Chương 430: 202.Prince & Princess 2

The moment I stepped into the changing room, I shut the door. Not gently. The kind of force that said if I could, I'd close the entire banquet behind this door with me. The panel took it politely and gave me one decorous thump in return. It was warm inside. Too bright. The light wasn't for seeing. It was to ensure every line of every dress, every strand of hair, every detail a person might have pretended not to notice had nowhere to hide. In other words, hostile.

I set the garment bag on the bench and stared at the blue dress for three seconds. Deep blue. V-neck. Spaghetti straps. The fabric lay there, soft as if deliberately cultivated to offend me, layer upon layer falling in quiet, dangerous folds under the lights. It was beautiful. I could admit that. That was exactly the problem. It was beautiful with intent. This wasn't a dress to walk in. It was a dress to be watched in, to be remembered in, to be placed in the center of the floor and assessed from all angles.

And assessment was one thing I could live without.

"… You've got to be kidding me," I muttered. The dress didn't answer. It continued to recline there with the serene malice of a plan with fabric. Honestly, compared to yesterday's explosives, I was more inclined to treat this thing as a threat. Explosives at least were honest. They blew; they didn't pretend it was for your own good. Evening dresses were the opposite. They looked soft, beautiful, high-end, perfect for a banquet.

In reality, they were social weaponry, designed to drag you out of your safe zone and put you on display. Grumbling internally, I stripped off my uniform jacket. Halfway through, I thought of Hedwig going scarlet in front of her own floor-to-ceiling portrait, and, against my will, felt marginally better. At least I wasn't the only one being put on show. Hedwig's execution came in the form of canvas on a wall. Mine involved squeezing myself into a blue slip dress. In that sense, we were comrades-in-arms.

The thought almost made me laugh, right up until the zipper snagged.

"…" I looked down at the fine, haughty little zipper. Of course. This thing wasn't going to leave me even a last shred of dignity. I took a breath, adjusted the fabric, set the straps straight, the waist in place, and tried again. This time it slid. When the dress settled around me, my first sensation wasn't beauty. It was cold. The fabric slipped over collarbone, shoulders, spine—light as nothing, and precisely because it was so light, it felt even less safe. Uniforms wrapped you in rules.

Dress uniforms wrapped you in function. This one did neither. It didn't shield or guard. It only sent you into the light and informed the world: this person looks like this tonight. Enjoy.

"I am starting to understand why some people drink before banquets," I told the mirror. The woman in the mirror stared back. Silver hair fell down my back and over my shoulders. The deep blue pulled my whole outline downward cleanly. The waist was pulled in with ruthless honesty. My shoulders and collarbones gleamed too white under the lights. The face was still mine. Which made the whole thing into a very specific kind of dissonance. Beautiful. Very unhappy.

Like someone had reached into a tactical manual, dragged me out, scrubbed me clean, buffed me, and stuffed me into a frame. … This was too much. I had always known I wasn't hard on the eyes. After all, I was the one in the bathroom every morning, not anyone else. Pretending complete ignorance would be an insult to modern reflective technology. But knowing it in an abstract way and seeing myself turned into tonight's blue hazard décor were two entirely different experiences.

"This does not suit me," I muttered.

"I think it suits you perfectly." The door opened. I didn't have to turn around to know it was Jess. She never knocked in a way I considered adequate for mental health.

"Do you ever knock," I asked.

"I did," Jess said, strolling in, eyes wide with innocent malice.

"You just didn't hear because you were busy arguing with a dress."

"I wasn't arguing."

"Oh? Then 'this does not suit me' was what, an attempt at conflict resolution with fabric?" I ignored her. Jess walked around me, looking me up and down in the mirror, then inhaled dramatically.

"Wow."

"You already 'wowed' once out there."

"That was different." Jess managed an impressively straight face.

"That was a respectful 'wow' for Hedwig's massive humiliation portrait. This one is a 'wow' for you."

"No thanks."

"You are terrible at accepting compliments, Shimo."

"Because yours usually come with tripwires." She was gearing up for another line when the door opened again. No exaggerated movement this time. No chirpy entrance. No words arriving ahead of the person. The door simply opened, and someone stepped in. I looked up. Then forgot what I was going to say. Maki stood just inside. Federation dress uniform. White, straight as doctrine. High collar snug. Shoulders clean.

Silver detail edging cuff and front to draw exact borders, dark blue only in controlled accents, as if the cloth had swallowed both academy lineage and military order. The crease in the trousers dropped in an unbroken line to polished shoes. The cap under her arm shaded her eyes just enough that they looked even steadier. If I wore that, it would look like a costume. On Maki, it didn't. She wasn't playing a prince. She had simply grown into one.

"…" I looked at her. She saw me too. And then—for the first time in a long while—the always-controlled Maki Kushima stopped. Just for half a second. She looked at my shoulders, then the line of the dress at my waist, then back to my face. Not in a leering way. Not in simple appreciation. It felt like a check. Making sure it was still me. Making sure the dress hadn't erased me. Making sure whatever stubborn, troublesome core I had was still under the fabric. Good. Same system she'd used at the spaceport.

"…It suits you," Maki said. Her voice was lower than usual. Slower. If Jess had said that, I would have filed it under accident waiting to happen. Out of Maki's mouth, it was trouble. Because she didn't throw praise around carelessly. If she said it, she meant it. I suddenly felt like throwing a cloth over the mirror.

"You're very good at finishing people off today," I said.

"I'm not finishing you off," she said, setting the cap down, tone back to level.

"I'm stating fact."

"You know," Jess cut in, "dressed like that and talking like that, you really do look like a cluelessly dashing prince." Maki didn't blink.

"I'm not."

"You are," I said. The words were out before I could stop them. Jess turned her head toward me, expression turning magnificent. That was her I have just witnessed a historic event face. Maki also looked at me.

"…What."

"You are," I repeated, accepting that the damage was done.

"At least right now." The room was quiet for two beats. Jess bent double, sucking air through her teeth.

"Unbelievable," she hissed.

"Shimo actually said it out loud. Did the Moon's gravity break tonight."

"Shut up."

"I'm trying. I really am. I just want this on record." Maki ignored her. She kept her eyes on me. Under the lights, those eyes were even steadier than usual. Steady enough to be annoying. Because there was no joke in there. No ego. She genuinely didn't think the uniform made her anything special. She'd just put it on and, as naturally as breathing, shifted her own outline one step closer to I'll take responsibility. That was what made her dangerous. It wasn't the cloth.

It was that the person wearing it had actually grown into that weight.

"…You suit it as well," she said at last.

"And not in an ordinary way."

"Please stop adding clauses," I said immediately.

"Why."

"Because I've just barely talked myself into being able to walk out in this." Jess had given up entirely and was clutching her stomach.

"I thought you'd just been swearing the whole time," she said.

"I didn't realize you were doing mindset prep."

"Both," I said.

"That's great," Jess grinned.

"You two are perfect. One princess, one prince. And not the cooperative kind either. The kind that refuse to follow the ball script. Peak drama."

"You say that like we're about to shoot a promotional poster," I said.

"No," Jess shook her head solemnly.

"Worse than posters. You're going into a real banquet." … Thanks for the reminder. I'd almost managed to forget. I looked back at the mirror. Blue and white stood side by side. In the glass, the deep-blue dress made me look like a block of ice shoved into the light. The white uniform made Maki look like the person standing next to that block, ready to catch the cracks. Jess's line had been annoying, but she wasn't wrong. It did look like one of those over-produced, deliberate paired visuals.

The problem was that I was in it. Which made it hard to appreciate. A quiet knock tapped at the door. Three raps. Light. Precise. Jess was closest. She went to open it. Hedwig stood outside. She'd had time to collect herself. The flush was gone. She still looked like she'd like to banish a certain painting to the outer rim, but at least she no longer looked like she would combust. She stopped at the threshold, looked at Jess, then past her into the room. And then Hedwig went still for a second.

I rarely saw her actually hesitate. Not speechless. Not in shock. It was like she'd arrived carrying a very cold, very orderly mood, and that mood had just missed a step. Her eyes landed on me first. Then on Maki in white. Then back on my face.

"…So you really did intend to make this absurd," Hedwig said.

"That's my line," I said.

"Your face is half a wall." Her brow jumped.

"Do not bring that up again."

"Okay."

"And it wasn't my idea."

"I believe you." She clearly had no desire to continue discussing the painting, so she pulled her gaze off me and let it rest on Maki.

"Kushima," she said, tone back to its usual clean chill.

"You look like the Federation sent someone to take over the entire room." Maki considered that.

"If things fall apart, I probably will," she said.

"…That is reassuring in a very irritating way."

"Thank you," Maki said. Hedwig seemed not to have expected her to accept it. She choked, just briefly. I, watching from the side, wanted to laugh. In some ways the two of them were alike—if you misjudged the distance, they'd each hand you a blade in the calmest voice possible. Jess watched Hedwig, then me and Maki, and her expression began to warp. That wasn't her normal amusement. That was the I have multiple thoughts and none of them are appropriate look.

"What are you thinking," I warned her.

"Nothing," Jess lied.

"Only that the real show tonight isn't going to be in the ballroom. It's in here."

"Get out," I said.

"I'm serious," Jess protested.

"One humiliation portrait in the hall, a blue princess, a white prince—this is extravagance."

"Jess," Maki said, calmly.

"Fine. I'll shut up." She did. Barely. The grin stayed. I pressed my fingers to my temple. The evening hadn't even begun and I already felt half my mental stamina evaporating. Imperial banquets were efficient. They got an early start on the torture. Hedwig stood in the doorway, watching me for a moment.

"Shimo."

"Mm?"

"You said that dress didn't suit you." I squinted.

"Did Jess broadcast even that?"

"No," Hedwig said flatly.

"Your face did." … Infuriating woman. I was about to answer, but Hedwig beat me to it, letting her gaze slip back to me in the mirror for half a beat and adding, very quietly:"But you own it." The room went still. Jess stopped. Maki didn't speak either. I stared at Hedwig, for once not quite sure how to reply. Because that hadn't been Jess's teasing, or Maki's factual assessment. It was a judgment. The kind given from a very high, very unforgiving vantage point.

Like she'd looked once and, against her will, conceded: fine. You hate it, but the dress didn't swallow you. You're holding it. Very Hedwig. And very hard to argue with. I looked away.

"…Thanks," I said.

"No need," Hedwig replied.

"I'll be out there too. If anyone's getting humiliated, it won't just be you." This time I actually laughed. Short, through my nose. Good. Fair was fair. Her absurd portrait. My ridiculous dress. Maki's unfairly sharp white. Everyone had been assigned a different shape of public execution tonight. Maki stepped in behind me.

"Turn around."

"For what."

"Your strap's crooked." I froze. Jess inhaled silently. Hedwig very visibly watched.

"You could just tell me," I said.

"I could," Maki said from behind me, her tone merciless in its calm.

"You wouldn't fix it properly." Annoyingly true. So I turned, reluctantly, presenting my back to the mirror. Maki lifted my strap and nudged it back into place. Light touch. Precise. Her fingers brushed skin through fabric, and my entire body tensed. Not from pain or discomfort. From proximity. Close enough that I could smell the clean, cold edge of her detergent. Close enough to be acutely aware that Maki Kushima, in a white Federation dress uniform, was standing behind me adjusting the strap of my evening gown.

If Jess ever got to write a headline about that, I'd have to transfer schools by morning.

"There," Maki said. I stepped forward at once and turned to the mirror. Strap: straight. Problem: Jessie's face. Her expression had fully transitioned into I am seeing far too much material.

"Say one word and die," I warned.

"I didn't say anything," Jess protested, hands up.

"I merely observe that this banquet might actually have been worth charging admission for."

"Whose side are you on," I asked.

"The interesting side."

"Then you're going to be very busy," Hedwig said, coolly. Jess nearly dropped her tray laughing. I looked at the reflection of the four of us and felt, for a moment, that the absurdity was almost too much. One princess who knew she was a key and hated being put on display. One Maki who put on white and became a prince whether she liked it or not. One Jess who'd wandered in for the spectacle and looked most likely to relay every single detail to the entire school.

And me—in a blue dress, standing in the light, trying to accept that this was the shape I'd have to walk into the hall in. The world had clearly broken somewhere. Otherwise how else did we end up with this configuration, dead sober, in an Imperial Hotel changing room. Outside, the pre-banquet chime rang again. Time. Maki put her cap back on, snapped her gloves into place, and with two motions reassembled herself into the person you handed disasters to. Hedwig straightened as well. The flush was gone.

Only the usual displeasure remained, carefully arranged into something dignified. I picked up the clutch. Then looked, one last time, at myself in the mirror. Blue. Long hair. Cold face. Very unwilling. But able to walk in it. … Fine. I surrendered.

"Let's go," I said. Jess recovered first.

"To the banquet?"

"To die," I said. Maki watched me. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Not yet."

"That's easy for you to say, Prince Charming," I said.

"You get margin." She paused.

"And you," she asked. I looked at the woman in the deep-blue dress and sighed.

"I'm probably the princess being dragged onto the stage." Jess doubled over. Hedwig turned her head, clearly fighting a smile. Maki watched me for a moment. Then, very slightly, she smiled too. So small you could have missed it.

"You'll be fine," she said.

"The princess has a prince." Ah. That was cheating. The banquet was still waiting. The painting was still hanging. The dance floor, the lights, the Imperial students, the Federation students, and the people who had no intention of letting tonight stay peaceful were all outside. And the four of us were finally ready to walk out together. Late-Night Visitor When the banquet formally began, my first impression wasn't splendor or grandeur. It was noise.

Not the cheap kind—forks clattering, someone slapping a table after too many drinks. This was the expensive version. Crystal chandeliers blazed bright enough to refract everyone's bloodline in the light. Strings laid down a steady foundation. Silver, glass, leather shoes, military boots, sashes, hems—everything was producing a sound that said we are civilized. And underneath that civility, hundreds of gazes came from every direction at once, fine as needles.

I suddenly thought: at least when you're staring down a gun barrel, it only comes from one direction. A crowd doesn't. When I followed Maki back into the main hall, the band had just switched to a new piece. The double basses held the floor first, then the violins lifted the whole room, making the ballroom feel like an over-packaged dream.

The Imperial Hotel's main hall had always been lavishly unwell, but once the banquet formally opened, it was like the words great-power dignity had been taken and given a three-dimensional gold treatment. Gothic vaulting soared overhead. Chandeliers descended in rows, like some wealthy and restless stalactite formation. The center of the dance floor had been cleared.

Students were divided by school and year on both sides, with faculty, attachés, servers, and the band holding the perimeter in a circle you couldn't see but absolutely felt. The seating arrangements were extremely reasonable. Reasonable the way a trap was reasonable. The Federation side ran east, the Imperial side west.

The Seitokais and primary representatives from both schools were positioned at the junction where all lines of sight converged—convenient for pleasantries, convenient for observation, and convenient for being the first people seen by everyone in the room if something went wrong. I was standing at that optimal public-execution position. The silver-white wig fell along my shoulders, the ends brushing bare collarbone—light as nothing, present as a charge. The deep-blue spaghetti-strap dress fit close and fell clean.

The fabric was cooperative to the point of offense, and every step I took made me feel less like a person and more like a hazardous material packaged for high-end diplomatic gifting. Looking at myself in the mirror had been bad enough. Being put under lights for public display upgraded the sensation from wanting to die to wanting to die on a schedule. I'd barely gotten my footing before the first wave hit.

"Wait, is that Vice President Hoshino?"

"No way. Seriously?"

"That's insane—the male version is handsome and the female version is a long-haired beauty? Where's the justice?" If justice were still alive today, this scene would have driven it off a ledge. That last line was my own internal addition. Our second-year cohort, who'd been getting yelled at like a row of dried fish by instructors during training, had now changed into formal wear, recovered their social faculties, and decided their first order of business was to treat me as a zoological curiosity.

The murmuring from the Federation side near the entrance worked its way toward me in a chain, voices kept low but each word making a real effort to reach my ears. That particular tone—barely suppressed excitement wearing the costume of restraint—I knew well. Same as tourists who'd spotted a rare predator. Except tonight the predator was wearing heels.

I held my mouth at the exact angle required for diplomatic function and said quietly to Maki: "I'm starting to understand why some Senpai officials would rather be sniped than attend banquets." Maki stood beside me, her white Federation dress uniform a line too clean and too vertical, cutting the scene in half without a sound.

High collar, straight shoulders, silver trim, a crease that ran to the floor without apology, and the kind of face that had never been particularly friendly to crowds—she looked less like a student and more like an official monument reminding everyone to conduct themselves accordingly. She didn't look sideways. She only replied, very low.

"If you look down now, you'll only give them more to look at."

"You sound like the perpetrator when you say it like that."

"No. I'm the Seitokai President."

"Worse." Her mouth moved almost imperceptibly. Like a smile, or like she couldn't be bothered to deny it. Then the second wave of familiar faces arrived. Jess, plate in hand, stationed at a location where food debris had no business being, ran her eyes between me and Maki and delivered her verdict with characteristic precision.

"Done for."

"What's done for."

"Starting tomorrow, there'll be a new campus legend. Something like: Vice President can evolve into either a handsome man or a beautiful woman on demand, and Kushima undergoes a prince transformation in specific lighting conditions." I looked at her.

"Why are you still eating."

"Because the Imperial pastry department deserves respect." Jess said this with great seriousness, cut a small piece of cake that cost more than a standard officer's monthly pay, and put it in her mouth with the expression of someone conducting cross-civilizational research. D stood beside her, arms folded, swept the room, then returned to me.

"Disguise recognition probability down thirty percent. Threat value up fifty percent."

"Thank you. Your comfort methods remain consistently delightful." Harvey peered in from behind, with the air of someone witnessing a significant military invention.

"I think I understand now why the Empire has such a fondness for court intrigue."

"Why."

"If everyone dressed like this, a great many things that could have been resolved with reason would automatically escalate to civil war."

"Shut up." Akari was in formal attire too, but her eyes were lit up like she'd just touched a new rifle.

"Shimo, you're genuinely stunning."

"Thank you. Coming from you, that has more integrity than the spectators." Roy started a whistle, got halfway through, received a foot from Lan, and his expression cut from light romance back to ordinary reality.

"I was just going to say the Vice President suits long hair."

"That wasn't what you were going to say," Lan said, without inflection, then turned to me.

"But it does look very good."

"Has everyone's taste collectively broken down today."

"No," Lan said.

"Today the evidence is just conclusive." I suddenly felt less like I was attending a banquet and more like I'd been dropped into a group heckle event. The worse part was that I wasn't the only target. Because while I was being observed long enough to consider charging admission, the second wave of commentary had naturally shifted to Maki.

"Wait, is that Kushima."

"That white set is completely unfair."

"I understand now—this isn't a banquet, it's the Federation Seitokai dismantling my capacity for romantic attachment."

"That's not a Vice President's partner. That's literally a prince."

"If she held out her hand right now, I would hand over my family name." I turned to look at Maki. She'd clearly heard it too, but her expression hadn't shifted by half a degree. Her eyes only went a shade colder. That particular kind of cold was effective—sufficient to remind most people they had been raised with manners and should not do anything requiring a written apology. I said quietly: "Congratulations. You've been officially crowned the school's prince."

She replied, calm: "If the Federation genuinely needs a prince, that means the system has already failed."

"And me? What does my current state indicate?"

"That it failed earlier." I almost laughed. Fortunately, the band chose that moment to push the tempo up, which meant the slight tremor in my shoulders could pass for breathing in time with the music. Once the banquet hit its formal flow, the Imperial side began to move. I'd always thought that what noble education actually produced, sometimes, was low-grade impulses wrapped in more expensive fabric. People with genuine breeding weren't without desire.

They just knew how to fold desire into protocol and make it look like harmless social choreography. That was worse than obvious rudeness. Because every step they took was technically within bounds, and the bounds were always drawn just at the point where you were the one who would look graceless if you objected. The first to approach was a young aristocrat, roughly our age, with an impeccably cut military academy uniform and manners so correct they sounded rehearsed.

He introduced himself by family name, complimented the Federation side's dress and presence, every sentence as polished as a recitation. The problem was that when he extended his hand to indicate a dance, his hand was half an inch too low. Just half an inch. Not enough to give me grounds to slap him on the spot, but enough to make something cold settle in my stomach. I was about to step back when Maki moved forward half a pace, slipping naturally between us as if she'd always been standing there.

"My apologies—she's promised this one to me." She said it pleasantly, voice steady, phrasing elegant enough to suggest formal training. But somehow, the word promised in her mouth made one thing very clear: if it doesn't belong to you, don't reach for it. He blinked, recovered his polite smile.

"My mistake."

"Not at all. Thank you for understanding," Maki said. After he retreated, I looked at her.

"That line sounded exactly like a respectable fiancé arriving to collect his harassed betrothed."

"If you keep talking, I'll return you."

"Apologies, Your Highness."

"Quiet." She said quiet with the tips of her ears going slightly red. Good. Served her right. Unfortunately, the Imperial contingent's less-than-gentlemanly members didn't end with one. Every one of them was dressed like they could appear at a state ceremony, and every one of them had their own version. Over the next quarter-hour, I encountered various high-grade formats with low-grade content. Someone using the excuse of conversation to close distance until his cologne had already invaded my personal space.

Someone under the guise of dance instruction whose fingers on the back of my hand stayed longer than necessary. Someone who didn't touch me at all—very clever—and simply used his gaze to measure me slowly, from collarbone to waist to hem, the way you assessed a weapon for dimensions. I finally understood one of the most infuriating things about civilized society: a lot of things that deserved to be shot couldn't be. Maki was there for almost every one of them.

Sometimes she stepped in and redirected the conversation. Sometimes she only turned, and that alone was enough to shift the angle. Once, a young noble was about to offer his hand to help me down a step, and she was faster—extending her own gloved hand toward me, as if for propriety's sake, but actually blocking the other hand from making contact. When I put my hand in hers, the one under the white glove was steady. I suddenly didn't want to blow up the room quite as much.

"You're very practiced at this," I said quietly.

"I'm running interference."

"Doesn't look like that. Looks like a patrol."

"Close enough."

"I owe you one."

"Federation keeps tabs, no interest charged."

"Then what does it charge." She looked at me, eyes mild, but something in them made the back of my neck warm.

"You don't cause any trouble tonight. That's how you repay me." I made a sound and didn't follow up. Because if I kept going, Jess would probably whistle from across the room. Speaking of Jess—she was still eating. By the time the banquet hit its midpoint, she'd advanced from appetizers to the main course and was now into her second round of desserts. She radiated the conviction that whatever the Empire's other problems were, the butter was innocent. D stood beside her, looking like he was providing flank cover.

Harvey had somehow infiltrated a different social cluster and was delivering clearly insincere statements with a face of conspicuous sincerity. Roy and Lan were talking quietly near a column. Akari, from across the dance floor, gave me a thumbs-up, apparently filing all of this as a future Federation Seitokai annual legend. Excellent. International setting, solemn opening, and the Federation side's collective mental state was sliding smoothly toward entertainment programming.

What actually pulled the air in a different direction was the arrival of the Imperial Military Academy's Seitokai. They came just as the music slowed, the ambient conversation dropping to a register where things could be heard clearly. President and Vice President, one behind the other, unhurried, uniforms so clean they could have walked out of a painting. Not the performatively charming type. No deliberate arrogance. And precisely because they were so measured, there was nothing easy to object to.

The President nodded to Maki first, then turned to me.

"We've heard a great deal about the Federation Seitokai. A genuine honor to meet you tonight." Low, steady voice. Correct phrasing. Even his gaze was calibrated to the exact register of respectful without tipping into familiar. In a normal context, this person would be considered exceptionally well-bred. Unfortunately, I hadn't learned to dislike Imperial men in a normal context. Just for a moment. A syllable. An inflection.

A particular quality of enunciation—the moment it reached my ears, the muscles in my back contracted. Not fear. Not panic. More like my body recognizing something it disliked before my brain had finished processing. After the Flame Star incident, I'd learned that reason had limits. The mind could understand; the body didn't always agree. Especially with Imperial men. Especially the kind who wore uniforms, spoke correctly, and kept their hands clean.

The more they looked like proper people, the more easily they made my stomach produce a small, cold objection. I hated that reaction. It was a scar that didn't hurt when you left it alone, but reminded you it was still there the moment you touched it. But I couldn't let anything show. I leveled my breathing, kept my mouth at the required diplomatic angle.

"The honor is ours. Thank you for hosting tonight." The Vice President picked up the thread, tone equally warm.

"If you wouldn't mind—might I have the pleasure of a dance? And later, the courtyard view at night is quite worth seeing." A very elegant invitation. Elegant enough to make it nearly impossible to fault. I knew he wasn't being rude. He might even have been sincere. That was the harder problem. Saying no to rudeness was easy. Saying no to someone with good manners required an extra layer of work, especially when both parties were representing their schools and their countries.

Maki stood half a step ahead of me and to the side, not intervening, not running interference. That was her judgment. The bored ones from earlier she could kick aside. This kind, I had to handle myself. I looked up at him and kept my voice even.

"I'm very grateful for the kind invitation. Unfortunately, I've been assigned to fill a reception role on the Federation side tonight, so my time isn't really my own. If I disappeared for too long, the attaché and the ambassador would probably file me as a diplomatic incident. Please allow me to hold this regret for a more suitable occasion." I wrapped the refusal elegantly, closed the door firmly. Lead with honor, follow with reason, leave enough room that no one ends up standing awkwardly.

The advantage of that approach was that everyone could still hold their head up. The President looked at me for a moment, as if confirming something, then gave a small nod.

"A pity. Though your answer was excellent."

"You're too kind." The Vice President only smiled and didn't press.

"I look forward to a more relaxed opportunity."

"If one arises, I'll value it." That line was diplomatic language. It was also only diplomatic language. Valuing an opportunity and actually using it were two different things. After they left, I let the breath out slowly. Maki asked quietly: "All right?"

"No."

"Couldn't tell from your face."

"That means the training worked."

"Your hand is cold." I paused, then noticed that the fingertips resting on the edge of my glove were, in fact, a little cold.

"When did you notice that."

"When you're unhappy, your right hand tenses first."

"That obvious."

"To me, yes." She said it too calmly to be comfort. It sounded more like stating a fact she'd already catalogued. And precisely because of that, it was more useful than deliberate warmth. I looked at the clean line of her profile and thought that the biggest problem with the white dress uniform wasn't that it was too sharp. It was that it made it too easy to misidentify where your sense of safety was coming from. I looked away before Jess could catch me and add a new entry to the campus legends.

"Your Highness, you've been very popular tonight."

"Less than you."

"Mine is being treated as an exhibit."

"Mine is much the same."

"Very different. Yours is people wanting you to lead them somewhere. Mine is people wanting to check the material." Maki was quiet for a moment. Then: "Then I'll stay close tonight." That line wasn't heavy or decorated. It had no extra emotion in it. And yet it sounded more like something a person actually meant than every smooth invitation to dance I'd heard all evening. I suddenly wanted to laugh and also didn't dare let it show too clearly. So I just said, very quietly:"Fine. Don't fall behind."

"I should be saying that." As the banquet wound into its later half, the music finally began to soften. The testing, the pleasantries, the exchange of names and smiles—all of it had been a precise and exhausting rehearsal. By the end, everyone was showing a little of the real tiredness underneath. The Imperial students still maintained their beautiful composure. The Federation side hadn't embarrassed itself.

Everything looked smooth, smooth enough to go directly into an official report as evidence of a successful inter-school exchange. But I knew that the most interesting things about tonight would never make it into any report. Which gazes had lingered too long. Which people had stood too close. Who had hidden their hands inside courtesy. Who had put tests inside smiles. Who had stepped forward half a pace when they saw me uncomfortable. None of that would become a formal record.

And yet it was exactly those things that determined who I'd be adding to my watch list, and who I could tentatively file as someone workable. The strings made one last pass around the hall. The lights were still beautiful enough to be depressing. Jess was still eating. She was still eating. I watched from across the room as she picked up her third round of dessert and felt, with some sincerity, that part of the reason human civilization had made it this far was probably this kind of steadfast commitment to butter.

Maki followed my gaze and was quiet for a moment.

"How much has she eaten."

"Enough to sustain a small-scale engagement."

"Then she's probably the happiest person here tonight."

"No," I said.

"She's the only person tonight who actually came to a banquet." I stopped after I said it. Because it was true. Everyone else was performing. The Empire was performing dignity. The Federation was performing composure. I was performing ease. Maki was performing reliable enough to keep the whole evening's trouble outside her white gloves. Only Jess was living honestly, one dessert at a time. Genuinely enviable. The music stopped. Applause.

Then the sounds of chairs and plates and quiet conversation reclaiming the room. The banquet hadn't produced any real disasters and wasn't quite over yet, but that tightest, most strung-out stretch of time—the kind that felt like a wire pulled taut through your whole body—had finally begun to ease. I stood under the lights, the silver wig on my shoulders, the deep-blue hem sitting quietly, like everything was fine.

Only I knew how many times tonight I'd wanted to press a heel into the foot of one of those aristocratic boys. And how many times the person in the white uniform beside me had, with her completely matter-of-fact calm, held the room steady for me. Maki turned her head slightly and said, low: "Almost over."

"I know."

"Hold on a little longer." I looked at the dance floor, still too bright ahead of us, and gave a quiet sound.

"Okay." The sounds of a banquet ending weren't the same as the sounds of it beginning. At the start, it was like drawing a bow—everyone's back straightened, smiles went up, family names, lineage, credentials, rank, and manners all worn together. At the end, it was like releasing the string. Glasses still clinked lightly, heels still tapped the floor in orderly fashion, conversation still maintained its pleasant volume, but the force holding the scene together had retreated.

Everyone was still a person, but finally a little more like a living one. Maki and I left the main hall along the side corridor, passed through two half-open doors, and finally reached the relatively quiet hallway outside the changing rooms. The lighting had cooled from gold to a paler cream. The band's sound had been filtered through several walls down to a vague residual hum, like some face-saving ghost that hadn't yet admitted the banquet was basically over.

I stopped, got my balance on the heels, and let out a very slow breath. That breath had been sitting in my chest too long. Long enough that I'd started to wonder if it intended to take root in my ribs. Maki glanced at me. Didn't rush. Didn't open with anything. That was one of the reasons I could tolerate her. She sometimes talked like a legal code, which was annoying, but when silence was appropriate, she had the social sense to use it.

I raised a hand to push the silver wig off my forehead, and my fingers stopped midair.

"I hate that technique." My voice came out a little dry even to my own ears. Maki leaned against the wall, posture still straight, white uniform under the cool light like a piece of regulation-grade snow.

"Which one."

"The well-bred kind." I laughed a little. The kind that didn't really believe in itself.

"The rude ones are easy to deal with. The punchable ones too, because the disgust is written right on their faces. The annoying ones are the ones who speak beautifully, whose hands only go half an inch too far, who only stand slightly too close—so that if you object, you're the one who looks graceless." Maki was quiet for two beats, then: "Because they know where the line is."

"Right. And they specifically step on it." I leaned my head back against the wall.

"Then they smile at you after, like they're people who received a good education."

"You sound like you're writing an observation report."

"No. I sound like I'm writing a will." Maki's mouth moved—like she wanted to laugh, then decided that laughing right now might get her strangled, and held it. I closed my eyes briefly and let the faces from the dance floor—the ones who'd been too close—pass through my head one by one. None of them had technically crossed a line. That was exactly what was so infuriating. After the Flame Star incident, my tolerance for certain things had been excavated out of me like a piece of bone. Imperial men. Uniforms.

Precise diction. Controlled posture. Clean hands. Enough of those conditions stacked together and my stomach would begin lodging formal objections to this civilization.

"For a moment tonight, I genuinely wanted to press a champagne glass into someone's face."

"Only one moment. That's progress."

"Your method of encouragement really does sound like a military tribunal."

"Thank you for the compliment."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"I can treat it as one." I finally turned my head to look at her.

"Maki Kushima."

"Mm."

"You really did look like a prince tonight. It was annoying." Maki didn't move an eyebrow, just replied, level:"You looked like the kind of troublesome person a prince would end up taking home." I blinked. Then couldn't hold it back, and laughed. Good. She was picking up bad habits. And fast. When the laugh finished, the pressure that had been sitting in my chest finally let go of half itself. I straightened up and reached for an earring.

My fingertips hadn't touched it yet when Maki stepped in first, undoing the metal clasp caught in the wig's hair. Her touch was steady. She didn't catch anything. She didn't take more than she needed. Like she knew exactly where a safe line was. When the strap slid off my shoulder, I felt something close to release.

"Back among the living?" Maki asked.

"Halfway." I looked down at the deep-blue dress.

"The other half waits until I get this thing off."

"Then go in first."

"Yes, Your Highness."

"Call me that one more time and I'll send you back to the dance floor."

"Those Imperial boys will assume you're claiming me." This time Maki actually looked at me. Mild, but effective. My mood improved by two points immediately. The changing room was mostly empty by then, only a few scattered attendants and students finishing up. That air—which had felt like a front line an hour ago and now only held makeup wipes, perfume, and exhaustion—always made me think that the essential nature of human social events and covert infiltration weren't so different.

One involved knives, the other glitter. It took about fifteen minutes to dismantle the version of myself that had nearly given me a fundamental misunderstanding of my own life. Wig first, the silver length collapsing from its suspiciously perfect form back into prop. Then earrings, necklace, gloves, dress, binder.

Finally, when I got my Federation uniform jacket back on and my short hair arranged back to its usual shape, I looked at the outline in the mirror—one that finally looked more like me—and felt, for the first time, that standard-issue uniforms were one of civilization's finer achievements. Collar a little tight? Fine. Fabric a little stiff? Fine. As long as it didn't require me to bare my shoulders for the entire galaxy to evaluate, I would write a personal letter of thanks to the Federation Quartermaster Corps.

Maki had changed back too. Without the white dress uniform, she looked a little more like herself. Not that she hadn't looked good before—she'd looked too good, good enough to exceed what most people could reasonably absorb. Back in the regular uniform, still clean and sharp, she at least resembled the Maki I knew rather than some Federation crown prince who'd taken a wrong turn. I watched her fold her gloves and put them away.

"You know," I said, "if someone had actually knelt down and called you Your Highness earlier, I wouldn't have been that surprised."

"I would have sent them to the medical bay."

"On what grounds."

"Neurological abnormality."

"Very reasonable." We got back to the room when it was already late. The moment I was through the door, I let my shoulders drop and dropped myself onto the sofa, feeling like I'd survived a beautifully packaged interrogation. Maki hung up her jacket and cleared a space on the desk without being asked, motions natural enough that the room might as well have been hers. I was about to say something when the doorbell rang. Maki and I looked at each other.

At this hour, anyone who could show up at a door still presentably dressed was either trouble or something worse than trouble. Maki went to open it. Hedwig stood outside. The banquet finery was gone, replaced by lighter evening clothes and a wrap. Her gold hair was looser. The makeup was faded. She looked considerably more normal than she had next to her enormous portrait in the main hall.

Except that when an Imperial princess appeared at the door of a Federation student's room in the middle of the night, normal was already a slightly abnormal word. She was holding a few sheets of paper, and looked, with some awkwardness, at Maki first.

"I'm sorry for the late hour. Kushima, I was hoping you could look over my speech for tomorrow morning." I looked at the papers from the sofa.

"…You came all the way to knock on our door at this hour specifically to have your essay edited?" Hedwig nodded, completely serious.

"I've heard that Kushima is very precise about phrasing and structure." I looked at Maki.

"What kind of reputation have you built up on the Imperial side." Maki calmly invited her in.

"Probably someone who looks like she corrects punctuation."

"A fearsome legacy." Hedwig came in, thanked us properly, and handed the draft to Maki. Maki scanned the first two pages, and her brow creased very slightly.

"The third paragraph is too long. Too many subject shifts. In a public address, your audience will have drifted before the second transition." Hedwig blinked, then nodded immediately.

"Understood."

"This line here—the rhetoric is overloaded. If you want military academy students to actually take it in tomorrow, drop two of the adjectives."

"Here too?"

"Here especially." I sat to the side, watching an Imperial princess come to Maki at midnight for essay feedback, and thought that the entire evening's trajectory—from the main hall to this moment—had been a little tonally unstable. If I hadn't seen it myself, I probably wouldn't have believed that the same person who'd stood beside a floor-to-ceiling portrait and murmured I told them not to hang it was now sitting at our small tea table, listening carefully while Maki explained sentence structure.

The scene was absurd in a very quiet way. And quiet, once it accumulated enough, had a way of pushing whatever you'd actually been wanting to ask up to the surface. I watched Hedwig for a few seconds, and finally spoke.

"Can I ask you something, Your Highness." Hedwig looked up.

"You can." I put my elbows on my knees and leaned forward slightly, watching those eyes—which had looked beautiful under the banquet lights and now looked a little tired.

"What are you actually trying to get out of coming to the Federation." The room went quiet. Maki didn't interject. She just set the draft down and let her gaze settle on Hedwig too. I said it a little more plainly.

"You're an Imperial princess. You're not an ordinary exchange student and you're not a decorative presence for a goodwill event. Showing up at a Federation Military Academy in your position—in a lot of people's eyes, that's not much different from walking into a hostage list voluntarily." I smiled a little. The smile didn't go deep.

"So I'm curious. What's the play. Political theater, somewhere to weather a storm, or are you using yourself as some kind of proof of sincerity." Hedwig didn't answer immediately. That silence wasn't offense, and it wasn't calculating a response. It was more like she'd always known someone would eventually say this out loud, and had only been uncertain whether it would be tonight, or whether it would be me. I watched her, and said the other thing too.

"Also—a few days ago, I saw and heard some things I wasn't supposed to see or hear." Hedwig's lashes moved, just slightly. I kept going.

"Someone wants to kill you. Not empty words, not a threatening letter, not a noble who said something careless after too much to drink. The kind with arrangements, instructions, and personnel. The people giving the orders aren't minor." I didn't lay out every detail, but the core of it was said. The desk lamp in the room was quiet. Its light fell on Hedwig's profile, and the expression that passed across it was visible. Not surprise. More like grief. Very faint, very brief. But I saw it. Maki saw it too.

Hedwig placed her hands on her knees. Her fingertips tightened slightly. Then she looked up at me and Maki, voice not loud, but steadier than it had been when she was discussing the speech.

"I can't say specifics yet. But my ultimate purpose is peace." That sentence landed, and the room held still for half a second. I laughed first. Not mockingly. More like my body's automatic response to hearing something that sounded too much like a line from a script.

"Your Highness, that sounds exactly like what a villain would say." Hedwig, to her credit, didn't get angry. She didn't even deny it. She just replied, very calmly:"I don't deny it. In some people's eyes, I am the villain." Maki cut in then, tone flat, aim precise.

"Your brothers, for instance." Hedwig looked at Maki. Then nodded.

"Yes." I leaned back into the sofa, raised one hand, and made the kind of enthusiastic sword-raising pose you only ever saw in the most earnestly stupid moments of battle anime—the sort of gesture that was dumb with great conviction.

"So all we have to do is the battle-anime thing, right. Someone says 'trust me,' we all stand in the sunset and swear a blood oath while two or three mechs explode in the background." Maki looked at me.

"Watch fewer bad films." Hedwig lowered her head and laughed. Very quietly. Like it was the first time all night she'd actually let something go.

"No need for that," she said, looking up, voice a little lower than before.

"I only need you to believe me temporarily. Believe that I'm here for peace." I looked at her. This time I didn't answer right away. Because if she'd said that line the first time we met, I'd have filed her under either too naive or too good at performing. But by now, some of the things Hedwig had done, a few of the expressions she'd let slip, and that brief grief just now—all of it made the sentence harder to simply throw away. Which was the annoying part. I really hated people I couldn't cleanly dislike.

I sighed.

"If you'd said this the first time we met, I definitely wouldn't have believed you."

"And now?" Hedwig asked.

"Now—" I glanced at Maki, then back to Hedwig.

"I'm reserving judgment." Maki set the half-edited speech on the table.

"Same." Not passionate. Not romantic. Not particularly loyal. But I thought it was reasonable. We hadn't come here to perform a friendship anthem. We were living in a world where even a banquet could come with an assassination plan running underneath it. Trust was something you could give half a step of, and that was already generous. Wanting the whole thing at once meant bringing something to trade for it. Hedwig seemed to understand. She only nodded.

"That's enough. Thank you." Over the next ten minutes or so, Maki finished the remaining sections of the speech quickly. Hedwig noted every correction seriously. Once the work was done, Hedwig didn't linger. She stood and said her goodbyes. At the door, she paused and turned back.

"Good night." I waved a hand.

"Good night, Your Highness. And tomorrow, when you say peace—try not to say it like a final ultimatum. You'll have a better chance of making it off the stage." Hedwig blinked, then let out a small laugh.

"I'll try." The door closed. The room went very quiet. I settled back into the sofa, stared at the closed door for two seconds, then started talking.

"So from now on, are we in a battle anime?" Maki tidied the speech into a stack without looking up.

"No. Battle anime wouldn't let you be the protagonist." I froze. Then couldn't help it—I laughed, and the whole body went sideways into the sofa cushions. The moment the laughter came out, the stuffiness the dance floor had put in my chest finally, genuinely started to clear.

"Maki Kushima."

"Mm."

"You've been saying very unkind things tonight."

"Learned it from someone."

"Nonsense. I have always been a person of sterling moral character."

"Then the Federation's ethics curriculum needs an overhaul." I laughed harder. The night pressed against the Imperial Hotel's outer walls. Somewhere in the distance, the last traces of banquet light still lingered. The room smelled of clean uniform fabric and half-edited draft paper, and my chest was, finally, a little less clenched than it had been. Peace. Conspiracy. Hostages. Princesses. Brothers. Assassination. Every one of those words was heavy.

Too heavy for something that should be landing on the night before a school trip. But they'd already landed. I leaned my head back against the sofa and looked at the ceiling. I thought about tomorrow. About Lunar City. About Hedwig's word peace. About Maki's line—battle anime wouldn't let you be the protagonist. Then I laughed again, quietly.

"Fine," I said.

"Protagonists usually die slower anyway. More trouble." Maki stood at the desk and replied, mildly:"You're already enough trouble as it is."

"Thank you. Very warm of you."

"That wasn't what I meant."

"I can treat it as if it was." This time, she didn't deny it.