It was barely past the break of dawn when I arrived at Amelia’s home. I thought it unlikely that this ‘Amy’ I’d been engaged to would be awake - not that I particularly cared about that at the moment. It wasn’t as if I’d gotten any sleep, after all, so why should she?

Thankfully, I knew for a fact that Bridgette was an early riser, and as for the maid… Well, I couldn’t really be bothered to care, honestly.

Unfortunately, my knuckles had barely grazed upon the door when it was suddenly pulled open from the other side, not allowing me to make much noise at all.

“Princess Firanna,” Clara said, her voice flat. “What do you want?”

“Did you not hear?” I all but snarled. “I’m to be moved in. Preferably right next to Bridgette.”

“So on the other side of the house?” Clara asked, arching an eyebrow. “Did you know she snores?”

“Of course I know she snores!” I snapped. “Now take me to your mistress - or rather, my betrothed.”

“We were told that the engagement was to be a secret,” Clara replied, her brow furrowing. “How does moving in with us possibly facilitate that?”

“Me being able to sleep close to Bridgette is the only reason I even agreed to this farce - and you should be grateful I did, seeing as how my presence in this household implies some form of connection between the royal family and your mistress. It might be enough to prevent people from taking their grudges with Amelia out on Amy.”

“Does that mean you believe my Lady’s story now?” Clara asked, arching an eyebrow.

“What I believe hardly matters,” I replied, bitterly. “She convinced Father, and that’s enough.” 

At least I hoped he was sufficiently convinced, considering he had essentially chained my future to hers. Though he said that the truthstone had left no room for doubt, I couldn’t help but worry this was some sort of plot. He’d always gone easy on Amelia, after all - getting him to agree to her execution was even harder than convincing the duke.

“Be that as it may,” Clara said, “I’m afraid my Lady is currently indisposed, so-”

“Indisposed?” I demanded. “Indisposed.I was indisposed earlier, myself - during the meeting that apparently decided my future fate! So excuse me if I don’t care much about what your mistress is up!”

If I had fire magic, like my father and half brother, then I’d likely have been fuming for real at that point. As it was, I had to settle for giving Clara an icy glare until she reluctantly stepped out of my way. “Very well. Just… try not to be too shocked…”

“Shocked?” I asked, not even waiting for her to finish getting out of the way before barging my way past. “What could possibly be more shocking than finding out that I’m en….gaged….”

I stopped in place, my mouth hanging agape as I stared at the source of my troubles. The girl I’d come to lecture. The girl I’d have to live with.

The woman who was most definitely not Amelia… for honestly, I don’t think I’d ever seen that woman let out such an innocent smile as the one on ‘Amy's’ face. And I certainly couldn’t imagine her showing such an expression while playing with her tentacles.

“Oh - ah… Firanna. What’s up?”

“I… you…” I hesitated. “What are you even doing? Why do you have tentacles?”

“They’re my spell!” Amy explained. “I’ve been experimenting with giving them eyes and stuff - and it kinda works? But I can’t see through them, so I’m taking a break for now and just testing out what I can do with them!”

“Testing… Eyes and… why would you give them eyes?”

“Other than the practical application of seeing through them?” she asked. “Because it’s way more eldritch when there’s eyes and mouths and stuff!”

“I… I see…” I murmured, taking a step back. Was this really the woman I was engaged to?

“Look,” I began, deciding to be diplomatic, “about our living arrangements…”

“Living arrangements?” she asked, tilting her head to one side.

“She says that she’s moving in with us,” Clara informed her.

“Oh… I wasn’t aware of that… It must kinda suck from your side, huh? Being stuck with me all of a sudden… Sorry I didn’t really think of that before… though in my defense, I didn’t exactly have a lot of options.”

“Yes, well, living with you does have its upsides,” I admitted, suddenly finding myself unwilling to convey the fact that I’d chosen to live here of my own accord. “But that’s not what I’m here for. I want to talk about Bridgette.”

“Bridgette?” she asked, blinking at me.

“Bridgette?” Bridgette asked, opening her door and stepping out into the hall. “What’s that about me?”

I felt my mind go blank, as it always seemed to when Bridgette was in the room. My pulse quickened, and words suddenly became hard to grasp. I didn’t know why it was always like this - I’d known her for years, and yet had never once been able to get close to her without making a fool of myself in one way or another…

“Firanna?” Bridgette asked. “Are you okay?”

“Y-yesh,” I mumbled. “I um… I’m going to be… ah… living with you?”

“Really?” Bridgette asked. “Like, in my room, or… just here in general?”

“Here! In general! I mean. Not your room. I mean, can you imagine that? Me rooming with you? Me, in the same tight quarters as you…”

“Guess it would get pretty cramped, huh?” Bridgette replied, with a little laugh. Such a cute laugh. “Plus, I’m told I snore, so… Yeah. Probably for the best you claim your own room.”

I forced myself to nod, and not think about what she might have said had I given a different answer…

The rest of the conversation went in a blur, as she led in a kitchen. I could hardly taste the food, and couldn’t tell you what I’d eaten even moments after it was finished.

In fact, I didn’t come to my senses until after Bridgette and the others had already left for their classes… meaning I was running late for mine.

Oh why, oh why, did Bridgette always affect me like this? How was I supposed to woo the girl if I couldn’t even string two words together near her!?

Classes continued as they always had. Which is to say that I was largely ignored by my classmates and teachers alike, but I was fine with that. I was there to learn, not make friends.

Though, admittedly, making friends as well would have been nice… I wondered if the king would maybe make some public statement about me not being Amelia? Or, if he didn’t have the time, he could at least make the principal do it, right? Then maybe people would be a bit less scared of me.

Such thoughts were for the future, though - in the present, I was simply glad to be done with the majority of my classes, and excited for the prospect of Core Carving class. Partially because I was really looking forward to carving my first subspells, but also because of Pauline.

She… still didn’t seem to know how to feel about me, honestly. In fact, I was fairly sure I made her downright uncomfortable with my existence from time to time… but the smile she gave when she greeted me, so innocent and free of ulterior motive, was nevertheless healing for my heart after a day of being largely ignored, with the occasional glare or squeak of fright thrown in for flavor. 

“You’re still taking classes,” Pauline noted, a particularly bright smile on her face. “I’m guessing that means everything went alright with the king?”

“I’ve been cleared of all charges,” I confirmed, unable to resist smiling myself. “One hundred percent not the girl who tried to kill you.”

“Just the one who wrote about it,” she replied, her tone taking on a teasing edge.

“Yes, well… Ah-hem… I uh… I carved my first spell.”

“You did!?” Pauline asked, the previous topic instantly forgotten. “What did you go with? Something to pull in mana? Or extra hands? I’ve always thought extra hands would be useful, myself.”

“Well, it’s sortof like extra hands,” I said. “Only better.” Saying so, I reached for the magic in my core and passed it through the marks I’d made, activating my spell - though I only formed one tentacle this time, which slithered out from under my skirt to give Pauline a wave.

“Oh! It’s… um…”

“It’s a tentacle,” I explained. “Like an octopus has! Only, you know… not quite that?” Eyes began to open up across the length of the tentacles as I spoke, some of them blinking up at her, while others looked in various directions. It was probably a good thing that I couldn’t see through them, come to think of it… That one spinning eye alone would probably be enough to make me dizzy.

“Ah… that’s… Um… I guess I can see why it’s better than hands, if you can see through them?”

“I can’t, actually,” I admitted, closing the eyes and making them disappear. “But they’re still really useful for grabbing stuff! And they can lift me up into the air, too - which is a great way to travel, let me tell you, especially after you twist your ankle…”

“You twisted your ankle?” Pauline asked. “Does it hurt? I can take a look, if you’d like.”

“It’s fine,” I assured her. “It wasn’t that serious an injury to begin with, and it’s been a few days besides.”

“If you’re sure…” Pauline murmured.

“And what’s this?” Professor Devulchas asked, striding into the room and heading straight for our desks - without even bothering to address the other students, I noticed. “You carved your first spell at last? And such a unique one, at that - tell me, how do tentacles relate to shadows?”

“You clearly don’t have any experience with eldritch horror,” I replied. Not that I had much experience with the subject either, really. But I’d picked up enough through osmosis to get the gist, and the idea of shadowy tentacles in particular was pretty much cemented in my brain. 

“Eldritch horror?” Pauline asked.

“It’s something from my place of origin,” I explained. “Some guy came up with it forever ago - it’s… kinda too involved to get into right now, but I’m pretty sure it - no, I mean, it definitely involved shadow tentacles, so… Yeah.”

“Right…” Pauline replied, hiding her mouth behind her hand.

“Yes, well, that aside,” the professor said, “why don’t you go ahead and show us what you’ve done to your core? Assuming you don’t mind miss Pauline seeing it.”

“I don’t,” I replied, reaching for the core projector that was stored in my desk. Much like the first time I tried it, pressing the button sent a charge of magic through my body, towards my core - and this time it was met with magic from my core, which surged back down my arm and into the box. 

For a moment nothing happened, and I wondered if I’d somehow managed to mess this up again - but then it appeared. A sphere, floating in front of me.

“You’ll need to state your intention to let me and Pauline see,” Devulchas said - or at least it was her voice. Instead of coming from her mouth, though, it seemingly emanated out of a small figure made of stone.

“Ah - right… um… Let Professor Devulchas and Pauline see?”

There was a fluctuation at the peripherals of my vision - and then suddenly I could see Pauline and the professor again. Not that I’d even noticed them disappearing from my vision to begin with, what with me being so focused on my core.

“Intriguing,” the professor murmured, her own attention now on my carving. “So that image represents these tentacles for you?”

I nodded, glancing at the image. It was a fairly simple interpretation - just curvy lines spiraling out from the center - but to me, it stood for tentacles emerging from the abyss.

“And I can see you successfully reserved space for the subspells… Not a lot of room - you devoted a bit more of it to the main spell than was strictly necessary, I think - but enough that we should be able to fit a few subspells into each pocket, if we’re careful.”

“Y-yeah,” I murmured, frowning. “I mean… I think so?” Except something about it didn’t feel right…

“What do you mean you think so?” the professor asked, narrowing her eyes. “Come to think of it, you never told me exactly what this pattern means to you…”

“Four books,” I told her, thinking back to what I’d said the night I made the design. Four parts of a series. The main spells are the central themes, and the subspells represent… acts…” My face paled.

“What’s wrong?” Pauline asked, concern etched in her voice.

“Four acts,” I replied, speaking slowly. “Four. I’m… I’m pretty sure I might have… sort of… accidentally limited myself to four subspells each?”

There was silence, for a moment, as Pauline and the professor processed my words.

“Well then,” Professor Devulchas said, after far too long a moment. “I suppose you’ll need to pick them carefully, won’t you?”

~~~

Author's Notes

We wanted to write a chapter of Naughty Magic, but depression spat in my face and said no - which was (funnily enough) the case when I wrote chapter 19 and 24 alike.

Fun fact, btw - I did not initially plan to limit Amy to four subspells. No, this idiot did that to herself. I didn't even catch it until I did a reread and realized her mental image had bit her in the ass again. Really gotta be careful with that stuff.

If you're wondering what she'll pick, do feel free to head over to Patreon where you can read five chapters ahead for as little as $1~! (Though as to how many of those subspells she will or won't have filled in the course of those five chapters... Well, telling you that would be spoilers!) Still, if five chapters of MOV aren't enough to sway you, there's also two advance chapters of Naughty Magic and Hatching a Heroine waiting! Also Double Trouble, if you're one of its relatively few fans... Also also - to save the best for last - free and paid members get access to my discord, where I regularly post pictures of my pet bearded dragon, Autumn!

I'm hoping to finish the NM chapter I started on Sunday, btw, but we'll see how that goes... Friday's for editing, meanwhile, and Saturday is of course a day off, so... Hope to see you then!

New MOV chapter will probably be here Monday at the latest, btw. Maybe sooner. Possibly later (though I doubt it.) We'll see.