Emerald’s decision to hate Akelarre didn’t appear instantly.

Or maybe it did, but that was no one’s business but her own.

No, she had plenty of reasons to dislike the overbearing, clueless, idiotic, dumb, stupid, potential-girlfriend-stealing, stupid, Cinder-hugging, Grimm monster.

“Hey Em.”

And not only that! But Cinder was reciprocating! Oh, sure, she said that it was because Akelarre was all important and stuff, but Emerald could read between the lines.

Her Cinder was falling for that stupid Grimm whore.

“Emerald!” Mercury barked into her ear.

She jumped, breath coming in with a hitch as she refocused on the world around her. They were standing by the gates of Salem’s Spire, the huge black tower rising above them and obscuring the morning sun. “What?” she finally asked.

“You done fantasizing?” he asked, and for a split second she was afraid that he had figured her out. Then he ran his hands over his body in a way that might have been sexy if she was a sex-starved cougar with a thing for disabled boys. “I know you want it, Ems, but this bod is too good for you.”

“I will literally gut you,” she warned.

“I’m not into S&M, but for you, I might make an exception.”

She growled under her breath and stomped past him, his laughter following after her as she stepped into the entrance hall of the tower. The room was lit with flaming braziers and a few floating Grimm that glowed purple with an inner fire. Benches lined the sides, though who would actually sit on them was anyone’s guess. As far as Emerald knew there was a grand total of maybe a dozen people on this side of the continent.

In the middle of the room, standing with her arms crossed, was Akelarre. She eyed first Emerald, then Mercury, before her lips twisted into a smile. “Hello,” she said.

“Hey,” Mercury said. He looked up and Emerald found herself doing the same.

There were a few lancers on the ceiling but nothing like the swarm they saw last time. “Uh, hi,” Emerald said, remembering herself after a moment. Akelarre might have been a Cinder-stealing bitch but she was still some sort of Grimm royalty.

“Hello,” Akelarre said again. “So...”

Then she stared.

Emerald shared a look with Mercury and only got a shrug in reply. “So... what?” Emerald asked.

“I don’t know,” Akelarre said while shifting her attention down to her feet. “I was hoping you guys had something to say.”

How, Emerald wondered. How could someone as wonderful as Cinder accept the affections of such an idiot. “Right, we’re just here to pick up Cinder,” Emerald said.

“Oh, that’s nice,” Akelarre said. “Cinder must be quite happy to have such loyal subordinates.”

“I am,” a very familiar and very welcome voice said from the end of the hall. Cinder was walking, no, strutting towards them with the grace of a dancer on stage. “Emerald and Mercury have both been exemplary lately.”

Emerald felt her chest swelling up with pride, enough that she deigned to ignore the way Mercury snorted next to her. “Thank you, ma’am,” Emerald said.

Cinder smiled at them, then came to a stop. “The Seers are moving our things to the Bullhead,” she said. “Is there anything special you need?”

“No, my Grimmsects can carry anything I want,” Akelarre said.

“You’re... coming with us?” Emerald’s smile started to feel a little forced.

“I am!” Akelarre said. “I’m sure we’re going to have a great time.”

Cinder sighed. “Akelarre is coming with us because she wants to... see the sights, as it were. She also has an important mission, courtesy of Salem, to accomplish while I take care of my own business. We are going to act as bodyguards while also pursuing another goal near Vale. I’ll be giving you the details you need to know later.”

“Near Vale?” Akelarre asked. “So we’re not actually going to the city?”

Cinder started walking and Emerald was instantly by her side. She placed herself between Akelarre and her boss, if only to cut the Grimm’s line of sight on Cinder’s perfect body.

“Not immediately. We’ll be meeting a contact. Two of them, in fact. One is already in my pocket but the other might require some... persuasion. But don’t worry, I’ll be taking care of that. In the meantime you’ll be free to do whatever you want. Our meeting area is in a small town a day’s walk from Vale.”

Cinder led the group towards the platform on which their Bullhead sat, the aircraft’s white and grey paint standing out against the dark stones of the Grimmlands. Emerald was reluctant to leave Cider’s side, but she had a job to do, so she picked up the pace and opened the cargo bay doors of the ship before hopping in.

As she moved to the front to start preparing the Bullhead for take off, she let her imagination wander. If Akelarre was going to be with them, then that meant the Grimm girl was going to be close to Cinder. It wasn’t ideal, but it also meant that, if she was lucky, an accident might happen.

Maybe, she thought as the others boarded the ship, the entire venture was for the best.

***

She liked the Bullhead.

Oh, sure, it wasn’t as cool as riding a giant murderous hornet around, but it still had some advantages over her Lancers. For one, the Bullhead had a cabin and was climate controlled, which meant that even an hour into the flight she could feel her extremities. It also had seats. Seats were a feature she really approved of.

And, best of all, there were others in the Bullhead, which meant that she didn’t have to spend the entire flight daydreaming or wishing that her Lancers could fly faster or at least hold a conversation that wasn’t just lots of buzzing.

There was also that familiar tingle in the back of her mind, like when she was trying to remember a word that was on the tip of her tongue. She had ridden in something similar before.

“So, how long have you been working with Cinder?” she asked the boy sitting across from her.

Mercury looked up from his phone and eyed her for a moment. “A little while,” he said.

“That’s... nice,” she replied. “Why did you start working with her?”

He sighed and lowered his phone to his lap. “Because she paid well and didn’t ask questions.”

She had the distinct impression that the last part of that answer was aimed at her, especially when Mercury pulled out his phone and started tapping away at it again.

Leaning back, she tried to find something to do, but other than spying on Cinder and Emerald at the front, or inspecting the swarm following after the Bullhead, there wasn’t much to do. Emerald seemed more focused on Cinder than actually flying, which would have bothered her if it wasn’t clear that Cinder was a very single-minded woman who was plenty competent. Salem wouldn’t have kept her around otherwise.

Emerald... bothered her, a little. All the glares shot her way whenever she looked elsewhere were kind of telling. If it wasn’t for the hundreds of bugs hidden in her hair and clothes and in every shadow and those that she designed to look like pebbles and the other bugs that were almost entirely transparent and the dragonflies with overly large eyes she used for spying from the very edges of her range, then she might not have noticed.

So, Emerald was angry at her, and was also sneaking peeks at Cinder.

That could only mean one thing. Emerald was trying to hook her up with Cinder and it wasn’t working out.

It was kinda cute, in a way. Maybe Emerald saw Cinder as a sort of big sister? She smiled up at the Bullhead’s ceiling. And to think that Cinder was such a serious woman all the time. She would have to make sure the two had some time to spend together.

“We’re approaching our landing area,” Cinder called back. “We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Akelarre blinked back to full focus and nodded to the front of the Bullhead. “Thank you,” she said.

Through the many eyes in her swarm she could make out the rough shape of a settlement on the horizon, just a small town with perhaps a hundred homes in all, with a crossroads meeting in its middle. Walls rose around the town, none more than two stories high, but covered in spikes and guard towers. Around the town proper were a few farmsteads and a row of mansions on a hill that seemed to be their destination.

“We’ll be meeting with one of my contacts almost as soon as we land,” Cinder said. “He might interest you, Akelarre.”

“Oh?” she said, loud enough to be heard over the rumble of the vessel’s engine.

“He’s a well known thief and rogue. His name is Roman Torchwick.”

***

He paused before the huge bay window at the front of the house and stared at his reflection, his cane planted into the ground by his side to liberate both hands so that he could tug and pull his outfit.

He tipped his hat so that it sat just right, then adjusted his scarf, tugged his jacket on tighter over his shoulders and made sure his shirt was properly buttoned up and free of wrinkles. Then, as he did every time before meeting someone important, or at least someone he had to impress, he ran through his mental checklist.

Make-up? On point.

Scarf? Snazzy.

Jacket? Sharp.

Pants? Women everywhere wanted to tear them off him.

His hat? Fashionable. As. Fuck.

Oh yeah, this Cinder woman wouldn’t know what hit her.