Episode Four

A little while walking from the café. We climbed a long slope and finally arrived at the destination. The hand that had been held in hers since we left the shop was damp with warmth.

“You remember this place?”

“Since we first came to the capital, wasn’t it? It brings things back.”

A small hill with an unobstructed view over the entire city. The outlook was extraordinary, but no carriages could reach it, and sitting at the edge of town as it did, there was no one else around. Just the two of us.

I was fairly sure it had been soon after we arrived in the capital. I thought I’d been the one to bring her here, wanting to see this great city spread out below us.

“Why did you want to come here?”

I asked, settling onto the bench made for two.

“No particular reason. I just wanted to.”

“Hm.”

We had left the house in the morning, and now the sun was beginning to set. The whole city was slowly being dyed orange.

“You never change, Sion.”

I looked toward her, speaking so suddenly. Her expression was soft and uncertain, tinged with something like nostalgia, as she gazed out over the city below.

“Do I not? I can’t really tell from the inside.”

“You don’t. You’ve always been kind.”

She left a small pause, then continued.

“When we were children, you used to stay with me for hours when I didn’t want to go home. That meant so much to me.”

“You seemed like you were struggling back then.”

Having lost her parents in an accident, she’d been taken in by relatives and seemed to suffer quietly throughout. Even as a child, I hadn’t been able to watch that, so I’d sneak snacks from home and do my best to spend as much time with her as I could.

“My aunt and uncle were genuinely kind people. But keeping up the good-girl act was exhausting, and being with Sion was more fun than going home.”

Just the two of us here, and yet she was talking without pause, without hesitation.

“When I said I wanted to leave the village, you came with me.”

“Yes.”

“And even now, when you don’t want to use magic, you’re still doing the witch thing with me.”

She went quiet for a moment after that. The fingers tracing the edge of the bench moved restlessly.

“Sion.”

A voice so small it might dissolve.

“Why are you so kind to me?”

“Sorry?”

The meaning didn’t reach me straight away, and a beat passed before I could answer.

“Why are you asking that?”

The way dusk gives way to dark. Right now, Selene seemed to exist somewhere on the boundary between the White Witch and the person with no expression at all.

“Because you don’t like me, do you, Sion? And yet you’ve stayed with me all this time.”

She murmured it, her gaze escaping to the wide view in front of us.

Because the supply is necessary. That was what I would have said once, I think.

But was that really true?

If the supply hadn’t been necessary, if that world had existed, what would I have done?

“Magic isn’t something I enjoy. But lately I’ve started to feel it isn’t only awful.”

“The supply being unpleasant, that part’s still true.”

I gave a small, self-deprecating laugh.

The girl who admired the witches. The villagers who thanked us. Those smiles, I would never have seen them without magic.

“But I don’t dislike you, Selene. We’ve been together so long. I couldn’t dislike you now even if I tried.”

Maybe I was going as strange as she had lately. A future without her in it was simply something I couldn’t picture.

“You really are too kind, Sion.”

The pleasure in her voice stayed in my ears, not quite fading.

What had she wanted to say by bringing me all the way out here? Whatever she carried behind those uncertain eyes was still out of reach. Even so, the face in profile watching the sunset seemed to hold a softness that hadn’t left it all day.

A birthday spent with a dark expression would be a waste. The face she was wearing now was far better, I thought.

“I’ve talked too much. Shall we head back?”

Selene stood and held out her hand to me. I could have refused it. But right now I wanted to feel her warmth. That was what I found myself thinking.

“What are we doing about dinner?”

Too self-conscious to meet her eyes, I looked away and took the offered hand. The fingers that closed around mine held on a little more firmly than they had on the way here.