“So, Naomi, you never told me what your favourite dish was.”

June had been following me all day today, not that I was complaining – well, I was complaining. She kept asking me personal questions as if this were a date, except she’d do so while I’d be sweeping the floors, clearly marking the atmosphere as not such.

Currently, she was leaning against a wall, in that very deliberate way that made her hip look gorgeous. Now that the air conditioning had been fixed, her jackets and long-sleeve shirts looked less out of place, and still as form-fitting.

I sigh. Then, I put down the sponge I’ve been using to clean the window and turned towards her.

“What is it that you’re getting at, my Lady?” She made an innocent expression, making me want to roll my eyes. “Not just today, but ever since we’ve fixed the air conditioning. Whenever you’ve had a free moment you’ve been – I don’t want to sound disrespectful by using the word clingy but,” I trailed off. There was a better word to describe it, but I didn’t want to use it.

“You say that as if you don’t enjoy my company,” June crossed the meter or so separating the two, breaching into my personal space.

My face turned red from the proximity, and I tried to look away, but she grabbed my chin, redirecting my attention towards her.

“You say that as if you weren’t the one to have invited yourself into my life, following me around under the pretext of serving me.”

“That’s different!” I pushed her away. “I have my reasons!”

“Oh? And what would those be?” She smirked.

That should have been the moment I realised something was off about her, about the way she looked at me, with something almost akin to malice in her eyes. But I had taken the opportunity to look away from her beautiful black eyes, missing on those clues entirely.

No, my mind was too focused on my feeling towards my Lady, and whether or not I should admit them. Thanklessly those feelings were complex, and I could just throw away part of it in case they weren’t requited.

“It’s because you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on,” I said, nerved making me speak way too fast, in hopes that June wouldn’t understand me.

No answer came, and when I dared to look back up at my Lady, she was covering her mouth with her hand, her cheeks had turned red as well.

I blinked in surprise. Could it be that she had feelings for me as well? It wasn’t impossible, but with her erratic behaviour, and everything that had happened to her in the past – I’d blamed the ‘dates’ she’d organised on cultural differences; I didn’t expect her to have room in her heart for anything romantic…

“My Lady?” I asked, those doubts sipping through in my voice. “I …” I bit my lip, and then decided against it. “You don’t look too well, how about we get some air?”

Lady June straightened her posture, fixed her jacket, and pretended nothing had happened.

“Yes, that seems like a great idea. Let us head to the roof veranda.”

I didn’t ask why we weren’t going to her room’s balcony as we usually did. I simply smiled, and followed her, leaving the cleaning supplies where they were.

The roof veranda was as run down as a place that hasn’t been visited in over a decade would be. The stone columns were covered in a thin layer of grey sod, and the geometric metal blinds that were supposed to protect the place from the elements were rusted in places, half-open and half-obscuring the train tracks below.

But they did their job, protecting us from the early-evening sun.

June sat on the stone edge of the veranda, as she looked down, observing the vehicles that slowly crept or dashed past the crossing.

Not being a fan of heights, especially on buildings with questionable structural integrity, I took a seat on the ground next to her.

“What do you think of this place?” June asked, still looking down. Her tone was serious, pensive, different from her laid-back persona.

For a brief moment, I wondered if she knew. But then she clarified:

“The strategic importance of the fief Avignon.”

“Ah.” I simply replied. The way she distanced herself from her land with that word choice was not lost on me. “Well, I guess it is necessary. Having such a strategic interchange controlled by a neutral party makes sense. Although this also leaves room for extorsion, bribes, and what have you.”

“Hmmm,” June agreed.

Then, she slid onto the floor, sitting next to me.

“And if you could change any one thing about this land, mine, that of Barclays, Genkh, or Volgrad, what would it be?”

I knew what she meant. She wanted to talk politics, probably because that was one of the only conversation subjects that’d been drilled into her. But on my end, I didn’t care enough about what went on outside of her land, nor did I know enough.

I took her gloved hand in mine, giving her a few moments to shake it away if she wanted to, before speaking:

“If I could change any one thing about this land, my Lady, I would make it so your life was free of any hardships, present or past. I would make it so you were happy, and weren’t bound by the rules and obligations of high society.”

And then I blushed and looked away because that was the cheesiest line I’ve ever said to a woman. If that wasn’t considered a confession, then I didn’t know what was.

The sound of metal and glass hitting stone made my attention return towards her. She had dropped an amulet; a mana-oil-filled rectangle, barely a centimetre in thickness and a palm or so in size, encased in thin strips of metal.

“I need to go.” Lady June suddenly jolted up, picking up her amulet and dashing back into the mansion.

But it was already too late. I had seen both her extremely flustered, and somewhat embarrassed expression, and the device she’d dropped. To make matters worse, I did recognise it from ‘Summer Flowers’. Rose Pinkstar had used it to corner Cedar when she extorted a confession out of him. It was a lie detector that would not only light up when its target was lying but also allow one to see snippets of whatever it was the target was lying about based on the amount of mana it had been infused with.

I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

I knew Lady June had been hurt many times and by many people in the past, but what puzzled me was why she’d have it on her today specifically. I tried to rationalise it as her forgetting to take it out of her pocket, as I ignored the fact that I’d helped her dress today and that the pockets of her jacket were empty at that time.