King Philionel's coronation stood as the greatest public event in Seyruun's history for all of one day. Even the most stubborn curmudgeons were impressed by the afterparties, featuring full orchestras and towering chocolate fountains, ballet dancers and free-flowing champagne, and every conceivable preparation of octopus. With so much entertainment, it was a happy jubilee for all Seyruun-except the new crown princess, who heard every sparkling melody and raucous laughter through a veil of menace.

Everything was wrong, and all the more wrong for how innocuous it seemed. There was her sister, tantalizingly close and yet gone forever; a monster that had somehow penetrated all of Seyruun's white magic defenses into her very home; and then there was the interminable line of opportunists who thought a celebration was the best time to seek assistance, endorsement, and retribution. She spent the next six hours tracing glacial circuits through the palace, gliding across rooms and shifting from arm to arm of those desperate to be seen alongside the future queen. Thankfully, she got the occasional reprieve from a certain someone who outranked almost all her aspiring escorts.

"Nobody cares about your subsidies," Pokota said, nestling around the brilliant diamond tiara that had never been intended for Amelia's head. "I'm a crown prince. Shove it."

The leader of the Bezeldian Corn Growers' Association frowned but graciously stepped aside, and Amelia was left to do a turn through the ballroom under the auspices of important business with Taforashia.

"That wasn't very nice, Pokota-san."

"You know you're not mad. Say, I brought you some snacks."

She gratefully accepted a few skewers of grilled octopus, trying not to think too hard about where he kept them or how that worked. As she walked by, she discreetly glanced across the crowds. Her father was nowhere to be found. Under the shimmering chandeliers something glinted blue and gold, something that blended into the wallpaper and eluded Amelia's attempts to pick it out again.

Pokota tugged on the short lock of hair that never seemed to stay down. "Hey, Amelia. Eyes front."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Amelia sniffed.

"Uh-huh. I'm the one who sits up here."

She decided a quick change of subject was in order. "So, what are you going to do now?"

"Dunno. I was thinking about the Outer World." He didn't seem to notice Amelia's sharp breath. "I want to learn how to build machines like they have out there, the ones with the motor engines that carry freight back and forth on tracks. If we could build those in and around Taforashia, we'd have a reliable way to get supplies into the kingdom and build up our trade networks."

"That's smart, Pokota-san," Amelia said, but could not shake the feeling that something in the Outer World had already claimed her friends and she could only be carried along in the undertow. For a while the two of them walked along the sides of the hot and bustling ballroom, where even the densest cliques parted at once for the crown princess on duty. Amelia tried to remember the names and requests of everyone she'd met and all the facets of their needs. Whose interests were contradictory? Who could she afford to put off? Who might become an enemy of Seyruun if she refused?

"Won't you spare a walk with me, Your Royal Highness?"

Amelia looked up at Lord Ortolan, the curious leader from faraway Yalain. Up close he smelled of bloody pork sausages, and his wizened cheeks were redder than ever. She was surprised that he'd made it to the front of her queue, but Ortolan did have an uncommonly assured grip on his cane.

She felt Pokota take a defensive crouch and she gave his long ear-hands a gentle pat; annoyed, he flew off, but not before extending stubby middle fingers to everyone gawking at him. It's too bad Zelgadis-san would never do that, Amelia thought. He'd probably feel better.

"Ah, Lord Ortolan, I hope you're enjoying your stay," she said, choosing not to comment on the turnip-bunny that had just helicoptered off her head. For his part, Ortolan watched the whole affair with childlike delight.

"Enjoying? My dear Royal Highness, just being in Seyruun has extended my life by five years at least," he said, offering his arm. "Come now, you and I have much to discuss!"

Together they set off along her interminable circuit, serenaded by lilting strings amidst the greedy thicket of fawning courtiers and clingers. Amelia was glad for Ortolan's slower pace. She would have ample time to plot her next move.

xOxOxO

Zelgadis focused his every nerve on the task in front of him. After so many distractions, so much taxing work of stretching himself in directions where he was so lacking, he was finally back to something at which he excelled: cold, strategic combat.

He had always liked fighting. When he was younger, he found it exciting, an opportunity to test his various magical and judgment skills against opponents who might be faster or stronger. As he took to Rezo's tutelage, saw firsthand the fruits of discipline, he became more obsessed with cultivating a restrained power just like the priest's own. The ability to parry, counter, and strike such that he exerted only as much force as was needed and no more, was the kind of control he longed for. Real strength was not overwhelming force or a Dragon Slave. Real strength was knowing the exact point where your opponent could no longer fight and going no further.

That training, those countless hours spent meditating and observing, had paid off in his previous fights, and it paid off now as he assessed the contours of the battlefield before him. His logical mind assessed where was best to strike, and his enhanced senses could see everything in stark shapes that beckoned and compelled him. But he was beyond emotions and pure instinct, he could know where to target, make a rational decision that gave him the best advantage. He inhaled deeply, forcing his heart rate to slow. All he needed to do now was-

-was-

Zelgadis stared. It could not be, he was certain it could not be, but there it was. The board did not lie. Amelia had taken his knight.

No...No! No! Had she cheated? Surely, she must have cheated (of course she had not cheated). He had been careful, damn it, how could his knight be gone?! Bad enough that she'd blown up his fianchetto, but how had she donethis? In a fit of undisciplined fury he took advantage of the opening and seized her queen with his rook, too irritated to care whether he was walking into a trap.

Zelgadis flung one arm to the side, only to recall he had no cape to flick aside in frustration. Now he was losing and he looked stupid. With at least thirty minutes before she made her next round through the gaming parlor, he stalked off in search of coffee.

He fumed all the way through the halls, back to the bright and festive grand banquet, where three starving slayers had already cleared through an entire table of canapes. Lina, dolled up beyond recognition in an eye-searing ruffled green dress that cut off at her shins, looked flushed and happy. Pokota and Gourry jousted over a pot of gravy, wielding hefty roast turkey legs as lances. Gourry had traded his armor for a three-piece tuxedo, to the immense pleasure of every woman and most men that passed by.

"Zel!" Lina cried. On second look Zelgadis recognized her dress as one that had lately belonged to Amelia's twelve-year-old cousin. Lina's makeup was bright and inexpertly applied, forming creases of glittering gold powder around her eyes. "Zel, Zel, Zelly baby! We couldn't find you anywhere. We figured you were just doing your usual wah-wah woe-is-me schtick."

"I see you're enjoying yourself." Against Zelgadis's will it sounded like an accusation.

"I'm eating free caviar! Of course I am." Lina gave him a playful shove. "Look at you, huh? Since when do you wear those fancy gold robes? And how much gold is in this fabric by weight? Asking for a friend..."

"These are traditional," he said stiffly. It was mostly true. Less traditional was his undershirt, so well-worn it hung just a little too loose and a little too low on his chest. Zelgadis hadn't even noticed until he won approving raised eyebrows from Hans. He had been so mortified he'd gone to change, but he'd run into old Marjan first, and her scandalized hissing had provoked something in him he didn't anticipate. The accidentally rakish look stayed.

Pokota glanced over to evaluate for himself and was not impressed. "You look like somebody tried to gift-wrap a coral reef."

Zelgadis whirled around to leave, not about to give any weight to the sartorial opinions of a swearing stuffed rabbit, but Lina grabbed him first.

"Ignore him, Zel." Lina gave him a sweet smile that set off all his internal alarms. "Say, is that silver polish in your hair? You sly dog!"

"Shut up," Zelgadis snapped, suddenly remembering why he had always hated the whole honest conversation thing. The instinct of injured animals made him lash out. "And what about you? Who are you-"

Her coy sweetness instantly transformed into a much more ordinary wrath. "Watch it, pal!" Lina cried and stomped hard on his foot.

Between the infuriated blushes and searing glares there was nothing left for them to exchange. Zelgadis found a carafe to pour himself a cup of coffee, downed it in one gulp, and left the celebrations altogether.

After nearly five hundred years of continuous use and so many comprehensive accounts from traveling architects, Seyruun's palace had few mysteries left. Even the so-called Hidden Hall of Possessed Mirrors was known to tourists willing to do the research (and risk their eternal souls). But there were some truly secret places left, like the small garden outside the archives building. You had to move aside a heavy cabinet in the corner to expose a shoulder-height wall panel, push it aside just so, and duck down under a frame to reach the veranda.

An honest assessment would describe it as more of a lush nook, barely large enough for the two wrought iron chairs under a pergola bearing abundant grapevines. According to Amelia, only the royal family and a few elderly scholars knew it existed. She had shown it to him as a truly private spot to read and review sensitive work, but more often than not they went together. Amelia would practice her speeches, which Zelgadis would ruthlessly edit down, tossing aside whole pages at a time over her protests. In winter, when the grapevines formed a thick matted enclosure where waxwings built their nests, it was the best place to sip verte chaud and watch the timid snow drift over Seyruun.

And maybe, just maybe, it might also be a pretty good place to watch fireworks. Maybe. There was no harm in checking. Of course nothing's going to happen, he reminded himself as he bent down under the wide frame. I'm just...looking. It's not as though I'm really going to run into-

"Zelgadis-san!" said a surprised voice that belonged to someone who was very much not Amelia. On the little veranda looking out over the kingdom was Phil, one hand on the railing and the other hand holding a rocks glass. Another empty glass and a half-finished bottle of liquor sat abandoned on the ground beside him.

Zelgadis blinked. In all the time he had definitely not spent thinking about being in the garden, he had not given any thought to this particular possibility. He knew by now that opening his mouth would help nothing, but that meant staying silent as Phil made his own inferences. Oh, god, the collar. The more he considered it the more certain he became that there could be only one good outcome: spontaneous death.

Tragically, death eluded him. "Join me!" Phil said genially, gesturing to the chairs. Because he could not flee, Zelgadis's cells would not obey his desperate orders to self-destruct, he had no choice but to sit down, a man trapped. He soon observed Phil was in no state for any sort of interrogation. The king's motions were looser than usual, fast and fluid, and that stifling air of royal dignity seemed to have deserted him altogether. What is going on here?

"Quite the day...and to think, nothing was thrown this time! Perhaps in a few years we'll get something like kind words! Now, don't mind me, of course," he rambled, pouring out two Phil-sized servings of brown and ominous liquor. "A father bonds as best he can. And all children rebel, that's their nature...why, when I was a young man full of ideas I didn't understand, I took matters into my own hands."

Zelgadis still didn't know what was happening, but if Phil was talking, then he didn't have to. "You did?" Zelgadis took a sip of his drink, and as he tilted the glass he breathed in dried oranges, almonds, and nutmeg that dissipated in a harsh, high-proof burn. Skipping dinner had been a terrible idea. "How?"

"Well…" Phil stroked the unruly sides of his moustache and paused. "I blew up a bank."

Zelgadis choked. Stinging spiced liquor went up his nose and down his windpipe, scalding his throat, and for a precious second he thought he might die after all. But he recovered, albeit only after a lot of undignified sputtering that mimicked his misfiring synapses. "You what?"

"I blew up a bank!" Phil repeated, slapping his thigh with enthusiasm.

"You blew up…" The words still didn't register. "A bank?"

This preposterous fact established, Phil was pleased to continue. "A little country bank, on the border of Elmekia, where they thought they could get away with usury. The nearby villages came to the palace seeking help. I watched all our court ministers debate what sort of policies to enact and what kinds of enforcement mechanisms they could set up over a two-year period, all while these poor farmers just wanted their money…" He folded his arms and nodded vigorously. "That's no language that a justice-loving young man understands!"

"So you just…"

"Not just me, of course. I went with a crowd of young men who didn't know who I was, but were just as angry. Cynics, brigands, the anti-establishment sort that leave all those damn pamphlets in pubs, you know."

"Yes," said a cynical anti-establishment sort. "So what happened?"

"Well, we blew it up, all right! Like one of Lady Lina's Rune Flares! It was the most glorious thing I'd ever seen." Phil took a drink and clenched his other fist proudly, but when he set the glass down, his face was solemn.

"Everyone lost their savings. My father intervened at last to restore the lost money and built a new bank, but not before hundreds of people almost starved. Many had already left home and went to start over elsewhere. Who knows how many survived...an entire community nearly destroyed because of young men and their thoughtless violence."

He might have meant it as a somber story, but Zelgadis was unmoved. Anyone who made it through life without losing it all once or twice was luckier than most. "If you hadn't done it, they would have eventually been destroyed by the bankers' greed," he said. "You forced the government's hand. The villagers got their money and a new bank. That's a success."

"And at what cost? Who were we to demand they sacrifice what little they had?" Phil mused. "No, no. I learned true justice is keeping people safe, secure, and free from want. Should a kingdom fail in that basic responsibility, others will take matters into their own hands."

"It could have been a lot worse." I would've blown up another bank.

"Yes. We were so young, and so angry. Imagine if we'd had a leader or a goal."

Imagine? thought Zelgadis with bitter envy. Beyond the nightmares and nauseating memories, his reflection alone was a constant reminder of what angry young people could be driven to do. It had been so easy, so horribly easy, to go from robbing mansions to robbing sheds, to feeding the poor to terrorizing them-and so many things so much worse that he took a hurried drink to quell the visions. The burn turned to a warmth in his chest and he drank more, taking solace in the scent of almonds.

Why had he never questioned it? Rezo, of course; Rezo, a force of unconditional goodness and love, who had wielded an influence more brutal than the swords his followers brandished on his behalf. Together we will finally right the world's wrongs, he had said, until the world was so much more wrong than right, and only those who obeyed Rezo could be considered good.

"What if there had been a leader?" Zelgadis asked. "What would the kingdom do then?"

Phil leapt up with such righteous verve that the liquor bottle wobbled and nearly toppled over, and Zelgadis dove to catch it. At the railing Phil struck an all-too-familiar pose, one leg up and the other behind him. He turned his craggy face towards the waxing moon.

"Pure justice!" he declared, pointing so powerfully that Zelgadis half-expected the moon to fall apart. "The greatest justice is fairness itself, that enables everyone to live in peace! A justice that protects far more than it punishes, with mercy and forgiveness at its core!"

"Mercy and forgiveness have their limits," Zelgadis muttered, and only belatedly realized he'd said it aloud. It proved to be a mistake.

"Never!" Phil thundered his rage straight at him. He snatched Zelgadis in his arms faster than a striking snake and now lifted him up off the ground, shouting as though the volume would help persuade his terrified and slightly drunk hostage. "Don't you understand? If there are no bounds to evil, then there can be no bounds to the forces of goodness! We can never live in pure brotherly harmony unless we pledge ourselves to a justice that uplifts us all!"

What would he know about brotherly harmony? thought Zelgadis, then realized the answer was nothing at all, and that was the point. Phil knew as well as anyone that real life had no mercy, justice, or storybook endings, but his response was to fill the void rather than resent it.

When the world fails your ideals, build a better world. When you find a darkness love can't fill, love it harder. When your inner demons come out, punch them in the face. That was the El Di Seyruun way. It was sheer lunacy, the crazed reflex of a man betrayed and left alone to raise a daughter knee-deep in his family's blood. And it was still better than the alternative. However arguably insane and ridiculous Phil was now, Zelgadis was glad for it. The continent would not have survived a Phil that had chosen revenge.

There was a loud echoing pop as fireworks lit up the sky with swirling stars, and distant crowds below oohed at the splendor. Lecture forgotten, Phil set Zelgadis down again, showing no particular exertion for having held up a two hundred-pound stone chimera as easily as a paperweight. The men watched fireworks gleam and crackle, so close the residual smoke massed and rolled past them in thick clouds. Each volley went off in perfect intervals, alternating colors and shapes with professional exactitude. At least something is going according to plan, Zelgadis thought. It damn well should have; he'd left ten pages of instructions and flow charts.

"The bank," he said abruptly, as if their conversation had occurred days rather than minutes before. "No one knew? You were never caught?"

"Certainly not!" Phil replied. He sounded offended by the notion. "We might have been young and foolhardy, but Friedrich and Rodimus were professionals."

Figures. Phil would never do anything halfheartedly, including crime, Zelgadis supposed. "Wait. Who?"

xOxOxO

In Amelia's considerable experience, nothing good had ever followed Lina trying to get her attention. That hard-earned knowledge led her to ignore the shrill yelps of "Amelia! Amelia! Hey, Amelia!" for a good three minutes while she suffered through a foxtrot with the ambassador to Lyzeille. When that failed, Lina vaulted onto Gourry's shoulders so she could yell even more obnoxiously, but Amelia held fast. It had only become more than she could stand when Pokota joined in, a squeaky duet that peeled her nerves apart.

"Hey, Amelia! Come hang out with us!"

"Amelia! Amelia! A-me-li-a! I'm a prince, remember?"

"Amelia, come on! It's your own party!"

"Can't you take a little break, just for a second?"

"You can't miss the fireworks after all that work he did!"

"I'm busy," Amelia said. She still had a line of persistent followers waiting on for her attention, and Zelgadis had uncharacteristically abandoned their chess match, so she'd taken to dancing instead of walking those long lousy loops. "And who cares about fireworks, anyway?" she called crossly over her shoulder, just a bit too loud. As she said it she caught Lina and Pokota trading puzzled looks.

"I got an idea for you!" Lina said. She hopped down off of Gourry and gave him a hearty shove forward. "How about a dance with, um, Lord Gourinald of Eastern Elmekia?"

"Gourinald?" Gourry repeated, and Amelia got the sense he thought she should have tried harder. But he acceded, as he usually did when it came to Lina's harebrained suggestions, and in any case no one was chaining him to rocks or forcing him to marry a hero. "Hey, I've never danced with a crown princess before. How about it, Amelia?"

It was a done deal as soon as he asked. Few forces in the universe are more powerful than a beautiful person who doesn't know how beautiful they are, and when that person also has pectoral muscles like stone tablets that stand through a three-piece suit, even the most determined suitors know to step aside.

When the music ended Gourry took the ambassador's place, creating a new logistical problem. Gourry's elegant dress boots made him even taller than usual; Amelia, knowing a long night on her feet was in order, had elected for slippers. She stared awkwardly at his waist. Without a word Gourry hoisted her up and propped her feet atop his. All she had to do was sway with conviction as he waltzed for the both of them.

"Um...Gourry-san," Amelia said bashfully, "you're not...really a lord, are you?"

"Nope."

She couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. If anybody were to have a secret noble upbringing, it would be Gourry-san, she thought. He almost never volunteered anything about his family, or anything about himself at all. When was his birthday? What did he like to do besides practice fencing and eat? Did he have siblings too?

"Oh, well," Amelia said, sighing as he steered her around. "You could have been a lord with a sword."

They had done these little rhymes for years, a habit they'd picked up from the hapless actors on their way to Mosquita. While the actors used them for vocal exercises, Amelia and Gourry just liked to rhyme. It was the sort of silliness that could only be appreciated by a girl barely more than a child and a man who was always a child at heart. Their silly game drove Lina out of her mind, which of course made it more fun. When Zelgadis witnessed it the first time he'd left their party for two days.

"Yeah, a sword," Gourry continued. "...that was never restored."

"You'll get your reward," Amelia promised.

"Or be ignored."

She couldn't immediately think of any more rhymes while spinning backwards, and let go. It was so easy to be relaxed in Gourry's assured grip, to bask in the warmth and comfort he exuded. Something about him held the terrors of the gilded ballroom and all its honeyed nastiness at bay.

"You're really good at this, Gourry-san," Amelia observed as he effortlessly whirled them both around in a full turn, without catching the ends of her gown. "I thought we both might trip."

"It's a good trick when someone can't dance. I've done it before with people shorter than you."

Amelia was so excited by this thrilling idea that she didn't care about defending her own dancing abilities. She gasped, grabbing Gourry's lapels and pressing close enough to see the hungry gleam in her eyes reflected in his own. "Really?! When was this? Where?! And you never told me?!"

"Uh, does it really matter?" he said, although the side of his mouth stretched out in a crooked grin.

"Gourry-san! Nothing has ever mattered more to me in my entire life!" Amelia insisted, and somehow it was true. Her imagination lit up with colorful possibilities. Maybe it was a beautiful romantic ball where they'd been in disguise, or some folksy inn with a traveling band and their eyes met and-

Now it was Gourry's turn to lean in, tilting his head towards hers and lowering his deep voice to a whisper. Rapt observers around the room swooned and drew closer, holding a collective breath.

"In Sairaag, they say Lina's dancing made Rezo blind all over again," Gourry deadpanned.

Amelia burst out laughing, and they continued their misshapen ellipsis around the ballroom. She was glad to be making plans for her friends that involved a very distant journey, because she could guess palace protocol officers were already asking questions about this Lord Gourinald. But that can wait til tomorrow.

His familiarity, the safety she felt in his arms, gave Amelia new courage to ask something complicated. "Um, Gourry-san...did you meet my sister?"

He sighed the instantly recognizable sigh of every man boxed into a topic he'd been hoping to avoid. "Yeah. For a while."

"What was she like?" she asked, trying to be nonchalant.

"Well, you and Lina said she was scary. She's scary, all right. I prefer you." I prefer you, like she was steak and her sister was a salad. Although it was a strange way to phrase it, Amelia didn't mind. He was trying in his own gentle Gourry way to navigate a minefield that he couldn't hope to understand. And being preferred in any way by Gourry Gabriev, an enthusiastic lover of so many things, was quite the compliment. Lina-san is the luckiest girl in the whole world and she doesn't even see it. Or does she?

"Gracia…" Amelia said, ashamed even as she asked. The thought had been troubling her ever since Lina had planted a dark and terrible seed in her mind more than a month ago. "Is she a bad person?"

"No. She just...can't do good things for Seyruun, or for your family. And I think she knows that." Before she could start to grapple with this idea, Gourry went on, "People are what they are. Even if they're your family, you can't make anybody treat you right, or love you like they're supposed to."

What does Gourry-san know about broken families? "Or come down the grand foyer stairs with a big trumpet fanfare and the whole kingdom watching," Amelia said softly.

Gourry smiled again, but this time it was a wrinkled sort of smile. "From the stairs, huh?"

She nodded, blinking away what had to be an unfortunate mote of dust and her lovingly detailed fantasy with it. "In stories, the big reveal always involves someone coming down the stairs."

"That's okay. There are all kinds of amazing things that nobody writes in stories, anyway."

"What do you mean?"

Gourry stopped dancing and took her by the shoulders. He pointed to Lina and Pokota, duking it out in front of a marble dessert table piled high with pastel petit fours, cupcakes, and croquembouche towers. Lina was using one of her many necklaces to throttle Pokota, who kicked furiously and lunged at a cupcake she held out of reach. Behind them dozens of peony fireworks exploded one after another in dazzling shades of blue and pink.

"See, now that's incredible," Gourry said admiringly.

Amelia's heart swelled at the thought of what her friend must have seen in that beautiful shining moment, lit by her favorite colors glowing in the pitch-dark sky. "You're right, Gourry-san! The special things about people you love are better than any epic story!"

"Huh? I'm talking about the elderflower lemon cupcakes."