Val offered Jasil a plum from the bowl on the dining table. She bit into it greedily and avoided eye contact. When Val came in close to put an arm around her, though, she didn't pull away as Val feared she might. Instead, she leaned in and continued eating. Ginn shuffled in from upstairs carrying a little oil lamp. She looked between Jasil and Val.

"I'll leave you girls to it. Don't make too much noise," she said.

Val sat at the kitchen table and Jasil joined her, the two of them sitting in the indistinct darkness, the little hallway lamp barely providing more light than the moonlight streaming through the window. It was clear enough, though, that Jasil had been crying. Val dabbed at her tears with a cloth napkin and Jasil forced herself to smile.

"What's wrong?" Val said. She gasped. "Is… did I do something wrong?"

"What? No!" Jasil squeezed her hand so tightly it hurt. "You're literally the best thing about this city… and it's not so bad as cities go. But my family is leaving tomorrow, headed west, and I've got no idea when I'll be back. And… I wish we'd made more time, but we're both so busy."

Val and Jasil had met up a few more times since Mittvanter, but the most they'd shared were little pecks and smooches and lots of hand-holding. They'd traded gifts - bracelets and earrings for Val and a decent knife with a concealer pouch for Jasil. It had always been daytime, and somehow it seemed like a bad idea to flaunt their nascent romance in a city where a quarter of the populace were followers of the Pale Order. And that's how Val thought of it - a romance. They were in love, weren't they?

"But you don't want to go," Val said. It wasn't a question - the sentiment was written all over Jasil's face, in her eyes and in her sad smile. "There's a bed opening at the orphanage soon… you could stay here until then…"

"I don't want to go, but I have to," Jasil clarified. "I can't just leave my brother with my dad… he's only nine…"

"Oh. I…" Val managed not to sob, but the tears came anyway, streaming hot down her cheeks. "Maybe your brother could stay at the orphanage? I… I can ask Ginn if you can stay here until we work something out."

"I don't think that will work," Jasil said eventually. "It's family. It's complicated."

"I'm starting to understand that," Val said. Her step-brother Galvan, for instance, was a royal pain in the arse, but also a pretty decent person. How you could be both at once was mystifying, and yet it was true. And if her adopted brother was in a pinch, Val would be willing to do quite a bit to get him out of it. He was basically a friend who she didn't particularly like.

Jasil tossed the plum pit into the waste bin. "Hopefully there's no war and things cool down and I'll be back through this way in a month or two. Maybe I can even stay this time. I'd like to…"

"There's probably going to be a war," Val said. "I've been with the commanders and generals, and they all think it's going to happen. Both sides are just trying to gain an advantage before the real fighting starts."

"Yeah… I thought that might be the case. It might be a while, then," Jasil said. "I… can I?"

"Can you what?" Val held her hand, slightly sticky from the plum.

"Can I have a goodbye kiss?"

Of course Jasil could have a goodbye kiss. Val closed her eyes and leaned in, her lips slightly parted and pressed against Jasil, soft and warm. She tasted of plum, which was a pretty nice way for a kiss to taste. She smelled of incense from spending her day in the foreign landing of the Riverway. Her breath was hot against Val's face. Val didn't want it to end… she didn't want Jasil to go away.

"Please stay," she murmured.

"I can't. I… Val, I promise I'll be back…"

"You better," Val said. And they kissed one last time, but Val was too close to crying to get much enjoyment out of it.

She just sat there, her face buried in Jasil's neck, for a while. Jasil cupped her face with a sticky hand, and Val placed her own hand on Jasil's thigh. She couldn't leave if they were still touching. She couldn't stand to go if Val didn't let her.

"I have to go," Jasil said.

"I know," Val said.

And Jasil left. In the pale moonlight, she walked away, looking back once… twice. She seemed to hesitate, and something inside Val hoped she'd run back into her arms and swear that she'd stay in Verdenlecht. But, eventually, she rounded the corner and she didn't come running back.

Val closed the door, padded her way up to her room, and cried herself to sleep.

+++++

"Oh honey," Ginn said, and she pulled Val into a bosomy hug.

It was the next morning, and Val had just told her all about what happened. Ginn was being very supportive. She told Val that she knew how hurt she'd felt, that she'd had boyfriends before Ette, boyfriends whom she'd thought she'd loved… whom maybe she had loved… and how hard it had been to feel the loss of a severed relationship. Not that things were severed…

"You shouldn't get your hopes up," Ginn said. "Maybe she'll come back, but you can't assume that…"

Val blew her nose into her handkerchief and wiped her tears against her sleeve. "If I stop feeling this way, then it means I don't love her anymore…" Oh… wow… she'd actually deployed the L-word. Was it possible she just didn't know how love felt? No… it was definitely love. Her gut told her so.

"I agree - you have to give yourself time to feel hurt. I just… I don't like seeing you this upset. This isn't forever, Val, but you have to figure out what to do while you're recovering. Hmm…" rather abruptly, Ginn left the room, returning with a jingling coin pouch. "Your friend Nikoli, she's going to be Sabine's assistant?"

Val nodded, not sure what Ginn's point was. "She already is. She just hasn't moved into Ms. Bonnikin's place yet."

"She's an orphan, just like you - and she'll have all of the same confusion you had. Minus the bit about being chased by the Pale Order, I hope. She'll need outfits, and she'll have no idea what to look for. Instead of helping me around the office today, I want you to go and buy her what she needs… and you might buy yourself a springtime outfit, too. You'll need something for the warmer weather."

Val nodded and managed to quell her tears. That did sound like a good idea. It was getting warm enough that it didn't feel like winter during the daytime, and maybe they could go to the Hillside Market, which was supposed to have more merchants than the Riverway. Also, Jasil had sometimes performed at the Riverway and Val didn't want those memories dredging up so soon.

Unsurprisingly, they had to hike up the hill to get to the Hillside Market. For some reason, Verdenlecht had a thing for terraced marketplaces. Hillside had four tiers of shopping built right into the hillside, and some of the larger shops had grottos carved right into the rocky earth. Atop the hill, another sixty or seventy feet up, was a small, circular temple to the gods that was sometimes visited by pilgrims. But the four girls weren't pilgrims - they were there to shop.

Ginn really knew what she was doing when it came to emotional triage - the outing was helping, if only a bit. As they made their way through the cool and sunny midmorning, Val found herself forgetting to be sad for minutes at a time, only to see something that reminded her of Jasil and start to choke up again. The others could tell that something was wrong, but nobody asked after she told them she didn't want to discuss it.

"Your stepmom just gave you thirty low? Just like that?" Iselde said. "That's a lot of money."

"Decent leathers are expensive," Val said. Though she had to wonder where Ginn had come up with the money. She knew they weren't hurting for money, what with the security and teaching work that they did. But the duke must have been giving them a decent stipend for training the volunteers to toss down thirty low marks for a girls' shopping trip.

They'd invited Beni, too, but he was too smart to acquiesce to a shopping trip with four girls. That left Val, Nikoli, Iselde, and Gus. Obviously, Gus had her own money. Val's thirty low would have to account for the rest of them, and a good leather jacket would probably account for four of those. Still plenty left over for extras…

"Will you harden it for me?" Niko asked.

"Of course! I'll even show you how to do everything except for the magical bit so you can get it done for cheap if I'm ever not around. Which will never happen, of course, because I already do all of Sabine's leather for free."

Niko pulled Val close. "You're the best witch ever!"

"We're not witches, we're Gifted," Gus snorted. "And that's debatable."

"I meant nicest. The nicest witch. And I'm not going to say Gifted because we're all gifted in our way."

Gus rolled her eyes. "Well… then you're definitely wrong. Because there are lots of nicer 'witches' than Val… it's just that none of them are any good."

"Nicest in current company?"

"Obviously," Gus said. She was self-aware enough to know that her overly frank nature got on a lot of people's nerves. Fortunately, she'd found three friends who weren't too put-off by it.

They spent around two hours in the marketplace, first getting Niko the combat clothes she'd need for apprenticing under Sabine, obviously. Afterward, they had a lot more leeway in what they got, and so Val's number two priority became getting Iselde a spring dress. She'd never had a nice dress before and was absolutely ecstatic at the prospect of getting one.

"With flowers. And bows. And lace," she added.

"That's why I'm not letting you pick it out without assistance," Val said. Iselde wasn't exactly girly - none of them was. A frilly damsel-dress was a novelty. She'd be unhappy with it after a week or two, and whatever dress they bought ought to last a few years if they sized it with a little growth in mind.

Instead, they found a lilac dress with a floral-patterned waistband that could be replaced if need be. Iselde was annoyed that Val had vetoed the damsel-dress, but she was absolutely ecstatic when she spotted herself in the mirror, twirling back and forth and beaming even brighter than the time her team had won the streetball match four-nil.

"I need a haircut," she concluded.

Val wasn't sure what amenities were available to the orphans at Hale Wulde, but when Val was an orphan, she'd always just hacked off her hair with the sharpest blade she could find when it got too long. And, judging by the state of Iselde's hair, the blade she'd found hadn't been all that sharp.

"We'll see if the stylist's has any open spots!" Gus said. "I'll pay!"

Nikoli got her hair cut, too. She liked to keep it long and braided - and, Val had to admit, it was a good look for her. But she'd gotten it trimmed - to mid-back, but that was about five inches off - and had them put it up in an elaborate blonde bun, instead, which looked a bit out-of-place with her new mercenary-style jacket.

When Gus (of course) pointed this out, Niko asked whether there was enough money for her to buy a dress that would work with the look, and Val assured her that there was. Beyond that, Val still wanted to get herself something for the springtime, so they went back to where Iselde had got her dress and looked for two more. Val found one that she loved right away - something that might replace her very favorite velveteen dress, which was already too tight on her. Though Iselde might want it after a bit of gentle mending.

Her new dress had a bodice-style vest in corduroy with a subtle cornflower-blue floral pattern. As usual, she got it one size large, because she was still growing like a weed. People never made fun of her for being scrawny anymore, though she was still a bit below average. As she preened and posed with her new dress in the mirror, admiring how the muted blues contrasted against the intense coppery orange of her hair, Niko tapped on the wall between their changing stalls.

"Val… can you help me with something?"

Val hadn't even known that Niko was back there, but she supposed it made sense. She had been admiring her dress for a while. Yes, this would be her new go-to when she wasn't on the job or in finishing lessons… which, actually, didn't leave much time for casual dress-wearing. Which was unfortunate, when you thought about it.

"Coming," she said.

Val pulled back the stall curtain and gasped. Without her voice of reasonable fashion sense, Niko and the others had picked a most unusual option for Niko's dress. It looked nice enough, with its forest green sashes above an off-cream base, with the wrappings at the elbow, shoulders, and waist showing off Niko's firm physique, and the little bunchy collar providing volume that complemented her new hairstyle. She couldn't fault them for style, per se. The big problem was that it looked a lot like Jasil's favorite dress. The one she'd worn the first night that she and Val had kissed. And up until that point, Val had been doing so well.

Val's emotions opened like a floodgate, her heart seizing up, her eyes stinging, her lip quivering. She cried into her hands and a confused, panicked Niko tried to comfort her, rubbing her shoulder and trying to reassure her.

"Val, it's okay. What's wrong? Pease, talk to me…"

"Jasil…" Val sobbed. "She left this morning. She might not come back. I… really like her. I miss her so much!"

"Oh, Val. I'm sorry. I know Jasil is your friend. She seems nice. But you've got us, right?"

"No," Val sniffled. "I mean I like her. I thought she was going to be my girlfriend."

Niko's face twisted in emotion. Surprise? Anger? Disgust? It was hard to tell. Only, Val had always thought Niko was a good person, and she was pretty good at judging people. Sure, the Pale Order was outrageously bigoted, but based on Ginn and Ette's reaction to finding out, Val thought the followers of the Old Sudren religion treated who you liked the same way they treated your favorite food or style of music. But maybe Val was wrong. Niko was definitely having a strong emotional reaction, and seeing it knocked the tears right out of Val.

"What?" she said coolly, dreading her friend's response. Would they even be friends anymore?

Niko barely managed to get the words out. "I thought I was the only one!"