The chill air clears my head. Stumbling, drunken clarity has me questioning how many people noticed my condition in the ballroom. Konrad, probably. Duchess Maria definitely. Perhaps with some luck I escaped the others' notice.

Stumbling, drunken clarity also tells me that I am lost. I step carefully forwards to the low parapet that guards me from the slope of copper tiles below. I have come out, somehow, at the top of the centre wing of the palace. Far below me, the marble palace steps glisten under the starlight. The torches that light the drive now burn soft and yellow.

They are not much unlike gaslight. I used to watch the city at night from my tower window and the view was not dissimilar. I squint, trying to resolve my blurred vision into singular. I want to see some differences in the view. I want to be certain that that dark silhouette is the conifers lining the garden, not the crenellated walls of Justice Square.

Clear vision evades me. Absinthe — or perhaps memory — makes my stomach churn. I clamp my hands over my mouth and squeeze my eyes shut. If I don't breathe, perhaps the feeling will go away.

Quiet, stalking footsteps rise from the stairwell behind me. I turn around and back away from the door, my hands still over my mouth. A blurry figure in a white dress shirt emerges slowly, carefully from the doorway. I step backwards. The edge of the parapet presses against my skirts.

"What are you doing?" Mariusz speaks low and urgent. "What are you doing, Sasha?"

Thank God it's not Konrad. But I dare not open my mouth.

"Come closer. Come towards me," he says. "Please."

I know if I move I will be sick.

"Sasha." Mariusz comes slowly closer, his arms outstretched. "Don't move, and I'll come to you."

He comes closer by inches. My stomach rises within me and my hands over my mouth tremble. I know I am going to be sick and I don't want him to see it.

He grabs me and drags me into his arms. My shaking knees will not hold my weight and I fall against him. He stumbles backwards, taking me with him. My face smashes into the door. Mariusz collapses beneath me. I hit the cold hard slate of the rooftop before I can make sense of gravity and find all my limbs.

Mariusz's arms are still around me. He groans and loosens his grip. I roll away from him and retch onto the slate. Salt comes with the acid. I'm bleeding. I run my tongue along the inside of my cheek. A body-shaking pain surges through my face and I stop.

Mariusz still clutches at my skirt. "You idiot," he mutters. "You stupid little fool. What the hell are you doing up here?"

The pain keeps me from speaking. I must have broken a tooth. I try to force back the urge to vomit, because I know it will make the pain worse.

Mariusz sits up slowly with another groan. He releases his grip on my skirt and rubs his back. I crouch on the roof, my whole body trembling. My stomach leaps to my throat and I swallow it back.

"For God's sake, let it out," Mariusz says. "You'll feel better when you have."

I clench my mouth shut.

"It's rather nice to be the sober one for a change," he adds spitefully.

I open my mouth to tell him to go away and lose control of my stomach. The absinthe tastes sickly sweet as it comes back up. I taste more blood, which makes me sick again. Pain radiates from my jaw. I clench my trembling hands and wait for it to fade.

"There," Mariusz says. "You feel better, don't you?"

I want to cry. "You're horrible."

"And you're drunk." He sounds somehow relieved. "I warned you about the absinthe."

I walk my palms backwards inch by trembling inch until I can sit on my heels. Now that my stomach is empty, it has stopped jumping, but my vision is still running double and in the pale starlight I can make out no more than the blur of his face and his white shirtfront.

"Why are you here?" I ask.

"I followed you. Why are you here?" Mariusz takes something pale from his pocket and passes it to me — his handkerchief. "You weren't thinking of jumping, were you?"

I dab at my mouth, wincing as pain lances through my jaw. I don't think I did break a tooth. I think the pain is outside, where I smashed into the door.

"Were you?" Mariusz asks again, quieter. I realize he means it.

"No." I quiver as another wave of nausea runs over me. "No. No."

"Then what are you doing here?"

Through my drunken haze, the panicked conviction presses itself firmly upon me that he cannot know I was running away from Konrad, but I am unable to think of a lie.

"Sasha?"

I shake my head and throbbing pain resounds through my jaw.

After a moment, Mariusz says, very quietly, very gently, "Your uncle told me about the bars he had to have put on the tower window."

I touch my face, trying to figure out where the pain is coming from. My cheek is damp. I try to pat it dry with the handkerchief, but the damp keeps coming.

"He said you were more fragile than you let show."

I give up stemming the flow of dampness. The handkerchief is dark under the starlight. The darkness stains my hands.

"He asked me to keep you safe."

"I'm bleeding." I touch my cheek again. It's hot and wet under my chilled fingers. "I'm bleeding a lot. It hurts."

Mariusz touches my chin to turn my face to the slender starlight. He swears gently in Selician. "We need a surgeon." He swears again. "Come on. We have to go downstairs and find help."

__

2024-01-26: I feel sorry for Alex. Also, it's really hard to write from the perspective of a very drunk person.