“That is the word you like to use, right?” said Corvina. “I assume it’s a profanity from your world. I’ll admit it really viscerally captures the emotion of a moment like this, doesn’t it? Just… fuck.”

“Yeah…” said Anne. “Fuck is a useful word.”.

Corvina sighed and shook her head. “A romance novel, huh?”

“Yeah…” said Anne. “Fantasy romance.”

“What makes it a fantasy romance, specifically?” asked Corvina.

“The setting,” said Anne. “Mostly the fact that there’s magic here.”

“There’s no magic in your world? None at all?”

Anne shook her head. “They have technology instead. Technology is sort of, like… physical objects with mechanisms inside, kind of like clockwork, right? Only most of the pieces have gotten a lot smaller, and it’s mostly powered by electricity.”

Corvina cocked her head to one side. “Electricity?”

“It’s like… a kind of natural energy that people figured out how to channel through things? It has something to do with atoms and electrons, which are like, the tiniest building blocks of matter? Not that I can explain exactly how it works...” Anne snapped her fingers. “It’s like the stuff lightning is made out of.”

“That sounds a lot like alchemy,” said Corvina. “Using the natural properties of objects to create desired effects.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess so?”

“And at the end of this fantasy romance novel, you really marry my fiance and have me executed, do you?” said Corvina, in a teasing tone.

“Not me!” protested Anne. “But I mean, well… yeah, all that happens sort of towards the end. I never actually finished reading the whole book. Just most of it.”

“Hmm,” said Corvina, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “That’s a shame. It would’ve been useful to know the ending.”

“You believe me, then?” asked Anne. “You don’t think I’m crazy? And you’re not mad at me for hiding this from you, even after I lectured you about not telling me things?”

Anne kept fidgeting nervously with the edge of her sleeve. Corvina reached across the gap between them and took Anne’s hand in her own, holding it still.

“I believe you,” said Corvina. “And I’m not mad at you. Actually, a lot of things you’ve said to me since we first met are making a lot more sense now, in retrospect.”

Anne laughed sheepishly. “Yeah, I guess I haven’t always been all that good at blending in.”

Corvina smiled. “That’s what I’ve always liked about you. The ways you stand out.”

“But you’re really not freaked out?” asked Anne.

“I’m really not,” said Corvina. “Look, I’ve told you things about myself before that I genuinely thought would change the way you saw me, maybe even make you hate me. But you’ve always taken those things in stride, accepting me and showing me true empathy. Like that was the only natural response to have. How could I not do the same for you? It must have been really hard, dealing with this alone all this time.”

Tears were rolling down Anne’s cheeks now. “It’s been so hard,” she said, sniffling. “And you still love me? Even though I’m a fraud? I would understand If you’d changed your mind.”

Corvina paused for a moment.

Of course she still loved Anne! If anything she loved her more. This incredible woman from another world who had traveled here from another world to save her from death. From her father. From herself. How could she not love her?

Admittedly, there were a lot of potential philosophical implications to the revelation that the world you’ve always lived in exists as a piece of fiction in another world, but Corvina had never been particularly bothered by such existential abstractions. Corvina cared more about the practical and the experiential.

Corvina knew her world was real because she experienced it as real, and she experienced the consequences of her actions as real. Given that, the only practical response was to continue to act as though the world was real. That was the core of what reality meant to Corvina. Action and consequence. Everything else was just arguing about the wallpaper.

But Corvina could tell that Anne was feeling especially vulnerable and uncertain right now, and it was easy to understand why. It didn’t seem like simple words of reassurance were going to be enough. How could Corvina show Anne how she felt, in a practical, real way?

Then Corvina remembered a small item she had brought with her, in her luggage.

Corvina squeezed Anne’s hand once and then stood up. “Come with me, I want to show you something.”

Corvina led Anne through the halls of the estate, never letting go of her hand.

Helen, who was waiting outside of Corvina’s room, curtsied when she saw them. “My lady, it’s getting late. Would you like me to draw a bath for you? Or perhaps I could bring soothing herbal tea for you and the Saintess?”

“No, thank you,” said Corvina. “In fact, you can go ahead and retire for the day. I won’t be requiring anything else.”

“Oh, really?” Helen pointedly looked at Anne and Corvina’s clasped hands and smiled knowingly. “I understand perfectly, my lady. I will see to it that you are not disturbed. Have a nice night, you two!”

Corvina could feel herself blushing as she led Anne into the room.

It was so embarrassing how easily she blushed these days. But maybe it was okay to be embarrassed, if being embarrassed was the price to pay for following one’s desires.

And Corvina was about to reveal something far more embarrassing than a simple blush anyway.

“What are we doing here?” asked Anne, clearly nervous still.

“Just a moment,” said Corvina, finally letting go of Anne’s hand out of necessity. She pulled out one of her trunks, the one bound in green leather, and began digging through it, past various dresses and underthings. She had told Helen that she didn’t need that much for this trip, but Helen always over-packed ‘just in case.’

Finally, in the very bottom of the trunk, she found it: A small white handkerchief carefully folded and tied shut with a fine cord.

Corvina stood back up a bit stiffly and turned around to face Anne, the small bundle held lightly in her hand. “Here,” said Corvina, holding it out to Anne.

“What is it?” asked Anne.

Corvina was blushing all over now. Not just her cheeks, but her neck and shoulders were faintly red as well. She felt far too warm. She wished someone would open a window

“Just open it,” said Corvina.

Anne took the handkerchief from Corvina and carefully untied it and unfolded it to reveal a small bundle of brown-colored hair.

“That night, at the ball, when you cut your hair in front of me, I… I kept some of it,” Corvina admitted. “I couldn’t even tell you why I did it at the time, but you were like… some incredible vision that had appeared before me out of nowhere and then disappeared just as suddenly. I didn’t know if I would ever see you again, or if you were even real, so I reached out for a… physical memory. Something I could look at and say to myself—yes, that really happened. You weren’t dreaming. She was real. And you have a piece of her here with you. Oh, goddess—“

Corvina covered her face with her hands and sat down heavily on the bed. “That’s super weird and gross, isn’t it?” she said. “I shouldn’t have told you all that.”

“No, not at all!” said Anne, rushing over to sit next to Corvina. “I’m super touched. I thought I had made a real idiot of myself that night. I never thought you’d want to talk to me again after that.”

Corvina smiled shyly. “Talking to you again was the only thing I wanted to do after that. I think I was in love with you, even then, although I didn’t know it yet.”

“I was in love with you just from reading about you!” said Anne.

Corvina laughed. “There, you see,” she said. “We were meant to be. And you don’t need to worry about me being disappointed that you’re not the ‘real’ Anne.” She took Anne’s face in both of her hands and looked deep into her eyes. “You are my Anne. The only Anne I’ve ever known. Whoever the original Saintess was before you came to this world? She means nothing to me. The one I love is you, Anne from another world, who claims to be so ordinary. From the moment I met you, you’ve been the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever seen.”

Anne was staring at Corvina with her mouth hanging partially open. It was very cute. Corvina couldn’t help but laugh again.

“Um… do you want this back?” asked Anne, holding out the handkerchief with the lock of hair in it.

Corvina grabbed it from Anne’s hands and tossed it aside, leaning in so close that her lips were almost touching Anne’s, and she said, in a low and teasing tone, “Why would I need that anymore when I have the real thing with me here... in my bed.” Corvina gently grabbed the back of Anne’s head, burying her finger’s in Anne’s hair, still keeping her lips just barely apart from Anne’s.

“Fuck, good point,” said Anne, wrapping her arms around Corvina’s waist and kissing her deeply.

When their clothes came off, the first thing that was discarded was Anne’s jacket, along with the lapel pin Eva had given to her.

And after that, Anne and Corvina spent some time lost in a brand new world that was all their own.

“What did you do? What did you do? Just tell me what you did. Just tell me where you are. How can I find you? Where are you? Where are you? What did you do?”

Eva was muttering to herself, the same few phrases over and over again, as she franticly searched through every book she owned, desperately searching for any mention of spirit transference.

The secret lab, hidden somewhere under the abandoned wing in the church in Longren, was in shambles. Books and notes were strewn everywhere. Broken glass vials of useless, discarded potions made the floor a dangerous place to walk across. In fact, Eva was covered in small cuts and scratches that she didn’t seem to have noticed. Her robes were disheveled and her hair was a mess.

None of that mattered to Eva. Not anymore. None of that was important.

Eva pulled several sheets of paper close to her. On one of them, she had been tracking what she knew for certain, and making her best guesses with that basis.

The replacement must have occurred sometime before the ball. Eva believed that she could even pinpoint the exact day, when Anne claimed to be too sick to perform a scheduled miracle. “Anne” had been acting strangely ever since that day, arguing with her more, acting stupid and lazy and uncaring in all sorts of little ways. How had Eva not noticed sooner?

“I’m sorry,” whispered Eva. “I’m so sorry. I should have seen right away. I should have known.”

Eva set that paper down and picked up another. Here she had written everything that had occurred earlier in the day, when the impostor was talking past her to what must have been the real Anne, present in spirit.

If the impostor could see her and speak to her, she must still be out there, somewhere. Close enough to reach.

You’re the one who brought me here, the impostor had said, I thought you wanted me to change things.

Why would Anne do this? What would she have wanted changed? Was she unhappy here? Why hadn’t she just said something.

The portal to the capital glowed brightly and Bishop Geist stepped through. “Eva, have you been working on that thing we discussed? I—Goddess’ tits, what happened here?”

“Shut up!” shouted Eva, jumping to her feet and grabbing the Bishop by the front of her shirt. “Tell me right now, do you know of any magic that would allow you to swap the soul in someone’s body for another?”

“What!?” said the Bishop, trying to break out of Eva’s desperate grip. “That’s obviously impossible. I’ve never even heard of such a—“ She stopped.

“What? What did you just think of?”

“Well, there was a ritual, from the old church,” said Bishop Geist. “It predates the empire—predates the first Saintess, even. There are very few records of it remaining. But… from what I understand, it was a ritual to summon a human soul from another world.”

“That’s it…” said Eva, letting go of the Bishop.

“I’m telling you it was very rarely performed, if it ever was, even!” protested the Bishop. “The ritual requires an intolerable sacrifice.”

Eva smiled. “No sacrifice is truly intolerable, if it’s for the sake of my friend, right Bishop?” she said. “After all, you were the one who taught me that.”