powdered dragon eggshell to this beaker before it boils over?" Dr. Chartreuse greeted her. The lion-headed teacher appeared to be trying to carefully measure out three fluids at once, drop by drop, into an open beaker containing a seething, gelatinous mass, and definitely needed an extra hand. Lillet quickly found the requested reagent and spooned in the powder. There was a puff of blue smoke, and the jelly turned a bright red.
"Perfect! I think we can leave that for a while." While Lillet corked the bottle, Dr. Chartreuse slipped the pipettes back into their stands, holding the fragile glass stems with surprisingly delicate gestures of his clawed, almost pawlike hands. Lillet had been told the alchemist had once been a beautiful blond youth as an apprentice before being cursed into his present form, and his movements occasionally showed an elegance and grace that hinted at that former beauty. "I appreciate your help; it's hard to get on properly without a skilled apprentice."
"It's too bad about Bartido," Lillet agreed.
"Quite. He may have been a foreign spy, but what of it? He had a keen mind and a serious dedication to his art. Besides which, you destroyed the Philosopher's Stone, so there was no chance for it to fall into foreign hands, removing the primary danger. Still, Gammel does have an obligation to the crown, and it was better to let young Mr. Ballentyne go home safely now than risk his exposure and capture later." Dr. Chartreuse sighed heavily. "A deuced inconvenience to me, though."
"What were you doing, anyway?" Lillet asked, interested.
"Trying to invent a new breed of blob familiar. I'm hoping that it will contain a fluid reservoir within its gelatinous exterior filled with a strong acid, with which to provide a more aggressive self-defense than the typical blob can muster."
"But you aren't using a Rune."
"No, indeed." His voice deepened, taking on the tone of a lecturer. "Remember that Rune magic is a shortcut which replaces the extended process of ritual summoning, or in the case of alchemy, of laboratory creation. However, one cannot streamline a process that does not as yet exist. Once the experiment is successful, I will know the precise steps to take and can convert them into a Rune so that my new variant can be efficiently summoned and employed in battle."
"Oh, I see. But you could have started by designing a Rune to fit your theory, couldn't you, Dr. Chartreuse?"
The lion-headed man nodded, his shaggy mane dragged back and forth over the broad lapels of his coat by the motion.
"Indeed, but I find it to be considerably easier to establish where one's inevitable errors are made when I employ a traditional alchemical process. A flawed Rune may simply fail without a particular indication as to why." He rubbed his furred hands together. "But, as interesting as it may be to discuss alchemy with a fellow scholar, I suspect that was not the purpose of your visit?"
"N-no, I wanted to talk to Amoretta. Is she here?"
"Yes; she's resting in back. Go on. I'm sure she'll be happy to see you."
Lillet passed through the lab and into an adjoining storage alcove. There, within a six-foot-tall glass cylinder filled with pale amber liquid, floated Dr. Chartreuse's greatest creation. As it did every time she saw her, Lillet's heart melted at the sight of the girl the alchemist had named Amoretta Virgine.
Lillet pressed her palm flat against the surface of the tank, feeling the warmth of the liquid within.
Amoretta, she thought, projecting the words "outward" so as to communicate.
Oh, Lillet! The mental "voice" that came back sang with happiness.
I wanted to talk to you. Is that all right?
Of course! I'll be right out.
Lillet stepped back and returned to the lab. A few moments later, Amoretta emerged, dressed and made up, from the alcove. Her beauty almost took Lillet's breath away. Amoretta looked to be a couple of years older than Lillet and was a few inches taller. Her features were delicate and her skin pale like fine porcelain. Her hair was ash-blonde, some left to spill over her shoulders and some tied in a waist-length foxtail. She wore short, close-fitting white pants and a sleeveless cloak-like garment of black leather, laced across her otherwise bare chest, along with high-heeled boots as provocative as Margarita's. A long sword with a matching scarlet sheath and hilt was buckled at her hip. She was beautiful, exotic, and perfect.
"Oh, my love," Lillet impulsively grabbed Amoretta's hands, tears welling up in her eyes.
"Lillet, what is wrong?"
"I..." She shook her head. "Can you come with me?"
"Of course."
They left the laboratory and strolled along the hallway, hand in hand. Amoretta's fingers were cool in Lillet's.
"You know that I'm formally graduating from the Magic Academy today, right?"
"You did tell me, Lillet. I'm not forgetful, you know. That's why I was resting in the tank; I wanted to be fresh and awake for the ceremony and the party tonight."
"Well," Lillet took a deep breath and plunged into it. "Professor Gammel recommended me to the Royal House of Magic. They agreed to accept me as a Royal Magician."
"That's wonderful!" Amoretta exclaimed. "You always told me that you dreamed of being a great magician." Impulsively, she hugged Lillet. "When do we leave for the capital?"
Lillet stopped in her tracks.
"You...said 'we,' Amoretta?"
"Yes, of course. Lillet, you're acting very strange."
"You're going to come with me, Amoretta? You want to?"
"Of course I do. Lillet, you know that you mean everything to me."
"Oh, I've been such a fool!" Tears of happiness welling up in her eyes, Lillet flung her arms around the girl she loved. "I was afraid that you wouldn't want to come with me, or that you wouldn't be able to."
"Lillet, I love you. I want to be with you always," Amoretta said simply--but then, to her, it was that simple.
"You'll be all right, though? I mean, we probably won't be able to bring all the equipment from the laboratory along."
Amoretta shook her head.
"No, as long as I have my flask, I'll be fine. The rest of it is just to make it easier to restore myself. It's useful, but I don't need it...and I do need you."
At least on some level, Lillet knew, she meant that not as an endearment, but as literal truth, for Amoretta was not human. Dr. Chartreuse had captured an angel's spirit and sealed it within the created body of a homunculus, an alchemical life form. To him, Amoretta was the perfect creation of his art, possessing a human form, capable of reasoning and emotion, able to move around freely as she liked, separate from the flask that contained the magical force sustaining her life. But as a created life made by human actions, not by God's blessing, Amoretta was not able to be content with existing for her own sake. She needed a reason to be. She needed love.
The type of love, Lillet knew, did not matter. Wife or lover, daughter or sister, Amoretta would have been any of these and happy, so long as it was sincere. Her creator did not love her. Dr. Chartreuse had seen her as an object--the ultimate expression of alchemical skill. Love and family had been alien concepts to him. He did not offer what she needed.
Lillet did.
"You're sure you don't mind leaving the tower? If you need to stay, I'm sure I can find a way to stay as well." She knew, now, which she'd give up if it came to a choice. Lillet loved her family, but Amoretta...she'd died for Lillet more than once in the trips through time, freely gave up her life for Lillet's sake without regret. Lillet had sworn that she'd never let Amoretta be hurt on her account again.
"I've never left the tower before. I think it will be exciting, to see all the places first-hand that I've read about and heard stories of. And...I want to be with you." She smiled shyly. "I miss those days when I hid with you in your room, instead of living in the lab. And I want to see you achieve your dream. I know what that feels like, thanks to you."
She rested her hands on Lillet's shoulders, then lowered her mouth to the shorter girl's for a kiss that was gentle, loving, and made Lillet's skin tingle with longing. Lillet wanted to deepen the kiss, to pull Amoretta close, but the exposed hallway was too public for that, so instead she just gave herself over to the tenderness of the moment, which was over all too quickly.
"So, are you all right now?" Amoretta asked. Lillet nodded back.
"Uh-huh, now that I know we'll be together."
"Good. I know you have a lot of things to do, so...I'll see you later?"
"Oh, yes," Lillet agreed earnestly.
They separated slowly, reluctant to leave each other's presence. Lillet watched Amoretta walk away, her cloak swirling around her ankles, and reflected that she, too, missed the days when Amoretta had been staying with Lillet. Even now they stole whatever time they could together, but it was never enough. As a Royal Magician, though, Lillet would be an adult, with the rights of one to love whom and how she pleased.
A rich, amused chuckle rolled through the hall following the homunculus's exit. As if a veil had been lifted, a dark, threatening aura seemed to swell up around Lillet, and she jumped back, startled, as a devil appeared before her.
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