The device warmed in Sarisa's palm almost at once.
For one long second nothing happened except the faint pulse of silver light beneath her fingers, like a heartbeat finding its rhythm. Then the surface shimmered, and Lara's voice came through low and rough with late-night softness.
"Tell me you're not calling to say you poisoned him."
Sarisa laughed before she could stop herself.
The sound came out quiet in the dim room, warm and startled and much too relieved. She pressed the device closer to her ear, curling deeper into the chair by the window. "Disappointed?"
"Deeply." Lara's voice shifted, and Sarisa could almost hear the smile in it now. "I had money on poison."
"You gamble on my crimes?"
"I budget for them."
Sarisa looked out at the moonlit garden beyond the glass and let herself savor the simple, ridiculous sweetness of this.
Lara's voice in the night. Lara answering her as if this were normal, as if they had always been women who could call each other after impossible days and speak into the dark like this.
"Where are you?" she asked.
"In bed," Lara said. "Mostly because I was bullied into it."
"By whom?"
"Everyone." A soft rustle, as though Lara shifted against pillows. "Kaelith insisted they needed one last story, Neris pretended he didn't care and then stayed anyway, and Malvoria said if I looked any more dramatic in the corridor she'd start charging me rent."
Sarisa smiled into the device. "That does sound like Malvoria."
"It gets worse. She also said if I kept staring into the distance like a tragic widower, she'd tell the children I was haunted."
"You are haunted."
"By very beautiful problems, yes."
The warmth of that settled somewhere low beneath Sarisa's ribs. "You sound tired."
"I am tired." Lara paused. "You too."
Sarisa let out a breath. "Yes."
For a moment neither of them spoke. It wasn't awkward. Not with Lara. It just felt… full. Like both of them were listening to the other breathe and finding comfort in the fact of it.
Then Lara said, "So. Tell me everything."
Sarisa leaned her temple against the window frame. The glass was cool. "About which disaster?"
"The one with candles and too much prince."
That made her laugh again, softer this time. "It was awful."
"Good."
"Lara."
"What? I can be supportive and hateful at once."
"You're very talented."
"I know."
Sarisa closed her eyes for a second and let the evening replay, now that she could tell it to someone who would understand where the absurdity ended and the pain began. "The dress was sky blue."
There was a beat of silence.
Then Lara said, with profound offense, "He sent you a dress?"
"Yes."
"Did you burn it?"
"No."
"You're losing your edge."
"It was beautiful," Sarisa admitted reluctantly, and could hear Lara making an annoyed sound through the device.
"Which made it worse. It was one of those horrible, perfect things designed to make me look soft and impossible."
"You already look impossible," Lara muttered.
Sarisa felt the heat rise to her face even though no one could see her. "Anyway. The whole dinner was exactly what you'd think. Too many candles. Too much trying. He was very kind in a way that made me want to jump into the fountain."
"That's my girl."
"And then," Sarisa said, voice sharpening with remembered amusement, "Aliyah arrived."
Lara laughed instantly, low and delighted. "Gods."
"She sat down and informed him that my dress was beautiful but his company was not."
"I'm going to buy her a horse."
"She also told him you were much more handsome."
Lara actually groaned. "No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes, and then when he said maybe but let's just eat, she told him not to worry because he wasn't that ugly."
The sound Lara made then was somewhere between a laugh and dying. Sarisa smiled into the darkness, picturing her exactly. One hand over her face. Shoulders shaking. Completely ruined by their child.
"She did not."
"She did. I laughed."
"Good."
"She was very pleased with herself."
"She should be. That was excellent work."
Sarisa let the smile linger a moment before adding, "Malvoria helped."
"Obviously."
There was a pause.
Then Lara said, with solemn admiration, "That's outstanding."
"I knew you'd say that."
"I'm offended you didn't think of it first."
Sarisa opened her eyes and looked at the moonlight silvering the room. "I was too busy enduring the sky-blue propaganda."
"Fair."
Another soft rustle came through the device. Lara sounded closer now somehow, as if she had rolled onto one side and settled more fully into the conversation.
"What happened after?" she asked.
Sarisa hesitated. Then, because there was no point lying to Lara, "Vaelen left angry."
"Tragic."
"And Aliyah went to the bathroom. Then Malvoria informed me he was giving small dick energy."
Lara was silent for exactly one second.
Then she started laughing so hard Sarisa had to pull the device slightly away from her ear.
"Oh, gods," Lara managed. "Did she?"
"Yes."
"What did you say?"
"I said that was mean."
"And?"
"And then she reminded me I had spent the previous night making love to you in her castle."
That shut Lara up in the best possible way.
Sarisa smiled helplessly into the silence. "I can actually hear you blushing."
"That is slander."
"She then asked whether you had big dick energy."
Lara made a sound of pure suffering. "I hate this family."
"No, you don't."
"No," Lara admitted. "I really don't."
The laughter faded slowly after that, leaving the softer kind of quiet behind. The kind that came after being understood too precisely to keep pretending.
Sarisa tucked one foot beneath her in the chair and held the device with both hands now, as if it were something fragile and alive.
"I missed you," she said.
She had not meant to say it so simply. It slipped out before she could make it elegant.
Lara answered just as simply. "I know."
Sarisa swallowed.
"And I missed you too," Lara added, her voice quieter now. "All day, once you were gone. The bed was terrible without you."
"It was your bed."
"It was an insult, Sarisa. Empty. Cold. Full of memories of you saying absolutely outrageous things and then vanishing back to the palace."
Sarisa smiled despite the ache that came with it. "I didn't vanish. I had to go back before someone found out."
"I know." Lara's voice roughened a little. "Doesn't mean I liked it."
Sarisa lowered her gaze to the silver device in her hand. "My mother apologized."
That got Lara's attention at once. "What?"
"At lunch. Or something like an apology. She said she might have overdone it yesterday."
Lara was quiet for a long moment. "That sounds worse than if she'd said nothing."
"Yes," Sarisa said. "It did."
"Did you believe her?"
Sarisa laughed once without humor. "No."
"Good."
There was another pause. Then Lara asked, more gently, "How are you really?"
The question should not have been so hard to answer.
Sarisa looked down at her bare feet tucked beneath her robe, at the moonlight on the floor, at the shape of her own hand holding the small silver device that tethered her to another castle and another life.
"Lonely," she said at last.
Lara inhaled softly, the sound brushing through the magic like a hand over skin.
"I know," Lara said. "Me too."
Sarisa closed her eyes. "I hate all of this."
"I know."
"I hate the wedding, and the ring, and the dress, and the way everyone talks as if it's all already decided."
"I know."
"I hate missing you all the time."
This time Lara took a moment before she spoke. When she did, her voice was so warm it hurt.
"I know that too."
Something in Sarisa's throat tightened. She leaned her head back against the chair and let herself sit there with it, with the ache and the love and the impossible comfort of being known.
On the other end of the device, Lara shifted again. When she spoke next, her tone had changed. Less weary.
More intent. As if she had been turning over a thought for a while and had finally reached the point where keeping it to herself became unbearable.
"Sarisa."
"Yes?"
A beat.
Then, very quietly, Lara said, "Would you run away with me?"