"Mariela? Are you listening to me?"

Mariela jumped and looked up from the book that she'd been reading to blink up at Owen. The healer smiled down at her from the other side of the desk, his arms crossed over his chest. "Sorry," she apologized. "What were you saying?"

"The Star Festival," he repeated. "You're going, yes?"

Mariela hesitated, her hand hovering over the edge of the book, ready to turn the page. She'd been invited by Mimosa… and still wasn't sure if she'd done the right thing by accepting.

After she'd completely broken down in Mimosa's arms, the two had stood there for as long as Mariela had needed to pull herself together. When she'd started to apologize, Mimosa had just shaken her head. Since she'd told the rest of her group to go ahead with their night without her, and because she clearly knew at least some details about how their family illness worked, Mimosa had insisted on giving Mariela a ride back to her room. The entire exchange had been awkward, right down to the uncomfortable hug they'd shared when they'd said goodbye outside of Mariela's room door. It had been another long, restless night as she'd turned the details of everything over and over in her head.

Mimosa knew who she was. Mimosa wanted to get to know her. Mimosa was sorry for what had happened with their family, even insisted that all their cousins would love to meet her. It had all been… so much. It was all still so very much, and Mariela was finding it even easier to focus on the research she needed to do now that there was something even more terrifying for her to have to think about.

Am I betraying my family by even considering it? The thought haunted her, and the fact that she knew her emotional state couldn't be trusted only made it worse. Mariela had thought of herself as a logical person, once—maybe a little too free-spirited, but logical, deep down. It had been that logic that had beat the free spirit out of her after her entire life had gone up in cursed flames. But lately, more and more, she was having trouble sorting through her anxious thoughts.

That night on the cobblestone streets had been just over two weeks ago, and Mariela had seen Mimosa almost every single day since. At first, not on purpose—at least, not on her part. It hadn't taken her long to figure out that Mimosa was going out of her way to run into her while they were both working, however, and the day that she brought Klaus in to be looked at after he was injured during a standard run-in with bandits, Mariela finally asked Mimosa what she wanted.

"I just want to get to know you," Mimosa had pleaded, Klaus holding onto her hand tightly. Mariela had just healed him and was feeling lightheaded from it; she was getting better at controlling her healing magic, but she still needed to focus to really get it right… and there was no way she was going to be able to do that on the seventh day of Mimosa finding some reason to be around and speak to her.

"Why?" Mariela had asked in a tone that mirrored Mimosa's almost perfectly. She was so tired of feeling like there was some sort of trap hiding around the corner. Part of her wanted to trust Mimosa—every time she looked at her cousin, she wanted to trust her a little more. But what did that mean in the face of what their family had done? What good could possibly come from trusting them not to burn her, too? Especially now that she knew she was sick.

"Why do I need a reason to get to know my cousin?" Mimosa had insisted.

Mariela hadn't had a response. Mimosa was just so… earnest. She just seemed so sincere. And, as much as it hurt her to admit, Mariela was lonely. The longer she knew Mimosa, the more she thought of the way her mother had smiled every time she'd told her stories of her childhood growing up with her beloved cousin. So, it had been over a week since that conversation, and they'd had lunch together almost every day since. It was still awkward—Mariela did her best not to think about things too deeply when they were together, but sometimes she couldn't help it. Most times she managed not to say anything too bitter… but sometimes she couldn't help that, either. But her cousin had been patient. Mimosa had never lost her temper, had never tried to fight or defend their family from Mariela's anger. She'd been nothing but the kind, determined person that she'd seemed to be from the start.

So, when she'd asked if they could spend time together during the Star Festival, it had made sense. And when she'd asked if they could spend some of that time with Leopold Vermillion, Mariela had thought she owed it to her to at least think about it.

"He's a good person," Owen had told her when she'd asked him for his thoughts on things. Owen, not nearly as scatterbrained as he thought he was, only took a few days to notice that Mimosa was suddenly around every day—and he'd been openly happy about it. He'd been respectful of Mariela's privacy after finding out about her family lineage and had never tried to talk to her about the Vermillion family. But he'd still smiled when she had finally asked him for his opinion on it all. "I know that it isn't my place to say it. But the next generation of Vermillions—your generation—only has the best to offer. If there were a group that would deserve a second chance, I think they'd be worth it."

As if he could read her mind, Owen sighed, dragging her back to the present moment. He reached out and put a hand on her head to toss her hair lightly. "At least enjoy the festival. You don't have to meet up with anyone if you don't want to, but don't stay here all-night reading. Take the night off, Mariela. Take a break. Besides, I know you're nervous, but if there was a time for someone with your… restrictions to come around the Vermillions, having it be after they've met Asta is not a bad thing."

Mariela smiled tiredly up at him before taking a deep breath and closing the book she'd been reading. She'd thought about that before, too—she knew that Mimosa had a soft spot for Asta, and according to her, Leo considered Asta to be something of a rival and friend. They respected him, regardless of the fact that he was a magicless orphan from the Forsaken Realm. If they could accept him, they could accept her… right? "You're right. The festival sounds like it could be a lot of fun."

Owen smiled and nodded. "That's the spirit. Now, I need to go check on some things." At the look on her face, he laughed. "Do as I say, not as I do. I'll find my way out to the festival later tonight, I always do. This is your first year in the city; just go enjoy yourself."

Mariela stood and brushed the front of her dress off nervously. With another deep breath, she forced herself to smile. "Alright, Owen. I'll walk you to the Wizard King's office, it's on the way to where I'm meeting Mimosa."

x

"Ready?"

Gauche shrugged, hoping that he looked much less nervous than he felt. If the look on Noelle's face was any indication, he was wasting his time. She crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes. "What?" He snapped before she could say anything else.

"You know, the least you could do is look excited. It wasn't exactly fun for me to have to ask Mimosa of all people for favours."

Gauche grimaced; he'd completely forgotten that it was the Vermillion that was going to be making sure Mariela was actually out at the festival tonight. If Noelle was correct, Mimosa and Mariela had seen each other basically every day since the night of his latest screw up. A fact which made him furious if he thought about it for too long—entirely at himself.

That damned hag was right, he thought to himself for the millionth time since their conversation that night. I couldn't just keep my mouth shut and give her the hug she needed, could I?

"Gauche!"

His head snapped over to look at Noelle, who had her arms crossed and was tapping her foot. "What?" he asked defensively.

"You're thinking about her again," Noelle commented, continuing before he could snap at her for pointing out the obvious, "No amount of thinking about her is going to make seeing her any less awkward for you. Suck it up and apologize, and this will all be over soon."

Gauche rolled his eyes and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Whatever. What are your plans, again? You're meeting up with the meathead?"

Noelle's face flushed. "That's none of your business," she snapped. "I'm only going there with you because, for some reason, I think that you and Mariela make a cute couple. Don't make me wrong here by hurting her again, by the way, I already feel kind of bad for helping set this all up. She's going to be meeting Leo tonight, too; if she's overwhelmed, you better leave her alone, Gauche."

"What do you mean, she's going to be meeting Leo?" Gauche snapped, narrowing his eye and scanning through his memory. He knew that he recognized the name from somewhere…

"Her cousin, you loser," Noelle rolled her eyes. "Leopold Vermillion. Mimosa wants to start introducing her to more members of her family."

"Is that a good idea?" Gauche asked, immediately concerned. Noelle's face clouded with worry.

"Their family is less awful than mine," she answered slowly. "But that isn't saying much. Things like magical ability and where someone grew up don't matter to Fuegoleon the way it matters to the rest of the royals, and Leo looks up to his brother so much, and likes Asta so much, that I can't imagine he'd care about everything that's happened with Mariela. So, everything should be okay. Besides, you said her family was disowned because of an illness that her mother had, right? So, even with the problems Mariela's having now… I know it feels terrible to say, but they don't have a reason to hold her to the standards they held her parents to. Right?"

Gauche shrugged noncommittally. Over the last two weeks, he'd spent a lot of time with Noelle—what felt like a weird amount of time with Noelle, now that he was thinking about it. He'd gone with her and the musclehead on at least three missions and had gone out with Noelle more than once to talk about her obviously growing infatuation with Asta. In what were probably attempts to make herself feel less embarrassed for how much she could go on about him, Noelle had always made sure to ask about Mariela. At first, Gauche had been… unkind in his response to the question. Nothing had changed between the two of them, something that should have been obvious by the fact that he was still meeting up with Noelle almost daily to try to distract himself from thinking about things. But, after a while, he'd finally caved and started explaining what had happened: the exact reason why Mariela had been so upset with him to begin with, what had happened in the alleyway after she'd left the pub, then finally her relationship to Mimosa. He'd convinced himself that Noelle was Mariela's friend, too—technically her cousin, in fact. So, it wasn't totally breaking her trust, right? That was how friendship worked, right? Not that he had a whole lot of experience in the matters. The only things he knew weren't his to tell were the details of what had gone on with the bandits and the fact that Mariela herself was dying—so he hadn't said anything about either thing. It shouldn't have mattered—but now that he was thinking about her meeting other members of the Vermillion household, he was sorely tempted to tell Noelle that, yes actually, they did have a reason to hold her to the standards they held her parents to.

And if they hurt her… he thought to himself darkly and found that he was suddenly very desperate to find her.

"Let's go," he said with a nod toward the front of the hideout. "Don't want to make you late for your date."

x

"I'm so happy that you came out tonight!" Mimosa gushed again, clutching onto Mariela's arm tightly and giving her a big smile. Mariela returned it, trying to keep herself from feeling uncomfortable. Since the moment that they'd met up together, Mimosa had been ecstatic—it didn't take a genius to figure out that she'd been worried Mariela wouldn't actually come out to the festival. So, she'd latched onto her cousin's arm and had barely let go since.

"What did you want to do next?" Klaus asked from behind them. He was holding a stuffed bear that he'd won for Mimosa at a shooting game they'd been at earlier and had been happy to trail behind them as Mimosa led them around the crowded festival. They hadn't been out long, but he'd already managed to win Mimosa something at every booth they'd stopped at. Mariela couldn't help but find it adorable; she didn't know if there was officially something going on between the two of them—Mimosa always got flustered and changed the subject when she asked—but she could tell that Klaus was trying to impress her. And, by the way that Mimosa's face had lit up every time he'd given her something tonight, Mariela was sure that it was working.

"I don't know," Mimosa was saying contemplatively. She looked at Mariela. "Did you want to do anything? You haven't picked anything at all yet tonight. I'm sorry that we haven't been able to find Leo; I have a feeling that he's still with Fuegoleon."

"Probably," Mariela agreed, trying not to feel uncomfortable at the thought. She'd actually been helping Owen take care of Fuegoleon since he'd lost his arm and entered his coma. Since that first awkward introduction to Leo at the office, however, she'd been managing to avoid running into him whenever he'd visited his brother. It hadn't been easy, but she'd been more than willing to put in the extra effort… all of which would be wasted after tonight.

Mimosa, almost as if she could sense Mariela's sudden discomfort, squeezed her arm lightly. "But hey, we don't have to worry about that right now. What did you want to do? There's so much we still haven't seen!"

Mariela shrugged noncommittally. "This is my first time ever going to something like this," she mumbled, suddenly self-conscious as she looked around. In truth, this was the biggest event that Mariela had ever been to; the little festivals back in the town she'd grown up just outside of had nothing on the bright lights and the rows upon rows of tents set up with their loud, boisterous vendors.

"Oh!" Mimosa gasped suddenly, like she had just remembered something. Turning and smiling at Mariela, she asked, "Then it would be okay if we got some food? There's a shaved ice booth around here somewhere that I think you'll love. Would you mind?"

Mariela smiled at her cousin and nodded. "Yeah, why not? I haven't had shaved ice since…" she trailed off, then cleared her throat. "I haven't had it in a while, and I love it. Where are we going?"

Mimosa steered the three of them through the crowd, deftly ducking through the flow of people. Mariela was glad that they were attached; she was sure that, otherwise, they would have gotten separated. As things stood, she had the chance to gawk around at all the tents and booths that they walked quickly by. She couldn't help herself; there was just so much to see. She hadn't felt so much like a country bumpkin since…

"Mariela!"

Mariela's head whipped around to look in front of herself, and smiled broadly when she met Noelle's eyes. "Noelle!" She pulled her arm away from Mimosa and gave her friend a tight hug. She hadn't seen her since the awful night at Rebecca's tavern, and she'd been meaning to thank her for how nice she'd been before Mariela had all but sprinted out of the place. She couldn't help wincing at the memory; she didn't want to admit it, but she'd been avoiding all the Black Bulls out of fear of what they might say after everything that had happened. She still wasn't sure what any of them knew—had Derrick even been spoken to yet, or were they all still waiting for some kind of trial? She hadn't slept a wink for two days after it all had happened—every time she'd heard footsteps outside of her door, she'd been sure that it was the Magic Knights coming to take her away—but had slowly eased up as time had gone on and nothing had ever come of it. She still wasn't sure if she was in the clear—she knew better than to expect that much—but every day that passed, it got a little easier to believe. And, with Noelle's arms tightly hugging her back, it was suddenly a lot less difficult to imagine the Black Bulls being on her side if there were suddenly people looking for her.

"How have you been?" Noelle pulled back and looked at her with barely hidden concern. "It's been a while. Have you been doing okay working with Owen, lately?"

Mariela smiled. "I've been just fine," she confirmed with a nod of her head. She nodded back toward Mimosa and Klaus. "I, ahh, have been spending some time with Mimosa and some of the other Golden Dawn members."

Noelle smiled back. "I heard. Hey, did you know that you and I are cousins? The Vermillions and the Silvas are both royal houses. That makes us related!"

Mariela's smile suddenly felt frozen to her face; she hadn't been sure what might have gotten out about her in the aftermath of that night at the tavern, but she hadn't been expecting anyone to be interested in her family name of all things. She supposed she should be grateful—there were a lot worse things that could have been spread around—but it was still uncomfortable to hear her called a Vermillion so plainly.

As if she could sense Mariela's sudden discomfort, Noelle yanked Asta toward herself, making him nearly drop the shaved ice he'd been holding. "Hey!" he gasped, but Noelle ignored him.

"We were just on our way to go meet up with Kiato and Kahono," Noelle said brightly. She glanced meaningfully over Mariela's shoulder before adding, "Would you mind doing some babysitting for me?"

Mariela blinked. "Babysitting?" Before she had a chance to really question it, however, she heard a very disgruntled snort from behind her. Suddenly, all the discomfort she'd felt over being called a Vermillion disappeared—and was quickly replaced by the discomfort of knowing exactly who was behind her.

Before she turned to look at him, she glanced over at the shaved ice stand—unsurprisingly, Mimosa and Klaus were waiting in line, their backs firmly turned toward the surprise meet up.

Surprise, Mariela thought and valiantly forced herself not to roll her eyes. When she turned to look at Gauche, he was glaring at Noelle.

"Babysit?" he snapped. Noelle shrugged, not even looking at him.

"Please, Mariela?" she asked, ignoring Gauche. "We can all meet up right after we get this one thing done. Please?"

Mariela took a deep breath and smiled. "Of course."

And, wasting no time at all, Noelle turned and practically dragged Asta off into the crowd. In a moment, the two had vanished.

Mariela turned and smiled tiredly up at Gauche. "So," she started. "What now?"