While Serena decided on what pestemal to wear, she let her mind ponder what was going on with her girlfriend. She knew something had happened the moment Amelia returned from the Shimmer. It was something big, but not desperately urgent, of that she was sure.

Her girlfriend had tried to hide it, but Serena knew her too well by this point. She could tell Amelia’s enthusiasm was a little too forced, her smiles a fraction too wide, all betraying a deeper, distracting concern. Thankfully, Amelia didn’t seem too rattled. In fact, she carried herself with a dash of nervous clarity, a sign of the great realisations she’d hinted at.

Serena had decided to cut the training session short. Amelia was one to wear her emotions on her face; the woman couldn’t even look at a peeka without her eyes dilating. The others would have picked up on it soon enough, so it was best to spend the rest of the evening together and let Amelia tell her in her own words.

Given Amelia’s nervousness, Serena allowed herself to indulge in the outrageously expensive hot and cold red loqua. She supposed Amelia needed a bit of liquid courage to find whatever words she was looking for. That, or perhaps she just wanted to get her drunk. It was hard to tell when your girlfriend was so wonderfully shameless.

While Serena had felt a little tipsy earlier, the alcohol had largely worn off. Warriors burned alcohol much faster than a non-aether user, and her communion with Narean had given her even more resistance against poisons.

And what was alcohol, if not the most accepted poison?

“Honestly…” Serena muttered, picking a suitably crimson-patterned pestemal from the hundreds of options stacked in the changing room’s shelves. She had to give it to Ishaqian culture; they celebrated colour from their clothing to their architecture to their choice of words. It created a culture that was, in one word, vibrant.

Once they returned, would Asamaywa feel drab by comparison? What would her mother say if Serena suggested incorporating some of Ishaq’s colourful geometry into their home estate? Probably twist her horns, that’s what. The colours that worked so well under Pyrinn’s moonlight probably would clash with her mother’s opinionated teng shua.

She finished dressing in the pestemal methodically and efficiently. The process was smooth, although briefly interrupted by a certain disguised human trying to peek into her changing area. After a flicked nose and an amused click of Serena’s tongue, she was finished.

“There are so many to choose from!” Amelia called from her side of the changing room. A large cloth hung, bisecting the room in two. One side for noble ladies, the other for their maids. That was, for actual maids, not peeking saintly Lord-Prospects masquerading as maids.

“You always look good in red,” Serena replied casually. “And blue. Hmm…” she thought for a moment and added, “I think black would look good. Match your darker hair.” In all honesty, she was pretty sure Amelia would look good wrapped up in any colour. After all, when one receives a present to unwrap, the colour of the wrapping doesn’t matter, does it?

Stop thinking shameless things, Serena thought, chastising herself. Her mental correction did little to stop her from striding across the room and slipping through the gap in the hanging cloth, watching Amelia struggle to wrap her pestemal around herself.

“I assure you,” Amelia said quickly, hopping on one foot, “I can do this very erotically. It’s my first time, I’m not sure how—ow!” She slipped onto her backside with a squeak. Blowing a strand of hair out of her mouth, she made an expression that shouted, ‘I give up!’

“Want a hand?” Serena cooed, folding her arms.

“How do you keep it so, so…” Amelia waved at Serena’s perfectly adorned clothing, “so affixed? I can do it with a normal towel, but this thing doesn’t want to behave.” Amelia climbed to her feet, looking a little worse for wear, given that her recent drunken antics had messed her hair up. Her pestemal hung loosely around her body, threatening to come undone at the slightest provocation.

“I’m the daughter of a Highlord,” Serena replied smoothly, helping Amelia up and spinning her around. “I’ve received education on etiquette for every territory of Cascadia, barring the West. A Southern hammam and its pestemal are no match for me,” she finished proudly, making a mental note to make a suitable threat to Tomes to keep his mouth shut as to why Serena had burst into his quarters late last night, demanding everything he knew about Southern hammam etiquette once Amelia had let slip she’d booked one.

She tightened Amelia’s clothing. “Hammam pestemals have a special way of securing themselves. They should be tight, but comfortable,” Serena instructed. “It’s not too different to the Nai bathhouses. The shape is only slightly different.”

“Really? Could have sworn you’ve been here a hundred times with how easy it seems to be for you.”

“Common sense.”

“Are you implying I don’t have any common sense?”

Serena blinked.

Amelia scrunched her nose and folded her arms.

Serena looked at her, then blinked again.

Amelia puffed her cheeks out. “I have the most—”

“Let’s go,” Serena said, ruffling Amelia’s hair. “You know you are supposed to help me change, right? Some maid you are.”

“I was going to. I was trying to race you.”

“Oh? I suppose I win, then?”

“This time.” Amelia gave her a wink. “Rematch in Nai? I have a shiny new estate to check out, so I’ve heard.”

“You do indeed.”

They entered the steam room, immediately being blasted by a wall of humid heat and opaque steam that enveloped them in a pore-opening embrace. Serena felt like she was being hugged by the Red Moon itself.

“Bloody hells,” Amelia said, stepping in and twirling into the thick steam. “This is amazing, and we have it all to ourselves!”

The room was long and thin, with tiered seating on either side. A network of steam pipes ran under decorative floor grating, spewing cheerful puffs of steam. Serena couldn’t help but smile. Here, a steam leak was intentional, built into the design for the occupants' pleasure. It was so very different to her military experience. In the engine room of the Vengeance, a leak was a catastrophe waiting to happen. Even if one of the steam chambers didn’t explode, super-high-pressure steam was invisible to the naked eye, and when it was forced through a minuscule crack in a pipe, it created an invisible sword that could easily slice through a limb.

Amelia announced she was dropping some of her temperature-regulating wards. Serena followed in kind, letting her aura simmer to a low red, allowing the steam room to work its magic. Sitting down, she watched Amelia bounce around like an excited peeka, barely able to sit still.

“First time?” she asked.

“Mmm!” Amelia hummed. “Even in my world, with all of our technology, having access to a steam room was a luxury. I was always too weak to go in one, and even if I did, it would be small and cramped. Not like this!” Amelia hopped down one end of the room and back, ending in an elegant twirl. “Pure luxury! Now I never want to leave!” She placed her hands on her hips and faced Serena. “Do we have to go into the Red Sands? Tell Intelligence we have some important leads to investigate here.”

Serena raised an eyebrow. “Important leads in the Ishaqian hotsprings, I assume?”

“That’s right!”

“Given how hot it’s going to be in the desert, if you manifest your own water, you’ll be able to make your own steam room.”

“Oh, good idea.”

Serena smiled, not mentioning that, according to all accounts she’d read, she expected everyone to be positively sick of the suffocating Southern heat after however many days or weeks they would be stuck there. Still, it should be manageable with so many capable mages on the squad. Without them, and without Amelia and her ability to manifest as much water as she wanted, or to draw it up from deep underground, they would be at real risk of heatstroke and the affliction the Southerners called Desert Madness.

“In some parts of the North,” Serena began, “every house has its own sauna. Their infrastructure is built around it. They have a strange obsession with alternating between steam and plunging into an icy body of water. They say it’s good for you.” Personally, Serena didn’t see the appeal. But she imagined that, should she ever visit the North with Amelia, it would be something she would be dragged into doing.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“I’ll talk to Finella about it,” Amelia declared.

Serena nodded. Relaxing, they talked about small topics while the steam did its work. It didn’t take long before they were both sweating heavily, dampening their pestemals, which clung even tighter to their bodies. Once they were both ready, they entered the bathing room.

“Now that’s different from Nai,” Serena couldn’t help but mutter.

Nai bathhouses were open-air spaces, with tasteful bamboo walls and rock formations for privacy. Here, the Ishaqian approach was to build a structure around the hot spring, trapping it in a large domed room. The ceiling was covered in vibrant geometric patterns with dozens of small holes that each let in a ray of the golden, evening sun. Pillars circled the room and, between them, seating areas were constructed with luxurious velvet furniture. Small drinking fountains tinkled endlessly in small inlets, while shelves and cabinets full of bathing salts, oils, and other equipment filled the remaining space. Hells, next to a luxurious display of amber figs, sliced mirzamelon and Treki dates, there was even—

“What’s that?” Amelia asked, approaching the table and examining the long glass object.

“An export from the Sabanis Dominance,” Serena said. “They’re not popular in the East. They’re considered impolite to use.” She reached out, tapping the tall instrument. “It’s a Vinay waterpipe, otherwise known as a shisha. Men use it to smoke flavoured tobacco, and for the women…” Serena trailed off, picking up one of the small tins around the shisha and showing Amelia. “Fragrant herbs.” She opened the tin, a strong minty fragrance tickling her nostrils. Serena was never one for smoking, but she had to admit, the mint herb smelled pleasant.

“I think I’ve seen something like this before,” Amelia said. “Where I come from.” Her eyes sparkled, and she faced Serena with an innocent blink. “Can we try some?”

“You can,” Serena replied. “I don’t think I—”

“When in Rome?” Amelia challenged, tilting her head.

Serena hesitated. She looked around, visually verifying what her senses told her, that they were alone. Even if the shuttered windows weren’t enough to reassure her, the wards Amelia had habitually put up would need some serious talent to slip through. Now, it would normally be considered inappropriate for a female officer to be seen smoking, but there were rules about partaking in cultural norms when deemed appropriate. Even so, for Serena, there was another variable to consider.

She looked back at Amelia.

“Promise me,” she said.

“Promise you what?”

“Promise me you won’t tell my Father.”

Amelia giggled. “Are you serious?”

“He’s scary when he wants to be.” Serena shook her head. “He doesn’t shout anymore, but he used to be a proper firebrand. Still, I dread to think what he would do to me.”

“You’re a grown woman.”

“So was Nina when she was caught.” Serena could still remember the monstrous shouting that had frozen House Halen that day. Smoking was generally unpopular in the East, but it was common in Centralis, where Nina had picked up the habit. As far as she knew, Nina had been scared straight, but who knew if the stress of her engineering work had caused her to relapse.

Although Serena never smoked as a teenager, she did have her own rebellious phase. But there was no need to share that tidbit with Amelia. Definitely not.

“The East frowns on smoking,” Serena said, gesturing to the shisha. “Even herbal items.”

“The Dragon smokes,” Amelia pointed out.

“Aye, but the Dragon isn’t satisfied with political power in the East. He wants to expand his influence through Centralis. It’s not uncommon for Eastern Lords to pick up the habit so that they would have something in common with their Centralis contacts.” It was something she’d heard other Lords complain about in the past, because of the implication of the power imbalance between Centralis and the East. Even here in Ishaq, at the very bottom of the Empire, the money of Centralis could be sensed.

While the Imperial Railway and the massive expansion of air freight in the last century had been a great boon to the Empire, it had meant that the various cultures of Centralis were slowly encroaching onto the Terra Firmas. Would there perhaps come a day when the Three Sisters had been speaking Imperial for so long they would forget their Samino tongue?

“What do you think he would do if Lani smoked?”

“My father?” Serena couldn’t help but smile at the absolute Third-Word level calamity such an event would prompt. “Whatever remains after he’s done with her, I’ll finish off.”

“Scary,” Amelia muttered. She leaned over, examining the other tools on the table. “What are these?”

“Henna,” Serena explained, recognising the narrow tools and paste. “It dyes the skin. A temporary tattoo. It’s how the natives here pattern the back of their hands and shoulders.” Before Amelia could ask the obvious question, Serena shook her head. “Not a chance.” It was only after Amelia’s eyes widened, becoming twice their normal size, that Serena relented. “Maybe you can do something small on my back, where no one else would see.”

“Heh, awesome.” Amelia stretched, walking around the central bath. Serena followed suit, taking in part of the famed Ishaqian hot springs that Menes had talked so enthusiastically about.

The owners had built a short hexagonal wall around it, providing handy seating should one want to just sit and dip their feet in. The steaming water was perhaps five feet at the deepest part. There was more seating, this time submerged. Serena walked the circumference, running a single finger into the water, breaking the surface tension and throwing out a continuous wave, like the wake of a waterborne ship.

“It’s hot,” she said to Amelia. “I imagine they must have their own heating system as well. It must use a lot of red. Hmm?” She stopped, spotting a pipe that ran into the side of the bath. It was cool to the touch, so it couldn’t have been used for the water. There was an enticing valve on it that seemed to beg, “Open me and see what happens!”

“What’s this?” she asked, bending down and looking at the valve's label. “It’s in Hakian. I think it’s… air?” Serena frowned, only to realise what it was at the same moment Amelia leapt forward.

“I know exactly what this is!” Amelia exclaimed. “Menes told me about it. Watch this!” Without a moment of hesitation, she opened the valve.

At first, nothing happened.

Then all at once, the formerly still bath, its surface as flat as a mirror, began frothing chaotically as air belched from dozens of underwater vents. The injection of air made it seem as if the bath were boiling, or at the very least, doing its best impression of a raging lumina storm.

“Seven Hells,” Serena murmured. “Now that’s something Nai doesn’t have.”

“I’m getting in,” Amelia declared, grinning as she climbed over the ledge. “Saints and cute maids first! This is going to be—” she cut off as she slipped and fell rather unceremoniously into the bath, throwing up a great wave of water that thoroughly soaked Serena.

Thank the Moons no one was here to see that, Serena thought, wiping water from her face. Chuckling, she climbed in while Amelia realigned herself. She sank her body into the bubbling waters, letting out a sigh as the all-encompassing warm and energetic water lulled her into almost instant relaxation.

“Ahh…” She sighed. “You were right.”

“About what?” the drenched Amelia responded.

“This place is amazing.”

“I think I could live in here,” Amelia said, looking around. “What was Menes thinking, challenging you to a hotspring duel? He should challenge me. I would never lose! I could stay in here forever!”

“Your skin would wrinkle eventually,” Serena pointed out, “even with wards.”

“Then I’d just fix that, wouldn’t I?” Amelia winked.

Ah, so she could.

Serena leaned back, resting her head on the edge of the bath. She closed her eyes, allowing her body to be buffeted around by the incoming air. It was a gentle water massage that Serena liked to imagine would have eased any aches and pains if they hadn’t already been obliterated by Amelia’s healing magic.

For a moment, all was silent between them. Serena knew Amelia would talk of her matters soon, so there was no need to rush. Instead, she chose to bring up other things while Amelia built up the courage.

“Officer Aikawa’s duel is in a few days,” Serena began. “I look forward to seeing her performance.”

“I’m just worried,” Amelia responded. “What if she loses?”

“She won’t lose.”

“How can you be so sure? Unless she catches me off guard, I can always beat her, even when limiting my magic. She can only last a dozen seconds against me.”

Serena laughed softly. “That’s how I know she’ll win.” She opened her eyes and met Amelia’s worried gaze. “A dozen seconds against a limited you is more than whatever Ishaq’s arena would throw at a first-timer debut. I don’t think you realise just how fast your formations are. Remember Jorge? The warrior I told you about?”

Amelia frowned, then her eyes opened in realisation. “The guy you kept putting weight into his sword?”

Serena smiled. “That’s right. Jorge of Jark.” She hadn’t seen him for many years, but he’d trained with her and Aiden at the academy. He was an insecure demon, often too busy worrying about his own ability to let his talent shine through. Serena and Aiden had hatched a plan to slowly add weight to the handle of his variable training sword, letting Jorge adapt to the tougher conditions without realising. When they finally removed all the accumulated weight before the end-of-year tournament, he had dominated his bracket, to his surprise and their amusement.

“It’ll be like that,” Serena explained. “Officer Aikawa will be used to the speed and ferocity of your formations. From her perspective, her opponent will be sluggish. She’ll be fine.”

“That’s good.” Amelia adjusted her position, now spreading her arms and legs wide, floating in the centre of a bath. “Ahh,” she said. “Menes is still planning on attending, isn’t he?” After Serena affirmed that the Arakian was, Amelia added, “I hope they’re going to increase security.”

“They would be foolish to try anything.” Serena yawned, stretching in the water. Somehow, stretching felt even better when done in a bubbling hot spring. “Menes said there’ll be additional protection. No way they’ll continue with their assassination plan. Look how much effort it took to sneak in the crystal you detected. They don’t grow on trees.”

“No, they grow from the Black Moon,” Amelia said.

“If it exists. I wouldn’t be surprised if Chesterfield wasn’t telling the whole truth.” Back when Serena had first been shown the black crystal, Chesterfield had revealed the supposed Black Moon’s existence. She’d accepted it then, but had become more suspicious as time passed. Amelia had made a great point. If it existed, then where was it? Even if it were black, it would be spotted against the backdrop of stars.

A Moon isn’t something you can just hide, was it?

“Speaking of upcoming events,” Serena continued. “Are you ready? You have your own big event coming up.” She was, of course, talking about Amelia’s part in the accord with Menes—to heal the opium dens under the distraction of the arcwhale festival.

“I’m ready,” Amelia said confidently. “Menes must really care about Ishaq’s people, don’t you think? He didn’t ask for him or his family to be healed. Only those addicted to the drug.”

“I suspect…” Serena trailed off, remembering the troubled eyes and strange intensity with which Menes spoke of the opium dens. “I suspect someone close to him is either addicted to, or has died from it.” Serena pointed to the shisha on the table. “They smoke opium in shishas as well. Another reason why they’re frowned upon in the East.”

Most drug use was criminalised in the Eastern Terra-Firma. Even tobacco had only recently been legalised. If you were caught smuggling opium across the Southern Passage, then you would face the rope. Although given what Serena had seen at the Andalus Fortress, she had significantly less confidence in Kraken Kur’s import and export control than she had six months before.

She had changed a lot in six months, hadn’t she?