Chương 40: 40. Lines of Gold
Ritsu of Chalice Village had suffocated in her native village, buried beneath the indifference of her community. She might have grown old and died there, unvalued save by the children she cared for, except for the black bird that had appeared on her window sill one morning holding an envelope addressed to her, containing an invitation to the Raven College of Magecraft and Magic. It had been a dream come true.
The invitation had changed everything. She'd arrived at the College only yesterday and already she knew it was the only place she could really learn to stretch her wings. Yes, she was much younger than most of the other students. But she'd scarcely been there an hour before she'd stumbled into an experimental ritual and rescued a darling little girl who reminded her of her orphans. If Ritsu hadn't been there, the gods only knew what terrible events little Jackie would be involved in.
She'd been able to help more experienced students with their homework, too. The texts they had seemed absurdly simple after years of squeezing every bit of magical knowledge out of storybooks and fairytales. One of her floormates had told Ritsu she was just like the magicians of old, who had to re-invent magic from nothing but stories in order to bring the Dark Age to an end. Not one of them rolled their eyes, told her to go play with dolls or to go back to her fiction. They all seemed to genuinely like her.
The campus cafeteria served amazing food. Even her simple dinner of rice and fish had a freshness she felt had been lacking in recent meals back home. She couldn't think why that would be, given that Chalice sat beside a lake while the College's fish had to be transported in, but it wasn't a puzzle she wanted to think about, not when there was so many more interesting puzzles in her shiny new stack of textbooks.
After supper, she walked back to the dorm, where she'd left the antisocial Jack napping, chatting with her new friends. As they got closer, she saw her sister and her own coterie of friends waiting for her at the entrance.
One of Ritsu's friends gave Ritsu an oddly sad look and said, "I suppose you ought to talk to her. I think we made her nervous last time, but… if you want… we can stick around anyhow?" She finished on a defiant note, and then glanced over her shoulder at a distant ball of foxfire.
Despite a butterfly twist in her stomach, Ritsu shrugged. "It'll be okay. My sister's not awful, just frustrating sometimes. I don't even blame her. I'm not the easiest little sister to have, you know? And she taught me a lot about doing the right thing when I was little." Ritsu frowned, looking at her sister. She knew that was true, but somehow it didn't feel quite right.
"She's not supposed to be here," muttered another of Ritsu's friends, the one who had made Jack's new clothes. "She wasn't invited."
Uncomfortable with that remark, Ritsu said, "I'm glad she's here, though." She scanned Serendipity's companions and brightened. "You see, she's here with Professor Merlin. She's his fiancée, you know."
A gasp swept her group of friends. "Her?"
Ritsu rolled her eyes and waved at Serendipity. "You all go on in and I'll catch up later." The girls trickled away and as Serendipity and her companions approached, Ritsu tried to calm her pounding heart. She loved it here and her sister loved her, so why did she feel so convinced Serendipity would try to take her away from all this?
With her own dormmates gone, the campus seemed emptier than she'd yet seen it. That guy called Flat lingered behind Serendipity's companions, but he was the only student she could see, even in the distance. It made the campus seem unreal, like a picture she'd stepped into.
"Hi, Ritsu," said Serendipity, her voice odd. "Where's Jack?"
"In my room," said Ritsu, butterflies fluttering in her stomach. She looked over Serendipity's companions again: Professor Merlin. Astolfo, who served the Master of Raven Tower in some way, but who also had arrived from Chalice with Serendipity. And… and Jekyll, who she'd had a soft spot for. Except this wasn't the Jekyll she knew. Her Jekyll had always looked at her in a way that made her feel warm and seen. Serendipity's companion leered at her in a way that only compounded her sense that something was very wrong.
Breathlessly, trying for normality, Ritsu asked, "Are you having a nice visit? How long are you staying?"
"Not long," said Serendipity, giving her a measuring look Ritsu felt certain her sister had never given her before.
A fanciful, terrifying idea unfolded in Ritsu's mind: that her sister wasn't her sister, just as Jekyll wasn't Jekyll and Astolfo somehow fit in two places at once. Instinctively, she focused on Merlin, who seemed exactly as she recalled him, and who fit in her memories perfectly.
"Are you two getting along?" she asked him.
Absently, Merlin said, "As much as usual. Ritsu, have you had any bad dreams recently?"
Ritsu hesitated and then shivered as a chill wind picked up. "Let's go up to my room. I don't like it out here."
But inside her dorm, it was even creepier. Every single door had been firmly closed, and absolutely nobody moved through the halls. When Ritsu opened her own door and found Jack playing with the buttons on her new suit of clothes—shorts, and a fitted uniform vest and tie over a clean shirt—the relief that swept through her made her weak at the knees.
"Jackie!" She fell on the little girl, hugging her, and Jack endured it passively, peering over her shoulder at Serendipity and her friends.
Then Ritsu glanced up at Serendipity. Only she and Merlin had entered Ritsu's room, with the other two lingering in the hall. "I'm sorry. I think I must be a little homesick or something, because everything suddenly seems so strange."
Serendipity's countenance brightened. "Oh? Would you like to go home?"
Ritsu shook her head fiercely. "Not at all! A little disorientation here is better than how alone I was back in Chalice." Her heart twinged at the way Serendipity's face fell, but she had to remain firm. This was her life, after all.
Merlin said, "The war back home isn't going well. You're probably better off here."
Ritsu's stomach flip-flopped. The war? She couldn't at first remember what he was talking about. But even as she reminded herself of Serendipity's mantra that Merlin lies, she remembered… something. It was oddly fuzzy and far away, but her orphans had come from somewhere, hadn't they?
"But what happened to your familiar?" Merlin asked.
Ritsu frowned. Familiar. An image of a golden foxlike creature flashed before her eyes and her chest warmed. But then another image replaced the foxette: a dark fairy with wings like eaten leaves and its hands plunged into—
"No! Stop it!" Ritsu covered her ears with her hands, squeezing her eyes shut. "I like it here. I don't need a familiar!"
"Merlin—" began Serendipity in a strangled voice.
"Don't waver, Ren," said Merlin cheerfully.
"I'm not. Not about our fight, but if she's really happy here—"
"It's not as simple as that." Merlin's voice softened and Ritsu had to stop holding her ears to hear words spoken with a hypnotic lilt. "She claimed responsibilities before she came here. Even if you left her alone, the responsibilities remain. They'd rise up from the depths of her heart to haunt her, though veiled by the stories she's accepted."
As Merlin spoke, the texture of the world around Ritsu shifted. Her skin prickled and the horrible foreboding that she was dreaming swept over her. Except… except she was here. She could feel it. This was her place. She reached out to touch the desk next to her bed, closing her fingers around the edge.
Jack said, "Ritsu?" and gave Serendipity and Merlin a suspicious look.
"Where did you come from, Jackie?" asked Ritsu. Her memories of the moment—only yesterday! when she'd rescued Jack now seemed fuzzy and unreal.
"I was summoned," said Jack, confused. "I'm your Servant. S'posed to fight for you, but you told me not to." She gave Serendipity a sidelong look. "That lady's like my Mommy somehow."
The certainty struck through Ritsu like lightning: Serendipity was Jack's mother-figure. Ritsu had rescued her from a magical ritual, that was true, but it had been a ritual stealing Jack from Serendipity.
Why had she forgotten that?
"Go to her," said Ritsu quietly. "Give her a hug. Maybe she is."
Doubtfully, Jack said, "My Mommy wasn't nice."
"Well, Serendipity is!" said Ritsu sharply, her eyes stinging. She felt like something loomed behind her, and if she didn't look, it couldn't fall. But Jack was right there, along with Serendipity's concerned gaze, and that awful horrible sense of wrongness.
She missed her sister. It hurt and it had hurt for a long time. And here, it would never go away. But that sense that she belonged here was so strong. She couldn't shake it off. She felt wedged into place, with the roof about to fall in.
Slowly Jack went over to Serendipity, who knelt down and held out a hand. "You don't have to hug me if you don't want to, but if you take my hand, I can help."
Breathing shallowly, Ritsu nodded in response to Jack's look over her shoulder. If this was all a joke, a game, a trick by Merlin, she'd find out now.
Serendipity and Jack clasped hands, and Serendipity's eyelids fluttered closed before opening again, glinting strangely. "Here we are, Jack. Remember me?"
Hesitantly, Jack put her free hand on Serendipity's chest over her heart. Then, with a wail, she flung herself onto Serendipity and started sobbing on her shoulder.
Serendipity collapsed into a sitting position, tension visibly leaving her frame as she cuddled the child Servant. For a long moment, she focused exclusively on Jack. But Merlin kept his gaze on Ritsu.
"Well?" he said.
Ritsu shifted uncomfortably and stilled as the world pinwheeled around her. "I'm stuck," she whispered.
"Only because you won't move," said Merlin calmly.
Frustration flashed through Ritsu. "I like it here! Can't I please stay?"
Merlin shrugged. "Certainly. You're a talented girl. If you really wished it, you could send us away." He turned his lilac gaze to Serendipity, crouching down beside her to say something in her ear. They looked just like a family for a moment: Serendipity holding Jack, Merlin with his arm around Serendipity.
But they weren't, Ritsu knew now. Oh, maybe they would be someday. There was something there. But Serendipity was prickly and sharp and intense, not engaged to Merlin, and not her sister.
Gods that hurt.
"Incidentally, Ritsu. You might ask yourself why you don't really wish it," Merlin said absently as he stroked Serendipity's dark hair.
Ritsu flopped over on her bed and put her pillow over her head, crumpling her fox ears. Ask? She didn't have to ask herself. She knew. She was a genius. She did things nobody else would, or could. And she'd left people behind in the darkness back home, people she loved, people she was responsible for. She was brilliant and running away from her responsibilities was betraying herself and her inborn gifts.
Stay here, eat good food, spend time with people who respected and admired her, stuff her head full of a dozen kinds of magic? Heaven.
But heaven was for those who had finished what they had to do on earth, and she'd barely begun.
Ritsu rolled over, freeing her fox ears, and touched them. She'd had a familiar, nameless but hers. It had merged with her somehow. She could feel it within her, nestled around her heart.
"Ritsu?" said Serendipity, her voice thick.
Ritsu sat up and forced herself to smile. "It's all right. This is a dream, right? A trap of some sort?" She took a deep breath. "I'm ready. Tell me how to wake up."
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