Chapter Text
Annette didn’t want to go back to her room, necessarily. It was still early in the evening, and the prospect of spending the majority of her first ball moping over some spell books was grim. She just needed, she decided as she wobbled her way down the courtyard walkway, to find a nice place to sit and be alone with her thoughts for a while. Once she’d sorted things out – and once her head stopped spinning – she could go back to the ball, find Mercie, and dance with dozens of people who were actually interested in dancing. It was Felix’s loss if he didn’t want to dance, not hers.
Annette knew there were benches a ways down the path if she’d kept walking, but she was starting to feel dizzy, and she was having trouble remembering exactly which path would lead her where. So instead she curled against one of the large stone pillars holding up the awning of the courtyard, closed her eyes, and settled in to be alone with her thoughts.
Mostly she thought about how cold it was outside.
Technically, she remembered that Mercie had told her just that week that it was unseasonably warm this year. Technically, she was also from Northern Faerghus, a region so cold and snowy that she had actually cried the first time she saw a flower last spring, so relieved was she to finally see the ground. (A freak snowstorm had killed the flower 48 hours later.) But Annette wasn’t interested in technicalities at the moment – Hilda’s dress was not designed for outdoorsmen, and now that she had stopped walking and found a spot to sit (on stone, against stone. why did she choose stone?), the winter air was starting to make her shiver. She tried to remember why she’d left her cloak in the Great Hall, and then remembered she hadn’t even taken it to the Great Hall. Had she left it in her room? Or Hilda’s; had she been wearing it when Hilda dragged her away after class to get ready for the ball?
Annette was just starting to do the mental calculations of how long it would take to get to her room and back, cloak in hand, when she heard a pair of voices walking down the archway towards her. One was the voice of the Archbishop, too soft and level to make out either words or intonation. The other voice, once Annette recognized it, made her tuck her knees to her chest and press her body further against the archway behind her, as if flattening herself against a pillar would serve as an adequate hiding spot if the voices got any closer.
“We’re strongly entertaining the possibility that this was the work of multiple parties. Two, even three different actors.” Her father’s voice was low and grave, but compared to Rhea every word reverberated in her skull. “If we’re not searching for a connecting thread, then our investigations will have to broaden considerably.”
Annette wanted to grab onto something to stop the world from spinning, but she was surrounded by stone, and more stone, so she dug her fingers into her knees instead. Her father hadn’t been at the monastery for the past week at least – she had given up keeping track of his comings and goings, but she had been rather optimistic that he might be around more this month. Foolishly optimistic, as was usually the case. And now, in a cruel twist of irony, he had arrived back on the one night that she really did not want to have a conversation with him, and was walking straight towards her at the one time she really would like to be overlooked.
“I’m glad to hear your report tonight, Gilbert.” Archbishop Rhea was now close enough to hear. “I know you must be tired from your journey. Are we any closer to ascertaining how Tomas was able to infiltrate the monastery so seamlessly?”
Annette’s ears pricked up at this. Tomas? Had her father been on a mission related to Remire Village? Attempting both caution and quiet, Annette peered around the pillar. Rhea was dressed in particularly grand robes for the evening’s festivities; Gilbert appeared to be wearing traveling clothes. Neither seemed to notice her as she slowly stood up, using the pillar for support as her legs wobbled under her. She was pretty sure her left ankle had fallen asleep.
Gilbert shook his head in reply to Rhea’s question. “I’m still waiting from reports about Tomas’s history, and a more detailed account of his time at Garreg Mach. I’m inclined to believe that this monster, Solon, has only been with us a short time, in relation to Tomas’s tenure here. But I’ve found little so far to construct a feasible timeline.”
“And Solon,” Rhea said, the tension rising in her voice. “Is he –”
“It seems likely, yes,” Gilbert said before she finished the sentence. “I’ve got men working on that connection, too, but it seems your fears are correct.” The man paused, then added in a voice that had more genuine empathy than Annette could remember from the past 5 years of her life: “I’m sorry, Rhea.”
“Is he what?"
Gilbert and Rhea turned in shock towards the voice, but Annette found herself equally, if not more, surprised to find she had stepped out from behind the pillar and asked the question.
“Annette?” her father asked in surprise.
A part of her froze under their gazes – Gilbert stern and unyielding, Rhea completely unreadable. Still, running away wasn’t really an option, so she pressed forward, instead.
“You’re talking about Tomas, right? Or whatever he became? Can you tell me who he is? Do you know why he wanted to fight us?” The questions tumbled off of Annette’s lips before she fully realized what she was asking. She approached the pair with the same unconscious confidence, until she was standing close enough that she had to look up to see either of their faces properly – she wasn’t sure she’d ever been close enough to the archbishop to realize how tall she was.
Rhea looked down at her, still obviously caught off guard by her presence. “Annette, shouldn’t you be at the ball right now?” she asked, completely ignoring Annette’s string of questions. “What are you doing out here?”
“Please,” Annette said, an edge of desperation in her voice. “I was at Remire Village. I saw Tomas transform. Please. Who was he? Why did he kill . . . all those people?” Her voice was becoming increasingly faltering as she went on, perhaps because she was starting to realize what a foolish line of questioning this was.
“Miss Dominic, that is hardly your place to ask,” her father cut in. “You shouldn’t be listening in on conversations that don’t concern you, let alone asking follow-up questions.”
Rhea nodded before Annette had a chance to point out that there were very real reasons she could name that this did concern her. “Your professor can give you all the information you need to know about upcoming battles, my dear,” she said, her voice oddly soothing considering the tension Annette felt coursing through her body and saw reflected in her father’s stance. “If you trust her, you’ll have nothing to worry about.”
Annette had a thousand contradictions to this point that she could bring up, but she lost the thread of all of them when she looked up at the archbishop. “I just – Tomas. My friends. The fire – the hatred – ” she stuttered, realizing that none of these were actual explanations. “The way he looked at me,” she finally spat out. But, she realized in horror, that wasn’t actually much of an explanation, either. It wasn’t even that much more of a sentence.
“Miss Dominic, this line of questioning is highly improper,” Gilbert said, putting a hand on her shoulder and subtly nudging her away from Rhea. “Go back inside; none of this concerns you.”
Annette’s voice was ragged as she turned her face up to glare at her father. “If you sent me out on the battlefield to die, I would do it without question. I just want to know why,” she pleaded. “I just want to know who that man was, to hate me so. Is a simple answer so much to ask for, Sir Gilbert?” She spat out his assumed name with more venom than she’d intended.
“Miss Dominic,” Gilbert said through gritted teeth. “I would ask you to speak more respectfully while in the presence of the Archbishop.”
Annette had the sudden, horrific realization that she had just yelled at the figurehead and leader of the church of Seiros. Actually, she had been yelling at her father, but she wasn’t sure minor details like that would factor into her inevitable trial and sentencing. She wondered if she would be expelled. Or executed. She wondered, briefly, which was worse. But Rhea put a hand on Gilbert’s arm and gave him a small, benevolent smile.
“It’s fine, Sir Gilbert,” she said. “I understand her frustrations. But I’m afraid, Annette, that I can’t give you the answers to the questions. I need your trust, just as your professor does.”
Rhea gently took Annette’s chin in her hand and tilted it up, smiling down at her softly, the way you might smile at a child. “You sit for your bishop’s examination next week, don’t you, dear?” Rhea asked her, her voice light and lovely as a sunbeam. Annette wanted to sink into it, or maybe hide her face from it. She nodded wordlessly. Rhea smiled again. “Perhaps you should drop by and speak to me if you would like to discuss faith magic. You can tell Seteth I sent you if he tries to chase you away.”
She let go of Annette and gave her a final smile. Annette tried to find her voice but couldn’t, simply nodding again as the woman turned and walked away. Rhea may or may not have bid goodnight to Gilbert; Annette couldn’t quite concentrate enough to hear it. She also couldn’t quite concentrate on her own previous conversation to make sense of it, but her heart was still pounding with the terror that she’d messed up beyond repair, an adrenaline that crashed against unexpected kindness in a way that made it hard to stay standing.
Gilbert looked at her gravely, but if he noticed that she was struggling, he didn’t offer her a hand for support. “The Dominic family has always been known for being outspoken,” he said, his voice betraying no emotion. “I pray that it doesn’t bring you harm someday.”
Annette flushed, feeling a surge of emotion from her past when her father would scold her, that unmistakable guilt from childhood when you know you’ve misbehaved. But her blushing quickly turned to anger – what right did her father have to lecture her? To be embarrassed? He distanced himself from his family, from her, even when no one was around to overhear, unless he was so desperate for the archbishop’s approval that he would continue to wear a mask even as she walked away from them.
“I actually have always been told that I sound like my mother,” Annette said pointedly, drawing herself up to full height to maintain her dignity. “The Dominic name has never done much for me.”
It was a statement meant to elicit pain, not a true one. But if her father felt a sting from her barbs, he didn’t show it. With a final solemn look, he turned and walked away. Regretting her harshness almost instantly, Annette relented, calling “Sir Gilbert” after him. When he didn’t turn, she repeated his name, louder this time. He continued to walk
“Gustave,” she finally said. Her voice echoed off the stone archways that lined the courtyard.
That did it. Her father turned and looked her, a vacant and tired gaze settling over his eyes as it often seemed to when Annette tried to speak with him. Annette stared at him, her courage failing her for a moment.
“Did you want something more, Annette?” he asked, his voice completely blank. He could have been speaking to any student in the school – no, to any random stranger on the street. Her name sounded utterly meaningless when he said it; there was none of the joy or pride that she’d spent years of her life imagining.
And Rhea was gone. She could no longer hear them.
“Father, I –” Annette choked on her own voice. What did she want? She tried again. “I won the Heron Cup this week. The only winner, in the entire academy. I didn’t see you in the audience during the competition. Did you know?”
Gilbert did not reply, but he nodded solemnly.
“Don’t you have anything you want to say about that?” Annette pressed him, feeling simultaneously lightheaded and emboldened from whatever drink Hilda had pressed into her hands. She was starting to seriously doubt it was as watered down as her friend had promised.
Gilbert’s expression did not change. “I’m glad to hear that your talents are serving his majesty and the Kingdom well,” he said simply.
Annette felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. “That’s what you have to say?” she asked, her voice cracking on the upward inflection.
Gilbert frowned, slightly. “I pray that your skills will keep you safe on the battlefield,” he added, as if that helped. With a slight bow, he turned to walk away. A typical, meaningless exit, thought Annette bitterly.
“This is my first ball, you know!” she shouted after him as he walked off, her voice rising louder than she had intended. “Kind of a milestone! Most fathers care about things like that.”
Gilbert glanced over his shoulder. Annette wished with all her heart that she could conflate tiredness with regret, or sadness, or any other proper emotion. But at the end of the day, he only looked tired.
“You’ve earned your milestones, Annette,” he said. “I have not.”
Annette felt her eyes fill with tears, and she hated herself for it. “No one has ever asked what you deserve,” she said, willing her voice to remain steady even as she heard it waver. “You’re the only one who made up these rules. I never wanted them.”
“Go back to your friends, Annette,” her father told her, turning once more to walk away. “It’s too cold out here for you.”
And he was gone.
Annette wasn’t sure how long she stood there in the darkness after he left, her hands balled into fists at her sides as she listened to the sound of her own breathing. She also wasn’t sure why she decided to start walking, or how she picked a direction. She definitely wasn’t sure how she ended up at the base of the Goddess Tower, staring up at the stone towards the windows that towered above her, a soft glow illuminating from the tower. Maybe the goddess had guided her footsteps there, calling to her. Maybe she had always unconsciously wanted to come here tonight; to find a wish, or to find a person to make it with. Maybe she was just cold, and walking was better than standing still.
It didn’t really matter.
Annette paused at the door of the tower. She didn’t, strictly speaking, have a reason to go up to the top. She had no one to meet, and didn’t particularly believe in the legend, to begin with. But she couldn’t help but feeling that if she could just get to the top of the stairs, she might find something worthwhile, something to make this evening worth it, to make sense of her spinning head and fractured conversations and litany of disappointments and unanswered questions. Maybe if she just screamed wordlessly at the top of the tower, the goddess could take that emotion and turn it into a useful wish. Or maybe someone else would be there who could do the same. It seemed worth a try. And she was already here.
As Annette turned the doorknob to the outer door of the tower, she heard footsteps in the grass behind her. She let go of the door as if it had given her an electric shock and spun around, wondering if she could feasibly claim she had gotten lost on her way to her dorm room. She spotted a lone, shadowy figure coming from the direction of the Great Hall. Annette squinted her eyes to try to get a better look at who it was.
Dimitri Blaiddyd, crown prince of Faerghus, stepped into the faint ring of light surrounding the tower. He stared at her in surprise.
“Annette?” he asked. “I’m so sorry, were you meeting someone here? I can, um, I can leave.”
Annette responded before he could finish, “No! I mean, yes. I’m not sure. I’m not looking for anyone specifically, I’m just kind of . . .here.” The prince’s awkwardness made her feel especially flustered, as if she’d been caught doing something scandalous, even though logically she knew she hadn’t. She tried to give Dimitri a cheerful smile, although it felt a little too wide on her face. “Please don’t go,” she said. “I don’t want to chase you off, if you were meeting someone.”
Dimitri blushed, flinching slightly when she said this. “Not exactly. I saw someone leaving the ball early and I was wondering if they might be here, but I’m not – it wasn’t planned. I was just, I guess, hoping. . .” he trailed off and looked up at the windows instead of Annette.
“Yes, this is where people do seem to want to end up, isn’t it?” Annette asked, trying to ease the awkwardness of the situation. She wondered who else had ditched the ball. At the moment it seemed there were more students wandering the grounds than staying on the dance floor. Unless Dimitri was referring to her, but the wretched, nervous way he refused to make eye contact with her seemed less like infatuation and more like sheer awkwardness, to her.
When Dimitri gave no response, Annette tried her best to keep the conversation going. “It’s a nice tradition, isn’t it?” she asked, hearing Mercie’s voice echoing in her ear as she said it. “To be able to talk to the goddess?”
Dimitri finally looked at her. His eyes were sadder than such a frivolous question called for. “I suppose,” he said slowly. “I’m not sure she listens.”
Annette stared up into Dimitri’s eyes, trying to figure out what he could mean by such a response. Something in his eyes, in her memory, in Felix’s furious concern the hour before, made her stray from her usual safe list of appropriate questions for awkward small talk.
“Dimitri,” she started, reaching out and touching his elbow, slightly. “Is there anything I can, um. Is there anything I can do to help you?”
Dimitri looked at her in surprise; she felt his arm tense up beneath her. “I’m sorry?” he asked. “Are you – do you want to go up to the tower together? Is that what you’re asking? I’m sorry, Annette, I didn’t mean to give the impression –”
“No, it’s not that,” Annette cut him off, her face growing hot. “I just. I worry about you sometimes. You seem –” She cut off. What did Dimitri seem? Tired? Distant? Felix would say dangerous, but Annette had never felt that. She frowned, and tried again. “You seem like you could use my help, is all. Or somebody’s help. That’s what a house is for, right?”
She thought she could trace a slight look of relief on Dimitri’s face. She tried not to be offended – it’s not like she wanted to make a wish with him, either. “You’re very kind, Annette,” he said finally. “But it’s my job to look after my subjects, not the other way around.”
“I’m not asking as your subject,” Annette replied. “I – perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but I never really came here because I felt I had a duty to the kingdom. I’m sorry if sounds bad. I’m asking as your friend, Dimitri.”
Dimitri took a moment to react to this, then gave her a beautiful, princely smile, one that she was sure would charm diplomats and court ladies alike. “I’m glad to know I have friends, Annette,” he told her, lightly grasping her hand on his elbow with his other hand. “That is enough, I promise you.”
Annette frowned. The moment felt empty; his smile felt empty. Whatever sincerity she had tried to give to her future king, he was unable, or unwilling, to return it. On the other hand, he at least hadn’t accused her of treason or disloyalty, given that she had just blurted out that she didn’t have of a ton of investment in her duty to the kingdom. She wondered how many major authority figures she could get away with insulting this evening. Maybe it was for the best that Dimitri now barred her way from having a tipsy conversation with the goddess – she’d probably find a new form of blasphemy by accident.
Dimitri let go of her hand and pulled back his arm, knocking her out of her reverie on her own litany of mistakes that evening. He smiled at her. “Well, if you’re not heading up to the tower, can I escort you to your next destination? It’s rather cold out this evening.”
Annette smiled back at him. They were back at small talk; she was better at that. “You’re kind to offer, but I think I’ll just head back to the Great Hall. Mercie’s probably looking for me.” She looked to the door beside them. “You should go up; whoever you’re looking for might be there. I never got to the top.”
Dimitri looked uncertain at this, so Annette gave him a wide, encouraging smile and gently pushed him towards the door. He stood with his hand on the doorknob, as she had before. She understood that sense of indecision.
“Good luck,” she whispered. Dimitri nodded, perhaps more to himself than Annette, and slipped through the door. She heard it close behind him, and for a few moments, could hear his footsteps heavy on the stairs as he walked away from her, vertically.
Annette leaned against the wall of the tower and buried her face against one hand. She had no intention of returning to the ball. She was still chasing that moment of silence she had set out for in the first place. But the Goddess Tower was evidently popular real estate this evening, and she had no intention of going up to make a wish now. She considered her options. Her room was still a possibility, if a glum one. She could find a nice corner in the ball and hope no one saw her. Marianne might have some tips on that, and probably wouldn’t ask follow up questions. Annette wondered if the graveyard was actually a good option, then quickly dismissed it, on account of ghosts.
Annette’s eyes slide over to the side of the tower. Around the back, a few hundred yards away, the Goddess Tower overlooked a lake that she had always been fond of. It was probably out of the way enough that no one would find her there. And lakes were very calming. And once she’d calmed down, it would be quick work to return to the Great Hall and pretend she had been looking for Mercie the entire time.
Annette gingerly made her way towards the water. The grass tickled against her ankles as it became wild and more untamed as she walked away from the path. She was surprised it hadn’t died in the cold winter months, but perhaps that lack of snow kept it alive. She could see the lights of the Great Hall and faintly hear the music, even from this distance. She turned her back on both. Settling down on the bank of the small, serene lake, Annette closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
She really wished she had her cloak.
She wished a lot of things, but this particular wish was simple and easy to focus on. Most importantly, it was easy to solve. If she could figure out where she left it, she could plan the best course to retrieve it. She tried to visualize Hilda’s room – had her cloak been hanging on the wall when they left to go find Mercie? She was distracted by the piles and piles of clothing that Hilda had left on the floor – even in her imagination, Hilda’s resolute clutter was distracting. Annette shivered as a gust of wind picked up around her. That was also distracting. She tried picturing her room, instead, if she’d left it on the bed before class that morning. She could clearly see her room; her neatly lined up shoes and carefully folded clothes, the stack of books piled on her desk. Where had she left off in her studying? It was about healing from a distance, she was pretty sure. She had always been pretty bad at that. She wondered how much distance healing would be on her certification exam next week. She wondered if enough theoretical jargon could make up for an appalling practical application. She wondered –
The first realization Annette had that someone was standing behind her was when a heavy piece of cloth dropped over her shoulders.
“Let me know if you want me to go away,” Felix said impassively from above her.
Annette craned her neck to look up at him. He stared down at her with concern in his eyes, underdressed for the winter night. She realized that was at least in part because he’d taken off his cloak and dropped it on top of her. She adjusted it around her and sunk into its warmth like a blanket on a cold winter’s morning when you didn’t have to get out of bed for another hour. Cloaks from northern Faerhgus were the real deal.
“You don’t have to always sneak up on people like that, you know,” she said to him, deciding to forgo any weird compliments on how warm his clothing was. “I thought for a second I was being kidnapped or something.”
“I mean, so did I,” said Felix, his typical frown deepening for a moment. “I know tonight we’re supposed to be forgetting our problems and everything, but is this really a good time for you to be wandering around on your own?”
Annette broke eye contact, staring back into the water ahead of her. The moon’s reflection wavered before her eyes. How many weeks had it been since Flayn had disappeared? Flayn was fine now. They were safe at Garreg Mach.
“It was too loud in there. Too hot,” Annette said, more to the water than to Felix. “I just needed some air.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Felix replied, his voice so low Annette wondered if she’d imagined it.
They stayed staring into the water for a breath. Annette could almost swear she could make out Felix’s reflection in the water next to the moon’s, his straight-backed silhouette disappearing whenever she fixed her eyes on it.
Finally, she turned back to face him, still standing behind her. She asked him, “Is the game plan to just lurk behind me until I go inside, or what?”
Felix blushed. She was starting to realize he blushed a lot. “I mean, I said I would go if you wanted.”
“I didn’t say that,” Annette said softly.
“I would get it if you did,” he muttered. “If you don’t want to talk to me right now, that’s fine. Keep the cloak, though. It’s cold out here.”
“Sit down, Felix, please,” Annette interrupted before he could talk himself back into the Great Hall. “I’m too tired to be mad at you right now; I’d rather be friends.”
It took Felix a moment to process this, but after that moment, he cautiously closed the distance between them. He carefully took a seat next to her by the lake, sitting cross-legged but looking as if he would be able to bolt onto his feet at any provocation. Such nervous agitation, Annette guessed, kept him alive on the battlefield. Or maybe he was just looking for a way out of this.
But that didn’t make any sense. He was the one who came to find her.
“Have you been out here long?” asked Felix after a beat.
“Not really,” Annette replied, looking back out on the water. “Have you been looking for me for long?”
“Not really.”
Annette congratulated herself on another sparkling conversation as they settled back into silence. At least the cloak was warm. From somewhere in the trees above them, she heard a bird calling. She wondered what birds were awake at this hour. She settled on a nightingale but vowed to ask Ashe at a later date.
A wicked part of her wanted to wait it out and see how long it would take before Felix felt awkward enough to say something. But she also wondered if he preferred that, just sitting in silence like this, making up facts about birds. Except, of course, only she was making up facts about birds, as far as she knew. What Felix was getting out of this situation was anyone’s guess.
At any rate, Annette preferred talking to trying to figure it out.
“So, who’d you end up dancing with?” she asked, landing on the first question that popped into her brain and immediately wishing she could switch over to the inane nightingale question.
Felix looked over at her blankly. “Sorry?” he asked.
Annette had thought her question had been pretty clear. “At the ball? Dancing? With a girl? The wager?”
The last prompt did it. Realization dawned in Felix’s eyes. “Oh,” he said. Then added, more to himself than to Annette, “Fuck.”
Annette narrowed her eyes at him. “You did dance with someone, right?”
Felix was almost quick enough to turn his wince into a scowl before she saw it. “I kind of forgot about it,” he confessed. “Fuck. Sylvain’s never going to let me live this down.”
“How did you just ‘kind of’ forget, Felix?” Annette said, not sure whether to be horrified or to burst into laughter. “Isn’t that the entire point of you even being here tonight?”
“I mean, you were gone, I don’t know.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Annette tried to keep the squeak out of her voice, with mixed results.
“Let me start over,” Felix said hastily, his own voice cracking slightly. “I talked to you, right? You left. Ingrid came over and yelled at me for I don’t know how long. I looked over and you were leaving the hall altogether. Hilda comes over and starts yelling at me with Ingrid, and also trying to get me to drink some godawful concoction she and Claude have made. I find out they’ve given you like half a dozen goblets of the stuff and left you to drunkenly wander the grounds by yourself after dark – ”
“Okay, I had maybe 2 glasses and it was basically 90% fruit juice,” Annette cut him off.
Felix continued, “The point is, I kind of lost track of things. Settling wagers wasn’t really on my mind. Ingrid eventually stops yelling at me, I eventually stop yelling at Claude. I wander out here, I run into the professor going up to the Goddess Tower, she tells me she saw you down by the lake. Here I am.” He paused, then added, “Incidentally, I feel like it should be the professor keeping track of students, not me. Is it just me or is she a terrible chaperone?”
Annette barely caught the tail end of this monologue, and certainly didn’t offer any evaluations of their professor’s efficacy. Instead, Felix’s mention of Byleth caused her to scramble to her feet and take a few step towards the Goddess Tower, craning her neck to try to see up into the lighted window.
“You said you ran into the professor going into the tower?” she asked excitedly. She was standing at the wrong angle to see much of anything. She took a few steps backwards to see if that would help.
“Yeah, I guess?” Felix said hesitantly. “I’m not sure what that has to do with anyth – watch yourself!”
His warning came too late. Annette’s steps backwards did not actually improve her chances of looking into the Goddess Tower window, but they did lead her dangerously close to the edge of the lake. Annette felt her back heel slip on the muddy edge of the bank as she wobbled backwards. Felix lunged forward, grabbing the edges of the Annette’s (well, technically Felix’s) cloak and pulling it towards him. Safe from the lake but knocked off balance, Annette plunged forward instead, landing mostly upright with her hands on Felix’s shoulders, staring down at him as he held on to her waist. Weirdly enough, this close to Felix, all Annette could properly focus on is what would be the proper magical incantation to fix his black eye.
She might actually pass her Bishop’s exam after all.
Felix raised an eyebrow at her. “Just two drinks and they were mostly fruit juice, Annette?”
Annette forced her world back into focus. “Evil, Felix,” she shot back at him. “You’ve caught me enough times to know I’m just like this.”
“That actually checks out,” Felix admitted. Annette could practically see him tallying the number of times he’d had to snag an elbow or support a shoulder to keep her from falling down a flight of stairs or tumbling off a library stepladder.
Cutting him off before the tally got embarrassingly high, Annette brushed a finger just below his eye, where the skin was starting to turn a painful shade of purple. “Does it hurt much?” she asked, ignoring the way his hands shifted under her to keep her steady as she adjusted her weight onto the hand that remained on his shoulder.
Felix flinched slightly. “Don’t worry about it,” he mumbled, leaning away from her. He pulled Annette to the side as he sat back into the grass again, adding, “And maybe don’t go near the water.”
Annette collapsed back into the grass next to him with a rather undignified thwunk. She’d made a proper fool of herself and hadn’t managed to see a thing through the Goddess Tower window, but at least Hilda’s dress wasn’t water-damaged beyond repair. One out of three wasn’t too bad, given how the rest of the night was going.
Felix looked up at the tower window, although he also was in no position to actually see anything. “What were you even trying to do?” he asked skeptically.
Annette blushed. It was bad enough that Felix knew she was a klutz; now she had to go and admit that she was also nosy. “I just wanted to see if I could see who she was up there with,” she admitted, trying not to sound too sheepish and as if this was an incredibly normal thing to do.
Felix frowned, leaning back slightly to get a better view, which Annette knew from recent experience would not help in the slightest. “Why would you think anyone else was up there?” he asked. “She was alone when I saw her.”
“I mean, that’s why people go up to the Tower, right?” Annette said. “I ran into Dimitri heading that way earlier tonight.”
Felix’s frown deepened. “The boar, really?”
“Don’t call him that.”
Felix was unmoved by Annette’s scolding. “I wouldn’t have expected that from him, is all,” he said by way of explanation. “He’s not really one for, I don’t know. Meaningful human connection.”
Annette shifted uncomfortably. She wasn’t sure what was lurking in Felix’s and Dimitri’s joint past, but it was weird to hear Felix arrive at practically the same conclusion about the prince that she generally did. She really liked Dimitri; Felix seemed to absolutely hate him. But they both agreed that he was ultimately unreadable, that he was somehow unknowable.
“The same could be said about the professor, I guess,” Felix continued, almost as if he could hear what she was thinking. “I wouldn’t have expected her to be interested in romantic legends about goddesses and wishes and your true love or whatever.”
“So you can see why I’m so curious!” Annette exclaimed.
Felix gave a shrug. He was maddeningly calm about the whole thing. “I mean, it’s not worth falling in a lake over,” he said.
Annette made a face. “Keep bringing that up and I’ll push you in, see how you like it.
“So much for gratitude,” Felix said with a look that was annoyingly close to a smirk. “Next time I’ll just let you fall in.”
“No, you won’t,” Annette replied. It wasn’t much of a comeback, but as she said it she was surprised by how certain she was that it was true.
Felix also seemed surprised by the certainty in her voice. He looked down at her intently, his hand moving slightly closer to hers as they rested against the grass. “No,” he admitted. “I won’t.”
Annette was the first to break eye contact, looking out onto the water to avoid having to figure out what Felix’s expression conveyed. But when she looked back at him again, shyly, he had also looked away. He stared up at the Goddess Tower again, although she knew he couldn’t see anything worthwhile through the high window above them.
“Do you think the legends are true?” Annette asked him. “About the Goddess Tower, I mean. Do you think anyone’s ever had their wish come true?”
Felix didn’t turn to look at her. “Probably not,” he said.
“Aww, come on,” Annette said. “Not even one couple?”
“Nope.” He finally turned back to her. “Not one.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Felix. Why would a rumor hang around this long if it literally never happened?”
“Because people are idiots who want something to believe in,” Felix said, rolling his eyes slightly. “It doesn’t get more complicated than that.”
Annette snorted. Typical Felix. She looked him straight in the eye. “You are, without a doubt, the least romantic person I have ever met in my entire life.”
Felix shrugged, looking out over the water. “I’m sorry to hear that.” There was a pause, then he glanced back at her. “I'm really sorry to hear that.”
Annette froze, feeling like a deer caught in the sights of a hunter, or one of those slow-flying grouse that Bernadetta was so good at shooting. She and Felix traded barbs like this all the time. She called him a villain, he called her strange, they realized they were late for class and left it at that. But tonight, it felt different. Maybe it was the drinks, or the moon, or the history of the occasion. Maybe Hilda had just gotten into her head. But the sarcastic glint seemed to have disappeared from Felix’s eyes. For a moment she wondered if he had actually meant it.
It wasn’t not nice.
“So what would you wish for?”
“Huh?” Annette blinked, waking back up into reality.
“If you were up there. With some guy. Instead of stuck down here with me.”
“I never said I was stuck -”
“What would you ask for?”
Annette considered this question for a moment. She supposed if she was actually up in the Tower, she would feel like she had to make her wish worthwhile, to make it count. World peace or eternal happiness or something like that. But she wasn’t at the top of a tower, she was down here, sitting in the grass. And unless she had a habit of eavesdropping, the goddess probably wasn’t listening to her.
But Felix was.
Annette pulled his cloak around her, staring into the moon’s reflection in the river beside them. “I think,” she said slowly, trying out the wish as she spoke it out loud. “I would wish that I could stay here a little longer. A lot longer. Like maybe forever.”
Felix wrinkled his nose. “What? Here like, Garreg Mach here? You don’t want to graduate?”
“No, not like here. Like . . . here.”
“You sure you only had 2 glasses of that stuff?”
“Felix!”
Felix reflexively flinched, ready to dodge – he’d been friends with Ingrid since birth, after all. But Annette had left all the projectile-shaped bread rolls in the dining hall and was too comfortable wrapped in his oversized cloak to bother with elbowing him. She stuck her tongue out at him instead.
“Look Annie” – she tried to remember if she’d heard him use her nickname before – “You’re going to have to explain that one to me.”
Annette looked at the ground, shifting her weight to her other leg, noticing the criss-cross grass pattern that had embedded into her leg. She hoped she hadn’t left any grass stains on the dress; Hilda had been so nice. She took a breath.
“I mean, like, here, in this moment, in this night.” She began, still staring at the ground. “I mean where we’re all together and we’re all safe and warm and there’s music and food and everything just kind of, you know, fits.”
She felt Felix shift closer to her as she said “safe and warm.” It was a weird thing to say, considering how chilly the night air was. She wondered if he wanted his cloak back. He didn’t ask for it.
“I knew you liked dancing, but forever?” Felix asked. “A ball that lasts forever? You’re describing my literal worst nightmare, Annette.”
“It’s not even the ball, Felix. It’s not the dancing, or the dresses, or anything like that. It’s . . . well . . . ” Annette willed herself to stop looking at the ground, to meet Felix’s eye. She had expected more mockery, but he was leaning towards her with a look of genuine interest. She didn’t not like it.
“It’s what?” he prompted.
“I can’t get last month’s mission out of my head,” Annette whispered, shivering despite the cloak.
Felix move his arm towards her for a moment, then seemed to think better of it, brought it back to run his hand through his hair instead. “Remire Village?”
“The fires. And the screaming.” Annette tried to put the sick feeling in her stomach into words but could only land on phrases. “And the magic – Felix, whatever it was, it was awful magic. The kind you shouldn’t even know exists, let alone be able to use. And Tomas – the way he looked at me, when he looked at me. As if he hated me.”
“It wasn’t Tomas, Annette,” Felix said. “You don’t have to feel like - -”
“But how else can I feel,” she cut him off, shaking her head. “Whoever he was, whoever he actually was, I knew him as Tomas. For the first few months here, I felt like he was one of my only friends. I trusted him, and he hated me. He hated all of us. He hated those people in Remire that he didn’t even know, and some of them were so young, or so old, and we couldn’t save them all, we were too late, and - -”
Felix grabbed her arm, pulling her towards him. Annette let out a startled squeak and put her hands to her face. She felt him drop her arm in surprise, startled by her cry. She’d lost track of the world again, lost in her own monologue. She couldn’t even remember the original question that had started her down this track. She wondered at what point Felix wished he could sneak away and join his friends at the ball. She peered at him over her fingers.
Felix had crossed his arms and looked away, the classic, closed off stance he took when talking to people. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I was trying to be comforting. It . . . didn’t work.”
“No, it’s not that,” Annette stammered. “You’re sweet. I just wasn’t expecting it.”
She moved an inch or two closer to him, shifting her weight again so the she was leaning against him. Felix flinched in surprise, but uncrossed his arms, putting one around her. They sat in silence for a moment, each refusing to make eye contact. Annette was grateful the moon was so bright that night – it gave her something to look at where she tried to remember where she was, and then tried to convince herself she was actually there.
“So wait,” Felix finally said, still not looking at her. “Remire Village. Awful. I get it. But how’s that connect to tonight lasting forever?”
The question hung in the air for a heartbeat. Five heartbeats, actually. Annette was close enough to Felix to count them now.
“Because I’m selfish,” she finally said.
Felix finally looked down at her, with a mixture of bewilderment and awe. “One day,” he said, “I can only dream, but one day, the conclusions you draw about anything will make sense to me.”
Annette tried to smile, but she couldn’t manage it. “It was awful. You know it was awful. And I think it’s going to get worse. Dark Magic, kidnapped students, sinister knights stalking the campus . . . somewhere along this year, something went seriously wrong. And we don’t know what it is, but it’s going to get worse. You think that too, right?” Annette twisted to look up at him. Felix’s face was grim; she could feel his arm around her tighten.
“I do,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “It’s not just this year. The rot goes back almost as far as I can remember. But you’re right. Something bad is coming. Something we can’t ignore anymore.”
Annette nodded. “If I’m honest, Felix, I’m scared. I’m scared and I’m weak and I’m selfish and tomorrow I’m going to have to get up and go to class like I’m not. But tonight,” she paused, marveling that she had somehow gotten back to the original thread. “Tonight it’s like we’re away from all that. We’re safe. We’re all together. I mean, I’ve messed up a lot tonight, but everyone else seems happy, that counts for something. I just . . . I just wish we could stay here, a little longer. A lot longer. I wish we didn’t have to face what’s coming.”
Felix didn’t answer right away. Annette glanced up at him, and he was scowling as he stared into the middle distance, his thoughts once again unreadable. If her confession had made her out to be weak and worthless (qualities she was sure Felix despised), he certainly didn’t show it. He still held onto her, gently, his thumb tracing against the top of her shoulder and to the edge of her neck. It didn’t seem like he wanted to leave.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low and intense. Annette leaned into it instinctively. “Do you know why Sylvain won the sparring match with me today?” he asked.
Annette raised her head from his shoulder, confused. She knew Felix was obsessed with sparring, but this seemed a stretch of a segue, even for him. “We’re talking about Sylvain now?” she asked.
Felix ignored the confusion in her voice and continued on. “He always loses, I always win,” he said, his voice still too intense to be talking about an afternoon sparring session. “He doesn’t concentrate, he’s too busy flirting and joking around, it’s easy to find an opening. It’s stupidly easy.”
Annette ventured, “Good . . . for you?” It clearly wasn’t the answer Felix was looking for, but he continued on anyways.
“Sylvain didn’t win from a fluke or a lucky shot,” he said, his jaw clenching, as if he was admitting something deeply unpleasant. “He won because he took it seriously. He won because he’s been practicing. I’ve never seen anything like it, Sylvain actually trying at something.”
“He really wanted you to dance with someone that badly?” Annette asked, still not quite sure where this was going.
Felix winced and shook his head. “The wager was just bravado, something he could latch onto to talk about. He never stops talking,” he muttered, not necessarily with malice. “No, he’s been like this since last month. Actually showing up for training; blocking out the world during fights. It didn’t click for me until he swung at me today – but he’s scared. He’s finally taking it seriously, but when he got the first hit in, he didn’t look triumphant. He just looked desperate.”
“He looked pretty triumphant when I saw him,” Annette said darkly.
Felix sighed. “Of course he did. Sylvain always knows how to put on a show.”
Annette was starting to piece the conversation together. She sunk back against his shoulder and asked, “So you think this has something to do with Remire?”
“I know it does,” Felix said grimly. “I wasn’t near him in the fight, but he and Ingrid were on the front lines for that battle – cavalry moves fastest; they saw it all first. Sylvain missed something, didn’t get to someone in time – I don’t know who it was, but it got to him. I heard him and Ingrid shouting outside my room that night; they were arguing about it.”
Annette shivered. “Ingrid blamed him for not saving them in time?” she asked.
“No,” Felix sighed. “He blamed himself. He couldn't snap out of it; she couldn’t talk him down.”
“Have you . . . talked to them about it?” Annette asked.
Felix shook his head. “I’d make it worse,” he whispered. “I always do.”
“Not always,” Annette said softly. Felix blushed at this.
“This point is,” he kept talking as if he hasn’t heard her, “we’re all scared, and weak, and messing up, and worrying that messing up is going to hurt people. I don’t think you’re selfish for wishing we could be safe. I think you’re just normal. You just care, and it’s killing you like it’s killing all of us. You’re the most selfless person I know, and you might be the bravest.”
Annette covered her face at this, shrinking away from the compliment. “It’s all an act,” she mumbled miserably between her fingers.
She felt Felix’s hand tug at the edge of her wrist, too gentle to actually move her fingers. She slowly moved her hands down and looked up at him; his face was closer than she remembered before she hid.
“That’s all bravery is,” he said. There was bitterness hiding in his voice, but also something soft and sincere that Annette couldn’t quite place.
Annette’s breath caught as he looked at her. He was so close, and suddenly so soft, and his hand was still on her wrist and his other fingers were lightly pressing against her neck, pulling her towards him ever so slightly.
And that’s when a chorus of delighted screams from the Great Hall caused them both to jump back. Annette quickly swiveled in the grass towards the sound.
Hilda and Claude were dashing across the grass in front of the Great Hall, with Hilda giving a delighted scream and grabbing on to Claude every time she almost tripped on her own feet and Claude shaking her off to maximize his own top running speed. Hilda grasped the now-empty punch bowl, Claude struggling to hold onto no less than half a dozen half-empty bottles that Annette had no intention of trying to identify. They had a decent head start on Seteth, who was a remarkably fast runner when he needed to be, but who was getting tripped up by the long dress robe he had chosen to wear that evening.
“von Riegan, this not appropriate behavior for the future leader of the Alliance,” Seteth was shouting as he ran. Annette was impressed he was able to deliver his typical lecture while in mid-sprint. “Stop this ridiculous farce at once; it does you no good to run; I know where you live - - -”
Seteth’s voice faded away faster than Hilda’s wild screams, which could still be heard long after Annette lost sight of her and Claude. The Great Hall had burst into sounds of laughter and eager chatter, drowning out the industrious musicians who had bravely kept playing despite the commotion.
“Well,” said Felix after even Hilda’s laughs had become too distant to hear. “There you go.”
They looked at each other for a beat before both bursting into laughter. Annette buried her face in her hands again to try to stop the fresh waves of giggles that crept up on her every time she thought she’d caught her breath.
“I’ve just . . . oh goddess. . . I’ve never seen. . . Seteth run like that,” she explained between fits of laughter. Felix gingerly patted her back, looking slightly concerned that she might stop breathing altogether. Annette slowly managed to regain the ability to take breaths that didn’t turn into peals of laughter, but her eyes still sparkled when she finally took her face out of her hands and looked back at Felix again.
“Well, I’m glad everyone over there seems to be having a good time,” he said, though his tone contained no sense that he had wished anyone well in his entire life.
“Do you want to go back inside?” asked Annette hesitantly, looking towards the Great Hall again, where the voices were beginning to settle down and the music was beginning to take center stage once more.
“Why would I want that?” Felix asked. He drew back for a moment. There was something like concern, or at least worry, on his face. “Wait, do you want to go back? Sorry, fuck, there’s probably tons of people who still want to dance with you.”
Annette shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I just mean – you did lose the match with Sylvain. What’s going to happen when he realizes you ditched the ball early and didn’t dance with anyone?”
Felix gave this question a moment of thought. He answered, “I guess he can tell everyone I’m a gentleman of no honor, or something? I don’t know.” He leaned back towards Annette, pulling her closer. “I think I can live with the consequences,” he murmured into her hair.
Annette adjusted back against him, leaning on his chest. His heartbeat was clearer now; the steadiness was comforting. “I go to one measly ball and here I am cavorting with gentlemen of no honor,” she said, smiling. “What would my mother say?”
“If it helps,” Felix replied, “Sylvain probably won’t spread that rumor around too widely. He never bothers to follow up when he loses and owes me something. I think at the current tally he’s not supposed to talk to me for the next four hundred years.”
“That’s probably for the best,” Annette said softly. “I think you’d miss Sylvain if you didn’t talk to him for four hundred years.”
“Probably true, but don’t tell anyone.”
Annette smiled up at Felix. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
Felix didn’t reply, but the slight, almost imperceptible smile he gave her in return was unlike what she was used to seeing the rare times he smiled. There was none of the self-satisfaction of winning a sparring match – verbal or literal. There was none of the bitter irony of a sarcastic reply. He just looked happy. Almost imperceptibly happy, but happy all the same. It was such a surprise that Annette found her own smile transforming into a ridiculous grin, which turned into a helpless giggle as she buried her face against him, suddenly embarrassed. Wrapping her arms around her knees, Annette nestled against Felix and closed her eyes, deciding she’d had enough conversation for the evening. Any more details on wagers and wishes, Felix could figure out on his own.
Annette did not have a brain that was designed to stop thinking. If anything, she had a brain that was prone to try to process three or four trains of thought at once until it all converged into a single train of panic. And there was certainly a lot to process that evening, from picking apart every single thing she’d told Felix to decide if she sounded dumb to wondering how he could be so warm when the winter was so cold to trying to figure out how she was going to tell Mercie everything the next day when she wasn’t even sure what anything was in the moment. And she still didn’t know who was in that Tower. And that dang bird was still singing. But gradually, Annette’s scattered thoughts slowed, and the world around her became calmer, and softer, and less of a problem she needed to solve. The call of the bird was just sound, it didn’t need identification to be beautiful. Felix’s arm around her was safe and warm, she could figure out the narrative of how she got there later. And if time didn’t actually stop, it stopped being something she needed to keep track of – if it was minutes or hours didn’t really matter, it was a moment and it was hers.
If the ball was winding down, the music didn’t reflect it. The general clamor of the Great Hall in the distance caught Annette’s attention as the string quartet began a waltz, a variation on a familiar folk song that Annette recognized from her childhood. Her mother had sung it, and the tune reminded Annette of kitchens and gardens and cinnamon and sunshine.
“I love this song,” she murmured, twisting towards the sound to look towards the windows as if that could help her hear it better.
Felix also turned. “It sounds familiar. I feel like I know it?”
“It’s a famous folk song from northern Faerghus,” Annette explained. “Did you hear it growing up?”
Felix shook his head. “I don’t think so. No one in my family was particularly musical.” Annette was unconsciously tapping out the rhythm of the music into the grass, humming the song to herself. Felix listened for a moment. “Maybe I heard it from you,” he said quietly. “That might be why I like it so much.”
Annette blushed, and stopped humming. But she smiled.
She heard Felix take a deep breath before he spoke, which was unusual – he usually spat his words out as if they were already on the tip of his tongue. Nervousness was not keeping within his character.
“So do you want to dance?” he finally asked.
“What?” Annette looked back at him.
“You said this was your favorite song,” he said, gesturing once more towards the open windows. “You said you wanted tonight to last forever. It would be ridiculous to run away from a ball and not dance anymore if it really made you that happy.”
“I thought you hated dancing, though. You . . . made that pretty clear tonight.”
He sighed. “Listen, I know I messed up. And I do hate balls, I hate all of this, I hope I never have to go to another party for the rest of my life.” He paused, finally looking down at her. “But if it was just you and me, if I didn’t have Sylvain breathing down my neck every time I looked at you or fucking Hilda hiding three chairs over trying to eavesdrop – ”
“I knew it,” Annette whispered victoriously.
“ – then of course I’d want to dance with you. I just want – I think you’re –” Felix covered his face with his hand and sighed again. The sentences he started certainly sounded promising, if he could only pick one to finish. “I’m bad at this,” he mumbled through his fingers.
“Completely abysmal,” Annette agreed.
“So, is that a yes?” Felix asked, looking through his fingers.
As an answer, Annette stood up, brushing off Hilda’s dress carefully and smoothing down the edges. By the time she looked up to offer her hand to Felix, he was already on his feet.
There was something to be said for a ball without any other people, without the stares and the knowing smiles and the giggles as she passed by. There was also something to be said for dancing with someone whose life revolved around proper footwork – despite his protests, Felix evidently did know his way around a waltz. Annette leaned her head against his chest and closed her eyes, trusting that he wouldn’t lead them into a tree or let her fall. His heartbeat mixed with faraway strings and with the soft night breeze that fanned his cloak out around her, until she wasn’t sure which sound was which. The goddess couldn’t give her forever, she knew, no one could. But the now she had was so rich and so complicated and so much of what she didn’t know she wanted until she had it, that maybe that was enough.
If any couples in the Goddess Tower had decided to look down that night, they might have found the lone couple dancing by the lake, their reflection shimmering in the water next to the perfect and watery sphere of the moon, to be quite picturesque. But in general, couples who make it up to the Goddess Tower are disinterested in the ground below. Only the moon saw Felix pull Annette closer as the musicians finished their final songs, packed up their instruments, and prepared to go home. Only the wind heard whatever song Annette sang to herself to fill the silence after the Great Hall had its music replaced by the general chatter of a ball winding down to a close. But years later, everyone who remembered that year’s Winter Ball would fondly, perhaps nostalgically, remark that the moon did seem to shine brighter than usual and the wind seemed warmer than the winter called for as the students of Garreg Mach put on their cloaks, bid each other goodnight, and made their way to bed.