Re:Zero The Archbishop of Envy
Chapter One
---
I was in her world.
That was the first thing. The only thing that mattered. Everything else could wait.
I pressed my back against the alley wall and breathed. My hands found my holy scripture automatically and pulled it against my chest. I held it there and let the thought settle over me like something vast and warm and too large to fit inside a single moment.
I am in her world.
The holy goddess Satella is somewhere in this world right now. Breathing. Existing. Sealed and suffering and real. Four hundred years of this world hating her and she is still here and now so am I. I am standing in the same world as her. The same air. The same sky. The same cobblestones beneath my feet.
I am in her world.
I am in her world.
I am in her world.
The thought kept arriving like it could not stop. Like some part of me needed to keep saying it until it became real enough to hold.
I breathed.
And then I looked toward the alley entrance.
The city was already happening without me. Sounds first. Voices layered over each other, wheels on cobblestone, something being sold somewhere in the distance.
I stepped out into it.
The street hit me all at once. Color and noise and movement in every direction. The buildings here were tall and warm toned, yellows and reds and creams leaning against each other along both sides of a wide cobblestone road. Market stalls crowded the edges. People moved between them with the particular purposefulness of people who had somewhere to be and did not especially care who was in their way.
Meat.
All of them.
Every single ordinary graceless person on this street going about their ordinary graceless lives in the same world as the holy goddess Satella without the faintest comprehension of what that meant. Without reverence. Without gratitude. Without even the basic awareness that the holy goddess had not given them permission to breathe the same air as her.
I started walking.
Then faster.
My legs did what they always did. The familiar drag and resistance that had lived in my muscles for as long as I could remember. I did not try to hide it. There was no point and more importantly no benefit. A small pale girl moving unevenly through a crowded street looked exactly like what I needed to look like. Harmless. Fragile. Something that needed protecting rather than watching.
People moved out of my way instinctively.
Some looked.
The white hair first. It always registered first. Eyes would catch it and then track down to my face and find the purple eyes and the pale skin and the particular combination of all of it would do something to their expression. Confusion sometimes. Recognition of something unfamiliar. The particular discomfort of seeing someone who looked wrong in a way they could not name.
Some of the men looked differently.
Not at my face. Lower. Slow and deliberate in the way that particular kind of attention always was. Like I was something available to them. Like Satella's property was something they had any right to look at that way.
I noted their faces without breaking stride.
Filed them away carefully.
How dare they.
The street opened up ahead into something larger. A wide plaza with a fountain at its center, water catching the daylight, green hedges trimmed around its base. People sat at its edges. More people crossed through it. Birds moved overhead unaware of anything.
I moved through all of it without stopping.
And then the buildings fell back on one side and the skyline opened up and I saw it.
The castle.
Sitting at the top of everything. Pale stone against the blue sky, enormous and patient, looking down at the entire city below it like it had always been there and always would be. The city climbed the hill beneath it in layers, rooftops and walls cascading downward, and at the very peak of all of it the castle simply existed.
She was somewhere in this world.
Not there. But somewhere.
I looked at it for exactly one second while still moving.
Then I looked back down at the street and kept going.
More people. A group of men outside a building who stopped talking when I passed and started talking again about something different. A woman with a child who pulled the child slightly closer without seeming to notice she was doing it. Someone selling something from a cart who called out to me and then did not call out again.
I kept moving.
The streets began to change gradually. The bright colors faded at the edges. Buildings stopped being tall and proud and started being something older and more tired. The crowds thinned. The cobblestones became uneven beneath my feet which was a problem my legs did not need help with but managed anyway.
I was looking for someone.
Satella's beloved.
Someone she had summoned me to protect. Someone important enough that my holy goddess had reached across worlds for. I turned the details over as I moved. The light novel. Arc one. Someone from another world like me. Someone who would be confused and alone and probably saying something embarrassing loudly in an alley somewhere.
Then I heard him.
"Where's the cute girl that summoned me? Where's my Excalibur?"
I stopped.
Stood very still for exactly one moment.
Then I walked toward the sound. Each step measured. Unhurried.
The alley was narrow and dim and there was a boy standing in the middle of it.
I stopped.
Black tracksuit. White accents. The exact silhouette I had spent hours recreating from memory with black fabric and purple thread in a small room that smelled like alcohol and old wallpaper.
I knew that tracksuit.
I knew that tracksuit better than I knew my own face.
My holy scripture felt very heavy in my hands.
Him.
It was him.
Satella's beloved was standing in a dirty alley looking thoroughly lost and considerably wet, his hair dripping, his clothes clinging, like he had recently made the acquaintance of a body of water he had not planned on meeting. I catalogued him automatically from top to bottom the way I catalogued everything.
No visible injuries. No blood. Movement unimpaired. He was wet and confused and apparently arguing with the universe about the absence of both a holy sword and a girl who had summoned him but he was intact.
He was intact.
Something I had not realized was wound very tight inside me loosened by approximately one degree.
Satella's most precious belonging was standing right in front of me and he was unharmed and I was here and I was going to make absolutely certain he stayed that way.
Letting anything happen to him would be like standing by while someone kicked Satella's most treasured possession. Like watching someone damage something irreplaceable and doing nothing. It was not something I was capable of allowing. It was not something I was going to allow.
He noticed me.
I let my shoulders drop. Let my eyes go soft and uncertain. Let the small weak girl settle over me like a familiar coat.
"Are you the cute girl who summoned me?" he asked, his expression shifting into something hopeful and immediately confident in the way of someone who had already decided he was the main character of whatever was happening.
"N-no," I said.
His eyes dropped to my tracksuit. Then back up to my face. Something clicked behind his eyes.
"Wait." He pointed at me. "You're from Earth aren't you. And you." He squinted. "You're the girl from the convenience store. I've seen you there before."
I looked at him.
The boy from the convenience store down the street. The one I had watched turn the corner right before my father opened my door. There one moment and gone the next and then my world had ended and now here he was standing in a fantasy world alley in his tracksuit pointing at me like he had just solved something remarkable.
Satella's beloved was the boy from the convenience store.
Something about that felt exactly right in a way I could not explain and did not need to.
"Y-yes," I said quietly.
He looked at me for a moment longer than necessary with the expression of someone connecting dots they found very satisfying.
"Small world." He grinned. "Smaller than expected actually considering we're not even in our world anymore. I'm Natsuki Subaru. You?"
"S-Sera."
He nodded with the expression of someone who found this deeply significant and was about to say something else entirely.
Then they came.
Three of them. One built like a wall. One thin as a reed with something tucked into the back of his pants that he did not want seen. One small and already talking.
I noted the outline of the knife handle before the skinny one had taken two steps into the alley.
Noted it. Filed it. Began calculating.
"L-leave us alone p-please," I said, my voice doing exactly what a small frightened girl's voice should do.
Then something blonde and very fast darted into the alley from the street.
A girl. Small. Quick. She skidded to a stop when she saw us and her eyes landed on me and something moved across her face.
Pity.
She looked at me with pity.
How dare she.
How dare this creature look at Satella's property with those eyes like I was something small and sad that needed feeling sorry for.
"Live strong," she said directly to me.
And then she was gone. Over the wall at the end of the alley like she had never been there at all.
In my head I added her to a list.
The killing could still wait.
The three men had watched her go and now turned their full attention back to us. The small one stepped forward with his mouth already running.
"Look at this. A pretty girl and her boyfriend wandering where they shouldn't. Lucky day for us."
Subaru moved in front of me.
Satella's beloved put himself between me and three dangerous men with the particular brand of courage that had absolutely no backing behind it whatsoever.
In my head I noted this and filed it under things that were consistent with what I knew of him.
On the outside I made myself tremble.
"Hey," Subaru said. "Leave her alone. You want to rob someone, rob me."
I looked at the back of his head while my hands shook with practiced precision.
The knife.
The skinny one had not reached for it yet but he would. I could see the angle of his arm, the slight tension in his shoulder, the way his weight was already shifting in preparation. He was going to reach for it the moment Subaru pushed back hard enough.
And Subaru was going to push back.
Of course he was. He was Satella's beloved.
I ran the calculation quickly.
My body was the only resource I had available. No magic. No weapon. No strength worth measuring. But I had something my father had given me entirely without meaning to. A very high tolerance for being hit by people larger than me.
When the knife came out Subaru would stop fighting.
When Subaru stopped fighting they would beat him.
I could not stop the knife. I could not fight the men. But I could make sure that when the beating came it landed on Satella's property instead of Satella's beloved.
The calculation completed.
The large one moved first.
Subaru moved faster than I expected.
He threw himself at the small one with absolutely no technique and absolutely no hesitation. His fist connected with something that made a very satisfying sound. The small one dropped.
One down.
He turned immediately, pulled his leg back and drove his foot directly between the large one's legs.
The large one folded.
As expected of Satella's beloved.
Then Subaru ran at the skinny one and the skinny one's hand moved to his back and came around with a knife.
Then another.
The blades caught the light casually like they were proud of themselves.
"Okay," he said, the conviction draining out of him completely. "Okay. Let's not be hasty. We're all reasonable people here."
The three of them regrouped. Turned their attention to Subaru. The large one shoved him and he went down.
I was already moving.
Not quickly. My body did not do quickly. But I had started before he hit the ground so I was in position when the first kick came and I took it across my back instead and the pain was immediate and familiar and completely manageable.
"Oh so the little girl wants to play too?" the small one said.
"You think being a girl protects you?" the skinny one said, still holding his knives. "Doesn't work like that."
The kicks came for me.
I curled over Satella's beloved and performed my agony carefully. Every cry precisely measured. Every flinch exactly right. The mask holding perfectly.
In my head I was somewhere else entirely.
My father hit harder than this.
Much harder.
And with considerably more creativity.
I stayed exactly where I was.
I was not going to move.
Then a voice cut through the alley like a blade.
"STOP!"
I looked up.
And felt something cold move through me that had nothing to do with the kicks.
Silver hair. Violet eyes. A face that had absolutely no right to look like that.
Like her.
Something uncontrollable surged up from somewhere very deep and very old.
It was not a thought. It was not a decision. It was something that moved through my entire body like a current pulling everything in one direction, my hands tensing against the cobblestones, my breath locking in my chest, every part of me straining toward a single overwhelming conclusion.
Kill her.
Satella's beloved was right beside me.
The current broke against that single fact like water against stone and I breathed and let it recede back into wherever it had come from.
The girl who wore my goddess's face had gone very still. Her eyes were on me and something was moving through her expression that I recognized even through the tilting edges of my vision. Shock first. Then something closer to fear.
White hair. Purple eyes. She had walked into this alley expecting something ordinary and instead found a face looking back at her that was too close to her own for comfort.
She raised one hand.
The ice came fast and precise. The large one went down. The small one followed. The skinny one hit the ground last, his knives slipping from his hand, ringing against the cobblestones before going still.
I looked at Subaru one more time.
Alive. Unharmed.
That was enough.
I tried to push myself upright.
My arms gave out immediately. The cobblestones came back up to meet my cheek. The alley was tilting in a way that alleys should not tilt.
Then somewhere above me a voice spoke. Small and dry. Belonging to something that was not entirely a cat.
"That one is dangerous Lia."
Simply. Without alarm. The way you state something everyone in the room already knows.
I thought distantly that he was not wrong.
And then everything went away.
---
The first thing I became aware of was that the cobblestones were no longer against my cheek.
Something softer. Warmer. Fabric.
I opened my eyes slowly and pushed myself upright. Leaned back against the alley wall.
My hand went to my pocket immediately.
The holy scripture was still there. I felt the cover through the fabric and something that had been very tight released. It was still there. It was safe.
I became aware of something else gradually.
The pain was gone.
Not dulled. Not manageable. Gone. The places where the kicks had landed, the ribs, the back, the arms, all of it simply absent. Like it had never been there at all.
"She healed you," Subaru said quietly, like he had been watching me figure it out. "While you were unconscious. The silver haired girl."
I looked at him.
Then back at my arms.
She had healed Satella's property despite being warned against it.
I was not sure what to do with that.
Subaru was sitting beside me. Close. His tracksuit top was folded on the ground where my head had been and he was watching me with an expression that had several things happening in it simultaneously. Gratitude was the loudest. Guilt was underneath it, quieter but heavier, the kind that sat behind someone's eyes and made them look at you like they owed you something they did not know how to repay.
"Hey," he said quietly. "You're awake."
I said nothing immediately. I was still cataloguing.
The blasphemer was standing at the far end of the alley. Not close. Deliberately not close. Her arms were folded and her expression was carefully neutral in the way of someone working very hard to appear calm. Her eyes were on me and they had not moved.
On her shoulder sat a small grey cat.
That one is dangerous Lia.
His words came back to me clearly. Said without alarm. Without drama. Simply and precisely like someone stating something they already knew to be true.
I turned that over carefully.
He had looked at me and known. Not guessed. Not suspected. Known. Without speaking to me, without watching me do anything, he had looked at me from across a dim alley and reached a conclusion that was entirely correct.
How.
I had not done anything. I had been unconscious. There was nothing to observe.
Unless he was not observing.
Unless he was reading.
My mind.
The small grey cat sat on the blasphemer's shoulder with the stillness of something that had decided to be very still on purpose. His eyes had not moved from me since I had opened mine.
I filed that away in the part of my mind that kept important things.
I kept my face carefully tired and soft.
I looked back at Subaru.
"S-Subaru," I said quietly. "Are you hurt?"
The guilt in his expression deepened immediately.
"Am I hurt." He said it like the question did not compute. "You're the one who just. You didn't have to do that. You shouldn't have. I was handling it."
He was not handling it.
But I did not say this.
"I-I'm glad you're okay," I said.
He looked at me for a long moment.
"Why did you do that," he said. Not accusatory. Genuinely asking. Like the answer mattered to him.
I looked up at him with the eyes of a small tired girl who had done something without thinking.
"I d-don't know," I said. "It just seemed right."
In my head there was no stutter and I knew exactly why I had done it down to the precise calculation and the moment I had made the decision but that was not something Satella's beloved needed to know.
He looked at me for another moment and then exhaled and looked away and the guilt did not leave his face.
From the far end of the alley the blasphemer spoke.
"Your hair," she said carefully. Still cautious. Still not moving closer. "And your eyes. I have never seen anyone with the same eyes and hair as me. Are you alright?"
Her voice was gentle despite the caution and despite the small grey cat on her shoulder who had not stopped watching me since I opened my eyes.
Do not think about her face.
Do not think about who she looks like.
The grey cat was watching.
"I-I'm fine," I said. "I'm sorry to have worried you."
I paused and gathered myself the way someone genuinely tired would.
"My hair is white because of a condition I was born with. My body cannot produce pigment the way most people's can. It affects my hair, skin and eyes. My skin and eyes are both very sensitive to sunlight which is why I wear contacts and keep my skin covered as much as possible."
The blasphemer listened with the expression of someone who was following approximately every third word but had decided that nodding carefully was the appropriate response.
"I see," she said in the tone of someone who did not entirely see.
"The colour of your contacts," she said. "Why purple?"
"It is my favorite colour," I said simply.
It had been my favorite colour since the first time I had heard her eyes described and understood without being told that there was no other colour that mattered.
Do not think about whose eyes.
The grey cat was still watching.
"The sun is going to be a problem for you out here isn't it," Subaru said, his eyes moving to my white hair and skin with the practical concern of someone who had just remembered something important. "Here." He reached over and picked up his tracksuit top from the ground and held it out to me. "Use this to cover up. I've got a shirt underneath so don't worry about me."
Satella's beloved was offering me his tracksuit top.
The one that matched mine.
I took it carefully with both hands.
"T-thank you," I said.
The small grey cat on the blasphemer's shoulder had not moved.
Had not taken his eyes off me.
I held the small weak girl very carefully in place and looked back at him with tired grateful eyes and thought about nothing at all.
He was not fooled.
I was fairly certain he was not fooled.
But there was nothing either of us could do about that right now.
The blasphemer looked between us for a moment. Then at the unconscious thugs on the ground. Then back at me with that careful expression she had been wearing since she arrived.
"I really do need to go," she said. "I am sorry I cannot stay longer. Are you sure you will be alright?"
"W-we'll be fine," I said. "Thank you. For what you did."
She nodded. Something moved across her expression that I did not examine too closely.
"Be careful," she said.
The grey cat on her shoulder looked at me one last time.
Then they were gone.
The alley was quiet after they left.
Subaru sat beside me saying nothing for a moment. His guilt had not gone anywhere. I could see it still sitting behind his eyes looking for somewhere to put itself.
"Can you walk?" he asked.
"I-I think so," I said.
That was a lie. My legs had already told me their opinion on the matter and their opinion was no.
I pushed myself up from the wall anyway.
Made it approximately two steps.
The ground came up to meet me the way it always did. Not dramatically. Just quietly and inevitably like it had been waiting.
Subaru caught me before I hit the cobblestones. His hands found my arms and he pulled me upright and I took a moment to calculate.
The fall was real. The humiliation of it was real. The uselessness of this body that could not manage two steps after sitting still for twenty minutes was entirely real.
But Subaru's hands were on my arms. His face was close. He was looking at me with that expression.
I could work with this.
I looked down at where his hands were.
Then I looked up at him.
"P-pervert," I said quietly.
His face went red immediately.
"I was catching you! You were falling! I was preventing you from hitting the ground which is the opposite of—" He stopped. Took a breath. "Are you okay?"
I kept my expression soft and slightly embarrassed.
In my head there was nothing except the quiet satisfaction of a calculation that had worked exactly as intended. He was flustered and focused entirely on me now. His hands were still on my arms because he was afraid I would fall again.
Precisely where I needed them.
"I-I'm sorry," I said. "My legs. They do this sometimes. I should have w-warned you."
"Do what sometimes?" His voice had shifted from embarrassed to worried. "What's happening with your legs?"
I looked at the ground the way someone would look at the ground if they were ashamed of something they could not help.
"I have a condition," I said quietly. "My muscles. They don't work the way they should. I have difficulty walking sometimes. Especially when I've pushed myself too hard."
A pause.
"How long have you had this?"
"My whole life," I said.
Another pause. Longer.
Then Subaru picked me up.
Not dramatically. Not making anything of it. He just shifted his grip and lifted me into his arms like it was the obvious next step and started walking.
"You should have said something," he said.
"I d-didn't want to be a b-burden," I said.
"You're not a burden," he said. He said it like it was a simple fact requiring no particular emphasis. Like saying the sky was above them.
In my head I was thinking about this body. How it had been failing me my entire life. How my father had never once taken me to a doctor. How I had read enough from the library to understand roughly what was wrong with me but never enough to fix it.
I said none of this.
I let Satella's beloved carry me through the streets and performed my quiet gratitude and said nothing.
We found the blasphemer and the cat around the next corner.
The blasphemer turned when she heard us. Her hood was still up. Her eyes moved from Subaru to me and something moved across her expression.
"Is she alright?" she asked.
"She has a muscle condition," Subaru said. "She'll be fine. We're coming with you."
"I told you—"
"I know what you told us." He was not arguing exactly. Just stating. "We're coming anyway. What did you lose?"
The blasphemer looked at him for a long moment.
Then she looked at me.
The cat on her shoulder had not moved.
I held myself very still and let my eyes be soft and tired.
"Something important," she said finally. "Someone stole it from me. I need to get it back."
"What kind of something?" Subaru asked.
The blasphemer glanced at him. Still cautious. But something in the caution had shifted slightly. Like she was deciding whether the question was safe to answer.
"An insignia," she said. "It was taken from me. I need it back."
"An insignia." Subaru nodded with the expression of someone filing this away seriously. "Important insignia. Got it. Any idea who took it?"
"Someone fast," the blasphemer said. A pause. "Very fast."
"Fast," Subaru repeated. Then after a moment. "You know you're remarkably calm about all of this. Someone stole something important from you and you're just. Walking around looking."
Something that was almost a small smile moved across the blasphemer's face.
"What would you suggest instead?"
"Panic," Subaru said immediately. "Significantly more panic. I personally would have panicked extensively by now."
The almost smile became something slightly more definite.
I was not watching any of this.
I was watching the grey cat.
He sat on the blasphemer's shoulder through the entire exchange. Still. Patient. Occasionally his eyes moved to Subaru with the mild interest of someone watching something harmless. Occasionally they moved to the blasphemer with something considerably warmer.
And occasionally they moved to me.
Every time they did I was already looking at something else.
Every time they moved away I was looking at him again.
We walked.
The city moved around us in the way cities do. Indifferent and busy and full of people who had no right to exist in the same world as the holy goddess Satella.
Subaru stopped at the first merchant stall we passed.
"Excuse me. Has anyone come through here recently trying to sell something valuable? An insignia maybe?"
The merchant looked at him. Then at the blasphemer. Then at me in Subaru's arms and stayed there slightly too long.
I noted his face.
"Nothing like that," the merchant said finally.
We moved on.
The blasphemer was getting more tense with each stall. I could see it in how she held herself. The careful composure developing small cracks at the edges. Whatever the insignia meant to her it mattered considerably.
Subaru noticed too.
"We'll find it," he said. Not with the particular confidence of someone who knew that to be true. With the particular confidence of someone who had decided it needed to be said.
The blasphemer looked at him.
"You don't know that," she said.
"No," Subaru agreed. "But I'm going to keep saying it until one of us believes it."
Something moved across her expression. Not quite a smile. Something adjacent to one.
We kept moving.
More merchants. More questions. More faces that registered nothing useful. The market stalls crowded both sides of the street here, fabrics and produce and things I did not have names for yet displayed under awnings in the afternoon light.
I was watching Puck.
Puck was watching me.
I thought about the texture of the cobblestones. Flat. Empty.
He looked away.
Then I became aware of something else.
Eyes.
Not at my face. Lower. Two men standing outside a stall to my left watching me in Subaru's arms with the particular slow attention that certain men considered acceptable.
How dare they.
How dare they look at Satella's property like—
"Hey."
Subaru's voice had changed entirely. The warmth gone out of it. He had stopped walking and was looking directly at the two men with an expression I had not seen on his face before.
"Something you want to say?"
The men looked at him. Then at me. Then back at him.
They left.
Subaru watched them go. Then looked back at the street ahead and kept walking like nothing had happened.
Satella's beloved had done that without being asked.
I filed that away in a different place than the others.
The blasphemer had watched the exchange and something in how she looked at Subaru had shifted slightly. Not trust exactly. Something adjacent to it.
We reached the market proper.
Stalls in every direction. More people. More noise. Subaru asked questions at each one. The answers were consistently unhelpful. The blasphemer's worry was consistently increasing.
At one stall the blasphemer leaned forward to look at something a merchant was showing her and I said quietly.
"M-miss. I don't think this is the right direction."
She straightened and looked at me.
Something flickered across her expression. Not annoyance exactly. Something more like noticing.
"Miss," she repeated quietly. Almost to herself.
I kept my face soft and uncertain.
She said nothing more and we moved on.
I watched Puck between stalls and thought about nothing and let him look away repeatedly.
None of it was leading anywhere.
I ran the calculation one more time and arrived at the same conclusion I had already reached.
We were not going to find it this way.
"E-miss," I said quietly.
She looked at me.
"I might know where to look," I said. I let my voice stay small and uncertain. Like I was offering something fragile that might be wrong. "It's just a thought."
"Please," the blasphemer said.
"If someone stole something valuable from someone like you," I said carefully, "they would need to sell it quickly. To someone who asks no questions. That kind of transaction doesn't happen near the castle." I paused. "It happens as far from it as possible. In the quietest part of the city."
Subaru was looking at me with that expression again. The one I could not quite categorize.
I kept my face soft and hesitant.
In my head there was no hesitation at all.
"The slums," the blasphemer said slowly.
"I think so," I said. "I-I might be wrong."
"No," Subaru said. Still looking at me. "That makes sense."
The blasphemer looked between us.
Then she nodded.
We changed direction.
The streets narrowed around us gradually. The bright colors faded. The buildings leaned into each other like they were holding each other up. The plaster on their walls had given up in patches showing the timber bones underneath. Laundry hung limp between windows. The cobblestones went dark and uneven and the city wall rose ahead of us gray and enormous and patient.
We had been walking for some time when the blasphemer stopped.
"I am Emilia," she said. Like she had made a decision. She looked directly at me when she said it. "You keep calling me miss. I would prefer my name."
She gestured to the grey cat on her shoulder.
"And this is Puck," she said pleasantly.
Subaru grinned.
"Natsuki Subaru," he said. Then he looked at me.
"S-Sera," I said.
Emilia nodded with the expression of someone who was satisfied.
I looked at her.
Emilia the blasphemer.
The name changed nothing.
We kept walking.
I watched Puck from the corner of my eye.
He was watching me.
He was always watching me.
I thought about the cobblestones beneath us. Flat. Empty. No weight behind the thought at all.
Nothing.
Puck looked away.
I filed that away carefully.
Still interesting.
The slums were bigger than I expected.
I looked at them from Subaru's arms and revised my earlier confidence downward slightly. I had deduced the general location correctly. What I had not accounted for was the scale of it. Streets branching off in multiple directions. Buildings crowding each other. No obvious signs. No obvious anything.
Finding one specific building in this was going to take longer than I had implied.
"S-Subaru," I said quietly.
"Yeah?"
"Could you ask someone. A local. Whether there is a specific place in the slums where stolen goods are bought and sold."
He looked at me.
"You are terrifyingly practical," he said. Not quite a complaint.
He stopped the next person he saw. A man leaning against a wall with the particular posture of someone who had nowhere specific to be.
"Hey. Quick question. Is there somewhere around here where someone could sell something valuable. No questions asked."
The man looked at him for a long moment.
Then he pointed down a specific street and described a building at the end of it pressed against the city wall.
"Much appreciated," Subaru said.
We went.
The street the man had described turned into two streets and then three and somewhere between the second and third turning Emilia stopped.
"I think we went wrong somewhere," she said.
I looked at the streets around us.
She was correct.
Emilia the blasphemer had gotten us lost in the slums.
I thought about this with complete emotional flatness.
She is useless.
Just that. No heat behind it. No contempt. Just an observation delivered to myself in the same tone I would use to note that the cobblestones were uneven.
Subaru's arms were right there. His face was right there. I kept mine still.
She is completely useless despite everything.
Still nothing. Still flat.
The cat on Emilia's shoulder did not move.
Did not look at me.
Did not react at all.
I stored that away in a very small and very careful place and said nothing.
"I can ask the spirits," Emilia said.
Something changed around her.
The air first. Then the light. Small shapes began appearing near her shoulders, her hands, the space around her head. Colorful and glowing and moving with a kind of gentle purposeful intelligence. They gathered around her like they had been waiting nearby for exactly this invitation and were pleased to have finally received it.
They were beautiful.
Objectively. Factually. In the same way that a well maintained blade is beautiful. I noted it and moved on.
Subaru did not move on.
I felt it before I saw it. A slight change in how he was holding me. The quality of his attention shifting from the street ahead to the girl surrounded by glowing lights. I turned my head slightly.
His expression.
It was not a decision he had made. I could see that clearly. It was something that had simply happened to his face without consulting him. Something open and unguarded and directed entirely at Emilia the blasphemer standing in the middle of a slum street with spirits gathering around her like she was something worth gathering around.
Something moved through me.
Hot and immediate and completely unacceptable.
Subaru's face was right next to mine.
I made myself still.
I made everything still. Every thought. Every feeling. Every response my body wanted to have to what I was watching. I pressed it all down into somewhere very small and very flat and held it there with everything I had.
His face was right there.
He could not see it.
He could not see any of it.
I looked at the spirits around Emilia instead.
She is stealing Satella's beloved.
Flat. Empty. Like reading from a document.
She is standing there with her face and her spirits and she is stealing him.
Still flat. Still nothing.
The cat did not look at me.
The cat did not react at all.
I held that realization very carefully alongside the other one I had stored a moment ago and looked at what they made together.
He could not read thoughts.
He could read emotions and intent.
He could not read thoughts stripped of both.
I had just stripped everything I was thinking of every feeling attached to it and he had not reacted to a single word of it.
I knew what he could and could not detect now.
I filed it away in the same careful place and let my face stay soft and tired and completely unreadable.
The spirits finished conferring with Emilia.
She looked up.
"This way," she said.
Subaru's expression returned to normal. He probably did not notice it had changed.
I noticed.
We followed Emilia.
The streets narrowed further. The buildings leaned. The city wall rose ahead gray and patient and enormous.
And there it was.
Pressed against the wall like it was trying to disappear into it. Two stories. A roof that had given up entirely, moss and grass growing where tiles used to be. Crates and barrels stacked outside going nowhere. Laundry hanging by the entrance barely moving.
The kind of place the city had decided a long time ago it did not need to remember.
Subaru shifted my weight in his arms.
"This is it?"
"I-I think so," I said.
He walked up the steps.
And knocked.
Silence.
Then footsteps. Heavy and slow and belonging to something very large.
The door opened.
He was enormous. White hair pulled back. A face that had seen considerable difficulty and had not particularly enjoyed any of it. He looked at the three of us with the particular suspicion of someone who had not been expecting company and did not especially want any. His eyes moved from Emilia's hooded figure to Subaru to me and settled.
"We're closed," he said.
"We're here to buy something," Subaru said with the particular confidence of someone who had decided to be confident regardless of circumstances. "We heard you deal in rare items. We're looking for something that was recently acquired."
The large man looked at Subaru. Then at me in Subaru's arms. Then back at Subaru.
"That so," he said. Not a question.
"That's so," Subaru confirmed.
A long moment passed.
The large man stepped back and let us in.
The dim building smelled like old wood and something metallic underneath it. My eyes adjusted slowly.
Two people already inside.
A small blonde girl sitting across a table from a woman in dark clothing who moved like something that had learned stillness as a weapon. The deal was already in progress. The blonde girl had something in her hands that caught what little light there was.
The woman in dark clothing looked up.
Her eyes found Emilia immediately. Moved to her hood. Then past it.
Something shifted in her expression. Not surprise. Something more like interest. The particular interest of someone whose evening had just become considerably more entertaining than expected.
"Well," she said pleasantly. "What a coincidence. The original owner herself."
She moved.
It was very fast.
The blade caught the dim light for less than a second. The blonde girl's head left her shoulders and hit the floor. Her body followed a moment later and the two met the ground separately and that was all she was now.
A beat of silence.
Then.
"FELT!"
The large man's voice came from somewhere that had nothing to do with his size. Raw and breaking and belonging to something that had just lost everything it was protecting. He lurched forward with a sound belonging to someone much younger and threw himself at the woman in dark clothing with no strategy and no caution and nothing left to calculate with.
The woman in dark clothing turned toward him without hurrying.
She took his arm at the shoulder. He tried to say the name again. What came out instead was something wet and shapeless as she opened his throat with something thin and bright. He went down still trying. Still reaching toward the small blonde shape on the floor.
Still trying to say her name.
Less meat contaminating my goddess's world.
Good.
The woman in dark clothing straightened and turned toward Emilia.
Emilia's hood came down. Her silver hair caught what little light the dim building had. Puck appeared on her shoulder seemingly from nowhere, small and grey and suddenly very still.
The woman in dark clothing looked at him.
Something shifted in her smile. Not wariness. Something closer to delight.
"Oh my," she said, tilting her head slightly. "A spirit. I have never had the opportunity to gut a spirit before." She sounded genuinely curious. The way someone might wonder about an interesting recipe. "I wonder what color your bowels are."
Puck looked at her.
The temperature in the room dropped.
"I would strongly recommend," he said, and his voice had nothing of the usual warmth in it, "that you do not find out."
Emilia raised her hand.
The ice came.
What followed I observed from behind the bar where Subaru had carried us, tucked into the space between the counter and the wall. He dropped into a crouch pulling me with him, his arms still around me, and peeked over the edge with the focused intensity of someone watching something they could not look away from.
The woman in dark clothing moved like she was enjoying herself.
That was the first thing I catalogued. Not her technique or her speed though both were considerable. The smile. It had not left her face since she walked into this room and it was not the smile of someone who was working hard. It was the smile of someone who had found exactly what they were looking for and was taking her time with it.
Emilia shot ice at her.
She stepped around it.
Not dodged. Stepped. The way you step around a puddle on the street. Mildly inconvenient. Barely worth acknowledging.
Puck sent ice from a different angle.
She moved again. Same energy. Same smile.
She is toying with them.
The thought arrived flat and clinical and I made sure it stayed that way. No feeling behind it. No satisfaction or contempt or anything the grey cat could pick up from across the room. Just observation. Just fact.
She has my goddess's face and cannot land a single hit.
Flat. Empty. Like reading a report about a stranger.
She is being pushed back.
Also flat.
She is completely ineffective despite her magic.
Also flat.
At some point without apparently noticing Subaru had tightened his grip considerably. My ribs registered it distantly.
It almost hurt.
I did not mind.
Satella's beloved was afraid and holding tighter to the thing he was protecting was what Satella's beloved did. It was consistent. It was him.
Something else registered as well.
His hand.
His hand was not where hands were supposed to be and he was completely unaware of this because his entire attention was fixed on the fight happening ten feet away with the focused intensity of someone watching a life or death situation which was fair because it was a life or death situation.
I looked at his face.
Completely oblivious.
How dare Satella's beloved cheat on my holy goddess.
The thought arrived with genuine indignation and then immediately ran into the obvious problem with itself.
He did not know.
Furthermore I was Satella's property. Which meant technically he was not cheating on Satella. He was handling Satella's property without permission. Which was a different category of problem entirely and one I did not have the processing capacity to address right now.
Satella's beloved was not cheating on my holy goddess.
Satella's beloved was just bad at crouching.
I looked back at the fight.
"I have to do something," Subaru said under his breath. His eyes were fixed on the fight. "I'm just sitting here. I'm completely useless."
"S-Subaru," I said quietly.
"She's going to get hurt. I can't just watch."
"I-I'm scared," I said quietly.
It was the right thing to say. I watched it land on his face exactly the way I knew it would. The conflict between wanting to help Emilia and the girl in his arms telling him she was frightened.
I was not scared.
I had never been scared of anything in my life.
Satella's beloved was not going to move from behind this bar.
I was not going to let him.
Whatever it took.
He stayed.
His grip tightened further.
I said nothing and continued saying nothing and watched the woman in dark clothing dodge another wave of ice like it was a mild inconvenience.
Emilia sent another wave. Wider this time. More desperate. The woman in dark clothing tilted her head slightly like she was reconsidering her evening plans and then moved through it with the same unhurried grace and I watched the smile shift.
Not wider. Different.
Bored.
She raised one arm.
One strike.
Emilia hit the floor hard. The sound of it filled the room. Puck made a noise that did not belong in any living creature's throat. The woman in dark clothing straightened slowly and turned.
And looked at us.
At me specifically.
Her smile came back.
"There you are," she said.
She moved toward us and Subaru stood up.
He stood up from behind the bar with me still in his arms and he turned.
Away from her.
Toward me.
His back to the woman in dark clothing and his face in front of mine and his arms pulled me closer and I could see everything. His expression. The fear sitting behind his eyes that he was not letting reach his face. The way his jaw was set. The way he had made a decision and was not going back on it.
He knew what was behind him.
He turned toward me anyway.
Over his shoulder I could see her.
She was smiling.
Not the smile of someone who was going to stop. Not the smile of someone who felt anything about what she was about to do except quiet uncomplicated pleasure. She raised the black blade. The dim light of the building caught it. I watched it come around.
I could not move. I could not speak. I could not do anything except watch.
The arc was clean. The blade found the side of his neck. Went through. His arms loosened all at once like something had simply switched off inside him.
We fell.
His body was heavier than I expected. Or perhaps I was lighter than I remembered. We hit the floor together. The impact moved through me. His arms were still around me even as we went down, still holding even after everything had stopped working. I ended up on my side pressed against him, his arms loose around me, the floor cold against my face.
Something rolled.
I heard it before I saw it. A soft terrible sound against the floor. Getting closer.
It stopped.
Right in front of me.
Close enough that I could have reached out and touched it without fully extending my arm.
His eyes were open.
They were looking at me.
Not at nothing. Not at the ceiling. At me. Like even at the very end some part of him had turned toward the thing he had been holding.
I looked back.
His expression was caught somewhere in the middle of something. A thought that had started and would never finish. A sentence that had no ending.
I looked at his face.
His face looked at mine.
The room was very quiet.
The woman in dark clothing was still smiling somewhere behind me.
My mind had been running since the moment I arrived in this world. Calculating. Assessing. Planning. It had never once gone silent.
And then his face was in front of mine and his eyes were on me and it had nothing left to calculate.
Everything stopped.
The calculations. The assessments. The lists. The constant quiet hum of observation that had never once gone silent since I stepped out of that alley.
All of it.
Gone.
Just his face.
Just his eyes looking at mine.
Just the black coming in from the edges of everything getting darker and darker until there was nothing left.
There was one thought left in the dark.
Satella.
And then there was nothing at all.
The cold of the stone found my cheek first.
I opened my eyes.
The alley was the same.
The same stones. The same walls. The same darkness.
I was back.
I failed.
End of Chapter One