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aidanchaser · 2 months ago

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A Young WItch's Guide to Cats, Curses, and Courtship

It's the ball chapter~ thank you @yellowbullet100 for beta reading, @mlbigbang2024 for hosting, and @jademoon2u for some absolutely stunning art for this chapter!!!!!!! It's such a treat; you're going to love it when you get to it.

Chapter Three: On the Subject of Courtship A young witch, by virtue of being new to their craft, may find themselves entranced by crafting love potions and charms. However, any practice in this particular craft will quickly teach its futility. Intention is the root of any witch’s work, and an intention to compel a particular person’s will—particularly that of another witch—quickly delves into the dangerous and highly inhospitable realm of curses.

Courtship itself is not unique to the society of witches, however the author would advise a young witch to consider the following three rules when in pursuit of a companion: 1. Choose a partner of equal station, who can understand your craft even if they may not practice it. 2. Treat the courtship like you would any ritual, investing both time and appropriate components into your engagement so that it may thrive alongside your practice. 3. Never, under any circumstances, use magic to aid your pursuit and thus risk involving yourself in the fraught relationship between love and curses.

Marinette triple-checked the label before adding orange zest to the sugar mixture. She had brought a small collection of magical potions with her to Lady Tsurugi’s party tonight, and was being extra careful to avoid mixing potions and pastries. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to do with her elixirs, but if there was something magical in Adrien Agreste’s—or whoever he was—ring, then she was going to find out what it was, particularly if it was some sort of curse that kept him bound against his will.

First, however, she needed to finish these pastries by the time dessert went upstairs. She used the spoon to wind the amber syrup around the wooden dowel until it cooled into a tight coil. Then, without breaking the cooled sugar, she slid the spiral off of her dowel and onto a tart. It wasn’t a particularly demanding task, but it was tedious, and Marinette was not the best at focusing on a single task, something her grandmother had frequently chided her for, for how could a witch with split intentions cast any coherent spell? And indeed, if any of Marinette’s spells failed, she usually found the issue somewhere in her initial intentions.

At this moment in particular, Marinette’s intentions were split between perfecting the spirals in front of her, eavesdropping on the organized chaos of the kitchen finishing up dinner behind her, and undoing the curse she had glimpsed around her young man’s throat.

Marinette slid a spiral of sugar off of her dowel and onto one of the orange tarts while debating with herself how risky it would be to wait all night by his carriage to see him before he left. She was so fully immersed in figuring out how she might meet him while also avoiding his parents that she was fully caught off guard when she turned back to her hot saucepan and found a completely different young man leaning against the cookstove. She was so startled that she nearly threw the spoon at him, but she caught herself just in time.

“L-Luka! What are you—I mean—Hello.” She searched the kitchen for a place to run, but there wasn’t exactly an excuse to leave her sugar and saucepan unattended on the stove. It wasn’t even that she particularly disliked Luka; there was just so much discomfort between them. Her words got mixed up well enough on their own; stringing them together when her anxiety spiked was a near impossible task. “I—I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

His mouth tugged up into a small smile, mildly amused by her panic. “I won’t stay long,” he promised. “I’m meant to set up upstairs in a moment.” He tugged on the cuffs of his jacket, an unconscious habit whenever he wore his finer clothes, a habit that had always made Marinette’s heart stutter. She enjoyed seeing him feel out of place, unsteady. She liked glimpsing the limits of his unflappable nature.

“Music?” she asked, and realized as the words left her lips it was hardly a question on its own. “I mean—you’re playing?”

“Just a bit of violin during dinner. Something to keep conversation comfortable. Lady Tsurugi absolutely put her foot down about dancing tonight, so I’ll be out of here after dessert is served. But I’m playing at the dance in town tonight. You are coming, aren’t you?”

Marinette found it easier to talk if she focused on wrapping the sugar around the dowel and did not look at Luka. “I can’t—all of this… You know. I’m busy.”

“You’ll be finished before I am. Just wait for a little bit and I’ll walk you there.” When she didn’t look at him, he added with an exasperated sigh, “As your friend, Marinette, I promise. I won’t even ask you for a dance if you don’t want to.”

She stuck her tongue between her teeth as she carefully slid the cooled sugar off of the dowel, intent on keeping it from cracking. “I have some projects I need to finish up—”

“Marinette, you are going to work yourself to death.”

“I can die working hard or I can die starving—”

“Not everything’s a crisis.”

“—and I don’t need you to tell me how to live my life—”

“I don’t think it’s wrong of me to care about your health.”

“I’m fine!”

The sugar beneath Marinette’s hands cracked, and she threw the broken spiral back into the saucepan in frustration. This was the worst part of her fights with Luka. Her temper rose and her face grew hot and his—he was still standing there, leaning against the stove like a man concerned with nothing more than a slight change in the wind.

She’d seen him angry only once, after the third time she had gotten caught up in a project and accidentally broken a promise to meet him. It wasn’t a hot anger, like hers. It was cold and certain, and it was not the sort that made room for forgiveness.

None of the kitchen staff paused their work as Marinette’s anger burst; they continued to move around Marinette and Luka as they prepared their dishes for the evening and delivered food and plates upstairs, but Marinette knew all eyes and ears were turned in their direction.

She swallowed down her frustration and repeated in a low voice, “I’m fine, really.”

“Then don’t wait for me if you don’t want to, but you should go, Marinette. Won’t Alya and Nino be there?” He straightened and tugged on the sleeves of his dark green dinner jacket once more. The cuffs were just an inch too short. He must have gotten taller since the last season, she thought, and wondered if she should offer to let the sleeves out for him. He’d probably just scold her for taking on another project.

But it did remind her of another dark green coat that she’d seen in the Midnight Market.

“Wait—Luka—” But as her words so often did when she looked at him, they got caught in her throat.

He raised his eyebrows and she wished he would look away so she could gather her thoughts.

“I only—you know a lot of the nobility, don’t you?”

“Not personally,” he said with an amused smile.

“I mean, but—you know who they are.”

“More or less.”

She dug the handkerchief out of her dress pocket and handed it to him, then quickly turned back to her syrup, not only so it would not burn, but so that she could carry on this conversation without stumbling over her words. “Do you know who that belongs to?”

Luka ran his thumb over the family crest as he inspected the pair of birds. “It’s no wonder you don’t recognize it. It’s not a real coat-of-arms; just the Fathoms’ design they’ve been trying to pass off as a crest for the last couple decades. But I couldn’t say who this belongs to, exactly. They aren’t particularly social.”

“Are they here tonight?”

“Possibly, if the Agrestes are.”

Marinette froze, spoon mid-syrup drizzle. Her neat, thin coil turned into a thick ring of syrup around her dowel and dripped heavy drops back into the saucepan. “They’re close with the Agrestes?”

“Madame Agreste and Madame Fathom are sisters. Identical twins, actually.”

The word “twins” slammed into Marinette like a carriage running at full speed. The possibility that her young man and his mercurial attitude could in fact be two young men struck her with such certainty that she knew it had to be true. While it didn’t account for everything—like the distinct handkerchiefs, for twins would surely be from the same family—it did account for other things, like the scratch that came and went, or the misunderstandings in their conversations. But perhaps the most pressing concern remained unaddressed: what was the strange black thread around her young man’s throat? And was that shared between them as well?

“Where did you get this handkerchief, anyway? You’re not courting a gentleman, are you?”

“No!”

Once again, all eyes and ears of the staff attuned to hers and Luka’s conversation, and Marinette struggled to regain a hold of herself.

“No, he just—he dropped it in the market—I only thought—I meant to return it if he was here, but I didn’t know—I don’t know his name.”

“I’m sure he has a dozen just like it.” Luka handed the handkerchief back to her.

She shoved it into her pocket and tried her best to salvage what she could of her sloppy spiral. It didn’t look particularly promising. “I’m sure you’re right.”

“I usually am.”

Marinette blew a big fat raspberry at him, and he laughed. She had to admit, as much as she enjoyed Luka’s discomfort and wished he would get properly angry, she enjoyed his laughter the most. It was so hard to consider the truth that Luka was still made of all of the things she had liked about him, as much as they were both made of all the things that had driven them apart.

“I’ll see you later tonight,” he said, as if it was already decided that she would attend the dance that evening.

She pursed her lips. “I will think about it.”

“Maybe think less. You get lost in your own head too much, Marinette.”

But as Luka squeezed her shoulder and made his way upstairs, Marinette was already turning her thoughts back to her plan to return the handkerchief. It was possible the Fathoms were not even here, and if they were as reclusive as Luka suggested, perhaps she would merely have to hope she got lucky in the marketplace again. She knew that Madame Agreste would have to return to the jeweler for that brooch. Would one of the identical young men join her? And how was she to tell which was which?

She decided to, at the very least, just determine if the Fathoms were present at this dinner. She couldn’t ask the staff, at least not directly, so she would have to figure it out another way. While she finished the tarts by placing a delicate jasmine blossom inside each coil of orange sugar, she formulated a plan.

Once her role in the tart preparation was finished, she packed up her box of supplies and said her goodbyes to the household staff. But as she stepped out onto the grounds, she did not make her way home, not yet.

Marinette, though she had a penchant for clumsiness and got lost easily, had a surprisingly high spatial awareness. She was good at understanding how things fit together, which was an essential skill in her work tinkering and repairing, so it did not take her long to figure out which of the windows on the second floor led to the dining room of the house. With one hand, she hiked up her skirt and apron, and with the other, dug her nails into the mortar between bricks. She hauled herself up rather slowly, careful to catch her boots in the gaps between the stones rather than on the hem of her dress. The rough bricks pierced her palms like upturned pincushions, but she didn’t let it stop her.

As she reached the window, she managed to find a steady grip on the ledge of the window and an outcropping of brickwork to place her feet against. She could hear Luka’s violin, muffled through the glass, and the low murmur of conversation. Cautiously, she peered into the room.

The dining room was lit by chandeliers above and candelabras on the table. Winter greenery filled the hall, and about two dozen guests were gathered around the table as Marinette’s dessert tarts were placed in front of them. Marinette squinted at the high-backed chairs in her line of sight, searching for that familiar golden-blonde hair. It occurred to her that even if she did see the boy she was looking for, she would have no way of knowing if he was an Agreste or a Fathom. There would be no way to discern a scratch on his hand from this distance, and even then, it had likely healed by now.

She did not see him through the window, so she carefully edged her way around the column of bricks to the window on the other side. Perhaps he was at the other end of the table and she might be afforded a clearer view if she—

Her foot slipped. She reached out desperately and managed to grab the window ledge, which arrested her fall, but her grip was tenuous at best. She kicked her feet against the wall, searching for purchase, and let out a sigh of relief when her boots found a crevice to wedge themselves into. She carefully hauled herself up and realized that her near-fall had loosened the glass pane a fraction of an inch. Luka’s song came through more vibrantly, and the conversation more clearly.

She strained her ears, but it was hard to discern her young man’s voice in the conversation. He had always spoken so softly, in each of his moods, that she wasn’t sure how to listen for his gentle tones amid a group of voices. She searched again for that crown of gold and—yes, there it was, at the end of the table next to a young woman with dark hair like hers, dressed in a fine red gown. Marinette didn’t need to see the candlelight glint off the large silver ring, embossed with that same bold strokes that marked the household’s cabinets to know that this girl must be the daughter of Lady Tsurugi.

Her heart stuttered and her stomach twisted as her young man smiled politely at the lady by his side. Then he turned his head, his eyes found hers, and her stomach and heart alike dropped from her body.

And then all of her dropped.

She grasped for the window again, but the shutter slid open and out of her grasp. She fell into the grass below, which was at least some cushion to her fall, though not one she would have chosen if given other options. Her head throbbed and her lungs spasmed fruitlessly for a moment. She blinked at the stars above her, trying to clear the flares of white that burst through her vision. Distantly she heard her young man’s voice through the now open window, “The air’s a little stale in here; I think I’d like to take a short walk on the grounds before we continue the evening.”

Marinette pushed herself up, ignoring the way the world spun around her. She needed to go, now.

“May I join you?” a feminine voice replied.

Marinette did not wait to hear the response. She hurriedly gathered her box back in her arms and limped to the gravel road that led up to the entrance of the house. She had to leave, and quickly. She considered dropping the handkerchief for him to find, but decided it was better to disappear altogether and let him think he had imagined her.

But she could not move very quickly. Her chest was still trying to get its rhythm back, and with her thin breaths she was hardly capable of taking off in a sprint. Her head, too, throbbed with each step. She winced and rubbed her neck, afraid to brush her fingers against her scalp itself. She would surely have a lump in the morning.

Marinette was only about halfway to the gates of the grounds when she heard a voice hiss, “Mademoiselle, wait!”

She did not wait. If anything, she tried to move faster. The voice had not called particularly loudly, and it made it easy to ignore.

But, despite her rapid steps and breaths brought on by fresh panic, the voice grew closer.

“Mademoiselle, please!” His footsteps were hurried, almost like he was running. It was only another moment before a hand brushed her elbow and she could no longer pretend ignorance.

It was indeed her young man, still in his fine dinner clothes and no coat, and coming up behind him was the young lady he had been sitting beside. While he paused to catch his breath, Marinette considered taking the chance to get away from him.

But before she could quite commit to running off, he said, “I’m glad I saw you,” and her heart decided her legs were more useful as jelly than as means of escape.

As Marinette struggled to maintain control over both her mind and her body, she searched the young man before her for any sign to tell her which young man she was speaking to. But the dim evening light hid any chance of catching sight of a healing scratch on his hand.

“Adrien, who is this?” the young woman asked, but Marinette did not take this question as evidence of the young man’s identity. The last time she had seen him, he had practically told her that he was not Adrien at all, even though Monsieur and Madame Agreste had called him so.

The young man—perhaps he was Adrien Agreste or perhaps he was a Fathom—lifted a hand to her like he might introduce her, then he paused, tipped his head, and gave her a wry smile. “This is—well, I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t know your name, Mademoiselle.”

But she was not eager to give out her name when she could not say what his was. She dug the handkerchief embroidered with birds from her pocket and handed it to him. “Is this yours?” she asked.

The soft smile on the corner of his mouth scrunched up into something of a frown. “Where did you come across this?”

“Well, I don’t suppose you gave it to me.”

“No, I didn’t. But I do know who it belongs to. I could return it, if you like.”

“If you please,” she said, now more or less convinced that this young man was truly Adrien Agreste, which meant that this was the young man who was meant to propose to Lady Kagami. No matter how fast her heart raced nor how jellified her legs became, this was no place for her to linger. She adjusted her grip on her box of supplies. “Well, with that done, I had better take my leave.”

“Wait,” he said again. But when she did wait, he did not quite seem to know what to say. “Are you—I mean—will you attend the public dance this evening?”

Marinette was afraid to answer one way or another. “I’m thinking about it,” she said.

“Might I go with you?”

“Adrien!” the young woman beside him hissed.

“Sorry—might we go with you?”

She put a hand on his shoulder, as if she might pull him back to the house. “Adrien! We’re expected—”

“We’re expected to what?” He took her hand from his shoulder, but made no move to follow her inside. “We’ll sit together all evening and listen to my father complain about the economy or your mother complain about the decorum of youth? Perhaps my mother will entertain us with a song twenty years out of date? What if we went to a dance instead?”

The young lady’s pale pink lips remained in a firm line, unmoved by Adrien’s plea. “We’ll get into trouble.”

“What is the worst your mother will do?”

She opened her mouth, like she expected a witty reply to be waiting for her, but no sound came out. After a moment, she admitted, “I don’t know. I’ve never been in trouble before.”

“Then pretend. Imagine for a minute. What is the absolute worst thing your mother would do?”

She gave it the thought that Adrien had asked of her, then suggested, “Lock me in my rooms, I suppose.”

“And would that be so terrible?”

A smile flitted across the young lady’s face, and though Marinette did not know her, she found it odd. It mirrored Adrien’s mischievous smile, but it did not look at home, like the creases of such a motion were fresh and unfamiliar, as if her cheeks were unaccustomed to such movement of the muscles.

“Let’s attend a public dance,” the young lady agreed, and gestured for Marinette to lead the way.

Marinette stared at the two of them. “But won’t you—I mean… you’re expected—”

Her young man nudged his shoulder against hers and walked on down the path. “If we all did as we were expected to, there would never be any room to have fun.”

“You don’t even have a coat,” she protested, but hurried after him, afraid any trouble he could get into would be far worse if he were left alone.

“I quite like winter nights.”

“Why?” Marinette struggled to keep up with his fresh, rather excited pace. “It’s so cold and dry and—”

“The nights are long,” he shrugged, and reached for the box in her hands. “Allow me.”

She did not even have a moment to protest before he relieved her of her burden. Marinette wondered how she had ever mistaken her two young men for one person. The other, so sullen and reticent was nothing like this one, who smiled easily and walked with a spring in his step, even while carrying her crate of cooking and crafting supplies. Perhaps they had been crafted in the same mold, but the difference in the way they made use of that mold was practically a chasm.

“I’ve never been to a dance before,” the young woman said as she matched Marinette’s pace. “I suppose there will be a lot of people there?”

Marinette wondered what she had done to meet the two most sheltered gentry in the country. Perhaps she should not be so surprised they were willing to abandon their dinner party with their parents and follow a strange young girl into town instead. Any experience must be a novelty to them.

“I suppose so,” Marinette said. “Winter dances might have less turn out than summer, but there’s usually enough to keep things lively.”

“Good,” the young man said. “I’m hoping for something a bit more interesting than my uncle drinking enough to think he can carry a tune.”

“And which uncle would that be?” Marinette asked.

“My Uncle Colt Fathom.”

“And that would make you…?”

He turned his head to smile at her. “Adrien Agreste. And you, Mademoiselle?”

“Marinette.”

“Just Marinette?”

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

He raised his eyebrows, but did not comment on the uniqueness of her last name the way she expected gentry to. Instead, he followed with the appropriate manners and introduced his companion. “And this is Lady Kagami Tsurugi.”

“I am not a lady yet,” Kagami Tsurugi protested.

“And,” Marinette prodded, “exactly how many times have we met, Monsieur Agreste?”

He pursed his lips and looked up at the stars in thought. “Three, I suppose. Four if you count tonight.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow. She had hardly had more than four encounters with her young man. How could they have nearly all been him?

“How did the two of you meet so many times and fail to exchange names?” Kagami asked.

“Coincidence,” Marinette said, and Adrien said, “I went looking for her, but never had the courage to ask for her name.”

“You went looking for me?” she spluttered.

“Did you think I found you at the Midnight Market by accident?”

Marinette’s cheeks burned, but if he mentioned the Midnight Market, then she knew for certain that this boy was not just Adrien Agreste, but he was rather specifically the boy without the cat scratch. The handkerchief might have been evidence enough, but Marinette was glad to have additional confirmation.

She did not forget, however, that if he truly was Adrien, then Monsieur and Madame Agreste still expected him to propose to Lady Kagami, a fact he had tried to obscure from her when she had brought it up at the Midnight Market. Whatever kindness or grace he displayed, she needed to keep him at a distance. It would not do to involve herself in a scandal of this magnitude.

“By my count, Monsieur,” she said, “we’ve only met twice before this evening.”

He hummed up at the stars again. “If you say so.”

He kept up a steady conversation between their group of three as he walked. Though he was already a good deal more conversational than his counterpart, he was far more conversational than the instances in Lady Tsurugi’s parlor and the Midnight Market. It was as if being out in the open air made him into a different person.

But as much as she noted how he differed from the other young man, whom she now supposed was his cousin, Marinette also marked the unusual alertness her two young men shared. Adrien’s ears still turned in the direction of approaching carriages, and his shoulders still tensed each time the silhouette of another traveler appeared on the path ahead of them, but his eyes did not hunt for escape routes the way they had before, and he did not pause to check each word before he shared it, as if each word he offered her was at risk of being turned back against him.

As the unusual trio reached the town, he turned down the street that led towards her bakery without any guidance from her. She wondered how he knew where it was, if he was not the boy who had suffered a cat scratch, but she did not ask. He refused to let her take the box from him and instead followed her instructions to set it by the door. In truth, it needed to go upstairs, but she was not about to let this young man she had only just learned the name of into her private quarters anymore than she was about to let a young genteel lady she did not know see the state of her blended workroom and bedroom.

“You’ll have to lead the way from here,” he said, and so Marinette led Adrien and Kagami to the public hall.

Music and light spilled from the open windows of the building that served as everything from town meeting hall to center of holiday festivities.

As they approached the doors, Kagami Tsurugi hesitated. She reached for Adrien’s wrist, and the pair stopped in the street. Marinette, too, waited.

“Perhaps this is a bad idea,” Kagami said. “Surely our absence has been noticed by now.”

“Then let’s make it worth it,” Adrien grinned, and pulled Kagami into the hall without even waiting for Marinette.

Marinette hurried after them, anxious that, despite their stations and certain knowledge of social graces, their inexperience might lead them right into a blunder. She caught up to them just as they made their way through the ajar doors. A dance was in full swing, led by a small band of musicians. Decor was simple, only a few winter blooms and the occasional sprig of mistletoe or holly hanging in the windows. There were a few corner benches, occupied mostly by the elderly. A pair of children wove their way through the dance floor, chasing each other around ladies’ skirts and beneath gentlemen’s arms.

A few folks turned to look at the new arrivals, and there was more than one raised eyebrow as they took in the fine clothes of the newcomers. One elderly woman turned her head to whisper something in her husband’s ear, though her eyes remained steadfastly on Adrien, Kagami, and Marinette.

“Marinette, ought you introduce us to the hosts?” Kagami asked.

Adrien wrinkled his nose at the suggestion of such formality. “I’d like to dance,” he said.

Marinette quickly pulled her new friends, if she could call them that, into a corner instead. As she scanned the room for Alya or Nino, she said, “Just wait until the next dance begins. And yes, Mademoiselle Tsurugi, I can introduce you to the aldermen, but I imagine they already know who you are.”

She found Alya easily, pouring drinks for an older couple who seemed to have had their fill of dancing over the many years as they hobbled to a nearby bench with their full glasses. Nino was a little harder to find, tucked away on his own in a corner. As Marinette led her new charges in his direction, his eyes met hers, but instead of the warm, pleasant friendship Marinette was used to seeing, a strange anxiety took over his expression at the sight of her.

“You’re here,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, rather puzzled by his surprise, and introduced him to her new companions.

Nino hardly seemed aware of their titles as he nodded politely to Kagami and shook Adrien’s hand. Immediately after releasing Adrien’s polite grasp, his hand went to his coat pocket and Marinette understood his anxiety.

“Are you planning on proposing tonight?” she asked.

His dark complexion turned ashen. “I wasn’t really sure, but—I suppose there’s no point in waiting if you’re already here.” He swallowed, but his jaw remained tight.

“It’ll be perfect,” Marinette assured him. “She’ll love it.” And, taking a leaf out of Adrien’s book of encouragement, she offered, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Nino looked Marinette straight in the eyes and said, “She could laugh in my face, kick me to the ground, and spit on me.”

It was hard not to laugh at Nino’s dramatic imagination. Marinette barely tamped down a smile. Even Adrien, who did not know Nino, could not restrain a snort, and Kagami turned her head and hid her smile behind her hand.

“None of that will happen,” Marinette assured him. As the music slowed and was replaced by a polite applause, Marinette again assured him that everything would be perfect, then led Kagami and Adrien to the small cluster of councilmen who had put together the early winter event.

The eldest raised his thick white eyebrows as Marinette introduced them. He shook Adrien’s hand with a surprising vigor for his thin frame.

“Quite a surprise to see you both,” he said, and inclined his head to Kagami. His eyes scanned behind them for any sign of their parents, and he frowned when he saw none.

As if reading his expression, his neighbor, no less thin but a great deal younger, elbowed him playfully. “There are worse places for a young couple to sneak away to,” he said. And as the band began to play a new tune, he held his hand out to Kagami. “Would you indulge me in one dance before you spend the rest of the evening with your partner?”

“Oh—” she hesitated, and glanced at Adrien and Marinette alike for their opinion.

“My wife doesn’t dance on account of an illness when she was young,” the councilman added, and gestured to where a young woman sat with an older woman who bore the same square jaw as the councilman, “but if Lady Tsurugi’s daughter would indulge me in one dance this evening, I think that might satisfy me for the rest of the winter.”

It was difficult to say if it was the councilman’s assurance that there was nothing untoward in the offer, Marinette’s nod of encouragement, or Adrien’s absolute apathy that prompted Kagami to take the man’s hand.

“And how about I get another round of practice in?” Adrien asked with a rather cheeky smile as he took Marinette’s hand and pulled her to the dance floor, too.

Marinette’s heart raced as his fingers wrapped around hers. Her eyes slid past him, however, until they found Kagami. She was at once worried that Kagami might be unfamiliar with the dance steps and worried about what might happen if she allowed her eyes to linger on Adrien’s smile.

However, Kagami seemed quite at ease with her partner, and her smile, despite its initially reluctant appearance, seemed to be settling in for the evening. Marinette wished she could feel that same ease in her dance partner, but she found it hard to be sure of anything about her young man—whom, she reminded herself, was not hers at all. He was Kagami’s.

The dance began, and Adrien readily led the charge of the minuet.

“You and I met at Lady Tsurugi’s party a few weeks ago,” she said in an attempt to clarify what she could of who this boy really was.

“You taught me to dance,” he said. The words were no sooner out of his mouth than Marinette was stumbling over her own feet. He caught her neatly, and her face burned so terribly that she kept her eyes down, watching where his hands clasped hers.

The heavy silver ring around his finger seemed to glare back at her. She wondered if it would show the same black thread tied around his throat that she had seen in the jewelry shop.

“And,” she took in a deep breath to try to cool her embarrassment, “it was your handkerchief that you gave me at the Midnight Market.”

“You promised to return it, and instead you gave me one marked with someone else’s crest.”

“Your uncle’s crest.” Marinette dared to look at his face in hopes that she might glean some clue from it.

But his mischievous smile was as strong and unreadable as ever. “Indeed.”

“But it’s not your uncle’s initials on that handkerchief.”

“Don’t be silly; I’m quite fond of my Uncle Folt Fathom,” he quipped and it made her laugh so hard that she snorted and stumbled backwards.

Adrien lurched forward, but his hand grabbed hers too late. Gravity already had its hold on her and the two of them went tumbling into one of the tables. A plate of fruit fell against her chest, marking her shift in dark red stains, and a platter of hard cheeses struck his shoulders, leaving the two of them collapsed in a mess of hors d’oeuvres.

There were gasps from a few dancers nearby, but Adrien readily helped her to her feet and the concern quickly turned to laughter. He pulled her aside to a window near the table set up with drink refreshments and used the very handkerchief she had given to him that night, the one that notably did not belong to him, to dab the spots from her dress.

“If it isn’t yours,” she said quietly, “who does it belong to?”

He hesitated, as if he might find a worthy joke or perhaps a lie, but his wit seemed to have escaped him. He was forced to give a plain answer: “My cousin.”

“Do the two of you swap places often?”

And this question, of all things, dulled the smile in his eyes. “We did when we were younger, until our parents got sick of it and made us stop.”

“But—your mother called him ‘Adrien’ when I met him.”

“Of course she did. It would be quite a scandal if everyone found out the truth.”

Marinette’s brow furrowed. “The truth?”

But another collective gasp from the crowd prevented Marinette from getting an answer—if Adrien had even been about to give her one. They both turned and found, in the center of the dance floor, Nino on one knee before Alya. The crowd clapped politely as she took the ring from him and slid it onto her own finger, too impatient for him to fumble it onto her hand.

Alya planted a kiss on Nino’s cheek and, as the band began to resume their song, pulled Nino over towards Marinette. She waved the ring, a thin brass band studded with a small diamond, like it was the very seal of the Emperor himself.

“You helped, didn’t you?” Alya asked with a broad smile.

“Nino did most of the choosing,” Marinette said with a smile. “I just helped him be confident in his choice.”

Alya kissed Marinette’s cheek and Nino thanked Marinette again, but the moment another dance began, Alya yanked Nino back onto the dance floor.

Marinette turned to Adrien and tried for a friendly smile. “I suppose you ought to follow suit. Aren’t you meant to propose tonight as well?”

But his mischievous smile was long gone, and the strained expression that had overtaken it turned away from her. “I’m afraid my mother has the rings, so it will have to wait.”

Marinette swallowed, afraid to ask the question that sprang into her head, but it tumbled out regardless, tripping over her tongue as it went, but unstoppable all the same. “Did you—did you really want to come to a dance, or are you stalling your engagement?”

“It’s not my engagement, it’s her engagement.”

Marinette searched the crowd for Kagami. She had found another partner for the new dance, a young boy perhaps half her age, but her initially uncertain smile now looked relaxed and genuine. She seemed to be having a good time, and though Marinette had not known the young lady for long, she did not think she deserved the bitterness in Adrien’s voice.

But when she turned back to Adrien to tell him so, she found that Adrien was not looking at Kagami. He was looking down at the thick silver ring around his finger.

“When you say ‘her engagement,’” Marinette whispered slowly, “you mean your mother?”

“It would just be nice,” he said, mirroring her low tone, “to decide one thing for myself. Just one thing.”

Without truly thinking about it, Marinette slipped Alya’s seeing stone from her pocket. She hesitated, though, afraid to pair the misery in his voice with the truth of the thread around his throat. Though Madame and Monsieur Agreste were not here with their tight grips and meaningful stares, she could feel the way their presence constrained Adrien just as well as they had constrained his cousin in the market.

Adrien eyed the red stone warily. “Is that a true seeing stone?”

Marinette swallowed. Though she had used it discreetly the other day, somehow, in this moment, secrecy seemed a violation of the intimacy that had burgeoned beneath Adrien’s quiet confessions. “May I?” she asked.

He nodded once, uncertain but resigned. “I don’t know what you’ll see—if it will look any different—or… well, maybe it will explain it better than I could.”

Marinette did not think that was particularly true, but she knew better than to press Adrien for the details of the curse. Certainly not here, in public, where any prying ears could hear and turn whispers into rumors.

She held the seeing stone between her thumb and forefinger and examined the ring on Adrien’s finger. There, just as taut as she had seen on his cousin, was the black thread knotted around the thick ring. This close to Adrien, she could not view him in whole, as she had his cousin, but she followed the direction of the thread. She reached her fingers out to it, cautious and careful, willing herself to feel what ought to otherwise be invisible. It was like trying to grip gossamer thread, thin and wispy, bending just out of reach.

Still, she followed the trail up to his throat, where it wrapped around once, and disappeared through the crowd and back the way they had come. Marinette rested her fingers on his throat, where the line doubled back on itself, tightening like a noose. Though she could not feel the thread itself, she watched it flex as he swallowed. The pulse of his heart pounded against the tips of her fingers. She glanced up and met his eyes, still as green as the day they had met but now cold and empty, despite the wry smile on his face.

“Does it show you my collar?” he asked.

“It—” Marinette bit down on her lip. “To be honest, it looks a bit more like a garrotte.”

He laughed, hollow and empty, but still a laugh. As if he could undo the expression, he rubbed his hand over his face and turned his gaze up to the ceiling. Suddenly, a genuine laugh burst from his chest, and the mischievous smile returned.

“Well, isn’t that lucky,” he said.

Marinette’s brow furrowed. She had only just accepted that her young man’s mercurial moods were the result of being two different young men, but Adrien seemed determined to prove he could be fickle all on his own.

“‘Lucky’?”

“I’ve spent all evening thinking about how I might ask to kiss you without being ungentlemanly, and now here we are, under a bundle of mistletoe.”

Marinette followed his gaze up to the cluster of pale green leaves and white berries, tied together with a bright red ribbon.

“Oh,” was all she could manage.

His fingers brushed against her chin, coaxing her face towards his in a suggestion of movement rather than a demand.

“You could say no,” he said.

Marinette struggled to find enough breath for her words. They fell from her lips, little more than empty whispers. “That would be unlucky.”

“We can't have that.”

His other hand slid over hers as he drew closer. Marinette was conscious of three things and three things only: the green in his eyes, the wary smile on his lips, and the weight of his ring against her hand.

And then he kissed her and she was conscious of nothing else. Marinette might have melted entirely if not for the chill by the window. It was a painfully chaste kiss, as it had to be for they were at a public dance and her friends were nearby and Adrien was meant to propose—

She pulled away, but not far. The golden strands of his hair brushed against her forehead and his eyes consumed her vision wholly. She slid her hand over his hand. His fingers curled around hers, and she laced hers between his. Her fingers pinched the ring around his finger, but before she could so much as ask, his hand was over her wrist in a panic.

“Don't,” he said with a breathless desperation so alike in manner to the young man she had met in the marketplace that she wondered for a moment how she had ever thought of them as two different people. All the wariness and anxiety she had noted in the bakery and the jewelry shop returned. He even glanced around them, as if in search of some additional threat.

His eyes found Kagami Tsurugi, staring at the two of them with no more signs of the smile she had been wearing since joining the party in earnest. Instead, her pale pink lips were pressed into a thin line and splotches of red bloomed suddenly on her cheeks. She turned and left the public hall.

Marinette and Adrien, without sharing a glance or word, hurried after her, as if they were of one mind in both their concern and their guilt.

They caught up with her not far outside the doors, arms wrapped around her shoulders as her thin dress made for an indoor party did little to stave off the evening’s early winter chills.

Adrien reached for her elbow, just as he had stalled Marinette when she had tried to ignore him at the beginning of the evening. “Kagami, I’m sorry—”

“I don't want to hear it,” she snapped as she knocked his hand away. “I don't want to be patronized or lied to. It's clear why you were so insistent on coming here this evening.”

“No, that’s not it, I just—I don’t get many opportunities like this. I try to take them when they come.”

“I should have known someone who flaunts consequences so readily would pay no mind to his own actions.”

“Don't pretend you want this engagement any more than I do—”

“And how would you know what I want?” she demanded, voice surprisingly sharp for how demurely she had behaved all evening. “You’ve never asked what I want.”

This accusation clearly daunted him. His frustration vanished for a moment, but it rallied almost immediately as he countered, “We’ve barely spent two dinners together. Of course I don’t know what you want. I’m not the one who you ought to be angry with—”

“You could have called on me! You could have put any effort into this, and perhaps neither of us would still be this miserable. There could have been a trip to the market, or an afternoon tea, or a walk on the grounds—”

“No, Kagami, there couldn’t have been. I can’t—” Adrien hesitated. He glanced at Marinette, as if somehow she might know what he was trying to say, as if she could explain for him.

But she could not fathom what he was trying to say any more than Kagami could.

He again began to twist his ring around his finger and turned his eyes to the ground. “I can’t make calls for afternoon tea or walks on the grounds. I don’t get to take trips into town. Why do you think my mother’s insisting we get engaged in the dead of winter?”

“It’s not that odd,” Kagami said, though there was a touch of doubt in her voice. “That couple inside just got engaged.”

But Marinette knew it was not a common time for engagements. Nino had been saving for years now, and Alya was growing impatient. They could have waited for a more traditional spring proposal and summer wedding, but what was timing to a couple in love?

Love, however, did not seem to be relevant here.

“We aren’t that couple,” Adrien said softly. His jaw tightened with clenched teeth and his grip around the ring on his finger turned white. For a moment, Marinette thought he was going to yank the ring off and hurl it to the ground, but instead, he let out a defeated sigh. “I’m sorry. You're right; I’ve behaved poorly tonight. Perhaps we should head back before our parents send hounds after us. Might as well be done with what we’re supposed to be done with tonight.”

“There’s no point,” she said, and turned away from him. “I’m not going to say yes.”

Adrien stared at her back, and his shoulders turned stiff and rigid. “But—our parents—”

“You seem perfectly at ease breaking your parents’ rules. Why not break this one, too?”

“Because—I—my mother would kill me over this.”

“No, she wouldn’t.”

“She may as well.”

“You asked me to imagine the worst my mother would do if I were to slip away this evening. Truly, what’s the worst your mother would do if you did not propose to me?”

Adrien’s frustration turned into a bitter sneer that Marinette was startled to find left her unsettled. It did not appear to belong to the boy who had so softly asked for a kiss beneath the mistletoe, nor the boy who had grinned about running away from an important dinner party. There was something deeply unpleasant buried beneath his kind, charming, and silly smiles.

“My mother’s already done the worst she can do. And if we don't marry, she’ll never undo it.”

“‘Undo it’?” Kagami repeated, brow furrowing with confusion.

But Marinette felt no confusion. Her hand flew to her mouth in shock. The thread around his throat and the comments about a scandal came together into a picture as unpleasant and unkind as the tableau his cousin had played in the marketplace the other day. The thread around his throat was not just any curse or binding spell. It was a curse his mother had cast.

Curses on the whole were rare and uncouth. No one openly sold curses at the Midnight Market, though Marinette imagined if you asked in the right way, a witch might give you what you were looking for.

To use a curse at all, either one of your own or a purchased curse, would risk social scandal and ostracization. To seek that sort of retribution meant risking all privilege of society, and so the need for such revenge had to be desperate and great.

To curse one’s own family, however, was a far worse offense, tantamount to disowning children. Marinette had thought the thread tied between Madame Agreste and the young man in the market had been a way of saving him from something worse, something that had rebounded terribly. But if what Adrien said was true, that his mother needed to undo what she had already done…

As shocking as that revelation was, it was not the worst thought that entered Marinette’s head.

“Adrien,” she began, voice shaky as she tried to put words to her new dreaded understanding, but he turned away from her and reached for Kagami’s arm once more.

“Forget I said anything,” he said quickly, and plastered on a smile as soft as any of his smiles that evening, all mischief replaced with apology. “Let me walk you back home, Kagami.”

“Wait, Adrien,” Marinette tried again, reaching for urgency, aware that she probably sounded desperate.

“I know the way back well enough,” he said. “Thank you, Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng for a lovely evening. I’m sorry to cut it short.”

There was a finality to his gratitude, a certainty that there was no more to be said, that whatever that moment in the hall had been between them, whatever laughter and kisses they had exchanged were a moment of mischief, and he was meant to leave it behind.

But Marinette could not let it be over. Her heart raced as she watched Kagami and Adrien disappear into the darkness. It could not be over because she knew something that he did not.

She knew that if his mother had cast the curse, then the ring around her finger meant that Madame Agreste had barely restrained a curse of her own that had rebounded. And if that was true, and what Marinette had seen in the jewelry shop applied to Adrien and his cousin alike, then she knew that there was no hope for Adrien, no matter how many of his mother’s rules he followed.

His mother may have been the one who had cast the curse, whatever it was, but until the original components were restored, the curse could not be undone. Madame Agreste’s insistence that the peacock-shaped gem be repaired before the wedding suddenly made more sense.

Whatever freedom his mother had promised him if he followed through with this marriage, she could not deliver on. No one could free him from this curse, not as long as that gem remained broken.

#mlbigbang2024 #miraculous ladybug fic #ml fic #aywgtccc

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aidanchaser · 19 days ago

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Here's the grand (soft, really, not so grand) finale. A quiet epilogue.

Thank you to @yellowbullet100 for all of your incredible hard work, @jademoon2u for the fucking stunning art that i look at daily, and @mlbigbang2024 for organizing because this fic would never have been completed, and certainly not to this caliber, without the team's support. It's been a pleasure working with everyone and I've enjoyed making friends and getting to know folks I might not have encountered otherwise. It's been a blast. <3

Chapter Eight: On the Subject of the Flourish Many young witches find the flourish required to complete a spell the most difficult aspect of casting to master. Nights spent memorizing components and rituals or meditating to solidify intentions can feel wasted when confronted with the nebulous nature of selecting an appropriate conclusion to a spell. Though many aspects of witchcraft can be taught, the flourish has long been considered something instinctual and unteachable. And indeed, many intuitive casters perform a flourish without even articulating such a feature, but rather sensing when a spell is simply concluded.

Despite the elusive nature of the flourish, the greatest spells rely on variations of the three strongest and oldest magical flourishes. The most common is a flash of prestige, often used to conclude an illusion or a spell performed for entertainment. The most unpredictable, though perhaps the most powerful, is to add the spellcaster’s or even the target’s blood to the end of the spell, which can make for particularly potent charms and conjurations. But it would be remiss of this author to fail to address the most neglected flourish, despite—or perhaps because of—its reputation as a cliché. That is, of course, the flourish of true love’s kiss.

The arrangement that made Tom and Sabine happiest was to let the boys sleep downstairs by the fireplace and the girls sleep upstairs in Marinette’s room. When the morning’s work started, the boys were roused and sent to finish sleeping in Tom and Sabine’s room.

Most mornings, Adrien couldn’t fall back asleep, and he found himself in the kitchen, helping with the earliest rounds of bread-making. He took to the process in a way Marinette never had, and she was surprised to feel a bit of jealousy as she watched her father teach Adrien how to use a rolling pin. There was no bitterness in the jealousy, though, just a bit of longing. Mostly, Marinette felt that something her father had been missing was set right now that Adrien was here.

While Adrien enjoyed helping out in the early morning, there were some mornings when Adrien couldn’t fall back asleep and Félix also could not fall back asleep. On those mornings, Adrien slipped up to Marinette’s room and roused Kagami so that she could slip downstairs.

Those first few weeks, Félix, Adrien, and Kagami hardly left the bakery. There were gifts delivered, food sent, even trunks of belongings sent from Félix and Adrien’s home, but as Sabine had ordered, all of those things were refused. The only gifts that crossed the threshold of the kitchen were letters from Amélie, signed and sealed, with the occasional financial assistance enclosed inside.

The only things sent for Kagami were dictated letters filled with tirades and demands, lengthy speeches about the burdens of her birthright that she was foolishly denying. Kagami tossed each of these into the fire with little more than a glance.

One letter arrived for Marinette, detailing an offer of apprenticeship to the jeweler who had helped her repair the brooch. Marinette followed Kagami’s example and burned it in the fireplace, as she did the second and third letters. It wasn’t until Luka came by to deliver the man’s offer himself that she finally believed that the apprenticeship was real. She accepted the permanent position, and used her evenings to teach Kagami about charms and potions. She kept her weekly stall at the Midnight Market, and found it was particularly nice to have a friend with her while Alya was busy performing.

On one of the mornings that neither Adrien nor Félix could sleep, Adrien made his way into Marinette’s bed and pulled the blankets tight around them to keep out the deep winter chill. But despite her warmth and the blankets, sleep refused to follow.

“Sometimes,” he murmured, as the yellow sun began to creep into her windows, “I wish I could be a cat again, just to curl up in your lap.”

She ran her fingers through his hair and scratched the space behind his ear, just like she might have when he was a cat. “I like getting to have all of you,” she murmured, and hooked an ankle through his, only to yelp and draw back. “Your feet are freezing! Maybe I would prefer some squishable paws covered in fur.”

“Being a cat had some perks.”

Marinette let the silence settle in around them, until she heard that gentle hum in the back of his throat that was almost—but not quite—a purr.

“Alya and Nino set a date for their wedding,” she murmured.

“Oh?”

“The first day of spring.”

“Hm… that’s a bit early.”

“Early?” Marinette laughed. “They’ve been courting for years. I’m surprised they didn’t get married last month.”

“I was just hoping for the first day of summer,” Adrien murmured sleepily.

“Why do you care what day they get married?”

“Because I thought you’d like to get married at the same time as Alya.”

Marinette’s heart stopped and her hands stilled in his hair. It wasn’t that it was an unwarranted statement, but it was not one she had prepared for.

“You can’t decide we’re marrying on the first day of summer when you haven’t even proposed yet.”

“I was waiting for you to propose.”

“I’m not the one who’s supposed to propose!”

Adrien yawned and draped his arm over her waist. “But you’re the one who works in a jewelry shop. Did you want me to propose with a loaf of bread?”

She laughed as he nestled his head into the space between her chin and shoulder. “Only you would make something that is supposed to be romantic so silly.”

“When you do pick out a ring for me,” he murmured into her neck, “just make sure that you don’t sneeze on it.”

“Stop!” She playfully swatted his shoulder and tried to wriggle away, but he held her fast. “I have told you a hundred times, it was probably my bloody nose that triggered the magical flourish at the end of that spell.”

He pushed himself up and kissed her nose, despite her attempts to wriggle away. “I’m not allowed to be romantic about your snotty bloody nose?”

“No.”

“Hm. Which parts of you am I allowed to find romantic?”

“My lips.”

“Cliché.” But he pressed his lips to hers with the mischievous smile that always made her heart stutter.

“My neck,” she added with a mischievous smile of her own, and he pressed his lips there, too.

They were married on the first day of summer, like Adrien had planned. As much as Marinette had toyed with the idea of rushing things to marry at the same time as Alya and Nino, she delayed, largely to keep her father from dying of a heart attack.

But, despite the delay, Adrien and Marinette were not alone at the altar. They took their vows and, alongside them, Kagami and Félix took their vows as well.

Amélie Fathom was the only person from Félix and Adrien’s family allowed into the church. The rest of the seats were filled with Marinette’s family and friends, who, most certainly, were also Adrien, Félix, and Kagami’s family and friends.

Tom had offered to walk Kagami down the aisle along with Marinette, but Marinette was not surprised when Kagami refused.

“I shall go alone,” she said simply, and when this appeared to hurt Tom’s feelings, Adrien asked if it would be all right for him to be walked down the aisle by Tom instead.

Adrien’s sense of humor had quickly become the heart of the Dupain-Cheng’s kitchen. And, by and by, Marinette began to recognize Félix’s humor, borne in dry comments and cool commentary on his cousin’s absurdities.

Félix’s smile, however, remained an elusive thing, caught only in moments where Kagami’s attention was called away from him, but his gaze lingered. So Marinette was surprised when, as Kagami entered through the church doors alone and strode down the aisle to join Marinette, Adrien, and Félix at the altar, a broad smile bloomed unbidden across his face.

He and Adrien never looked so alike as they did that day, both grinning like idiots at their brides.

Félix’s smile remained, even as the ceremony concluded with an outdoor picnic, until he caught Marinette’s eye. She tapped her finger to the corner of her mouth, like he’d missed a spot of jam.

He put a napkin to his lips and, once he encountered the unfamiliar shape of his face, he frowned. His cheeks reddened like he was embarrassed to have been caught doing something inappropriate and he hastily turned away from Marinette.

The embarrassment and the frown, however, did not linger. The moment Kagami took his hand to introduce him to some new clients of hers, who were quite impressed with her bottled storm charms for safe sea travel, the smile returned, and did not so much as falter for the rest of the day.

Though Marinette had never grown up feeling like something was missing from her family, she could no longer imagine her family without Félix, Adrien, and Kagami embedded within it. When Kagami and Félix eventually had the stability from Kagami’s work at the Midnight Market to afford their own small apartment—with some support from Félix’s mother—the bakery felt strangely empty.

But visits were frequent, and the bakery was never truly quiet. Between Alya and Nino, Kagami and Félix, and even Madame Fathom, their hearth was always full, and the bakery always a hub of activity. When it came time for Marinette’s apprenticeship to end, instead of choosing a spot in Artisan’s Alley for herself, they made space in the bakery, where she could ply her wares beside her husband’s, and they could craft side-by-side.

It became considered lucky to receive one of Marinette’s charms and find flour dusting its surface, and bread purchased from the Dupain-Chengs was rumored to be imbued with magical luck, though all bakers involved vehemently denied this.

But Marinette was not so certain. For what was their daily life, but a magical spell performed over and over and over again? They chose their components and tools each morning and set their intentions with laughter and pleasant conversation. Kneading dough, exchanging goods, and moving through the rhythm of business held little difference from a ritual, repeated day after day. And as Marinette undid her stays at the end of the night, and fell in bed beside the partner who had chosen her, who had sought her, who had fought for her as hard as she had fought for him—well, how different was it from a dramatic flourish, to lean over at the end of each day and kiss him good night?

#mlbigbang2024 #ml fic #aywgtccc

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aidanchaser · 27 days ago

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thank you thank you thank you to @yellowbullet100 for helping hammer out the ending to a satisfactory conclusion, getting all the details of the curse-breaking and the final confrontation just write.

And thank you to the @mlbigbang2024 - this fic would never have been written without the group's support, encouragement, and community. It has truly been a pleasure!

Chapter Seven: On the Subject of Hospitality All crafting begins and ends at a witch’s hearth, making it the most sacred space of any witch’s practice. To violate another witch’s hearth through rude word, ill intent, or violent curse is to risk a return of such violence onto the witch themself. A witch who allows such enmity to enter into their own hearth risks the dissolution of all bonds, both mundane and magical.

It is no wonder, then, that the rules around the hearth and hospitality have become some of the most essential rules for any young witch to master. While a young witch is often beholden to those with more experience, and the rules of hospitality can vary based on the seniority of hosts and guests, there are three foundational rules of hospitality: 1. What is offered must be offered kindly. 2. What is accepted must be accepted without grudge. 3. What is exchanged must be exchanged equally. Regardless of a witch’s craft or experience, they must adhere to these three rules. Any witch who violates these rules does so at great risk to their health, happiness, and to the safety of their hearth.

Marinette had no idea what she was doing. She had the brooch, the rings, and the blood. She knew her intentions, knew she needed to undo some knots—but then what? And in what order?

She pressed her notes from her conversation with Adrien flat against the desk, but the periodic banging against the door made it hard to concentrate.

��Talk us through it,” Adrien offered.

Marinette wasn’t even sure where to start. “Well—it was a rebound, so I want to reset it to its original structure first.”

Félix pawed the brooch closer to her.

Marinette bit down on her lip and reviewed her notes. “But she did something to the rings after it broke. I don’t know what it was…”

Adrien had said that they were both cats until his mother had put two different potions onto the rings. That had allowed Félix to return to his human form until sunset, when he and Adrien swapped places. Marinette needed to know what potions had been used to make that happen.

If the purpose had been to provide a time limit to the curse, or, more accurately, to tie its potency to the passage of the sun through the sky, perhaps that was the clue that indicated which potions she needed.

Marinette skimmed the dozens of labels on bottles and vials stored in the potions cupboard. Two stood out to her: fire droplets, which she already knew produced an effect on Adrien’s ring, and a half-empty bottle of an oil steeped with night convolvulus, which, while not an ingredient Marinette had ever used herself, it was something made with flowers that bloomed at night. It seemed to be her best bet.

She set the two bottles on the desk and looked at Félix and Adrien. “How do I know which is which?”

“They’re already labeled,” Adrien said.

“But do I put the fire droplets on yours because you aren’t human during the day, and I want you to have a chance to be human during the day? Or is it the reverse because I’m undoing the curse or is it the same because I need to reset it to the original conditions? Or is it—”

“Marinette, trust your own judgement,” Kagami said. “I think you are overthinking things.”

Marinette bit down on her lip, annoyed by how much Kagami sounded like Luka and more annoyed that she knew Kagami was right in the same way Luka was always right.

“Okay.” She reached for Adrien’s hand. He gave it readily.

“I don’t know if it will hurt,” she said, “but… I don’t think it will feel particularly pleasant.”

“I trust you,” Adrien said.

As much as it melted her heart to hear it, Marinette hoped he would never need to say those three words again. She hoped she would never need to ask for them again, certainly not like this.

She pulled the ring from his finger, and suddenly there was a cat sitting in the desk chair. Cautiously, Marinette unfastened Félix’s collar. He sat perfectly still while she worked, which made her feel silly for being nervous, but in her defense she had just seen him tear into his father’s hands and Adrien’s ankles.

Marinette took Kagami’s advice and trusted her gut—but she also used her knowledge and experience to guide her. She already knew that fire droplets, when applied to Adrien’s ring, shifted its form. It sounded like Madame Agreste’s intentions, when she had first cast the spell, were to use the rings as a way to tether and restrain the curse. The ring made Adrien human by limiting the curse’s effects by night, but it did not have the same potency during the day.

Carefully, she used her finger to run fire droplets around the edge of Adrien’s ring. It unfolded into a thin silver chain. Then, she smeared the same fire droplets over Félix’s collar. It remained unchanged. Nervously, she dabbed the night convolvulus over Adrien’s collar. It did not change back.

She let out a slow breath. That was something. But she needed them to become rings again before she could work with the rest of the spell. They had to be restored to their original state.

Marinette returned to the cabinet, flinching as another bang echoed through the study and fresh crack split the door. Fortunately, Madame Agreste kept a well-organized stock of components, and since Marinette knew what she was after this time, she found it quickly.

Spruce tree resin, which worked well against most potions and was fittingly crafted from a plant that symbolized hope in adversity, would—hopefully—undo the effects of the original potions. Marinette unscrewed the lid from the jar before she was halfway across the study. She snatched the pin she had pulled from Adrien’s chest and wiped it clean before slipping it into the end links of the collars. Careful not to touch the resin with her bare hands, she used the pin to dip the collars into the jar.

As the resin coated the silver there was a flash of white and gold. Marinette flinched, but kept her hold on the pin, and pulled out two silver rings.

“That is what you wanted to happen, right?” Kagami asked.

The door cracked again, and a piece of the wood fell inward. Sound from the hallway finally filtered into the study. A combination of rude swears, frustrated shouts, and arguing over how to best swing a hammer was suddenly added to the cacophony of intermittent bangs.

“Do not worry,” Kagami said. “I will handle them.”

Considering how efficiently Kagami had handled Monsieur Agreste, Marinette thought Kagami was not overestimating herself. Perhaps, when this was all over, Kagami could teach Marinette how to fight in exchange for Marinette teaching her magic.

Despite the loud distractions, Marinette did her best to focus on the task at hand. She did not have Alya’s seeing stone to help her, but she knew the threads were fastened to each of the rings she now had laid out on the desk. She doused her fingertip in milkweed and ran it along the band of Madame Agreste’s wedding ring. Though she could not see the thread, nor even feel it with her fingers, the pale white sap clung to invisible threads, allowing its shape to appear to the naked eye. She did not need to coax it fully to material form just yet, but she did need to see enough of it to undo the knot.

A quick lick of her fingers had served to undo the thread wound through the boutonniere, but this curse was older and more intricate than a hasty subjection charm. The pine resin-soaked needle gripped the threads and wore through the glamor like acid on a varnish. As Marinette prodded the tight cluster of tangled threads, she glimpsed fragments of the thin black thread, enough to slip the needle between the fine gaps of the knot. Where Marinette’s fingers alone would have failed, the precision of the pin and the viscosity of the resin succeeded, and she managed to work the two threads loose from Madame Agreste’s wedding ring.

The ends of the threads, now soaked in resin from the pin, burned her fingertips as she pinched them, particularly where she had already touched fire droplets, but she gritted her teeth against the pain and said nothing. She did not have time to complain. The door in front of her had a gap that was already half of a foot wide. If she looked up, she could see Colt Fathom with a large sledgehammer, Gabriel Agreste behind him, sleeves rolled up and a bloodied rag still held to his nose, and Emilie Agreste.

As Madame Agreste’s eyes locked with Marinette’s, the woman shoved Monsieur Fathom aside and stretched her hand in after Marinette.

“You don’t know what you’re doing! You stupid child! Stop this at once! You—”

Monsieur Agreste pulled her back, and Monsieur Fathom took another swing at the door. Kagami unfastened the fur wrap from her shoulders and tossed it aside. She flexed her hands and rolled her shoulders, unintimidated by Monsieur Fathom and his hammer.

Marinette did her best to block them all out. Madame Agreste was right, though, she did not know what she was doing. It was little more than guess work at this point. If she had just waited until Madame Agreste was willing to help her—

Doubt was the bane of any intention, so Marinette closed her eyes and took a deep, centering breath. She reminded herself that Madame Agreste had already tried to take control over Adrien through a different route, regardless of this curse, and that both boys had readily accepted the risk of her failing. They could not trust Madame Agreste; they did trust Marinette.

She fastened the thread to the back of the peacock brooch. Nothing spectacular happened, but Marinette did not expect that it would. This next part was going to be the potentially spectacular bit.

She took the bloody pin from the champagne flute and touched Madame Agreste’s blood to the knot on the peacock brooch. The threads flared bright white—the girls and the cats all squeezed their eyes closed against the glare—before burning out almost as quickly as they ignited, leaving behind only the thin black lines. As Marinette tugged on the brooch, flakes of ash fell from the threads, but the threads themselves held strong. The rings lifted off of the desk, following the string pulled through their center, until they nestled against the soft black fur on the chest of each cat.

Marinette let out a deep breath, relieved nothing had caught on fire or blown up in her face—yet. All she had done so far was restore the curse to what it had been before it had rebounded on Madame Agreste. Which, when she considered that it had not yet rebounded on her, she found it impressive; but when she considered that she had not even technically begun undoing the curse yet, it felt hardly impressive at all.

She cleaned off the resin-drenched needle with her handkerchief, careful to use a corner of it that had neither thistle nor Adrien’s blood on it, then set about using the pin to undo the very knot she had just tied to the brooch.

Monsieur Fathom’s hammer slammed through the bottom of the door, turning a foot-wide and foot-tall gap into a four-foot tall gap. Kagami shielded her eyes from the flying splinters that were now frequent as Monsieur Fathom widened the hole to fit his broad frame through.

As he pushed his shoulder through, Marinette pulled the string free of the brooch. She heard the sound of Kagami’s fist hitting a solid chest, but she did not dare turn around. She reached her hands out and took a ring in each. Someone grabbed her waist. She yanked on the rings as someone else yanked her back.

Marinette was hurled through the splintered door. The jagged edges of wood caught her dress, tearing the fine silk. As her head hit the ground, her vision went dark for a brief moment. When it cleared, she found Monsieur Agreste above her, holding down her shoulders while Madame Agreste fought to pry Marinette’s fists open.

Marinette may not have been as skilled in combat as Kagami, but Nino had taught her how to throw a punch. She wrenched her hand back and hurled it across Madame Agreste’s jaw. The woman reeled back, stunned, and in return, Monsieur Agreste slammed his fist against Marinette’s nose.

She coughed as blood pooled in her throat, but took the chance as his hand drew back again to roll out of his reach. She scrambled to her feet and raised her fists to block her face, just like Nino had taught her, but neither Monsieur nor Madame Agreste rushed her. Instead, Monsieur Fathom emerged from the study and thrust Kagami into Monsieur Agreste, who readily caught her wrists and twisted her arms behind her back.

Kagami pulled against his grip, but her shoulder gave out before his hold on her did. There was a loud pop and, to Kagami’s credit, she merely gritted her teeth against the pain.

“Hand over the rings,” Madame Agreste said. She held one hand out to Marinette and, with the other, ruefully rubbed the growing red mark along her jaw.

“Why? I finished the spell—I undid your curse.”

But Monsieur Fathom, after depositing Kagami onto Monsieur Agreste, had returned to the study. He emerged now with two black cats, held securely by the scruffs of their necks, and away from his body so that he was out of reach of their claws.

“But I—I undid everything.” Marinette had hoped that the moment that she pulled the rings loose, the spell would fall away, just like the charm had vanished when she had undone the bouquet. Adrien and Félix were no longer tethered to Madame Agreste, so why did the curse over their form still hold sway?

“There are any number of reasons a spell may go wrong,” Madame Agreste sighed. “Muddled intentions, incompetent materials, and insufficient flourish—if you had simply waited until after dinner, we could have done it together, I could have coached you—”

“And how were we supposed to trust you?” Kagami snapped, and still pulled against Monsieur Agreste’s grip, despite her injury. “You charmed Adrien—you tried to charm me. When my mother finds out about this—”

“Your mother already knows, dear.”

Kagami went very still. “What? But… You told her you cursed your own son? That you wanted to curse me? And she was fine with it?”

“We met in town yesterday. She was quite unhappy that you had decided to run off during dinner the night before. I empathized with her concerns, and suggested some next steps I thought would work to make sure you and Adrien came to your senses. She was quite agreeable.”

“I don’t believe you,” Kagami said, but her otherwise unflappable visage trembled with the effort of restrained tears.

Marinette, too, felt on the verge of tears. She felt stupid for having tried, for believing she could have made things better. She felt stupid for having trusted Madame Agreste at all. If she had held her ground in the study, perhaps she could have persuaded Madame Agreste to undo the curse immediately, and then—and then what? Madame Agreste would still have used the charms on Kagami and Adrien. There was no telling what she might have done to Félix.

Madame Agreste was always going to fight for control. Her true intentions weren’t about keeping the boys safe or keeping them close. She wasn’t afraid to lose them—she was afraid to lose her power over them. Marinette glanced down at the rings in her hand. Adrien had said they were from her family, a reminder that the boys belonged to her. It wasn’t legacy or inheritance; it was just her own fear of her unimportance.

Which meant that the failure to undo the curse was Marinette’s fault after all. She’d failed to correctly identify and counter Madame Agreste’s intentions. The components were still appropriate, but Marinette’s intentions must have been the error. Or perhaps yanking the rings had not been a dramatic enough flourish. If she hadn’t been so caught up in the power struggle between her and Madame Agreste, she could have centered her intentions and found an appropriate flourish.

Marinette closed her hand around the rings. Tears burst, despite her best attempts to compose herself.

“No need for that,” Madame Agreste clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Just hand over the rings. I think you’ve done what you can, and I’ll finish the rest. I’ll have my driver see you home, and you may consider that a gracious end to this affair, considering what you’ve put us through this evening.”

“And what about Kagami?”

“I expect her mother and I will have another conversation about her behavior tonight and determine an appropriate course of action.”

“You mean find a way to bring me to heel, is that it?” Kagami snarled.

“Your words, dear,” Madame Agreste murmured distractedly. Her eyes were fully on Marinette, on the rings still enclosed in Marinette’s fist.

“Come now. There’s nothing more for you to do.”

Marinette hiccupped as she tried to hold back a full-bodied sob. She rubbed the heel of her palm under her eyes and nose, in a pitiful attempt to wipe away the mess of blood, snot, and tears that dripped into her mouth. She imagined she did little more than smear it.

She choked on another sob. She wanted to try the spell once more, to review her work and figure out how she could fix it. But Madame Agreste was right. There was nothing else to do. The rings burned against her palm, where her fingertips smeared with fire droplets and pine resin met the hard silver.

Reluctantly, Marinette opened her hand to drop the rings into Madame Agreste’s waiting palm, but all that fell out were crumbles of black ash.

Madame Agreste’s voice was as breathless as if Marinette had landed a punch in her stomach. “What have you done?”

Marinette looked down at her hand, at the remaining black flakes, at the blood and tears and snot spilled in pursuit of freeing Adrien and Félix from this curse now smeared across her palm. She looked up to see Adrien and Félix, fully human, standing on either side of Monsieur Fathom, and it was so painfully obvious that they were not the same person, not in the least.

Adrien grinned at her, green eyes wide and adoring. He was focused solely on her, unconcerned with anyone else. Félix’s sour expression, in contrast, could not seem to settle on one satisfactory target of his anger. He snarled in the direction of his aunt and uncle, but was quick to shove his elbow into his father’s stomach, and the moment the hand was gone from the back of his neck, he turned and threw his fist in his father’s face.

Monsieur Fathom stumbled backwards, but recovered quickly. Félix swung again, but Monsieur Fathom ducked the second blow and returned with a punch to Félix’s jaw, throwing him back into Kagami and Monsieur Agreste. The three went tumbling to the ground.

Adrien and Madame Agreste alike reached for Marinette. Adrien caught her hand; his mother yanked on the back of her dress.

Félix made to charge his father again, but Kagami grabbed his hand and shoved her heel into Monsieur Agreste’s chest to keep him down.

“Félix, is this really the fight you want to have?” she snapped.

Félix’s glare suggested that yes, he wanted this fight more than anything else in the world. Marinette didn’t see how he was going to win against his father, even if he managed a few good hits, but he didn’t seem concerned with winning.

Adrien grabbed his mother’s wrist and twisted her arm back until she was forced to release Marinette’s dress, then Adrien pulled Marinette down the hall.

“Félix, go!” Adrien yanked his cousin out of the way of another of Monsieur Fathom’s punches and Félix stumbled down the hall after them. Kagami brought up the rear.

As Kagami had promised, her carriage was ready and waiting. Monsieur Agreste’s carriage was standing nearby as well, but there was no time to do anything about it. The four of them piled into the Tsurugis’ carriage without waiting for the footman to help them, and Félix yanked the door closed behind them.

At Kagami’s urging, the driver hurried the horses on. Despite feeling safest inside the carriage, each of them stuck their head out of the window to see if the Agrestes or Monsieur Fathom would follow.

Light spilled across the drive as the manor’s doors burst open again, and the shadow of Monsieur Fathom’s broad shoulders stretched so far it nearly reached them. Right behind him, three more shadows approached. Shouts of, “Stop!” echoed across the grounds, but it was hard to tell if it was Madame Agreste shouting at them or Madame Fathom shouting at the others.

Monsieur Fathom leapt into the Agrestes’ carriage to give chase, but as he yanked on the reins of the horses to spur them to action, the horses at once dissolved into a dozen twittering mockingbirds, which disappeared into the darkness.

Félix, beside Marinette, took in a single sharp breath, and she thought she heard him whisper, “Mum—”

But then Kagami’s carriage began its descent down one of the many hills of the grounds and the manor and their pursuers fell out of sight.

The four of them collapsed back into the seats of the carriage. Relief and euphoria swept through Marinette and the thrill of their escape swept out. She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry, she wanted to be sick. She reached across the carriage for Adrien’s hand, but before her fingers closed around his, Adrien threw himself into Félix.

Félix wrapped his arms around his cousin, too, and though Marinette did not see him shake with the hiccupped sobs that suddenly wracked Adrien, she was certain she saw a few tears catch the light of the carriage’s lamp.

She settled back in her seat and leaned against Kagami. Adrien and Félix had not properly seen each other in five years. She could give them this and take her celebratory moment later.

Félix, though he did not let go of Adrien, turned his head to Kagami. “Is your driver taking us back to your house?”

Kagami swallowed and, though her voice cracked at first, she finished her sentence without breaking. “I suppose it would be unwise to return there. But I am unsure where else to go.”

“Marinette’s,” Adrien said into Félix’s shoulder. “Her bakery.”

“Is that…” Kagami glanced at Marinette. “Is that all right with you? With your parents?”

Marinette was not entirely sure how her parents would feel about the four of them piling out of a carriage with their blood, bruises, and dislocated shoulders, but she did know that they would be safe and welcomed, which was more than could be said for any of the others’ parents.

“Of course.”

In lieu of Adrien’s hand, Marinette laced her fingers through Kagami’s. Kagami, unconcerned with the mess still smeared across Marinette’s palm, squeezed her hand like it was the only thing keeping her from collapsing into a mess of tears the way that Adrien had.

Marinette almost wished Félix and Kagami would let out a sob or two of their own. They deserved it, certainly. But she noticed the way Félix’s eyes kept drifting away from her and Kagami to check the doors of the carriage. It might be some time before either of them felt safe enough to let their guard down like Adrien had. All she could do was give them that space, and trust that they would accept it when they were ready.

Marinette frowned as she realized that she was starting to sound like her mother.

When the carriage rolled to a stop in front of Marinette’s bakery, Adrien and Félix were half-asleep in each other’s arms. As Kagami explained to her driver that she would not be returning home, Marinette helped Adrien and Félix down from the carriage.

Félix watched the driver with wary eyes, like he was afraid the man would pick Kagami up and whisk her home, regardless of what Kagami said to him.

Félix had suggested they not tell the driver where they truly intended to go, but Marinette pointed out that the Agrestes would certainly expect nothing less of them. There seemed little point in moving discreetly at the cost of haste. Félix had not argued, but he had not seemed satisfied. Even as the driver pulled away, he looked up at the bakery suspiciously, like the warm glow from its windows belied danger.

But as Kagami shivered in the cold winter night—her fur wrap lay abandoned on the floor of Madame Agreste’s study—Félix readily put his hand on the small of her back and followed Marinette and Adrien inside.

“Marinette, you’re—” Sabine’s warm welcome vanished abruptly and was replaced with a soft, “Oh my.”

Dried blood still caked Marinette’s nose and lips, and her dress was torn through in several places. The flowers that had been tucked so neatly into her hair before she left hung from loose, tangled strands. Kagami held her arm against her chest to prevent her shoulder from jostling any more out of place than it had. Her knuckles, like Félix’s, were red and puffy from the hits she had landed. Félix also sported a violet spread across his jaw where his father had struck him. Only Adrien appeared unscathed, though Marinette would not be surprised if the pinprick over his heart ached half as badly as Kagami’s shoulder.

“That must have been some dinner party,” Sabine murmured. She motioned for them to follow her back into the kitchen.

“Tom!” she called upstairs. “Company!” She glanced over the four as they slumped onto the hard hearth of the fireplace. “Bring blankets, pillows, and your mother’s kit!”

It was mere moments before the heavy footsteps of Marinette’s father clattered down the stairs. “What’s—” but the question was hardly out of his lips before he saw exactly what had happened. He set a box of potions and salves down on the countertop and looked over the four young people slumped before his fire. The good humor that usually filled his face clouded over with anger.

“Marinette, who did this?”

Marinette tried to think of a lie that would not have him charging off into the night. She came up empty, so she simply avoided the question. She stood up and reached for her grandmother’s box of magical components. “It’s fine, Papa. We’re okay.”

Sabine swatted Marinette’s hands away from the box. “Sit, dear.” She handed Marinette a pillow and blanket and gently nudged her back towards the fire. “Tom, will you find something to put on their injuries? Help first, indignation second.”

Tom grumbled, but did not argue as he pulled an ointment from his mother’s box of potion supplies.

While Tom started by cleaning Marinette’s face and arms with a wet cloth, Sabine began with Kagami’s shoulder. “This might hurt, dear—well, it certainly will hurt, but I’m going to try to make it hurt as little as possible.” She braced one hand against Kagami’s spine and the other on her shoulder. “We’re going to do a few deep breaths to get ready. In—good—out—” but before Kagami could take her second breath, Sabine forced her shoulder back into place. “Best to catch you before you get tense,” Sabine said, and gave Kagami an encouraging squeeze before beginning to clean the raw skin exposed across Kagami’s knuckles and palm, where she had made contact with Gabriel’s face.

As Tom took a damp rag to Marinette’s face, she protested, “I can do it myself, Papa,” but he refused to let her take the cloth from him as he wiped her nose like she was a toddler with a cold.

“I know you can, sweetheart, but I’d like to do it right now.”

“But—” She winced as he spread salve over the scrapes in her arm and made no further complaint. His large hands were delicate as he wrapped the wound on her arm with linen strips.

Once Tom had cleaned and lathered Marinette’s hands, which were marred with burns from both the pine resin and the rings that had combusted in her hands, he turned to Félix and the bruise along Félix’s jaw.

Tom knelt before Félix as he had Marinette, but either he saw the way Félix’s shoulders tensed or he decided he didn’t know Félix as well as he knew his own daughter. He held the bottle of salve out to Félix. “Would you like to do it yourself?”

Félix took the bottle from Tom warily, like he was waiting for the catch, but none came. Reluctantly, he spread some of the salve across his tender jaw.

Tom turned to Adrien and asked, “And where are you hurt, son?”

Adrien had been absentmindedly massaging his chest, but he dropped his hand readily and sat up straighter. “I’m all right, sir.”

“Are you sure?”

“There was this cat that bit my ankle—”

“His mother pinned a subjection charm to his heart,” Marinette interrupted.

“It’s hardly a pinprick,” Adrien protested.

Tom frowned, though most of the expression was hidden behind his burly mustache. “May I take a look?”

Adrien hesitated, and for a moment, Marinette thought he would refuse. But he nodded. Cautiously, Adrien unbuttoned his jacket, his vest, and his shirt. Though it was plenty warm by the fire, he shivered as Tom knelt down to inspect the pinprick.

Marinette could not even see the wound from her seat, but her father hummed thoughtfully.

“Floral?” her father asked.

“Yes,” Marinette answered.

“You used thistle?”

“Mhmm.”

“Good job.”

Something tight in Marinette’s chest unwound at her father’s praise. She did not realize how much she had needed to hear it after feeling like she had failed so terribly tonight.

“You ought to keep something warm on it,” Tom said to Adrien. He reached for a kettle and poured each of them a cup of tea. “And eat something warm, while you’re at it. Did you all get anything to eat at your dinner party?”

“I sort of ruined everything before the dinner part of the party,” Marinette said. She curled her hands around the warm cup and pressed it to her lips, like the steam alone might absolve her of her mistakes.

Sabine finished bandaging Kagami’s hand and pushed herself to her feet. “We have a few loaves left. I can hurry over to the butcher before he closes up for the night—”

The shop bell jingled, and Marinette, Félix, Adrien, and Kagami all sat up straight as if something had prodded their spines.

Sabine, who was already on her feet, hurried to the kitchen door. “Welcome!” her voice suggested there was nothing unusual about the events of the evening nor the customers who had come through the door. “How can I help you this evening?”

Marinette closed her eyes and prayed that she would not recognize the voice of the person who replied. Her prayers went unanswered.

“We’re looking for our son,” Madame Agreste’s voice carried through the door and settled around the fireplace like a chill.

Tom glanced between Félix and Adrien, as if he might be able to determine which one of them was the son in question. He did not see any obvious answers, but he gestured to the pinprick over Adrien’s heart and looked at Marinette expectantly.

She nodded.

The indignation that Sabine had managed to keep at bay returned to Tom’s face as he stood back up. There were few times in her life Marinette could remember seeing her father straighten to his full height and pull his shoulders back to their fullest expanse. It was something generally reserved for customers who gave her mother a hard time, and once for Luka, though that had been more of a misunderstanding than anything else.

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Sabine replied. “Can you describe your son for me?”

Marinette almost laughed. Félix and Adrien looked so like their mothers, it must have been impossible for Sabine to think Madame Agreste was talking about anyone else.

Tom joined his wife on the kitchen’s threshold. His shoulders hardly fit through the door. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Our son,” the new voice—Monsieur Agreste’s—did a poor job of restraining his irritation, “he’s about my height, her hair and eyes—her face, in fact.”

“We can keep our eyes open for him, certainly,” Sabine answered. “Can we offer you something warm to drink before you go on your way?”

Kagami, Félix, and Adrien all frowned over their own warm drinks and looked to Marinette for help, but she did not know how to silently explain to them her mother’s intentions.

Though Sabine had never taken much to witchcraft, she was an expert in the procedures surrounding witchcraft. She was glad that Marinette had found a way to connect with her paternal grandmother, but Sabine’s relationship with Tom’s parents had always been rather fraught. Because of that tension, she’d learned witch’s hospitality purely to protect herself and her household. Sabine had refused to be caught off guard by her in-laws, particularly her father-in-law, who had always refused Sabine’s offer of food and drink for as long as he had been welcomed into her home.

The polite thing to do was to accept the offer. Though Sabine was no witch, she had experienced enough to know the traditions well. If her daughter was in any way threatened by this woman, she might be able to end it now with an offer of hospitality.

But Madame Agreste ignored the offer, the way she seemed to ignore most of the rules and guidelines around being a witch. “My son is here. I am certain of it.”

“Madame,” Sabine replied, “I’m afraid that you are mistaken.”

“He ran off with your daughter before dinner,” Monsieur Agreste said. “Where else would they have gone?”

“Your son is not here,” Tom repeated, voice edged with anger.

But Madame Agreste was not to be put off. “Adrien!” she called, as if he would be unable to refuse her call. “Adrien, you need to come home. You and Félix both.”

Adrien glanced at Félix. They seemed to hold a silent conversation, just by eyes alone. Marinette wondered how long they had taken to perfect such communication, but she supposed when at least one of them had been a cat for the last five years, they had gotten quite skilled at communicating without the aid of words or signs.

At the end of their silent conversation, Adrien and Félix both got to their feet.

Marinette grabbed Adrien’s hand.

“She won’t give up,” Adrien murmured. “She’s just going to harass your family until she gets what she wants.”

“At least we’ll be together,” Félix murmured. “We’ll manage.”

“Ma’am,” Tom said, “I’m afraid we can’t help you. But if we see your son, we’ll let him know that you’re looking for him. Where can we direct him?”

“Just stop it.” Madame Agreste snapped. “You’ve no right to keep him from me.”

“You bring up an interesting question of rights,” Sabine murmured. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but if a mother curses her child, she relinquishes all claim on that child, does she not?”

“How dare you! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know exactly what I’m talking about. The question is whether or not your son knows.”

“You don’t—” Madame Agreste broke off suddenly as she spied Adrien and Félix trying to get past Tom. His wide shoulders did a good job of blocking the doorway, but they could not hide the boys in full.

“Adrien—” The anger fell out of her voice rather suddenly, and transformed instead to the honeyed tones she’d used to offer Marinette a patronage. “Adrien, Félix, you need to come home.”

But as Adrien tried to squeeze past Tom, Tom put his hand over Adrien’s chest to hold him in place.

“When a parent curses a child,” Tom started, but Madame Agreste cut him off.

“I’ve done nothing of the sort!” Her anger rose once more. “You have no reason to accuse me of such things. I will see this place burned to the ground before I let such slander stand unaddressed—”

“When a parent curses a child,” Tom interrupted, low voice rumbling through the bakery like a storm, “the parent relinquishes all duties and authority. For a witch to violate their hearth—”

“How dare you,” Monsieur Agreste murmured in a cold, stubborn anger. “These boys have a hearth. Your presumption is as foolish as it is impudent.”

“I’ve already written to the paper,” Félix said, mirroring his uncle’s cool tone. “I’ve told them everything. It’ll be all anyone’s talking about by morning.”

“You’re a lying brat,” Madame Agreste replied, somehow maintaining the sweetness of her address to Adrien though her words were anything but. “You wouldn’t do such a thing to your mother.”

Félix lifted his chin. “My mother’s done nothing wrong.”

“Do you really think she’d be unaffected by this? What would either of you do as topics of such gossip with nowhere to go?”

“You will certainly have somewhere,” Sabine murmured to Adrien and Félix. “You’ve taken tea at our hearth, and our offer of food still stands. This place is yours, for as long as you would want it.”

The silence that filled the bakery was almost tangible. Marinette could only see the backs of Adrien and Félix, uncertain of their expressions. But she glanced at Kagami and saw eyes wide with surprise; a single tear slipped into her tea.

Marinette had no reason to be shocked that her parents would readily open their home, without question, to a group of young people who had been so misused by their own parents. Tom and Sabine knew unfortunately well what it was to have the trust of a hearth violated.

“Félix,” Madame Agreste tried again, “you wouldn’t leave your mother like this. I know how you worry about her.”

Adrien turned to look at his cousin, and for the first time, Marinette saw indecision flicker in his green eyes.

“I’ve no intention of returning to that house,” Félix replied, but as he folded his hands behind his back, Marinette could see them trembling.

“It sounds like,” Tom murmured, “the boys have made their choice. So my wife and I will ask you again, may we offer you something warm to drink before you go?”

Marinette held her breath as she waited for Madame Agreste’s reply, but none came except the jingling of the shop bell as she and her husband left. She heard the click of the lock as her parents bolted the door behind Madame Agreste, and Adrien’s soft but awed, “You didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s a gracious offer,” Félix added, “but we can make other arrangements—”

“Nonsense,” Sabine replied, and ushered them back to the fireplace. “You are welcome here for as long as you would like.”

Adrien readily returned to his seat beside Marinette, but Félix hesitated. “Your generosity and hospitality is—it’s unexpected. We don’t even know you.”

“But you know Marinette,” Tom said. “And Sabine and I have been where you are. It’s a privilege to extend the grace that was given to us.”

Kagami frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

“Oh,” Marinette gasped, unsure how to spare her father the answer. It was not something they talked about, certainly not with strangers. “It—we don’t—”

“It’s all right, Marinette,” Tom murmured. His voice was low in a way Marinette had only heard a few times in her life, usually muffled behind a closed door she was not meant to be listening through. “My father once tried to lay a curse on myself and my new wife because he was displeased with my choice. We know a bit about what it is to have such trusts violated.”

Marinette swallowed. Her parents rarely spoke of it, but she only knew what they had alluded to and what her grandmother had told her: if her grandmother had not intervened, Marinette might never have been born.

“Which means,” Sabine’s voice turned imperious as she surveyed the boys in front of her, then Kagami and Marinette by the fire, “some ground rules will need to be established. You will accept no gifts, no offers, no packages that come through those doors. I don’t care if it’s a trusted friend or family member, you will not take anything.”

“That’s fine,” Adrien said. “We don’t have any friends.”

“You will not accept anything for free,” Sabine continued. “No favors, no offers of help—the one exception is the Césaires. Alya has dined at our hearth often enough that I believe she could be trusted. But even then, only if she has physically crossed into this kitchen. Do you understand?”

Sabine turned to each in turn and insisted on a verbal affirmation before she was satisfied.

“I have some ground rules as well,” Tom said, and Marinette immediately groaned.

“Papa, don’t.”

“Girls will stay upstairs in Marinette’s room, and Sabine, I think you should stay with them. The boys can stay in our room with me.”

“Papa, that’s ridiculous.”

Sabine frowned. “I’m inclined to agree with Marinette, if only because I don’t see why I should be kicked out of my bed.”

“Fine. The boys can stay down here, but I’m sleeping at the top of the stairs.”

“You need to be in the kitchen before sunrise,” Marinette protested. “You can’t expect to work around them.”

“Are you really suggesting, Marinette, that the boys stay in your room?”

“Maybe. If it’s the best option.”

“Before anyone goes to bed anywhere,” Sabine interrupted, “I want to know exactly what happened tonight. And, I imagine, what has been happening for the last few days, at least.”

“I wasn’t keeping it a secret on purpose,” Marinette muttered. “I just—it all happened so fast.”

But Marinette did tell her parents everything, choosing to begin with her encounter with Félix in the bakery. She spared details for Adrien and Félix’s sake, and her parents only asked questions to clarify or confirm their understanding of events.

Kagami spoke only to say that she was not sure that Madame Agreste had been telling the truth about her mother. Félix spoke only to confirm that he had indeed seen the conversation between Madame Agreste and Lady Tsurugi in his aunt’s memories. Adrien did not speak at all.

By the time Marinette was done, the question of beds was no longer a question. All of them were practically asleep by the fireside, and Tom and Sabine let the four of them stay there together.

When the next day’s work began, hours before dawn, Tom and Sabine did their best to move around the pile of blankets and pillows clustered beside the hearth. Marinette, used to the bustle of the kitchen in the early hours of the morning, did not stir, but the others had trouble staying asleep while footsteps crossed so near to their ears.

So at dawn, when the shop bell jingled to announce the bakery’s first customer, Félix, Adrien, and Kagami were wide awake, seated by the fire with warm cups of tea in hand while Marinette drooled into a pillow.

Though Félix, Adrien, and Kagami were hardly familiar with the usual procedures of a bakery, they knew enough to stiffen when, instead of greeting the customer with a cheery, “Good morning!” Sabine merely let out a startled, “Oh!”

Adrien’s hand went right to Marinette’s arm and she jolted awake in time to hear a soft, “Please, I’m looking for my son. Is he here?”

Félix bolted from the kitchen. He squeezed between Sabine and the kitchen door, ducked under Tom’s arm, which had been outstretched to slow him down, and crashed into his mother.

Though he had been restrained last night as he had embraced his cousin, he had no such restraint now. His shoulders trembled and though he tried to hide his sobs in his mother’s shoulder, they still seeped into the bakery.

“Madame Fathom,” Sabine said, “could I offer you something warm to drink?”

“I would be delighted to accept your hospitality.”

Félix let go of his mother and hurriedly wiped his eyes dry, like it was possible to hide his outburst from the others. Madame Fathom took his hand as Sabine stepped aside to allow the pair across the threshold.

Adrien hurriedly stood and crossed the kitchen to greet his aunt.

Madame Fathom let out a soft gasp. “Oh, look at you.” She reached out and touched his hair where the dawn light brushed against it, almost as if she could not believe what she was seeing.

Adrien smiled, and with just the tiniest bit of mischief in his green eyes said, “Good morning, Aunt Amélie.”

She pulled him into a hug, not quite so dramatic as Félix’s, but just as tight.

The work of running a bakery in the early hours of the morning did not stop for tearful reunions, so it was Marinette and not her mother who prepared Amélie Fathom a cup of tea and sat with her at the hearth. Though Marinette felt a bit guilty for sitting while her parents worked, she knew that this work was important, and this ritual was one way that she could protect Adrien and Félix.

Madame Fathom did not stay long. She assured Félix that it would be all right for her to return home, but he glared at the purpling bruise on her cheek—not unlike his own—and tried to insist that she stay, or at least rent a room somewhere in town.

“With what money?” she laughed and kissed his uninjured cheek. “Don’t worry about your father. When Emilie told him you’d written to the paper, he was halfway out the door. I believe he’s already well on his way back to his ranch, like he might be able to escape the scandal if he crosses an ocean.”

Félix wrinkled his nose. “I suppose I may really have to pen that article for the paper, if that’s what it takes to keep him away.”

“I think you’ll be alright,” she murmured, and brushed his hair from his eyes. “The threat of such exposure has cowed Emilie enough. I can keep her at bay as well. I’ll even see about sending money—but do not accept anything without my signature and seal, do you understand?”

And just like that, Kagami, Félix, and Adrien became a part of life at the bakery.

#mlbigbang2024 #miraculous ladybug fanfic #ml fic #aywgtccc

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aidanchaser · 1 month ago

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Perpetual gratitude for @yellowbullet100 for all of their tireless work on helping me polish this fic into something presentable and to the @mlbigbang2024 for organizing the community and creators. It has been a blast. I'm so sorry to be approaching the end.

Chapter Five: On the Subject of Curses A young witch may feel any range of intrigue towards and repulsion away from the darker craft of curses. The temptation relies in the relative ease of casting a curse. The structure of a curse is indeed identical to any other spell in its requirements of components, intention, ritual, and flourish, and it is also true that curses may be encountered in any magical discipline from illusion to divination to transformation.

Witches will argue that a curse finds its distinction from other spells in its impact on others, more specifically that a spell cast against a target’s wishes is what defines a curse. But the truth is that all spells, including curses, must be defined by the witch’s intentions. It is this ill-intention that distinguishes a spell from a curse. Though the mundane and magical alike claim that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, in truth, the road to hell is paved the way all roads are paved: by the repeated ritual of a walk in a singular direction. In short then, a curse must be defined by a witch’s intention, and whether those intentions are truly for good or ill will be illuminated by the accompanying ritual.

Marinette told Kagami everything. It wasn’t easy to admit the truth of how she had first met Adrien, and as she stuttered through everything from her first dance with Adrien to her encounter with Félix in the jewelry shop, her cheeks grew warmer and warmer. She felt stupid for being embarrassed—whatever Adrien thought of her was unserious, playful at best. There was certainly no excuse for curling up on her lap in the greenhouse.

But as reckless and mischievous as a kiss on the side of a moving carriage felt, the ring in her hand felt heavy with the seriousness of its implicit request. He trusted her to undo the curse his mother had laid on him, and that request hardly felt flippant.

Marinette turned Adrien’s ring between her fingers, but she could feel no indication of the thread tied to it. She had tried to show Kagami the thread using the seeing stone, but it was too dim in the carriage for either of them to make out the thin black line.

“And you believe Félix has been afflicted in the same way?” Kagami asked.

“He panicked the same way that Adrien did, when I touched the ring on his finger.” Marinette bit down on her lip as she recalled the desperate, “Don’t,” both boys had whispered. Now that she had a glimpse of what this ring was capable of, she could only imagine the terror they must have felt. Not only could she have unveiled their secret by removing this ring, she could have taken their humanity from them, their very agency. It also meant that by surrendering this ring to her, Adrien had willingly given up his ability to be human.

That didn’t seem like the sort of thing someone did just to be mischievous.

But there had been no need to kiss her, and certainly not in front of Kagami, who he was still supposed to propose to.

As the carriage drew up in front of the bakery, Kagami asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do,” Marinette murmured. Adrien must have expected her to be capable of something, or he would not have trusted her with this ring, but Marinette had no idea what he expected her to accomplish. As long as that brooch remained damaged, there was no way for anyone to undo the spell.

Marinette said her goodbyes to Kagami and stepped out of the carriage. Though she hoped to slip into the bakery unnoticed by her parents, she was still wearing the borrowed pink silk gown.

“A friend loaned it to me,” Marinette explained, as she tried to get upstairs and away from their questions—but they persisted in pestering her.

“Quite a loan,” her mother murmured as she sorted the coins from that day’s sales. “What on earth for?”

“Just a tea—she needed a chaperone.”

“And the flowers?” her father asked. He set aside the dishes he had been wiping down in preparation for the next morning’s work to look directly at her.

“Not romantic, Papa,” she insisted, but explained nothing more about the bouquet nor what it meant. He was the last person she wanted to tell about what she had learned from Félix today. “May I go upstairs and change before I accidentally trip into a stack of eggs and ruin this gown?”

“But who gave you the flowers?”

“No one!”

“Your father has a right to know if you’re being courted,” Sabine chided. “We both do. And if you’re courting someone who’s hosting teas fine enough for a gown like that, then we need to start putting a lot more into your dowry.”

“What’s the gentleman’s name?” her father asked.

“I’m not courting a gentleman. I just chaperoned Kagami Tsurugi so she could meet with her intended. That’s all, I promise, and good night. Love you,” she added hastily, as she hurried upstairs.

Her parents’ raised eyebrows remained suspicious, but they did not call after her.

It wasn’t that she felt they would disapprove of anything she had done. If anything, her parents might warn her to be cautious before getting in over her head, but they had never reprimanded her for offering help to someone who needed it. And she knew they would understand, perhaps more than anyone else, just how terribly Félix and Adrien needed help. Marinette just wasn’t ready to see her father’s old wounds dredged up by a story about a boy who had been cursed by his mother.

Marinette shed the fine dress and replaced it with her heavy tinkerer’s apron before falling into her desk chair. She lit the lamp on her table and examined the ring once again. The thread was there, difficult to see in the flickering candlelight and impossible to get between her fingers, but it still existed.

She imagined the other end of it, still wrapped around Madame Agreste’s finger, and somewhere in the middle it looped around Adrien’s throat.

As Marinette’s grandmother had explained to her, and as Marinette had just explained to Kagami, every magical spell had three important steps. The first was intention, the second was ritual, and the third was often referred to as the “magical flourish.” This varied from spell to spell, and few practitioners had defined it clearly. Marinette’s grandmother had told her that most witches considered it instinctive, and following this instinct successfully and consistently was what made a witch outstanding. Marinette, who valued over-thinking rather than following her gut, felt that the magical flourish was less about instinct and more about reaffirming a commitment to the spell’s intention.

She thought about the spell she had cast to remove the bloodstain from Félix’s shirt. Her intention had been to remove a stain. She’d cleaned it to set her intention, embroidered it for the ritual, and had used a kiss to finish her spell. A kiss had made sense in the moment; bloodstains were tricky things, marks of life and death, so Marinette had concluded her spell with something just as certain: a display of kindness. It had also echoed her true intentions behind the repair—placating a boy who had seemed so terrified.

The trouble with curse-breaking was that it had to maintain the three steps of a spell, but it also had to undo, in reverse, each step of the spell that had cast the curse in the first place.

Marinette reached for a bottle of milkweed nectar and dabbed it onto her fingertips. Not only was she used to using milkweed to prep threads for magical ritual, she was still thinking about Félix’s floral conversation. Milkweed, or butterfly weed, could be used to tell a former love, “Let me go.” It seemed a fitting component for Marinette’s intentions.

She pinched the space that the thread appeared in Alya’s seeing stone. Though she could not feel it beneath her fingers, she rubbed the milkweed along its length, at least a couple feet, before it disappeared through the window beside her desk. The nectar clung to the thread like morning dew on a spider’s web, droplets suspended in open air.

Marinette set the seeing stone down and looked over the ring. Now that she could find the thread without magical aid, it seemed tempting to just snip it. But if this ring was the thing that kept Adrien human, by cutting off his connection to it, she might doom him to life as a cat forever.

She had to determine how the spell had been cast in the first place. She knew the components: rings, a black thread, and a brooch. But if any additional potions or charms had been used, Marinette could not be certain without asking the caster herself. Similarly, she could not determine the caster’s intentions without getting the answer directly from Madame Agreste. Turning her son into a cat was a consequence, but not necessarily the initial intention.

And, even when it came to the ritual component, Marinette could guess that the intricate knot that bound the thread to the ring had something to do with it, but there might have been more to it than that. And heaven help her if she tried to guess what the magical flourish had been. It might have been something affectionate like a kiss, or perhaps it was something as violent as tightening the thread around the boys’ throats.

The only thing that Marinette was certain of were her own intentions to free Félix and Adrien, but that seemed to matter little in the face of everything she did not know.

She spun the ring on its end and sighed as it wobbled and fell flat. She did not know what she was supposed to do with it. And even if she had known everything she needed to, she continued to bump up against the same initial problem that even Madame Agreste could not solve: there was no undoing the curse without first fixing that brooch.

But Marinette’s determination was not to be put off by such challenges. She continued to fuss over the ring with the seeing stone and her boxes of charms and potions. Even if she couldn’t break the curse, perhaps she could mitigate it somehow.

The only thing Marinette managed was coaxing the ring to change its form. She found that a bit of fire droplets along the rim transformed the ring into a delicate silver chain, too large to be a bracelet and too small to be a necklace, but perfectly sized for a cat’s collar.

While she found it an interesting development, she did not see how it was particularly useful.

Not until, just after midnight, when she heard something scratching at her window.

Marinette’s heart raced with an instinctive fear of something trying to get in. She lifted her lamp to the glass pane and saw a cat’s glinting green eyes staring back at her. It carried something in its mouth and Marinette prayed that this really was Félix or Adrien, come to bring her an important message perhaps, and not some strange cat with a half-dead bird in its teeth.

Warily, Marinette unlatched the window and the cat readily pushed its way inside. But what the cat dropped into her waiting hand was no message. It was the peacock-shaped brooch.

“Where did you…?” Marinette stared at the cat, who took a seat on her desk. He batted at the end of the silver chain.

“How did you—Why—” But why was the only question Marinette knew the answer to. Whichever boy this was, he hoped that she would be able to fix the brooch where the jeweler and Madame Agreste could not.

“I don’t think I can help you,” she said.

The cat only looked up at her. It was impossible to tell if he understood her; his gaze was as steady and unflinching as any true feline.

“I’m sorry. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. But I certainly can’t fix this brooch. And I can’t undo this curse, especially when I don’t even know how it was cast in the first place.”

The cat meowed at her. She wondered if it was supposed to be critical or comforting. She supposed that depended on whether it was Félix or Adrien. Though she’d only met each boy three times, she felt she knew their measure and the distinctions between them fairly well.

Marinette reached her hand out and scratched the cat between his ears, and he rubbed his head up into her palm. It occurred to her that she would never dare run her fingers through Adrien or Félix’s hair like this, but the cat did not seem to find anything odd in the gesture, and she didn’t mind it. Perhaps the cat’s comfort with the contact told her everything she needed to know about who he was.

“You are Adrien, aren’t you?” she asked.

He merely meowed, which was impossible to interpret as either affirmative or negative, and batted at the chain again.

This time, Marinette took the hint. “I didn’t think you’d be eager to have your collar back, but if you insist.”

He held perfectly still as she wrapped the chain around his neck. As soon as she fastened the clasp, she had to scramble backwards, for there was no longer a cat sitting on her desk, but a boy.

He groaned and pressed a hand to his head.

“Adrien?”

“Just a moment—please.” He took in two slow, deep breaths and rubbed his eyes. “It’s always jarring—like getting a bucket of cold water tossed onto your bed.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow. “Has that… happened to you often?”

“Twice. But only because I was pretending to be my cousin.” He looked up at her finally, and she knew at once by the mischievous smile on his lips that she had correctly guessed which cousin this was.

“Adrien—But how—why—”

“You need this, right?” Adrien picked up the brooch and pressed it into her hands again. “My mother and my aunt were talking—well, arguing—tonight. I gathered that this is pretty important to breaking the curse. Félix broke into my mother’s study so I could steal it then he distracted her so I could get away unnoticed.”

“So you sneaked out to bring it to me?”

“How else was I supposed to get it to you?”

“But—Adrien, it’s not enough. I don’t know how it broke, or what spell was cast, or—”

“Didn’t Félix tell you everything today? My mother was furious with him.”

“All I know is that sometimes you’re a cat, and sometimes he’s a cat. I know your ring keeps you human. I know your mother’s the one who cast the curse… But that’s not enough.”

Adrien stood up and stretched his arms over his head, flexing his hands like a cat that had just woken up from a long nap. “What else do you need to know? I’ll tell you anything.”

Marinette folded her arms over her chest. “Really? Because you’ve been pretty careful about telling me nothing so far.”

He fell back against her desk as if she had struck him. “I’ve done my best. If this secret came out, it could ruin not just my future, but my cousin’s as well. Believe me, not a week has gone by that I haven’t thought about penning a letter to the paper spilling all of my mother’s secrets, but I couldn’t do that to him, too.”

“So kissing me in front of your fiancée twice—”

“I’m not engaged!”

“—was just you making sure you could trust me with the knowledge that your mother cast a curse on you?”

Adrien tightened his jaw and turned away from her. Her room was a mess of half-finished projects, but he seemed to be looking past all of it to something further off. When he spoke again, his voice was soft, like he’d stepped into a confessional. There was no more mischief or humor in his tone. “I found your bakery because I wanted to see you again. No one… no one had ever been kind to me before, not like you were.” He twisted the ring around his finger, but kept his gaze pinned on the past. “I thought, if I could make it through the day without being found, maybe I could ask for your help. Maybe you’d know a witch that I could trust. But then my cousin found me and—and even though he was rude to you, you used your magic to help him. So I sought you out at the Midnight Market, thinking I might ask for your help. Then Félix kept breaking your things to prevent me from saying anything, so I thought I’d ask for your help if I ran into you at Lady Tsurugi’s, but well—anyway, I am sorry I didn’t tell you everything. I wasn’t sure how.”

Marinette did not know how she was supposed to be irritated with him for any of that. She dropped her voice to meet his tone and stepped closer to him.

“And kissing me?”

“I asked for permission.”

“The first time.”

“I will admit to being swept up by passion the second time. And I apologize for being untoward—although your response would suggest that it was not unwelcome.”

“And the third?”

He turned to look at her, brow furrowed, but she did not wait for him to infer her intentions. She wrapped her hands around his and pressed her lips to his. He sank into her at once, and pulled her closer as readily as if he were the one who had initiated.

Their first kiss had been wary, their second rushed. This one was neither, and yet it was not unlike their first two kisses. He was gentle as he slid one hand along her arm and to her waist, careful as he pulled her against him. She was eager as she pushed herself up onto her tiptoes to meet him and moved her hands to his waist.

It was not particularly difficult to tug him by his waistcoat and turn him so that he was against her bed instead of her desk. He fell back with a laugh, and she knelt down beside him.

“My mother always impressed on me that chaperones were essential for keeping a lady’s honor intact.” He stared up at her with that mischievous smile that was beginning to make Marinette’s heart sing. “She never implied that it was my honor I needed to be worried about.”

Though Marinette put one hand on his waist and slid the other along his palm, she said, “I’m not planning to threaten your honor.”

“I’d give it if you asked.”

Marinette bit down on her tongue, painfully aware that she had him beneath her, and perhaps it would be untoward of her to ask difficult questions in a position like this, but she needed answers before she went forward with any of this—either the kissing or the curse-breaking.

“And if—if I can’t break the curse, will you marry Kagami?”

He did not answer her at first, which she took as an answer in itself. She tried to stand, but he refused to let go of her hand.

“Wait,” he said, “it isn’t that simple.”

“It was a yes or no question.”

“But it’s not a yes or no answer.”

“Isn’t it?”

“If I say no, if I go back to my mother and tell her it’s you or no one, would you be willing to accept that we might never see each other again?”

“That’s ridiculous—”

“Everything I am is in this ring. If she’s unhappy with me, all she has to do is take it.”

It occurred to Marinette that the answers to her questions might be far more uncomfortable than the questions themselves. With a fair amount of trepidation, she sank back down onto the bed so that she and Adrien were eye-to-eye and asked, “What’s the longest she’s kept the ring for?”

“Two months.”

“Adrien…”

“I don’t want to marry Kagami. But I can’t pretend that there aren’t a lot of things I would suffer if it meant being free of my mother.”

“Why is she so insistent that you marry Kagami?”

“It’s been arranged for years. My parents put Lady Tsurugi off for as long as they could, but their vague excuses can only go so far. If things had gone normally, Kagami and I might have even had a normal courtship and decided for ourselves whether we wanted to go through with it. But, as things are, my parents are eager to see me married and settled before this has a chance of becoming a scandal and ruining the family forever. They can’t afford to let me or my cousin out into society properly, but they can’t keep hiding us away, either.”

“And what if…” Marinette bit her lip. “What if you marry Kagami and your mother still refuses to break the curse?”

“She can’t.”

“What?”

“I can’t get married in the dead of night. At least not without people asking questions.”

“She wouldn’t have your cousin stand in for you?”

“She’s promised Aunt Amélie that she won’t use Félix in any part of the courtship with Kagami. And she knows how much worse things could be if Kagami or Lady Tsurugi discovered that Félix and I were both pretending to be me. We look alike, but unless we’re really trying, we’re not hard to tell apart.”

Marinette remembered how obvious the distinctions between the two boys had seemed once Luka had pointed out the possibility of two different people who merely looked alike. Surely it would be harder to maintain the lie if they were having intimate conversations with Kagami across several days, and harder still if neither was very invested in keeping up the lie.

“So you get to be yourself at night…”

Adrien hummed an affirmation.

“… and your cousin gets to be himself during the day. Do you… do you two ever get to talk?”

He smiled, but it was not his gentle nor his mischievous smile. It was that wry, bitter smile he’d worn when he had first alluded to his mother’s curse. Her stomach turned uneasily, not because of the smile itself, but because she now had a much clearer and more unpleasant picture of how he had become this way.

“My cousin and I haven’t had a conversation in five years. We used to write letters to each other, but when our parents caught us, well, that’s why my mother decided to take my ring for two months.”

“Why? Why on earth would your parents not want you to even speak to each other?”

“It’s why my mother cast the curse in the first place. To keep us separated.”

Marinette didn’t like the way Adrien shared this so plainly, as if it were normal for cousins to be kept apart by a curse, to be kept under control by a change in form. Though she doubted she had any ability to truly help, she felt more determined to try.

She sat up and reached for the small stack of stationery she kept by her desk. For the first time in her life, she was grateful for her small room, because she did not have to let go of Adrien’s hand to reach paper and ink. She did, however, have to use both hands to hold a pen and to balance paper on top of her ledger, so she would have something to write on while she sat beside him.

“You said you’d tell me everything about the curse,” she said as she dipped her pen into the ink.

“I said I’d tell you anything you asked.” He eyed her and the pen warily. “Are you… taking notes?”

“If I’m going to break it, I need to know everything—and I need to remember it all. I could make it worse if I’m not careful.”

“And… what exactly do you need to know?”

“Tell me what you remember.”

“Oh.” He seemed to deflate, as if he were about to disappear into her bed and never resurface. “I thought—” His throat lurched with a hard swallow. “I thought you might just have a few questions.”

He had been so nonchalant about other terrible things—being isolated from his cousin, being trapped as a cat for two months, being forced into a marriage he didn’t want—she had not expected him to balk when it came to sharing the events of the curse.

“Do you remember it?”

“Every detail.”

Marinette let her ledger slide off of her lap as she reached for his hand once again. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I can’t know what to ask for when I don’t even know how much I don’t know.”

“I’ve never had to tell it before.”

“You can take your time.”

“I only have until sunrise.”

“Then don’t take your time. Talk very quickly so that I can get to work and we can go back to kissing and putting your honor in danger.”

That, at least, made him laugh, even if it was a weak laugh. “I’ll do my best,” he promised.

Marinette, though she risked dripping ink into her bed, adjusted the ledger on her mattress so that she could write and hold his hand at the same time. She could understand his need to have an anchor to this moment before dipping into a memory he did not truly want to revisit. But he still did not speak, even when she gently squeezed his hand.

“I’m sorry.” He rubbed his hand over his face like he could scrub out his fear. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Do you know why she did it?”

“We’d run away again. Well, not run away, exactly, just… left without permission. She said she was tired of it, and tired of us swapping places, and she was going to put a stop to it.”

Adrien paused here, and Marinette jotted down what he’d said. She didn’t think it was exactly the intention she was looking for, but it helped.

“Where were you when it happened?”

“She took us into her study. She—she had my father and my uncle hold us down while she worked.”

It was not relevant to the spell, but Marinette had to know: “Where was your aunt?”

Adrien didn’t answer right away. His grip on Marinette’s hand tightened, rivaling the grip he’d had as he had clung to the outside of a moving carriage. “Please—don’t write this part down.”

Marinette set her pen aside without question. She pulled his hand to her lips and pressed a kiss to his fingers, like she might make the words easier to bear.

His cheek pinched with worry, but he finally began, “My aunt and my mother were arguing. I was used to the adults debating about what to do with us, so I wasn’t listening. Félix must have been, though. His father had to drag him into my mother’s study kicking and screaming.”

Adrien paused again, and Marinette tried to imagine Félix, who she had only known as restrained and reserved, fighting back with all that he had.

“While they were arguing—I don’t know what was said, exactly, but my aunt refused to go along with my mother’s plan. I think she might have threatened to take Félix and leave if my mother tried to go through with it—she must have, because threatening to leave was the only thing that—” Adrien swallowed. “My uncle hit her. It—you know, I actually thought for a moment that was going to be the end of the whole thing. I thought my mother was going to be so angry with him that she’d forget she was angry with me. And she was angry with him—she told him if he ever did that again, she’d end him. He told her that if she ever tried to tell him how to keep his wife in line, he’d leave and take his wife and son with him. I—I think they might have kept arguing if—if my father hadn’t interrupted, and reminded them that they were supposed to be deciding what to do about Félix and me.”

Marinette, true to her word, did not write any of that down. But she did, mentally, add Madame Agreste’s argument with Monsieur Fathom to her growing list of Madame Agreste’s intentions. Casting any spell while angry, let alone casting a curse, was always dangerous, as anger was volatile and could muddle true intentions. Madame Agreste’s anger not just with her sons, but with her brother-in-law as well shaped the nature of the curse, certainly.

“They left my aunt in the drawing room—I think someone might have locked the door. I know she was still furious when it was over. She tried to undo it herself a few times, during that first year. It didn’t work, I mean—of course not. I wouldn’t be here if it had.” He tried to laugh, tried to reform his silly grin as he looked up at Marinette, but it only served to make him look rather pathetic.

She rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand like she could erase the tension in his grip. She did not say anything, did not ask any new probing questions, but she did pick up her pen again.

Adrien looked at her pen like he was waiting for it to continue the story, like he could convince her hand to write down his words without them being spoken aloud. If Marinette knew of such a spell, she would have happily spared Adrien the trouble.

“She took our rings from us,” he finally said, voice distant, and he paused as Marinette jotted the detail down on her stationery. “Félix and I had each had a ring from our mothers’ family. She took those rings and tied a black thread to them. Then she pulled the thread through the ring and wrapped it around my neck.” His hand drifted to his collar, fingers brushing against his throat, like he was checking to see if the thread was still there. “She kept… apologizing. She said she didn’t want to do this, said we’d forced her hand. Said it was our fault, if we’d just listened, if we hadn’t kept leaving…”

Though she knew she shouldn’t interrupt, Marinette could not help herself. “You know that’s not true, right?”

He pulled her hand against his lips, but he did not answer her question. She thought that did not bode well for his answer.

“Adrien, she made a choice. A choice your aunt wasn’t willing to make. It wasn’t your fault. And if—” Marinette bit down on her lip. “If she really regretted it, if she really thought it was a mistake, she could have tried to undo it. She didn’t have to wait until Lady Tsurugi was pounding down her door to ask about your arranged marriage to start trying to fix it.”

“If I believe that,” he murmured, “then I have to accept that my actions gave me no control over my own life, that all of my choices were meaningless, and she was always going to do this.”

“You chose to give your ring to me tonight,” Marinette said. “You chose to keep writing letters to your cousin, even though you were unable to talk to each other. You chose to sneak out to my bakery, to a dance, to my room… Those choices matter.”

He squeezed her hand, but she could not be sure if it was because he was accepting her answer or merely avoiding a reply. Marinette did not press. It was clearly a conversation he did not want to have, and she was already asking more of him than he had been prepared to give.

She reviewed her notes. She felt that she had a decent grasp of Madame Agreste’s intentions—probably a fear of losing her son, or perhaps even a desire for him to depend on her, if Adrien’s memory of his mother’s terrible apology was an accurate glimpse of her desires. The desire for dependence matched the choice of the rings, as well. They were a family heirloom, specifically from her side of the family, not the boys’ fathers. And the work of tying a knot around that ring, a tether, seemed to be about keeping the boys close.

The piece Marinette was still missing was the magical flourish, and it would help to know exactly when and how the brooch had been damaged.

“Do you remember what she did with the thread after—” Marinette cleared her throat. “—after she tied it around your neck?”

Adrien hesitated, and by now she was certain that his hesitation was not because he struggled to remember, but because he struggled to put words to the story. She couldn’t blame him.

“She looped it through her own wedding ring,” he finally said, “then tied it to the brooch. Then she put a drop of her own blood on each thread. I remember the blood sliding down the thread and when it hit our rings there was a loud crack—it reminded me of a mirror shattering, but I don’t remember her using a mirror. There was a flash of light, too, and when I could see again, everything was above me, like I was lying down, but I couldn’t get up—I remember looking up at my father and trying to… trying to figure out why the colors were wrong. I looked to where Félix was supposed to be and there was just this black cat. I was so angry—I tried to tell my mother to stop, to fix it, to undo it—but I couldn’t talk. When I looked at her, she was bent over her wedding ring. Blood dripped from her mouth, but I couldn’t even ask her what had happened, if she was okay—I couldn’t see what she did to her ring, but once she was done, she reached out to me and pulled the ring away from my throat. I thought—I thought for a moment she really was going to undo it. But instead, she took some—some potion, I’m not sure what. She spread one potion on my ring and another on Félix’s. They both turned into these silver links of chain, which she fastened around our necks. Félix turned back into himself, and I remember being so relieved. At least one of us was okay—but then an hour later, after the sun set, he was a cat again, and I was human. At least for a little bit. I think I barely made it through a few sentences of yelling at my mother to make it right before she took my ring from me. She immediately unfastened Félix’s collar as well. It was a rather quick education on the confines of the spell.”

It was all Marinette could do to bite down her anger. She had expected to be upset with Madame Agreste for being a terrible mother. She had not expected professional indignation to come into play. It was no wonder Amélie Fathom had not been able to undo the curse. Not only had Madame Agreste used a single brooch to affect two transformations, she had done so in anger and used her own blood as a component. Any spell or curse with such limitations, divided intentions, and volatile components would have rebounded in the way that Adrien had described. If Madame Agreste had not managed to refasten the thread to her own wedding ring the moment the brooch had broken, it was likely the thread would simply have vanished, and the boys would have remained cats forever, with no tether to her nor their humanity. And to use her own blood, something so unpredictable in any spell, when she was already angry with both her son and her brother-in-law—Marinette imagined writing a very angry letter to Madame Agreste, outlining each and every stupid decision she had made when crafting this spell.

“Marinette?” Adrien asked. “Are you all right? Is eating your pen part of the curse-breaking process?”

Marinette pulled her pen from her mouth and tossed it onto her desk. She was more careful about returning the inkwell to her desk. “I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I don’t—I don’t think I’ll be able to break the curse.”

“Oh… Are you sure?”

“I would still need to repair the brooch first…” Marinette glanced down at her notes. She would never be able to repair it with materials equal to its monetary value, which is probably what the jeweler had tried to do. Without access to such expensive materials, she would have to choose things with sentimental value—value that was also resonant with her intentions while counter to Emilie Agreste’s intentions.

Gold would work best. Though its value was not comparable to the gems in the brooch, the value it did have was often amplified by sentiment in things like heirlooms. Or wedding rings.

Marinette wondered how Alya and Nino might feel if she asked them to give her their brand new engagement bands to be melted down. Even though the bands were in fact brass, the true commitment to each other would be a fine counter to Emilie’s selfishness of trying to keep her sons at home against their will. Marinette wasn’t sure how she would ask her friends for such a sacrifice, though.

And then, even if she managed to repair the brooch, there were two far more difficult components to acquire.

“I need your mother’s wedding ring.”

“Félix has always been the expert at sleight of hand.”

“I’d also need your mother’s blood to manifest the threads again in order to untie them. I don’t see her giving that up.”

“She is an identical twin,” Adrien offered.

“That wouldn’t work. Magic is less about physical property and more about emotional weight. And anyway, even if I repair the brooch, even if I get your mother’s wedding ring and her blood, I can’t promise it will work.”

Her intentions would have to run counter to Madame Agreste’s and she would need to determine an appropriate magical flourish for the end of her counterspell. Something that confirmed her intentions, something as powerful as a mother using her own blood in a spell against her family, something strong enough to break such dramatically enforced ties.

Marinette tipped her head back against her wall and stared up at her ceiling. She didn’t have an answer, but she was certainly going to try.

“If I do this…” She bit down on her lip. “If I do this and it all goes wrong, you could be stuck as a cat forever.”

“Then don’t let it go wrong.”

“I’m serious, Adrien. This is a risk I have to know you’re willing to take—that Félix is willing to take.”

He looked up at her, and she was surprised to see something like confusion in his eyes. She supposed, based on what he had just shared with her, that no one had genuinely asked him to make an informed choice about his future before.

“I know you trust me,” she said, “though heaven knows why—I haven’t done anything other than put a glamor on a tiny bloodstain and sell you some scented oil for a problem that was literally going to fix itself—but this is a really big thing you’re asking of me, and there’s a very real chance I will fail and if I do—”

Adrien sat up and cut her off with a kiss. It wasn’t as passionate as their last one—he didn’t pull her into him or run his hands through her hair or anything. He merely pressed his lips to hers and pulled away, like he might draw some of her anxiety away with it.

And it did work, almost like he had cast a spell of his own.

“I trust you,” he whispered, “because you have always asked how you can help. I don’t need anything more than that. And I think Félix will understand, too.”

Marinette swallowed. “Oh—okay—but I have to hear it from him.”

“We’ll write him a letter.”

“And—Adrien, I… I’m sorry to ask but… I think I’m going to need help.”

“I’ll do anything you ask.”

“I mean from another witch.”

He frowned. “We could ask my aunt.”

“We could…” Marinette swallowed. “Do you want to put her in that position?”

He looked down at the ring on his finger. “I suppose it wouldn’t be my first choice.”

“I’d like to ask Alya. She helps me craft a lot of my spells, and I trust her with my life. I would feel a lot safer if I had her help.” Marinette would also need Alya’s help repairing the brooch, particularly undoing the glamor that concealed the fracture, let alone the material components she was still going to have to figure out how to get from Alya.

“Alya is…?”

“The illusionist you met in the market.”

“Ah. I did like her, but I don’t know her.” His brow furrowed with doubt, but he sighed and kissed Marinette’s cheek. “If you trust her, I’ll trust her, too.”

“Thank you.” Marinette pulled him into another kiss.

There was no work she could do tonight, not without getting Alya’s help first. So in lieu of curse-breaking, they simply had no choice but return to the other primary activity of the evening—kissing.

It was another night of Marinette falling asleep in her stays, but she was not worried about the stiffness in her back when she woke up. Instead, she was more worried about the cat curled up next to her. She shifted and he immediately awoke, arching his back and stretching his claws on her sheets. He yawned and blinked at her, like he wasn’t entirely sure where he was, then immediately curled back up over her arm and laid down.

Marinette scratched behind his ears and stroked his cheek. He purred beneath her hands, but that only made her heartache stronger. Privately, she vowed to herself that he was not going to wake up as a cat tomorrow. She was never going to let him wake up as a cat again. No matter what it might cost her, she would undo this curse before the day was done.

❖❖❖

Marinette sent Adrien off with a letter fastened to his collar. She was exceptionally nervous to see him leave, nervous he might get caught and their letter intercepted, and nervous that his mother might take his collar away from him the moment he was back in her grasp.

Her letter to Félix was essential not just because she needed to be assured he was willing to accept the risks of her breaking the curse, but because she needed his help gathering the materials for it. Alya could help her repair the brooch, but she needed Félix to retrieve the rings that bound him and Adrien, including Madame Agreste’s wedding band. She also needed him to, somehow, get a hold of some of her blood.

But none of that would matter if Marinette could not repair the brooch. She rubbed her thumb over the curve of the peacock’s fan tail. Sapphires embedded in oblong emeralds winked up at her, as if they were mocking her determination. This brooch and all its opulence was almost as intimidating as Madame Agreste herself had been, striding into the jeweler’s shop.

Marinette swallowed down her self-doubt and tucked the gem into her pocket. Adrien was counting on her.

She found Alya at a table in her mother’s boarding house, refilling drinks of the guests and excitedly recounting Nino’s proposal to them. A middle-aged couple laughed as Alya exaggerated how nervous Nino had been, and they politely smiled as she showed off the ring.

Marinette’s heart sank into her stomach as she watched the morning light glint off of the small diamond. But of course, if the request was easy, the magic wouldn’t be nearly so powerful.

Alya waved excitedly at Marinette. Marinette flashed her an uneasy grin and followed her back into the kitchen.

“Where have you been?” Alya asked. “You disappeared in the middle of the dance the other night, and at first I just thought you’d run into Luka and left, but when I couldn’t find you anywhere yesterday, I started to worry your mysterious gentleman had kidnapped you.”

Marinette tried to laugh. “No, no one was kidnapped. I—I didn’t even see Luka at the dance.”

“He arrived just when you left. I really thought you’d just been trying to avoid him. But if he wasn’t why you vanished, what was it?”

Marinette swallowed and her hand disappeared into her pocket. It wasn’t the brooch she went for, however. It was her notes from Adrien’s story that her hand closed around and her thumb worried the edge of.

Marinette glanced through the back door to the rest of the house. She didn’t see anyone else nearby, but this kitchen was a space people frequently came in and out of. “Could we talk somewhere more… private?”

Alya asked no more prying questions. “You know where my room is. Give me five minutes.”

Five minutes was usually about the amount of time it took Alya to convince her father to set aside his zoology books and tend to the guests.

Like Marinette’s messy bedroom that also served as a workspace, Alya’s own brand of chaos filled her bedroom. A small collection of seeing stones in varying hues had been lined up on her window sill, and there was a basket on a washtable full of trinkets that Nino had given her over the years. Coronets of dried flowers hung from the handful of mirrors scattered around the room. Some of these coronets had dance cards attached, and Marinette did not need to open the dance cards to know that Nino’s name would be the one scribbled across most of the spaces.

While Marinette waited for Alya to join her, she did her best to rehearse her request. She tried to think of how many different ways she could ask for Alya’s engagement band. None of them seemed to convey just how badly she needed this favor of Alya and that she also understood exactly how difficult a request this was to make of her friend. In fact, as her eyes wandered across all the little things in this room that emphasized just how intertwined Nino and Alya were, Marinette became more and more certain that she couldn’t ask at all. She might just have to share what she could and hope Alya offered the solution on her own.

Which is why, when Alya finally joined Marinette upstairs, Marinette merely shoved the set of notes at Alya without preamble.

“What am I looking at?” Alya frowned, but it was not difficult for her to recognize the structure of a spell in the middle of Marinette’s chaotic scribbles.

Her brow furrowed as she read, and her eyes darkened. She sank into a chair by her dressing table and began to chew on her thumb as she worked through Adrien’s story.

Marinette fidgeted with the brooch once again and glanced around Alya’s room, but the coronets, the trinkets, and the dance cards all served as brightly painted warning signs to usher her away from this course of action.

Finally, Alya set the notes down on her vanity and looked up at Marinette. “Marinette, what have you gotten yourself into this time?”

“‘This time’?” Marinette echoed, forgetting for a moment her anxiety about her request.

“How many times do you need to stick your nose into other people’s business before you learn that it always gets you in over your head?”

“You’re the one who encouraged me to talk to him at the Midnight Market.”

“This is about him? The boy from the town dance? I just thought a little flirting would be good for you, since you hadn’t taken an interest in anyone since Luka. I didn’t think you’d involve yourself in a high society scandal, risking the ruin of what sounds like two families’ reputations and your own reputation, let alone the risks of getting this wrong. Are you seriously going to go through with this?”

“I’m not going to stand by and do nothing!”

“No,” Alya sighed. “I suppose you wouldn’t be Marinette if you did.”

Marinette blushed, embarrassed to be have been recognized so keenly—particularly in the same way by both her best friend of over a decade and a gentleman she had met only four times.

“So, will you help me?” Marinette asked.

“Depends. Are you doing this because you love him?”

“How—Alya—I hardly know him—I couldn’t say—”

“Oh, you’re properly smitten, aren’t you?”

“I’m not!”

But Alya looked grim as Marinette protested. There was none of the teasing she expected from her friend who had joked about the size of Adrien’s hat and encouraged Marinette to strike up a conversation with him.

“You’ll need to be careful if you’re going to go through with this,” Alya said, tone surprisingly serious. “If you love him…” Alya twisted her engagement band. “You just want to make sure your intentions are clear. Love isn’t necessarily counter to the intentions in this spell you’re trying to undo. And you know things can get messy when you mix love and curses.”

Marinette swallowed. “His mother behaved selfishly. Surely love—if I did love him, which I don’t—would be counter to her intentions.”

“Sometimes love is selfish. You can’t be in love if you aren’t a little afraid of what you might lose. I’m just warning you. If you want to do this for him, you can’t do it for you—at all.”

Marinette swallowed a lump of anxiety that persisted in her throat and nodded. “I know.”

Alya raised an eyebrow at Marinette, and Marinette set her jaw defiantly. She was doing this for Adrien, not for herself. Hadn’t she asked if he would leave his intended fiancée for her? And hadn’t he said no? There was no guarantee that saving him would secure his heart. The possibility couldn’t factor into her spell, for her sake and for his.

“If you’re sure,” Alya finally said with a shrug. “Do you have all of your components?”

“Only one, and it’s, well…” Marinette passed the brooch to Alya and the seeing stone.

Alya set the seeing stone aside and turned the brooch over in her hands. As Marinette suspected, even without magical aide, Alya squinted at the brooch and ran her thumb over the exact place the fissure ran through the stone.

“That’s a quality glamor,” Alya murmured. “Almost like an incomplete fix. Did you do it?”

“I’m absolutely not that good at glamors.”

Alya smiled and shrugged. “You consistently surprise me. You’ll want to repair it with gold, right? Probably something sentimental?”

Marinette had nothing left in her pockets to fidget with. She was left to twist her hands into her skirts. “I had a… a thought about that. I don’t have anything gold, nor something of value that would suffice. But I thought—well, it was just an idea…”

“Marinette, I do illusions, not divination. Spit it out,” Alya sighed.

“I just thought that… your engagement ring—I know it’s brass, but with all the work Nino put in for it, and how long you waited—I’d find a way to repay you, I swear.”

Alya frowned.

“I’m sorry—I know that’s a lot to ask—I just didn’t know what else to do, what else would work.”

“I’m not saying no,” Alya said, “though I very much want to.” She picked the notes back up and reread the details of the curse. “I think you’re right,” Alya murmured, “that the metal from my engagement band would repair this brooch to its original power—but I think you’re wrong that it will help you break this curse.”

“But—it’s a ring, and you want some semblance, otherwise it could make it worse—”

“But an engagement ring is an engagement ring. It’s a visual symbol of a deep bond and loyal connection. You’re trying to break a connection, a connection already symbolized in familial rings. Using my engagement ring to fix this gem would probably just make this curse stronger.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

Alya sighed. “You’re not going to like my answer.”

“I didn’t like asking this of you in the first place.”

“Well, this request is significantly harder.”

“How can it be worse than asking my best friend to give up the symbol of her relationship, of a commitment she’s been waiting for years to see come to pass?”

“Because you’ll have to talk to Luka.”

❖❖❖

Luka was always hard to find when Marinette wanted to see him, and somehow excellent at turning up when he was the last person that she needed.

She started her search at his usual haunts—the town square, the public hall, and the church—but he was not there, even though many professed to having seen him there earlier that week. And if he was not there, playing music and making conversation, then Marinette knew he had to be somewhere in Artisan’s Alley, picking up a day’s work where he could get it.

The peacock-shaped brooch hung heavy in her pocket as she made her way to the alley. She was unreasonably nervous about taking it so close to the jeweler who had worked on it for the Agrestes, as if he might sense it was near and have her arrested for thieving. It was a silly fear. She simply had to leave it in her pocket, and no one would be the wiser.

She glanced first in the cobbler’s window, then the tailor, and then—Luka’s laugh reached her ears. Her heart jolted again, though thankfully, it was not with longing, just anxiety at what she had to do. She followed the sound to a familiar jeweler’s shop, and Marinette glared up at the door balefully, as if Luka had somehow chosen this shop on purpose to make her task harder.

She looked up at the sun, just beginning its descent for the afternoon. If she wanted an answer from Félix before dark, she needed to move quickly. With a deep breath, and a reminder to leave the brooch in her pocket, she pushed the shop door open.

The bell of the door jingled, and Marinette was immediately greeted with a cordial, “Good afternoon, how might I—oh! Marinette!”

She smiled uneasily at Luka. In front of him, a gold bangle in the shape of a coiled snake rested on the glass display. It glared up at her with a single sapphire eye. The other was still in a pair of tweezers in Luka’s hand, but he readily set it down in a velvet box and set the work aside. All of his attention was hers.

“How are you?” he asked. “I missed you at the dance the other night. Alya said you had just been there, but I guess we passed each other.”

Marinette ran her tongue along her teeth, unsure exactly where to start. “Is the shopkeep in?”

If Luka was put off by Marinette avoiding his question, it was impossible to tell. His voice was as even-keeled as ever. “He’s in the back. Would you like me to see if he could speak with you?”

“No, no, I was—I was actually looking for you.”

“Oh! That’s a change.”

Her face flushed. “It’s not that—not that unusual.”

“Not at all,” he replied easily. “You’ve only been avoiding me ever since we called things off. I assume that’s why you disappeared from the dance the other night, even though Alya said you had seemed to be enjoying yourself for once.”

She tightened her hands in her skirts. He was certainly not making this any easier on her. “I—I need to ask you for something.”

“I am at your service entirely.”

“Alya said—” Marinette took in a deep breath. It was best just to get it over with. “Alya said that before we, you know—” she struggled to define the end of their relationship, and chose to borrow his words, “before we called things off, she said that you had already bought engagement rings.”

The temperature in the shop seemed to drop by several degrees. Luka’s easy-going posture vanished, and his arms, which had been resting easily on the counter as he leaned closer to Marinette, suddenly folded over his chest as he straightened.

“Maybe. What of it?”

“I—I’m trying to break a curse. And I think—well, Alya said—I mean, she thinks that they would work, that they would be the thing I need to fix the gem that broke when the curse was cast.”

Now it was Luka who could not look at her. He stared down at the floor, like Marinette’s request was written in the woodgrain beneath his feet. “Why does it have to be these rings? Surely you’ve got jewelry of your own. You didn’t toss everything I gave you, did you?”

She nearly had, but no, she had not gotten rid of all of Luka’s gifts. He was still, despite all their discomfort—discomfort that until this exact moment she had believed belonged only to her—a friend.

“I can’t use just anything,” Marinette murmured. “It’s a curse that binds two young men against their will, and Alya thinks—” She bit down on her lip. “—I know that I need to repair the gem with two objects, and I think it needs to be these rings. You bought them out of love, but you’ve let that love go. It’s the right thing to break this curse.”

“Can I see the gem?”

Marinette swallowed. “Um, no?”

“Why not?”

She glanced at the door that led to the back of the shop. “I—”

“Just let me take a look. Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”

“Alya already looked at it.”

“Alya’s good at glamors, not curses.”

“And you are good at curses?”

“I’m good with charms,” he said, with a small, charming smile, “just like you.”

Marinette did not meet his smile, but she could tell she was not going to get what she had come for if she did not show him the gem.

Reluctantly, she passed the brooch to Luka.

He picked up a jade seeing stone from beneath the counter and turned the brooch over in his hands. “That is quite a break. I see why you want gold to fix it.”

“It’s not the gold, Luka. It’s the commitment—and the letting go.”

He sighed, and his hand slid into his jacket. “Marinette, only an idiot would let his love for you go.” He set two plain gold bands down on the counter, but he did not take his fingers off of them. “If I didn’t still love you, I would not still be carrying these things around.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You want me to give it to you, so you can use it for someone else that you love, is that right?”

Though Marinette had protested her affections for Adrien to Alya and to herself, she could not do so now. If Luka gave her that ring with any hope she might still return his love, the magic would not work. He had to truly give her up.

She nodded once.

“I’ve always meant it,” he murmured, “that I like being your friend. Is it wrong for me to also miss being more?”

“If this were easy for either of us, I don’t think the rings would work for the spell.”

His lips twitched with a soft smile. “Lucky for you, then. Lucky for him.” He slid the bands and the brooch across the counter top.

Marinette closed her hand over them. “Thank you, Luka. I mean it.”

“It’d be too easy if you didn’t.”

As she turned to go, a low voice called, “Mademoiselle!”

Marinette jumped and tightened her grip on the brooch. The elderly jeweler stood in the doorway behind the counter, leaning on his cane. The gold threads shot through his white suit glinted in the early afternoon sunlight, and their gilded rays danced across the green jade buttons down the center of his jacket.

“I apologize for taking up your assistant’s time,” Marinette murmured with a brief curtsy. “I’ll just be on my way.”

But instead of admonishing or assuring her, he said, “You were in here before.”

“Er—yes, when my friend was purchasing an engagement ring.”

“When the Agrestes came in.”

Marinette could see no way to lie. “Yes.”

“And did I hear you correctly, that you are set on undoing a curse that has bound two young men?”

Though Madame Agreste had refused to give this jeweler details of how the gemstone had fractured, how much had he been able to infer from his own attempts to repair the brooch?

“I am. But I’m afraid it would not be my place to say more.”

He waved a hand dismissively, and the sleeve of his jacket slid down, revealing a bangle made of the same quality jade as the buttons of his suit. “I’ve no desire to press. Just one question, for Monsieur Couffaine.”

Luka’s brow furrowed. “Yes, sir?”

“Do you trust what this young lady is attempting to do is worthwhile?”

“Always.”

“Then we should assist her as much as we can, should we not?”

#ml fic #mlbigbang2024 #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug fanfic #aywgtccc

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aidanchaser · 2 months ago

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Huge thank you to @yellowbullet100 for beta-reading this chapter not once, not twice, but about three times in various stages of drafting to make sure it was perfect. Thank you to the @mlbigbang2024 team for organizing and collaborating. Truly a pleasure to be a part of something so fun.

Chapter Four: On the Subject of Components Even a young witch is familiar with the three rules of magic that govern all spellwork: intention, ritual, and flourish. However, this author would impress upon the importance of a true first step that many experienced witches complete by instinct rather than by conscious learning and thus forget to impart its necessity to the next generation. The true first step in any spell is to choose the components most appropriate to the task.

Historically, witches have turned to nature to capture the secrets of her transformative cycles, which are conducted with little grace or glamor. For this reason, water from turbulent rivers and violent oceans, plants grown in hidden valleys and on wild mountaintops, and valuable metals and gems from the muddiest banks to the darkest depths of the earth feature in many spells. For most magic, however, a witch need not look further than their own garden, for the flowers that have been domesticated for their beauty will amplify a witch’s intentions more powerfully than any expensive component or lately fashionable sigil.

Marinette leaned against the flour-dusted counter and absentmindedly swirled her finger through the pale motes. Her streaks through the flour started simply, with circles representing thick rings with lines drawing away that looped into the garrottes she had seen around the throats of both Adrien and his cousin. The circles would mean nothing to anyone else, but they were all that was on Marinette’s mind that morning.

Her doodles slowly increased in complexity as her mind turned over what she knew of Adrien’s struggles. She doodled an S-curve, mirroring the figure of his mother and a sharp pair of lines in the shape of a T, like the stiff, straight-backed figures of both his father and cousin. She doodled a cat, though she could not say how the cat figured into the problem. She doodled the long, thin loops of a peacock’s tail.

Though it was arrogant of her, Marinette imagined that if she could only get her hands on that brooch, perhaps she could fix what the jeweler could not. She had the advantage of knowing who had cast the curse, and she had an idea of what it was. Nothing detailed, but she knew that it allowed Madame Agreste a measure of control over her son and nephew. She knew what its physical manifestation was. Would that alone be enough?

Of course she would be foolish to attempt it. She might even make it worse in a way that hurt Adrien further. The jeweler himself had said that he could not fix it without knowing the truth of how it had been broken. If Madame Agreste refused to explain the curse, then there was nothing that Marinette could do, certainly.

Unless she could convince Adrien to tell her everything that he knew, perhaps she could figure out the magic from there…

Marinette was so lost in her daydreaming that she did not hear the bell on the shop door. She was not even aware she had a customer until there was a sudden cough that startled her so much that she jumped into the air and stumbled backwards into a stack of bread baskets that came tumbling down over her head. Thankfully, they were empty, but just because she had made a less disastrous mess did not lessen the injury.

Ruefully, Marinette rubbed her head, still tender from her fall the night before, and asked, “How can I help you?” But as she looked up at her customer, a new shock slammed into her chest as certainly as if she had been struck and she flung her arms out to either side in search of support, only to knock over a small stalk of bowls that had been set aside for washing.

Lady Kagami Tsurugi stood before her, dressed in a sleek black fur wrap around her shoulders, and wholly unfazed by the clattering of dishes. Beneath Kagami’s fur wrap was a dress of cranberry red velvet, far too formal for shopping in the market. Marinette wondered if someone like Kagami had any clothes appropriate for shopping in the market, or if that was a task wholly delegated to household staff.

Marinette struggled for both breath and words. “Lady Tsurugi—I mean Miss Tsurugi—I mean—Kagami—What can I—I mean, I am sorry about last night, I—”

Kagami held up a hand and Marinette clamped her mouth shut as certainly as if Kagami’s hand were a spell cast to silence her.

“You are not the one who needs to apologize,” Kagami said. “And Adrien made many profuse apologies last evening. I am, however, not quite prepared to accept them until I have some answers of my own. And for that—well—” Kagami’s cold and stern exterior faltered for a moment as she bit down on her lower lip. “Marinette, I am sorry to ask, but I should like your help.”

Marinette blinked. “My help? But—why me? I mean—I would think I’m the last person you want after… after…” But Marinette could not put words to the kiss she and Adrien had shared. Mistletoe had not even entered her absentminded doodles, for to put such a moment back into reality—a kiss with a boy who was meant to propose to another woman—seemed too scandalous to address. Even now, Marinette’s cheeks burned hot with the memory. It was easier to think of his mother’s terrible curse, whatever it may be, than it was to consider her kiss with Adrien.

Kagami glanced down at her hands, clasped neatly at her waist. “I have been turning over what Adrien has said about being unable to call on me for tea or an afternoon visit. He refused to explain clearly what he meant by this, so I have decided to call on him. Whatever he is hiding, or whatever excuses will be offered, will perhaps give me some clarity on his own motivations for marrying me.”

“I—I am afraid I don’t know much more than you already know,” Marinette said, even as she wiped away her drawing of a peacock tail with a sweep of her hand. “I believe he wants to follow through with his mother’s request that he marry you.”

“And yet he flaunts his parents’ wishes in a myriad of other ways. I refuse to marry a man of such inconsistency. Either he will explain himself, or I will refuse his suit on the grounds of his behavior last evening.”

The blood drained from Marinette’s face. While her behavior last night had certainly not been wholly appropriate, for she had been well aware of Adrien’s intentions to propose to Kagami, neither had it been entirely untoward. It had been a public event; mistletoe had been involved. However, if it became known that she was the reason such a high society marriage falled to come to pass…

“Please don’t say anything,” Marinette begged. “I don’t know how I can help you, but I’ll do whatever I can.”

“I should like you to accompany me while I call on him.”

Marinette blinked. “Me? But why?”

“He has demonstrated a measure of honesty with you, has he not? Perhaps you will elicit something from him that I otherwise could not. And, besides, it would be untoward of me to visit him alone and I—well, there is no one else I know to ask to accompany me.”

Kagami’s pale cheeks bloomed with blush as she confessed this, and all fear Marinette felt about the scandals that might erupt in the wake of last night’s dancing and single kiss melted when presented with this plain truth: Lady Kagami Tsurugi had no friends. The best companion she could think of was a girl who was a threat to her intended marriage.

“I’d be happy to accompany you,” Marinette assured her. She patted her pocket to make sure her seeing stone was still where she had left it. Perhaps she could find answers that Kagami might not be able to otherwise. “I’ll help however I can. But—well—” she eyed Kagami’s velvet dress and fur wrap once more. “—I am not entirely sure that I have anything appropriate to wear.”

❖❖❖

Though it was not much later that Marinette, dressed in one of Kagami’s fine gowns and matching bonnet, slipped into a carriage beside Kagami, the sun was already at its zenith. The short winter days slipped by so suddenly that Marinette wondered if they would even arrive in time for an afternoon tea, and certainly doubted they would be welcomed when they showed up unannounced.

These things did not seem to concern Kagami, however, who kept her eyes on the carriage window, watching the shops turn into rolling hills and copses of whitebeams. Marinette’s eyes were on the carriage itself. She had never ridden in one before, and couldn’t imagine she would have much opportunity to do so again.

“Er—” Marinette fidgeted with the hem of her sleeve. “Lady Ts—I mean, Kagami—I know you think that even if they say that Adrien is not receiving visitors, you’ll be able to learn something about why he isn’t available to call on you, but I—well, you’ll still have to introduce me, won’t you?”

“You shall be my cousin, of course,” Kagami said. “We look similar enough that no one would think twice.”

The sleeve Marinette kept fussing with really was only a half-inch too long. She was not all that much smaller than Kagami, and they shared a similar hair color, though Marinette felt Kagami’s features were far sharper than her own flat and soft face.

“And, well—your mother, does she know you’re doing this? You said she would lock you in your rooms after your outing last night.”

“She did. And then she went to town on business. There are other ways out of the house, other ways of convincing the staff to get what I want.”

“I see.” Marinette tried to swallow down the nerves crawling up her throat, but they refused to subside.

Kagami did not strike her as the sort of person who took no for an answer. She would push back against whatever excuses Adrien offered to avoid seeing her, and Marinette was inevitably going to suffer through a very uncomfortable tea with the Agrestes and Kagami. Marinette also had a habit of talking herself into trouble. She wondered how long she could sit at the same table as Madame Agreste without mentioning the brooch or implying she knew about Adrien’s curse.

As the carriage rounded the edge of a small wood, the Agreste family home came into view. Its grounds stretched out across flat green mounds, cut through with gravel paths whose edges were decorated by a variety of flowers, blooming despite the cold weather. Butterflies, white and plain, flitted from bloom to bloom in the pale sunshine. Marinette’s first assumption was illusion magic, but a quick peek through Alya’s seeing stone showed her that these flowers were as real as the carriage bumping along beneath her. Madame Agreste must be managing some powerful spellwork to keep her garden in such a state year-round.

Once they had pulled into the walk, Kagami’s footman helped Marinette and Kagami out of the carriage. The girls climbed up the small steps that led to the large, stark black front doors. Kagami lifted the knocker, but a doorman did not immediately answer.

“Perhaps they’re not receiving today?” Marinette asked.

“They should still have a doorman to take messages.” Kagami’s brow furrowed ever so slightly. She lifted her hand towards the knocker again, but before she grabbed it, there was a sudden creak and they were greeted by none other than Madame Agreste.

Marinette was surprised at first that the lady of the home would answer her own door. But as Marinette took a closer look at the woman, it occurred to her that this was not Madame Agreste at all.

Her pale blonde hair was pulled up into a stately knot, and her dress was appropriately fashionable, though perhaps understated in its darker color. But most striking was the soft and airy posture this woman carried. Whereas Madame Agreste had appeared confident and poised in a way that diminished her husband, this woman appeared soft and perhaps even inviting, if she had not been framed by such an imposing threshold.

“Madame Fathom,” Marinette said, and curtsied.

Amélie Fathom looked pleased to be correctly addressed. She smiled, and her green eyes, identical to her sister’s, softened.

“Madame Fathom,” Kagami hastily offered her own curtsy, “may I introduce you to my cousin, Marinette Dupain-Cheng?”

“A pleasure,” Madame Fathom inclined her head. “Please, come in.”

She stepped aside to allow the girls entry into the grand hall. It was all Marinette could do to stop herself from bending over backwards to get a better look at the high ceilings, the intricate chandelier, and the gold leaf on the ceiling tiles. She’d certainly been in homes this nice, serving her parents’ baked goods at parties, but she’d never entered from the front before.

“I was hoping I might be able to visit with Adrien Agreste,” Kagami said, as Madame Fathom led them down the hall.

“I’m afraid Adrien is unavailable this afternoon,” Madame Fathom said. “I’m so sorry that you came all this way for nothing. But I’ll be happy to let you know that he called.”

She opened the door to the drawing room and led them inside. A gentleman who had been seated in an armchair stood, but just as Marinette curtsied to greet him, her eyes were drawn to a large portrait hanging over the fireplace mantle.

She was caught not by the beauty of the portrait—though its expertise was clear—but rather by how strikingly familiar it was. The coy purse of Madame Agreste’s lips as she gazed down at the viewer was identical to the condescending smile she had exhibited in the marketplace. Her husband’s hand on Adrien’s shoulder seemed to bear the same weight it had in the jeweler's shop. Adrien, however, looked remarkably different, with a soft smile and gentle green eyes that seemed unbothered by the looming figures of his parents behind him.

Of course Adrien looked different in the portrait than he had in the marketplace; the boy in the marketplace had been Adrien’s cousin.

Kagami coughed meaningfully and Marinette turned her attention back to the gentleman that Madame Fathom was introducing them to.

He was as tall as Monsieur Agreste, but nearly three times as wide. His dark suit jacket was unbuttoned, revealing an off-white waistcoat beneath. His thick mustache framed a pair of thin lips; despite its fullness, the hair on his head was thin and wispy.

“... and Mademoiselle Tsurugi, you’ve met my husband, Colt Fathom,” Madame Fathom said.

Marinette immediately recalled Adrien’s comment about his uncle “Folt Fathom,” and hastily covered a laugh with a cough and hasty curtsy. And as all eyes were now on her, she scrambled for something to say.

“Madame—” Marinette cleared her throat. “Madame et Monsieur Fathom, it is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Monsieur Fathom,” Kagami said, “this is my cousin, Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng.”

Monsieur Fathom smiled a bit too widely and he replied a bit too loudly, “Any family of the Tsurugis is family of ours.” His tongue turned over the shape of each word thickly and his American accent cut through the conversation with the delicacy of a pickaxe.

Madame Fathom’s voice was so much softer that Marinette felt she had to strain to hear it again in the wake of her husband’s words. “Not family yet,” she murmured.

Then, with a shrewd glint in otherwise gentle eyes, Madam Fathom said, “It is a shame, Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng, that we were not able to make your acquaintance at any of Madame Tsurugi’s dinners this past month.”

As Marinette scrambled for some sort of lie and excuse for her absence, Kagami filled one in for her.

“She’s only lately arrived. I thought perhaps I could introduce her to Adrien. I know you said he was unavailable, but when he and I parted last night, he asked me to call on him this afternoon.”

This lie rolled off of Kagami’s tongue as smoothly and unadorned as the first one had, but it was not so readily accepted by Colt Fathom, nor by his wife. The two exchanged an uneasy glance, though it was brief and smoothed over quickly.

“You must have misunderstood,” Monsieur Fathom said, but offered no further explanation. Whatever knowledge Kagami had hoped to uncover in their excuses fell short.

“Perhaps I may speak with Monsieur et Madame Agreste,” Kagami pressed. “Mother should like to arrange another dinner between our families.”

“I’m sure Madame Agreste would agree,” Madame Fathom said. “But unfortunately my sister and her husband are in town at the moment and will not return until later this evening.”

“Then I am afraid we have wasted a trip,” Kagami said. “I apologize for disturbing your afternoon. I only—” She hesitated, as if unsure about the appropriate nature of her request. But though Marinette had not known Kagami for very long, she did not know Kagami to hesitate. Something about this hesitation rang as false as anything else Kagami had said so far. “I only wish to know that Adrien is well. We were out so late last night. I am worried that perhaps the cold did him harm.”

If Marinette were to guess why this lie failed when the others had been so well-received, she would place the blame on Kagami’s attempts to appear worried. It did not suit her face any better than the smile had last night. Expressions worked through her like ripples across a pond. They were temporary, and disturbed what was otherwise a beautiful glass surface. There was little in them that appeared truly earnest, regardless of however earnestly they may have been felt.

Despite Madame Fathom’s raised eyebrows, clearly arched with both surprise and disbelief, she smiled.

“If you are so insistent,” Madame Fathom murmured, “I shall go and check if he will see you. Please,” and she gestured to a sofa where Marinette and Kagami could take a seat.

The girls acquiesced, and Monsieur Fathom dropped into his seat again as his wife left the room.

Marinette waited patiently for Monsieur Fathom to offer some sort of innocuous conversation, like inquiring after Lady Tsurugi’s health, or offering to host a dinner in return, but he merely tapped his fingers against his knee and stared at the door his wife had disappeared through.

Since their host was not offering conversation, Marinette tried to make some of her own. “You have a lovely home.”

“My wife’s family’s,” Monsieur Fathom replied. It was only barely an answer, and offered no conversation. Perhaps Marinette should not have been surprised; his son had been no better conversationalist when he had come sweeping into her bakery.

“Your staff,” Kagami began, “are they—I mean, they’re quite good at remaining unnoticed.”

Marinette was rather impressed that Kagami had found a polite way to inquire as to why the house was so poorly staffed. Though, perhaps Madame Agreste or Madame Fathom might have heard the rude core of the question, Monsieur Fathom did not seem so bothered.

“We keep enough on hand.” he said, “For the last five years or so, the Agrestes have kept a limited staff. Keeps costs down, you know.”

“Spoken like a true American businessman,” Kagami said, politely glossing over what would have otherwise been a rude acknowledgement of hard financial times. “Monsieur Fathom has business in America,” she explained to Marinette, “though he would have to remind me of the nature of it.”

“Oil and horses,” he replied with a grunt.

When he did not elaborate further, Marinette tried again. “And your family… bears a crest with a pair of songbirds, is that right?”

“Mockingbirds,” Monsieur Fathom replied. “Natives of my home country. I had some imported for my wife.”

“Madame Fathom likes birds, then?” Marinette asked.

“Women enjoy music, don’t they? Mockingbirds make excellent music.”

Marinette could not imagine a husband more disinterested in his wife. Not malicious, she thought, just fully indifferent. But his eyes were steady on the door she had disappeared through. If it wasn’t affectionate longing that held his gaze, then she wondered what he was so worried about.

“Is your son at home today?” Marinette asked.

Monsieur Fathom’s brow furrowed as he looked Marinette over. She did her best to keep her face as blank as possible, though she did not think Monsieur Fathom particularly difficult to deceive.

“Félix should be around somewhere,” he answered, but he was unable to elaborate as the doors to the parlor opened once more.

Kagami and Marinette stood as Madame Fathom returned with Adrien in tow.

At least, Marinette thought it was Adrien. She found it impossible to tell for sure. Kagami curtsied politely and Marinette only inclined her head when Kagami nudged her. She was too focused on trying to determine if this was Adrien or his cousin to remember her manners.

His hands were folded behind his back, but even if she could see them, she doubted the cat scratch would still be there.

“Monsieur Agreste,” Kagami said softly, “it is a pleasure to see you looking well after last night.”

“Likewise,” he replied, voice flat.

“This is my cousin, Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng.”

If the Fathoms heard the unusual emphasis on cousin, they did not acknowledge it, and if Adrien was surprised by the introduction, he did not show it.

“A pleasure,” he said, without a smile.

“I was just telling your uncle how lovely your home is,” Marinette said.

“My sister and I grew up on these grounds,” Madame Fathom answered. “She and I have continued to manage the estate since our parents passed.”

“Oh, are the charms in the garden yours or hers? The flowers are lovely, despite the weather.”

This, of all things, earned a smile from Madame Fathom. “We both maintain the gardens. Are you familiar with magic?”

“I’ve some experience with charms and potions, but—”

“Adrien, why don’t you show our guests to the greenhouse? Surely it would interest Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng. I’d take you myself, but I feel a bit of a headache coming on.”

Adrien examined Marinette like he was seeing her for the first time. There was a criticality to his gaze she had not seen last night. “It would be my pleasure,” he finally said, though pleasure was not the word Marinette would use to describe his tone of voice.

Monsieur Fathom stood. “A walk in the greenhouse sounds appropriate. Allow me to chaperone.”

“I’m sure Mademoiselle Tsurugi’s cousin is chaperone enough,” Madame Fathom murmured as she sat down in a chair.

“But there’s no need to risk any mischief, is there?” Monsieur Fathom replied with a single raised eyebrow at Adrien.

Adrien’s smile looked no more at home on his face than Kagami’s worry had on hers.

“None at all,” he replied.

Kagami and Marinette followed Adrien out onto the grounds. He stared anxiously at the cold yellow sun, midway through its descent, before taking them down the path to the greenhouse. Monsieur Fathom followed behind, a dutiful if annoying chaperone. But Marinette could not truly complain; her own father would have behaved no better.

Adrien cast an irritated glance over his shoulder as they reached the greenhouse. Though he hid the frown from his uncle, Marinette caught a glimpse of his annoyance—and promptly forgot it as he pulled open the greenhouse doors.

It was warmer in here than it had been in the house. Green climbed the walls and transformed the sunlight from a pale, distant thing into something warm and living. Marinette took in a deep breath and was rewarded with a symphony of scents, a variety of sweet and floral. She’d never seen a garden so varied and colorful before. She saw everything from blooms of bright yellow hazel to twisting magnolia trees. The sound of running water and birdsong suggested this greenhouse held even more secrets further in. She could not help but imagine what it must be like to be a witch and have access to such a store of materials. She would be able to create anything she could dream of in a place like this.

“I’m grateful you were able to see us,” Kagami said as they walked. “I was worried after—after what you said last night.”

Adrien did not reply immediately, but instead led them through the greenery until they arrived at a standing table and shelves stocked with jars of seeds, petals, leaves, and all sorts of potions and gardening supplies alike.

He glanced over his shoulder at Colt Fathom, hovering near a cluster of yellow roses, and with a disgruntled huff, reached for a small pair of shears. He motioned for Kagami and Marinette to follow him.

A little further down the path, Adrien stopped at a cluster of pale lavender blooms, petals long and thin, with deep purple crawling out from its center like a spreading bruise. It was not the flower, beautiful as it was, that helped Marinette identify it, but rather the lettuce-like leaves and the strong scent of citrus.

Adrien clipped a stem of lemon geranium blooms from the plant and, with a particular precision, pruned the stem so it bore a single blossom.

“I apologize for what I said last night. You have to understand, I’m not exactly myself in the evenings.”

He handed the stem with a single flower to Kagami. It was a polite apology, if not particularly earnest, but Kagami accepted it and the flower.

Marinette, however, frowned. Had he not said last night that he preferred long winter evenings? She didn’t understand why he would change his mind now. But before Marinette could find a way to phrase her question without alerting Monsieur Fathom that this was not her first meeting with Adrien as Kagami had implied in the parlor, he pressed a bloom of lemon geranium into her hands as well—except this one had three lavender flowers clustered together instead of the single bloom Kagami had just received.

She thanked him, though she thought the gift a bit rude. If he was apologizing to his intended fiancée for kissing another girl, it seemed foolish to give the other girl a larger bloom of flowers.

But Kagami did not seem so bothered. She smiled, tucked the flower into her dress, and wandered to a corner of the greenhouse with a large sycamore tree, whose canopy created a cool shade over a collection of flowers crowded around its roots. Kagami, however, ignored these flowers, and reached up for one of the low branches of the tree. Though it was late in the year, the warmth kept the sycamore seedpods clinging to the branches. Kagami reached for a small bunch of the winged pods and pulled them down. She handed them to Félix.

“If you are so different in the evenings, it is a pleasure to get the chance to see you during the day.”

Adrien accepted the bunch of sycamore with a wry smile.

As he led them back the way they had come, a small gray songbird flitted across their path and right into a bush of yellow roses.

“Are those the mockingbirds your uncle imported?” Marinette asked.

“They like to make their home in these roses. He brought both the birds and the flowers over straight from his ranch in America.” He used his sheers to pluck a single yellow rose, which he handed to Kagami. He then clipped a bunch of purple catchfly flowers from their bush and proceeded to arrange a small bouquet.

“It’s a shame we’ve never taken tea together before,” Kagami said, “if daytime is your preferred hour.”

Adrien plucked a cluster of pale pink heath blooms and baby blue harebells. “My mother is particularly careful with my schedule.”

As Adrien worked, Marinette tried to make sense of the strange composition. He was clearly being intentional with his choices, scanning the garden for particular flowers. But she could see no order to the yellows, pinks, and blues he pulled into his hand.

But as he reached for the heart-shaped flowers of a winter cherry—an unusual choice for any bouquet, particularly when he had access to such a variety of unseasonal spring blooms—realization struck Marinette. This was not a bouquet, and the flowers he had given to her and Kagami were not an apology at all. He was sending a message.

Marinette’s grandmother had drilled the language of flowers into her, for any witch worth her salt had to know the meanings of a plant before she could work with them. Not only did different plants have different properties for potions in the same way medicines could be crafted, intention mattered. A flower with a name and a purpose given to it by many was far more effective than any herb or spice might be on its own, regardless of the caster’s intentions.

She had a reference pamphlet at home, but even if it was on hand, Marinette did not know how she would have browsed it without Monsieur Fathom seeing her.

She fidgeted with the lemon geranium in her hand and tried to remember what it meant. There was something to do with the scent, unusual, for the plant itself brought forth no lemons. Something to do with surprise—an unexpected meeting.

Marinette counted the blooms on her stalk once more. Three unexpected meetings. Kagami had received only one.

This was an introduction. This boy was not Adrien at all.

So the Fathoms and the Agrestes agreed on the deceit. Adrien’s cousin pretended to be Adrien when either of them needed it, it seemed. She wondered where Adrien really was. She wondered if Adrien’s cousin ever got to be himself, or if he always had to be Adrien.

Marinette considered the three blooms in her hand. One for the rude boy in the bakery, one for the boy who was not Adrien in the jeweler’s shop, and one for today. Three meetings with the Fathom cousin—Félix, his father had called him. She wished she could turn his name over in her mouth, but she did not dare with Monsieur Fathom still in earshot.

She understood now why he had accepted the bunch of sycamore pods from Kagami. Sycamores symbolized curiosity. Kagami had understood immediately what the lemon geraniums meant and had asked him to explain himself.

Marinette took a closer look at the bouquet he now presented to Kagami.

He had placed the yellow rose in the middle. Roses themselves were a language all their own, but Marinette did not think she needed to draw on the nuance of roses to understand this message. He had chosen it not because it was a rose, but because, as he had explained to the girls without prompting, it was from Colt Fathom’s original home. It identified him as the son of Colt Fathom rather than the Agrestes.

And, just in case Marinette was unsure if she had inferred that right, he had paired the rose with the two winter cherries, still wrapped in their brilliant red heart-shaped buds. Deception, the bouquet said.

Surrounding the rose and cherries were the bunches of purple catchfly, as well as two individual stalks of heath with pink blooms along the stems. Each was matched with a blue harebell. Marinette interpreted these readily, for the names and appearance largely matched their meaning, and the numbers he had so carefully provided helped.

The catchfly surrounding the rose indicated a snare. He was trapped. The two stalks of heath and harebell for him and his cousin each—alone and submissive. He added a cluster of meadowsweet at the base of the bouquet and tied it with a rough string. Marinette had to rack her brain to recall the meaning of meadowsweet before remembering that its meaning mattered little to her work—uselessness.

She had her answer, then. Félix did not get to be himself in this performance very often, if at all.

Kagami accepted the bouquet with verbal gratitude, but the thank you on her lips was not mirrored in her eyes. Instead she stared intently at the bell-shaped blooms of heath and ran her fingers along the leafy stems. Marinette recalled the half-finished painting she had seen in the Tsurugis’ parlor on the night she had first met Adrien: a vase of irises, on a bed of heath—a message, detailing how painfully alone the artist felt.

“If your mother is so strict with your schedule,” Kagami said slowly, and lifted her eyes to the rest of the garden, searching hard for a particular flower to respond with, “would she make an exception for us today? Perhaps my companion and I might even stay for dinner.”

Kagami found what she was looking for. She plucked a single bloom of white chrysanthemum and added it to a large glass vase.

Truth.

Félix smiled.

“If she allows you to stay,” he said, and reached for a stalk of pimpernel, which he added to the vase, “I will have to change.”

Marinette did not need his verbal cue to remember what pimpernel meant. As a symbol of change, it was vital to any transformative work she performed, and it was a clever insight into the questions Marinette had been asking herself all morning. This game of impersonation was one played because of a change. If Marinette had to guess, this curse the cousins suffered under had something to do with a change in form. Perhaps Alya’s concerns about monstrousness had not been too far-fetched.

As Adrien’s cousin reached for a bloom of cinquefoil, Marinette asked, “If your aunt and uncle are visiting, would your cousin join us for dinner? I should like to meet him.”

“I am afraid Félix is unavailable this evening,” he replied, choosing the exact same words Madame Fathom had used to try to put Kagami off from seeing Adrien. Marinette wondered how many times their families had used that excuse, which was no excuse at all. “And after the… events last evening, I think my mother would be reluctant to risk repeating it.”

“Surely she wants us to spend more time together,” Kagami offered as Félix added a yellow lily and a peacock flower to this bouquet.

He handed the completed bouquet to Marinette.

The pimpernel was wrapped in the vibrant red peacock flower. The single yellow lily, representing falsehood, was intertwined with a cluster of cinquefoil, which symbolized maternal affection. The small bouquet had been tied off with a thin black ribbon.

Marinette understood at once. He was trying to tell her about the peacock brooch and who had cast this transformative curse. He had seen her magic at the bakery, and he had been there when she had learned about the peacock brooch. This bouquet was a plea for help.

She remembered Adrien’s stilted request at the Midnight Market. He had told her last night that he had sought her out. Had it also been to ask for her help against this curse?

Félix turned back to Kagami and said, “I do believe my mother is rather… eager for our engagement.”

And now that Marinette knew the truth of who he was and had the confirmation of what she had suspected bundled together in her hands, she heard the way “mother” fell from his lips with a measure of distaste. She was neither his mother nor even particularly motherly.

Marinette sat down on a nearby bench with her bouquet. She reached for the spidery yellow flower growing on a bush to her right and handed it to Félix.

Hazel, for reconciliation. How do I fix it?

He was quick with his reply. An American linden for matrimony, a white clover for a promise, and a white geranium for deceit.

It was just as Adrien had said and as Marinette had believed. Madame Agreste had promised to break the curse when Adrien married, but Félix believed as Marinette did: this promise was a lie.

Félix placed this plain and pale third bouquet in a small vase. He frowned at it like it was the thing that had cast the curse in the first place.

As Kagami pulled the geranium out from the vase and replaced it with the sycamore bunch she had earlier gifted to Félix, a small black cat leapt up onto Marinette’s lap.

“I was wondering where you might be hiding,” she murmured, and was surprised by how readily the cat nuzzled its head into her palm. The last time she had seen this cat, it had been knocking potions and charms off of her stand. Affectionate was not a word that she associated with it.

Kagami had paired her earlier curiosity with this new message of a promise to marry and, as if she was concerned her question might be misunderstood, asked, “And are you as eager as your mother is for you to marry?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” But he added a cluster of bright red snapdragons to the otherwise dull bouquet. A certain refusal.

He was not engaged, not set to marry like his cousin. But then he removed the sycamore, the question, from the bouquet and pulled down from one of the shelves a bottle of ambrosia’s pollen. He smeared the pale yellow dust over a pod of the sycamore plant and slid it towards her.

Perhaps he had avoided picking the flower of ambrosia itself because it was notorious for its pollen, much like ragweed. Or perhaps he was merely too shy to ask so forwardly if Kagami was truly in love with Adrien.

Kagami, likewise, scanned the shelves above the table until she found a jar of mustard seed. She placed the bottle into his hands, to indicate that she was entirely indifferent towards the affair.

“Your behavior last night,” she murmured, “would indicate that you are not so interested.”

Félix raised an eyebrow. He picked up the shears once again and began another bouquet. First, he reached for the purple and pink paper-like flowers of clarkia. Marinette, as she stroked the cat lying across her lap, repressed a small smile. Clarkia was a lovely plant with a very specific meaning: The variety of your conversation delights me. He was complimenting Kagami’s intelligence.

“You’ll have to excuse what I did last night,” he murmured. “As I said, I’m not myself in the evenings.”

But he wasn’t finished with his bouquet just yet. He reached for purple lilac as well—burgeoning affections—and finished the small bouquet off with a single bloom of jonquil, white with a center marked by yellow trumpets. Loud not in sound but in demand: I desire a return of affection.

Marinette covered her mouth to shroud a small gasp. She had found Adrien’s request of a kiss underneath the mistletoe rather forward. This bouquet was similarly quite a choice for a girl that Félix had just met, particularly with hardly a true word spoken between them.

Kagami picked up the white chrysanthemum she had handed to him earlier and tucked it through the buttonhole of his jacket. It was not a yes or no response. It was merely a request for honesty. “So you did,” she murmured.

The cat in Marinette’s lap yawned and stretched his paws over her knees. His claws dug into the fine pink silk and Marinette’s heart began to race. “No, no, no—” she muttered and tried to pry him off of her without damaging the borrowed dress, the most expensive thing she had handled in her entire life. “You cannot—”

As she wrestled with the tiny claws, the seeing stone tucked into her pocket clattered to the floor. The cat leaped after it, but Marinette snatched it back before the cat could bat it away. He meowed up at her longingly.

“It’s not for cats,” she said, half-laughing, and held it up to frame the black cat’s green eyes and soft ears perfectly in the center of the stone.

Her breath caught in her throat as she caught sight of thin black thread fastened around the cat’s neck.

Does it show you my collar?

“I suppose my companion and I should take leave of you shortly,” Kagami said, but Marinette hardly heard her. Her mind was on the stone in her hand and the thread around the cat’s throat.

She quickly glanced over her shoulder to where Monsieur Fathom stood, but he was too busy checking the time on his pocket watch to see her. So as quickly as she could, Marinette passed her stone over Félix and the cat—they both bore the same black thread looped around their throats. The thread, taut and firm but as thin as any fine spider’s web, disappeared somewhere beyond the greenhouse, but Marinette could guess that both threads ended on a single wedding band.

Félix glanced up at the sky which had turned from gray to orange in the time that they had been here. “I would be sad to see you go so soon.”

“And I would be sad to leave you so soon,” Kagami answered.

Marinette jumped to her feet, heart still racing. “P-perhaps—perhaps it’s for the best we take our leave.”

Félix and Kagami turned to look at her, both mildly surprised by the breathlessness in her voice. But she did not know how she could be anything less than breathless when the cat at her feet was winding his way between her ankles.

Last night, Adrien Agreste had kissed her. This afternoon, he had sat in her lap. And now, he meowed up at her and nuzzled her ankle. It took all of Marinette’s restraint not to launch him across the greenhouse.

Félix, however, seemed to have no such restraint. His eyes alighted on the cat, and he dove for the creature. The cat leapt out of his reach and disappeared into the twisting vines of a butterfly pea plant.

“Cheeky thing,” he huffed. His eyes darted back to Colt Fathom—his father—lingering near the doors of the greenhouse. He was perhaps far enough away that truths could be whispered, but it was hard to know how words would echo in this glass room.

With a heavy sigh, he murmured, “My apologies for the cat’s behavior, Mademoiselle. It was a pleasure to have you both,” he said. “And as sorry as I am to say goodbye, I’m afraid it can’t be helped. I hope my aunt’s suggestion to tour the gardens was as enlightening as you would have liked.”

Marinette swallowed and opened her fist to show him the seeing stone in her palm. “Very much so,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows at her. Much like she did not think Kagami smiled regularly, she did not think Félix was impressed very often.

As they returned to the house, their small party still led by Colt Fathom, Marinette watched a black cat’s tail dart between bushes of hyacinths. Colt Fathom’s comment about risking mischief came back to her and she wondered just how many risks Adrien regularly took for the sake of mischief. It seemed like running away in the middle of a dinner party to attend a different party in town was just one more bit of mischief for Adrien Agreste. Today’s adventure of sneaking into the greenhouse and getting quite cozy with a girl he hardly knew must be another.

Perhaps she was foolish for thinking there was any real affection in Adrien. Maybe he just saw her as another way to rebel against his mother, and he’d readily leave her for any other girl who was not Kagami. There was no sense in assuming that this meant something to him, in assuming that she meant something to him.

And that was fine, she told herself. It wasn’t as if he meant anything to her. They’d merely shared a kiss under mistletoe, a very common tradition. There did not need to be anything romantic in it.

But the heat in her cheeks and her stomach suggested it was not as unromantic as she would have liked to pretend.

Once they reached the house, Marinette was startled to see a second carriage pulled up to the front door. A footman held the door open as Monsieur Agreste helped his wife down from the carriage steps.

Marinette’s heart caught in her throat. After her exchange with Félix, she felt as if she were looking at Madame Agreste through seeing stone. No longer was Madame Agreste merely an imposing lady, with an air of condescension and genteel breeding. She was an exceptionally powerful and gifted witch, who not only maintained charms across a large estate but could also perform phenomenal transformative magic and was willing to curse her own son and nephew. Marinette had to imagine that Madame Agreste had her reasons for what she had done, but she did not believe they would be good enough to excuse her choices.

Madame Agreste’s dainty gold and silver embroidered shoes settled into the gravel walk, then disappeared behind the skirts of her floor-length dress. Beneath a white fur coat, the pale green silk of her gown was embroidered with trumpeting lilies, and her matching green eyes surveyed her brother-in-law and the young people behind him with something like mild curiosity.

“Welcome back!” Fathom’s loud voice boomed across the grounds. “Mademoiselle Tsurugi was just visiting with Adrien.”

If Marinette did not already know that it was Félix who walked with them, her suspicion would have been aroused by the strange emphasis on Adrien’s name.

Kagami curtsied once they reached the Agrestes, and Marinette belatedly did likewise. Madame Agreste nodded, but her eyes drifted to the bouquets in the young ladies’ hands just as Marinette’s eyes drifted to the small, black, octagonal jewelry box tucked under Monsieur Agreste’s arm.

“You visited the greenhouse,” Madame Agreste said, voice flat like it was an accusation rather than an inquiry.

“It was Aunt Amélie’s suggestion,” Félix replied, in a mirrored tone. Their smiles, too, were equally cold. Félix and Adrien were the spitting images of their mothers, but it seemed like Félix’s temperament was far more equivalent to his aunt’s than his own mother’s.

“Was it? How thoughtful of her.”

As Madame Agreste turned that cold smile onto the flowers in the girls’ hands, Marinette tried to casually hide her flowers behind her back, but Kagami took no such precautions.

“Madame Agreste,” Kagami said as she stepped forward, “may I introduce my cousin, Marinette Dupain-Cheng?”

Marinette’s stomach twisted into a knot as both Madame and Monsieur Agreste looked down at her, but she curtsied appropriately.

Madame Agreste eyed Marinette with the same shrewd gaze that her sister had. “You are Mademoiselle Tsurugi’s cousin?”

“Y-yes,” she said, but she wondered how much they really believed her. They had already seen her in the jeweler’s shop, and she had not been dressed half as well at the time. Again, her gaze drifted to the jewelry box, but she was not sure how to ask about its contents—or more specifically if the brooch had been repaired or not—without raising the Agrestes’ suspicion.

Monsieur Agreste tucked the jewelry box beneath his coat, out of sight from Marinette. “We didn’t see you at dinner last night.”

Marinette had no way to warn Kagami that her lie she had delivered to Madame Fathom would not work here, not when she had seen the Agrestes in town days before Lady Tsurugi’s dinner. Kagami opened her mouth—but Félix spoke first.

“She had a headache yesterday evening,” Félix said, “but Mademoiselle Tsurugi thought she would introduce us today instead of waiting for another dinner to be scheduled.”

Madame Agreste glanced at Félix with a very clear and specific tilt of her head, and Félix obediently pressed his lips together. It did not take Monsieur Agreste’s hand on his shoulder to remind him of his place, not when a glance from his aunt who had cursed him would do.

Then Madame Agreste turned her gaze back on Marinette and, almost absentmindedly, reached out and plucked the bloom of lemon geranium from Marinette’s dress. “I should like to hear from you, Mademoiselle, exactly how you have become acquainted with my son.”

Marinette saw no point in lying about their encounter in the jewelry shop, since the Agrestes had been present at the time. “I believe your son dropped his handkerchief in the street and I returned it to him.” She hoped no one else noticed the shakiness in her voice, but she could not help how intimidating she found Madame Agreste. “Or at least—I thought he had. It turned out not to be his.”

“Is that all?” Madame Agreste asked. She eyed the three lavender blooms on the stalk of lemon geranium, and Marinette knew with certainty that Madame Agreste had understood Félix’s coded message.

Marinette swallowed and cast a nervous glance at Félix, unsure if she should confess to their very first meeting in her family’s bakery. She found his impassive, cool exterior colored with tension. He bore the same stiffness in his shoulders and the tightness in his jaw that she’d witnessed in the jewelry shop. And in his eyes she thought she saw panic—or perhaps she was just projecting her own fear.

“That’s all,” Marinette said.

Madame Agreste’s turned to Félix and waited, as if he might spill the truth just by her expression. But when he volunteered nothing, she asked, “Tell me the truth, dear. How do you know this young lady?”

“I saw her for the first time when you did,” Félix lied smoothly, “in the jeweler’s shop.”

The smile poised on Madame Agreste’s lips curled into something akin to a sneer, but nothing so dramatic as to be outwardly impolite. But before she could press, Kagami interrupted.

“Madame Agreste,” Kagami finally ventured, “on behalf of my mother and I, might I extend an invitation to tea tomorrow afternoon?”

Madame Agreste did not look at Kagami. Instead, she pinched the stem of one of the lemon geranium flowers between the nails of her thumb and forefinger, piercing the soft green flesh until the flower fell to the ground between her and Marinette. Then she tucked the damaged flower back into Marinette’s dress with the same delicate care Marinette’s own mother might have taken, but Marinette knew enough to doubt that there was any real affection in the gesture.

“Perhaps” Kagami continued, “with all of us there, new arrangements relating to the engagement celebrations could be made.”

“I’m afraid Adrien is unavail—”

“I’d be happy to accept such an invitation,” Félix interrupted.

Madame Agreste eyed Félix with a measure of mistrust and murmured, “That’s certainly a change.”

“It’s what you want, isn’t it? An obedient son?”

Madame Agreste laughed and Monsieur Agreste cleared his throat loudly as if he could undo Félix’s words.

Colt Fathom clamped a hand down on Félix’s shoulder, and Félix became just as still beneath his own father’s hand as he had beneath his uncle’s.

“That’s enough of that,” Monsieur Fathom murmured.

Marinette tightened her hands around the bouquet behind her back. She did not like the way that the Agrestes made her feel small and unworthy, but she loathed the way they treated their nephew, and the way his own father treated him. Though she had never seen Adrien in the company of his parents before, she could only guess by the way Adrien spoke of them that he gained no better treatment by virtue of being their son.

She opened her mouth, not entirely sure what words were going to come out, but determined to make some show of support for Félix and Adrien, to demand the Agrestes and Fathoms end whatever game they were playing, but before Marinette could get more than an intake of breath to fuel her indignation, the doors of the house opened.

“Emilie, you’re back!” Madame Fathom smiled down at them, but Marinette struggled to tell if Madame Fathom was genuinely pleased to see her sister or not. Marinette wasn’t sure she believed any of the smiles in this house. “I thought I heard the horses, but when no one came inside I began to wonder if I’d imagined it.”

Madame Fathom descended the steps to greet her sister with a kiss on each cheek. “Was your trip successful?”

Madame Agreste’s smile was thin. “Unfortunately, we’ll have to seek out another solution.”

The disappointment on Madame Fathom’s face, at least, appeared genuine. But it dissolved into another smile as she turned to look at the girls and Félix. Félix, under his mother’s gaze, shook his father’s hand from his shoulder.

“Darling, I came to find you because I thought perhaps you had lost track of time. Safest to be inside before dark, you know.”

“I’m aware,” Félix replied in a tight voice, eyes sliding to the horizon, where the sun was already beginning to slip behind the hills in the west. “We’d have been in earlier if Mother had not accosted us.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Madame Agreste scoffed. “We were simply getting to know Mademoiselle Tsurugi’s cousin.”

Marinette could not help but wonder if Madame Agreste avoided using her name to emphasize the lie or because she had already forgotten what Marinette’s name was.

“And it has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Marinette replied, careful to keep all semblance of pleasure from her tone. As intimidating as she had found the Agrestes, she’d also found an unusual bit of courage in the knowledge that the brooch remained broken. It meant that, no matter how rude she or Félix or Kagami were to Madame Agreste, there was truly nothing worse that the woman could do to her son and nephew. Her promise to break the curse could not be fulfilled, and so what was the point in playing nice?

For that moment, at least, she understood Adrien’s unwavering pursuit of mischief.

“Well,” Madame Fathom interrupted, in a tone fully ignorant of the coldness between Marinette and Madame Agreste, “at least it looks as if you had a pleasant trip to the greenhouse. Oh, and is that a rose?” She brushed her hand against the yellow flower in the center of Kagami’s bouquet. “Don’t tell me you’ve proposed already.”

“Idiocy has never suited you, Amélie,” Madame Agreste interrupted, rather brusquely for all her careful control earlier.

“I’ve no idea what you mean,” Madame Fathom replied with a coy smile. But no witch powerful enough and knowledgeable enough to maintain the grounds of this estate so that they bloomed out of season would mistake the meaning of the bouquet in Kagami’s hands.

Madame Fathom squeezed Félix’s hand, and Marinette saw no stiffness nor flinching as Félix met his mother’s eyes. “Best to say your goodbyes, darling,” she said. “I think we ought to retire for the evening.” Her eyes drifted first to her sister and then to the shape of the jewelry box beneath her brother-in-law’s coat. “It seems there’s plenty for us to discuss.”

Félix bowed stiffly to the girls. “I enjoyed our conversation today,” he said. “And I am sorry we can’t continue it.”

“Tomorrow,” Kagami said, “you’ll come to tea.”

“I think,” Madame Agreste said, “that tea tomorrow afternoon sounds like a perfect opportunity to finalize our arrangements.”

Madame Fathom’s pleasant smile vanished, and her brow furrowed; she made no attempt at concealment as she turned away from the guests and to her sister. “Emilie,” she hissed, “you promised. You promised you would not use him—”

“And what was today about then, dear? I heard it was your suggestion that they visit the greenhouse.”

Madame Fathom did not flinch. She merely said again, “You made a promise,” and held her sister’s gaze.

Madame Agreste frowned, but relented in a way that surprised Marinette. “Oh, very well, then.” She kissed her sister’s cheek and said, “Dinner tomorrow instead. We’ll host, as payment in return for your mother’s lovely parties.” She inclined her head to Kagami and Marinette, and disappeared inside, followed close behind by her husband.

Monsieur Fathom, too, ascended the steps to the door, but waited in the doorway for his wife and Félix.

“W-wait—” Marinette stammered, as Madame Fathom took her son’s hand.

The two did wait, but they both cast an anxious glance at the setting sun.

“I—” Marinette was not entirely sure how to phrase her question. She twisted her hands around her bouquet, still hidden behind her back. “The brooch—what will you do now?”

If Madame Fathom was surprised Marinette knew enough to ask about the brooch, she did not show it. In fact, rather the opposite, she looked pleased, as if sending Marinette to the greenhouse with Félix had gone exactly as she had hoped. “Our best, I suppose. There is not much more anyone can do.”

“But—I just—I want to help.”

Madame Fathom’s smile was gentle, genuine, and motherly in all the same ways her sister’s had been cold and calculated. “That’s kind of you. But I don’t see my sister’s pride allowing anyone else to help her fix that brooch.” She tugged on Félix’s hand. “Come inside, quickly, darling.”

Marinette swallowed. “I can try,” she insisted. “I want to try.”

But the imposing doors of the manor shuttered behind Madame Fathom and Félix, and Marinette was left at the bottom of the stairs alone with Kagami.

“I think I learned everything I needed to know,” Kagami murmured, and fiddled with the white and yellow jonquil trumpets. “Though I imagine you’ll be able to answer a few of my lingering questions.”

Marinette was not so sure she could tell Kagami everything that Kagami would want to know, but between her encounters with both Adrien and Félix before last evening, and what she had seen in the seeing stone, there was plenty she could explain to Kagami. And, perhaps in talking it out, she’d be able to make better sense of it herself.

The sun finally disappeared behind the hills at the end of its hasty winter descent. The driver lit the lanterns on the carriage as the twilight descended around them. Marinette followed Kagami into the carriage, but she had no more interest in the painted ceilings above her nor in the well-kept grounds around her. Instead, she fidgeted with the peacock flower in her own bouquet, and considered how she might use what she knew to break Adrien and Félix free of Madame Agreste’s curse. It wasn’t much, but surely she could try.

The carriage jostled slightly as the horses began the trot down the drive. A shout, distant and muffled by the sound of the carriage creaking along the gravel path, just barely reached Marinette’s ears.

She glanced out the window, wondering for a moment if she had imagined it. She saw nothing in the dimming light except the shadow of the manor against a quickly darkening sky.

But then she heard it quite plainly.

“Wait! Mademoiselle—Marinette!”

The driver did not stop, but as Marinette and Kagami stuck their heads out the window to see what was happening, they caught sight of a figure hurrying after them. He was moving quickly, and did not have trouble catching up to the horses’ trot.

“Félix?” Kagami asked, as he came within the light of the carriage’s lanterns.

But Marinette’s heart leapt into her throat. As the figure reached the carriage, he pulled himself onto the step used to climb inside and held onto the window’s frame, even as the carriage continued moving at speed.

Marinette reached out and plucked a bloom of hyacinth from his hair. “Adrien,” she said, staring up at him in shock.

He grinned, but as the carriage wheel went over a particularly large stone in the path, his grin and his grip faltered. Marinette and Kagami each reached out through the window and caught him before he could tumble into the dirt.

Once he had steadied himself, he asked, “Did you mean it?”

Marinette only blinked at him. “What?”

“Did you mean what you said to my aunt—that you want to help?”

“O-of course I did.”

The words were hardly out of Marinette’s mouth before Adrien kissed her.

It was not like the kiss they had exchanged last night beneath the mistletoe. There was no delicacy, no caution. It was as careless and reckless as a kiss exchanged on the outside of a moving carriage ought to be. Despite Marinette’s initial shock, she found herself caught up in it. Distantly, she heard Kagami offer to at least open the door and let him in, but her thoughts were focused more on the way Adrien’s hand slid into hers than she was on any practical response to this moment.

And as Adrien pulled away, she tightened her grip on his hand.

“Wait—”

But he only gave her that same confident, mischievous grin he had sported during their dance last evening. “I trust you.”

He pulled his hand away, leaving his ring behind in her palm, and promptly vanished into the night.

Marinette practically fell out of the window trying to see where he had gone, trying to make sure he was okay, but there was no sign of him on the path.

Only distantly, in the middle of the road behind them, could she make out the vague shape of a cat picking itself up, shaking the dirt off of its fur, and turning back to the manor.

#mlbigbang2024 #ml fic #miraculous ladybug fic #aywgtccc #jfc these fic chapters are so long i am so sorry guys #the narrative just did that by itself

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aidanchaser · 2 months ago

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Chapter 2 is up! Thank you @yellowbullet100 for all your time and energy in the drafting and editing process. And thank you @mlbigbang2024 for organizing!

This week's chapter is a hefty one - clocking in at over 9K! The story really got away from me. BUT it's got Alya AND Nino!

And next week's chapter will feature some lovely art from @jademoon2u which i cannot WAIT to share with you.

Chapter Two: On the Subject of Familiars

A young witch may not select their own familiar. Rather, the familiar will select the witch. A witch will know if they have been selected by repeated encounters with the creature. These encounters should not be engineered by the witch. A witch who tries to trap her familiar or enchant her familiar is one whose craft will diminish for the effort.

A familiar may present itself in the form of any animal, though it is traditionally domestic or intrinsic to the witch’s specialties. Cats, owls, and other nocturnal fauna are the most common, though this may vary by the regional traditions a witch is trained in. In exceedingly rare cases, a witch’s partner or companion may serve as a familiar, though such a relationship is generally one marked by tragedy and grief.

Marinette did not see the boy again, but she did not stop thinking about him. For the rest of the week, while she finished up repairs to return, potions to peddle, and trinkets to trade in preparation for the weekly Midnight Market, she replayed their delicate dance in the drawing room against his brusque behavior in the bakery.

Though she could think of nothing she had done to warrant such a dramatic change in treatment, she could not stop mulling it over, like perhaps the next time she reconsidered their encounter, it would make sense. Or the next time… or the next time…

“Marinette!”

Marinette jumped, startled out of her reverie. The memory of the young man rushing out of the bakery vanished and Alya appeared in front of her.

“Sorry, what?”

Alya snapped her fingers under Marinette’s nose. “I called your name three times! Did you want me to take a look at that glamor Monsieur Kubdel gave you to fix last week?”

Marinette rubbed her eyes and tried her best to resettle herself in the present. She didn’t remember setting up her booth at the Midnight Market, but she must have finished it out of habit. She’d laid out red velvet to display some of her original works, like hand-mirrors that helped extend glamors, purses with trick openings, and a few charms for luck. She had a shelf of neatly labeled potions next to a pricing guide for custom brews, and finally, she had put up a sign advertising repairs.

She dug into the box of finished repairs at her feet and pulled out the pocket watch she had repaired. She’d finished it to the best of her ability, and Marinette was rather proud of the work she had done on the glamor charm, but she wouldn’t complain if Alya improved on it.

Alya whistled to herself as she fussed with the glamor charm. She’d been working at the Midnight Market longer than Marinette had been, but she didn’t have a stall of her own. Alya made her living entertaining visitors to the Midnight Market with tricks and glamors. But the pay wasn’t particularly reliable, which is why by day Alya worked in her mother’s boarding house kitchen, serving hot food to boarders and travelers.

Most of the people who operated stands at the Midnight Market had day jobs, and many dreamed of one day opening permanent shops for their goods, or catching the eye of a wealthy patron, but those stories of success were rare. Marinette’s grandmother had worked the Midnight Market for her entire life, and only ever made enough to renew her stall each year. Marinette had been lucky enough to inherit her grandmother’s license, rather than pay for a new one. While she did dream of opening her own shop one day, she knew she would be lucky to have enough within the next ten years, and it was unlikely she would ever be able to afford a proper apprenticeship under a master.

And as for a wealthy patron, well, those people simply did not come to the Midnight Market. Artisan’s Alley was the daytime, more professional sister of the Midnight Market, staffed by properly trained artisans and guild masters, and could service the wealthy’s magical needs. And if a person of such considerable means did indeed require something more discreet, well, they certainly wouldn’t visit the Midnight Market themselves.

Alya slid the pocket watch across the table. “You did a good job. I tweaked it a bit, just to extend the life of the glamor. Now tell me what’s bothering you. I know you get lost in your own head, but you’re rarely this bad.”

Marinette carefully tucked the pocket watch back into her box of completed repairs. “Don’t you have a performance to get to?”

“It’s the mid-evening lull. Not quite enough folks to draw a crowd.” Alya tugged on the fingertips of her black evening gloves and pursed her lips as she surveyed the row of booths.

While most of the tradesmen wore their work clothes, Alya dressed in a fine evening gown. Marinette had embroidered the pink silk with orange foxes and charmed the pockets to allow coins in from the outside, but the coins could only be removed from the inside of the dress. It was a simple protection against pickpocketing, one that let Alya collect as much from her audiences as she liked without worry that someone was slipping a coin away without her notice. As payment in kind, Alya helped Marinette out with the occasional glamor repair.

When Marinette still did not volunteer an explanation for her inattentiveness, Alya asked, “Did you finally meet someone?”

“N-no—why would you—of course I wouldn’t—how would I even—”

But the sputtered denial was a clear confirmation to Alya. “Oh, good. It’s about time you moved on from Luka. Tell me everything.”

“I’m not—I don’t need—There’s nothing to tell!” Marinette protested. “I—I bumped into him while I was working at a party. And then he came to the bakery, and he was so rude it was ridiculous. Besides, I’m never going to see him again, so it doesn’t mat—”

Marinette broke off, stunned into silence by the sight at the end of the street. She had to be hallucinating the boy at the end of the lane. He couldn’t be here.

But, as Alya had said, the crowds were small tonight. Marinette had no trouble, even at this distance, catching the bit of golden hair peeking out from his tophat and the black cat perched on his shoulders.

She tore her eyes away and tried to convince herself that it was some other blond young man with a cat, that it would be ridiculous to see him here. That surely he was not the sort of person who did his own shopping, let alone shopping in a place largely run by entertainers and amateurs, so there was no reason for him to be at the Midnight Market. And, at any rate, she did not want to see him. She had had enough of his rude behavior.

“It doesn’t matter,” she finished, hoping Alya had not noticed her slip.

But her friend was far too clever for that. Alya scanned the guests milling about the stalls. “He’s here, isn’t he?”

“No.”

“It’s not that dandy, is it?” Alya laughed.

“No—what? He’s not—”

“Oh my god, it is! You sure do know how to pick them. Look at that coat. Not sure it’s ever known a winter before.”

It wasn’t even the same coat he’d been wearing in the bakery. Where that one had been solid black, this one was pine green. She wondered if it would bring out his green eyes, then berated herself for even thinking about his eyes.

“He’s rich enough to attend one of Lady Tsurugi’s dinner parties,” Marinette sighed. “And besides, he’s terribly rude. He didn’t even say thank you when I repaired a stain in his shirt.”

“Maybe he’s come to say thank you now.”

“He’s not—stop. Don’t look so smug.”

“I’m only going to point out that a nice purse can make up for a lack of manners—and other things, if the size of that hat is any indication that he’s overcompensating for a lack of something else.”

“Alya!”

But Alya did not look the least bit scandalized. “If you’re not interested, then you won’t mind if I try my charms?”

“Aren’t you about to get married?”

Alya shrugged. “I’ll believe it when I have a ring in hand. And since I have no ring at the moment…” She raised her eyebrows expectantly, as if waiting for Marinette to give her permission for this particular hunt.

Marinette threw both her hands in the air in exasperation. It had nothing to do with her if Alya wanted to talk to this stranger, this boy whose name Marinette still did not know—and did not need to know, because she could have nothing to do with him. She pointedly opened up her ledger to review her projects, determined not to stare.

“Oh, he really is coming this way,” Alya squealed, and Marinette was forced to look back up.

There was no denying it. It was the same boy from the drawing room and the bakery. The same boy who had held her hand and told her not to speak ill of herself, and then, hours later, cursed in front of her bread.

The green coat did bring out his eyes.

Alya intercepted him, cutting off his steady progress down the lane. She spread her arms wide as she curtsied.

“Welcome to the Midnight Market, Monsieur!”

Alya whistled softly and snapped her fingers, and a shower of sparks burst from her hand and into the sky.

The boy looked surprised and took a step back. The cat on his shoulders sank low and flattened its ears, but the young man and a few other patrons nearby clapped politely.

“Thank you, thank y—” Alya sneezed loudly. “Oh, pardon me sir—” She sneezed again. “I must be allergic to your cat. Do you have a handkerchief I might borrow?”

The boy, still startled, readily dug through his pockets. A few of the artisans at their stalls and regular attendees of the night market chuckled softly, familiar with this routine of Alya’s.

“Here you are, Mademoiselle,” the boy said as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket—but it didn’t come out, at least not all of it. Or, rather, there was more of it than he had accounted for. As he pulled on the handkerchief, several came out of his pocket, one tied to the next. He continued pulling, unable to find the end of it.

“Oh dear,” Alya said, and clicked her tongue. The audience laughed.

Finally, the length of handkerchiefs came to a sudden end, and the boy stared at the comically long rope of silk in his hands. “Er—a moment—” He struggled to undo one of the knots, but Alya snatched the entire line from him. The cat on his shoulders swatted at the retreating rope of silk, but his claws failed to make contact with Alya’s glamor.

She chose one handkerchief and loudly blew her nose, then sneezed into the next one, and blew her nose again into a third. She wiped her face with a fourth, then stared at the chain in a mimicry of concern. The crowd laughed, and a few more onlookers gathered around. The boy, however, merely stared, wide-eyed.

Alya sniffed again and said, “I suppose I’ll have to clean them before I return them.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Or, I have a better idea!” Alya took one end of the handkerchiefs between her fingers and began to loop it around her hand until it was a tight ball. She closed her hands around it, pressed her lips to her thumbs, then threw the handkerchiefs into the air.

Instead of a rope of silk, a pair of doves burst from her hand and fluttered away into the night sky.

This time, the audience clapped in genuine awe—except for the young man. He was no longer watching Alya. He had found Marinette, and he was staring at her, as if she were far more interesting than any glamor or illusion.

The moment Marinette’s eyes met his, she disappeared under her table. She didn’t want him to see her, didn’t want to put up with his attitude again—though he had been polite enough to Alya so far. Cautiously, she lifted the hem of the red velvet cloth that she had draped over her table and watched him from below.

As a feather from one of the dove’s wings fluttered down and brushed his nose, he sneezed. His cat, unable to maintain his balance on the young man’s shoulders, leapt to the ground. But he did not bolt like he had in the bakery. Instead, he circled the boy’s ankles, wary eyes trained on the crowd like a protective familiar.

“Oh,” Alya grinned as the boy pressed the back of his hand to his nose, “perhaps you’d like to borrow a handkerchief.” She reached into her dress and pulled out a white silk handkerchief. She displayed it for all to see, the silver and lavender butterfly-shaped crest of the Agreste family embroidered into its corner, and the initials “A.A.” beside it.

Marinette frowned. This boy had insisted—quite violently—that he was not Monsieur Agreste’s son. Was he a nephew, perhaps? Or a cousin?

Alya handed the handkerchief to him and while the audience laughed, he merely took his handkerchief back with a distracted, “Thank you,” eyes already drifting once more towards Marinette’s stall.

Sensing she had lost her primary audience, Alya whistled a few notes and waved her hand over her head to release another shower of sparks. “The main show begins at the third strike of the witching hour!” She snatched one of the large sparks from overhead then brought it down to her chest and blew on it, sending a series of small twinkling stars down the lane to the east. “Just follow the stars to your destiny.” She winked at her crowd, then snatched the hat from the young man’s head. The cat swiped at her ankles as she did, but she danced out of his reach easily and held the hat out to her audience.

The young man, with eyes still trained on Marinette’s stall, placed two coins into his own hat distractedly then hurried past Alya to his destination. Reluctantly, the cat followed.

As he approached, Marinette attempted to stand quickly, fully intent on simply running away and abandoning her wares until he had gone, but instead she banged her head on her table and fell back to the ground with a yelp.

The young man bent over the table and looked down at her. “Are you all right?”

“Fine!” She rubbed the bump on her head, realized he was still staring, and scrambled for an excuse. “Just—dropped something—a coin—I think it’s—found it!” She pretended to tuck something into her pocket and pulled herself up to her feet.

“So,” she tried to take in a deep but subtle breath to calm her racing heart, “charm, potion, or repair?”

“A potion to start, I think, if you don’t mind.” He smiled pleasantly, and Marinette wondered if the brusque young man from the bakery really had transformed once more into a gentleman, like perhaps the evening made him personable and polite.

His cat leapt up onto Marinette’s table, which wobbled as if it were uncertain about the added weight. He perused the lucky charms with a cat’s uniquely disdainful curiosity. Marinette watched him for a moment to make sure he was not going to bat anything off of the edge, then realized her customer had not elaborated on his request.

“Er—Did you have a particular potion in mind, or just an inkling to try something new?”

“No, I—well, it’s a little embarrassing.” His hand went to his head, where his hat ought to have been, and he frowned, as if only just realizing it was gone. He glanced around and saw Alya still collecting coins with it, but he didn’t seem bothered. He turned back to Marinette and murmured, “I developed a bit of a dry scalp this week. It’s never happened before, and I’m not entirely sure what to do about it.”

“Oh.” Marinette did her best not to look panicked. Had he been rude to her the other day because he had realized it was her fault? Was he at her stall instead of someone else’s because he expected her to fix her mistake? If all of that was the case, then why hadn’t he said something to her when he was in the bakery the other day? Was he planning to cause some sort of scene here instead?

She made a show of looking through her box of potions to buy herself some time to calm down. If he really was having a mild reaction to the snowdrop addition to the dessert the other evening, then the issue should clear up in another day or two no matter what she gave him. She just needed to hand him something small, something cheap enough that he wouldn’t balk at the price or accuse her of swindling him, and this would all be over.

There was a sudden crash and Marinette looked up to see that his cat had decided to knock over one of her lucky charms. The small glass bauble encasing a dandelion head, preserved just before losing its seeds, shattered on the ground. The seeds dispersed almost instantly, leaving behind only the broken glass and the pink ribbon Marinette had written the charm into.

“What is wrong with you?” the young man hissed at his cat. He lifted the creature off of the table, but the cat refused to stay put in his arms. He wriggled out of the young man’s grip and settled back on his shoulders. Marinette could not help but feel like the cat’s eyes were glaring at her and that his flat ears were somehow her fault.

“It’s all right,” she said, and fished a broom out of her collection of supplies. Broken glass was a hazard of the trade, particularly given her own clumsiness. “I think black cats are immune to bad luck anyway.”

“If only that were true,” he laughed.

“Is he your familiar?” she asked.

“Oh—no. I’m not… I mean, would I be here if I was magical myself?”

“Everyone has different talents,” she shrugged as she finished sweeping up the cat’s mess and reached across the table for her potions box.

“Here,” she pulled out a bottle of red poppy oil. It wasn’t especially magical in any way, but it had a subtle earthy, pleasant aroma. It was a useful flourish for any grounding or protection spell and, as an added benefit, red poppies were associated with apologies. It was the closest Marinette could get to asking for forgiveness without admitting to her mistake. And though it wouldn’t cure his allergy, certainly, it might alleviate any itching he felt as a side effect of the snowdrop until the allergy wore off on its own. “Just put a bit of this where it annoys you, and it should ease any discomfort and clear the problem up in a few days.”

“Excellent. How much?”

“Oh—well—er—you don’t need to—I mean—first one’s free.” She thrust the bottle at him, unable to name a price at all. His problem was her fault, after all.

The young man frowned at the bottle in her hand, and his cat took advantage of his master’s distraction to leap down to the table once more and stick his nose into the potions.

“Nonsense.” He took the bottle from her and read the neatly handwritten label with the price scrawled on it before Marinette could snatch it away. He reached into his pocket again and dug out a few coins, which he placed on the velvet covering Marinette’s table.

She stared at the pieces beneath his fingers, still unsure whether it was right for her to accept them, when she noticed something odd about his hand. He was wearing the same ring she had noticed during their dance, that he had fidgeted with while she had repaired the bloodstain in his clothes, but his hand was missing something else.

“I don’t understand,” she said with a frown.

He furrowed his brow. “You run a stand at the Midnight Market and don’t understand how goods are exchanged?”

“No—I just mean—you said you weren’t magical.”

“I’m not?”

“Then how else did you heal that cat scratch so quickly?”

“Cat scratch?”

“Your hand.”

He stared down at his hand, bearing the ring of his station, but the back of it was perfectly unmarred. There was not even a pink line in memory of where his cat had scratched him in the bakery just days ago.

Suddenly, he shoved his hand into his pocket. “Right. My cat. The scratch from my cat. Look—about what happened in your kitchen—”

“You can use the poppy oil on your cat,” Marinette blurted out suddenly. “For his—you know, he looked like he was a bit flaky, too.”

The boy gave her a wry smile. “Did he?”

The cat rumbled a low growl in protest. To the cat’s credit, his coat certainly looked healthy and sleek tonight.

“Is it er—a glamor?” she asked.

“My cat’s coat?”

“The scratch.”

“Oh.” He glanced around, as if he were worried someone else might be listening in on their conversation. Indecision flickered in his green eyes, but he finally whispered, “It’s—well, it’s a bit difficult to talk about.”

Marinette frowned. “You can’t talk about your cat?”

The cat, perhaps sensing he was the object of their conversation, batted one of Marinette’s potions off of its shelf and it, too, broke against her table, spilling its contents all over her red velvet cloth.

“Oh—” She scrambled through her crate of supplies for a rag to clean up the mess, but the young man had already pulled out his handkerchief and was doing his best to soak up the potion.

“I’m so sorry,” he apologized. “He’s not normally this rude.”

“No, I’m sorry—” Marinette yanked a rag from her crate and pressed it down on the velvet next to his hands. “I wasn’t trying to be rude about your cat’s coat.”

“You weren’t.”

Marinette was not sure the cat agreed with the boy, for he swished his tail and eyed her imperiously as she cleaned up the mess that he had made. He cast the same disdainful look on the boy, too, as he pressed his handkerchief into the velvet.

She wondered, briefly, if the boy had ever cleaned up a spill in his life, but told herself she was being ridiculous. Everyone had the occasional spill, regardless of class, and knew enough to put a napkin to a spot.

He lifted his now soaked handkerchief and stared at the dark spot on the velvet, no longer spreading but certainly not gone, and said, “Let me pay for the cleaning.”

“Oh—you don’t have to—”

“I insist,” he said, and handed her his handkerchief. “Get this cleaned when you do, and return it to me with the bill.”

Marinette swallowed. “I couldn’t—”

“Please.”

Reluctantly, she folded the damp handkerchief up along with her rag, then used a fresh rag to wrap up the broken glass.

“Thank you,” she murmured, “though I can’t say for sure when I will see you again.”

He scratched behind his ear, either to assuage some nerves or because his dry scalp was bothering him. “I—” He started and stopped suddenly, like he was running out of air. He swallowed and tried again. “I did have an idea. Or a thought.” He glanced nervously at his cat, like he worried his cat might not like the idea. The cat merely stared back, face blank.

Marinette waited for him to explain his thought, but no explanation came. “Well—congratulations, then. Was it a particularly complex thought?”

“No—it—it’s quite simple, actually. I saw this notice when I walked into the market about a public dance coming up, and I thought it might be a nice way to—to practice.”

She laughed. “You want to attend a public dance?”

“Is that funny?”

“Well—you’re—you know… It’s not the sort of thing you go to.”

“How do you know what sorts of things I go to?”

“People who go to dinner parties with Lady Tsurugi—whoever their fathers are—don’t go to public dances. I think she’d officially disinvite you from all future events if she knew.”

“Are they so scandalous?”

“Not to me, but to you—”

“Will you be there?”

“What?”

“If you’re there, then it’s the sort of place I want to be.”

Marinette didn’t know what to say to that, nor what to make of the mischief tucked into his smile. Just days ago, he’d been so eager to get out of her sight he hadn’t even thanked her for her work. Now he wanted to go to a dance with her?

“I can’t go,” she said, her heart skipped a beat as his face fell. “I promised my parents I would help with the delivery order for Lady Tsurugi’s party that night. I think it’s her daughter’s engagement celebration. Were you not invited?”

The disappointment on the boy’s face turned into a grimace. “I was invited. You know she hasn’t even been proposed to yet?” As the words left his mouth, he swallowed suddenly, like he might take them back. “Sorry—that was rude. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just—it’s a party in expectation of an engagement but I can’t imagine anyone wants that rumor spreading.”

“Who does she expect to propose?”

He stared glumly at the cluster of silver coins that still rested between the two of them. “Monsieur Agreste’s son,” he finally said, as if it were a confession.

Marinette didn’t understand his tone, but she did understand the conversation she had overheard between Luka and the head of Lady Tsurugi’s staff. “That explains his insistence on dancing at the dinner party. Probably wanted to create an opportunity for conversation. Shame it didn’t work out. Did your father have someone he wanted you to talk with, too?”

This time, he didn’t answer at all. He tucked the bottle of poppy oil into his pocket and reached up to tip his hat, only to discover, once again, that it was still in Alya’s hands. “Perhaps I’ll bump into you again at Lady Tsurugi’s?” There was a strange hope in his voice. Marinette couldn’t bear to dash it, but she didn’t think it would be any better to lie.

“If you want your hat back, just ask Alya for it. She likes to borrow her props. She says it’s better for audience engagement.”

“Thank you. And thank you for the potion. If it doesn’t work, I’ll just have to come back.”

“Oh—I’m sure it will work.”

“Well, then, if it does, perhaps I’ll have something else to ask of you.”

Despite her head insisting that he was merely being polite, her heart raced with anticipation. She tried to force it still by reminding herself that she was not going to run into him at Lady Tsurugi’s. It had been an accident that it had happened in the first place, and highly inappropriate. She never would have seen him again at all if his cat hadn’t run into the bakery, and he had simply gotten lucky by finding her booth tonight in search of a solution to a problem that he didn’t even need her to solve. His allergy would clear in days, and that would be that. She certainly wasn’t going out of her way just to return his handkerchief.

Marinette was determined this time, and repeated it to herself like an incantation. She was never going to see him again, because if she saw him again, she might actually have to admit to herself that she was beginning to like him.

❖❖❖

Marinette checked her basket for the fifth time, but it was still there, tucked in between the folds of red velvet. It was not a dream nor some illusion. The handkerchief embroidered with the Agreste family crest and the initials “A. A.” was very real.

She and her mother had worked hard to get the stain out of the velvet and the handkerchief, but potions were stubborn. Her father, though his knowledge of magic was limited, had been trained in the basics by both of his parents, and had a solid grasp of magical components. He’d insisted they needed pine resin, which was well out of Marinette’s price range.

While normally, Marinette would not have been able to afford to get it professionally cleaned, even with the promise of a refund from a boy she was determined never to see again, Madame Lahiffe had owed Marinette a favor, ever since Marinette had rescued her youngest son from a magical mishap that had nearly aged him forty years.

“Did my mother not do a good job?” Nino gently elbowed Marinette’s arm as they walked.

Marinette blinked and turned to look at her companion. “What?”

“You keep fussing with it. Is there something wrong with it?”

Marinette pulled her hand out of her basket. “No. Nothing—sorry—” Marinette scrambled for a way to change the subject. “Tell me again what you want me to check for?”

Nino fussed anxiously with his cap. He’d dressed in a nice jacket and had carefully cleaned every inch of his coat for today, determined to present his best while they shopped.

When Marinette had bumped into him on her initial visit to see his mother, she’d mentioned Alya’s comment about lacking a ring. Nino had blanched and immediately asked Marinette to help him pick one out when she returned to pick up her cleaning. While he trusted his own taste in jewelry, he wanted something a bit more exceptional than just a ring, and he needed Marinette’s eye for magical quality.

“She’ll pick out any glamors right away,” Nino complained. “It either can’t be glamorous at all, or I need you to make sure it’s a really high quality one, something she couldn’t do herself.”

“You’re better off without glamor. Anything you could afford is something she could manage herself.”

Nino frowned, and Marinette immediately felt badly about the comment. She’d meant it to be encouraging, a reminder that whatever he chose for Alya did not need to be magical, but it seemed as if all she had done was remind him how limited his options were.

“We’re going to find something perfect for her,” Marinette promised, and linked her arm with Nino’s.

Nino slid his hand into his pocket, fidgeting with his coin purse, just as Marinette’s hand drifted to the handkerchief hidden in her basket.

“We’re going to find something perfect for her that is absolutely in your price range,” Marinette amended, but Nino looked practically green at the thought.

“Speaking of glamors,” he mumbled, and reached into a different pocket of his coat, “Alya asked me to give this to you.”

Nino pressed a small round stone into Marinette’s hand. It was a deep reddish color with a hollowed out center and smooth on all sides, almost like a rather large ring of its own.

“A seeing stone?” Marinette asked.

“She said you could borrow it when you go to Lady Tsurugi’s party tomorrow.”

“I’m not going to Lady Tsurugi’s party; I am working at Lady Tsurugi’s party. What does she think I need a seeing stone for?”

“You thought there might be a glamor on your young man’s hand, right? She suggested you use it to make sure he’s not some hideous monster underneath a bigger glamor.”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to see him again.” At least, she wasn’t supposed to. If she did her job correctly, she would be downstairs with the staff for the duration of the evening while he mingled with the guests upstairs. Maybe she would ask one of the household staff to return his handkerchief just before she left, so he wouldn’t have a chance to call for her, and he’d have no more excuses to stop by her stall at the Midnight Market.

But she pocketed the stone anyway.

Together, Nino and Marinette made their way through the crowded streets down to Artisan’s Alley, where professional craftsmen plied their trade during traditional business hours, in a range of magical and mundane skills. Marinette visited the alley on occasion, offering a box of charms or trinkets to sellers who might be interested in having her items on display. Some of these artisans had begun their work in the Midnight Market, and were willing to support amateurs like her.

It was in a shop like these ones that Marinette had first met Luka.

When Luka was between performances at dances and dinners, he assisted for a variety of artisans in Artisan’s Alley. He had an eye for detail and a delicate touch, and probably could have had his pick of apprenticeships if he were willing to commit his time to a single craft besides his own music. As Marinette and Nino started their walk down Artisan’s Alley, she glanced in shop windows, ears habitually listening for his steady voice. He was always making conversation with customers.

He claimed to like talking with people, but Marinette knew beyond that, he needed those relationships for his next job, for another favor, for some sort of gift. She didn’t think of him as someone who intentionally leveraged his connections for his own gain, for certainly he gave as much as he received, but she knew he was someone who relied on relationships and his own charm to get by. It had enamored her, once. She still envied it, certainly.

They passed a cobbler, and while that itself was not work that Marinette could see herself doing, she did feel a bit of pride as she remembered the boots she had embroidered last week. Her embroidery was better than anything displayed in that window. The shop beside it, though, belonged to a tailor who displayed fabrics and dresses that Marinette only dreamed of creating someday. She wanted to belong here, but she still had so much work to do to achieve this level of skill and quality.

Her best bet would be to take on an apprenticeship, but that would be expensive, unless one of the craftsmen was willing to sponsor her during her training. Her second best bet was to keep saving every coin made at the Midnight Market and the bit of money she made delivering her parents’ goods. Someday she’d have enough for her own business; she was sure of it.

Her heart jolted as Luka’s laugh reached her ears, and she saw him in the tailor’s window, displaying two different fabrics to a customer. She was irritated by the twinge of longing that turned her stomach. She thought it was unfair of her heart to react on selective memories, for while their separation had been mutual and amicable, it had not been without its arguments. Her heart, however, seemed momentarily unconcerned with their arguments when she saw him.

Nino followed Marinette’s gaze into the tailor’s shop and squeezed her arm. “Come on,” he said. “We’re looking for jewelry, right?”

But as they approached the first jewelry shop on the lane, it was Nino’s turn to balk with anxiety.

Marinette gave his wrist a comforting squeeze, just as he had done for her. “You know it’s all right if you don’t find something, right?”

“I can’t keep making Alya wait just because I want a bit more money before I propose.”

“Then just find something she’ll like. I’m not sure it’s the ring she needs as much as it is the person presenting it to her.”

He did not look quite so sure of that as they pushed open the door to the jeweler’s shop. The shop bell jingled and a short, elderly old man limped from the back of the shop. The counter, which itself was more of a stand encased in glass, was nearly as tall as he was. Tufts of gray hair peeked out behind each ear, and he wore a clean white suit and waistcoat, decorated with brilliant jade buttons. Marinette was not sure she had ever seen something so fine, and she was reminded once more how much harder she was going to have to work if she wanted to achieve this level of success someday.

“How may I help you today?” the gentleman asked and picked up a cane to lean on while he assisted his two young customers.

Marinette eyed the shelves around them, also all encased in glass, and the posted notice that listed prices for appraisals, repairs, and resizing. She wondered if anything in this shop would be affordable for Nino. The last thing she wanted was for him to be discouraged before they had hardly begun.

“E-engagement ring.” Nino stammered. “I’m looking for an engagement ring.”

“Excellent,” the jeweler smiled. “May I see your young lady’s hand?”

Marinette and Nino alike laughed, voices high and nervous.

“No,” she protested.

“We’re not—” he tried to explain, but neither could quite find the words.

“My mistake.” Though they had not managed to explain themselves, the jeweler smiled kindly at them. “Do you know your partner’s size?”

Nino’s face dropped. “Er—maybe?”

“While surprising a partner is nice, it might be wise to fit the ring immediately, particularly if you are interested in a custom design.”

“Oh, I don’t think…” Nino swallowed, and Marinette could practically see the numbers over his head as he imagined the cost of a custom designed ring. “I just—I can have it resized or-or—”

The shop bell behind them rang as the door opened again for another patron. A woman let out a soft, “Oh,” that seemed equal parts surprised and disdainful. In a high, honeyed voice, she said, “Pardon me, but I believe we have an appointment.”

Even as indignation flared in Marinette’s chest, certain that this woman was challenging hers and Nino’s right to be in this shop, Nino pulled Marinette to the side without even turning around. They could feel wronged all that they liked, but it only took one glance at the woman’s floral silk gown and her heavy, fur-lined winter coat to know that she and Nino truly had no room to argue here. The woman’s upright posture and tightly coiffed blonde hair all suggested a life of wealth and leisure. Even the small smile in the corner of her mouth seemed to condescend to everyone around her.

Behind the woman stood a tall, slender gentleman dressed in a coat as fine as the woman’s with a red silk scarf around his neck. A pair of thin glasses framed a pair of eyes as gray as his closely cropped hair. He removed his hat and coat and helped the woman out of hers. As he draped the coats over his arm, Marinette wondered if he might be a valet, but the cream-colored jacket embroidered with pale white lilies suggested he and this woman were of equal station, even if he deferred to her.

Then Marinette’s heart came to a full stop as a third person stepped out from behind the taller gentleman. Her familiar young man appeared, wearing the same black coat he had been wearing the day he had come rushing into her bakery and the same sullen, wary expression. But she saw no cat circling his ankles nor clinging to his shoulders. She wondered if she would find a visible scratch on the back of his hand, but it was hard to tell from this distance.

Her hand found Alya’s seeing stone in her pocket, but she was not sure how she could use it in such a small, private space without being noticed.

The jeweler inclined his head to the patrons in a small bow. “A pleasure, as always, Monsieur et Madame Agreste. I have everything ready for you.”

Nino and Marinette continued their retreat as the Agrestes approached the jeweler’s display counter. Marinette waited for the young man to smile at her or at least to acknowledge that he recognized her, but there was only the barest flick of his eyes in her direction as he passed her.

She had half a mind to tap him on the shoulder and throw his freshly cleaned handkerchief back in his face, but Marinette didn’t want to cause a scene before Nino had a chance to find a ring that he liked. Instead, she twisted the seeing stone anxiously between her fingers.

The jeweler reached beneath the counter and pulled out a small wooden box. He opened it and revealed a single ring inside, with four diamonds arranged in a shape like an X or perhaps a butterfly’s spread wings, but when he pulled the ring out of the box, he separated it into two pieces, with the diamonds on each ring arranged into a V-shape.

“It will need to be resized before the wedding, naturally,” the jeweler said, “but please make sure it fits now.” He handed one of the bands to the young man, who accepted it like the jeweler was dumping a hot coal into his palm.

“And this one,” the jeweler held up the second ring, identical to the one in the young man’s hand, “is sized to match the sample ring from the girl’s mother. Are we still insistent on it being a surprise?”

“Well,” the woman smiled as she looked down at the young man beside her, “the proposal itself will not be much of a surprise, but isn’t it more romantic if the ring is, at least? Aren’t you going to try the ring on, Adrien?”

Marinette’s heart leapt into her throat, despite her best efforts to keep it down. She finally had a name for her fickle young man and the initials on the handkerchief—Adrien Agreste.

Adrien grimaced, but did as he was told. He slid the band onto his finger, where it met the plain silver band he already wore.

The woman took his hand and examined the fit, as if she were perhaps more concerned with how it looked to others than how it felt to him. Marinette caught a glimpse of a pink scratch along the back of the young man’s hand, and wondered why the scratch should be as fickle as the young man’s attitude.

Madame Agreste pursed her lips as she twisted the plain silver band around the young man’s finger, like she might somehow change how it contrasted with the new gold band.

“It can’t be helped, I suppose. And it’s only until the wedding.”

“Not as if I’ll be the one wearing it,” he muttered and pulled the ring from his hand.

Monsieur Agreste raised his eyebrows and slid a hand over Adrien’s shoulder. “What was that?”

Marinette could not explain the way the young man changed beneath that hand, not entirely. He straightened up and his jaw tightened, but she did not know how to describe what happened to his eyes. They turned straight ahead, past the jeweler, reminding her of the way he had stared out the window of the bakery’s kitchen.

“I just meant,” he said in a flat voice, but far clearer, like it was meant less for the people standing beside him and more for the jeweler or anyone else who might be listening in, “that Mademoiselle Tsurugi will be the one wearing it after the wedding.”

Marinette’s hand tightened around the seeing stone as every muscle in her body seized up. Had he not told her that he was definitely not Monsieur Agreste’s son? Then the other night, in the market, he had said that it was Monsieur Agreste’s son who was supposed to propose to Miss Tsurugi. Here he was, fitting an engagement ring for the very woman he claimed that he was not proposing to. Why had he lied?

While shock and anger waged a war inside Marinette’s chest, Madame Agreste smiled at Adrien and wrapped her hand around his. Marinette might have believed that the gesture was affectionate if Adrien had not winced.

As the jeweler took the two bands back and fitted them once again into one, Marinette realized that her brief encounter with this boy was nearing its end. She hated the way disappointment crawled its way into her chest. He certainly hadn’t expressed any excitement or even interest in seeing her here, not the way he had at the night market. And he was the one who had turned down his offer of attending a public dance, so why was she suddenly hurt by this revelation of an engagement?

“And did you finish repairs on the brooch?” Madame Agreste asked.

The jeweler frowned. He pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked a tall oak cabinet as large as a wardrobe. Inside, a series of shelves housed a multitude of velvet and wooden jewelry boxes, but the jeweler ignored all of these and pulled open a drawer near the bottom of the large cabinet. From the drawer, he removed an ornate jewelry box, carved with dragons along its base and an ornate spiral along its lid. The jeweler opened the top lid and removed a stunning sapphire and emerald brooch. The green gems had been fitted together into an arc resembling the fan tail of a peacock, with sapphires set at the tip to imitate the eye of each feather. It was a dramatic and, if Marinette were any judge, expensive accessory.

“I don’t know how you managed to damage it so badly,” the jeweler said, with a touch of admonishment in his tone, “but I have not been able to make the repairs that you requested. The fracture is quite complete.”

“But we need it repaired before the wedding,” Monsieur Agreste insisted.

“Then perhaps you should not have broken it,” the jeweler replied evenly, unmoved by his client’s temper. “I have never seen damage to this degree before, and it is even harder to repair without knowing what exactly incurred the fracture.”

To Marinette’s eye, the brooch looked lovely and perfect. She could see no crack in the stones, nor in the gold setting. Though it was rude enough that she was eavesdropping and only pretending to listen to Nino as he pointed out a few rings to her, curiosity got the better of her. She pulled Alya’s seeing stone from her pocket and, when she was certain that everyone else’s eyes were on the brooch as the jeweler turned it over in his hand, she looked through the center of the stone.

She only dared hold the stone to her eye for a mere glance, but even that brief look was enough to make the damage plain. A jagged crack ran across the length of the brooch, invisible to the naked eye, but brought into sharp relief by Alya’s seeing stone. The deep, black chasm marred the beautiful gems and, even from this distance and with only a cursory examination, Marinette knew with certainty that the damage was magical in nature.

She was not arrogant enough to believe she could repair damage that this professional jeweler struggled with, but she had worked with enough magical charms and even a handful of cursed objects to know what a magical fracture looked like. This charm had been used for magic stronger than it was intended for, and it had rebelled.

Marinette had experienced a similar issue on occasion, particularly from customers who bought a lucky charm from her stall then tried to use the charm to cause something more powerful, like a love charm or a windfall spell. They brought back the charm and complained about its uselessness or fragility, and Marinette had to patiently explain to them that lucky charms were merely for small bits of good fortune, like having a gentle breeze on a hot day or finding that missing coin in your pocket. They weren’t meant to make someone fall in love with you nor could they manifest profit from a fortunate investment.

A charm made of the sort of gems that brooch was made of, however, had to be capable of powerful magic on its own, far more than a little bit of a dandelion seed preserved in glass was capable of. How much more dangerous, then, was the spell that it had been used for?

While Monsieur and Madame Agreste argued with the jeweler about timely repairs, Marinette risked one more use of the seeing stone, though she wasn’t sure what she thought she could glean about the brooch that the jeweler had not been able to discern herself, especially without getting any closer.

The crack itself gave no more insight, but as she shifted the seeing stone, she caught sight of something else. The young man’s hand, still resting on the counter with its fading scratch and heavy ring, made her heart stop, but it wasn’t the scratch that sent a chill down her spine.

There was no glamor on him like Alya had suggested, no magic hiding some hideous appearance underneath the handsome young man. He was as he appeared—except for a single black thread tied neatly to the ring on his finger, then stretched taught to his neck, where it wrapped around once before continuing on its journey, ending in a rather messy knot on Madame Agreste’s ring. A second knot, as hastily tied as the first, indicated a second thread, but before Marinette could attempt to follow that thread, Madame Agreste’s shoulders stiffened.

Marinette shoved the seeing stone back into her pocket just as Madame Agreste turned around. Marinette pretended to be exceptionally interested in a nearby bracelet and pointed it out to Nino, but her mind was spinning as she tried to make sense of what she had seen. It was no spell she knew of, but she could guess that it was not a particularly kind spell.

Marinette did not dare pull the seeing stone from her pocket again, especially not as Madame Agreste kept glancing back at the two of them suspiciously, but she knew she wanted a better look at either Madame Agreste’s or Adrien’s ring. It was not just curiosity that spurred her now, but a new fear that lodged itself deep in her stomach. This boy, his wary glances, the tight hands around his fingers and shoulder, and the thread around his throat seemed to bleed together, and she did not care for the picture it made.

There was a sudden crack as Madame Agreste slammed the jewelry box closed. Marinette jumped at the sound, and Nino looked up, but no one at the counter seemed surprised by her tantrum.

“We’ll be back next week,” she said stiffly. “It had better be ready.”

Her husband picked up the jewelry box containing the engagement rings and tucked it into his coat pocket. He set a small coin purse down on the counter in exchange, and said, “We won’t be paying anything more if that brooch is not fixed.”

“I would not charge for a service I could not provide,” the jeweler replied, voice still as even as it had been. “I will continue to do what I can.”

There was no gratitude nor well-wishing exchanged as the Agrestes turned and left the shop. Once the shop bell rang and the door clicked shut to announce their final departure, the jeweler turned back to Nino and Marinette with a kind but worn smile.

“I apologize for the interruption. You were looking for an engagement ring, correct?”

Marinette’s mind, though, was still with her young man. Even if she did see him tomorrow night, at such a grand party she might not have a chance to examine his ring.

It was an impulsive plan, but she didn’t have time to stop and think of a better one.

She pulled the handkerchief from her basket and ran after the Agrestes.

“Monsieur!” she called after them. “Excuse me, Monsieur! I think you dropped this!”

Adrien did not turn around until she was close enough to brush her hand against his elbow. He stared at her, startled, and Monsieur and Madame Agreste paused.

“What do you think you’re—”

But before Monsieur Agreste could reprimand Marinette for stopping them, she shoved the handkerchief at Adrien.

“This is yours, I think,” she said, half out of breath. “You dropped it.”

Adrien eyed it with that wary, disdainful expression that reminded her so much of his cat. “I didn’t,” he said.

“You did,” she insisted, and pressed the handkerchief into his hand. Her hands brushed the ring on his finger and he flinched.

He grabbed her hand as she pinched the ring. “Don’t—” He bit back whatever else he was going to say and his eyes drifted to Monsieur and Madame Agreste, to their fixed gazes on this exchange, before settling back on her. He reached into his pocket and pulled out another handkerchief. “That can’t be my handkerchief, because this is my handkerchief.”

And with a mundane sleight of hand that would have impressed even Alya, he took the handkerchief she had handed to him back, leaving her with the one from his pocket.

Marinette didn’t understand, and she was left standing alone in the street, staring dumbly after him and Monsieur and Madame Agreste’s backs as they retreated to their carriage. The way Monsieur Agreste’s hand made its way back to the young man’s shoulder unsettled her stomach. Even if anyone else could see the way the boy was propelled into the carriage rather than helped, what was there to do? Marinette stayed standing there, as if witnessing him might make a difference, while they climbed in and their driver tugged the horses’ reins.

She had too many questions and no answers, and any chance of answers was rapidly disappearing as the carriage trundled down the road. Reluctantly, she trudged back into the jeweler’s shop, feeling like she had lost somehow. Helplessness and doubt were not things she was used to, and they muddied and slowed her usually frenetic thoughts. She hardly heard the bell above the threshold as she pushed the door open.

“Everything all right, Marinette?” Nino asked.

Unsure how to explain it all, she nodded. “Yes, I mean—of course—I—” she tightened her grip on the handkerchief in her hand and tried to smile. “I thought I could catch him, but I just missed him. I’ll have to try again tomorrow night.” She cleared her throat and blinked away the sting in her eyes. “Have you found something you like for Alya?”

As Nino pointed to a set of rings the jeweler had laid out for them, Marinette pretended to listen. She nodded when she ought to and hummed with interest when it was called for, but her mind was still on Adrien Agreste.

Only, as Nino deliberated between two rings he liked, she took the opportunity to look down at the handkerchief in her hands and knew at once that it was not Adrien Agreste’s handkerchief.

She didn’t recognize the crest—a cross and a pair of gray songbirds resting on either side of the crossbar—and on this handkerchief, the initials read “F. F.”

If it hadn’t been for the different crest, she might have convinced herself someone had simply forgotten to finish the lettering. But this handkerchief certainly did not match the one she had used to clean up a spilled potion at the Midnight Market. This handkerchief did not belong to the same person, nor even someone from the same family.

He had made sure to give her this handkerchief, made sure to impress upon her that he was not the same young man from the Midnight Market. He had, in the best fashion that he could, told her that he was not Adrien Agreste.

But Monsieur and Madame Agreste had called him Adrien. Was it possible they didn’t know who he really was? And, whether they knew or not, who exactly was he?

Marinette tucked the handkerchief into her basket and made a decision. She was going to return this handkerchief to him at Lady Tsurugi’s party, and she was going to find out who he really was, even if she had to corner him to get her answers. And—if there was even the slightest opportunity to do so—she was going to help him out of whatever mess the Agrestes had him tied up in. She would see him again. She would make sure of it.

#ml fic #mlbb2024 #ml regency au #regency ish #napoleonic technically #aywgtccc #miraculous ladybug fanfic #ladybug fanfic

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aidanchaser · 2 months ago

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Absolutely thrilled to share my very first big bang fic! I've been writing fan fiction for 20 years and it never occurred to me to join an event like this. They always felt so intimidating, but it was honestly so much fun! Thank you @yellowbullet100 for beta-reading and putting up with all my finicky artist's needs. Thank you @jademoon2u for the lovely art for chapter 3! I'm over the moon about it and can't wait for everyone to see it. Thank you @saotomexmary and ShittyLB for volunteering for art and being incredible sound-boards as I worked through this fic. Thank you to @mlbigbang2024 for organizing such a lovely event. I made amazing friends and have had a blast collaborating with others. It's been such a lovely time.

Without further ado, A Young Witch's Guide to Cats, Curses, and Courtship! (read on ao3 or below) And I'll see you next week for "On the Subject of Familiars"!

Chapter One: An Introduction to the Subject

On the subject of a young witch’s comportment, there are a variety rules that must govern his or her behavior. Witches of experience are well-familiar with the exchanges required when another witch enters the home, the three rules that govern all craft, and many more rules that guide their work and relationships.

A young witch, then, may find themselves overwhelmed by the requirements and regulations put upon their learning and their craft. This guide shall serve as a reference and tool as appropriate, and also as a guide to remind witches of all ages of the key principals of witchcraft. Most chiefly, a young witch should concern themselves with the rules of familiars, spellwork, and hospitality.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng, despite being a young witch, was not currently concerned with any of those things. She was far more concerned with the rather mundane—and yet miraculous for how frequently she encountered it—task of avoiding utter disaster.

Lady Tsurugi had ordered three cases of the Dupain-Cheng’s renowned winter citrus tarts for her dinner party, and Marinette’s job was firstly to deliver the tarts and secondly to make sure they were each appropriately topped with a spiral of golden sugar. While the spirals themselves were mundane rather than genuinely magical, they added a certain mystical whimsy that had become a popular trend for local soirées, balls, and debuts. The trouble was that the sugar spirals did not transport easily, and Marinette had to make them on-site.

Marinette had every intention of staying downstairs in the kitchen where she belonged—if only to avoid running into a certain young musician who was playing this evening—but that was before she’d begun to return her supplies to her crate and discovered that instead of adding orange zest to the syrup like she was supposed to, she’d dumped in a bottle of fire droplets by mistake.

Her mother had warned her, time and again, about mixing her potions supplies and baking supplies, and Marinette did try to listen. She’d only brought the fire droplets to keep her hands warm on the walk home. Was it really her fault that it was the same size and shape as the bottle of orange zest her father had given her?

Maybe not, but it was her fault for not double-checking her labels before she had topped every single pastry with a glistening spiral of fire-enhanced sugar.

If Marinette did not get upstairs to fix those pastries before they made it to Lady Tsurugi and the guests, her family would never serve baked goods at so much as an afternoon picnic again.

Marinette’s first plan was to steal all the tarts back and redo each and every sugar spiral, but she wasn’t sure she had the time. Though she had studied potions, charms, and glamors under her grandmother’s tutelage, chronomancy was a field far too advanced for her.

Her second plan was to “accidentally” knock every pastry to the floor and “accidentally” trample them into dust. Unfortunately, she did not think that would spare her parents the damage to their reputation and business alike, and she imagined she would be the one paying for all those pastries and whatever additional expenses Lady Tsurugi saw fit to charge her with.

That left her with only one option: neutralize the potency of the fire droplets as quickly as she could. Luckily, she had a freshly made bottle of essence of snowdrops. She had crafted it with intentions to fill an enchanted snow globe, but this need was far more urgent.

If any of the ball’s guests suffered from the snowdrop’s potential side effect of sudden chills, hopefully they would attribute it to the winter weather. And if any of the guests were allergic to snowdrop and developed an itchy, dry scalp, well… She doubted they would point fingers at her pastries when looking for an explanation. Besides, the allergy symptoms usually resolved within a week.

Marinette crept down the hallway as quietly as she could, hoping the guests’ chatter and laughter would muffle her footsteps. As she arrived at the staging room where one of the household staff in his pristine wine red suit and perfectly white gloves was just picking up a tray of pastries, Marinette grabbed his arm. It was all the young man could do to keep from losing his balance and sending the entire silver tray of porcelain plates and tainted pastries crashing to the floor, just barely preventing Marinette from reverting to her second plan of total pastry destruction.

“What are you doing up here?” he hissed.

“I just need to add a finishing touch!” she whispered back. “It’ll only take a second!”

“It better,” he snapped, as Marinette pulled a small bottle from her pocket that looked to anyone else like a perfume atomizer. It would smell just as floral, and it might affect the flavor of the tart, but at least none of the guests would leave with burned tongues or spend the next three days laid up with burning stomach pain.

Marinette wasted no time and spritzed each of the tarts before the young man irritably whisked the tray away from her and into the dining hall.

Crisis averted.

Marinette tucked her bottle back into her apron pocket and enjoyed a brief moment of relief. She leaned against the small worktop in what was little more than a cubby where household staff could polish silverware and plates and make sure all food was ready to be served. There were a number of mahogany drawers, and each drawer handle had a solid iron pull, all individually marked with the glaring red symbol of the Tsurugi family.

Marinette shivered at the oppressive lines and colors then turned to go back to the kitchens where she belonged. She certainly wasn’t cut out for such grandeur.

But when she reached the landing on the stairs, a voice from the bottom of the stairwell floated up to her, and every ounce of blood in Marinette’s body chilled instantly, as if she had injected essence of snowdrop directly into her own veins.

“I know you said Lady Tsurugi wasn’t fond of dancing, but one of the guests wrote to me directly and suggested it might improve the general mood.”

The head of the Tsurugi’s household staff replied, “If Monsieur Agreste expects dancing, he can speak to Lady Tsurugi about it directly.”

As the two pairs of footsteps grew closer, Marinette hurried into the nearest corridor and pushed her way through the first door she could find. She pressed herself against it and squeezed her eyes closed, willing them to pass by—or if they did try to come in, perhaps her weight against the door might convince them it was stuck and buy her a little more time to flee.

With a racing heart, she listened to Luka’s light and familiar footsteps reach the door. They hesitated, briefly, as the head of staff and Luka debated setting up in the parlor or the ballroom, uncertain if Lady Tsurugi’s desire for a quiet evening or Monsieur Agreste’s more lively agenda might win out. In the end, they did not open the door, and the footsteps began to fade.

Marinette let out a sigh of relief. She opened her eyes to get her bearings and found herself in a drawing room. The fire had been lit, but the lamps had not. The flickering shadows around the room illuminated a cherry-wood bookshelf, a few velvet chairs embroidered with twisting dragons, and an easel with a canvas that depicted a half-finished still life of a vase of irises, resting on a table draped in heath, the purple and pink bell-shaped flowers only just dashed with initial color.

And to her horror, Marinette discovered that she was not alone.

A young man with golden hair and emerald eyes stood near the fire, a booklet in hand, but halfway into his jacket, like he was in the middle of hiding it. Despite his fine dinner jacket and waistcoat, he looked just as panicked to see her as Marinette felt to be seen.

“I’m sorry—” she spluttered. “I was just—I’ll go—”

But as his eyes took in her apron and smock, his shoulders relaxed. There was a small smile on his thin lips suddenly, rather than the scolding Marinette expected.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I was afraid you were one of my father’s servants sent to find me. It seems we both chose the same hiding place.”

Marinette warily returned his smile. “You’re hiding?”

“Sort of.” His smile turned sheepish as he set the pamphlet in hand down on a nearby table. Even across the dim room, Marinette could read the title “Modern Dance Steps” and was able to make out an illustration of a young man and a young woman mid-motion. She had one just like it at home, and her booklet’s edges were equally worn from hours studying and practicing. But no amount of reading and practice had ever been able to make up for her natural clumsiness, despite Alya and Luka’s best efforts.

“I can tell you’re a dedicated study,” she said.

His cheeks were bright pink now, and Marinette could feel her heart melting as his embarrassment rose.

“I’ve never actually had a partner to practice with,” he admitted, “just the instructions. Thought I’d try to brush up quickly before my father insisted on a dance after dinner.”

Though it was a rather rude question, Marinette could not hide her shock. “You’ve never danced before?”

“Er—this is, technically, my first party.”

Marinette blinked and tried to reinterpret this boy’s age. Even she, as someone who worked two jobs to make a living, had been attending public dances since she had turned fifteen, and this boy certainly looked about as old as she was. While boys didn’t debut the way girls did, they often received their education from attending parties before they were old enough to commit to any real relationships and while they were still young enough to make mistakes without causing scandal. Perhaps his parents had just kept him at home until he was old enough to start courting properly.

She remembered how embarrassed she had been at her first dance, tripping over her own feet and stepping on her partners’ toes. It was Alya who had been her first practice partner and helped her learn the steps. Then it was Luka who had persisted in her education despite her clumsiness. He’d even called her lack of grace charming once.

As much as that memory ached, she knew that she ought to pay back the kindness that had been given to her.

“Would you like a practice partner?” she asked.

“I couldn’t impose.”

“It’s not an imposition at all. Everyone has to learn from someone else.”

He glanced down at the pamphlet then reluctantly took her hand. She was startled by how soft the pads of his fingers were. She was used to her own rough, calloused hands from years working with a rolling pin and pricking her fingers with needles. Luka’s hands, too, had been worn by his harp strings and the wood of his violin, and Alya’s from years of working in her mother’s kitchen. But this boy did not know work the way she and her friends did, and he never would. The heavy silver ring around his finger, probably a signet of some high station, was a clear sign that their paths were never meant to cross, and in all likelihood would never cross again.

She counted a rhythm for them to follow and led him through each step—apologizing when she stumbled over her own two feet or misstepped herself. He had a cat’s grace that she envied. In truth, it was unlikely he needed to practice with her, but as they moved about the room, she saw the tension in his shoulders drop and the tightness in his jaw relax. His soft smile even managed to make another appearance as they repeated the steps a fourth time.

“You’re a natural,” she announced, before accidentally kicking her own ankle as she tried to step forward.

He laughed and caught her easily. “You’re an excellent teacher.”

“Please don’t patronize me.”

“I will admit your practice is unpolished, but you know the steps well enough.”

Her count ended, and they came to a stop in the middle of the room. He bowed to her, and she took a step back in surprise.

Red colored his cheeks once more. “That is how you’re supposed to end a dance, isn’t it?”

“Oh, of course,” she hastily dipped into her own curtsy. “You just caught me off guard—I didn’t—I mean, I’m not exactly—” Marinette gestured helplessly at her apron.

“You’re obviously not part of the household staff,” he said confidently. “I don’t see the problem.”

“I work in a bakery,” she tapped the apron pocket with the embroidered wreath of golden wheat. “That’s not really all that different. It’s your first party and all; you shouldn’t embarrass yourself by bowing to people below your station.”

“How do you know I’m above you?”

“People like me don’t get invited to these sorts of parties.”

“What if I invited you?”

It was her turn to blush. “Don’t be silly. Besides, I’d only embarrass myself with my terrible dancing.”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

“Everyone minds eventually.” Not that it had been her poor dancing that had driven a rift between her and Luka. It had just been one of many things that had soured between them.

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” he said, and reached for her hand. “My mother says words are the foundation of any spell.”

Marinette’s grandmother had taught her something similar. Incantation is the beginning of all intention, not the other way around. But she wasn’t thinking about her grandmother in this moment. She was thinking about this boy and his soft hands against hers, and how she had not stood this close to a boy since Luka, how she had not been alone with a boy since Luka—and how if anyone walked in on the two of them right now, her parents would have to leave town to escape the scandal this could ignite.

Hastily, she pulled away and curtsied again. “Enjoy your first party,” she said, “and whoever your dance partner is, I hope they’re a bit more graceful than I am.”

Though it was rude of her, she didn’t wait for him to reply. She hurried back out into the corridor, gathered her things from the kitchen, and left without speaking to anyone.

It turned out that she did not need her fire droplets to stay warm on her walk home through the cold winter night. Her racing heart and burning cheeks did the work for her, keeping her warm all the way back to the bakery and up to her attic bedroom. She completely forgot her plans to pick a fresh bundle of snowdrops from her garden to replenish what she had spent salvaging the tarts.

As she swapped her bakery apron for her heavier tinker’s apron, Marinette stared dismally at the half-finished snow globe. At least that project didn’t have a deadline. It was only a gift for Nino’s little brother, who adored the first snowfall so much that she’d thought an enchanted snow globe would make a lovely Christmas gift.

Marinette stifled a yawn and flipped through her ledger of projects. There was a pocket watch that needed repair, both in keeping time and in restoring the illusory message it was supposed to play each hour. She might need to ask Alya for help. Alya was the expert with illusions; Marinette was better at potions and charms. She did do glamors on occasion, particularly when she was given clothing repairs, but those were always small, and not designed to last for very long.

She fidgeted with the internal mechanisms of the watch for nearly an hour, but made little progress. Her mind kept drifting back to her dance that evening, to his hands against hers, to the gentle smile that tugged up the corners of his mouth, like he wasn’t used to smiling and wasn’t entirely sure it was allowed.

With a groan, Marinette set the pocket watch aside and tried to work on a pair of boots she’d been asked to repair, in hopes that a less mentally challenging task would help. But it only made it easier for her mind to wander. As she pressed her needle into the leather, she remembered the young man’s soft hands. As she replaced the worn heel with a fresh one, she thought of his graceful steps. And as she stuck her tongue out and focused on weaving a self-tying charm into the laces, she remembered the way he had relaxed beneath her guidance, and how easy being with him had seemed.

Marinette tossed the shoe aside and threw herself down on her desk in frustration. She didn’t even know the boy’s name, and it was probably for the best. He was from a world she did not belong to and never would. She would never see him again, let alone speak to him. That was the way it was supposed to be.

❖❖❖

Marinette fell asleep at her desk, a myriad of projects strewn around her, each one half-finished in its own unique way. She woke to the scent of freshly baked bread.

While it wasn’t every morning that she woke at her desk, it wasn’t all that rare. With a groan, she sat up and stretched. She had berated herself time and again for falling asleep in her stays, but somehow she kept forgetting to properly put herself to bed at night. It was too easy to get wrapped up in projects and lose herself in her practice.

Falling into her bed was tempting, but a knock on the trapdoor of her attic bedroom reminded her that she had work to do.

“Coming, Maman,” she managed through a yawn.

Marinette used the basin on her nightstand to wash her face and pressed a cool towel to the bags under her eyes. She had promised her parents that she would help with the morning crowds and evening deliveries during the holiday season. Winter wasn’t their busiest time of year—spring, with its banquets and debuts was worse—but as both seasons had their share of parties and grand galas, her parents struggled to both fill large orders and meet the needs of their day-to-day patrons.

The only trouble was that winter was a busy time for Marinette’s second job, too.

Each Saturday night, from sunset to sunrise, she worked at the Midnight Market, repairing the odd magical object or adding magic into something mundane, and winter nights were the longest nights. She had a steady flow of business, as evidenced by the projects piling up on her desk, but somehow, the work never seemed to be enough. Her small jar of savings, kept in hopes of one day opening her own permanent shop, had stagnated at about a third of the way full, hardly enough, much less evidence of enough consistent business to sustain such a shop.

Marinette rubbed the sleep from her eyes, stifled another yawn, and swapped her heavier leather apron out for her pink baking apron before descending into the bakery below.

She said good morning to each of her parents, assured them that last night had gone well, and began to fill the bread baskets. She did not tell them about the near-disaster with the fire droplets.

They found out anyway.

Shortly after lunch, a letter sealed with the symbol of the Tsurugi family arrived, and within minutes, Sabine was calling, “Marinette!” with a voice that was lilted in a way all too familiar to Marinette. There was both a question in it and a concern, and perhaps a little bit of an accusation.

Marinette looked up at her father for help, but he raised his eyebrows and jerked his head towards the back of the shop. With heavy feet, Marinette trudged through the kitchen and into the back room. It was a mess of papers, order forms, calendars, to-do lists, and accounting ledgers, which had been disorganized long before Marinette had arrived in the world. She had inherited her organizational habits, just like she had inherited both magic and baking.

Marinette’s mother, a petite woman with short dark hair, looked up from the letter in her hand.

“Lady Tsurugi says she was quite pleased with our service.”

“Oh—that’s good news.”

“She’d like to engage us again for her daughter’s engagement announcement.”

“That’s… great?” Marinette had known her mother for far too long to believe she had been called back here for just a business arrangement.

“And she said the crisp floral flavor was unexpected but an excellent contrast to the tart orange.”

“Ah.”

“Were you experimenting with recipes again? Marinette, we have discussed using potions on the orders—”

“It wasn’t a potion! At least, it wasn’t supposed to be. I just accidentally used fire droplets instead of orange zest—”

“Fire droplets?!”

“But I fixed it! With snowdrops. It’s all fine, Maman. I know I messed up, but I took care of it. You don’t have to worry.”

Her mother sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Be more careful,” but it was a worn out warning, repeated too many times of the years to hold much meaning, “please.”

“Of course, Maman, I will.” But that promise, too, had been given time and again. Marinette did try her best to be cautious, but her clumsiness had a way of persisting like a bad penny.

“Tom!” her mother called, and Marinette’s burly father poked his head into the back room. “What do you think about adding something floral to the orange tarts?”

“I love an experimental recipe,” he replied with a broad smile.

Her parents debated which flowers might pair well with their orange tarts, and if they ought to try something similar with their berry tarts. It was a brief discussion of half-finished sentences and fragmented thoughts. Marinette’s parents had been together for more than half of their lives, and most thoughts were known before they were voiced.

Her mother added a few types of flowers to their shopping list, snatched it off of the desk along with a small purse, and Marinette’s parents left her to hold down the shop during the afternoon lull. Mornings, as mothers and housewives got together food for the day, and evenings, as those who worked all day and went home to empty beds and empty cupboards stopped in for something warm to keep them company, were the busiest times of day. Afternoons were for taking inventory, budgeting, and shopping.

And cleaning, which was exactly what Marinette was doing when, as she pushed open the door to sweep out the flour and dirt that had accumulated during the morning rush, a cat scurried inside.

Stray cats usually hung out at the butcher’s shop, and weren’t really a problem for the bakery. This cat, however, seemed determined to get inside. He leapt over her broom, took a brief moment to get his bearings, then darted straight into the kitchen.

Marinette dropped the broom and chased after him. “You can’t be in here!” She couldn’t imagine what her father would say if he found cat hair in the flour. At least it wasn’t hard to follow the footprints through the thin layer of white dust that coated the floor. Though she couldn’t actually see the cat, she could tell that he had crawled under one of the work tables.

She flopped down onto the floor and tried to get a better look at him. He was pure black with bright green eyes. There were no other markings that she could see, but she thought she caught a glimpse of a silver collar around his neck, so he must belong to someone.

“Are you lost, kitty?” she asked.

He didn’t answer—not that she had expected him to.

She reached her hand back towards him, but he only inched farther away, careful to stay just out of reach.

“Oh, come on. Wouldn’t you rather have a sausage or some fish? We only have bread here. This isn’t where you belong.”

But the cat did not budge. She wondered if the cat had just been looking for somewhere warm. The first snow hadn’t come yet, but frost was starting to creep its way into the village. She pursed her lips and crawled backwards until she had the space to stand up. As she dusted off her apron, she ran through a list of ways to lure the cat out. In the end, she settled on the simplest option and reached for a bottle of milk.

As she poured the milk into a small bowl, the bell above the shop door jingled.

“Coming!” Marinette called. She set the bowl down by the kitchen door, hoping to lure the cat away from cover so she could grab him quickly, then looked up and froze when she caught sight of the shop’s newest patron.

It was the very same young man she had met last night, standing in the bakery doorway looking as lost as if the wind had blown him in.

He glanced around the shop, eyes wary like the bread itself might leap at him from the baskets. He wasn’t wearing the finery he had worn at Lady Tsurugi’s dinner, but she could still tell his clothes were expensive. The heavy fabric of his white waistcoat was perfectly tailored to his shape and decorated with both gold buttons and embroidered gray birds along the lapels. The shot silk scarf around his neck shimmered with blue and silver, and his black coat showed no sign of winter wear, as if it had been made new for this season. He certainly didn’t look like the sort of person who hurtled into bakeries.

“What are you doing—I mean—” Marinette, fighting both her surprise to see this young man and the butterflies that had erupted in her stomach, struggled to find her words. “Why are you—I mean, I’m so sorry—How can I help you?”

His eyes finally met hers and they did not look impressed with what they saw. She wondered if it was the wrinkled dress she’d slept in or the perpetual bags under her eyes that suddenly displeased him. Perhaps he’d found her prettier or at least more palatable in the firelit parlor, and now in the light of day, she had turned plain and uninteresting.

“Cat,” he said abruptly. “I’m looking for a black cat.”

“Oh! It’s yours then? I wondered with the collar—”

“Where is he?”

Marinette swallowed, unsettled by his new brusque tone. If anything, she’d been the rude one last night. Was he simply replying in kind?

“He’s hiding under one of the tables in the kitchen. I couldn’t reach him, but I just put out some milk. He’ll get hungry eventually—”

But the boy was already pushing his way past her like he owned the bakery.

“You can’t just barge in—”

“Where did you say he was?”

Reluctantly, Marinette pointed at the table the cat had run to. She was beginning to think that if she was this boy’s cat, she certainly would prefer hiding in a bakery to going home.

He crouched down, but didn’t lie on the floor as Marinette had. He seemed to have a bit more sense about dirtying his clothes than she did.

“Don’t play this stupid game,” he snapped at the cat, and thrust his hand under the table. “You know which one of us is going to get flayed alive if we don’t go home right n—” He yelped suddenly and yanked his hand away. He clutched it against his chest as he straightened and grunted a curse under his breath.

Marinette could not help a startled gasp. “You can’t curse in here! You’ll keep the bread from rising!”

He turned his glare on her and she was surprised to see blood pearling on the back of his hand. His cat had gotten in a good scratch.

“Did your mother teach you that superstition?”

Marinette lifted her chin, annoyed by the sneer in his voice. “My father—and my grandmother. She’s a witch, so I expect she knows best.”

The disdain in his eyes finally gave way to a mild curiosity. He tipped his head to one side and looked her up and down, like he was finally seeing her as another human being. But all he said was a rather rude, “Huh,” then looked at the saucer she had left by the door. “You might as well toss that. He won’t go for it.”

Marinette ignored his advice. “Would he chase a ribbon?”

“If he’s in the mood. He doesn’t seem to be, though.” The boy glanced down at his hand and winced when he saw the blood had gotten onto his shirt. “My father’s going to kill me.” He started to swear again, but at least he had the grace to bite it off before he finished.

Maybe the kind boy from last night was buried in there somewhere.

Marinette pulled a stool up beside the hearth of the fireplace, the warmest part of the kitchen. “Sit. I’ll fix your shirt and get your cat.”

“You can’t fix a bloodstain.”

“You can’t, maybe.”

Marinette hurried upstairs and dug through her box of thread for a white spool, grabbed an embroidery needle, and double-checked the labels on her bottles of herbs. She wanted to be sure she grabbed the right one this time.

When she came downstairs, she found that the young man had accepted her offer of a seat. His eyes flicked quickly between her, the window, and the door. It reminded her of how panicked he had looked when she had first found him in the parlor last night.

She thought of the cat, diving for cover under the table, and this boy, checking doors and windows like something was on his heels. There was something to the way that fear lived in them both that unsettled her. Just as she had offered him the kindness of a dance last night, she would offer him all the hospitality she could here in her own family’s bakery, even if he seemed resistant to accept her help.

“Coat off, please,” Marinette said, and set her things down on the worktable.

He hesitated, alert gaze still following her. But as she pumped water over a towel and grabbed a bowl of salt, he removed his coat.

First, she used her cloth to clean the scratch on his hand, then wrapped a scrap of fabric around it. When she was done caring for his wound, she reached for the buttons of his shirt.

“I promise I’m not going to undress you,” she murmured.

He blushed bright red, just as he had last night, as she unfastened the golden buttons of his waistcoat then the smaller mother-of-pearl buttons of his shirt so that she could get at both sides of the blood stain. His posture was stiff while she blotted the stain, like he was sitting for an etiquette test, and he kept his eyes trained on the window. She wondered if he’d ever been alone with a girl before, or if there had always been a chaperone to observe him. Perhaps when she had met him last night, that had been his very first private conversation with any woman.

She and Luka had had their fair share of moments without chaperones. He would join her on a delivery or they’d run into each other at the Midnight Market. She’d enjoyed their time alone, at least at first. But the well of personal conversations had eventually run dry.

She was never sure which of them had lost interest first, whether it was his irritation that she’d had to reschedule one too many times because of work, or her annoyance with him for buying her one too many things she didn’t need. He had wanted someone he could dote on, and she had wanted a partner and an equal. Somewhere along the way, the lengthy conversations had become a series of clipped answers, the linked hands while walking had become an obligation, and the goodbye kisses had transformed into a chore.

This boy beside her, however, probably didn’t have any experience with that, certainly not if last night was his very first party. She wondered if he was so anxious because this was the very first time he had ever left his parents’ sight.

Once the stain was good and damp, she rubbed salt into it and muttered a small incantation for luck, the first her grandmother had ever taught her. And while the stain faded, it did not fully disappear.

“I told you,” he muttered as she tossed the towel aside and reached for her spool.

“I’m not finished,” she said, with every shred of patience that she could muster.

She uncorked her jar of milkweed and picked up her spool. She pinched the thread between her fingers and let the rest of the spool roll to the floor until it came to rest next to the cat’s hiding place.

When she began to rub milkweed along the length of her thread and did not go to retrieve her spool, he asked in a tight voice, “Did you need me to—”

“Just leave it,” she replied gently and muttered another incantation, this one for glamor.

She threaded her needle without bothering to pick up the spool of thread from the floor and began to carefully stitch around the edge of the blood stain. Each time she tugged a little more thread through the stitches, she glanced at the spool rolling around on the floor. On the third tug, a black paw reached out for the thread.

Marinette bit back a small smile and continued embroidering the white shirt with her white milkweed-dosed thread. While she worked, the boy beneath her hands fidgeted anxiously with the heavy ring around his finger. His eyes shifted between the window and the periodically appearing cat paws, but never once glanced back at her.

When the silence became unbearable, Marinette asked, “Did you enjoy your first party?”

“Did I—what?” The shock and revulsion in his voice was so strong that Marinette very nearly stopped her work.

Instead, she swallowed and adjusted her question. “Well—did you dance last night?”

He let out something like a laugh, if such a thing could be filled with despair rather than joy. “Absolutely not.”

“Oh.” The brusque nature of his reply left her speechless. She was used to frustrated and rude clients, but this boy was taking it a little far. Maybe this was just what all the gentry were like—perfectly polite at parties, rude and irreverent the rest of the time.

She finished the outline of the small stain without pressing the conversation and worked her thread down the center of the stain, pleasantly surprised with the shape it had taken on.

When she was finished, she snipped the thread and, with expert timing, reached for the cat just as he reached for the spool. She caught him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him out. He did not yowl at her nor try to scratch her, but he did let out a loud, plaintive meow and twist so that he caught his claws in her apron. She pressed him against her chest and stroked between his ears to calm him down. She was surprised to find, beneath his sleek coat, a dry and flaky skin that left white flecks in his fur—or perhaps the cat had merely encountered a patch of flour on the bakery floor.

The boy examined her needlework with a disdainful glare. “Is that a butterfly?”

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” she replied, careful to keep her voice light and ignorant of his rude attitude. “The shape of the stain doesn’t always work out to be something so fitting.”

“Fitting?”

“I just thought—the dancing—last night—you said your father—so I thought—aren’t you Monsieur Agreste’s son?”

“I am not his son,” he snapped with a vitriol sharp enough to make Marinette step back. The cat in her arms went still, too.

“Oh—I’m sorry to have assumed. My mistake.” Marinette swallowed, unsure how else to respond to such unprecedented anger.

He, too, seemed to realize the inappropriateness of his outburst. His cheeks turned a deeper red and he kept his gaze low. “I don’t think my father’s going to appreciate this any better.”

Marinette considered letting him walk out just like that, half-finished repair on his shirt. He deserved it, after his behavior this afternoon, but not only was a witch required to give all gifts with a kind attitude, leaving a job half-done was no good for her reputation.

“There’s still one final step.” She pressed her fingers first to her lips then to the embroidery.

The thread of the butterfly’s wings lifted from his shirt, flapping delicately like a butterfly freshly emerged from its chrysalis. As it tested its new wings, the stain lifted a little with each flap. Then, as if carrying the stain off with it, the butterfly flitted away to the window. Marinette pushed open the pane and the pale butterfly disappeared into the city.

The boy ran his fingers over the place the butterfly had been. “I can still feel the stitches.”

“There’s a glamor to hide them,” she explained. “Direct sunlight will still catch the threads, and glamors are rarely permanent, but it should last as long as the shirt will.”

His eyes drifted to the window again, as if he could still see the butterfly on the horizon. “So that was what, for show?”

“Blood can be unpredictable. My father insists I avoid it, but sometimes it can’t be helped.”

“You work with bloodstains a lot?”

“All sorts of stains. I have a stand at the Midnight Market and a lot of the repairs I do are for clothing.”

He hesitated for only a moment longer, eyes still on the window and a question pursed in his lips, but when the clock in the town square began to strike, he hurried into his coat. Marinette did not so much hand him his cat as he snatched his cat from her arms and ran from the bakery, nearly toppling Marinette’s mother over on his way out.

“Unhappy customer?” her father asked with a concerned frown, catching his wife despite the loaded baskets on his arms.

Marinette stared at the door, as if she didn’t quite comprehend that the boy was already gone. “He just… he lost his cat.”

“Were you able to help him?” her mother asked as she took one of the baskets from her husband and set it on one of the shop’s tables.

“I think so.”

Her parents exchanged a concerned glance.

“Are you all right, Marinette?” her father asked.

“Hm?”

“You seem distracted,” her mother said. “Why don’t you head upstairs and get some rest. Your father and I can get this put away and take care of the evening crowd.”

Marinette insisted that she was fine. She helped her parents clean up the kitchen and sort through the shopping, but that was as much as they would let her help. Her father warned her that if she did not put herself to bed, he would carry her upstairs and tuck her in so tight it would take three men to get her out. With a tired laugh and a stifled yawn, Marinette agreed to get some rest.

She didn’t so much remember to undo her stays this time as she automatically and distractedly unlaced the undergarment while turning over her strange encounter with the young man. Their first meeting had left her flustered, embarrassed, and a little giddy. This one… he had seemed so different, particularly so rude. Was he annoyed with her for abandoning him so suddenly after their dance last night?

She tossed her stays onto her desk and flopped down onto her bed in just her chemise. It didn’t matter. She had run into him twice by coincidence. There was no world in which their paths crossed a third time.

#mlbb2024 #ml fic #ml regency au #regency-ish #napoleonic technically #ladybug fanfic #miraculous ladybug fanfic #aywgtccc

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aidanchaser · 1 month ago

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Oops looks like there's a surprise new chapter! Thank you @yellowbullet100 for helping me develop the epilogue into something more satisfying. And thank you @mlbigbang2024 for a lovely event and providing such a lovely space of creative support and encouragement.

Chapter Six: On the Subject of Curse-Breaking The art of curse-breaking is not one that can be taught in the same manner that spell-crafting is learned. There is no list of components to memorize nor ritual to practice. It is reliant entirely on a witch’s knowledge of the given curse, their own instincts, and the strength of their intentions.

To break a curse, a witch must first learn how the curse was cast and set their intentions against it. The ritual of curse-breaking is to undo, in reverse, the spell that was cast. A curse stitched or carved can be a time-consuming ritual to undo, often twice the length that was given to casting. And as for a finishing flourish, a witch may not rely on their trusted or traditional prestiges. They must provide a flourish just as powerful as the original curse’s, or their efforts will be in vain.

When Marinette left the jeweler, the brooch was still wounded, but where there had once been a black, jagged scar, gold threaded its way through the sapphires and emeralds. The jeweler had not bothered to ask Marinette how she had come by the brooch nor what she intended to do with it. He had only provided her with all the tools she would need to make sure the repair was as perfect as any professional repair would have been.

Marinette tucked the brooch into her pocket alongside her notes, and, instead of reveling in this monumental victory—for it was a grand accomplishment; she had solved a problem that neither Madame Agreste nor Madame Fathom had been able to overcome—already turned her thoughts to the next steps of breaking the curse.

The missing components—the boys’ familial rings, Madame Agreste’s wedding ring, and Madame Agreste’s blood—would be difficult to gather, but she at least knew what she needed. The next problem to solve would be to correctly identify an appropriate flourish. She racked her brain for a potion that could appropriately finish the spell, something that emphasized her intentions and could combat the power infused by Madame Agreste’s blood.

Nothing felt right.

She could use her own blood, but there was no telling what the consequences would be. Perhaps she would only make it worse. Alya’s warning about love came back to her. If Marinette was not able to keep her desires for Adrien in check, her blood could react dangerously and unpredictably with the curse. Maybe it would be safer to use Amelie Fathom’s blood, as Adrien had suggested, but Marinette could not be sure exactly what Madame Fathom’s intentions were, or how they might affect the curse.

She returned home, determined to scour her box of potions and supplies for the perfect ingredient to conclude her counter-curse, but she stopped as she turned the corner. A carriage stood in front of the bakery.

When Marinette had written to Félix to ask for both his permission and his assistance, she had expected that he might sneak away from his family with the components she needed or perhaps he would wait until nightfall and slip away as a cat, or even send Adrien with what they needed. She had not expected him to show up in a carriage. In fact, she did not think he reasonably could have, given what she knew of how tightly Madame Agreste controlled both boys.

Nervously, Marinette pushed open the door to her home. As the shop bell above the door jingled, she hoped, against all reason, that the guest who had arrived might just be Kagami asking for her dress back. But there, standing beside a shelf of the day’s remaining loaves, stood Gabriel Agreste, having a quiet conversation with her parents.

He smiled rather pleasantly at her as she entered, but a chill went down her spine all the same.

“Marinette!” Her father’s smile, at least, was comforting, though Marinette’s stomach still twisted uneasily as she tried to imagine what Monsieur Agreste might have said to them. “Marinette, this is Monsieur Agreste—though it sounds as if you two have already met.”

Marinette curtsied and Monsieur Agreste inclined his head.

“Formal introductions were made by Mademoiselle Tsurugi,” he said.

“It’s a pleasure to see you again,” Marinette replied, and was careful to, at least in front of her parents, keep her tone polite, “but I must admit that I am rather surprised to see you here.”

“I am merely a courier tonight for two messages. The first is a letter for you from my nephew.”

Marinette’s stomach twisted as he handed her a letter. Though it was sealed, she knew better than to trust that its contents were truly confidential. “Thank you, though I am surprised that you have come all this way yourself for such a small task.”

“I thought I might as well carry it with me, as it seemed appropriate to deliver the second message in person,” he replied, as if his delivery of the first was not a message in itself. “I would like to extend a formal offer of patronage to you in order to support your magical craft.”

“P-pardon?”

“The Agreste family would like to host you as a resident witch in our estate.”

“Oh.”

Her mother took her hand and squeezed it. “That’s great news, isn’t it, dear?”

Those were not the words Marinette might have chosen to describe Monsieur Agreste’s offer. “May I ask what prompted this offer?”

“My wife found a glamor on my nephew’s shirt, and was quite impressed with the work you had done. She was interested in perhaps sending you some gowns of hers to embellish, when Félix also told her that you did work with charms and potions. She’s quite taken with your skill.”

It was hard for Marinette to imagine that Félix had been a willing participant in that conversation, given his reticence yesterday. “You may tell Madame Agreste that I am flattered by her praise, particularly considering her own proficiency.”

“I’m sure you are aware that her specialty is in transformative work. Your varied skill is something we find quite impressive.”

“Well, Marinette, what do you think?” her father asked. “Something like this is what you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it?”

“Dreamed of” would have been more accurate than “waiting for.” Marinette had never truly believed that someone would appear to patronize her craft. If she were to ever move beyond a stand at the Midnight Market, she had expected that it would have been in the form of an apprenticeship or setting up her own permanent shop.

“I should like some time to think on it, if Monsieur Agreste would allow it. It’s certainly an unexpected change.”

“There’s no rush,” Monsieur Agreste replied. “Perhaps it would be best if you discussed it with myself and my wife. You might recall that we are hosting dinner for Mademoiselle Tsurugi this evening. We’d be delighted to have you in attendance as well.”

Marinette swallowed and took a single, slow, steady breath. While it was comforting to know that Kagami would be there, it was also a reminder of why Marinette was so eager to undo this curse. If she could break it before Adrien proposed…

She glanced out the window to the orange sun, just beginning to sink below the horizon. Even if she left with Monsieur Agreste at this exact moment, there would be no chance to ask Félix if he was ready for her to take the risk, nor to see if he had retrieved the components that she needed. He would be a cat by the time that she arrived. All she had to go on was this letter in her hands, though she knew the words on the paper in her hand must belong to Madame Agreste as much as they belonged to Félix.

She curtsied to Monsieur Agreste and said, “I would be delighted to attend, if you are amenable to waiting a few moments for me to dress.”

“Of course.”

Marinette took the steps two at a time and had the seal of Félix’s letter undone before she crossed the threshold of her bedroom. She flattened the papers against her desk and took a brief moment to appreciate the tidy penmanship before reading over the letter as quickly as she could.

Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng,

I write this letter to inform you of both my aunt’s sentiments and my own. Accept that your initial letter was discovered, and please know that this one has been reviewed before it was sealed. The work you have done so far is impressive to my aunt, and I’m allowed to inform you that I feel similarly. Risks and guess-work are a large part of your business, I suppose.

My purpose in writing this letter is to assuage any concerns you may have about attending dinner tonight. Life-changing opportunities don’t come along often. Is there any concern that my aunt’s offer of patronizing your work is genuine? In this case, please be assured it is indeed genuine. Your work is skillful, though you might imagine my aunt has some conditions regarding the offer that are better discussed in person than put to ink. Hands over my heart, your safety is assured in your visit.

Do be assured that Mademoiselle Tsurugi has been invited as well, so that you may be certain that there is no danger in accepting the invitation. Not only is my aunt interested in helping you break the curse, she wants to support your magical abilities. Trust that my aunt’s and your purposes are aligned. Her desire is the same as yours. Offers like this are not given lightly, so please speak to her this evening, and I apologize that I, personally, won’t be available to you.

—Félix Fathom

Though Marinette had only interacted with Félix on a handful of occasions, she thought it was safe to say that this letter did not sound like Félix much at all. It felt unusually stilted and circuitous, particularly for someone who had so intelligently communicated with her and Kagami in a covert manner.

Marinette shed her dress and reached for the gown that she had borrowed from Kagami yesterday. As she tugged the skirt up, she reread Félix’s letter. His signature, of course, was unusual, though she could imagine how Félix hated signing his father’s name at the end of a letter. Perhaps it was merely his own way of being stubborn when he had so few other choices, the same way Adrien persistently snuck away from his mother regardless of his form.

There was a knock on her door and her mother pushed her way in.

“Did you need any help, Marinette?” Sabine asked.

“Oh—thank you, Maman.” Marinette readily pulled her hair aside so that her mother could help fasten her dress.

“I was surprised by your hesitation to accept Monsieur Agreste’s offer.” Sabine tugged gently on the laces at the waistline of the dress. “I thought you would be more excited. It sounds like an incredible opportunity.”

“Yes,” Marinette replied distractedly, as she read Félix’s letter a third time.

“But?” Sabine prodded.

“Oh, just that I’m not exactly certain I want to be beholden to a family like the Agrestes.”

“Is there some unwanted affection from their nephew?”

“No—Maman—nothing like that…”

“So that’s not a declaration of love in that letter?”

“No!”

“And it’s not from the gentleman who gave you that bouquet?”

“Maman, I told you this bouquet was not romantic.”

Sabine hummed in disbelief. “Well, whatever you decide, your father and I will support you.” She reached for the bouquet that Félix had given Marinette yesterday and pried the cinquefoil from beneath the thin black ribbon. She began to weave the stalk into Marinette’s hair on either side, creating a small golden circlet. “We trust you to know what’s best.”

Marinette smiled at her mother gratefully. She knew, too, that the cinquefoil and its connection to maternal affection was as an intentional choice for her mother as it had been for Félix. Her mother wanted her to carry her with her. And it did encourage Marinette, but it also reminded her that Félix was crafty. If he had wanted to get a message to her while his aunt looked over his shoulder, surely he would have found a way to do so, just as he had found a way to communicate when his father was watching.

If there was any clue she could see, it was in his signature, but she could not determine what the blotted name indicated. She wished she had time to ask Alya, or even Kagami, who had been so quick to pick up on Félix’s messages through flowers.

As she pressed her thumb over the smear of ink, covering his last name and leaving just his first, inspiration struck. She reread the letter, but this time, she put her own pen to the paper and crossed out each sentence, leaving behind only the first word. It produced a far clearer message than the rest of what he had written.

I accept the risk. My life is in your hands. Do not trust her offer.

Marinette sucked in a deep breath. “Oh.”

“I didn’t think I was pulling that hard,” her mother frowned as she pinned Marinette’s hair and the flowers in place.

“No—sorry, Maman. It’s just—Monsieur Agreste’s nephew is very… intelligent.”

“Oh! So his affections are not unwanted?”

“No, Maman, he’s not interested in me.”

“And is that… hard for you?”

“Maman, I am not interested in courting Félix Fathom!”

“If you say so. You’ve just disappeared on us for two days now, and I’m trying to understand what might be keeping you so busy if it isn’t a gentleman.”

“It’s just work.” Marinette felt guilty for keeping Adrien a secret from her parents, but she did not know how to explain that she was falling rather quickly for a young man who was about to be engaged to someone else. She wasn’t sure how to explain that he had stayed the night in her bedroom with neither of her parents the wiser.

“I doubt that,” Sabine smiled, “but I’m sure you’ll tell us when you’re ready.” Her mother kissed her cheek. “Shall we?”

Marinette tore Félix’s letter into shreds and, as she and her mother passed through the kitchen, tossed the pieces onto the hearth. Concern flickered in Sabine’s eyes, but she maintained her silence. She seemed committed to trusting Marinette to tell her what she needed, and to be honest with what was going on in due time.

And Marinette would tell them everything. Not while Monsieur Agreste was downstairs, though. Perhaps tomorrow she would tell them either in tears about her failure or in laughter about her triumph.

Monsieur Agreste smiled, thanked her parents for their hospitality, and promised he would have his driver see Marinette home at a reasonable time. But once he and Marinette were inside the carriage, all pleasantries dropped.

“I trust that Félix’s letter has assured you that we all want the same thing,” he said cooly.

“I’m not certain that I agree,” she replied.

“All we are proposing is that you assist Emilie in undoing this curse, and in exchange, you’ll have access to all the resources you could possibly need to support your craft, as well as any tutelage from Emilie or her sister that you might desire.”

“That’s a very generous offer.”

“We would give anything to see things set right.”

“You’ve had five years to set things right. And in all of that time, I’ve never seen you at the Midnight Market, asking for help. I’d never seen you in Artisan’s Alley before, asking any of the craftsmen for assistance with the brooch. You say you’d give anything, but it sounds like you haven’t been willing to give up your reputation—or has that changed?”

“Is that a threat?”

“It is only an observation.”

Monsieur Agreste pressed his lips together in a tight line and adjusted his glasses. “You are as stubborn and short-sighted as Félix. Emilie is eager to see the curse broken, as are you. Is that not reason enough to work together?”

It should have been, but Felix’s warning still echoed in Marinette’s mind.

“I will listen to what Madame Agreste has to say,” she said.

There was little else that Monsieur Agreste could say to her. The rest of the journey carried on in silence as the sun slipped beyond the horizon. Marinette wondered if Félix and Adrien were each anxiously watching the sunset, or if perhaps Madame Agreste already had their collars in hand. At least if she planned for Adrien to propose tonight, he would need to be human. It was some measure of agency, at least.

The carriage rolled to a stop in front of the manor and Monsieur Agreste led Marinette inside, through the grand entrance hall, and to the dining room.

It was as elegant as Marinette could have imagined. Large paintings of lords and ladies long past decorated the walls. A crystal chandelier illuminated the room in fractured light and color above a long, dark table. The guests were assembled, though they had not taken their seats yet.

Monsieur and Madame Fathom stood near the fireplace with Madame Agreste, and they all glanced up as Marinette and Monsieur Agreste entered. Adrien and Kagami stood on the other side of the table, whispering softly to one another, though the furrow in Adrien’s brow suggested the whispers were hardly romantic in nature.

Adrien turned as Marinette arrived and his frown disappeared. His green eyes lit up with new life as he left Kagami to greet her. It was like watching him step into an entirely new person, and Marinette’s heart stuttered in her chest.

Alya had been right. She was properly smitten.

“You came,” he said, as if it had really ever been a question.

“I did.” Despite her anxiety about why she had been summoned, she smiled. It was hard not to smile at him. “I hope I haven’t missed anything.”

Adrien glanced back at Kagami. “Not yet. Though maybe I won’t have to.” He raised an eyebrow, as if waiting for Marinette to tell him the curse was already broken and he just hadn’t noticed.

“I’m still missing a few pieces.”

“You might check her study. She’s been in there half the day—”

“Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng!” Madame Agreste interrupted, and motioned for Marinette to join her conversation with her sister. “It’s such a pleasure to have you this evening. I was just telling Amelie about your exceptional work.”

“O-oh. That’s kind of you. Er—Thank you so much for the invitation, Madame Agreste.” Hastily and belatedly, Marinette dipped into a curtsy.

“Dinner should be ready shortly,” Madame Agreste said, and turned to her sister. “Perhaps you could check on it while I borrow Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng. I have a business proposition to discuss with her, and it would be best to get it done before we sit down. Be a dear, would you?”

Madame Fathom hesitated for only a moment before inclining her head and disappearing from the dining room. As Madame Agreste began to guide Marinette out of the dining room, Marinette realized she was losing the very safety net that she had been promised.

She turned back to Adrien and Kagami for help, but they looked just as panicked as she felt.

“Mother—” Adrien started, only to be overrun by Kagami’s hasty, “Madame Agreste, perhaps Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng could stay as a companion—”

“Don’t be silly,” Monsieur Fathom said, as he followed the Agrestes and Marinette out of the dining room. “We’ll give the two of you a moment alone.”

Even if Marinette had wrenched her arm away from Madame Agreste, she would have been intercepted by Monsieur Fathom and Monsieur Agreste, who now blocked her retreat to the dining room. The large wooden doors closed with a loud thud, and Marinette was alone.

As Madame Agreste led her to the study, Marinette could not help but wonder what Adrien and Kagami would discuss in the dining room. Surely a proposal was expected, though she could not say how committed they were to keeping up a pretense of following Madame Agreste’s wishes. But as worried as Marinette was for them and their shared distaste for the arrangement, her worry over her own safety was far more pressing.

“You’ve nothing to be scared of,” Madame Agreste murmured as she linked her arm with Marinette’s. “Félix’s letter explained things rather plainly, did it not?”

It had, though perhaps not in the way Madame Agreste had wanted.

“I’m afraid I’m just…” Marinette searched for something that explained her trepidation without spoiling Félix’s hidden message, “surprised by the change. Yesterday you didn’t seem interested in this conversation at all.”

“Yesterday I had no idea what a talented witch you are. You and Félix were rather tight-lipped about your first meeting.”

Though Marinette was afraid of the truth—and regardless, expected a lie—she felt that she had to ask. “What changed his mind about sharing that meeting with you?”

But Madame Agreste did not need to explain. She unlocked the door to her study and, once inside, Marinette saw the answer plainly.

The study itself was far neater than any workspace Marinette had ever maintained. Shelves of books were organized by subject, which covered a wide variety of magical studies, despite Monsieur Agreste’s modest claim that his wife prioritized transformative magic. There were vases of flowers and jars of other herbal and magical components arranged by potency beside a cabinet of flasks and pipettes. The desk had a neat stack of texts, and a cursory glance at the titles on their spines suggested they were theories of curse-breaking. The jewelry box that had once contained the peacock-shaped brooch stood open and empty beside the texts. Another polished wooden box, sized more appropriately for something like a wine bottle, rested beside the books, along with a handful of vases containing the remnants of flower stalks and spilled petals stripped for some other bouquet. But the object most interesting to Marinette was a perfectly round silver mirror, still coated in a thin layer of water.

“Your husband said you were an expert in transformative magic,” Marinette said, “but he did not mention you were adept at scrying.”

“I dabble,” Madame Agreste shrugged.

Marinette bit down on her tongue, but all the indignation she had felt when Adrien had shared the details of the curse burgeoned in her chest. She could not refrain from asking, “Isn’t scrying dangerous? I can’t imagine dabbling in something so risky.”

Madame Agreste dismissed Marinette’s concern with a wave of her hand. “Scrying into the future is dangerous. Though one might argue playing in the future is no different than playing with illusions,” she said, with all the arrogance of a woman who routinely pushed the boundaries of what was considered safe magical practice. “Regardless, the past and memories are a different matter entirely.”

“You scried his memories?” At least now Marinette knew why Félix was so suspicious of his aunt’s plans. Scrying memories opened the door to someone else’s mind, but it allowed that person to look into your own as well. What had Félix seen in his aunt’s mind when she had looked into his? Enough to warn Marinette, at least.

“I’m glad I did. He should have told me about you right away. You have a natural talent and instinct. Undoing a bloodstain with a little thread and a kiss? Simple solutions for complex problems are an art, and you’re quite good at it.”

“It was just a glamor—”

“Don’t sell yourself short.” Madame Agreste picked up the empty jewelry box. “I know Félix helped Adrien steal the brooch last night. I know they think you’re powerful enough to succeed where no professional has, where neither my sister nor I have. So, tell me, are my son’s and nephew’s hopes appropriately placed?”

Marinette glanced behind her to where Monsieur Fathom and Monsieur Agreste stood, forming a solid barrier between her and the door. Right now her only leverage in this conversation was her skill, her ability to do what Madame Agreste could not, so, despite Félix’s warning, lying seemed like a poor course of action.

“I—I had help. And I—I knew everything I could about the original curse, so I was able to choose appropriate components to mend the break.”

All of Madame Agreste’s confidence and composure fell away, and her mouth fell open in surprise. “You’ve already done it? You, a baker’s daughter, came by components powerful enough to match the value of that brooch? If I wasn’t already overly familiar with my son’s penchant for mischief, I’d wonder if his new taste for thieving was your fault.”

“I didn’t steal anything!” Marinette’s cheeks flushed with heat. “It was a gift from—from a friend.”

“Oh, dear.” Madame Agreste’s condescending smile returned rapidly. “And does Adrien know about this friend of yours?”

“There’s nothing between me and Adrien—”

“I didn’t just see your little spell in Félix’s memories. He was there, too, when Adrien found you at the Midnight Market. And even if I hadn’t watched you and Adrien stumble your way through some of the most unpolished courting I have ever had the displeasure of witnessing, the way he smiled at you tonight would have been all that I needed to see.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Marinette said, with far more vehemence than she felt. “Adrien—he said he wouldn’t choose me over marrying Kagami.”

“That’s something, I suppose.” Madame Agreste picked up the long, thin box from the desk and handed it to her husband. Then she held out the jewelry box to Marinette. “The brooch, then. If you’ve already repaired it, you may as well return it so that I can undo this spell.”

“But it won’t work for you.”

“Excuse me?”

“The rings I used to fix the brooch don’t mean anything to you.”

“You used something sentimental?” Madame Agreste’s green eyes turned hard and cold. “Well, isn’t that clever? So you’ve repaired the brooch in a way that’s only useful to you, to perform a spell that will only work if I can promise you Adrien, is that it?” Her upper lip curled. “Are you sure you don’t want Félix instead? You two are equally obnoxious thorns in my side.”

Monsieur Fathom spluttered a weak protest, but Madame Agreste rolled her eyes. “I’m not serious, Colt. I know you’ve plans for Félix to marry wealthy. Americans and your obsession with money.”

Madame Agreste sighed and rubbed her temple. “This may be hard for you to understand, given your… background, but Adrien and Kagami have been arranged to be married practically since they were born. I cannot promise you Adrien’s hand in marriage when it’s already been promised elsewhere.”

“I’m not interested in Félix or Adrien,” Marinette answered, and bit down her own temper before it could rise to meet Madame Agreste’s condescension. “All I want is for them to be free of this curse and free to choose their own path.”

“That’s a lovely sentiment for someone who doesn’t have the burden of an inheritance and a legacy to worry about, but their paths were determined by their birth. I really thought an offer of a patronage would be more than enough. Look at this room. This could be yours, all of these books, these materials—you’ve seen the greenhouse, too. Imagine what you could do with all of this at your fingertips, with mine and my sister’s experience to guide and support you.”

“It’s a generous offer.”

“It’s the only practical choice. The alternative is to return to your little marketplace stand, and let Félix and Adrien carry on as they are. Would you really leave them to that?”

“You act like I can’t reject your offer and break the curse myself.”

“I read your letter to Félix, and I am quite familiar with the process of curse-breaking. I know there are a few things you will need from me if you’re going to break this curse.”

“Where is Félix?”

“I’m sure he’s somewhere nearby, eavesdropping.”

Marinette glanced around the small study. She supposed he could be beneath the desk, or tucked between a bookshelf and a cabinet. She did notice, however, that there weren’t any windows. While not an uncommon feature of a witch’s study, Marinette imagined that Félix, who was always checking his exits, might not enjoy hiding out in here, even if it was the most informative place to be.

“I need his and Adrien’s rings.”

“And you’ll have them—after Adrien and Kagami are engaged.”

“And yours?”

“I promise that you will have everything you could possibly need. We want the same thing, Marinette. There’s no reason for us to be opposed.”

If Marinette had not decoded Félix’s letter, she would not have had any reason to think otherwise. But even with her doubts, she could think of no good reason to turn down Madame Agreste’s offer. There was every chance Félix was merely mistrusting of her after a lifetime of fighting with her. Adrien truly believed his mother wanted the curse undone, and even if she had other motivations for employing Marinette’s assistance, she truly did need the same thing that Marinette wanted. Could Marinette not accept her offer, and still help Félix and Adrien? Could she not help them perhaps even more effectively if she had access to all of Madame Agreste’s work and resources?

“It certainly sounds as if we agree on the desired outcome,” Marinette murmured, though outcome was hardly the important part of spell-casting. “You seem to assume, though, that Kagami will readily accept Adrien’s offer, and follow through with marriage, even though she would have every right to end the arrangement knowing about this curse.”

“Adrien and Mademoiselle Tsurugi are not your concern,” Madame Agreste replied. “They’ll both see reason once this is done.” She held the jewelry box out to Marinette. “The brooch, then. Once dinner is over, we can take care of this together.”

Marinette hesitated. “I think I would prefer to hold onto it.”

“What do you think I will do with it? You’ve made it plain I can’t use it myself. I’d prefer it safely in its box.”

But Marinette did not reach for the brooch. She wondered if Madame Agreste would have Monsieur Agreste or Monsieur Fathom dig through her pockets, and her stomach turned uneasily as she considered just how vulnerable she really was.

The one thing, however, that Madame Agreste could not make her do was break the curse. Magic required intention, and while that could be manipulated, it could not be conjured by sheer force. If she broke Marinette’s trust now, Marinette could easily refuse to help her.

And Madame Agreste knew it. “Fine. If you insist.” She snapped the empty jewelry box closed and set it on the desk. She linked her arm with Marinette’s and opened the door. “Colt, find Félix and put him away. The last thing we need is him going through Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng’s pockets and running off with the brooch before dinner is over.”

The words were hardly out of her mouth before a black blur darted out from behind the desk and for the door. Monsieur Fathom dove for the cat and missed, but Monsieur Agreste blocked Félix’s exit with his foot. Félix fell backwards, spine twisting as he struggled to right himself, and his father was able to get his hands around his middle. Félix, however, was not to be taken so easily. Teeth and claws dug into Monsieur Fathom’s hands until he was forced to let Félix go. Instead of bolting for the door, however, the cat leapt up onto the desk, then a shelf, and then climbed each shelf until he reached the top of the bookcase. Two potions shattered on the floor and one vase of white cherry blossoms toppled, spilling water across the shelf. The cat sat on top of the bookcase, fur ruffled and teeth bared.

“Just leave him,” Madame Agreste sighed. “He can’t go anywhere from here.” And, as if to emphasize her point, locked the door behind her.

Madame Agreste linked her arm through Marinette’s once more as they walked down the hall. “Are you sure I can’t interest you in Félix?” Madame Agreste asked with a smile that suggested it was an unserious offer but with a glint in her eyes that revealed her exasperation. “You two truly are the most stubborn pair I have ever met. And I know Colt’s interested in money, but he wouldn’t be opposed to a title. I could have you trained up in no time and recommend you to the Emperor—you’d be fit to be married by summer.”

“I don’t believe Félix is particularly interested in me.”

“You say that like it’s relevant. As your patroness and mentor, let me assure you that the first rule of magic is always to pursue what you want. Your intention is all that matters; the rest is malleable.”

Marinette offered only a noncommittal hum, unsure how she was supposed to respond to such advice. The brief glimpse she had gotten of the war Madame Agreste and Félix waged on each other’s intellect suggested that this familial conflict had been a life-long power struggle, and this curse was simply one more weapon deployed and one more challenge worked around. Félix and Adrien demanded their independence, took it when it was not given, and nothing Madame Agreste did to try and control them would change that.

Adrien’s frequent escapes from the manor just in the short time that Marinette had known him made Marinette all the more certain he would never behave himself once engaged, and probably not even when he was married. What did Madame Agreste think was going to change between now and the end of dinner?

When Madame Agreste pushed open the door to the dining room, Kagami and Adrien were no longer alone. Madame Fathom had returned and was in the middle of pouring a bottle of wine into tall glasses. Matching rings, with the marquise-cut diamonds arranged in a V-shape glinted on Kagami and Adrien’s left ring fingers, though neither looked particularly overjoyed by the celebrations.

“Business concluded?” Madame Fathom asked with a smile as she handed her sister a glass.

“We’ll finish things after dinner, but arrangements have been agreed upon. So it seems we have two things to celebrate.” Madame Agreste handed one of the glasses to Marinette, who stared down at the bubbling wine and the froth slowly dwindling from the top.

It was dizzying to imagine the opulence she was being invited into, and it occurred to her, for just a moment, that perhaps accepting the Agreste’s patronage really was the sensible solution. She’d have more than comfort with this arrangement, and Adrien and Félix really would no longer be cursed. Whatever Madame Agreste tried next, the boys would find another way around it, and Marinette would be here to help, as much as she could.

As Monsieur Agreste began a brief toast to both the new engagement and Marinette’s acceptance of their patronage, Marinette looked at Adrien, who was staring dismally at his drink. He had told her there was nothing he would not suffer to be free of his mother, but how free was he, manipulated into this unwelcome match? He was merely trading one bond for another.

Marinette’s stomach turned uneasily as she considered all the invisible strings attached to the Agrestes’ offer to her. Madame Agreste promised resources and tutelage in exchange for breaking this curse, but what other requests would there be? How long before Madame Agreste really did have her assigned a title, and how long before Madame Agreste threatened to have it removed if Marinette so much as disagreed with her?

None of this wealth and power was worth giving someone like Madame Agreste leverage over her. Regardless of Félix’s warning, Marinette should have seen the foolishness in believing she could leverage any real power here. Even if she broke the curse with Madame Agreste’s guidance and direction, what additional spells might Madame Agreste weave into her son and nephew?

As guests clinked their glasses, she tipped back the glass of gold wine, but did not take a sip. She had no more of it than the froth she licked off of her lips.

“And one more token of celebration,” Madame Agreste said. She and her husband both set aside their glasses. Monsieur Agreste pulled open the wooden box he had carried from the study, but inside was not another bottle of wine. Instead, on a line of black velvet rested two small bouquets, no bigger than Marinette’s palm.

They were lovely arrangements, though they did not immediately strike Marinette as particularly romantic. The delicate cluster of pink verbena framed by the red berries of mountain ash seemed more fitting for a newborn baby. Verbena generally had something to do with unity—Marinette thought pink might be familial, but she wasn’t entirely confident—and mountain ash was a symbol of protection. It was a polite message, at least, particularly from a woman to her soon-to-be daughter-in-law.

Madame Agreste pinned the flowers into Adrien’s jacket, and he winced as the pin caught his chest despite the layers of fabric, but he murmured a polite thank you. Madame Agreste returned to the box for the second, and this time, Marinette noticed a pair of blue bell-shaped flowers tucked into the verbena, the same harebells that Félix had used in his bouquet for Kagami, to indicate his submission to Madame Agreste’s whims.

As Madame Agreste began to pin this bouquet to Kagami’s dress, Marinette dropped her glass. It shattered at her feet, spilling pale wine across the marble floor, but she paid it no mind. Instead, Marinette pushed her way between Kagami and Madame Agreste, shoving the woman backwards.

“Kagami—Adrien—go—I’ll be right behind you.”

Kagami asked no questions. In fact, she looked rather pleased to take Adrien’s hand and run for the door.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” Madame Agreste hissed, but Marinette gave her no answer.

She’d been a fool to accept this woman’s offer, to undo the curse Madame Agreste had wound around Adrien and Félix on her terms, when it was clear that her intentions were never going to run counter to the original curse.

So Marinette grabbed Madame Agreste’s wrist and ripped her wedding ring from her finger. Madame Agreste gasped as the joint in her finger popped. She grabbed Marinette’s arm and her nails dug into the skin. But Marinette did not run yet. She needed one more component. She took the pin out of the small cluster of flowers and drove it into Madame Agreste’s arm.

It was hardly a pinprick, but it would do. It would have to.

Marinette dropped the pin into an empty flute to preserve what blood she could, and wrenched her arm away. She ignored the scratches that bloomed pink and the red that pearled in the wake of Madame Agreste’s nails. She was intent only on reaching Kagami and the door.

Monsieur Fathom tried to intercept her, but his wife pulled him back. Though Madame Fathom was not strong enough to stop him, she was enough to slow him down, just long enough for Marinette to slip out of his reach. Marinette did not look back, but she heard the slap of an open palm against flesh and a thud as someone fell to the floor.

She bit down on the inside of her cheek and promised herself she would make Madame Fathom’s sacrifice worth it.

Monsieur Agreste blocked the door, but Kagami, with one hand still around Adrien’s wrist, thrust the heel of her palm into his nose, then her elbow into his stomach, and her knee into his groin in quick succession. He was on the floor before Marinette reached them.

“My carriage should be ready,” Kagami said as they slammed the dining room doors closed behind them. “I told my driver to wait in case I wanted to leave early, expecting something like—”

“We’re not leaving,” Marinette said, and pulled Kagami and Adrien both towards Madame Agreste’s study.

“What are we doing?” Adrien asked. “Marinette, why did you—”

“Your mother has something else planned to keep you under her thumb—you and Kagami. I’m going to break this curse and then we can all decide what to do about her.”

“She’s my mother,” he protested, and she didn’t like the way he dragged his feet. “What do you mean—”

Marinette drew up short in front of the study and swore. “I forgot to take the key from her.”

Kagami hummed, unconcerned, and stepped forward. She pulled a pair of pins from her hair and jammed them into the lock. “There are a lot of things you learn young, when you grow up in a house of secrets.”

“I think you and Félix were made for each other,” Marinette whispered.

Pink bloomed on Kagami’s cheeks as the lock clicked. The girls pushed their way inside and pulled Adrien in after them.

They were greeted by the loudest, whiniest, plaintive meow Marinette had ever heard a cat make in her life.

“It’s only us,” Marinette protested, but she did not have time to stop and assure Félix that she had come to help. She set the glass down on one of the bookshelves and hurried to the desk. “Help me barricade the door.”

Kagami readily threw her weight against the desk alongside Marinette.

“Quickly,” Marinette grunted. “Adrien, you could help.”

“This is ridiculous,” he said. “I thought you and my mother agreed you were going to get rid of the curse. Why are you trying to lock her out of her own study when she could help?”

Adrien went for the door handle, but Félix bit his ankle.

“Félix, what are you—”

Kagami and Marinette heaved the desk forward another foot, just getting the end of it in front of the door handle, and not a moment too soon. The handle jiggled and there was a loud bang, like someone throwing themselves against the door. The desk held.

Marinette let out a sigh of relief, but there was no time to rest. Surely the Agrestes and Monsieur Fathom would find a way to get in, and she needed both the original curse undone and whatever new charm Madame Agreste had inflicted on Adrien gone as well.

“Adrien, can you sit for a minute, please?” Marinette asked, and she began rummaging through Madame Agreste’s desk drawers for a seeing stone.

“No—Marinette, will you please open this door?”

“I can’t do that, Adrien. Please, sit.”

“I know you must be upset, but I told you I would propose to Kagami. You knew this would happen.”

Marinette did not have room to be patient with Adrien or whatever this was. “I’m not upset that you proposed,” she replied shortly, and slammed one of the drawers closed. “I’m upset with your mother. And if you would just take a seat, you would be able to understand that.” She would also like a seeing stone. She did not feel quite capable of undoing this spell without seeing it first.

“Adrien,” Kagami murmured, and took his hand. “We agreed we would keep up pretenses for the moment, but this isn’t what either of us want. I trust that Marinette knows what she’s doing.”

“I know what we said, but—don’t you think maybe this is for the best? That maybe my mother is right?”

Marinette slammed the last drawer of the desk closed and turned to the shelves in her search for a seeing stone. “He’s not going to listen to reason, Kagami. Not until I undo whatever is in that boutonniere.”

“Then how can I help?”

It was on the tip of Marinette’s tongue to say that she could force Adrien to sit, but Adrien’s halting description of the first time his mother had cursed him bloomed in her memory. She would not replicate his mother and father’s choices. She would not let this memory join the first, not when she was trying to undo what they had already done to him.

“It’s fine,” she sighed, and abandoned her search for a seeing stone. She would just have to trust her instincts as well as what she had learned from her grandmother about charms. “Just let me see him.”

Adrien backed up into the desk as Marinette approached. “What are you doing?”

“I’m just checking the flowers,” she murmured.

It was indeed blue harebell, buried in the verbena. And as she lifted the edge of his lapel to get a better look at the shirt underneath, she could see the edge of a copper blood stain. His mother pricking him with a pin had been no accident. In fact, she was fairly certain the pin was still stuck into his chest.

Marinette dug into her pockets for a handkerchief of her own. “Kagami, can you check the shelves for thistle? An infusion of some sort would be preferred, but I’ll accept dried flowers.”

Félix followed Kagami to the cabinets of potions and flowers. He hopped onto the shelves and checked labels above her reach while she scanned the writing on jars below.

“Marinette, I’m not exactly comfortable with this.”

Marinette met Adrien’s eyes and was surprised to see genuine fear there. She did not believe it was his; rather it belonged to the charm his mother pierced into his heart, but for Adrien there was no difference, and he likely would not be able to define the difference even once she undid the spell.

“I’m going to unbutton your shirt so I can get to the pinprick. I’m going to use thistle and a compress to staunch the bleeding, then I’m going to pull the pin out. I’m then going to find whatever she used to weave the flowers together and undo it, and your head should clear once I’m finished.”

“My head feels fine.”

“I know. You said last night that you trust me. Do you still trust me?”

He hesitated, but he nodded.

Kagami handed Marinette a small glass bottle and Marinette double-checked the label to make sure it was what she wanted. She unbuttoned Adrien’s shirt and dabbed a bit of the thistle onto her handkerchief. She pressed it against the base of the pin that still pierced his skin just above his heart. She wondered if it even hurt, or if the charm prevented that, too.

“Ready?” she asked.

“No—” His hand went to her wrist where she pinched the head of the pin.

“I know,” she said again, voice steady, even as something or someone crashed into the door behind them.

Adrien turned his head. “We should let them in.”

She took in a deep breath. “Adrien, I’m taking the pin out.”

“Wait—”

“It’s going to hurt.”

“But—”

“Do you still trust me?”

“I—” his voice faltered. “I do.”

Marinette yanked the pin out and quickly pressed the compress over the wound. Adrien yelped and instinctively leaned away from her, but there was nowhere to go, pressed up against the desk like they were. Marinette kept one hand to the wound and with the other, picked apart the flowers. She was certain there was some sort of fastener to hold the boutonniere and the spell together, otherwise the spell would have worn off when Adrien and Kagami undressed for the evening.

And, as if to confirm that her work was not quite done, Adrien said, “Marinette, I don’t think you should do this.”

“Can I just pull apart these flowers?” But she could find nothing with her fingers, nor the naked eye.

“But my mother made that.”

Marinette stuck her thumb and finger in her mouth to wet the edges then tried again. It was a cheap trick, but one Alya had taught her early on. The edge of a hasty illusion could be caught with a wet surface, and all Marinette needed was an edge.

Her fingers pinched the end of a thread. “Can you trust me one last time, Adrien?” she asked.

This close, she could see the way his neck tensed. He nodded once.

She yanked the thread loose.

The boutonniere fell apart on the table and Adrien gasped beneath Marinette’s hands like she’d pulled the thread right out of his chest. He clapped one hand over hers, doubling the pressure on what should have been a small wound, but had him wincing like he’d been lanced with a bayonet.

“I’m all right,” he said, through gritted teeth. “It hurts like a—”

There was another thud against the door.

“We might want to move quickly,” Kagami said.

“Right. I’m sorry.” Marinette slid her hand out from beneath Adrien’s. He kept the compress against his chest and sank down into the desk chair. “I should have been quicker with that spell.”

“Based on what you told me about curse-breaking yesterday,” Kagami said, “I do not think taking time to earn permission is a waste when countering a charm designed to subject someone’s will.”

“Oh.” Marinette flushed, surprised by Kagami’s insight. She pulled the peacock brooch and Madame Agreste’s wedding ring from her pocket. “You might make a good witch yourself with an observation like that.”

“Perhaps. I am quite good at most things I pursue. Now, tell me how I can help with the next one.”

Adrien groaned softly and rubbed a hand over his face. He pulled the handkerchief away from his chest. There was hardly a dot of blood in the white cotton, but Marinette imagined that belied the pain of the wound. “Tell me what I can do as well,” he said. “You’ll want my ring, right?”

Félix, too, hopped up onto the desk and sat like he was presenting his collar to her.

Marinette’s eyes drifted to Adrien’s throat. She couldn’t see the black thread, but she knew it was there, and she did not think a bit of spit on her fingers would be enough to pull it loose. There was another bang against the heavy wood door and this time, Marinette saw the beginnings of a crack along its center.

She did not have time to worry about how she was going to find the threads without the seeing stone, or what the concluding flourish of the spell was going to be. She simply had to begin and hope she got it right by the end.

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