Chapter 38: Two Princess Dance Moms Walk Into A Ritual

"Much better," Maria said, examining Nova’s face with the critical eye of a field medic assessing combat readiness. "Your eyes are less puffy. Nobody will know you’ve been crying unless they are up close, in which case it is extremely obvious. Or if they smell the salt from your tears, which wolves absolutely can from about forty feet. But don’t worry, you washed off the salt smell for the most part."

"Have you no tact?" Seraphina turned to Maria with an expression that suggested this was a recurring conversation. "That is the opposite of what you tell someone who has been crying. You lie. You look them in the eyes and you tell them their face looks completely normal and there is zero evidence of emotional distress and their skin has never looked better. That is the protocol. You don’t give them a forensic breakdown of their swelling and then offer scent-radius calculations."

"I was being honest."

"Be less honest."

"Nova, your face looks completely normal," Maria recited in a monotone that communicated maximum compliance and minimum sincerity. The verbal equivalent of a form filled out in crayon. "There is zero evidence of emotional distress. Your skin has never looked better. Also your eyes look like two tomatoes in a snowbank but Seraphina told me to lie so here we are."

Seraphina closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose with the patience of a saint who had been assigned to the wrong princess.

Nova laughed. A real one. The kind that catches you off guard and steals your breath before you can argue with it. Maria had the rare talent of being so bad at comfort that she accidentally became great at it.

"Don’t worry," Maria said, her voice settling into something warmer. "No one knows. You held it together at the fire. A little scary, actually."

She considered her own words. Weighed them. Adjusted.

"Pretty scary." The revision landed worse. Maria looked satisfied with it anyway.

As they reached the mouth of the woods, still a good distance from the clearing, Seraphina spoke.

"That thing that fell out of Kai Starborne’s hands. Was it something to do with you?"

Nova gave a single nod. "It causes electricity in my cuffs."

Both princesses stopped walking. A look passed over Nova’s head between them, the kind of silent conversation that two women have when they’ve just heard something that rearranges the furniture in their understanding of the world and now several pieces were on fire.

Seraphina’s jaw tightened. Maria’s loosened, which was worse because Maria’s default setting was open and watching it close meant something had landed hard.

Nova gathered that Seraphina hadn’t grown up around slaves either. Two packs without silver. Two princesses who had never watched a boy click a button and call it discipline.

Nova kept her expression neutral. "For slaves, that’s common."

"Does Celeste have slaves too?" Seraphina asked. The confusion in her voice was genuine, the kind that comes from someone trying to understand a system she’d only ever seen from the outside of.

"I am Celeste’s slave. The Starborne family’s."

Both princesses had the same reaction at the same time. One gasp of horror that would have been comedic if the subject matter wasn’t Nova’s entire life.

"Celeste Starborne," Seraphina repeated.

Nova gave a single nod. Dread was already pooling in her stomach because the tree line was thinning and the clearing was getting closer and she had just fled from these people and was now being escorted back like a runaway who’d been collected by two very persistent retrieval agents. Uncomfortable was doing the work of forty worse words.

Both women seemed to sense it at the same time. Each princess grabbed one of Nova’s arms, flanking her like bodyguards who had decided their assignment had started.

Seraphina’s hand reached for her left arm and her fingers grazed the edge of the silver cuff.

"Careful," Nova said quickly, pulling her jumpsuit sleeve over the metal. "It will burn you."

Seraphina grabbed her arm anyway. Her grip was firm and her mouth stayed shut and the silence said more than a speech would have. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t adjust. She held on like the concept of letting go was a suggestion she had reviewed and declined.

Maria had the other arm. Two princesses. One slave. Walking in formation towards a clearing full of wolves who thought the slave was radioactive, which, based on current evidence, they weren’t entirely wrong about.

"So what’s the plan?" Seraphina asked.

"Walk in calm. Act natural. Don’t engage," Maria answered.

"And if someone says something to her?"

"Then we bite."

"There she is."

Nova blinked a few times. "I don’t want either of you to get in trouble—"

Maria cut her off mid-sentence. "The lamp doesn’t get a vote."

"Don’t worry. We’re princesses. Trouble is what we do," Seraphina added.

Nova didn’t comment because she didn’t trust her voice. Two women she had met tonight were holding her arms and about to walk her into a clearing full of people who wanted her gone. They were doing it like it was obvious and the alternative hadn’t even crossed their minds.

Conversation died across the clearing like someone had pulled a plug, which meant they’d seen the walking nightlight and her entourage. Every head turned.

Silence.

Nova noticed the first perimeter torches were not lit, just as Maria had mentioned.

VROOMPH.

They stopped dead and looked at the torches. Then at each other, hunting for a face that would say we imagined that. Nobody had that face. They checked the torches again. Still fucked. The crowd was doing the same idiot ritual at scale.

"Huh," Nova commented.

"Huh?" Seraphina repeated. "That’s your response."

"She’s in shock, Seraphina," Maria snapped.

"I’m not in shock," Nova said.

"That’s what people in shock say."

"Don’t suppose there’s a dimmer switch," Seraphina said, her voice bone-dry.

Nova cracked a ghost of a smile. The kind that lives in the corner of your mouth and isn’t brave enough to move to the center yet.

The dead silent clearing was listening to this conversation. Ridiculous didn’t cover it. Both princesses turned up the volume, leaning into it like professionals while Nova was trapped between them like a hostage at a press conference.

"I want to address something," Maria announced, extra loud.

Seraphina cut her off at the knees. "Don’t."

"You don’t even know—"

"I’ve heard all I’ve needed to."

"I was GOING to ask Nova to turn the torches GOLD next."

Seraphina pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand. "No you weren’t. And we’re not doing THAT again."

They hauled Nova forward while the crowd listened like it had paid for tickets.

"Fine," Maria stated. "I WAS also going to point out that her hair looks good and whoever buys her gets to have a glowing pretty slave who turns FIRE white."

Seraphina stared at her.

Nova shut her eyes for a second. Further loss of dignity had seemed theoretically impossible. And yet.

"The crowd sees her, Maria."

Maria glanced down at Nova. "White fire. My shift. Possible?" Her eyes blew wide. "WAIT. THAT’S WHY YOU DIDN’T BURN. I GET IT."

Nova blinked a few times. "You don’t control who it burns?"

"Oh no. It burns everyone. Ash was the expected outcome. You went off-script."

Seraphina looked at Nova. Nova looked at Seraphina.

"Is she joking?"

"I want her to be joking."

"I’m not joking. My brother’s wolf is the same way. You should be dead."

An elder stepped forward from the perimeter.

"Ah, there she is." His tone was pleasant, almost, the way a cage is almost a room. He clasped his hands in front of him and addressed Nova. "Please return to your spot, 7709, so we may continue. And do not leave the premises again. Friendly reminder that failure to comply is an automatic Lottery assignment."