Hazel woke first, and for a few blissful seconds the world made sense again.
Then she felt the unfamiliar weight of Aldrien’s body settled into the mattress and remembered exactly why nothing made sense at all.
She opened her eyes and found him asleep beside her, in her own body, hair messy across the pillow and his face completely relaxed in a way she’d never once seen from him while conscious.
She stared a moment too long before catching herself.
That’s Aldrien, she reminded herself firmly, and rolled away before her brain could do anything else with the thought.
You were staring, her wolf said.
I was not.
You were.
I was checking whether he was alive.
You were admiring him.
Hazel told her wolf, quite clearly, to shut up, and a moment later Aldrien stirred awake beside her.
They both sat up at roughly the same time, and an extremely awkward “morning” passed between them before both immediately found something else to look at.
They agreed almost instantly that surviving this required actual rules, so Hazel grabbed a sheet of paper from the desk and they started writing them out together.
Don’t touch personal belongings without permission.
Don’t read private letters.
Don’t reveal anything embarrassing.
Don’t alter each other’s appearance.
Don’t make decisions about relationships.
Don’t embarrass each other in public.
Aldrien looked over the list when she finished.
“You forgot one.”
“What?”
“Don’t steal my food.”
Hazel rolled her eyes.
“You have a food rule?”
“Everyone has a food rule.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“And yet you’re writing it down,” he said, and she added it anyway.
The wedding clothes weren’t going to work for an entire day, so Hazel dragged herself toward Aldrien’s wardrobe, since she was technically wearing his body and needed something of his to put on it.
She opened the doors and stopped cold.
Black shirts.
Black trousers.
Black jackets.
Black ties.
More black behind that.
“Does this man own a color?” she muttered.
Aldrien walked in behind her.
“What’s wrong with black?”
“You dress like you’re attending your own funeral every single day.”
“It’s practical.”
She pulled out a shirt and held it up.
“This?”
“No.”
She grabbed another.
“This?”
“No.”
“Because you keep touching my things.”
She turned to look at him properly.
“It’s literally my body wearing it right now.”
He paused, visibly recalculating.
“That argument isn’t going to stop working, is it.”
“No.”
While she fought with his wardrobe, Aldrien had a much worse discovery waiting for him in hers.
He opened it expecting some version of what he’d just seen and instead found an entire collection of bright fabrics, delicate dresses, accessories he had no names for, and casual pieces he couldn’t immediately identify the purpose of.
He stood there staring at it like it might attack him.
“You own all of this?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He lifted one dress off its hanger and held it at arm’s length.
“You actually wear this?”
“Obviously.”
“How do you even walk in it?”
Hazel laughed despite herself.
“You’ve fought three wolves at once and a dress scares you?”
“This has too many strings.”
She took it from him before he could do any damage.
“You’re hopeless.”
It was somewhere in the middle of that mess that Aldrien found something small tucked in one of her drawers, and Hazel noticed the change in his expression before he’d even fully pulled it out.
“What,” she said immediately.
He held it up, something small and clearly private, and her face went hot instantly.
“Put that down.”
“Why?” he asked, clearly enjoying himself.
“Because it’s mine.”
“I can see that.”
“Give it to me.”
He looked entirely too amused for someone currently occupying a body that wasn’t his.
“You have secrets.”
Hazel snatched it out of his hand and shoved it back into the drawer.
“Everyone has secrets.”
Tell him about the letters, her wolf offered helpfully.
I will end you, Hazel thought back.
Aldrien’s expression sharpened with interest.
“What letters?”
“Nothing.”
She got her revenge less than a minute later, digging through the back of his wardrobe and pulling out an old, worn piece of clothing that had clearly seen better decades, something folded with a kind of care that didn’t match anything else he owned.
“What’s this?” she asked, holding it up.
His whole face changed.
“Put it down.”
She grinned.
“Interesting.”
“Hazel.”
“You have something sentimental.”
She folded it carefully and set it back where she’d found it.
“I won’t tell anyone,” she said.
He looked at her, something unguarded flickering across her own borrowed features.
“Thank you.”
“But I’m still making fun of you later.”
His mouth twitched despite himself.
The bathroom turned out to be its own disaster entirely.
Hazel walked in and found an entire shelf of grooming products lined up with military precision, more bottles than she’d ever bothered owning in her life.
“You use all of this?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You spend more time getting ready than I do.”
“That’s impossible.”
“You have six different bottles.”
“They’re different things.”
“They’re all clear.”
He looked genuinely offended by the accusation.
“They are not the same.”
What followed was an argument neither of them could believe they were having, about the precise difference between things that all looked and smelled roughly identical to Hazel, and by the end of it she still wasn’t convinced he wasn’t just making half of it up to sound sophisticated.
By the time the morning had properly worn itself out, they’d broken almost every rule they’d written down.
They’d gone through each other’s belongings, uncovered things neither wanted uncovered, mocked each other’s wardrobes without mercy, and somewhere in the middle of it, Hazel had genuinely started laughing at something Aldrien said.
She caught herself mid-laugh and stopped.
He noticed immediately.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You were laughing.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Too late,” he said, with a small smile that landed somewhere it probably shouldn’t have.
They finally managed to get dressed, Hazel in one of his shirts because nothing else in his closet made sense on a body she still hadn’t fully learned to move, and Aldrien in one of her simpler outfits, looking deeply uncomfortable in it.
Standing next to each other, they looked completely ridiculous.
“We can’t keep doing this every day,” Hazel said.
Aldrien adjusted the sleeve bunched at his wrist.
“Then we need to find the Great Priest.”
That sobered both of them instantly.
Their bodies needed to be put back where they belonged, and soon, before Wystan’s suspicion turned into certainty or someone else noticed the cracks they were both working so hard to paper over.
Hazel looked at him, then at the wardrobe behind them, then back at him again.
“Until then,” she said, holding out her hand, “we survive each other’s lives.”
He took it.
“Together.”
Their hands stayed joined a beat longer than the moment actually called for.
You like him, her wolf said quietly.
I absolutely do not, Hazel thought back, and pulled her hand away.
Across the room, Aldrien went suddenly still, looking at her with an expression she couldn’t quite read.
“Mine says the same thing,” he said.
Hazel’s eyes went wide.