A Vision in Bronze; A Sidereal quest

The first reception marks the beginning of the gala's seven days of celebration and ceremony. It's usually an incredibly formal and staid affair by Dynastic standards, deeply mired in tradition. Certain less elaborate weddings forgo it entirely in recent years, but V'neef seems determined to give her daughter as large a celebration as she can, demonstrating her house's vast wealth and resources in the process.

The dress must cost a small fortune on its own, layer upon layer of exquisitely expensive fabric in a cut that hasn't been in style in centuries. House V'neef green and purple features prominently and unfashionably. You and two other servant women are shuttered in a dressing room working as carefully as haste demands to get L'nessa into it, a process which the lady herself watches unfold with a mix of nervous apprehension and wry incredulity. "I look like someone's frumpy three-times great aunt," she decides as you fasten the ties of the third layer of the dress. "Or worse, a Calinti."

"My lady is a beautiful woman," you say, voice quiet, eyes cast down to your work, "... although she is fortunate that green is a very flattering colour for her."

One of the other servants shoots you a worried look. L'nessa laughs though, surprised but unoffended. You're good at finding where the line is with the woman you're serving. "Yes, I suppose I should be happy not to be a Cathak at the moment. Still, I'll be glad when I can wear something a little less ridiculous." Given that Cathak's house colours are red and gold, she has a point.

"I am certain that my lady will outshine everyone else in the room regardless," you say, stepping back to let one of the other servants drape the final layer over L'nessa's shoulders.

"I almost believe you mean that," L'nessa says, glancing at you sidelong.

You do. There are many things you don't miss about your old position. The precarity of living your life entirely at the whim of a powerful woman, someone whose good will was vital for your and your mother's future, had weighed very heavily on you in the last years before you'd Exalted. There's an undeniable satisfaction in the actual job, however:

Dressing a great lady for a banquet or a gala, the subtle art of guiding her decisions in these small matters without appearing to, armouring her for the social engagement as best you can before getting to step back into the shadows, satisfied with your work. Handling a hundred small things that should be beneath her notice, so that they remain beneath her notice. It had been a profession you'd been born to, rather than one you'd actively chosen, but it was still worthwhile. You'd taken pride in it. As it turns out, you still do.

Adopting as much brisk confidence as you can within the bounds of your resplendent destiny, you quietly take charge of the proceedings, the other two servants only seeming to have realised how much they've ceded to an enslaved newcomer once it's too late to gracefully rectify the situation. You're the one who puts the finishing touches on L'nessa's makeup, who carefully winds a jade ornament through her red hair. Every minor adjustment you make is an obvious improvement — the world itself knows your skill in matters of fashion and beauty, and in recognition of that, it does its best to present the outfit you're assembling and the woman wearing it in their best light.

You make a final adjustment to L'nessa's clothes, making sure that the heavy fabric sits on her frame in the most flattering way possible. Then you step aside, letting her see herself in the large mirror she's spent far too long standing in front of. Verdant green cascades down her body, purple peaking through like flowers in a meadow, a motif of her house's mon chasing along the hem of her long skirt and trailing sleeves. Her hair is teased into an elaborate style, autumn-red strands interwoven with green jade leaves that are rendered startlingly lifelike. Her skin, pale and flawless, seems almost to glow in the sunlight filtering in through the room's large window.

She looks regal, elegant, and powerful, a beautiful forest goddess descending to the world to claim her groom. L'nessa can't help but recognise this, a surprised and delighted smile curving her delicately painted lips. "Well, there's me proven wrong. Girls, I think you've quite outdone yourselves," she says, spreading the praise around enough to please the other servants. She's very good about that sort of thing — small acts of recognition or consideration that make her well liked among those beneath her. It's a way that she takes after her mother, even if in both cases it's likely partially calculated.

Still, after the others have already departed on separate errands, L'nessa gives herself one final look in the mirror before she departs. She gives you a significant look and says: "You, my dear, are a treasure. There really is something to a name, sometimes."

There really is. You bow deeply, playing your role as a simple mortal servant — honoured beyond words to receive such strong praise from a Dragon-Blood, and unbothered by the note of possessive pride that had accompanied them. "My lady is very kind."

Strictly speaking, you hadn't needed to go this far to maintain your cover. Your basic skill alone is more than enough to convince anyone that you know what you're doing without drawing on techniques of the Maiden and Lover, and you may need all your strength later if things go as badly as you've worried they might. Perhaps you just don't have it in you to provide anything less than your best in circumstances like these, for an event this significant, in service to one of Ambraea's Hearthmates. Call it professional pride or something more sentimental. After all, love is what you make of it.

At any rate, there is work to be done today in Heaven's service, not just V'neef L'nessa's. You follow her out of the room on silent feet, a piece of decorative ornamentation in human form. So easily overlooked in the wake of a Dynastic bride in all her finery.

---

The reception is a grand banquet, the largest room in the manse lined with long tables and filled with guests from every Great House, each wearing the most formal clothes that they've brought. At the high table at the head of the room, L'nessa waits along with her parents, her blood siblings, and the most highly-placed of her adoptive siblings.

You newly appreciate your work by how many eyes followed L'nessa from the moment she entered the room, and how she so obviously outshines even her mother, from whom she gets so much of her looks. Ambraea, seated at the table alongside her husband, looks striking in forest green so dark it verges on black. You've never entirely liked the way that Evening Garnet does her hair, however.

V'neef rises to greet them personally as Cynis Belar Daro and his mother approach the table, both families going through the motions of the groom being formally welcomed into the family he will be married into in a matter of days. Belar is tall and handsome despite her advancing age, her green hair not yet showing any trace of grey. Daro gets his height from her. Dressed in emerald green silk and gold brocade that the yellow flowers in his hair seem to match, he cuts an attractive figure, all well-toned chest and arms with the eyes of a dreamer.

You wait in the shadows of the room, watching as the ritualised greetings are conveyed, and the married couple share a first cup of tea together, their conversation studiously formal and mild — it's difficult to tell what kind of a couple they'll make at this point. That signals the start of the meal. The first of the gala's feasts is heavy on traditional Wàn cuisine, every table groaning under the weight of delicacies from across the Eastern Blessed Isle.

Once the air of formality comes down enough for general conversation, you move out from behind your pillar, drawing close enough to listen in on conversation, angling toward the place where you spotted Cynis Wisel Wilem. Due to his close relation to the groom, he's seated near the head of the room. Due to his mortal status however, he and a handful of other unexalted Cynis scions are sitting at a separate table from their Dragon-Blooded kin.

As the maiden who was the living embodiment of everything right in the world spoke and went unheard, so do you slip beneath notice here. You once again render yourself an invisible underling, cloaked from sight of your social betters — given your current disguise and position in L'nessa's household, this means every single person on the island other than the actual slaves. There are limitations to operating from a lowly position, of course, but there are also very real benefits, and with your skillset and the magical techniques you know, you are well equipped to take full advantage of them. The only ones who even glance in your direction are some of the serving staff, and they're far too busy themselves to question what you're doing. You're confident that you can deal with it if they ask questions later, or try to carry tales of you to curry favour.

You position yourself by one of the large dragon sculptures that flank the high table, assuming a humble, deferential posture as if you're merely here at L'nessa's beck and call. It's important to play the role your resplendent destiny demands whenever possible — acting like a spy too overtly may break it. From there, you watch Wilim drink wine and have a conversation with his cousin about a play they'd both enjoyed the previous year. You're waiting for an excuse to carry out your first plan — it isn't something you look forward to, but it's one of the simplest and quietest ways you can tilt the odds back in favour of Wilim's predestined path in life.

From your vantage point, snatches of conversation from the other nearby tables drift past, including the high table to your right. You don't pay attention to any in particular at first, but when you hear Ambraea's name, you find yourself half listening in.

"... seems like a great deal of responsibility, for one so young." Mnemon Miris is Cynis Wisel's current husband and Wilim's grandfather, a man who she is rumored to think so little of that she only trots him out for particularly important occasions. He has notably been seated several seats away from her, putting him in very close proximity to Ambraea. He's a thin, unhappy looking man with a pronounced woodgrain pattern in his skin.

"Do you know of someone else more suited to the task?" Ambraea asks. "I didn't realise you knew so much about weather artifice from the Realm Before."

Before Miris has a chance to get properly indignant at her tone, Sesus Ambar speaks up. "These sky mantis towers are incredibly complicated. Matriarch V'neef thought it would be best to leave it in the hands of someone with the proper education for such matters, to be certain not to disturb the festivities or trouble anyone else with the matter. As my very capable sister-in-law is currently busy getting married, the task falls to my wife." He strikes a notable contrast to Ambraea — he's slender and pale, his features delicate. His dark hair is lit from within by a ruddy-red glow, a bonfire choked by smoke. The laughter in his red-brown eyes seems to intimate you know what sorcerers are like, as if he's mollifying Ambraea instead of Miris.

Something in his tone or bearing works well enough. Miris nods his agreement, and applies himself to his wine instead.

Ambraea shoots Ambar a passingly amused look, apparently unoffended. They make a surprisingly good couple for all that they married so young, you think — no passion, obviously, but that's barely important for a successful Dynastic marriage. In his early twenties, Ambar had a reputation for follies with young men similar to L'nessa's, but even more brazen. You have no doubt that he hasn't made himself celibate since marrying Ambraea, but he has certainly allowed his more public exploits to fall by the wayside, giving every appearance that Ambraea has taken him firmly in authoritative hand as a good wife should.

It's good for her to have someone who she can lean on in social contexts. She isn't completely inept, but there's always been a bluntness about her, and being a sorcerer certainly doesn't help matters.

As a server comes around to Wilim's table to refill everyone's cups, Wilim puts his hand over his, apparently having decided that two drinks is enough for now. It's a responsible decision on his part, but also a mistake, because you're watching. Denying himself a sensual pleasure is all the opening you need. Silently, you proclaim Venus's disfavour against him for rejecting the spirit of the Musician. Your power briefly wars against his unconscious hold over his own fate, and crushes it handily. The stars all but literally shift against him. He will be be cursed with an inexplicable misfortune that will haunt every attempt to form friendships or romantic connections at this gala.

You bestow this curse with only a jaded sort of melancholy. You've done crueller things in Heaven's service, and you will do worse again. You remind yourself how simple this will be, how you only need to watch and wait see if the situations will require further intervention.

After the feast, while the wedding guests take in a heartbreakingly beautiful musical performance, you watch Wilim angle his way across a crowded floor, clearly heading for Peleps Nori. The Dragon-Blood glances over at Wilim's approach, hiding his pleasure behind a sip of wine.

Wilim opens his mouth to say something, to offer a bow and a greeting, to compliment Nori on his artwork, to offer some veiled flirtation. Before he can get a word out, he inadvertently walks right into an Earth Aspect with a Ragara mon embroidered into his clothing. The Earth Aspect remains unmoved by the impact, but is forced to shoot out a hand to prevent Wilim from sprawling onto the floor. In the process, red wine ends up all over both Wilim and the Earth Aspect's fronts, the stain already spreading over both creamy white and delicate yellow cloth.

As you watch Wilim debase himself with ritual apologies, you try not to think too hard about how you've most likely just ruined two garments that were individually worth more than your annual salary when you were still a mortal.

Cynis Wisel Wilim's social ordeals are not over.

---

"I saw it the last time I was in Arjuf. The colours are like the most amazing sunset I can imagine," Wilim says. It's the second night, and the sounds of music drift out from the building behind him. Wilim leans against a railing overlooking a pond full of flowering lilies.

"I'm not sure that mural was my best work," Nori says, falsely modest. He leans against the railing beside Wilim. A perfect sphere of water rests on one palm, which he idly spins as he talks. This time, he was the one who approached Wilim, the mortification of the previous night not enough to kill the mutual attraction yet.

"Oh, yes," Wilim says. "It reminded me of the mosaic in Daana'd-Vanquishes-Corruption Temple in the Imperial City. Do you know it? Much less gaudy, though. That mosaic is terribly fashioned."

Nori's expression grows a little thin. "I do know it. That mosaic was designed by Mnemon Loro — I studied under him. The painting was a tribute."

"Oh," Wilim says, struggling not to hunch in on himself. "Oh, well, I... I'm sure that he's very proud."

Nori smiles coolly, letting the water run out of his hand and back into the pond below. "He died almost five years ago. I hope you'll excuse me — I have just remembered something I need to ask V'neef S'thera."

"Ah, well, yes. I understand," Wilim says, looking like he'd like to sink into the ground. "Thank you for keeping me company."

Nori inclines his head, then leaves, heading back to the party, walking right past you where you were studiously fixing a flower display that had gone a little askew. You spare a look for Wilim standing alone and dejected, and decide that you probably don't need to keep any more of an eye on him tonight.

Which is good — you're very hungry, and you're certain that the servants' quarters will still have plenty of leftovers from the night's food. You still have several hours before you have to help L'nessa out of the third and final of today's dresses and prepare her for bed.

Hugging yourself against the chill of the evening, you step outside, walking past Wilim and down the stairs, intending to take a shortcut through the otherwise deserted water garden to get down to a building built further down the hill. You've been trying to keep an eye on the other servants — maybe it's projecting your own attitude onto a murderous Anathema, but someone with Bitter Cherry's background could likely pass for one of them more easily than one of the Dynastic guests. A Face-Stealer has her own ways to turn such a position to her advantage.

If you're honest with yourself, though, you're slightly distracted. Infiltrating the gala as a handmaiden was a good idea — very useful so far, keeping yourself at arm's length from the actual party while leaving yourself free to slip beneath notice and carry out your tasks. You hadn't quite been prepared for how carrying out so many of your old responsibilities in such a setting would affect you, though.

You never got to help Ambraea prepare for her wedding gala, a thought which invokes a strange sense of loss in you. Funny that she's here, that you'd been in a room with her and the people she loves most in the world, and yet you've never felt farther away from her. You supposed it makes sense that you'd have mixed emotions. You'd never quite put it into words before that conversation with Rika back in Bittern. When you look at the broad shape of your relationship with Ambraea, though, for most of the time you'd known her before those last few years you could almost call her your sister. Your mother is right, after all — she raised you both.

You deliberately shake yourself out of the painful thoughts as you walk further away from the spot where Wilim had embarrassed himself. The wind seems to get harsher the longer you're outside, knifing through the thin fabric of your dress.

As you go, you see a sentry coming toward you in the opposite direction. You recognise her. "You're not exactly dressed for this," Wood Sparrow says, stringing more words together at once than you've previously heard from her.

You smile self-deprecatingly, ducking your head deferentially. "I thought cutting through the garden would be faster than going through the performance hall. I suppose I didn't think the cold would be this bad."

Sparrow glances past you toward the building in question, sorcerous lights glowing out into the night, music and good cheer pouring out into the night. "Shorter, and fewer Dynasts to dodge? No one to give you more work or to find what excuse to punish you," she guesses.

"I wouldn't presume to say as much, miss," you say, making yourself sound a little nervous.

"I suppose you wouldn't," Wood Sparrow says, something ugly crossing her face as she looks from the warm building back to you, your shoulders hunched against another gust of wind blowing in off the sea. "It seems as though it's always like this. Maybe I'm just used to it."

"Have you served my lady's house long?" you ask, voice deliberately tentative.

Sparrow thinks about that for a moment. Then she laughs. "Seems like most of my life. Get inside and out of the cold, girl. They sure won't mourn you if you catch your death."

She claps you once on the shoulder, then continues on her rounds. You duck your head in her direction again. "I will. Thank you for your concern, miss." Then you hurry your way down a winding set of stairs, and through the side entrance of a waiting building down below.

House V'neef has only existed for sixteen years. Wood Sparrow only looks to be in her twenties — it had been a strange sort of non-answer, in light of that.

---

On the third day, the imperial judge, V'neef Arrow, looks out at the assembled crowd with a stern expression on her face. She held her position within the judiciary for decades before being adopted into House V'neef, and is the picture of professional poise in her formal robes of office. Her icy gaze settles on L'nessa and Daro, who are gathered before her, soberly dressed compared to the glittering finery they have been wearing for much of the gala.

"Do any here harbour doubts as to whether V'neef L'nessa should take Cynis Wisel Daro as her groom?" the judge asks. In truth, despite its prevalence in cheap romance novels as a vehicle for shocking revelations and dramatic reversals, this ceremony is more or less scripted in a gala such as this. The couple know what questions will be asked, and have prepared for them.

Sure enough, when one of the Sesus guests asks: "Are they not too young for the responsibilities of marriage?" L'nessa doesn't even hesitate before responding:

"We are old enough to understand our duty to our houses, and to one another." She smiles, as if grateful for the concern.

"Do they truly understand their spiritual obligations? Will they encourage each other and their children to follow the example set by the Immaculate Dragons?" This comes from an Immaculate monk in pale green robes. There is traditionally at least one involved in the wedding ceremonies, despite the slight incongruity of their presence at an event that involves copious food and drink that a monk can't partake in. From the guest list, you recall that this woman in particular is one of Daro's cousins, Tranquil Grove Shelters the Faithful.

"We have both been well instructed in spiritual matters, and will seek guidance where this falls short," Daro says, just as smoothly as L'nessa.

You're on an upper balcony overlooking the proceedings this time, this ceremony taking place in a bright atrium. You stand near the back of the thin upper crowd, just barely able to see the proceedings going on down below. This gives you a good vantage point to see two people moving down a hall at a rapid pace. You step a little close to the hall, enough to hear what's being said.

Cynis Wisel Wilim is being pulled along by his grandmother, Cynis Wisel herself. Her delicate, flowerlike appearance is incongruous with the stormcloud expression in her eyes and the strength she demonstrates in pulling him along by the wrist. "— you cannot help but be an embarrassment to this family, then you will spend the remainder of the gala confined to your rooms. Am I understood?"

"But I..." Wilim deflates as she stops short to twist around and glare at him, the fight briefly going out of his body. "Yes, grandmother. I understand."

"See that you do," Wisel says. "I will have words with your mother about this, boy."

All considered, this is a complete success on your part, better than you could have reasonably hoped for. Safeguarding destiny comes cheap at the cost of one mortal having a miserable week and temporarily hurting his social standing with his family, especially when it requires no further intervention from you beyond careful monitoring.

Still, you don't take joy in it. Your job is important — you understand that in your bones, in the way that the world feels a little righter when destiny is functioning properly. Sometimes it involves sitting in a comfortable meeting room in Heaven, dispassionately arguing points that will affect the lives of thousands, a horrifying responsibility that every new Sidereal needs to come to terms with in their own way. Other times, like now, it is amazing how small and petty your predestined calling can seem.

It's not a feeling you can indulge in for long, though. You have a Lunar to find.

---

Every day brings more storied wedding rituals, every night more feasts, more music, more lavish spectacles. Racier entertainments are mostly kept behind closed doors — sex and narcotics are both available in copious amounts, just tastefully obscured. A number of the Cynis guests seem to find this quaint.

As time goes on, despite your primary goal having ostensibly been achieved, a sense of growing unease grips you. Your lack of hard evidence of Cherry's presence is doing little to make you less worried about the Lunar's presence — you feel increasingly certain that you're both here, each using your own supernatural talents at infiltration to avoid detection, each circling unknowingly around the other.

All it takes for a Lunar Anathema to become anyone at all is a murder and a simple cannibalistic ritual. Many of them have stranger tricks to steal a face as well, harder to anticipate and discover until it's too late. You find yourself carefully scrutinising many of the people you interact with.

Most of the guards and soldiers are standoffish, serious about their duties while subject to so much scrutiny from the Dynastic guests. The sentry, Wood Sparrow, though, you keep finding in strange places. She speaks to the servants more than the others — this could be simple gruff friendliness, but you don't like it under the circumstances.

Sweet Leaf, a concubine, is entirely too nosy about everyone else's affairs, seemingly living for whatever gossip he can dig up about both his betters and the staff. Several times, he has tried to entice you into carrying stories about L'nessa. He's increasingly frustrated at how little a conversation with you gives him to work with.

Five Gardens, a footman, seems to spend every moment he isn't working gambling. Cards or dice, games of skill or chance, it barely seems to matter. Twice, he's tried to rope you into one of these diversions, and you've had to explain to him that you don't have any money. On the second time, he'd intimated that there are other ways you might settle your debts if it came to that, and you hadn't liked the way he looked at you at all.

Cold Rain, despite being run ragged in her efforts to manage the entire staff of servants, had overheard this last, and had become genuinely angry. She had spoken very tensely to Gardens in private, and when he'd shown his face again, he'd been chastened. You increasingly like Cold Rain.

You watch the guests where it's practical as well, but one of the benefits of Dynastic social culture is that they will watch each other as often as not. The maze of etiquette, unspoken social rules, veiled allusions to shared history and culture, family and mutual acquaintances that casually fly around a party such as this one is there to identify and freeze out outsiders as much as anything, whether nouveau riche or dangerous infiltrators. The magic of the Exalted can smooth over such problems, but so too can Dragon-Blooded use it going the other way.

One of the reasons why you yourself end up being selected for so many missions such as this is your familiarity with Dynastic culture, both from your upbringing and your years of experience on the job at this point. You speak High Realm as a native language, know how they act and think from many years of closely serving one. It's hardly a unique skill set within the Fellowship, but it is one that your superiors in the Bronze Faction haven't hesitated to take advantage of. The only currently active Sidereal to have been a full-blown Dynast is Iselsi Dogara from the Division of Endings, a brilliant physician who is nonetheless little liked. He has also been in disfavour with the Bronze ever since a very public falling out with leadership over the fate of his fallen house decades ago.

When you finally find something actionable, you're following a hunch. There has been a manse on this island for a long time. Your borrowed knowledge of the place tells you that most of the construction is middle and late Shogunate, the living areas of the structure having been remade after the original structure had been damaged or abandoned. The very oldest parts date back to the Realm Before, however — or the First Age, as they refer to it in Heaven.

You catch a glimpse of a person wearing a guard's uniform coming out of a seldom-used passageway, just a flash of green and purple going down another hall. It might have been nothing, but somehow it gives you a bad feeling. It's early on the fourth day, and you've already dressed L'nessa for the morning. She'll be formally receiving wedding gifts for hours now, and won't need to change into an outfit for the evening for some time. You know what's down that passageway, and it isn't anything you want to be tampered with.

This part of the manse is made of a different stone than the more recent parts, strangely seamless, a fortune in black jade making a tracery in the walls and floors. Ancient sorcerous lights set into the ceiling cast you in a warm glow as you climb a narrow staircase. At the top is a tiny landing with a single door.

The door is narrow, made of solid stone with jadesteel banding, featureless other than a series of Old Realm characters written on its surface above a keyhole in the centre. Frowning, you kneel down to look at the floor. The servants obviously haven't been paying as much attention to this part of the manse as they should with the excitement of the gala elsewhere. A thin layer of dust covers the floor here, except for where it's been disturbed in an arc in front of the door. As if someone has opened it very recently. The realisation sends a chill down your spine.

This door is the only way into the interior of the island's sky mantis tower, an ancient and very powerful piece of weather-working artifice. You straighten up, your eyes going to the keyhole. It isn't an ordinary lock, you remember — rather than conventional pins and tumblers, it relies on a special black jade key that can spread itself out into a specific pattern inside the lock. These systems are common with Water manses from this era in the region, and are highly resistant to even most magical attempts to pick the lock.

Replacing the keys is a bit of a nightmare if they become lost or broken. You feel a sudden and very pressing desire to make sure that this one is where it's supposed to be.

---

You're very glad that you overheard that exchange between Ambar and Mnemon Miris on the first day of the gala, now. You know where Ambraea's rooms are in the manse. She'll be at the gift giving ceremony, with L'nessa, Daro, V'neef, and everyone else of consequence. You saw Evening Garnet taking a meal down in the servants' quarters not long ago. There shouldn't be anyone else in Ambraea's rooms at the moment, with one particular exception, who you expect to be a bit of an inconvenience.

You don't bother with the main door that you know will be locked, instead slipping into the suite through a disguised servant's entrance that opens up into a storage room. You move carefully and quietly, doing your best not to damage your resplendent destiny in the process. This isn't a place that Ambraea has been staying for overly long, but it still feels like her. The furniture and decorations are to her tastes, black cloth and art with a faint snake motif in heavy evidence, books and sorcerous paraphernalia cluttering one corner of the main living area.

You know where she'll have the key for safe keeping and who she'll have left it with, if she isn't literally wearing it. You go through a short hall and push open the door to the bedchamber. It's spacious and comfortably appointed, the bed concealed from view by a canopy. Nearby, on an elevated pedestal, an expensive looking cushion has been placed, and on top of that is a bronze serpent who had been dozing until you came in.

The snake raises her head, staring at you. Dangling on a long chain from a hook directly above her is the key, its black jade surface seeming to drink in some of the light around it.

"Hello, Verdigris," you whisper as you approach, careful not to make yourself seem too comfortable with the situation, for the sake of your cover. Which is easy, because you're not — the little elemental is relatively friendly to those close to Ambraea, sometimes even expressing affection that she can't bring herself to. But you, at present, are a stranger who looks to be after a treasure that her mistress has set her to guard. The snake regards you with coldly metallic eyes. She lets out a threatening hiss.

You're so busy looking at Verdigris and her prize that you don't realise that you two are not alone in the room until it's too late. Something cold and sharp presses into your neck, the arm holding it pinning you in place against an assailant who has silently appeared behind you. "You seem to be lost," a cold, feminine voice says. The speaker's very presence summons a chill like coming rain.

It's this last that makes you realise that you haven't been ambushed by Bitter Cherry. Plans to break her hold and shove away from her flee from your head. You merely freeze in place, looking as terrified as she might expect a mortal handmaiden to be, under such circumstances.

Your eyes find the nearest mirror. Sure enough, the slight, dark-haired Dragon-Blood holding a knife to your throat is none other than Erona Maia, Ambraea's missing fourth Hearthmate. She had been invited, but had declined due to being unable to make the journey. It had been understood as a polite fiction by her family to avoid exacerbating the awkwardness of her divided loyalties — she's apparently come in secret anyway purely out of love for her Sworn Kin, which is very annoying for you. Maia is dressed in an oversized black-and-gold silk robe, tied loosely at the waist and hanging precariously off one shoulder. It takes you half a second to recognise it as part of the outfit that Ambraea had been wearing last night. Apparently, Maia had been asleep in Ambraea's bed when you'd come in, wearing only this, if she hadn't literally only grabbed it off the floor for your benefit.

The implications are both unsubtle and more than a little mortifying.

"My lady?" You say, your voice emerging like a squeak.

"Do I look like a lady to you?" Maia asks, voice very quiet near to your ear.

"I—" you let yourself flounder, obviously uncertain what to say to that from a Dragon-Blood. You know she's a patrician, but letting on about that will only make her suspicious.

All things being equal, In terms of pure Exalted might, a Sidereal is simply more powerful than a single Dragon-Blood. Your magic is stronger, if sometimes less flexible, and you have a number of other advantages they have difficulty keeping up with. It had been a strange lesson to learn for someone raised Immaculate under the circumstances you were. It's very important not to let that knowledge breed arrogance or complacency, though. Individual talent, training, and experience count for a great deal, as does circumstance. The capacity to dictate the latter is one of the greatest strengths of the Dragon-Blooded host, in practice: Case in point, Maia's entire Hearth is within range of a simple word whispered onto the wind, to say nothing of a small army of V'neef guards and several dozen other potent Dragon-Blooded. All things are seldom equal.

You would be exceptionally foolish to be truly comfortable with a woman like Erona Maia holding a knife to your throat. You aren't truly afraid of her at this point. However, she is now a veteran of multiple Wyld Hunts who has personally walked away from pitched combat with Solar Anathema on two separate occasions. Even if you haven't witnessed her first hand, you have a very healthy respect for her skills at close quarter fighting. You'd have surprise on your side if you turned it into a fight, and you feel that you could leverage that to win easily enough, but not quietly, or without destroying your cover to no profit. Or for that matter, without seriously harming Ambraea's Hearthmate after being caught breaking into her chambers. Ambraea's eccentric taste in lovers aside, there are some things she would not forgive even if she did know who you are.

So your first recourse is to continue to play helpless mortal girl while contemplating your options.

"Who are you, then?" Maia asks.

"Pearl, m—" you stop, as if briefly panicked as to how to address a Dragon-Blood who objects to being called 'my lady'. "Pearl, miss. I serve Lady L'nessa."

"I know," Maia says, tone cryptic. "And yet here you are, poking around Ambraea's things when you thought no one would be here. I meant who are you really? Just a very stupid thief, or are you snooping to actual purpose? Who do you work for?"

"Miss?" You ask, mock confused.

Maia sighs, as if she finds your feigned ignorance tiresome. "Cynis, Sesus? Whatever's left of the All-Seeing Eye? You know your masters won't save you if it comes down to it. I suggest you find a little honesty in yourself, or I will take steps to protect my Hearth that you won't enjoy."

It's a little annoying how simultaneously close to the truth and distant from it she's getting. As you watch her in the mirror, something about the reflection bothers you. It takes until this point that you realise what it is — Verdigris and the hook that the key is hanging from are reflected plainly, but the key itself isn't. Its reflection is simply gone.

As if it's somehow been plucked free from the mirror.

That strikes you as extremely foreboding. Whatever faint hope you'd had that you'd been wrong about Bitter Cherry's plans dies. You look back to Maia's hard eyes in the mirror. Maybe she's right, and it is time for some very selective honesty — there's a much greater threat to protect her Hearth from than you, after all. Or should you simply remove yourself from the situation and continue to handle this on your own?

Article:

How do you extricate yourself from this predicament? Do you tell Maia anything?

[ ] Talk your way out of this

Good Worker Spirit: It is obvious that you are a good, dutiful worker, even when you're being nothing of the sort. It is inexplicably difficult to tell when you lie about where you've been, what you're doing, or why you haven't done something, as well as to catch you out while you're slacking off, doing subpar work, not showing up for work, or otherwise neglecting your duties, even when it should be clear that you are doing so.

Through this option, you may learn something additional about why Maia is keeping her presence a secret.

[ ] Try to recruit Maia to help you

Erona Maia is a very skilled and dangerous woman, a Heptagram-trained sorcerer adept at stealth, subterfuge, and assassination. Especially where she is not officially present at the wedding and will not be missed for any of its ceremonies or events, she would make a valuable ally as you attempt to catch out the Lunar infiltrator you're now certain really is present. Maia has an inscrutability about her, and you can neither fully control her actions nor fully account for all her motives. You do, however, know that she loves Ambraea and is loyal to her Hearthmates, and you are confident that you can convince her to act if you impress upon her that they are in danger.

Cover check: Doing this will necessitate confirming Maia's suspicions that you really are some manner of spy or infiltrator, even if you are not an enemy and are acting for the good of her loved ones. This will be difficult to do without breaking character as a diligent handmaiden, and subsequently risks fraying your resplendent destiny. A frayed resplendent destiny will still function as well as ever, but further damage to it before it can recover will result in it unweaving entirely. You will not be able to replace a broken resplendent destiny with one of the same role for the rest of year 1's story. All frayed destinies will recover by the start of year 2.

This is a necessary risk at times. Resplendent destinies are valuable tools to maintain, but sometimes burning a cover is required, or even desirable — if a resplendent destiny is destroyed, your false identity and the actions you undertook while wearing it will be subject to arcane fate as normal, for good or ill.

[ ] Simply leave

Avoidance: Decide you were never here, and dodge this entire awkward situation. If successful, you leave the scene and reappear somewhere else, as though you'd never chosen to come this way at all. All characters present forget that you were there, and evidence you were present is magically obscured. It is harder to do this the longer a situation is allowed to progress, and the more significant characters are present. Beings with magic that protects against fate shaping or memory-altering effects may resist the memory loss, but such magic is not common.