Cora heard a yell, and scanned the crowd for pink taffeta. Marie had collapsed. Cora started to shove through the crowd, but they were shoving air. The crowd simply parted, and glances slid off them. Magic. They were too panicked to be fascinated. 

Odessa was supporting Marie against her body, sweating from the strain (incongruously human on her perfect face). Marie’s face was at once flushed and drained of colour. She had been sick down the front of her dress. Her breath was raspy and laboured. Cora thanked the gods that she was breathing. “Quick. If attention is drawn to us, people will start checking invitations. I’ve cast a glamour, but it won’t last for long. Help me carry her.” Cora took her legs, worrying in the back of their mind about how thin she was. Marie loved to eat, but she never treated it as a necessity. 

Odessa had her teeth gritted, fighting some magical battle. They bundled Marie into the carriage. Cora kept up a constant stream of nonsense talk to distract the driver, being aware of the illusion spell slipping. They paid enough for him not to notice the fainted woman. Odessa’s face was set in a glare. Cora kept their eyes fixed on Marie’s chest, making sure she kept breathing.

No one on their street so much as glanced at them, making Cora remember why they loved the place. An unnaturally beautiful woman and a transvestite carrying a woman in a bright pink dress were what passed for respectable in that part of town. After the room of gossip and whispers, it was comforting. It may have been filthy, but it was anonymous. A gaslamp had been left on in the shop, which had them wincing at the expense. After fumbling their keys for a while, they set Marie down on their bed. Cora met Odessa’s eyes, which flashed with anger. Before they could ask, she turned away. “I’ll be in the kitchen.” She slammed the door behind her. 

Cora surrounded themself by a protective wall of tinctures and herbs and stolen medical textbooks. They burnt dried Angeberry, which wise women of a bygone era used to restore energy. They opened and closed the windows on a regular basis. The medical textbooks recommended leaving them open for the fresh air, but the writers of the medical textbooks didn’t live between a factory and a tannery. 

Marie’s sleep was fitful yet unbreakable. She tossed and turned and talked lucidly about mirrors. Cora sat by her bedside for no particular reason. If they had magic, they could ward off her nightmares. They didn’t. They had herbs and textbooks and painful hope. 

The sun rose. Bathed in light, the plain room bordered on picturesque. Marie’s eyes fluttered open, and she raised her hand. Cora chalked the tear in their eye up to tiredness and dust. Marie tried a few times to get to her feet. “Don’t get up yet, you need to rest.” Marie’s eyes filled with tears. She kept shaking her head. Cora stood there, feeling useless.
“Where’s Odessa?” They felt a stupid pang of jealousy.
“Kitchen. But you need to rest, stay here.” Marie was out of bed and stumbling towards the kitchen before Cora could finish the sentence. Cora followed behind her, ready to catch her if she fell. 

Odessa was sitting at their kitchen table, having shed her disguise. Pity and anger warred on her face. Anger won. She stared at a wall. Cora guided Marie into a chair. Not understanding exactly what was going on, Cora decided to ignore the tension in the air. They had never been good with implied meaning. “I think we got some valuable information at the ball. What’s our next move?” Even they noticed how false their optimism sounded. 

Marie turned to Odessa. “You have no right to judge me. No right at all.” Odessa’s eyes flashed.

“I have every right to judge you. A world- your world- is on the line. If you make yourself too weak to fight for it, that is a moral failing.” Cora was reminded of the better sort of street-preachers, the ones with fire-and-brimstone urgency. They didn’t like that at all. Marie leapt to her feet, and Cora prepared to diffuse a fight.

“What in the hell is going on?” shouted Cora, sick of this strange, coded verbal fight. The two of them were momentarily shocked into silence. If there was china on display, it would have rung. 

Odessa climbed off her pulpit, and shot Marie another look of pure venom. “Yes. I think it would be good for you to know what’s going on.” Marie hid her face behind her hands for a moment, and then looked straight at Cora. They knew, in that moment, that they would forgive her for anything.
“You have no right to judge me either.”

“I’ve never judged you.” Cora was hurt.
“Lily died in my arms. There was so much blood, more blood than I’ve ever seen…my friend died.” Odessa made an impatient sound. “Tessa was there. She didn’t see everything, but she was outside. When she was trying to calm me down, she gave me a little measure of jade.” It was not a direct answer, but Cora wasn’t that bad with implied meaning. They searched for something to say, something that would convey their absolute and unwavering support.
“Oh.” 

“I’ve never had a problem before. Not with anything. I’ve always been in control.” Cora realised, with academic detachment, that their eyes were full of tears. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” They hated how they sounded; petulant and desperate. “You’re my friend, I could have helped you, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I see them at your shop. It’s what people come in for, whether it’s liquor or jade or the medicines in your cabinets. And they’re the only people that everyone can feel superior to, because it’s the worst thing you can be. It’s something you choose” For all her revolutionary ideas, Marie had kept warm in the same church as Cora.

“It’s an illness. Like any other illness, it’s treatable.” Not according to the respectable journals, but Cora had never had much time for what was respectable. “Part of it’s probably innate. Part of it’s certainly from-” they gestured at the general misery of the world, “-this. People get by in this world. They can’t be blamed for that” They cut themselves short, feeling either a medical lecture or a speech coming on. No one needed that. Marie shook her head. Cora didn’t know what she was trying to deny. “You’re my best friend.” They hoped that was true. “Whatever happens, I’ll be by your side. If you kill someone, I will cover it up.” They swallowed the words ‘I would do anything for you’, feeling that it moved beyond the platonic. “You’re just ill. We can sort this out.” They were, in a strange sense, relieved. Without understanding the wordless fight between Odessa and Marie, they had feared much worse than an addiction. Marie pulled Cora into a rib-crushing hug.

Odessa cleared her throat. It was for effect; Cora doubted that mermaid’s coughed. “Excellent. Cora, may I speak to you in private?” Marie shot Odessa a last look of pure hatred. Cora thought about pointing out that the walls were paper-thin, and decided they didn’t care.
“If you want to.” Cora searched for something tactful to say. “You should go and lie down.” Marie left the room without further argument.

“We will continue without her,” Odessa stated, with the certainty of someone used to being obeyed. Cora searched for a good response. “You said it yourself, she is ill, and not fit to go on. Last night, she jeopardised everything. You were about to find something, weren’t you?” Cora felt that there wasn’t a correct answer. “Her…sickness…ruined everything.”

“We need her.” Cora hoped that was true. It would avoid the embarrassing truth, that they needed her.
“I need your alchemy. I don’t need a liability.” Cora clenched their fists.
“She won’t stop. It’s her friend that’s dead.”
“This isn’t a game. I know humans value friendship, but you have to put it aside. Do you understand what is at stake here?”

Cora took a few, confused moments to remember a crucial fact. No matter how much Odessa looked like a beautiful young woman, she was not human. Not even close. As such, she did not feel emotions in the way humans did. “I will not take such risks. The alliance will be between the two of us, or it will cease to exist.” Cora remembered poker games in smoke-filled bars. They remembered the uncomfortable moments when a good memory and a head for numbers stopped being all they needed, the uncomfortable moments when they had to read faces and guess intentions. They remembered how those games were won and lost. They looked straight into Odessa’s milky white eyes. They called her bluff.