Cinder had never settled anywhere. One place was always waiting for another. Someone to come take her, somewhere Salem wanted her to go. If she walked a little too comfortably through Shade Academy's corridors, then she would mark it up as false bravado. But it was nice to pretend, even a little, walking beside him and listening to whatever he had to say about this and that. There was a sense of unease about him yet the rest of the school was near enough to celebrating.

They did not know what Ruby had done. That was probably why. Students and Huntsmen and Huntresses embraced, just the knowledge of Salem gone fuelling them. It did not stop there, she wanted to tell them, they were stupid and most of all ignorant. Her mouth twisted. Ruby had given herself up for this.

She averted her eyes when she saw a much older woman embrace a girl who must have been her daughter. The woman sobbed and heaved, the relief echoing in Cinder's head.

Jaune tugged her gently and asked where she wanted to go next.

She raised a brow and said, "I've got a job to do. You should go… socialise."

"Socialise," he repeated blandly. "And how long did it take to get you here?"

"Don't be clingy." But she liked him being clingy. She punched his arm, playful. "I'll find you at dinner."

He did not heed her, and instead followed her all the way back up to their room, like they did it every night, still chattering away about this and that. "… Do you remember when you eavesdropped on that meeting with Theodore? After I first got back?"

"It wasn't eavesdropping," she corrected over her shoulder. "I could hardly control it."

"Well, alright, unconscious espionage, whatever—"

Cinder pressed her lips firmly together.

He went on, "I think that made boring meetings worth it. You should provide commentary on them more often."

"You remember our regard for one another then, don't you?"

"It was still funny," he grumbled, and then came up behind her as she stopped at the door.

"So it's my humour that won you over."

"Yeah, totally you who won me over and not the other way around. Can't wait for Salem's warm welcome. Does it include dental?"

After kicking her shoes off she watched him balefully. "She would give you whatever you want. For a price."

The humour bled out and he tilted his head at her, said, "Not much else she could give me."

Cinder was rarely taken aback. She found it was nearly always him throwing her off kilter. He was sincere, and in the beginning it had frightened her. So she said, "Salem would make you want things you never knew you wanted. That's how she ensnares you."

When Salem told her that magic was real and it could be hers, too, and she would never want for anything else again, she had decided to not look back. Now she looked back.

Somehow, what she had said only made him laugh, but it was dry and almost mean. "I'd know a little about that, too."

Cinder's hand twitched. She wanted to touch him. Instead she said, "Give me your armour and that terrible chainmail." Then she huffed. "I can't believe Carmine ruined my handiwork."

"The real tragedy," he said, as he fished around for it, where it was covered in ash.

"Yes, " she agreed, just to play along and placate him, "whatever would I have done without it? Worn it myself?" Then she told him, "Open the window. There will be fumes. Potentially even a rogue agent of Salem trying to climb through your window."

"Who—?"

"Me," she said insistently. "It was a joke."

"Oh, I thought there was someone you weren't telling me about."

Cinder conjured flame in her hand and said, "Don't tell me you're courting some other malcontent."

He giggled. "I think I've got my hands full with you."

"Don't get cute."

Then she set to work. He seemed to want to watch her, elbow on his knee, leaning forward with attention. She had to admit, she did like putting on a show. The black glass contorted and moved where she wished it to. The labour of a full mail, chain by chain by chain interlinked, took a blink and some sweat. It was like her mind finally fell quiet when she could be strung together like that, tied to something. Hot in her hands, rapidly cooling, she laid it on the stone floor.

The crack which had sundered his white armour broke its whole architecture. If she gave it a hard punch it would probably tear in half, and if she tried to fix it, it would probably give out at a sneeze. She glared at it.

"The gold was hers," she said.

There was a cruel pause. Then he answered, "Yeah."

She rested her glass hand over the crack.

"You left it there. At the top of Beacon Tower. Not enough for the full piece, just a bit." She heard him swallow. "Why did you leave it?"

He was only in her peripheral vision. Just the hint of it was enough to pierce her. For one mad moment she was angry that she had slipped that glass eye in and made it see for her; she wished she still had only half her vision, so that the sight of him might not terrorise her. She could make out his uneven breaths. The afternoon light breaking in through the open window. Her hands, hot.

Cinder turned to him and looked him in the eye. She said, "It was right. In a fashion. I didn't want to erase her existence." She blinked. "Or Beacon, for that matter."

Then Jaune said, "I guess I knew, then."

"You did."

"No, way back then. When we met you at Haven, I thought you left it to taunt us." He looked at her for a long, long moment. "You didn't even remember me. It wasn't personal."

There was something which ran through her, unidentifiable. It straightened her spine, made her not want to look away. She eventually replied, "You did something better. You made me remember." She shook her head. "You're such an insistent thing." It came out bittersweet. There was wistfulness there, and buried deep beneath it, longing, but she would never let him see that. When she put aside the murder by her own hand, and the way they hurt each other, it was almost funny that there was a Jaune-shaped imprint on her skin. Like some sort of cosmic joke. Like it was the right sort of punishment for the sort of thing you never came back from.

Perhaps that was why, when she finally pulled herself away, it almost started to not hurt anymore, and transform into something like acceptance. Not quite, because she would always be her, and she would always want for too much and run from the consequences where possible, but it was probably in the right direction.

Cinder said to him, "It will stain black."

"What will?"

She pointed at his chest plate.

"I don't mind." He shrugged. "It'll look cool, anyway."

So she fixed his armour, the perfect white-and-gold. It needed work all over. By the time she had finished, Jaune was busy waving air current through the window. Now the chestplate had been mostly reconstructed. The rest of his armour she had left alone, only added accents just to make sure it matched. Now it was scale-like, some sinewy creature, glowing in the light something black and fierce.

She liked it, quite a bit.

"That's not obsidian," he observed quietly, and then he said, "it's— more than cool."

She let herself grin. "I remember when I was little, the only thing I liked more about the Huntsmen who came to the Glass Unicorn than their swords was their armour. Nothing I don't think I could wear now, but I was always so jealous. Yours is made well." She stretched her stiff hands, cracking her knuckles. "If only play and gallantry were all there was to the academies."

The academies she so hated, and the ideals, and the everything. But the swords and the armour, they could keep those. Then as she looked at Jaune, well, she could keep him too, and perhaps the rest of it could be salvaged, maybe there would still be things needed to be killed but maybe the stupid old man would stop keeping the secrets of the world to himself.

For a glimmer of a moment she almost believed it possible.

"You—" Jaune said, stopping and starting, seeming to catch himself, and then he said, "you said I was worthy. That day when you got my armour for me. It's like you— it's like you—"

"Spit it out," she encouraged, leaving her daydream and watching him carefully.

"It sounded like you believed in something."

"I did. And I do." She cracked a crescent smile. "I suppose you wonder if my heart's in it. After all, what could I possibly get out of this if all I've done has been for what I want?" It came out a little sardonically.

But he replied, easy as, "No, no doubts."

"Is that so."

"Cinder," he began gently, "you know it's not about us or her for me. If we've got to stop her, we've got to stop her. And if we let you down, then we have to fix that."

"Let me down?"

"That Huntsman walked right past you like you didn't matter. You do matter. Salem used you like you didn't matter. You do matter."

It was strange to think Tyrian's death had been a balm to that wound. Jaune really meant it, she could tell, and she found no way to believe otherwise. He was uncompromising. He was totally relentless, and in that she saw herself. They could probably make something good together, if they had the time. There was a strange wistfulness to it; all this time they had been apart, and now they were together— near enough as they would get, anyway— and they could probably do anything. They could fix the mess Salem and Ozma left behind. They could live, just this once.

She had to look away, otherwise she could see the same thoughts painted across his face. The moment tried to pass, and she tried to let it, but it was nearly burnt on her retinas. It could be good. They could be good. She could try.

He got up and asked her if she were hungry. She was.

"This was not one of your best ideas," she said to him beside her, as he shuffled her in to the dining hall.

"Oh, you really don't know my worst ones."

"What if someone recognises me? You know they put wanted posters up. You hunted me down."

"You look different," he said, like he already had said this to himself internally, "and you also kind of pulled an epic stunt in front of everybody. I don't think anybody wants to mess with you."

"Like that stopped you," she muttered.

"Is there something you want to share with the class? You're bringing up Haven a lot."

"I'm just making sure you don't forget."

"I've never forgotten," Jaune replied, borderline sly.

She stared at him for a long moment, and then someone bumped into her in the cafeteria queue. "Watch it," she bit.

The poor thing stepped back and said sorry twice, but Cinder considered him lucky, since ordinarily she would have gone for the jugular. She forgot she had to pretend to fit in. Emerald had kept haranguing her at Beacon for being too intimidating and, 'kind of cackly-evil', which did nothing to help Cinder since Cinder neither cackled nor openly plotted all that much.

Jaune shook his head at her, and she got the vague sense he wanted to tell her off for being mean but also sort of envied her for being mean.

"I much preferred being waited on hand and foot in our room," she said to Jaune.

"Well, the school has a lot of people to feed, and maybe socialising might be— good?"

"You seemed doubtful halfway through that sentence."

Jaune nodded thoughtfully. "Yep."

There was the indignity of gathering a tray and depositing the food onto the tray all by herself, and then debate over her drink, which was hot coffee she had to steal extra sugar packets for. Jaune shook his head at her. She knew he took it black.

"If you're going to make me play house with your friends, I'm taking all of their sugar," she said.

"Oh, I'm making you."

She walked off in answer and navigated the raucous hall, conversation bouncing off the stone walls and right through her ears, until she found his friends. They were unmistakable: gaudy, bright coloured, louder than loud, personable, detestable. She did not need to imagine what they thought of her. Oscar, the farm boy, had the audacity to wave at her.

Cinder pursed her lips. She nodded shortly. He, at least, had broken the ice, so to speak. She sat in her seat. It was thankfully not Beacon all over again. The food was a lot better; properly spiced, hot, the sort of thing you sold your soul to an evil witch for, or maybe put an evil witch in an oven for.

Jaune slid in beside her, and she felt her spine relax just a little. He had an incredible skill for acting like nothing was amiss, and easy as you please, Cinder belonged at the table. She almost smiled.

"So has anybody recognised you?" he asked her.

If they had, they had not shown it. She said, "If you would believe it, some mistook me for a Huntress."

He hummed. "I'd believe it."

"It was very insulting."

"Yes, Cinder," he said consolingly, "it was very insulting, you're very mean and I'm scared of you."

Cinder flattened her mouth, because laughing would only let him win. "I'm not laughing."

"I wasn't joking, I was being serious."

He had a tell, though. He bit the inner sides of his lower lip, and his cheeks drew just a bit taut. She stared at him a long moment to test him. "Very convincing," she said.

He brought out of her an unusually good temper. He thought he was funny, teasing her, though not at her expense but somehow it was like a joke between them. She did not hold rapport with anyone; not when Roman thought it was stand-up hour when she turned up and she had to put him on a leash, not when Mercury's bawdy attempts at humour to secure Emerald's attention were nothing to do with her, not when Cinder did not care about anything at all other than that mote on the horizon.

She almost felt ungainly, like he had to lead the joke and she had to follow. She caught Ren watching her very carefully, and she had to tear her own attention away from Jaune. It was easy to forget they were not alone anymore. He belonged to them, not her. He always belonged to someone else.

The table had been sober in conversation until Cinder watched Nora begin gesticulating with an air guitar, which had Emerald laughing once she had half-leapt up onto the table. It had Weiss politely covering her mouth to permit a laugh, and even Yang had cracked a short sigh-laugh. The mood had lifted. Cinder shared a glance with Oscar, who seemed to not know the story either and only caught the middle of it.

"I mean, buddy, we love you," drifted Nora's voice across the table, "but I'm not sure what possessed you to think Weiss would like that stuff."

Jaune resolutely did not answer, as he covered his face with his hands. It was a shame; he had a pretty face. At least she could see his flaxen hair which fell down his shoulders.

"And I think the guitar needed a little work," Ren added helpfully. "A+ for effort, perhaps less for intentions and execution."

"I just thought it was like— wooing!" Jaune burst out.

"Wooing?" Nora repeated.

"Yes! You know! Like— wooing! Roses, and songs— poetry? I didn't go through with that one…" he trailed off, only seemingly digging himself into a deeper hole.

"Well, I'm not a princess," said Weiss.

Cinder did not need the picture explained to her. She gathered what it was about, the gossip she had heard down the grapevine. Someone caught Oscar's confusion, though, and Nora explained very patiently, "Jaune tried asking Weiss to the dance at Beacon, and he went about it in his way, so to speak. Played the guitar. Tried to serenade her. I don't think he'll ever live it down."

Cinder could have said to him, Ah, but now you've done so much worse, as if to console him; it would have been her own sad way of relating, but probably come out like she was trying to guilt him. All she could say, though, was, "I didn't know you played," in a quiet, almost betrayed voice. She sounded like a girl.

"Not well," he said lowly, "not well at all, I'm— I'm actually really terrible at it."

"But I didn't know."

"You didn't need to. You know I'm not much good at anything, anyway."

"That's not true," she whipped back, and somehow it felt like she was defending herself as much as she were defending him, since she worked up from nothing, came from nothing, was nothing. "What else don't I know?"

"What do you mean?" he said, regarding her with careful measure.

"I didn't know that. What else don't I know?"

Jaune seemed to think she was trying to be funny, but she was deadly serious. He did a double-take and said, "It's not that serious. It's not like it matters."

"It doesn't?" She almost said Weiss knows, but she could not find it in her heart to turn that on him, as he made her second-guess her first instinct. It was too mean, even for her now, to ask him to limit what he gave others to only her. She just wanted, at least, to steal what she could, and if Weiss knew then it was free game.

Cinder would always be a hoarder. She accepted that.

"What don't I know about you?" he said, like they had forgotten about the rest of the room.

It came to her stupidly and suddenly, but she said, "My favourite colour is blue. And yellow."

"Now that's the important stuff. Mine's orange."

"See, we should have started with that."

He laughed sort of sweetly. "Yeah, you're right."

"And you play guitar, apparently."

"'Play' is a generous description."

"You could become good at it."

"And play for what reason? It's not like I'm—" but he cut himself off, sending a suspicious glance somewhere far off her shoulder. "It's just stupid."

"I want to see you play," she said against her will.

"Yeah, okay, I'll do as you say, fine," he said long-sufferingly.

"You know, perhaps there's something to this. It's much easier to make you do what I want this way."

"I'm so glad that's a joke," he said to himself.

She laughed, half because it was not, half because she could let it be a joke.

"Jaune, are you sure?" said Nora. "Maybe the one time was enough."

"Yeah, I mean, you're great, but you're kinda—" Yang said, letting her wobbly hand finish the sentence for her.

"You certainly try hard," Ren added.

"But not like—" Nora started.

"— like in a mean way," Yang finished for her.

"It is kind of in a mean way," Blake said, and Yang shook her head no.

"No, I mean, it's just like—"

"Knowing your limits, man," Sun said over Blake's shoulder. "And hey, one up high! Heard you were our saviour out in the wastes, Cinder!"

"Flattery gets you nowhere," Cinder snapped. She sent a baleful glare at his friends. "What is wrong with you all? He's good at what he does."

"Yeah, but like—"

Cinder was about to start open combat. "There's no 'yeah, but like'. He killed Tyrian. He's twice of any of you. He saved me."

"Well, I didn't—" Jaune tried to start.

"No, back then. When I was dying. I didn't mean now."

"Yeah, but anybody would have—"

"But you did!" she found herself snapping. "And not anybody would! Only you did!" She sat up out of her chair, breathed heavily, glared at them, and then sat back down, yet unchastened.

It did not fall silent, as several of them at once tried to say: "Well, we're not talking about that—"

"We didn't mean it like that—"

"You know we're not actually being—"

"And anyway Jaune's been kind of—"

"I don't care how you meant it," Cinder said very loudly and meanly. "It's stupid. He's incredible. Shut up."

It was not her most elegant speech, she would admit that. She usually knew what to say and how to say it, but to them she knew none of that would matter. Cinder got out of her seat again and stomped out, trying not to look at his reaction, since he was probably embarrassed, and worse yet unhappy with her for find a way to cause discord amongst his friends totally unrelated to her own storied past. It was, if anything, a little impressive.

She had finished her dinner anyway, and her coffee had gone cold. The early dinner had done her no good; her belly was full and now it twisted in mean knots. Her steps thudded in her chest and she found herself not angry, but disappointed, perhaps with herself or perhaps with them. She did not so easily take to them dismissing him. Maybe because he had been the one good thing she had found, the one thing which made coming back worth it, the one thing she could never have.

They squandered it. That was what disturbed her. They squandered it, they had him, he was theirs, he would have belonged to the girl she killed, he could have been Weiss', and like every useless Atlesian elite she had ever hated, they did not know the wealth they had, the freedom, the boundless, boundless everything. She begged, borrowed, and stole, and in her lonely room she waited for him to return, and it was still not enough.

She did not know where she ended up in the school. It seemed that the original plan of the school had been built on top of enough times so as to make its routes circuitous, different layers with different years lived in them, until she found herself in a time-softened alcove with a low-burning torch, and she stopped and stayed. She sat on the ground and drew her knees to her chest. Cinder was not known for holding her temper in very well anymore, but she found it bleeding out until she realised what she was really feeling, what she was trying to hide.

They had it, they would have him, and tomorrow she would meet the same fate she had condemned Pyrrha to. It was only fair. She wanted them to look after him. He was soft and gentle, and sweet, and he would need them when they got Ruby back. It would hurt him to lose another person; no matter what she was to him, she was something, and she knew that scared him. She did not want to be in this position either, but that was their curse, and one she wrought upon them. It was only fair.

"Using the bond is cheating," she told him, when he appeared glimmering in the dark in the corner of her eye.

"It really isn't. We make the rules, and if there's a rule that says I can't talk to you when I don't know where you are, then it's stupid and I'm breaking it."

He would probably want to hear an apology. So she apologised, recitation-like, "I'm sorry I blew up at your friends. I was hoping at least it would happen over something I had done instead."

"You don't need to apologise," he said softly.

"Really."

"I was expecting a lot worse. You getting— um—protective—"

"So glad, at least, I didn't start a fight in the middle of the hall. Or punch someone. Or try to blow up the school. Yes, at least there's that, Jaune. It could be so much worse. If anything, you should be proud I only mildly snapped at your dearest little friends."

"Yeah, I think so," he agreed baldly. "Besides, I don't think, um, they're all, uh, disapproving, so to speak."

Cinder finally gave in and sent him a glance where he was kneeling, and he was devastatingly handsome. Really the sort of handsome which made her feel like she was getting punched in the stomach, the sort that made her feel almost stupid. How are they not falling over their feet for you, she wanted to ask, how do they not even know who you are? So gentle she could appreciate why he killed Tyrian. So gentle she could understand what it cost him, so sweet she knew why he could be mean. Did they know everything he had done? Did they know that when he first stabbed Tyrian, he had said to her that he only wished he had really killed him?

She knew. It hurt. It took root inside her as she knew him, and perhaps that was why she did not like Weiss Schnee knowing something Cinder did not. I like him and he's mine and you can't have him, she said to them in her head, but he was not.

"They're having a celebration out in one of the courtyards. Apparently there will be fireworks," Jaune tried for peace. "Not as good as your lightshow, maybe."

"Maybe," she allowed. She barely remembered it. She had gone white-hot with rage and fear.

"I think a little celebration is okay," he said. "I mean, they don't know-know, but it is a small victory, I guess. Shade Academy is still standing. We had warning to evacuate civilians."

She hummed. "Wonder who did that."

"Oh, you'll never believe who."

She rolled her eyes. The glass one moved smoothly with her other eye so that it felt natural, almost fun to use it. "Fine. I'll come for fireworks. If they're not big enough, I'll be disappointed."

"I hope at least a few of them are technically illegal."

"Now that's more like it," she said, standing up. "I enjoy your tendency towards illicit activities. It's not what I'd expect."

The way he raised his brows and tilted his head at her had Cinder on edge. He said, "I do all sorts of illegal things. Not exactly sure where you fall, though."

"If it makes you feel better, you can think of me as illicit."

"I do," he said, and that smile meant he was thinking of something he was not sharing.

"Go on, show me where these fireworks are."

The fireworks in question were nowhere to be seen when they were due to start. Dusk had stolen in, the heavy night as hot as day for once, and Jaune had taken her by the wrist and woven through the not huge, but not understated motley crowd of students, Huntsmen and Huntresses, and the odd face she recognised, an Ace-Op or a Happy Huntress or a Qrow and his sister or another Maiden, but they zig-zagged past before Cinder could pick a fight. It was a real pity.

There was something in the air which was not quite celebration but it was a type of contentment, not something she could allow herself belong to. It was everybody else's. Salem would kill her, or kill Ruby, or find a way to put Cinder back on her leash, just like Madame's collar became the Grimm arm. Someone was going to lose. There was no time for arrogance, no time to hope she would figure out a way on her own.

She could not tell Jaune that, though, and he most likely already sensed the truth of it. She only hoped that if he grew mad with that old anger from the Fall of Beacon he had shown her, that they would know how to calm him if she were not there to make his foolishness kneel. He led her somewhere with a vantage point, a set of seats like at a colosseum— perhaps set up for the impromptu fights which overtook the Huntsman academies, one of which Mercury and Yang had apparently partaken in— and offered her a seat like a gentleman.

It was hard to feel sorry for herself, anyway. It was what she deserved, and besides, few were so lucky to meet someone like Jaune, and fewer still were lucky enough to turn around and choose something different. She had a good run of it. She would never be a slave again, and she would not let Salem take her. She was free, and where she wanted to be in that moment was right beside him, with her clear head, her clear sight, the night dark and lovely, he yet still more lovely, and the lightness of a crowd she did not even hate, and his knee brushing against hers.

All the worry fled. It felt good. Her left arm absently ached, like it was trying to remember how to hurt, but she wiggled her glass hand to free the tension, remind her what was there.

Of course, his friends found them and they all settled on the parapets, and once Cinder had finished glaring at the back of Nora's head, Nora turned around and said, "Jaune, you should totally learn guitar," but the statement seemed to be loaded with something else.

"Thank you, Nora," he said steadily.

Nora sent a look at Cinder. Her lips thinned, like she was holding in a joke at Cinder's expense, and not the nice sort.

I know my place, Cinder wanted to tell her. I know where I belong. It was easy to see that judgement. Why would Cinder defend Jaune, against some perceived enemy and some perceived threat, when they loved him better than her? She was nothing if not selfish and defensive. That was her answer.

"Where are the fireworks?" Cinder demanded, near-childishly.

"They seem to be having difficulty lighting them?" Ren offered uncertainly.

She stood up and peered over the crowd down to the middle of wide courtyard— large enough to house such a crowd, and a fireworks display at that; Vacuo did not know how to do 'small'— and decided enough was enough. She could feel Jaune looking at her. She raised a hand, thought very hard, bit her lip, and snapped her fingers together. The Maiden power often felt unwieldy, like a big club you swung around more to intimidate than really hurt, but with a precise whip fire struck down from the sky and ignited the fireworks. They went off all at once.

"Told you," she said, "if not illegal, at least a fire hazard." She sat down in her seat, and the fireworks, in red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo vividity, made Jaune seem like a water sprite, something meant to entice you to drown yourself.

She found herself watching him more than the fireworks, going off like gunshots in colourful succession. They were impressive, and she liked things that went boom, especially when they went boom and were on fire. But he was special. Like a flower in a desert, rain in a drought, boy in her lonely room.

The Huntsmen who had been entrusted with lighting the fireworks all seemed quite panicked, but Cinder figured it was worth it. They took too long anyway. Besides, if there were trouble they had other Maidens on hand who could deal with a little fire. Cinder doubted she could really help, since she would just make that worse.

Jaune bumped his knee beside hers and she turned her attention back to him. There was something there she did not know the name for. It scared her. An orange-blue-yellow question mark in his eyes.

"What are we?"

She barely heard it over the crowd and the fireworks. It took her a moment to realise what he said, and what he meant by it. Her hand tightened on her knee, and she found herself sitting up straight.

"I don't know what you mean," she said, lying.

"You do."

Quick-tongued, she presented her answer, "We are what we've always been. I don't know why you're asking."

"And what is that," said not like a question anymore, more like something lying in wait.

Boom, in her ears. Nora screeched with excitement, and all his gaggle of friends remained entranced, a sliver of joy before the worst of it. Here he was, trying to ruin it.

Cinder swallowed but her throat remained dry. "We have the Aura bond. It doesn't need more explanation."

"And what would you call that. Hypothetically."

"Hypothetically doesn't cover you," she grumbled. "I don't understand why you're wondering now."

He considered what he was going to say for a while, that much she could tell, and every second which passed made her wonder when she would finally lose him. Could he tell? Did he know the depth of her feeling? The deep betrayal of that? That the murderer of his partner wanted him all to herself? That the architect of his greatest ruin, of the Fall of Beacon, of the glass queen on Ironwood's desk— the little thorn, the death knell, the checkmate— the headmaster-slayer and all-around bane of his existence wanted him, in a way she could not tell him?

She was so proud of how she had concealed it. She had done so well. Perhaps better than anything she had done before. Cinder wanted for too much, and for once, she had the temperance to suppress it. It hurt that he would try to undo that, that he would press the wound where it bled openly.

"There's a word for it, you know," Jaune finally said.

"Just stop it," she told him, "just stop. I don't know what you're trying to do."

"You know— you know that we've— that there are things I would do for you— we sleep in the same bed—"

"Stop. It," she ground out.

"I'm not pushing," he said, "I'm not— I just need you to understand that I would do the same things for you that you would for me. And I think you're incredible, too."

She deflated as the threat seemed to back off. Willing to play along, she said, "The word is soulmate."

"Oh," he exclaimed quietly, like he was surprised she said it.

"What rotten luck you have." It came out blank, she just a voyeur. "I am sorry for you."

"You'd call it luck?"

"Better to think of it for you as bad luck than something you're meant for, no? You just lost the draw. You got me."

"I don't think so," he said, shaking his head at her as if she were being silly. "Do you even believe it's luck?"

It took her a long time before she admitted, "No."

The last firework went off, stretching bright fingers across the black sky. Cinder knew the problem with destiny was thinking you knew it better yourself. It revealed itself like a many-faced stranger.

"The more I know, the less," she said absently.

Jaune bit his lip, and his teeth pressing into the skin made her hungry. He said, "What about you, then?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're stuck with me."

She narrowed her eyes at him, mouth twisting with it. How did she convey to him that there was no other remote possibility she bothered to consider? That it would be him or no one else? Now he was the one being silly. She said, "Don't be stupid."

"It's an honest question. It's not like you've had much choice about anything your whole life. I couldn't imagine feeling like you had no choice with me. That it would get in the way of— what you really want. Obviously I'm not talking about— I mean I know— I just mean if you had to have this thing with someone— is it even fair to you?"

It took her a moment to digest what he had said. It was like being turned upside down when she realised what he was trying to get at. She replied plainly, "That's ridiculous. I have a choice and I made it. I'm with you." She crossed her arms and almost glared at him. It was only 'almost' because she liked him.

He blinked once, twice, seemingly sweetly taken aback. It was already crystal-clear; she did not know why he was acting the way he was. She was going the same direction as him. She thought then that he would get up and leave, consider the moment done. Find his friends, maybe, and try to explain what sort of a person she really was, and sorry about earlier, because turncoat or not, Cinder had a temper.

He always treated her like she was slightly wild, so his hand shook just a little as he slowly raised it to touch her. She was still unused to the tender action, as he tucked her hair behind her ear, sending a little shock through her. It was the good sort of shock, the one that did not hurt. When it seemed like that was all, and she hoarded the feeling for later, he leant across the short gap between them and kissed her on the temple. It was brief. He pulled back and sent a guilty glance at her, like she had caught him doing something bad, and he knew better and did it anyway. That seemed about right for them.

"What was that for?" she asked.

"I made my choice too," he said coyly.

She shook her head at him and sighed, and if she smiled, then he was the only one who would see it. When she drew herself out of their bubble, she noticed a very interesting sight indeed.

"Was there supposed to be a show after the fireworks?" she errantly asked.

Jaune hummed and said, "No, but I think that's just impromptu."

Mercury and Yang had started going at it.

Emerald was whooping. "KICK HER ASS, MERCURY!"

Cinder watched Nora push Emerald by the shoulder and say, "Yang beat him last time. And at Haven. And at Beacon. You were even helping him!"

"He was holding back," Cinder heard Emerald defend, but it seemed in good jest.

So Cinder thought, anyway. It was unclear how much Yang's aggression had to do with Ruby, and Cinder also had no gauge for how normal this was. At this point, Yang and Mercury were simply shoving at each other, and the clearing where the fireworks had taken off quickly became their battleground. She wondered what was eating at Mercury.

Well, she had no horse in this race. She crossed her arms and mulishly listened to the calls of support for one or the other. Jaune watched on with amusement beside her, but he covered his eyes when Mercury, in earnest, landed real hits on Yang.

"I don't like when people get hurt," Jaune said, all whiny and cute. "It makes my feet hurt."

"It makes your feet hurt?"

"The feeling you get in your feet when you're worried about someone or they're hurt? My dad always called it the mommy feeling but I told the others once about it and they all made fun of me. Apparently it's not called that."

Cinder sort of knew it. She had no practice at soothing or consoling, but she tried awkwardly, "Neither of them will really get hurt. You can use your Semblance if you're worried."

"Thank you for the reassurance," he said, as if she had said something really meaningful. "Oh, ouch!"

Yang had got Mercury right in the jaw. Cinder sat up straighter in her seat. If she went to all the effort of keeping them safe during the assault on Vacuo and he got himself torn to shreds by Yang, she would be very upset. Mercury and Yang were circling each other now. Cinder stood up.

"KICK HER ASS!" she shouted. "DO IT! BEAT HER!"

Emerald turned to Cinder, seemingly approving. They were the only two cheering for Mercury. Suddenly, it felt like life-or-death stakes. If Mercury did not win, Cinder was going to beat Yang herself.

But Yang, hotheaded yet calculating, accounted for every move of Mercury's. Dive, dive, dive, and then in perfect tempo she had another hit. They were playing it pretty safe from the looks of it; if they really went at it, it would probably cause some public property destruction. Yang only used her shotgun gauntlets defensively.

In the crowd, Cinder eyed Raven, and Raven, in her silent judgement, shook her head at Cinder. Cinder wondered if she wanted her daughter to win. Then, Cinder wished that Mercury would.

His Aura shuddered, white flickering for a moment. She remembered when it had broken, and she had only been an onlooker to Tyrian's challenge, and she had done nothing until it was nearly too late. She shared another wordless look with Emerald. She must have been remembering the same thing. They both called out to Mercury. At least one win, just a small one, temper Yang's frustration and let Mercury have something.

Cinder never believed her wishes came true, but when Mercury broke Yang's Aura, and they called it, it made her wonder. Jaune followed behind her when they went down to check on the pair of hotheads, Emerald with them. Mercury and Yang were bickering.

Yang tried to bat away at Jaune when he stretched out with his Semblance, and Cinder looked away to offer an uncertain glass hand to help Mercury up where he had fallen to his knees.

"I was rooting for you," said Cinder.

"We both were," Emerald added beside her.

"It would've been embarrassing if you lost," Cinder equally added, hasty to qualify. "Made us look bad."

Mercury rolled his eyes and huffed in annoyance, then grabbed Cinder and Emerald's hands, but not using his own weight to heft himself up, letting his dead weight lag.

"Quit it, Mercury," Emerald snapped, and then he quit it.

"I had it in the bag," he said. "She fights too defensively now. Too hot, and too cold, gotta get it just right, eh?"

Yang ignored him.

"Do you think three against three with them, we'd win?"

"Yeah, probably," Emerald easily said, like she had not just unleashed something new for Mercury to stew over.

"You wouldn't," Yang snapped as she went past, but then she circled back to fistbump Mercury and then glared at him and walked off, as Blake came running over.

"So many mixed messages from her," Mercury said to himself, shaking his head. "Hey, Jaune, who do you think would win?"

Jaune replied, staring at Cinder as he said it, "One thing I've learned is to not bet against Cinder."

In the liminal pre-dawn, Cinder set out with three Relics on her person and the wind at her back. They had given her an airship. Some borrowed Mistrali thing which had withstood the Grimm, probably more than a generation of excursions.

She was going first, and alone. It came to her easily, only thinking of herself, marching out in that gap between night and day which was when dead things danced. Jaune had, of course, insisted on seeing her off whilst the others prepared their own flight, but she was not about to argue with him. She finished her pre-flight check and came back to say goodbye to him. He stood below, looking up at her. The image doubled in her mind's eye, and she saw the version of him who had seen her off the last time, when they had struck their little deal to find the Summer Maiden, and she had ferried him here. Back then he had been penitent, and there had been something hard in his gaze, regarding her as his enemy he had to bargain with just to make safe passage from the place he barely clawed back from. Well, less clawing back: more her shoving him against a wall.

The only word to describe him now was soft. He watched her softly. His skin was soft. His hair was soft. His hands were soft, though they were not touching her now. The armour which had been a perfect white then was now a dappled black-and-white. The hair, loose then, was pulled back. He stood at ease, like he trusted her, his guard down.

She broke the silence, and said, "I'll call."

"Yeah, just tell Salem to hold and put me on," he said back.

"I would tell you to be careful, but I doubt you would take that sentiment all that seriously."

"Probably not, no."

"Like when I left you alone for a day and you got kidnapped and almost died."

"Those were separate events, at least?"

"Oh, at least," she drawled. She leant against the door, and then she sobered and said gently, "Goodbye, then."

He seemed like he wanted to say something. His mouth opened, and then closed, and he searched around uncertainly like the answer lay in the sand, or somewhere down the landing strip. It was doubtlessly going to be something sentimental.

"Don't," Cinder told him. "Come at my call, and not a moment sooner."

With a heft, she slid the door shut. She rested her forehead at it for a moment, a hand resting against it. She imagined him on the other side. Then she banished the notion, and moved to the cockpit. She took off.

The way back was long. The radio stayed off. There was one weak moment where, on autopilot, she opened her Scroll and flicked to the one photo she had taken of him. The flower that sat tucked behind his ear was dead and dried now, and its magenta had intensified to an almost black now.

One of her last messages had been from Neo, and she envied her freedom, and she envied her forgiveness, and then she shut her Scroll and stowed it away.

The one thing she could say she liked about tracing her footsteps back was the sunrise. It was different up this high in the clouds, going on for as long as the eye could see. Bright orange. She wondered if this were the shade he liked.

It bled from orange into red into purple when she began to approach Evernight. The light deadened. Slowly, the purple revealed black, the Grimm encircling Salem's keep. They flew aimlessly, with no end in sight, and others brooded around the bubbling, unnatural ponds of deep nothingness. Cinder hated it.

She hated it. She had always hated it. It was cold and damp and gloomy. It had never been a home, and she had never felt safe. What Salem could offer her was scraps, the ghost of something real. Cinder had chased a spectre.

The jagged terrain and the maze-like route would deter anybody trying to reach Evernight without having been shown the way. The vaulted floating islands, the deep pits which disguised dead ends, the waterfalls of black Grimm goo, washing down into the run-off of Evernight's lakes should have been enough to scare you away. It barely registered to her, though.

When she landed, it took her a moment too long to get up. She would face Salem alone. She had to do it. The Relics safely secured, she stepped out. The smell of sulphur, sickening and sharp, greeted her. She heard echoing calls of Grimm. But the air was stagnant, and nothing moved here, and nothing grew.

Cinder went up the stairs by herself, her heels click-clacking, the clashing blue of her dress trailing behind her. She kept her gaze high. In her left hand was the Sword of Destruction. At her waist, the Lamp of Knowledge and the Staff of Creation. Cinder held three of four world-ending implements. None of them would do anything against Salem.

She cast a suspicious glance down the hall. No Grimm had come for her yet, no Seers to be found. She made on. Salem would be in the receiving hall. Salem was expecting guests. Cinder kept going. There was no fear anymore, or maybe if it were there inside her, it had transformed into something else greater.

The great door opened for her, the tentacle of a Seer peeking out. Salem's little butlers. Cinder was just the same. She stood in the entryway, and at the other side of the room in the tallest chair sat Salem, her hands pressed together in thought.

"I am so pleased you are finally here," rang out Salem's voice, oddly warm.

"It took me some time to distract them," said Cinder.

"Come, then. What have you there?"

"The Relics."

Cinder placed them on the long table. The Sword. The Staff. The Lamp. She did not kneel, but she stepped back for Salem to survey her prizes. This would buy her satisfaction. This would buy Cinder clemency.

Every part of her that had slept inside her was crying out. Run. Run. Run. She ignored it and she stood there, still as a statue, her expression blank.

"My," finally Salem said, "you do impress me, Cinder. Well done. Here I was thinking you were irredeemable. But we all deserve second chances, don't we? Or third, I suppose, in your case."

"We all err," Cinder agreed.

"It is so good to see you grow. I—" Salem stopped.

It unsettled Cinder. Salem, when she spoke, whether mad or angry or calm, always knew what to say, and said it elegantly, like she had been trained in the art of rhetoric— no um or ah or any uncertainty. But perhaps she had really been trained. She was a princess once, long ago. Cinder was nobody compared to that.

She wondered what Salem was remembering then, looking somewhere far, far away. It was not out the window. It was another place and another time.

Salem came back, then, and she twisted one of her white, black-veined hands into a fist. Her fathomless eyes inspected the room like she was seeing it the first time. Then Salem said, "Do you know anything of the last Relic? Did Oscar tell you?"

"No," Cinder said honestly. "But we'll find it. It's somewhere clever, and if I've learnt anything about the old man, it's that he likes his inside jokes."

"Yes, he does."

And telling stories, she did not add. He loved his stories. Apparently he had regaled Mercury with a fairytale in his hospital bed. She wondered if Mercury had regretted his turncoat then. It had been quite long.

"What shall we do now, then?" asked Salem, as if she really cared about Cinder's answer. It was part of the song and dance.

Cinder just needed to find where Ruby was, and they were set. Salem's guard only had to be down just a bit. Ruby would surely go with them.

Cinder answered Salem, "We find the right fairytale."

Salem laughed, like it was a good joke. "Fairytales? Nonsense. I've lived through my fair share of fairytales. They're all lies."

"Like what?"

"No one lives happily ever after," Salem said. "No knights save maidens, and no maidens are ever truly free. You and I are better than that. We have both lived our real stories. And what do you make of it?"

Cinder rested her glass hand on the back of the chair she had once sat on and commandeered for herself. She answered, "No one lives happily ever after."

"That's why we shall change it. The new world. Isn't it so good to see eye to eye?"

Cinder nodded.

"Yes, eye to eye," Salem repeated to herself. "How would you like to see Ruby? I know you wanted to kill her so."

"I would like to see Ruby." Of course, Cinder did not want to kill Ruby anymore. She had a debt.

"Very well then. I'll fetch her."

"No," Cinder said, and then pretended to chastise herself, "ma'am, I'll go to her."

"We shall go together." Salem eased herself out of her seat, and stood at her full height. In long, graceful strides, she covered one end of the room to the other in but a few steps, and waited for Cinder to follow. "Come along, then."

Cinder did as she bade. They moved deeper into the bowels of the keep, down and down, but not quite as far down as Salem had slept. A flame in hand lit her way, but Salem could see in the dark. She made idle chatter as they went.

"What of this new look, then, young Cinder?"

"I felt like something different," she warily said.

"You've never worn your hair so long. The blue is certainly different. And the gift I gave you that you so squandered. I suppose that glass contraption will make do. And the eye?"

"All the better to see with."

Salem hummed to herself.

Cinder got it. The missing eye was not because of Ruby at Beacon Tower. It had been taken by Salem's hand. Salem thought it was funny, her not knowing. Cinder might have snapped and tried to taunt her with it once, and then suffered the consequences, but she held her tongue now. It was enough to simply know.

They came to a stop. This deep was going to be hard to get Ruby out, but at least Jaune and his little army might provide a good enough distraction. She remembered her steps and the way back up, because Cinder had been kept down here during her recovery after the Fall. It had been a long time before she saw light again.

Salem opened the door to her old room, with a great dramatic sweep.

"Enter," she commanded.

Cinder went in. She stopped breathing. The fire in her hand went out. The weak red glow of a Seer coated the cell in a bloodstain. Summer Rose crouched beside it like a sentinel, her wispy white cloak and face unmoving. Fitting ungainly into the old bed Cinder once slept in, a great big wolf growled.

Its fur was the nondescript, shifting black smoke of the Grimm. Its maw was not made for meat. It was not meant to sleep, and it was not meant to be here, but she was. Cinder gritted her teeth, and she clenched her fists, and she still yet not breathed, and she did not shout, and she did not scream, but what mouth did Ruby have to scream with?

"'She'll turn you into a monster,'" Salem quoted behind her. She cast a long, long shadow on the walls, larger than life, bigger than death.

Cinder said nothing. When she saw Jaune in the corner of her vision, she did not turn to him, her mouth unmoving, only trying to take in a short breath, the first since she had entered. It came and choked her. She thinned her lips and tried to steel herself.

"But what did you need to warn her for, pray tell? Why care? I suppose it made you seem committed to the cause," Salem went on. "You're very good at airs and performance."

Cinder should have run.

"You cannot fool me," Salem hissed, "turncoat. Liar."

Cinder could not run now.

"Do you think me so stupid as to believe you a triple-agent? Do you not know that I have met hundreds like you, who put themselves before what they are really meant for? Do you not know I have met hundreds like you who have defied me… and failed?"

Cinder should have stayed there with him, and left Ruby to rot. Or they should have been quicker. Or she should have stopped Ruby to begin with.

"You are not special. You are not clever. You have only moved so far as I have loosened your leash. Consider any delusions you have of— serving them?— dismissed. You are either theirs or mine, and you know that they— will—" her voice turned dark and ugly, "— never— forgive you. For everything you have done."

The wolf growled.

"I will forgive you," Salem said. "I am fair, and lenient, and just. It is not too late for you to forget them, and do what needs to be done. You know what you have done to them. You know it is too late. When I found you, you were a dying girl intent on killing herself— and for what? Because you killed your master and freed yourself, and they blamed you for it? I forgave you that, but more than that, I saw what you could become. Killing her was not your weakness, was not your crime. They will forever see you that way. Did you not… murder their friend?"

"I did," Cinder answered weakly.

"Their little friend. What was her name?"

"Pyrrha Nikos."

"Ah, yes. Champions come and go. It is hard to keep track."

"She was Jaune's partner."

"How troublesome," Salem said companionably.

"They had kissed."

"That is devastating," Salem added, "to rip his childhood love from his arms. And then become his special friend yourself. Do you love the boy?"

"No," Cinder lied. She heard Jaune say something, but it was distant and faraway.

"I don't like it when you lie," said Salem.

The torture did not come. Cinder waited for it, and waited, and waited.

"You know what you are, Cinder. The gift I gave you or no, you are a monster. And no one loves monsters. And he cannot love you. But I can give you something better. True freedom within yourself, a world of your own making. A home, if you want it."

Cinder said, "But you're going to destroy it."

"Things must die to let new things be born."

"Do you really believe that?" She almost went to turn, but she could not take her eyes off of Ruby. "The brother gods won't do that."

Like a strike, Salem snapped, "What."

"They'll just destroy it. There won't be anything left."

"You speak beyond your ken. Say. No. More."

Fall Maidenhood would only get Cinder so far. She had pushed it. She thought for a long time about what to do, her, Summer Rose, Ruby, and Salem in a silent standoff. Salem was right. There was no happily ever after. She would never be forgiven. She was a monster. She killed Pyrrha, and she killed Ozpin, and she killed Vernal, and she killed that nameless woman at the bottom of the cave of the Spring Maiden's Vault, and she killed and killed and killed and killed and killed and killed and killed, and she killed the Fall Maiden before her, Amber. Her legacy was blood.

The wolf sat up in bed, and she watched Cinder through her blank Grimm eyes in her wolfskin. She was what Cinder would have become, had the arm kept growing, had Ruby herself not opened her eyes, looked her straight in the face, and saw the lesson Cinder had learnt as the Fall Maiden.

"You can still turn this around," Salem encouraged behind her.

"You're right," Cinder said. "He may forgive me, but he will never love me. His friends may never forgive me, and I can only do what I can to atone. I must… I must make it right. I'll do as you say."

"Very good."

She turned to Jaune and nodded.