THE WHITE FOX | FOUR

 ONE AFTERNOON. THAT was how long Danna managed to keep her tongue in check for. Because this Mr Volkov had clearly just suffered the consequences of bothering Daneira Pang when she wasn't in the best of moods. Funny, how Danna could be so calm and composed but snap within a moment.

Mr Volkov had come with Lieutenant Harlande and the other boy, Louis Sanchez, but they didn't seem fond of him. They didn't spend most of their time together. Most people seemed to have taken Diksha's advice and steered clear of him. There had to be a story about that somewhere. If Asteria wasn't on the job, she'd be trying to figure that out.

Io and Louis Sanchez were doing a wonderful job at calmly ignoring each other, not even glancing in each other's directions. Danna was talking with Lieutenant Harlande now, being politely disinterested about it, her face impassive. So Asteria focused on her food. Across the table was a girl with the same blonde hair as Miss Wushire, who kept trying to meet her eye. A sister, maybe? Couldn't be too pleasant. Perhaps she was seeking revenge. Or if she was smarter, forgiveness for her sister's rudeness.

The truth was that Asteria couldn't care less. Miss Wushire had served her point. She was useless now.

The lieutenant seemed pleasant enough. He wasn't an idiot, which was nice, and possessed a good sense of humour. That seemed to be in short supply these days, at least around Asteria's circles. But it also spoke to a certain degree of intelligence, which she did not want poking around her. She'll do her best to stay away.

Danna didn't seem to be causing any trouble for Lieutenant Harlande, so Asteria let her concentration drift from them and turned towards Louis Sanchez. "Mr Sanchez, isn't that right?"

"Correct, Lady Asteria." He seemed a little startled at being talked to, though he did his best to hide it. "May I help you?"

She shrugged nonchalantly. "Just a bit bored, really. It was either you or joining upon Danna and Lieutenant Harlande's conversation. Are you friends?"

"We are," he replied. "Our families live together, so we're rather close. Arrived together."

"I see, I see. And Mr Volkov?"

"A friend's friend. We were asked to look out for him since this is his first trip here." And they didn't do it willingly. That much was clear, from both his expression and the way they acted.

"He's from Novokuluga?" But they both knew what the real question was: which side was he on? Novokuluga had been split in a civil war for what felt like decades. Sai stayed neutral for the most part, fond of neither side, but Princess Irina had made a few moves that seemed to favour the older monarchy.

"Kirivaya." Under the Kozlov regime's rule. Asteria gave a nod, not betraying her own personal beliefs. Really, she'd never taken much of a side in the Novokulugan affair, so she didn't have much to hide anyways.

"And where are you from, Mr Sanchez?" If this was the same Louis Sanchez, he'd be from Vayante. Asteria had been trying to remember that mission Io had been dispatched on two years ago, the one where these two's paths would have crossed. The younger son of a baron? Irina had sent Io out to make sure he and his family weren't Meliquean agents. They'd moved to Caershire soon afterwards, which was their destination anyways. The only reason she'd kept him in her memory was because Io alleged that this Mr Sanchez had caught her spying on him. Iolanthe Mi didn't get caught. Not even when she was twelve.

"Vayante." His smile wasn't happy. He couldn't be much older than Io, and Asteria was suddenly struck with the knowledge that these two probably carried the same amount of demons. This generation hadn't had it easy. Born in the aftermath of the Epimurean Revolution, Caershireen Independence, and raised during the Saian Revolution. And then spending their teen years worrying about the war with Melique, until it finally began a little more than a year ago. Asteria had been lucky. She'd been kept away during the Saian Revolution and raised in luxury. But even she had her own burdens.

"How long have you been in Caershire?" She kept her voice light. She was not in the mood for this dinner to become grim and wallow. She'd dealt with enough of that in the past while.

He gave it a bit of thought. "Two years, I think. I moved here right before Sai declared war on Melique."

"Fortunate, to have left before it would have been too late."

"We like to think so." His expression was bleak now. "It is kind of Caershire to accept so many of us running from war." Sai had opened its borders too, but most of them had declined, opting for Caershire's then-neutrality. How long that lasted.

"Very generous of them," Asteria agreed without much enthusiasm. If Sanchez noticed, he didn't point it out. Asteria stole a glance at Io, who sat avoiding everyone's gaze, focusing on her food, picking at it.

"I owe them my life." A bit dramatic if you asked her, but then she'd never been one to exaggerate. Sanchez seemed to consider that conversation finished, turning back as well, leaving Asteria once again alone. She mentally huffed as she sliced into her food.

"Louis isn't the most interesting conversationalist?" When she turned, Lieutenant Harlande was smiling. She'd decided he was handsome long ago, but studying him now, she decided she'd understated his attractiveness. Close up, his eyes were a warm shade of brown, but it did little to cover the shrewd intelligence. His skin was slightly tanned, speaking of time spent under the sun. When he smiled he was kind and welcoming. When he didn't, he was the wily grandson of a Caershireen national hero who had inherited all of his grandfather's strategising, calculating nature. She was wise to stay away. Unfortunately, fate hadn't agreed with her decision.

She tilted her head, dropping her gaze before he'd notice. She was staring. "Considering he's right next to me," she said, voice quiet, "and that you are his friend, I'd prefer not to speak ill of him. A wise choice, wouldn't you agree?"

His lips gave a reluctant curl. "I applaud you for your good humour, Lady Asteria."

"I pride myself on it."

That seemed to surprise him. "You're not known for being very... social," he admitted. "You're not at all what I expected, if I must say."

"We rarely are," she replied, punctuating the statement with a shrug. "I may sound a bit ungrateful, but my status causes me to constantly be surrounded by people aiming to get some advantages off me. Hence, my usual behaviour around people. I'd say you would know the feeling, wouldn't you? You don't seem to be someone who looks approachable either."

He seemed to give the statement some thought, before slowly nodding. "I agree, yes. I do know the feeling. Some people approach me in an attempt to get my brother to support their cause or lend them aid. It gets quite frustrating. Do people do the same with your father?"

"Yes, they do. Though my father has told me when I was younger that anyone who approached me instead of him directly probably wasn't someone he wanted to help much." She grinned. "I took that advice very seriously, I like to think."

"There are people out there starving," Lieutenant Harlande suddenly mused. "And yet here we are, complaining about our privilege."

"I'm afraid it's something we do very often." Asteria took a sip of water. At home, she'd be drinking tea with a meal like this. Heaps and heaps of tea, and enjoying it profoundly. Here, she had to drink water. She never much liked the westerner's idea of tea. Milk in tea? An abomination, really. Such strange people, she often thought to herself.

"The world is quite unfair," he mused.

"And we'll discuss it being the little progressives we are, and then not do anything about it anyways."

"Very cynical of you, Lady Asteria." But she could tell he agreed. Here was someone who understood her. In a way, they held similar status in their respective countries. They'd have similar upbringings surrounded by clever, scheming people who passed on their paths. He was, so far, the greatest risk to this mission.

She lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. "It's the truth. The most we do is dump money into different causes anyways. And how much of that money actually goes to the needy?"

"Very little," he admitted. "My brother has friends who've done investigations into sketchy, corrupt charities before."

"Exactly." She sighed. "The world is unfair. Nothing we could do about it."

"A very unfortunate conclusion. But I suppose it's true."'

『-』

THE YOUNGER MISS Wushire finally mustered her courage and approached them at the end of the dinner, when all the ladies were retiring to the drawing room as the men vanished off to do whatever it was men did.

"Lady Asteria?"

Asteria turned, lifting a brow in that expression that usually sent people packing. Io stilled besides her, eyes narrowing. Danna might as well have not been there.

"Miss...?"

"Wushire. Miss Cresseida Wushire."

"You're her sister?" Io sounded incredulous, though Asteria personally thought she had figured it out the moment she'd laid eyes on the girl and saw the family resemblance.

Miss Cresseida winced. "I'm not proud of it, I assure you, Miss Mi. I just wanted to apologise for her. That was unnecessarily cruel and extremely uncalled for. You had done nothing wrong. But my sister isn't the... kindest of people. I just wanted to say sorry."

"If you want someone to apologise, have her do it, Miss Cresseida," Asteria told her. "You have done nothing wrong, and hence your apology is unneeded."

Miss Cresseida's shoulders slumped. "I'm her sister. What she does, I am responsible for."

Danna raised a finger. "That is a very bad mindset. You are not responsible for anything your sister does. Trust me, I have two. If your sister is an ill-mannered brat, the only thing you could do is try to advise her from that path. And if that doesn't work, to be the best person you could be to make up for her faults. But you do not need to apologise to the people she has wronged."

Asteria glanced at her friend in surprise. Danna rarely said so much. But then it dawned upon her. Danna did have two sisters of her own. Two sisters she loved dearly but didn't always agree with. In fact, the three Pang sisters were usually in some kind of argument, often over the youngest, Hebe. This conversation struck personal.

"I... I suppose so." Miss Cresseida wouldn't meet any of their eyes.

Io said, "I'm the person she wronged here. You don't need to apologise for what she did. You had nothing to do with it. Are you older or younger?"

"Younger." The four girls fell into a comfortable pace as they headed towards the drawing room. "She's two years older than me. I'm nineteen now."

"Same as me," Asteria mused. "She doesn't strike me as someone with the maturity of a twenty-one year old." She tried to think of any twenty-one year olds she knew. Cirinique Diao came to mind. And Myrina Mai. The former an agent and an ex-student of Lady Kuroki's, now running around the world with her husband, Laurence Dumont, whom she had married very recently. The latter Princess Irina's lady-in-waiting and right-hand woman. To put them at the same age as the older Miss Wushire felt like a joke.

"She's... not." Each word clearly took some courage to leave Miss Cresseida's mouth. But sometimes, you had to let your inner thoughts out. She wouldn't find a chance as good as this.

Asteria cracked a small smile. "You don't need to curb your tongue around us. We like being honest about things."

Miss Cresseida hesitated for a moment more before the words came bursting through. "She's horrible. Absolutely horrible. She looks down on everyone and her friends just happily agree with her. It's extremely embarrassing, and heart-wrenching when the people she mocks actually take her seriously."

"I don't understand how your parents raised you and then her."

"Well, they... didn't. They sent me off to relatives. More pleasant relatives. If they'd taken care of me growing up I'd probably be the same as her. I was horrified the first time I properly met her, when I was seven."

Io blinked. "You didn't meet her until you were seven?"

Miss Cresseida shook her head. "I grew up in Arecia. She stayed in Caershire. I only recently returned, after the war started, and my parents thought it would be better if they kept me close by."

"Do you miss being in Arecia?"

Miss Cresseida shut her eyes. "Very, if I must be honest. I'm just as safe there as here. I think my parents just wanted to look better to their friends." She flinched. "Now I'm just being as rude as Jocelyn."

"No, you're not," Danna instantly said. "Trust me, you have to let it out sometimes. If you keep it in for too long, you'll eventually explode. And that's never nice." She said it in that way that made it clear she was speaking from personal experience again. Asteria didn't prod, neither did Io. Miss Cresseida wasn't familiar enough with Danna's family history to make any assumptions.

"I wouldn't like exploding," she slowly agreed. "Well, if you all agree to not let these words spread past us, I'm willing to share some stories."

"Please do," Io grinned, "this party has been frightfully boring so far, if you must ask me. I could use some stories."

"Do you have any siblings, Miss Mi?"

Io's face dropped temporarily. "Two. But we're not very close. We didn't grow up together either, you see." Half-siblings. Twins. Io had tried to seek them out a few years earlier, and managed to do so, but they hadn't been in any state to take care of a young child, barely being older than Io themselves. Lady Kuroki had offered her help, but they'd declined. Zhi sheng zhi mie, they'd told Lady Kuroki according to the baroness. Io never quite got over it. It felt just like another abandonment.

And when someone was let down one too many times by the people responsible for them, one broke. One of Asteria's main goals was to keep Io away from this state.

"That's sad. I know you don't have any siblings, Lady Asteria. What about you, Miss Pang— oh, that was a stupid question." She laughed. "You just mentioned them. Of course you have a sibling."

"I have two sisters." Danna held up two fingers. "Megara, the elder, and Hebe, the younger."

"Megara, Daneira and Hebe. What pretty names."

Danna smiled. "Thank you. I love your name too."

"Cresseida. I suppose it's pleasant enough." A shrug. "You all have beautiful names, actually. Iolanthe. Asteria. Daneira. Very unconventional."

Io blushed. "I actually picked my own. I was called by my Saian name until I was seven. I read a story about a girl named Iolanthe one day and decided to pick it as my own name, since my family had been pressuring me to pick an Arecian name anyways."

"What's your Saian names?"

Asteria jabbed a finger at herself. "Lu Junya. Danna's Pang Yinyi. Io is Mi Ye'e." Io's name wasn't actually Saian— her surname, at least, was technically from Cheonuang, where her mother had been from, though Mi was a Saian character as well. But they didn't advertise that part of her heritage, especially when they were undercover.

"I see, I see. My middle name is Mary. Cresseida Mary Wushire. I think it's quite sweet." Miss Cresseida scratched her neck. "You can all call me Cresseida, by the way. I don't mind."

"Then you must call me Asteria."

"And me Danna." Io nodded as well in agreement. Cresseida beamed.

"Certainly! I have a feeling we'll be good friends."

"Let's certainly hope so." Asteria tilted her head and smiled. They'd reach the drawing room now, entering quietly to the women inside. Miss Wushire made a great show of ignoring all of them, but Asteria could sense the embarrassment sinking into Miss Jocelyn Wushire's skin as she noted her sister's presence. Wasn't expecting that, were you? Siblings so often underestimated each other. She'd seen it happen again and again.

One of the settees was empty, so they sat. The drawing room was large and cozy, obviously lived-in. Asteria imagined the Carlstons often gathered here in the evenings to relax. Tonight, though, it was overtaken by a band of high-class females, all hungry for gossip and excitement.

"Someone's going to suggest we play games," Io said with clear amusement as she studied the chamber.

"Not interested," Danna drawled. "Any way for me to escape?"

Asteria glanced at the closest window. "That looks promising." Cresseida blinked, nonplussed, but said nothing.

Danna studied it. If Cresseida wasn't here, she'd have told them whether or not she thought she could get out of that window and to the ground unscathed (she could), but she didn't, just smirked.

"You don't like games?" Cresseida asked, tilting her head sideways.

"Never have." Danna shrugged. "Wouldn't want to ruin your fun. I don't suppose I could just head off to the library."

"We are here," Asteria said with a comical amount of frustration, "to socialise, Miss Pang."

"Which is not my forte." Danna's eyes fluttered shut and then opened once more. "The library looked very promising when I visited this afternoon."

"Can I join you?" Io asked, leaning forward.

Asteria scoffed. "What you're doing is abandoning me."

"You still have Cresseida," Io shrugged. "You'll be fine, Ast. Danna, come on, let's go to the library."