Additional content warnings for this chapter
Xenophobia, classism, sexism, edged weapons, blood, arguable domestic violence. A definite tone shift from previous chapters.
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Summer knew there was a problem the moment Persephone showed up at her door clean-shaven. But if she hadn’t noticed that, it would’ve been the long cut on her cheek, held closed by butterfly bandages, that told her. Although honestly, the numb expression on Persephone’s face would have sufficed.
“Persephone! Poor girl...” She pulled the shorter girl into a hug; Persephone latched on tight and a moment later, began to cry. Summer pulled her inside, closed the door, walked her to the couch, and pulled the girl into her lap, stroking her hair for as long as she needed.
Eventually the tears stopped coming. “Sorry, n-not used to feeling so much,” Persephone said in an extremely stuffed-up voice; then she giggled a little. “Wow, my nose!”
“Nothing to apologize for.” Summer kissed her forehead. “Why don’t you go blow your nose and I’ll get some tea brewing?”
A few minutes and more than a few tissues later, Summer carried a pair of mugs back to the couch and handed one to Persephone. The younger girl accepted hers gratefully, took a sip, and then looked at the writing. “‘Boys Make The Best Girls’?” she said. “Well, in a manner of speaking. How about yours?”
Summer obligingly held up her mug. It read:
I’m an electrolygist
electroligist
electrolugist
I remove hair
Persephone smiled a little. “Cute. But…I guess we won’t be doing that this week, will we?” Her face fell.
“I guess not,” Summer said quietly. “What happened?”
“Uncle Albert happened,” Persephone said. “I…I guess I have to tell you everything. But…I-I think you might get upset with me.”
“Why?”
“There’s…” Persephone hesitated for a moment. “There’s a secret I’ve been keeping from you.”
Couldn’t be bigger than mine, Summer thought, taking Persephone’s hand. “Why don’t you just start at the beginning and take it slow?”
Persephone took a deep breath and began to explain what had happened the day before.
Persephone Chase was in a good mood. After three and a half months on estrogen, the soreness behind her nipples had begun to turn into visible swelling; it was still subtle, but she could just see the difference in the mirror this morning. She would have jumped for joy if the motion wouldn’t jar her sensitive nipples.
Her skin had changed too in the last few weeks; it was noticeably softer, almost pillowy to the touch. Sometimes she caught herself stroking her own cheek, marveling at how different it felt. And so had her body odor, which had lost the revolting sharpness of boy sweat.
Even Jesse seemed to think there was something odd about Persephone’s laundry—she sometimes gave her strange worried looks when she collected it. Fortunately, the difference seemed to be either too subtle or just too weird to report to Uncle Albert. What was she going to say—“Lord Cainewood, your heir’s socks don’t stink anymore”?
If there was any fly in the ointment, though, it was the stubble. Persephone had always shaved almost obsessively to remove any trace of scratchy facial hair she could, but at Summer’s request, she’d reluctantly agreed to put the razor away each Thursday and leave it alone until Tuesday. That left her with enough facial hair for Summer to work on for a couple hours on Sunday night. It was unpleasant but necessary; though she hadn’t noticed any improvement yet, Summer assured her that they were making good progress, and there was something viscerally satisfying when she saw dozens of tiny red hairs smeared on her towel at the end of a session. Not to mention that Summer was a lovely conversation partner.
Still, on this morning, the new boobs more than made up for the prickly hair. It wasn’t until she was downstairs that her mood began to sour.
Like many castles, Duncraven Castle had been built with a large Great Hall for formal dining and entertaining. But unlike most residents of castles, Albert Chase had no use for such a space. He rarely invited guests to Duncraven, and when he did, it was never more than a few people. So he’d had it converted into a dueling hall—a dedicated practice space with biometric locks and huge displays of pre-modern but battle-ready arms on the walls. On days when they didn’t see their instructor, Albert and Persephone trained there instead.
Except on certain very special days, when they did something else in that room. And it appeared that Albert was in a foul enough mood to make today special.
“This kind of sparring has already introduced flaws to my competitive form, Uncle,” Persephone said. “Phillipe says that I keep parrying like I don’t expect the blade to flex.”
“Phillipe isn’t even an Englishman,” Albert spat. “He wouldn’t know true courage if it stabbed him in the gut.” Despite the padding on the floor, his words echoed off the vaulted ceiling; Duncraven’s weathered gray stone absorbed light and reflected sound in a way that often felt like she lived in a cave.
Persephone wanted to continue—that this was stupid, that this was pointlessly dangerous, that one of them could be seriously injured one day—but she knew how he took those kinds of arguments. So instead she sighed, took off her mask and jacket, and pulled her preferred smallsword out of a rack. This was a real weapon—similar in size and weight to a fencing épée, but much, much sharper. And when she faced Albert, the older man was not holding a fencing saber, but a cavalry saber—a viciously curved blade that was just as sharp as hers.
Because when Albert wanted to let his anger out, he did it with a real sword, and it was only Persephone’s skill that kept him from drawing blood.
Persephone tried to look on the bright side: at least her helmet was off. Her sense of smell had been getting more acute, and the stench of stale sweat that could never quite be washed out of her fencing gear was bothering her more than ever.
They saluted and fell into their stances; then Albert signaled and they began.
Albert moved first, lunging forward, cutting low. Persephone deftly parried, but Albert had anticipated that; he tried to beat her blade aside, but she twisted it slightly to disengage, then lunged into the opening to drive him back.
The fight continued like that for a time, with Albert pushing harder and gaining more ground overall. There were three reasons for this: Persephone’s style was more defensive, always waiting for Albert to do something reckless that gave her an opportunity; Albert’s weapon and training permitted both thrusts and slashes, while Persephone’s only permitted thrusts, and so some of his movements were unfamiliar; and Persephone didn’t want to hurt her uncle, while Albert seemed bound by no such constraint.
The fight finally ended when Persephone parried high and then Albert kicked out with his foot, sweeping her off her feet and onto the mat. She let go of her sword and threw her hands down, softening—but not preventing—the blow to her chest.
Persephone groaned in pain, surreptitiously rubbing her sore proto-boob. “That wasn’t regulation, Uncle,” she said, regaining her feet and her weapon, flicking her ponytail back over her shoulder.
“A proper swordsman,” Albert sneered, “must be prepared for real battles in which one is not held to petty rules by squabbling judges.” He strode back to his starting position and took his stance. “Again.”
On the second fight, Albert made a mistake and Persephone capitalized, pushing him back with a rain of blows that kept him off-balance and ultimately forced him out of the piste, the white rectangle on the floor that was their playing field. But losing a round only made him angrier, and as they returned to their starting positions, he found something else to pick on.
“You’ve stopped shaving, boy,” he said.
“Just trying out a different look,” Persephone said. “Summer seems to like it.”
“Summer?”
“The girl I’ve been seeing.”
“Ah, yes. Her.” He toed the starting line. “Stubble is unbecoming of men of our station. Clean-shaven? Refined. A mustache or beard? Distinguished. But poorly shaved?” He shook his head. “You look like a man who works for a living. Outdoors.”
“This is how men of my generation look,” Persephone ground out, ignoring the feel of a tiny piece of her soul dying. “Fashions change, Uncle.”
“Not for us,” Albert insisted. “Not for people of breeding.”
Persephone held her tongue; given that they were sparring with real swords in the hall of his castle, she doubted he could be budged from that opinion.
“It’s that girl of yours, isn’t it? This Summer. She’s manipulating you, trying to change you. Just like they all do.”
“She’s not—” Persephone stopped herself as soon as her brain caught up with her mouth, but it was too late.
Albert’s gaze was furious. “That’s exactly what I mean, boy. She already has her hooks in you! Soon she’ll be convincing you she’s marriageable, and you’ll be shackled to some greedy working-class bitch!”
“You don’t even know her!” Persephone said.
“I know enough!” Albert roared with a rage that Persephone had never seen from him before. “Her kind aren’t good enough for us!” And without counting down, without even bringing his sword to the starting position, Albert lunged forward in a fierce attack.
Persephone, caught off-guard, hastily raised her blade to parry. And although she blocked each attack in the endless sequence, she could barely even keep up, let alone recover her equilibrium. Finally, a furious swipe painfully tore the hilt from her grip, and he brought his blade to rest against her cheek.
Persephone held her breath, tried not to shake. She had never seen him react with such anger before—but then, she had never pushed back quite like that before.
“Her kind aren’t good enough for us,” he repeated, eyes glittering with malicious glee. “And I’ll prove it. You will bring this girl Summer to the New Year’s Gala. You will introduce her around; you will introduce her to me. And if I am right—if she cannot comport herself appropriately among our kind—you will get rid of her, or I will make you.”
Persephone stayed absolutely still.
“And you will cut off this unseemly pelt—” his blade shifted fractionally, and Persephone gasped as it delicately parted the skin of her cheek, “—or I will cut it off for you.”
Albert turned and strode from the room, barely stopping to leave his sword behind.
“Holy shit,” Summer said when after Persephone had finished telling her the story. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Persephone said. “Honestly, I’ve dealt with him angry before, and I’ve dealt with him being aggressive with live steel before. Just not both at the same time.”
“That’s a hell of a combination, though. If that happened to me...”
Well, something similar had happened to her once, and she’d kept her head in the moment, but the way it had lingered in her memories and nightmares...
“Say you understand and agree, bitch.”
“Go to hell!”
She closed her eyes for a second to remind herself. When push came to shove, I made the right choice. I protected my Sisters. I was so brave for my Sisters. My Sisters are proud of me.
After something similar had happened to her, Summer had been terrified to return to where it happened. Persephone might be, too.
Summer opened her eyes. “Do you want to stay here?” she asked. “I know we haven’t saved as much of your uncle’s money as we hoped, but we’ll make it work.”
“Huh? Oh!” Persephone said. “Um, no. I mean, I’ll stay the night as usual, if that’s okay? But I’ll go back tomorrow. Although…” Persephone sighed. “It looks like I may need to take you up on that offer next month, given his ultimatum.”
“Why’s that?” Summer said. “I’m sure I can handle your uncle’s little bougie party.”
“It’s not—” Persephone paused, struggling a little. Summer took her hand. “The problem is, it’s not ‘little’, and it’s certainly not ‘bougie’. It’s a charity gala, a huge formal event for the wealthy and powerful. And…and that’s the part that’s going to upset you. You see…” Persephone closed her eyes and took a deep breath; Summer squeezed her hand. “My…my uncle is a peer. A high-ranking one—a marquess.” She opened her eyes again, looked at Summer. “And I’m his heir.”
“…oh,” Summer said weakly. “You, um, you…you don’t act like an aristocrat.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Persephone said with a halfhearted giggle. “You don’t see me when I’m playing the part. I move differently, I speak with a different accent. It’s…more convincing than I’d like,” she said bitterly.
Summer had been buying time, figuring out how she should react. Because one part of her wanted to soothe Persephone immediately, reassure her that Summer wasn’t upset with her. But the other part—the part Tabby had taught her to keep on a short leash—pointed out that this was a once-in-a-lifetime lever, an opportunity to extract a valuable promise she probably could not secure in any other way.
She was ashamed to admit that her mercenary side won the argument.
“I do wish I’d known sooner, though,” Summer said. Her voice was fairly mild, but Persephone’s face crumpled anyway. Summer forced herself to continue. “I was imagining someone…less troublesome than a peer. Though…I suppose I can’t really criticize.”
“…what do you mean?” Persephone asked.
Summer deliberately broke eye contact, looking into the distance as though troubled by something. Well, something other than her own actions. “I have secrets too, Persephone,” she admitted. “Secrets that are not really mine to share, but that I am, nonetheless, keeping from you. So…who am I to judge?”
Now Persephone squeezed her hand. She didn’t deserve the comfort. “It’s okay. I’m sure you have good reasons.”
Summer fell silent for a few seconds, as though she was only just now thinking of what she in fact had planned to say from the start. “Tell you what,” she said slowly. “If you promise not to pry into my secrets, we’ll call it even.” Now, finally, she re-established eye contact. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Persephone said, and she nodded decisively. “That seems…more than fair. I’m sorry.”
Summer was sorry too—sorry she was a manipulative bitch.
“So, about this party of yours,” Summer said, standing up, pulling Persephone to her feet and toward the bedroom. “You don’t need to worry. I can do upscale; I have before.”
“Really?”
“Really. Was a proper piece of arm candy. It’s rather fun with the right person.” Well, at least she had seemed like the right person during the arm candy portion of the evening; it was only later that Summer had discovered the truth. “In fact…” Summer let go of her hand, stepped into the closet, and a moment later, stepped out carrying a garment bag. “I still have the dress.”
She set the bag on the bed, then hesitated. There was a reason she’d stuck this in the back of her closet—she’d never intended to wear it again.
She remembered a moment nine years before, the only time she had worn this dress. She’d been nervous, uncertain what was expected of her or whether she could meet those expectations. But Aunt Bea had stood beside her, given her arm a comfortingly maternal squeeze, and told her: A Dorley girl is ready for anything.
She unzipped the bag and opened it up.
Persephone looked at the dress, then looked at her. ”Wow. That must have looked amazing on you.”
“You’ll find out in two weeks,” Summer replied. “And so will your uncle. But on the off chance that it isn’t enough…” She gave Persephone a sly smile. “How much do you think you can tell your uncle that you spent to buy me this?”