The computer screen glows brighter in the dim light of sunset, displaying the salutation of a letter that will never be written. Beside it lie more letters, all neatly folded and sealed with red wax. They will never be sent. Above them, her glasses, the only things she left behind.

Without them, the full force of her beauty will be bared for all to see. Her hair will be down, he knows, as once it came down for him and him only. She will find her strange new monster of a prince, and it will certainly never ask her to conceal herself from the world. He alone, he whose eyes she once existed for, will never lay eyes on her again.

The kingdom is barren. The throne room is empty. Akio sits at the center of it all and waits for nothing.

Dusk comes. The blinds crash down and the projector flickers on. Instead of stars, shadows play across the ceiling.

"I wonder, I wonder." they chorus. "Do you know what I wonder?"

"Do you remember Fluffy?" asks one.

"You mean your cat?" responds the other.

"Yes," replies the first. "The most wonderful cat in the world!"

"Of course."

"She ran away."

"How dreadful!"

"But it's all right, I have a new one! Meet Scruffy."

"Mrrrow!" declares the silhouette of what appears to be an over-sized dust-bunny.

"Oh dear, that cat is not at all as good as Fluffy."

"It's okay, though, because I'm not trying to replace her. All I need is something to catch the mice."

"Just as it should be!" the shadow-girls chorus, and the shadow-cat makes an unwholesome retching noise.

"That's all very well," says Akio. "But not just anyone can be the Rose Bride."

The shadow-girls come together, whisper to each other in loud, incoherent hisses, then separate and go to work. Props and costumes fly every which way. The shadow-cat screeches as it tumbles through the air. Then all at once the lights go off. When they come on again, the scene has changed.

"Once upon a time," begins a silhouette decked in epaulettes and puffed-out pants, "there was a beautiful, noble Prince, and he was in love."

"('He?')" comes a stage-whisper from somewhere in the wings. "(Are you sure that's right?)"

"(Of course it is! A girl can't be a Prince, you know!)"

They giggle. Akio scowls. "Get on with it!"

"The Princess he loved," continues the second shadow, walking onto the stage in a long ball gown, "was also beautiful, and adored him with all her heart."

"The Prince, of course, was virtuous and chaste." She draws in as though about to kiss the shadow playing the Princess, but pulls away at the last second.

"A perfect courtly lover," the Princess agrees. The two dance around each other, never touching.

"Surely nothing could go wrong."

"Then! Out of nowhere!" With one sweeping motion the Princess pulls off her billowing dress, revealing beneath it a tattered cloak. "A Witch appeared and spirited the Princess away!"

The Prince stops dancing and stares. The Witch, however, continues to circle around him as though nothing has changed, and as she does so she wraps him in chains. "She attacked the Prince unfairly, and he was defeated." The Prince sinks to his knees, and the Witch fastens the chains with a padlock shaped like a rosebud.

"But where did the Witch come from? And where did the Princess go?"

"Do you know?" they chorus. "Do you know? Do you know?"

The projector stutters and clicks to a halt, and the shadows vanish. Akio folds his hands and considers their suggestion.

---

She's heard the rumors, of course. She isn't deaf, you know. But she doesn't believe them, not one word.

All right, so maybe Juri could be like that. It is awfully hard to imagine her as the girl in a relationship. But even if Juri is in love with another girl, it certainly isn't her. She's… not unlovable, exactly. She mustn't think that way anymore. It's just… it's Juri. Juri is special. Special people don't fall in love with people like her. Once she thought it was possible, but that turned out to be just another huge mistake.

And anyway, Juri and her, they've known each other since they were little. They saw each other naked a couple of times, long before their bodies and everything else began to change. So it would be weird. Gross. Best not to think about it.

She doesn't like what happens to her when she does think about it. Because if it's true, and if Juri were to confess to her, she thinks she would probably destroy her. Imagine that — Juri, toyed with, used, cast aside and humiliated in public, brought down to her level. The image horrifies her almost to the point of tears, but there's a smile there too. She wants to shout, out loud, "I'm not like that anymore! I'd never do that to Juri! We're finally friends again!" But the truth is that she doesn't know if she'd be able to stop herself.

And yet… what if she could? What if she could be good? What would it feel like to really be loved by someone like Juri? No, not "someone like" — to be loved by Juri. She imagines being held. She imagines secret kisses in that overgrown rose garden. It feels safe, and exciting, and she knows by now that most things can't be both of those at once. It feels like everything wonderful all at the same time. But that's stupid, she reminds herself, because Juri may be princely, but she's still a girl. Girls and girls don't get happy endings. And anyway, she's not like that. That part of what she felt for Ruka was real, even if all the rest of it was lies. Still, it's nice to imagine…

Until she remembers the locket and thinks about when it disappeared — it was just after that happened, wasn't it? And suddenly, she knows. She was the girl in the locket. Juri did love her. But she doesn't anymore, because she went and screwed it up, just like she screws up everything. Screaming, crying — not pretty crying that makes boys and maybe girls like Juri want to hold and comfort you and make you feel loved again, but the sort with snot and drool and puffy, salt-reddened skin — shameless begging, shameless lies, all dignity forsaken… Who could love a creature like that?

It shouldn't hurt so much. It's a good thing, something she doesn't have to worry about anymore. Now they can really be friends again, like they used to be, like they should be. Besides, she's a normal girl, isn't she? She doesn't need other girls to be in love with her. She wants to get married someday. It really shouldn't hurt so much.

So… why does it?

---

"I wonder, I wonder. Do you know what I wonder?"

They're following her.

She no longer stops to watch their insipid little productions, but she can't help from hearing them. She used to at least be impressed by the fantastic shapes they managed to conjure seemingly out of the air, until the day she followed the trails the stretched-out forms of their legs made on the ground and discovered there was nothing at the other end. She isn't sure whether that makes it worse or better. On the one hand, at least she knows that no mere mortal would be so audacious. On the other, she's fairly sure that disembodied spirits aren't supposed to exist any more than miracles.

"What are you reading? That's boys' manga!"

"But I like lots of things that boys do! Like basketball! And swords!"

"Anything else?"

"Well…"

Giggles. They're mocking her.

It's always either this or some doggerel about lilies. She won't let them get to her. There's no point being angry at things that aren't real.

"Oh dear. Are those panty shots?"

Juri bristles.

"Yes, I am a lesbian," she hisses through clenched teeth after surreptitiously looking about to make sure no one is within hearing range. "I am not, however, a pervert."

It took her all too long to admit even to herself. For a while she at least had some plausible deniability: she didn't like girls in general — she just happened to be deeply, hopelessly in love with one particular person who happened to be female. Well, the Tenjou girl blew that theory out of the water. She's fairly sure now that if she ever falls in love a third time, it will not be with a man.

She hopes she never does. She is not entirely over either of them and doubts she ever will be, and being torn at this way from three directions is more than she thinks she could bear.

Enough self-pity. Strength like hers can endure loneliness. Shiori is on speaking terms with her again. She has her companionship, and she can look as long as she does not touch. It will have to be enough.

Contentedly-ever-after, Juri thinks as she leaves the shadows behind. Happiness, like miracles, belongs to fairy tales, and there are no fairy tales about people like her.

---

"The coffin lid is open! Won't you come out?"

"Ah, just a moment! There's so much to do! I have things to pack, and I suppose I really should put on some better clothes."

"Well, be quick about it! This thing is really heavy."