She remembers Jake telling her about his grandmother, once.
The one whose ashes he watched climb to the sun from a makeshift pyre, the one the Batterwitch could never tame. She'd heard about Jade English's exploits, how she'd stood against Crockercorp to the end.
She's gone now, a ghost swallowed by the witch-wolf who crackles green fire.
Away from their ersatz mother, they rebel. Jade bristles at her, snarls to warn her away with snapping teeth and yellow-green-black static.
Jane leaves her be.
.
Consume, submit, obey, stay asleep, cease reproduction.
A feverish mantra ingrained on her synapses, running on loop through her mind.
It's been four hours and thirteen minutes.
.
She picks flowers from her planet - lilacs and wisteria, grown from barren land. Jade sniffs curiously at them but when Jane reaches out to her she skitters away.
She smells like ozone, and lilies.
.
Sometimes, Jane's herself again and she thinks, I need to get away.
Sometimes, she sits and broods in the Derse throne room; flowers blossom around her, tyrian and fuschia, a reminder of her hold on Life and the Empress's hold on her. Jade watches as she shreds amaranth and peonies and crushes them underfoot.
.
I miss everyone, Jade tells her one day. I miss my planet. She's lucid then, quiet as Jane combs out the tangles in her hair and weaves hyacinths into her locks.
I do, too, Jane wants to say, when the red-black-white stops burning on her skin. I want to go home.
.
They cope.
.
They cope in myriad ways, when the green fire and red static become too much to bear. They cope through futile plans, empty dreams of liberation and revolt scattered in their wake like cheap confetti, like bruised petals ground beneath Jade's ruby slippers. They cope, through dreams of escape through portals rimed in green fire and black lightning, offer power in exchange for a respite from echoing purple halls.
They cope through petty squabbles for power, for the Empress's attention which she lavishes only when they behave. They cope through conquering one another, invitations to play that turn to declarations of war.
.
If Jade doesn't submit to the Empress, she submits to Jane - unwillingly, perhaps; grudgingly, perhaps. She has no control over Jane, for the green sun holds no thrall over the heiress. To this, she revolts - marks Jane's skin with her teeth, cuspids and canines and incisors pressed against her wrist, her shoulder, the curve of her hipbone.
No matter her offers of freedom or power, though, Jade never bares her throat to her, never fully submits-
- and it grates, sets the royal blood afire.
.
It's been six days, one hour and twelve minutes and this time, oh, this time she obeys and submits; beautiful and wild, the wolf bows to the red maid.