Ciel came back to his house in the night to find the weirdest scene he had ever seen.

  On the porch was a new girl—grey-white hair and dressed in tight overalls, decorated with utility belts and straps—tied to the wall by her ankle with a heavy chain. She crouched beside piles of what used to be his mountains of books and inventions, now neatly categorized into orderly stacks, and sobbed in despair as if the sky had fallen. Xia stood beside her with a honeyed smile, petting the girl with motherly gentleness while her eyes gleamed like a realtor finding prime real estate to build a hotel.

  Nuan stood faraway, sipping from a cup, her face inscrutable.

  "What happened here?" Ciel surveyed the bizarre scene before him.

  "We caught a spy." Nuan traced the rim of her cup, gaze distant as though reading tea leaves. "And we decided to make her clean your junk heap as penance." She observed the sobbing girl wistfully. "She did it in an hour before completely breaking down like this. I don't know how or why."

  Xia rubbed the teary girl like one would pcate a tantruming child. "Come on, you did well. There's no need to cry. You—"

  "No need to cry?" Hikari's voice cracked with hysteria as she shot to her feet, sending Xia stumbling backward. She marched to one of the piles. "Look at this!"

  She snatched up a book titled "Observations in the Aria of Stars" and screamed. "I found this on top of some weird cookbook! How did this get there?" Hikari pointed to an astrology orb. "That must be an Ether Surveilnce mapper and it's buried under a pile of herbology texts and vehicle blueprints." She almost tore her hair out. "But that's nothing compared to how you managed the chemicals!"

  The outraged neat-freak pointed a finger at Ciel's face, disregarding her position as prisoner. Her tomboyish short hair flew in the air like a furious bonfire. "You put all the fmmable chemicals together with all these books, each worth at least a fortune. Your irritants and toxic chemicals aren't sealed or beled. In all my life, I have never seen such atrocious organizational skills—not even Amy is as suicidal as you are!"

  "I used different lid colors to distinguish them."

  "That isn't good enough!" Hikari roared. "Did you ever disinfect your equipment after use?"

  "I invented an automatic washer just for that."

  The obsessive spy colpsed to her knees and screamed like a banshee. "You sound just like Amy. Are all geniuses like this?"

  “Amy?” Ciel said, leading to Hikari closing her mouth in shock at her verbal slip. “Is that who sent you?”

  The girl's eyes widened at her slip. She lunged for the chain, attempting to break free, but crackling electricity from her bond caught her first ft foot. Hikari colpsed into the garden, twitching with static current.

  "Hmm." Xia's kindly expression melted away, repced by calcuting introspection. "Maybe we should spend more time breaking her."

  "Are you sure we should be doing that?" Nuan asked, though her tone suggested the question was simply ceremonial.

  ---

  After that day, the effort to bring Hikari Seyfert to heel officially began. The moon sank below the horizon as dawn broke over Da Ming, heralded by a distant rooster's call.

  Hikari awoke in unfamiliar luxury: a well-ventited room bathed in clean morning light, tucked into a fluffy bnket on a bed so soft it smothered her willpower. Hikari fought her drowsiness to sit upright as memories of the previous night hit her like a charging horse. Something felt wrong. Her clothes were different, the fabric soft and porous instead of her usual tanned leather.

  Scrambling from the bed, she found a mirror in the guest room with its wide bed and lovely oriental table. The reflection shocked her: a noble dy in well-made eastern garb stared back, hair of silvery white and face as sharp and beautiful as a polished bde meticulously groomed. She gaped. While no stranger to formal occasions, she'd never heard of captors treating their prisoner like a dress-up doll.

  The sliding door creaked open as Nuan entered with a tray of porridge. "Oh hello, you're awake?"

  "Ah, finally awake?" Nuan's voice carried just the right note of gentle concern.

  Hikari's hands clenched in the silk robes. "What are you pnning with all this?"

  The Dragon Scion's response sent her reeling.

  "We found you lying outside the house. What do you remember from st night?"

  Hikari froze. "What?"

  Her host set the tray on a fine red birch table and approached with concern. "Are you alright?" Nuan made a calming gesture. "Take deep breaths, then tell me what happened."

  "You captured me. Made me sort that nightmare of a trash pile and promised to let me go."

  "That didn't happen," Nuan delivered her lines perfectly. "We found you unconscious inside the house in strange gear. You should be more careful," she advised. "People might think you're spying for someone unsavory."

  The white-haired girl stood tongue-tied, knowing full well she was indeed spying for a crackling mess of a woman, but decided against voicing that thought.

  "What about my gear?" Hikari asked.

  "Ciel examined it," replied the Second Bride. "It's in your wardrobe, though I wouldn't recommend wearing it to the opera."

  "Opera?"

  "Don't you remember?" Nuan continued her psychological warfare. "You woke briefly st night. Xia mentioned you agreed to tour the middle district with us today."

  Hikari shook her head, but decided to roll with it. She wasn't going to have a better shot at finding out details about the Grand Marshall anyway. She beamed back with calcuted friendliness.

  "Yes, let's get to the opera!"

  "Oh, and I forgot to ask your name?"

  "It's Mythic," Hikari lied, using her sister's name instead.

  "Very well 'Mythic,'" Nuan replied. "Xia is waiting outside. Would you like to finish your breakfast first?"

  "Thank you, but I'll eat outside." Hikari lifted her tray of porridge and moved to the room connecting the left wing to the central abode. She found Xia waiting at a table decorated in cssical Yulong style: a folding screen providing backdrop, a couch for meeting, and a vase with neatly arranged flowers. But the disorderly opening in the window caught her eye.

  Xia noticed the small twitch of her face and hid her satisfaction behind a light smile. "Should I close the window?"

  "Thank you," Hikari said.

  After the meal, the three left the house. Hikari couldn't stay still. The crowd of people passing by kept stealing her attention, every detail and color slowly overloading her senses. Much to her relief, the opera Xia chose—a musical—was more orderly. If not for the messily arranged snacks, she would have enjoyed the prestigious seating far more.

  "You barely touched the food," Nuan observed.

  "I can make something much better," Hikari replied, half-distracted by the soprano spinning across stage in her cloud of flowers and heavy fragrance, a crumb forgotten between her fingers

  "Why don't we make it at home then?" Xia agreed excitedly.

  Hikari, feeling a genuine spark of excitement from the girl, replied with a tiny smile. "On one condition," she bargained. "What does your husband do anyway? I heard he's the Grand Marshall, isn't he?"

  "That's right," answered the Second Bride, munching on a mouthful of treats.

  The spy turned to Nuan, "So how did he know your old man anyway? He can't be appointed right out of nowhere."

  The girl, reminded of her recent familial revetion, tersely responded with a simple but cryptic statement: "Don't give my father too much credit," she stated. "I've recently learned my family, me included, are all morons."

  Hikari found that information less than helpful, but the evening cooking session made her feel a lot better.

  The familiar beating of eggs brought back childhood comfort, while sweet aromas of honey-sauced meat wrapped in baked flour filled the kitchen with warmth.

  Xia leaned over to watch the pies browning in the mansion's stone oven. Her artistically fashioned sugar flower—a Curtis cultural dessert—rested in a delicate gss of plum punch on the table, where Nuan scrutinized the rose-like confection and wondered why anyone would put so much effort into making desserts look pretty.

  "Apple and meat pies with egg-milk pudding," the First Bride said to their guest. "Why did you pick these dishes?"

  "They're my go-to recipes," she answered. "Should we expect your husband to join us?"

  "He's busy," the Second Bride replied from the table. "Said he's discussing Spade with Yi Tong."

  Hikari nodded, tucking away another piece of information. Her shoulders rexed as her mission approached completion.

  The second day echoed the first: morning greetings, a girls' day out filled with restaurants, attractions, and souvenir shopping, followed by home-cooked dinner and easy conversation. Through it all, she never forgot her mission, gathering what information she could. Memories of their first meeting surfaced occasionally, but she pushed them aside to focus on the present.

  Hikari prided herself on reading people well. Despite the strange undercurrent of secrecy, her hosts felt genuine. She found herself wanting to like them both; they seemed like good people.

  The illusion of control shattered on her second night in the mansion. Her senses tingled. She bolted upright at the whisper of wind; she distinctly remembered securing those windows before bed. Their opening could mean only one thing.

  And there, at st, sat the Grand Marshall of Yulong.

  Ciel perched on the windowsill, his silhouette stark against the still night and softly glowing crescent moon. Steel-grey eyes assessed her, not a flicker of expression crossing the handsome face half-hidden in shadow.

  But his words caught her completely off guard.

  "Miss Seyfert." Ciel's voice cut through the darkness like silk over steel. "You've been quite entertaining these past forty-eight hours, but I think we've pyed this game long enough."