Within the year she had lived in the Menløs family, Harlow turned ten, so Jade knew what happened the day right after the birthday.

First of all, you had to install yourself in a chamber.
And it took a long time, mostly because you had to choose it between the thousands of the castle.
Important and impossible to switch afterward, the personal room was where she'll live until marriage, which she wasn't going to do, so she'll live a long time there.
Every of her siblings had told her a different technique for choosing, but each of them sounded weirder than the other. (Lucky charm guiding, divination, math, etc.)
So she opted to let her gut feeling guide her, even if she had a tiny thought about where to reside.

After the installation, you'll need to prepare for an imperial ball, equivalent to a coming-of-age ceremony.

Presentation to nobility was hard at this age, more from the social pressure than the presentation itself, where you just stand and wave your hand.
Still, throwing some ten-year-olds in front of ill-mannered nobles was the worst idea someone ever had. 《The Author feels slightly insulted.》

If only she had a way to escape it, Jade would snatch it and never give it back.

"Sister?" Ian's voice brought her back.

When the birthday snack had concluded, the twins got back to the nursery, holding hands, ready to separate as tomorrow's sun would rise.

"Ian... which hallway was picked for you?"
She questioned a sad note in her expression as she lain on her bed next to Ian's one.

He turned on his side to look at her.
"The North one."

"Guess it'll be alright."
She rolled to look at him back.

"I thought of choosing the Jadeite Chamber," he grinned.

"And I thought of getting the Emerald Room."
She smirked back.

As they were born in May, emerald was their gemstone. It was really popular to know which gemstone you shared with a close one for beliefs.
For the twins, it was the proof of their common affection.
They smiled at each other, the silence easing their apprehension of what could come next.

"Aw, what a cute sibling's relationship!"
A voice amazed.

They both quivered at the intervention.

"I'm back."
It said.

Her eyes drifted and her heart dropped.

"WHAT? SPIROT? HOW ARE YOU HERE?"
She yelled, a building wrath flooding in every of her veins.

"Sister—"

"Don't get into that, Ian."
She stopped him, terrifyingly smirking.

"No, please do, ninth Prince!" It screeched, dodging Jade's glare. "If no, she'll probably kill me!"

Jade grabbed it and threw it out of the room, crashing every possible bone and organ on the facing wall.

How dare it? Just after she made up her mind about its departure. "You..." she began with a dreadful voice, "you said you'd abandon me after the contract. AND NOW, YOU ARE BACK?"

The bunny, flattened on the wall, held it silent at the rage of its contractor. "I-I-I'm sorry—"

"SORRY? ONLY SORRY?" Her clasp tightened around the fluff.

"S-sister?" Ian whispered, spooked without knowing what to do.

"Ian," she scarily grinned, "I'll be right back."
She slammed the door to find herself in the corridor.

"J-J-Jade—" Spirot stammered.

"NOT. A. WORD. Not one."
She swallowed her rage for the moment.
Dragging it all the way to somewhere more secluded would cause less damage.

A door, somewhere in the never-ending hallway, opened in a small click.
"Shit—" She glimpsed at the near commode and retreated behind it.

"Honorable Ẹmi?" A dark voice rose in the corridor. "Are you there?" A few footsteps resounded in the air as she was conquered by chills.

Jade never heard this voice in the whole castle.
At night, the servants had their own building, and the guards didn't got the authorization to roam the fortress, only to watch the entry and exit of the home of the Imperials.

Spirot shivered. "Jade, we need go." Every limb of the bunny was stone next to her.

"Uh?" She rose a querying brow at it. "What do you—"

A towering silhouette stood all over her and Jade found herself in the shadows.
A young, blue-eyed man stared into her soul, hiding her away from the last rays of the cold nightlight.
Those two azury guns brought terror into her veins.

"A child?" His low voice trembled. "The f—"

Run. Anywhere, but not stay here.

Jade really, deeply, entirely, profoundly wished she wasn't there, under an unknown man that she never saw.

So, in a blink of an eye, she wasn't.

●●●

Jade blinked twice before understanding that she was in the kitchen.
"Why—"
A needle jabbed on her brain.
Her hands had to catch her head to avoid a fall.

"Magic, dear!"
Spirot spoke so loud, her desire to stab it to death revived.
Unfortunately, she was too busy leaning on a kitchen counter to achieve it.

She looked at the bunny with a questioning yet terrifying expression.

"So," it engaged, "you had a profound will of escaping the situation, and magic just replied to it. Like in any normal magic case, actually."

"Wasn't what I was asking."
She uttered since she imagined enough time magic in her past life to know how it worked, her ache not easing any of her rage.

Spirot only glanced at her in a confused way.
"Then what was the question?"

"WHY YOU WERE HERE, ASSHOLE!"
The pain and anger spoke.
"And who was that man?"

Spirot gulped his saliva as it could.
"You shouldn't care about the man. And for my reappearance... it's a long story—"

"Then share it with me." She declared, hands tightening around her skull like the pain would flee away.

"What?" Spirot managed.

"SHARE IT!"

It jerked at her shout.
"I dunno—"

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT?"
She snapped, seizing it in both of her hands, which she freed from her tight grasp around her head a few seconds before.

"I DO NOT KNOW WHY I'M HERE!"
It shrieked back at her.

Jade breathed, creating an irked sound.
"And how do you not know?"

"Because I got brought back."

A silence filled with interrogations pushed it to tell more.

"...It's my first time in eight hundred fifty-five years of existence to be stuck with a contractor."

How was it possible for an experimented spirit to not know about that?
"Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh,' as you said."
It barked, upset, bending its brows.
"I tried to teleport back to home after the contract, as I always do, but I can't. I can't go further than five hundred yards away from you!"

"And you don't know..."

"I DON'T."
It screamed at the top of his lungs.
"I-I-I do not have any idea about anything..."
Its exhale echoed louder than ever in Jade ears.
"I'm lost."

Their ten-year-old relationship didn't bring any of those feelings before—sadness, fear, uneasiness.
Yet, that had been enough to make Spirot her closest friend, with whom she could talk about anything.
And she had not acted like a friend right now, only barking and shouting at it.

It happened, perhaps, but it was so wrong for Spirot, which was as lost as her, that she couldn't restrain the last corner of her mind from being guilty.
A very, small, little corner because she was emotionally independent and didn't want of any emotional debt.

She clasped it between her arms.

"I'm sorry to have acted this way," she muttered, hugging the bunny harder and harder. "Truly sorry. You shouldn't have carried all of that alone."

It snored shortly, moving its little body cutely. "Jade, it's a normal reaction for you to be annoyed." Spirot said, kind of dumbfounded by her declaration, whiffing back its bunny snot.
She lounged on the ground with a pout as it continued.
"As hard-willed as you are, it happens to explode. Particularly when someone runs hot and cold... But I appreciate your excuses. My ears," it flapped them in the air, "are officially dead."

She smiled.
How could she resist a Dumbo imitation?
"So you are stuck with me now?"
Jade wondered, a playful yet delicate smirk on the lips.

"Guess so."
It puffed.

Even if she shouldn't have, she actually felt happy.
Very, very, very happy.
She squished it tightly against her chest.
"Thank you for the company." She silently beamed. "Thanks for the friendship."

The bunny didn't move like a statue.
"Friendship? Friends? What's that?"

Wait, spirits didn't have friends?
What a shitty species.

"A friend... I guess it's also blurry for me. It depends on which person you're friend with."
A moment floated as she searched for her best answer.
"A friend is, first, somebody who you wish to be with. When you don't see them in a while, you may feel a little clueless, for example. It's also a new member of your family. Although in this life I have a lot of siblings that I absolutely adore, I also remember how my friends were like my sisters when I was an only child. People tend to forget that every relationship is based on a personal choice and not really on an obligation. You could form or cut contact with anyone as long as you have all the tools to do it, and apart from special cases, you normally have those. I consider every one of my friends like family since it's the same on a practical level for me."

"..."

It seemed Spirot didn't understand as well as she wished.

She had never been good to explain things after all.

"Thank you, friend." The bunny nudged his nose on her jawline.

"...Let's have a tour together." Our writer groaned as her attempt to soar from the kitchen's tiling proved to be a victory. She desired to return under a cover, the cold air of the night biting her skin for too long now.

"Where are we going?"
It mumured, coiling further into her collarbone.

A wide smile stretched her mouth.
"To the imperial hall."
She took the corridor at full speed, steering to the midst of the castle.

The imperial hall was most gorgeous place in the whole house.
The walls grew on three floors, those only defined by the stone balconies of a calm navy blue, and finished crowned by immense glasses.
The black and white tiling alike a chess game board offered the solemn atmosphere a room of power and politics should have.
Only the blazing red clothings tugged on the sculpted balconies added an appearance of life between all the desaturated tints.
Yet the navy and Carmin were the Empire's color and should have paired up in the most lively way possible.

She pushed the heavy door as the rabbit wailed louder.
But before she could even make a step into the hall, jittery whispers froze her in place.

"Shhh."
The girl cut the spirit, which followed her order for once.

In a family of twelve, being silent meant to be invisible, invisibility evolving as a useful skill of hers.
One, two, three steps in the dark sides of the wide room were enough for her to witness the scene near the thrones, the core of the prominent space, which were illuminated by the cornflower moonlight.

"Calista, we don't mean to..."

"MOTHER, I WON'T GET MARRIED!"

The regent couple and Calista stood opposed to each other.

"We are not planning to marry you. We just need to make a contract."
The emperor said, the voice soothing as ever for his kids.
"Lumurus needs our help."

Calista just frowned.
"And I need to be a pledge? That still sounds the same to me."

"By going there, you would just be a symbol."
The empress intoned.
"You will come back as soon as..." she gave a confused look at the emperor.

"As soon as I have a child with one royal?"

"As soon as the contract is signed, I already told you this morning."
The emperor retorted, sighing already.
"And I'll ask you not to use this tone, Calista."

So that was why Calista was in the north hallway this morning.
A marriage for one of her siblings.
Jade knew that nobles made alliances by marriages and contracts, yet...
Yet it was hard to realize that someone she knew for nine years had to marry and spend the rest of her life with someone else who could be the worst human on earth.

Ania and Alexander would never have done that if they had the choice, she also knew this.
But then, what would have been the cause of this deviation of their own morals?

Calista tightly closed her eyes, probably escaping a roll out of them.
She threw them a broken regard as a shadow, at the opposite side of the hall, spoke.

"We just need a union between their family and ours for the symbol, right?"
The three heads turned simultaneously as Xander progressed in the light.
"I'll be the one guaranteeing the contract."

"Xander," Calista mumbled, eyes darting back and forth between him and her parents, "you cannot risk a marriage while you're next in line for the throne—"

He threw an imperious look at his sister.
"I can. My future title won't stop me from helping you. I already told you this morning, " he coldly glanced at his parents, "I'll have Calista's role in that alliance. Mother, Father, is it truly just a symbol or a marriage?"

The opposite side's fidgeting counted as an answer.

"It will only depend on Yilin..." the empress still manage to pronounce. "I'll have to communicate by mirror with her."

"Very well," Xander shrugged. "I'll go and do what will be necessary there. When will I depart?" His brows pursed in question, like they would have noted the information down on a piece of paper.

"As soon as I'll have the answer, probably."

Good, Jade exhaled, having plenty of time to investigate the case.

A war?
A financial issue?
What was tying Lumurus, capital market of Telin, into an alliance?

"If I speak with her tonight," the empress had her finger stretched out to count, "you could depart after tomorrow."

"WHAT?"

Right after Jade's entrance ceremony?
It was way too short as an investigating time.
How could she do that without being discovered?

The four heads turned in her direction.

Oh, oh.
She let out that big, ungraceful what.

"Who's there? SHOW YOURSELF."
Her sister required, strafing the room with the eyes.

If her family found her here, she would have surely been obligated to have a discussion she didn't wish for. Conclusion, she couldn't be caught.
She needed to run.

Jade sprinted to the east door.

"WAIT... STOP HERE!"

She opened it swiftly, hearing the footsteps behind her.
So Jade ran like her life was on the line.