Kasha,
The date for my tea party is set!
Next week, two o’clock in the afternoon.
You’ll help me like you promised, won’t you?
I want to wipe that smug look off the Baron’s daughter’s face.
Write back soon.
With warmest regards,
Eve Aranias
Looking at the handwriting — charming and round, exactly like Eve’s face — Kasha smiled.
Of course, Eve.
At last she had a reason to come and go from the Aranias residence.
Leon had gone quiet again after that day, and Kasha’s patience was wearing thin.
You were always difficult, Leon. Before my return and after.
Only Simon, unbelievably persistent, kept sending letters. He had shown up at the manor a few times as well, but Kasha had refused to see him each time. They hadn’t crossed paths yet.
But I can’t keep avoiding him indefinitely.
Around this time in her previous life, Kasha had handed over several magitools to Simon. That was surely why he was pressing so hard — he wanted them.
Those same magitools would, within months, be used to devastate the Holy Order in the Holy War.
She had no intention of handing them over in this life.
But would he take that quietly? And what would the figure behind him do when her usefulness was called into question?
I have to set the pieces in place before they make a move.
She set Eve’s letter down.
The tea party had to be a success, first. And since Kasha knew nothing about tea parties, she would need to borrow someone else’s knowledge.
She stood up from her desk.
There was someone she needed to see.
And someone she needed to bring with her when she went.
She opened the door quickly and stepped into the corridor.
⁂
“So. Do I look all right?”
Daryl turned to look at her, his expression tightly wound.
“You look fine. And — here.”
Kasha held out a small bouquet.
“I asked the gardener to cut these. Sena wrapped them.”
Daryl stared at the flowers with visible confusion.
“Why are you giving these to me?”
She didn’t hide how exasperated she was.
“They’re for Miss Margaret. Not you. Obviously.”
“Oh — right.”
He scratched the back of his head with his large palm.
“That never would have occurred to me.”
Of course it wouldn’t. You absolute bear.
She gathered her skirts and stepped up.
They were standing in front of the Yonder viscount’s townhouse.
The visit had been arranged three days ago, when Kasha had appeared uninvited at Daryl’s breakfast.
“Since when do you want to eat together?”
“…Brother.”
“Hm?”
“If you’re going to propose to Margaret Yonder… don’t wait.”
His blank expression after that had been almost worth it.
“What — what? How did you — how do you know—”
“If you drag your feet, you’ll lose her.”
She had said it with such certainty because she knew.
Margaret… huhh…
Before her return, before she had fled to Simon’s tower, she had once overheard Daryl alone in the garden, drinking, crying into his cup.
I hadn’t even told her yet… how can she get married so fast? Huhuhh…
He’d been weeping with his enormous hands pressed to his face, like an overgrown child, having lost his first love.
And to that horrible, disgusting Marquess of all people… sold off like that in an instant. Huhuh.
She remembered him eventually pounding the ground in pure grief, and narrowed her eyes slightly at the memory.
“‘Sold off’ is too strong. She’s a noblewoman. Even a father can’t simply do that.”
For all his faults, Daryl was in some ways more naive than the Kasha of her old life. Perhaps a certain level of stupidity ran in the Rüschino blood.
She kept her look of flat exasperation and answered plainly.
“Not all fathers are like ours, brother.”
That stopped him entirely. He couldn’t find a rebuttal. Couldn’t even address the fact that she had said ours without her usual distant formality.
Of course he knew the Yonder viscount was the sort of man who put self-interest above everything. But selling off his own daughter? Surely not.
…Actually. Thinking about it more carefully, it seemed entirely plausible. Daryl realized he had been so wrapped up in his own feelings that he hadn’t given Margaret’s actual circumstances any thought.
She watched him go still and knew he had taken it in.
The next day, Daryl had begun knocking on the Yonder door. Three days later, they were standing at it together.
Knock, knock.
A servant answered.
“I’m Daryl Rüschino, and this is Katiana Rüschino. We’re here to see Miss Margaret Yonder.”
Daryl spoke for both of them. The servant recognized him — apparently the face had become familiar — and bowed, gesturing inside.
“I’ll show you to the young lady’s room.”
The Yonder viscount’s townhouse had an air of straining toward wealth without quite achieving it. Trying to keep up with the capital’s fashions while bumping against the ceiling of the family’s means.
Knock, knock.
At the far end of the second floor corridor, the servant knocked.
“Come in.”
A voice — gentle and composed.
Daryl moved to step inside. Kasha blocked him.
“…Why?”
“Let me go first.”
“Why? Then where do I—”
“I’ll go in and speak well of you. Come in after.”
“Oh — really? That’s… thank you, Kasha. I didn’t know you’d do something like that for me.”
She was deflecting mostly for the sake of speaking to Margaret alone, but Daryl had gone visibly moved.
She resolutely ignored his shining eyes and stepped into the room.
“Miss Margaret.”
“Miss Kasha.”
They exchanged a small curtsy.
“Two weeks since the ball.”
Margaret smiled, slightly stilted with embarrassment.
“Yes.”
“I — I’ve been thinking about the ball ever since. I wanted to thank you, but I had to leave so quickly that day — and now you’ve come to see me first. I’m truly grateful.”
She gestured for Kasha to sit.
Looking at her more closely — she seemed worn. The kind of tired that comes from turning things over in your mind too many times.
She’s had a hard few weeks.
“Please don’t thank me. My brother was very worried about you.”
At that, a light flush crossed Margaret’s cheeks.
Good. There’s something there. That works out well, Daryl.
Kasha made a quiet scan of the room as she thought it.
Small, but it had the character of its occupant — tidy, dignified. The curtains, the fabric on the furniture, the small painting on the wall — modest but tasteful. Nothing like the rest of the house.
I made the right choice coming here.
Then Margaret spoke again.
“Miss Kasha. Why did you help me that day?”
“Hm.”
“I’m embarrassed to admit it — I watched you struggle, so many times, and I just… I felt for you, but I never had the courage to do anything.”
Her face had gone dark with shame and self-recrimination.
Perhaps this was what had been weighing on her most these past weeks. That the person she had failed to help had come forward for her first.
Margaret is kind. And she has a conscience.
“Was it unwelcome? Me stepping in?”
The directness of the question made Margaret’s eyes go wide.
“Not at all. Honestly, in that moment… I thought I saw a halo behind you.”
She laughed, quietly and without strength.
That’s exactly what I thought about you, too. That day, Margaret.
Margaret had been the only one to reach out a hand to Kasha in that ballroom, before her return. The hand had been withdrawn quickly under Odette’s shadow — but still.
Not everyone comes back from death to get a second chance.
Margaret’s response had been exactly what a person’s response should be. And in the life Kasha had lived, that level of ordinary decency was rarer than it had any right to be.
“Look up, Margaret.”
She raised her eyes slowly.
Meeting Kasha’s gaze, she seemed to fall briefly into it — then found her voice.
“It’s strange.”
“What is?”
“You seem… quite different from before. Miss Kasha.”
“Do I?”
“I didn’t know you well, of course — only from a distance. But the impression I had then and the person in front of me now are very different.”
“In what way?”
“You seem… very confident. Strong.”
“Then you should live that way too, Margaret.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“If you spend your whole life adjusting yourself to your family, your circumstances — you’ll never live as the person you actually want to be.”
“…That’s—”
“It’s not fair that someone like Odette gets to live exactly as she wants while the rest of us don’t.”
At the mention of Odette’s name, fear and anger came into Margaret’s eyes in equal measure.
Kasha pressed on, her voice quieter.
“I’ll help you.”
“…….”
“You don’t believe me?”
“No — no, it’s not that, it’s just—”
“Then — what do you think of my brother? Daryl.”
“What? That’s—”
Margaret’s cheeks went properly pink. Kasha looked at that shy face and meant what she said next.
“My brother will protect you. So let him help you, and live the way you want to live.”
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“But… wouldn’t that be using his feelings? I have nothing to bring. My father is already arranging to sell me into a marriage.”
Kasha glanced pointedly at the door.
“I think my brother would be rather pleased to be used, actually.”
That landed somewhere between shocking and absurd, and Margaret found herself halfway between tears and laughter.
“Oh goodness—”
“Don’t be sold off, Margaret.”
“Miss Kasha…”
“Choose for yourself. I’ll help.”
At Kasha’s unguarded certainty, Margaret smiled through her tears.
She looked lighter. Like someone had just put their hand on her back and finally pushed her toward the door she’d been standing outside of.
Watching that smile settle over her, Kasha felt something she hadn’t expected.
Sharing small troubles with a friend your own age. Being a source of strength for each other.
That thing people called friendship — something she had read about and quietly envied, never quite believing it was for her.
She had not even let herself hope for it after coming back. She had talked herself out of wanting it, called it too much to ask for.
But sitting here, face to face with Margaret — this woman who had each extended a hand to the other, once — the word came to her, faintly, like something half-remembered.
Is this what this feels like?
She said it before she could stop herself.
“So — Miss Margaret. Are we friends now?”
The directness of it made Margaret blink. Then she laughed, warm and easy.
“Of course we are, Miss Kasha.”
They smiled at each other.
Kasha had been so absorbed in the conversation that she’d forgotten entirely about Daryl standing outside the door. When she finally remembered the reason she’d come, she asked quickly:
“By the way — Margaret. Can I ask you for something?”
“…? Of course. What is it?”
“Have you ever hosted a tea party?”
