This is part of a fic exchange with the lovely fabulouslaughter, who will hopefully be posting her half of the exchange sometime soon. (I forced her to write Leyna and I am not ashamed hehe.) Anyway, she gave me a fic title and a pairing, and I came up with this! Fabulouslaughter, I hope you like this, and I hope anyone else reading this fic does too!

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own HoO or any of its characters—not even the minor ones like these two losers.

Fire Hazards

Hylla's face was smashed against the surface of her desk when the clack of heels made her jerk upright and hurriedly pat her hair down. "What are you doing here?" she asked somewhat rudely, not even looking at the new arrival. "I don't have an appointment scheduled for another hour."

"I know," the new arrival said, the slightest hint of cheekiness attached to her voice.

"Then for gods' sakes, why are you—?"

"I'm sorry, I should have explained. I know because I was just given your schedule. I'm your new assistant."

Hylla blinked, and when she opened her eyes there was a manicured hand thrust under her nose, waiting for a shake. For five seconds, she didn't move. Then she pushed that manicured hand aside and finally looked at the girl invading her personal space.

Hylla had seen this particular Amazon around the warehouse before, and she'd always noticed how pretty she was in a slightly wild, I-could-slit-your-throat-open-and-not-lose-any-sleep-over-it kind of way. But that didn't keep Hylla from leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms. "Kinzie. Who assigned you to be my new assistant?"

Kinzie shrugged. "There was a search committee apparently? Nobody told me I was even a candidate, but all of a sudden people were handing me schedules and piles of business attire and telling me to get ready for my new job, so I guess—"

It was probably unfair of Hylla to take out her misery on this girl, but that didn't stop her from doing it anyway. "I don't need a replacement assistant," she snapped, digging her fingernails into her palms to keep herself from breaking something. "Anastasia was irreplaceable, and now that she's gone I am perfectly capable of doing this job by myself. So please go back to whatever you were doing before, and tell whoever was on that 'search committee' that I didn't authorize any such thing and they had no right to go behind my back like this."

Kinzie frowned. "No offense, Queen Hylla, but it's been six months and you're not fooling anyone when you say that you can handle everything on your own."

"I can—"

"Do I have to remind you that you still have a red mark all down the side of your face from sleeping on your desk? And that you have single-handedly doubled the amount of coffee grounds that we have to buy each month?"

"How—how do you know that?"

"I'm in charge of cataloguing all the shipping orders that come in and out of this warehouse," Kinzie informed her. "I mean, lots of our people work under me—after all, the Amazons are all about shipping, right? But I'm in charge."

Hylla narrowed her eyes. "If you do so much around here, then why haven't I ever had a meeting with you? Surely I should have had to discuss all sorts of organizational things with you."

Kinzie's lips twisted upwards. "Maybe I'm just that good at my job. Maybe that's why the search committee wanted me to be your assistant." Kinzie glanced around Hylla's office, and then she started thumping her fingers against her clipboard in a deliberate pattern. Ba-da-dum, ba-da-dum. "Obviously you could use the help."

Hylla frowned at the paper stacks on her desk, at the larger stack of folders awaiting sorting in front of her wall-length filing cabinet, at her emergency oh-crap-I-have-a-meeting-this-afternoon-and-I'm-still-wearing-my-leather-jumpsuit pencil skirt draped over her floor lamp. "It's an organized chaos," she claimed. Without really thinking about it, she started mimicking Kinzie's tapping pattern on her desk. Ba-da-dum, ba-da-dum. "I don't need anyone coming in here and messing up my system."

"You don't have a system. Come on, Queen Hylla. Let me help you—"

"No!" Hylla snapped. "I will not have another assistant, and that's an order. Now get out of here and go back to your shipping catalogues, Kinzie."

Kinzie's fingers stopped tapping and clenched around her clipboard. Her knuckles whitened. "Fine," she said slowly. "But just so you know, I'm pretty sure that pencil skirt on the lamp is a fire hazard."

Before Hylla could respond, Kinzie stalked out of the room.

For a few weeks, Hylla stubbornly continued her system of organized chaos. While managing the entire enterprise, as well as her Amazons themselves, she also tracked down the head of the assistant search committee and politely told them that if they ever tried to do something like that without her permission again, she'd slap an iron collar on all of them and treat them like men for a month. Then she went back to her office, slammed the door shut, and filled out half a million forms. At least, she tried to fill out half a million forms . . . but her plans were ruined by one stupid signature on one stupid shipping request.

Anastasia Trokostovich. Written in that stupid looping handwriting that had taken Hylla three weeks to learn how to read. Oh, gods, Hylla wasn't prepared to see that writing again. With a strangled yell, she balled up the shipping request form and threw it across the room.

Five seconds later, Hylla realized that she'd actually do anything to see Anastasia's handwriting again. She slid out of her chair, knocking off a few portfolios in the process, and walked over to the paper with wobbly knees. It had landed underneath her floor lamp. Hylla sat down, lifted the form with shaking fingers, and smoothed it out slowly, staring at every loop and swirl as if memorizing her signature would bring Anastasia back. For a while, that name seemed to be the only thing in the world that mattered. It wasn't until Hylla stood up again, still clutching the form, that she realized that her office looked . . . different, somehow. It took her a minute to pinpoint all the differences, but she eventually found them all.

For one thing, the stack of folders in front of her filing cabinet had shrunk by at least two feet. Also, the mess of papers on her desk was now a mess of papers with three distinct sections: completed, mundane, and urgent, if Hylla had to guess. Without even thinking about it, she had been pulling papers from the urgent section all week because they were the closest to her—and placing papers in the completed section because it was conveniently located right next to her right elbow. But Hylla knew that she hadn't had time to organize all her work because gods, she barely had time to eat these days. And if she hadn't done it . . .

Slowly, Hylla turned around to inspect her floor lamp. Sure enough, her fire hazard of a pencil skirt was no longer dangling from it. Hylla would have bet $10,000 in furniture orders that it was now neatly pressed and hanging in her closet.

With a frown, Hylla deposited Anastasia's form on her couch and left her office.

It took her a solid thirty minutes to find Kinzie—thirty minutes that she didn't have, but Hylla wasn't about to let this go unnoticed. When she did track the Amazon down, Hylla found her pressing one of their male workers against some supply crates and kissing his face very enthusiastically. She crinkled her nose, considered turning around and walking away, and quickly decided that she hadn't spent all this time finding Kinzie just to be deterred by some passably cute guy in a jumpsuit and iron collar. "Kinzie? Uh, if you don't mind, um, putting a hold on your recreational activities, I'd like to talk to you."

If Kinzie was surprised or embarrassed, Hylla couldn't tell. She just bit down on the guy's lip, winked at him, and lazily peeled herself away. "We'll continue this later," she promised, and then she sauntered off. I'm the one in charge, Hylla thought. I should be leading her. But she followed Kinzie anyway.

"So," Kinzie drawled, "what did you want to talk to me about? I was kind of busy, you know."

Hylla raised her eyebrows. "Obviously not busy enough. When did you start coming into my office and moving my stuff around?"

Kinzie started up that same finger tapping again. Ba-da-dum, ba-da-dum. "The day after you kicked me out," she admitted. "I have your schedule now, remember? So I saw that you had a three-hour meeting scheduled and figured I'd clean up while you were busy. And since then, I've just kind of popped in whenever I knew you weren't in your office. Did it really take four weeks for you to realize that your room was cleaner?"

Hylla opened her mouth to retort and ended up squinting at Kinzie instead. "It's been four weeks already?"

"Oh my gods." Kinzie crossed her arms. "See what I'm saying about how overworked you are? Let me be your assistant, Queen Hylla. Honestly, you won't even know I'm there."

Hylla looked away. "I can't let you do that, Kinzie. Thank you for the help you've already given, but you've done more than enough already. You can go back to, uh, what you were doing before."

"But Queen Hylla—"

"Just . . . choose a different supply crate next time," Hylla added before she could stop herself. "You two were making out on top of a ton of volatile Greek firecrackers. I'm pretty sure that's a fire hazard."

Slowly, Kinzie's mouth twisted into a smile. "All right, Queen Hylla. I'll keep that in mind."

Despite Hylla's best efforts, she kept seeing evidence of Kinzie's presence in her office. One day, all her completed forms were stamped and enveloped, ready to be sent out to their proper locations. Another day, she found a post-it note reminding her to call some manufacturer about some deal that Hylla had completely forgotten about. (Fortunately, Kinzie's spiky handwriting was very different from Anastasia's scrawl, so it didn't make Hylla cry too hard.) If she had an important meeting at a gods-awful hour of the morning, she always found a cup of coffee and her favorite doughnut flavor waiting on her desk when she came in to grab her portfolio. And yet she never once caught sight of her semi-assistant - until one day when Kinzie came skidding into Hylla's office and squeaked. "You're not supposed to be back here for another hour!" she protested. "What are you doing?"

"My meeting let out early," Hylla shrugged. "What's wrong?"

"I always come in when you're not here so I won't get in your way," Kinzie frowned. "You know that. And I usually come as soon as you leave so I can work for as long as possible, but today I got pulled aside for a minor shipping crisis and spent forty-five minutes arguing with the HR department at Microsoft, gods, and then a crate fell on Rita's arm so of course I had to pull her free and take her to the infirmary, and then—"

"Wait. Why were you the one to pull Rita free? We have a team of Amazons to deal with factory accidents."

"Yeah, well, she got hurt because I was talking about some ordering logistics with her while she was lifting some heavy crap, so obviously I couldn't just leave."

Hylla saw Kinzie tapping her hand against her thigh—ba-da-dum, ba-da-dum—and frowned. The movement was faster than normal and much more erratic. She usually did it so methodically. . . . "Kinzie, how long have you been awake?"

"Uh, a couple days, maybe? I'm sorry I missed bringing you coffee this morning, but yesterday I was bothered by how inefficient our packing system was and decided to work with the engineers to revamp it a little, and we spent all night working out the kinks, and by the time I realized it was morning again you were already in your meeting so I just—"

"Kinzie, you're not actually my assistant!" Hylla interrupted. "I can get my own coffee! Gods, I didn't realize how exhausted this was making you. You've got enough on your plate. Please stop trying to help me." She flung her arms out, gesturing at the pile of filing folders that was only knee high now. "Look, you've done too much for me already."

"If I stopped now," Kinzie yawned, "all the progress I made would disappear in a week. I"—she yawned again—"can handle it."

Hylla studied Kinzie's fingers—ba-da-dum, ba-da-dum—and sighed. "You're not going to give this up, are you?"

"No way in hell," Kinzie agreed cheerfully, suppressing another yawn. "You need me too much, and you know it."

"I—but—fine."

Kinzie paused mid-yawn. "Fine?"

"Fine, I'll make you my official assistant," Hylla mumbled, hating herself even as she said the words. "Your first task will be finding a suitable replacement for your shipping job." She looked Kinzie over and amended her statement. "Actually, your first task is to go back to your room and get some sleep."

Kinzie was still staring at her with wide eyes, but she managed to say, "I don't need a nap, Your Majesty. I can start right away."

"Get some sleep, Kinzie," Hylla repeated. "In your current state, you'd probably be more of a fire hazard than a help."

"Um . . . Okay, Queen Hylla." Kinzie yawned a few more times as she left the room, but her exhaustion couldn't hide the grin creeping across her face.

Hylla wished she could smile back, but the knives twisting in her stomach told her that she had made a horrible decision.

As the weeks passed by, however, some of Hylla's fears faded away. Kinzie did even more good as her official assistant, managing Hylla's schedule and keeping her straight when all of her queenly duties were starting to blur together. Some days, Hylla wondered how she'd ever managed to run the Amazons without Kinzie there to back her up—then she remembered Anastasia, and all her worries came rushing back, and she spent a few days trying to make Kinzie leave again.

Kinzie always ignored her, though.

Despite herself, Hylla began to admire Kinzie's dedication, her unwavering—if slightly ridiculous—sense of humor, and her incredible ability to put up with Hylla's abrupt mood swings. That didn't mean she liked having Kinzie around, though. And she certainly didn't look forward to seeing Kinzie in her office for so much of the day. No, not at all.

"All right, so you have a pretty full plate today," Kinzie announced one day, balancing two cups of coffee and a bag of pastries on her clipboard as she hurried into the office. Hylla bit back a smile. They were almost six weeks into Kinzie's official assistance-ship now, but she never stopped being amazed at how much stuff the Amazon could carry at once. "Meeting at eight-thirty—that's, like, ten minutes from now, in case you lost track of time like you usually do"—she handed a donut to Hylla before continuing—"then another meeting at nine, then one at ten, then one at eleven and another at 11:15 which is crazy because you know Mica will make small talk for like thirty minutes before ever getting to the point—she's your eleven o'clock—so you know you'll never get to your 11:15 in time so I'll just cover that one, and then hopefully you'll be done by noon because you have some special luncheon thing with some foreign executives—"

"Wait." Hylla pointed a glazed donut at Kinzie and narrowed her eyes. "Did you just say you'll cover my 11:15?"

"Well, yeah," she frowned. "There's no way you can make it, so as your assistant it's my job to—"

"Who am I supposed to meet at 11:15?"

"Um. . . ." Kinzie set down the coffee so she could look at her clipboard. "It just says 'meeting at 1660 Charcoal Boulevard, 11:15.'"

Hylla's fingers clenched the donut so hard that it crumbled in half. "It doesn't say who I'm supposed to meet?" she said, hearing the strain in her voice and hating it.

"No," Kinzie said, "but I'm sure I can handle it—"

"No way," Hylla snapped. When Kinzie's eyebrows shot up, she swallowed hard and tried for a lighter tone. "I mean, you said my eleven o'clock is Mica, right? So there's no way I'm letting you go off to the mysterious meeting while I'm stuck listening about her latest boyfriend. You go talk to Mica, and I'll go to Charcoal Boulevard."

"But Queen Hylla—"

"You're my assistant," Hylla said, "and that means you get to go to my most boring meetings so I don't have to." She reached out and took her coffee, twisting her lips into a smile. "And before you complain, remember that you practically begged me to take this job."

"I wouldn't call it begging," Kinzie said, but reluctantly, she agreed to see Mica instead.

After that, Hylla let her change the subject, but she mentally congratulated herself on the way she'd handled that conversation—even when her 11:15 turned out to be a not-so-mysterious conversation with one of her Amazons, who had spent three weeks tracking down some rare goods and needed to know what to do with them. From then on, Hylla did her best to make sure that Kinzie only covered meetings inside headquarters. There was no way she would let her do anything else—not after what had happened to Anastasia.

"Really, Kinzie? Again? This is the fifth time I've found you doing—doing that—in two weeks." When she said that, Hylla jerked her head toward the man standing perfectly still less than fifty feet away, an expression of pure terror on his face as he watched the Amazon Queen yell at the girl he'd been kissing.

"Actually, I haven't just been doing That," Kinzie said cheerfully. "I've also been doing This, and Him, and The Ugly One—"

"Kinzie!" Hylla almost gagged. "Stop!"

"Sorry," Kinzie said, raising her eyebrows. "I didn't realize That and This and Him and The Ugly One would bother you that much. They're not affecting my work ethic, if that's what you're worried about. I haven't been slacking off, have I?"

"No, of course not," Hylla sighed. "But it's—it's inappropriate for the queen's assistant to be, uh, fraternizing with our male workers like this."

Kinzie crossed her arms. "You're the youngest queen we've had in a century, Queen Hylla. Since when have you cared about propriety?"

"Since—since—" Hylla lost it. "Look, I couldn't care less about how you spend your free time, but you have two options here! Either you conduct your personal business somewhere where I won't run into you, or I'll find a new assistant."

"What?" It was an empty threat, and they both knew it—Hylla needed Kinzie too much to fire her. But the mere fact that Hylla had suggested that kind of punishment was enough for Kinzie to stiffen up and shoot her a glare. "Fine, Your Majesty. I'll do him in private from now on." And with that, Kinzie spun on one of her towering, professional heels and click-clacked away. Hylla had no proof, but she was sure that Kinzie swished her hips and shot That a particularly seductive look just to get on Hylla's nerves.

It was a testament to Hylla's self-control that she waited until she reached her office to scream in frustration. She had handled that situation poorly, and she knew it. But when she'd seen Kinzie arching her back in pleasure as That's hand had slipped towards the collar of her blouse, something in Hylla had just snapped. She'd chalked it up to disgust, but Hylla knew the truth. She was disgusted, sure, but not only because the thought of interacting with the male prisoners like that made her feel sick. After all, she tolerated other Amazons playing around with their men. But Kinzie was different. When it came to Kinzie . . . well, Hylla was jealous.

"Here's the new round of assignment requests, Your Majesty," Kinzie said, slamming them down on Hylla's "mundane" to-do pile. "Stamped and previewed, per usual. My extracurricular activities haven't stopped me from doing my job."

Hylla winced for the third time in as many days. "Kinzie—"

"Now it's time for my lunch break." Kinzie continued as if Hylla hadn't spoken. " Unless you'd like to regulate my eating habits as well."

"Kinzie, I didn't mean—"

"Goodbye, Your Majesty."

"You can call me Hylla," she said softly, feeling her throat close up. "You know that. And even Queen Hylla would be better than Your Majesty."

But Kinzie didn't answer because Kinzie had already left.

With a sigh, Hylla reached for the first assignment in the pile and skimmed through it. At this rate, it'd take a month for Kinzie to forgive her. Maybe longer.

As Hylla worked her way through the stack, her thoughts wandering from Kinzie to work to Anastasia and back, she forgot that it was supposed to be her lunch break as well until her stomach rumbled. Startled, Hylla checked the clock. 2:45.

Hylla tilted her head and frowned. Didn't Kinzie break from noon to one . . . ?

Without a second thought, she picked up her phone, dialed 1, and held it to her ear, sending up a quick prayer to as many gods as she could remember. Pick up, pick up… "Hi, this is Kinzie, and I'm probably too busy to talk right now. Call me back—"

Hylla pressed the end button. No need to jump to conclusions, she told herself, willing her hands to stop shaking. She's mad at you, remember? She's probably trying to ignore you for as long as possible. Still, she wasted no time in calling the front desk. As she waited, her fingers started thrumming out that pattern Kinzie was so fond of. Ba-da-dum, ba-da-dum.

"Queen Hylla," Margaret's voice rang through on the other end, surprise obvious in her voice. "What do you need?"

Hylla took a breath and tried for a calm, authoritative tone. "Has Kinzie come back from her lunch break yet?"

"I . . . no, actually," Margaret said. "I assumed she was running errands for you. Do you—"

Hylla's fingers stilled, and her pulse quickened. "Pull up the GPS coordinates on her phone and call me as soon as you have them," she ordered, kicking off her heels and sliding her feet into combat boots. "I'm going to find her."

"But Queen Hylla, you can't leave here unaccompanied! It's too dangerous! Let me round up a few warriors to go with you—"

"Not this time, Margaret," Hylla snapped, double-checking her belt for her knife before leaving her office. "Have you gotten her coordinates yet?"

"Your Majesty—"

"Margaret."

Her sigh was audible, even through the phone's crackling speaker. "She's in a building—I'm sure you've seen it before? The tall gray one at the corner of 10th and Crawford—"

"The abandoned warehouse?" Hylla said. "Oh, gods, it's happening again." Then she hung up before Margaret could answer her.

Within thirty seconds, she sprinted out of headquarters and headed towards 10th St., cutting across traffic without hesitation. Cars beeped their horns, and a taxi nearly ran her over, but Hylla didn't care. She would not let this happen again. She took a right turn, and a left, and ran for five blocks, shoving aside all the umbrella-holding pedestrians in her way—and suddenly she was at the warehouse. Only then did Hylla realize that she was crying, her tears mixing with the rainwater soaking into her skin.

"Get ahold of yourself," she gasped, leaning against the wall of the warehouse as she swiped furiously at her eyes. "You can't help Kinzie if you're a sobbing wreck. Stop crying."

Unbidden, a memory flashed across Hylla's mind.

"It's just another business meeting that you're too busy to attend," Anastasia told her with a smile, reaching up to touch Hylla's cheeks. "I'll be back in an hour."

"I hate making you go to these," Hylla frowned. "They're always boring, or dangerous, or both. Are you sure you won't take an escort with you?"

"I'll be fine," Anastasia said. "This meeting is supposed to one of the boring ones." She pressed a kiss to Hylla's cheek and smiled again. "It'll only be an hour—I promise."

Hylla had smiled back and watched her leave, but Anastasia had been wrong. It hadn't just been an hour. And by the time Hylla had gotten worried, rounded up a search team, and left to find her, it was too late. Anastasia was already a mangled body on a warehouse floor.

Hylla took one, two, three deep breaths and then pushed the memory out of her mind. That wouldn't do Kinzie any good. She had to act now. Hylla hefted her knife in her hand and pushed open the warehouse door.

It wasn't quite as dark as Hylla had expected, but the dingy windows still limited the amount of light that leaked in. She stuck to the shadows, skirting along the walls and straining her ears to hear any evidence that Kinzie was here. But all Hylla made out were random murmurs. "Please be alive," she breathed, carefully moving farther inside the warehouse. "Please be ali—"

Just then, the unintelligible conversation died out. Moments later, Hylla noticed a shadow creeping along the floor and heading towards her. She waited until the figure was almost on top of her, and then she spun out of the darkness and pinned the creature's arms behind its back before pressing her knife to its throat. "Where is my friend?" she demanded. "Where's Kinzie?"

"What?" the creature choked out. "What are you—"

"Queen Hylla? Is that you?"

At the sound of that familiar voice, Hylla released the man she'd been holding onto and whirled around. Sure enough, her assistant was standing there in all her high-heeled, business casual glory, hips cocked and eyebrows raised. "Kinzie!" Hylla dropped her knife and flung her arms around Kinzie's neck. Behind her, she heard the clatter of footsteps as the guy she'd been threatening ran away, but that hardly seemed important at the moment. "You're alive!"

"Of course I'm alive," Kinzie said. Hylla could hear the confusion in her voice. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Your lunch break ends at one!" Hylla cried. "It's at least three o'clock by now!"

"I had a meeting with a potential vendor," Kinzie said, pulling away from Hylla and putting her hands on her hips. "One that you probably just scared away."

"A vendor? But—"

"It was on the schedule!"

"You know you're the only one of us who looks at the schedule!" Hylla said. Her fear was fading away, and anger was taking its place. "You're supposed to tell me if you're going to be gone longer than an hour!"

"I did—"

"No, you didn't!" Hylla was shaking now, but she didn't care. "You were too busy making snide comments and calling me 'Your Majesty' to tell me you were going to be at a meeting, and you were gone for hours, and you didn't answer your phone, and then Margaret told me your coordinates put you at an abandoned warehouse, and dammit Kinzie I thought I'd gotten you killed too! THIS is why I didn't want you to be my assistant!"

Kinzie's mouth dropped open. "Hylla . . ."

"You could have told me about your meeting!"

Hylla fully intended to stay angry, but when her voice cracked, all her fury drained out of her. She reached down to pick up her knife and ended up collapsing onto the ground instead, hiding her face in her knees. "I thought you were dead, just like . . ." She couldn't finish.

"Oh, gods, Hylla." She felt Kinzie sit down beside her and hesitantly place a hand on her shoulder. "So this whole time . . . you've been trying to get rid of me because of what happened to Anastasia?"

Hylla let out a noise halfway between a laugh and a sob. "I thought you would have figured it out by now," she said. "The last time I had an assistant, she went to one of my business meetings, and it turned out to be an ambush and they killed her and it was all my fault. That attack was meant for me, Kinzie. I was supposed to be the one they killed. And that's why . . ."

"That's why you hate it when I cover for you at meetings," Kinzie finished for her. "And that's why you make me tell you any time I'm going to one of your meetings, and that's why you hate having an assistant."

Hylla exhaled, long and slow, and refused to make eye contact. "You shouldn't be put in that kind of danger."

"Oh, Hylla. I can take care of myself."

She gulped. "So could Anastasia."

For a few seconds, Kinzie didn't move. Then she leaned over and pulled Hylla into another hug. Hylla didn't resist. "I'm sorry that I forgot to remind you about this meeting," she said quietly. "But I wish . . . I wish you would have told me sooner. I thought you just hated me for some reason."

Hylla choked out a laugh. "I could never hate you, Kinzie." I kind of like you a lot, actually.

"Wait. But then . . ." Kinzie pulled away and squinted at Hylla. "Is this why you yelled at me for kissing that guy the other day too? Were you trying to make me hate you so I would quit?"

"I . . ." Hylla fiddled with the strap of her jumpsuit and said, "Yeah. Let's go with that."

Kinzie snorted. "Okay then. But just so you know, none of this is going to keep me from being your assistant. You really need my help."

"All right, fine," Hylla said. "But next time, tell me if you're going to take a three-hour lunch break so I don't mow down a bunch of mortals while I'm looking for you."

"Wait," Kinzie said again. For the first time, she seemed to notice the water dripping from Hylla's hair. "Did you run here? In the rain? By yourself?"

"Yes."

"That's so dangerous! You know you're supposed to bring an escort—"

"You," Hylla said slowly, "cannot lecture me about safety right now. Not even if I was almost hit by a taxi on the way here."

"Hylla!"

"Hey, at least now that I'm sopping wet I won't be a fire hazar—hang on." A smile spread across Hylla's face, and she didn't bother trying to hide it. "Did you just call me Hylla?"

"I've been calling you 'Hylla' for this entire conversation, Your Majesty," Kinzie said, grinning.

"But—I've wanted you to call me Hylla for weeks!"

"I know," she said. "I've been saving it for a moment when you were being particularly exasperating."

"Exasperating," Hylla sighed. Slowly, deliberately, she squeezed the water from her hair onto Kinzie's lap. "And after I ran all the way here to save your life. Maybe I should fire you after all."

"Firing me," Kinzie said, "would be a true fire hazard."

Hylla pursed her lips to hide her smile. "That doesn't make any sense."

"I thought it was an inside joke at this point. It doesn't have to make sense."

"Whatever, lowly assistant," Hylla said. "Let's go—drive your queen home so she can take a shower. This stupid jumpsuit isn't waterproof, and I'm freezing."

As it turned out, Hylla wasn't just freezing—she was catching a cold. The next morning, she woke up with a massive headache and a runny nose. She tried to come into work anyway—after all, queens didn't have the luxury of vacation days—but Kinzie took one look at her and shooed her back into bed. "You look terrible," she said bluntly when Hylla tried to protest. "Your eyes are red, and your nose is red, and you're shivering. Go take a nap. I'll track down some cold medicine."

Hylla made a face. "As long as it's not liquid," she said. "I hate cough syrup."

Kinzie patted her hands. "We ship everything from Imperial gold weapons to ukuleles," she said. "I'm sure I can find you a package of DayQuil pills. And some chicken noodle soup too."

"Kinzie—"

"I'm your assistant," she reminded her. "I'm supposed to make your life easier in every way possible. And that includes making you chicken noodle soup when you're sick."

"I . . . all right," Hylla said weakly, blowing her nose. "Thank you."

"Go to sleep," Kinzie ordered. And Hylla planned to—really, she did. But when she went back to her apartment, she registered for the first time that it was a gigantic mess, and the back of her neck burned. Kinzie already teased her about the wreck that her office would be if she wasn't there to keep it organized. Hylla could not let her see her apartment in this condition. Besides, if Kinzie came in and found clothes and old reports scattered around the floor like this, she'd probably tell Hylla they were all fire hazards, and then the teasing really wouldn't end.

When Kinzie finally entered her apartment, she found Hylla scrubbing at the kitchen counter furiously. "What are you doing?"

"Um . . . trying to prove that my life isn't a complete disaster?"

Kinzie opened her mouth as if to yell at her, but she ended up grinning instead. "What?" Hylla demanded.

"Oh, nothing," Kinzie said. "It's just, when I first showed up to be your assistant, you insisted that you were perfectly capable of managing your life on your own. It's nice to see you admit to needing help for once."

Hylla set down her sponge. "I gave up on managing my own life a long time ago," she said. "It's easier to just pretend that I need you. After all, I wouldn't want to make you feel superfluous. It'd lower your self-esteem." She tried for a smirk and ended up sneezing instead.

Kinzie rolled her eyes. "If you didn't have a fever right now, maybe I'd believe you."

"The only reason I have a fever," Hylla said, struggling to sound imperial when her voice was thick and nasal-y, "is because you didn't bother to call me. So really, this is your fault."

"Queen Hylla," Kinzie said slowly, "go to bed."

For a moment, Hylla considered complaining again. But then her headache throbbed, and she thought better of it. With a loud sigh, she went off to her bedroom.

A few minutes later, Kinzie slipped into her room holding a glass of water and a pill. "Take it."

"I—"

"Take it."

Arguing wasn't worth it when Hylla knew she would lose. She reached out and took the pill, tilting her head back as she poured water into her mouth and swallowed it. Then she took a few extra gulps of water, even though her achy throat protested with each sip.

It wasn't until she set her empty glass down that Hylla realized Kinzie was still standing there, biting her lip. What was she waiting for? "Thank you," Hylla said finally. "I know I make fun of you, but you really do help me a lot. You didn't have to take on this job, and I certainly didn't make it easy for you, but you—"

"You know," Kinzie interrupted, "you were right."

Hylla frowned at the sudden subject change. "What are you talking about?"

"It's my fault that you're sick." Kinzie huffed and wouldn't look at her. "I'm sorry."

Hylla furrowed her eyebrows. "It's just a cold, Kinzie. It's not a big deal." When Kinzie's shoulders stayed tense, she tried for a smile. "Besides, it was worth it for you to finally start calling me Hylla."

"Your Majesty—"

"No, no take-backs," Hylla insisted. "It's Hylla—just Hylla—from now on, except if you absolutely have to call me Queen Hylla in a big meeting or something."

At that, Kinzie finally looked at her again. "Why do you care so much?"

Hylla hoped Kinzie would attribute the flush on her face to the fever. "All those titles are too formal," she said. "You don't have to use them with me. We're, um, friends . . . right?"

"Of—of course."

Hylla nodded. Even if she liked Kinzie a lot, she could handle it if they were friends. That could be enough—at least, that was what she told herself until Kinzie suddenly perched herself on Hylla's bed and placed her hands on Hylla's knees. At her touch, Hylla's breath hitched in her throat. "Hylla," Kinzie said softly, "why did you really go after me yesterday?"

Hylla's heart thumped hard, ready to explode at any moment. "I . . . I told you," she said, struggling to keep her voice even. "I thought you were in trouble, and I thought of Anastasia, and I couldn't let you get hurt too, so I left."

"Yes, but . . ." Kinzie stared right into Hylla's eyes, like she could read her mind if she just tried hard enough. "Hylla, I know you and Anastasia were dating when she was killed."

Hylla felt all the blood drain out of her face. "How did you—we didn't—"

"Don't worry," Kinzie said quickly. "You know I pride myself on my observation skills. I don't think everyone knew—at least, not until you threw together a rescue party and stormed out of headquarters after her. At that point, it was pretty obvious."

Hylla gaped. "But I—"

"No one cares, Hylla," she promised. "It didn't affect your ability to rule, so we didn't care then, and we don't care now. Please, I—I thought you knew that we knew. Please don't worry about this."

"But if I don't have to worry about this, then why would you bring it up—oh. Oh, gods." Hylla scrambled back against her headboard. "Kinzie, you don't think that—I mean—I would never make you—I don't want you to feel—" She was rambling, and she knew it, but Hylla couldn't stop the words from pouring out. She needed Kinzie to understand this. "I would never try to overstep professional boundaries if you didn't want—"

"But Hylla." Kinzie grabbed Hylla's hands and scooted closer. "What if I do want this?"

If Hylla heard one more revelation today, she thought she might drop dead from shock. "What?"

"I know it's been less than a year since Anastasia died," Kinzie rushed to add. "And I know that I'm just your assistant. But if you ever feel like—"

Hylla cut her off with a kiss.

After a moment, Kinzie kissed her back, and Hylla felt confident enough to trace her shoulders with her fingertips, then skid her hands down her back. Kinzie could probably hear her racing heartbeat—ba-da-dum, ba-da-dum—but at this point, Hylla didn't really care. Seconds bled together, and the only thing that mattered was the taste of Kinzie's lips on hers. When she finally pulled away, it was too soon.

"You—you—" Hylla stared at her assistant with open astonishment. With shaking hands, she reached out and traced the lines of her cheekbones. "This whole time, I thought . . . And what about This, and That, and whatever you called the rest of them?"

A laugh escaped Kinzie's lips. "Pansexuality is a thing, Hylla," she said, leaning forward. "And for the record, I never actually did any of them. I just enjoyed watching your reaction."

"Kinzie!" But Hylla wasn't angry enough to stop herself from melting into another kiss. Long hours in her office were going to be so much more enjoyable now.

Still, she broke away long enough to say, "I have a cold. You shouldn't—"

"I have a good immune system," Kinzie said, and kissed any of Hylla's other protests away. Hylla was just starting to think that maybe it was a good thing they were in her bedroom already when she smelled smoke. In an instant, Kinzie was scrambling off of Hylla. "Oh, Styx!" She ran out of the room, and with a frown, Hylla followed her. When she came into the kitchen and saw the mess on her stove, she understood.

"Kinzie! Were you cooking chicken noodle soup this entire time?"

"I was only supposed to be in your room long enough to give you medicine!" Kinzie cried, dumping water on the soup, the saucepan, and the burner, even though she'd already turned off the stove and aired out most of the smoke. As she watched her, Hylla couldn't help herself. She doubled over and cracked up.

Immediately, Kinzie whirled around. "What's so funny? This is serious!"

"I . . . I . . . the smoke," Hylla gasped out. She controlled herself long enough to say, "It looks like we're both fire hazards," and then she started laughing again.

After a moment, Kinzie smiled too. "Our entire relationship is probably a fire hazard," she told her, which only made Hylla laugh harder. She winked. "But personally, I kind of like fire. What about you?"

Hylla took a step forward and tugged Kinzie into her, planting a kiss on her mouth even though they were both grinning like idiots. "What do you think?" she asked. Then she kissed her again.

They could worry about cleaning the stove later.

Thanks for reading!