The Weathered Page was a small bookshop that rarely made enough, month to month, to stay in business. The owner, however, was a lovely middle-aged woman called Prianne with streaks of silver in her hair, and she always asked how Cassiel was doing before handing over what little she could afford to pay her only employee.

It left Cassiel counting coins more often than not, but there were avenues she could take advantage of thanks to still being a student at the Academy.

It didn’t hurt that it gave her a place to be and something to do in the hours after school, when Guardians made periodic passes overhead and would spot her if she tried to train.

That benefit was being particularly felt now, a week and a half since Juediel had told her about the Tournament. The Guardian initiates were being shown patrol routes and standard operating procedure, which meant even more eyes in the sky, and the new apprentices were out training with their Elites.

With so many expertly-trained Implanted about the Valley, any attempt at using her wing for anything was bound to be detected, and the last thing Cassiel needed right now was more scrutiny.

“I’m just popping out for an errand, love,” Prianne smiled at her as she meandered past Cassiel’s seat behind the counter. “Won’t be long.”

Cassiel smiled at her as she pushed through the shop’s door, and returned to her book. It was a romance novel, but she was mainly interested in it for its purportedly accurate description of the Inner Cities.

They were common knowledge in the Valley - a collection of loosely-aligned city-states apparently at the innermost point of Inara, in a broad, grassy plain known as Forsaca. They attracted travellers from all over the world - many of the Elites brought back stories from there, novelties and luxury goods and the occasional spouse or mewling child.

As she was, Cassiel was forbidden from leaving the valley without escort, as was every non-Implanted citizen in the Valley - which meant that she had as much chance of ever leaving this place as she did growing her other wing.

She studiously avoided entertaining the notion that those chances were both, in fact, about to grow. Perhaps if she didn’t indulge in those daydreams, the reality would be more likely to actually come about.

The Tournament was being held in the Inner Cities, Cassiel knew that much, but not which one. Each one was wreathed in an aura of entrancing seduction - the prospect of new foods, new peoples, new anything, was intoxicating.

Or perhaps it’s the notion that you might be among people who don’t understand what it means that you just have the one wing, a nasty voice at the back of her head whispered.

The book, whilst entirely too focused on the romance for Cassiel’s tastes, provided some fascinating descriptions of Morança. The tightrope bridges between tall, unique buildings seemed like something out of a fairy tale, and the description of the protagonist’s first taste of sjutri made her want to gorge herself on chocolate and cream and fresh strawberries, whatever those were.

Even just the physical act of reading the words left her with a strange sense of yearning for this place she had never been, for this world that seemed to hover just at the edge of her grip. It was… captivating.

Despite the romance.

The bell above the door chimed its dainty little jingle, and Cassiel raised her eyes to the doorway with a relaxed smile on her face and greeting poised on her tongue. Both died when she saw the entrant was none other than Danion.

He was grinning almost sheepishly, shoulders slightly hunched - but the first detail Cassiel’s eyes were drawn to was the pair of horns set into the corners of his forehead.

They were tiny, at this stage - perhaps the size of the final segment of her little finger, and with barely a pinprick of yellow-orange suffusion at their hearts.

But they were there.

“Lord Danion?” Cassiel gaped momentarily, torn between asking what in the heavens the boy was doing in the bookshop and asking about the horns. “What- why-?”

“Pretty sweet, mm?” he replied, lifting one hand to prod gently at the point of the right horn. He winced when his finger made contact. “Ah… they’re still pretty sore at the moment, but they look good, right?”

His voice was somewhere between hesitantly needy and cocksure - and his attitude was a far cry from what it had been just a couple of days ago, when he had seemed reluctant even to receive his secondary Implants. What Cassiel couldn’t figure out was why he wanted her opinion.

“They are very…” Cassiel struggled for an appropriate word. “Intimidating, Lord Danion.”

“Yeah,” the teen nodded, enthusiastic now that he had received encouragement. “Yeah, intimidating is exactly right.”

They fell into an awkward silence. “Would… would you like to buy a book, Lord Danion?” she asked, unsure of what else to say.

“Oh, um, no, no thanks,” he replied, rocking backward on his heels a little. “I was just here to… y’know… let you know… about these.”

He paused, then pointed again to the horns, as thought he could possibly have meant something else.

“Oh,” Cassiel nodded, pretending at understanding. “So… you’re not too busy? With your apprenticeship, I mean?”

“Hm? Oh, no, not really,” he said, leaning against the doorframe. “I figured that since I just got these done, and they, y’know, hurt pretty bad, I should take the day off. Ditched Alekion and asked around for where I could find you.”

“Ditched- asked around-?” Cassiel practically sputtered with confusion.

“Yeah, I mean, if I’m not in the right condition to train I probably shouldn’t, right?” Danion continued, heedless. “I don’t want to hurt myself, after all.”

Cassiel was more interested in how he had found her in the first place, but Danion’s casual disregard for the time of his master was momentarily baffling.

“Is that what… your Elite said?” she asked, trying to avoid making assumptions about the House heir.

“Well, not exactly,” Danion muttered, scuffing his foot idly on the doorstep into the shop. Cassiel felt an irrational urge to snap at him for doing so. “But Aleki is such a stickler, y’know? He’s all about rules, and training, and discipline and it is such. A. Drag.”

Danion uttered that last part with a groan and slumped his head against the doorframe, pretending for a few moments to sleep, before breaking out into a chuckle.

Cassiel sat there for a moment in silence, mouth agape. She struggled to grasp at the sheer magnitude of Danion’s… impudence.

She would kill to be in his position. Any of the Valley Wards would. And this was who would be representing the Valley of the Crystal Sun in the Tournament? This was who was getting escorted to the Inner Cities for heavens-knew-how-long?

She felt a sudden surge in confidence at her potential to join in the Tournament. If this was the caliber to expect, she might be more successful than she had first assumed.

“... How did you find me, if I might ask, Lord Danion?” Cassiel’s voice broke through Danion’s chuckle, though she had tried to keep the question polite.

“Hm? Oh, well, easy really,” he said, yawning slightly. “I had a good sense of what your Aurora feels like, so I took a flight over the Valley and waited til I could sense it, then I just dropped into that general vicinity and started asking if anyone knew where you were.”

Cassiel was once again dumbstruck by Danion’s casual revelation - both of this ‘Aurora-sensing’ ability and by the casual nature of his discovery. He had just… asked people on the street?

Was there a quicker way to foster rumours in the Valley? Why not just shout out her name at the top of his lungs for a while?

“This old biddy pointed out this bookshop and told me you were in here,” he continued. “And here I am.”

Thanks again, Prianne, she couldn’t help but think sardonically. Then, struck by another thought, she asked:

“What do you mean, my ‘Aurora’? How does that let you sense me?

“Oh, right,” Danion grinned a little, stretching out his wings a little. “I guess it’s a little too specialized for Academy kids… Well, I wouldn’t worry about it, really.”

Cassiel opened her mouth to press the line of inquiry, but then the bell above the door rang again and Prianne returned - now laden with a cake, set with five candles.

Her blood ran cold as she realised what Prianne had done.

“Cassie- oh!” Prianne started as she realised Danion was standing just past the door. She squeezed past him, the smile on her wrinkled face not dropping. “Hello there my lord! I see you’ve found my best worker, hm?”

“Your only worker, it looks like,” Danion replied with a boisterous laugh. If he noticed the smile on Prianne’s face falter a little, he didn’t say anything about it. “What have you got there?”

“Ah!” Prianne replied, pushing her arms out to display the cake more readily. It was a squat, rounded affair and studded with raisins and other fruits, topped with a dusting of what looked like chocolate. There were also five lit candles on the cake.

Five. Whole. Candles.

She could barely tear her eyes away from them.

“Today marks five years since Cassiel first started working for me,” Prianne giggled a little, placing the cake on the counter. Cassiel continued staring at it in mute horror. “So I thought I should go out and buy a little something to celebrate!”

“Wow,” Danion murmured. “So Cass was only eleven when she started out here?”

“That’s right!” Prianne laughed. “And now she’s learnt everything from her old boss! Truly, the apprentice has become the master.”

With a laugh, she mock-bowed at Cassiel. She only caught the movement out of the corner of her eye - her attention was still taken up by the flickering flames of those five candles.

“Cass knows the Weathered Page like the back of her hand,” Prianne was explaining to Danion, but Cassiel heard it as though behind a thick wall. The world seemed to have narrowed down to just the five wavering, fragile sparks at the end of their wicks. “Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if she were running this place someday!”

Abruptly, Cassiel stood.

“Danion,” she said, urgency momentarily overtaking propriety. “I’ll meet you at the same spot as last time, midnight, okay? For some more…” She glanced nervously at Prianne. “Tips.”

Danion seemed taken aback for a few seconds, before shaking his head as if to clear it. A broad grin spread onto his features. “Yeah, yeah, that sounds good! I, uh, I will see you there!”

Cassiel nodded and sat back down. A tense silence seemed to settle about the shop as Cassiel’s gaze returned to the five candles. It was broken by Danion muttering an awkward, “uh, bye,” to her - or maybe Prianne - and the jingle of the bell as he left.

“Ooh, has someone got a lover?” Prianne mock-gasped, as though scandalized. “Why, my little worker bee is all grown up!”

Cassiel just nodded.

Five candles.

Five years.

Would there be another cake, when those five became ten? Or would Prianne be gone by then? Would she be shackled to the Weathered Page, still?

“Well go on and blow them out, love,” Prianne laughed, oblivious to Cassiel’s internal turmoil. “You get to make a wish, you know!”

“Yes,” Cassiel said, her voice distant and vague even to her own ears. “I know,” she continued, and blew out all five of them.