Rosepetal doesn’t set her Chen down. One hand strokes along the back of Chen’s neck as she nimbly— up, up!— takes Chen up to meet the Pyre of Inspiration, taking great bounding steps like gravity is something she can ignore by simply wanting it to be so. So she comes to meet someone who is finding the world to be suddenly new and beautiful, and takes her by the hand, with all the solemnity of a monk and all the grace of a handmaiden.

“Princess Chen of the North Wind and her Rosepetal, reporting for duty, mistress,” she says. “However, I am happy to inform you that if you are willing to wait until after the battle to cash in the shares you own of me,” she says, with a playfulness, as if joking between friends, “I am authorized to extend our contract until such time as you are satisfied with our service.” No more hours. No more seconds shaved off. An openness, a shutting of the eyes and falling into her arms, trusting that she will be caught. “This special offer is only increased in value, because it comes along with a fox-certified master maid.”

No hiding in your Rosepetal, dear sweet Chen! She knows you [i]want[/i] her to turn your head, to tilt your chin up, and make you look up at the Pyre. “That’s right! The second time I met her, she was displaying her core competencies by cleaning an [i]entire[/i] shrine wearing the most darling little uniform, weren’t you, Chen?” And [i]now[/i] look whose head is being nodded!

Rosepetal’s voice only becomes a little more serious while her little princess is busy overheating. “It’s just that this city and its safety is very important to Chen, and if she’s worried about it, she’ll be [i]so[/i] clumsy, knocking over valuable vases with her skirt and tripping over her own heels and let’s not even get into all the things she’ll spill all over herself! And if she’s not worried, you’ll know that whenever she does that, it’s because she’s trying to be a naughty girl who needs Burrows discipline, just for you.”

She looks out at the walls of the city, the multicolored smoke and the assault ribbons, and squeezes Chen closer. Her Chen. Her defender, her treasure. “It’s your choice,” she says. Because if she doesn’t say it, if she tries to trick her and run rings around her, if she doesn’t treat the Pyre like a person who’s even more vulnerable right now than her Chen, then she’s betraying everything she still holds dear, all for the sake of Chen— and that would sink its fangs into the root of their love, a still-young tree still coming into its fruits. How could she meet Chen’s mothers knowing she was a traitor of innocence? How could she kiss Chen’s perfect lips knowing what she’d paid for them?

So she holds Chen tighter and her heart plummets, as if blindfolded, waiting to see if it will indeed be caught. If the dream she danced, here and now, was true. If the promise of the twilight on those purpled hills was true. If she can still bring happiness into the world.