"It's all gone wrong," Lillet moaned into her pillow. She'd gone straight back to her room after learning what had happened in the lab, terrified that she'd find Amoretta already dead and gone. "I've bungled it completely. I've as good as killed you!"
"Lillet..." Amoretta said hesitantly. She wasn't really good at this, reassuring another person. Her honesty cut a little too sharply, her clarity was a little too bright for that. But she could see that Lillet was suffering, and she had to try something when faced with that. She touched her lover's shoulder, hoping to establish closeness by physical contact. "You haven't killed me," she pointed out the obvious. "I'm right here."
"Through no doing of mine!" Lillet said. "The magician who has you knows I didn't follow orders exactly, that I was trying something sneaky. He could have smashed the flask right then and punished us both for trying to deceive him."
I have her life in my hands, Lillet thought to herself, and I'm playing games with it. How can I do this to someone I love? The thought brought on a fresh rush of tears, fueled by memories of Amoretta shining like a golden star as her alchemically-created body dissolved and the angel within came forth, its purifying light burning away any darkness around her. I can't bear to see that again. I can't!
"Oh, Lillet...You have to stop this."
"I know. From now on," she wept, "I'll just do what they want, with no tricks. I can't afford to make any more mistakes, not while they're obviously watching me."
"Stop it!" Amoretta said. "That isn't what I meant and you should know it!"
"But if I mess up again--"
"He'll probably kill me anyway, or at least keep hold of my flask indefinitely to try and keep himself from you. We've already talked about that, and I still think you were right."
"Then there's no hope at all."
"You know, Lillet, you're not very good at making mistakes," Amoretta observed, almost dispassionately. "Maybe it's because you don't do it very often, so you don't get a lot of practice."
"What?" Lillet asked, the surprise of it punching through her tears to get her attention.
"Sit up," Amoretta tugged on Lillet's arm. "Let me look at you."
Because it was Amoretta, Lillet let her guide her upright, turning her so they were sitting on the edge of the bed facing one another. Amoretta took Lillet's face between her hands, her fingers cool against skin flushed hot from crying.
"I believe in you, Lillet," she told her lover to her face. "This is only one mistake, one setback. It's not the end of everything, far from it. I know in my heart that you're going to see us through this." She leaned forward and kissed Lillet, a soft, lingering caress of lips, then kissed her again with more urgency.
"Amoretta--" Lillet began, reaching up to take her hands, but the other girl wouldn't let her.
"No, Lillet, please...let me show you how I feel." She kissed her again, then embraced Lillet, holding her close. Amoretta's lips tickled along Lillet's jawline up to her ear, which she teased gently with her breath. "Let me show that I don't hate you for making a mistake." She nipped at Lillet's earlobe. "That I believe in your love."
"Amoretta, this--ah!--isn't the time--"
"Yes, it is." He fingers brushed back Lillet's white, lace-trimmed mantle, then dipped to the buckle holding her stiff, dark overdress closed. As the mantle's collar fell away, Amoretta bent her head and her lips kissed down Lillet's neck. Lillet made one more feeble attempt to resist before Amoretta's tongue swirled in the hollow at the base of her throat and she was lost as she was urged backwards onto the bed while Amoretta opened her dress.
Afterwards, they lay entwined, Lillet's skin damp with sweat pressed against the homunculus' silken coolness. Amoretta did not perspire, as far as Lillet could tell; her artificial biology did not include it. It was a mystery why she so definitely did possess a sexual capacity, since her creator had been as dispassionate and scientific an experimenter as Lillet had known; Dr. Chartreuse had certainly never made advances to Amoretta nor ever intended to, yet he'd made her capable of accepting them. The only thing either of them had been able to conclude was that he'd simply designed, as best he could, a perfect female body without consideration for what Amoretta would or wouldn't actually do with it.
Whatever the reason, Lillet thought as her head lay pillowed on her lover's bare shoulder, she was very glad of it.
Amoretta smiled her sweetly innocent smile while gently stroking Lillet's hair.
"Do you believe me now, when I say that you didn't do anything to hurt me?"
"How could I not?"
"Good, because it's true. I do have faith in you, that you'll find a way to save me from this situation. You saved me from worse before, after all. I believe in your promise."
"Oh, Amoretta," Lillet kissed the other girl warmly.
"It isn't just me, either," Amoretta said.
"Do you mean Gaff?"
"No, although I'm sure he does believe in you, too. The person, or people, I meant were the ones who took my flask."
"I don't understand what you mean."
"Well, when they found out that you were trying to use a trick to find what they'd done with my flask, they could have just given it up as a lost cause and killed me. They didn't do that, though. They didn't even issue any threats. I would say that means they believe very strongly in your magic. Either they absolutely need you and no one else to achieve their aim, or they're afraid of what you'll do if they do kill me."
"I only wish that I really had the kind of talent everyone thinks I do."
Amoretta propped herself up on one elbow, her pale hair streaming down over her shoulders like a waterfall.
"Modesty is a virtue, Lillet, but underrating yourself is not being humble. It's just another kind of lying. I know that you feel like you've had an unfair advantage, but even if the accident of the Philosopher's Stone made it possible, you are a great magician. Even the professors at the Magic Academy weren't at over-Mastery level at every kind of magic like you are. You have to accept who you are, Lillet, and not be scared of it."
"Accept who I am?" But she's right. I do hide from it. I do feel like I cheated, somehow, by using my trips through time to learn magic. But this power wasn't given to me; I earned it through hard work on my own. I didn't do it for ambition's sake, but to save my teachers, my friends, and Amoretta. Why should I hide from it now, when Amoretta needs me as much as she did then?
"You're right, Amoretta. You're absolutely right, about everything. If I don't accept what I can do, then I can't use that power to the fullest, and I need to use everything I can if I'm going to save you. If only I could figure out how they knew what I was doing..."
"Could they be scrying us?"
"No; they could use the flask to target you or maybe if they stole some of my hair out of my brush or something during the theft they could use that, but we're both magician enough to notice. The room is warded against general scrying spells--honestly, most of the palace is anyway, just as a security measure--and Gaff cleaned out the things that got broken so if they took a piece of them to scry they'll be looking at the rubbish heap. Someone had to be watching somehow, though, to know what I was preparing and--oh!" The answer hit her like a thunderbolt. "Of course! That's what it is! I should have thought of it before!"
"What?"
"Master Tanqueray as good as told me when he was complaining about our break-in last night. It was the same as what the magician did here to our room. They couldn't have triggered the palace's security wards or else there'd have been a general investigation, which would defeat the purpose of blackmailing me. It was just like we did last night: they didn't break external palace security because they were already inside. It's what let them know I was up to something in the lab and have the chance to ruin my candle. The magician is a colleague here at the Royal House of Magic!"
"I'm surprised that a Royal Magician would turn criminal."
"Me, too. I guess that ambition, or envy, or greed can get to anyone. Being so close to political power and all the alliances of Court probably just makes it worse." She sighed. "I hope I never get like that."
"Don't worry; I'll stop you."
Lillet grinned wickedly at her.
"Well, at least I don't have to worry about being tempted into evil deeds by lust. After you're through with me I wouldn't have any energy left to be lured by anyone else."
"Am I really such a demanding lover?"
"Of course not, silly. I was just teasing." Lillet kissed the tip of Amoretta's nose.
"Oh. I guess I'll have to try harder, then." Amoretta's arms snaked around Lillet and pulled her close.
Dusk was shading the sky against the window as Lillet leaned back, staring up at the canopy of the bed. Amoretta was curled against her, asleep, one arm across Lillet's body just under her breasts and a leg hooked around Lillet's at the ankle. She really didn't know what she'd do without the lovely--and loving--homunculus. Amoretta had certainly smashed apart the depression and fear that had possessed her. More than that, she was completely right about what she had to do.
She was up against a Royal Magician at the least, either as the prime mover in the plot or as one of a group--the use of "we" and "us" in the extortion note might be the truth or just more deception. That meant she couldn't use the public facilities or risk giving her game away. Besides, a palace wizard would be prepared for the ordinary tricks like scrying candles and spying familiars.
If only she knew who it was. That would change things dramatically. The magician had covered his tracks, though, even going so far as to kill the only witness against him.
Wait a minute.
If the magician had caused Beammest's death, he did it because the thief knew something important, like the face or identity of whomever had questioned him. There was no other point to killing someone sentenced to years in the Pit. So, Runcifer Beammest did have valuable information. Admittedly, he was dead. That was a problem. But it wasn't an insoluble problem. It would be for an ordinary magician, but like Amoretta had said, Lillet had to start thinking in terms of what she was actually capable of doing.
A trickier problem, though, was the issue of how to go about her business unobserved. Even if she could raise the shade of Beammest from Purgatory, there wouldn't be much point if the magician could watch her do it. She needed freedom of action, a way to make her observers believe she was somewhere that she wasn't.
"What I need," she said aloud, "is a way to be in two places at once."
Amoretta stirred in her sleep, poking her knee into Lillet's thigh. She'd always been a restless sleeper; Lillet remembered how on their first night together they'd shared her narrow student's bed and Amoretta had actually managed to push her out of it twice. It came from being a homunculus; born as she was in her present form Amoretta had never before felt the warmth and closeness of being loved and so she squirmed and pressed as close as she can.
That was when Lillet realized how she could do it. She looked at her sleeping lover and the idea came to her how she actually could be in two places at once.
Assuming, of course, she could figure out how to do an incredibly complex piece of magic no one had ever done before and make it work all within twenty-six hours or so.
She let her fingers trail through Amoretta's gossamer-soft hair, letting the strands gently stroke her skin.
If it's for you, I'll find a way.
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