Astarion is a laugh and a half, but he sends a quiet shudder up her spine. She’d probably have gone for him if she’d met him in a tavern a year ago, and she doesn’t like what that says about her, especially when she finds out the truth about him. Shadowheart reminds her of Mari and Norie in equal measure—all of Norie’s prickly defensiveness, all of Mari’s overabundant sweetness—and Roslin can’t help but shower her in playful affection, which Shadowheart responds to with stiff, confused appreciation. (Helps that Roslin’s got the good sense not to ask questions. She doesn’t want anyone asking her any, after all.)

Lae’zel is iconic and Roslin’s obsessed with her. She asks Roslin for a tumble, Roslin says that tragically, she doesn’t swing that way, Lae’zel says, “You istik limit yourself outrageously,” and Roslin laughs hard enough that she almost falls over. They drill together every morning—stretches, then sparring—and there’s an incredible understanding there that thrills Roslin’s heart. She’s never met someone who likes the physicality of fighting in exactly the same way that she herself does. 

Karlach is hilarious. Wyll is a sweetheart. Of course Roslin knows him immediately—she wouldn’t be a Harper worth her salt if she didn’t recognize Duke Ravengard’s son—but no one here has figured out her line of work, least of all him, which she prefers. The Harpers aren’t exactly on Ulder Ravengard’s good side. At least, not all the time.

We strive to be equally annoying to every faction. STOP writing things down, Rosalie.

But Gale…

Roslin said she was being nice to him and she wasn’t lying. He’s got that affable wizard charm, kind of like a polished-to-shine version of Marigold. Marigold, But Better, which is a weird and disloyal thought to have about her sweet little baby best friend, but it does stick with Roslin like a burr in her shoe. He’s good at what he does. He’s casting low-level wizard spells with syrupy-smooth frustration, a sort of “this is beneath me, but I won’t let anyone see me bothered about it.” He smiles with the knife-sharp desperation of a man on the very edge.

He is very striking. 

This is an extremely frustrating thing for Roslin to notice. She has a very regimented system when it comes to men. She picks a nice and uncomplicated boy, and when it gets complicated, the universe finds a reason to split them up. She has a mission, or he has to move, or some other wonderful thing that means she got a nice few weeks before it got messy. 

She’s had flings with Harpers, obviously, so she doesn’t have any qualms about getting with a man on a mission, but it doesn’t feel like Gale’s built for that. The sweetness that Roslin is always drawn to is always unabashed in its sincerity. Gale is certainly sincere, but that twist of desperation suggests that there’s a degree of calculation to his kindness. 

Wizards are smart as all fucking get-out, and Roslin picks her battles. She likes a boy she can run circles around, and one look at Gale makes it clear as day that her parlor tricks won’t work on him. She’s not going to waste her time.

+

Gale offers to cast with her. To show her how to cast.

Here’s where Roslin is supposed to say no. She’s certain in that moment that she’s about to say no. But she’s always had this dangerous little “fuck around and find out” part of her that can’t help it in a moment like this—that likes the idea of brushing her fingers against something she’s never touched before. She’s never going to be a wizard. She wants to know, even if only for a night, a fraction of what Marigold and Gale and that stuck-up little prick in the Emerald Grove all find so fascinating about the Weave. 

“Okay,” she says, and shifts from foot to foot, not enjoying the feeling of being on unfamiliar terrain.

Gale’s eyes soften with affectionate understanding and she’s struck with the desire to tear something apart. “I understand your apprehension,” he says. “I’m sure I’d feel quite wrongfooted in your position. You’re a magnificently talented fighter, Roslin—I imagine it’s difficult to envision yourself doing anything else.”

This is why she doesn’t like him. He sees right through her skin and her skeleton into her soft, anxious, squishy brain, which is a one-person-only living situation, thanks. But forcing a smile and pretending he doesn’t see her seems strangely crueler than the cruel truth.

“I don’t like magic,” she admits. “I don’t get it. It takes too much time in a battle.”

“Well, it’s not just for fighting,” Gale points out. He extends his hands—brings them out—brings forward a ball of glowing light. “Shall we?”

Roslin mimics the gesture, feeling more than just a bit idiotic—and some strange thing wraps around her, through her, comforting and fizzy all in one. The tickle of real feeling behind her ribs terrifies her.

“And next—” Gale stops. His eyes flick over her tense mouth, her terse expression. “Roslin,” he says, brimming over with the kind of compassion you’re really not meant to expect from fucking wizards. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah!” she says quickly. “Yeah, just…”

The magic feels like possibility. When has Roslin felt hopeful about actually anything? Can Gale feel the nihilistic hopelessness that she tries so hard not to ever pay attention to? It’s easy with Jaheira, who understands without Roslin ever having to say it. Not so easy with people who don’t know the names and ages and faces of all of her ghosts.

“I didn’t know it would feel like this,” she says. Tears sting her eyes. “I wish I really could do it.”

Almost gently, Gale says, “You can, you know. Perhaps not all in one night, but…”

“Years and years of focused study,” says Roslin, trying to let misery tilt into a less real petulant sulkiness. “I’d have to put down my sword.”

Gale’s smile quirks with affectionate amusement and she feels a sudden pulse of vindictive dislike. How dare he look at her like she’s some sweet little cupcake? That’s Marigold, Lenora, silly little rich girls with a safety net to trip down into. Roslin’s a woman of substance. Roslin is a fucking dynamo.

“I can, though,” she says, quickly, a little defensively. 

“I wasn’t doubting you,” says Gale.

“You were, a little. You know people can tell when you’re being patronizing, right?”

Gale’s eyebrows shoot up. 

Roslin sighs through her teeth. “Sorry,” she says, then again, “sorry. I’m not good at being the student. I don’t—like—”

“When people see that you don’t know things,” says Gale. “I do know that much.” 

He does sound a touch irritated, which makes Roslin feel a little safer. She doesn’t like the way he looks at her when it isn’t at least a little annoyed. He’s got the soft eyes of all the sorts of boys she likes to kiss, and she needs to make sure she doesn’t forget—

“Repeat after me,” he says, and she does.

The words feel old and lofty and dramatic. History is a messy thing. Roslin’s has too many dead bodies to count (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine) and she much prefers to live in the now. Being a fighter means you make your own rules. Being a wizard means that there are usually some pretty good reasons for the rules people made up before you, because there were nine to twelve smart idiots who tried the same thing you did and blew up a city in the process. 

Being a wizard means you sort of have to pay attention to your past.

“Now,” says Gale. “Try to imagine the concept of harmony. Best as you can.”

Roslin is all a jumble and she knows that he can feel it. The magic strips her back, layer by layer, which is maybe why she doesn’t like it. Easy for Marigold, whose feelings are always spilling everywhere—easy for that arsehole in the grove made of nothing but confident idiocy—easy for Gale, sweet as a knife someone used to spread out strawberry jam. 

But she’s not going to trip up and fall in the dirt. She wants him to see that she can do this just as well as anything else—see it, and be impressed by it, and, and—

Somehow that’s what she’s imagining. Her on steady ground, sure of herself, no tadpole in her mind gumming up the works and making it harder to swing a sword. Her with borrowed magic at her hands, wandering through a world she doesn’t understand without feeling acutely aware of her own limitations. Harmony. That’s what it would look like.

The tension snaps and bursts and Roslin tastes—

Of course she’s going to think about Marigold in a moment like this. Marigold’s a bakery wizard. Roslin’s tasted magic a thousand times, had it melt in her mouth in a perfectly eclectic collection of flavors, because Marigold needed something tested, because Marigold wanted to give her a sweet treat, because being Marigold’s friend means magic’s sticking to your fingertips in frosting and honey. But the taste has always been sculpted, deliberately refined into exactly what Marigold wants it to be.

This isn’t that. It tastes like what it feels like when you’re a little kid eating flour, or raw eggs, or something else that you know you’re not supposed to be eating—not the flavor, but the feeling. The baffled delight that this strange thing in your mouth can be a cake or a cookie or a whole five-course meal. The flickering understanding that you are holding possibility in your hands and your mouth.

Gale feels it too. He smiles like it’s something he’s familiar with. He glances to Roslin, and something about her face must be different, because his own expression gives way to something newly vulnerable. And she was wrong about him—that pastiche of tenderness he gives out like it’s nothing really was nothing for him to give. She’s never had him look at her like that before.

It’s a flutter of a thought, only a moment, but it reaches him nonetheless. She’s not sure how intentional it actually is. She only knows that she finds herself thinking about kissing him, and then thinks to herself, he ought to know. And then he does.

Gale colors. He says, “Well!”

Roslin takes a step back, mostly accidentally. The night feels much colder.

Gale says, again, “Well! Not that I don’t—I just didn’t think—” and then takes in Roslin’s expression and seems to think better of saying anything at all on the subject of kissing. “Thank you,” he says instead. “Really, Roslin. Thank you.”

“Rosalie,” she says.

With her family gone, only Jaheira has ever called Roslin by her given name.

“Rosalie,” he repeats, a note of soft wonder to every syllable.

“Only when we’re alone,” she says quickly. 

Here is what he knows about Roslin—Rosalie—Maynard. She has two very dear friends, Marigold and Lenora, who she talks about at every opportunity, and she has occasionally made vague allusions to a mentor who taught her the finer points of using a scimitar, but upon closer examination he realizes that she has never once mentioned her family or her chosen vocation. She makes vague references to having done “this kind of thing” before, always implying that she’s done it much longer than them—deferring only to Wyll and to Karlach, proven adventurers, in a sweetly diplomatic way that does not ever cede her control over the group.

Of course no one has questioned her. Why would they? Shadowheart is clearly a Sharran cleric. Astarion, as they now know, is a vampire. Wyll is a warlock with a patron who sent him to kill Karlach. Gale—well. Suffice it to say that no one in their party wants to run the risk of being asked any questions themselves.

He obviously cannot question Rosalie outright. Even if it didn’t place his own tenuous position at risk, it would startle her away, and he doesn’t…want that. He can’t quite pinpoint why.

Is it that she’s interested? Plenty were interested when he was a dashing young archmage. None have been since his fall from grace. Perhaps it’s simply gratitude that turns his eyes towards her so often. Perhaps it’s that her hair really is just that outrageously pink. 

Rosalie. Rosie. Rose.

Since their shared moment tangled in the Weave, the lady in question seems less polished around Gale in a way that makes him feel oddly touched. She won’t meet his eyes as easily as anyone else’s. Her fingers tremble just a bit when she passes him a healing potion. He is, he thinks, the person in this camp she cares the most about, which is—

—advantageous—

He feels a complicated twinge of guilt, magnified by the pulse of arcane hunger that the orb sends through him. It isn’t right to withhold information as volatile as this from the party. He places their lives at risk just by staying with them—yet they are his best chance at survival, and the fact that none of them have transformed suggests some sort of magical link that he has no interest in attempting to break. 

He wonders what Rosalie would think, were she aware of the sort of calculations he has to make on the matter. The fact that she has room in her heart to take a fancy to him, all while managing petty squabbles and solving every other refugee’s problem…she might see it as a lack of compassion for the larger collective. She might see it as fear, plain and simple. He’s not sure which option is worse.

Rosalie is sitting by the fire, polishing her sword with her tongue between her teeth. Her eyes are purple. That’s always been his favorite color.

Gale sits carefully down next to her.

“Oh—fucksake,” says Rosalie, and accidentally drops her sword into the dirt.

You don’t have to be nervous around me, he wants to say, but he doesn’t think that will help. He isn’t quite sure that he wants her to stop being nervous around him. Some small and selfish part of him rather enjoys that he’s the only person in camp who can make her blush.

Rosalie scowls at her sword, then lets out a long sigh and dusts her hands off on her trousers. “Well, that’s that fucked,” she says.

“It’s not lost its sharpness from one little bump, surely?” Gale asks.

“No, it—” Rosalie pulls a face, smiling ruefully. “I just like it shiny, y’know?”

“Far be it from me to criticize a desire for a bit of style,” says Gale.

“Oh, right,” says Rosalie affectionately, turning towards him. “City boy. Where are you from again, exactly? Don’t think you’ve mentioned.”

“Candlekeep,” says Gale, which makes her laugh so hard she falls over.

Rosalie laughs abundantly. He hasn’t realized how much he enjoyed that in a person until meeting her. He’s always been one to enjoy a bit of light humor, and his colleagues in Waterdeep were more than ready to laugh along with him, but no one in the world has laughed at his jokes like Rosalie. She’s the sort of person whose eyes are already sparkling with mirth before you even tell her the punch line. 

“Oh, come on,” he says, leaning down to pull her up, “it wasn’t that funny—”

Rosalie’s laughter stumbles into silence. Her eyes widen into that shyly hopeful expression that so enchanted him two nights ago. Time stills, and Gale lets it, desperate not to shatter this rare and impossible moment, well aware that, given his condition, this is all that he is ever going to get—

“ISTIK!” Lae’zel shouts from across the camp. “WHERE IS MY GREATSWORD?”

“I HAVE IT, AND I’M NOT GIVING IT BACK!” Shadowheart shouts back. “TRY SLEEPING FOR ONCE, INSTEAD OF KEEPING US ALL UP WITH ALL YOUR BLOODY SWORD-SHARPENING!”

“Fuck’s sake,” says Rosalie. She swallows—rather undermining her carefully relaxed expression, Gale thinks—and sways briefly forward for a moment before pulling quickly back. He doesn’t think she even noticed herself doing it. “I do think they’re getting worse now that they trust me to break it up.”

“Yes, well, you’ve had practice, haven’t you?”

Some strange terror flashes through Rosalie’s eyes. “What?”

“Your…friends?” Gale prompts carefully. “Lenora and Marigold?”

“What? Oh!” Rosalie laughs. There’s a wobble to it that wasn’t there before. “Yeah, gods. Yeah. Of course.”

I would help. It burns under his skin. I would help, if you told me. I have helped so many others before. Whatever it is that I don’t know, I would—I could—

He is trying to learn his lesson.

“Go on, then,” he says, and on impulse, he reaches out and squeezes her shoulder. “Be our fearless leader.”

“Leaders don’t take orders,” says Rosalie immediately, a teasing dare in her eyes. 

“Well, you were going over there anyway,” Gale counters playfully. “I’m merely affirming your desired course of action.”

Rosalie blinks a few times, then smiles. It’s the same smile she gave Lae’zel when she missed a step in their sparring a day ago and caught the pommel end of Lae’zel’s sword to the face. She likes it, Gale realizes, when one of them succeeds, even if it’s at her expense.

I would help. It’s burning a hole through his fucking chest, right along with the orb. If I had just a little more time—I would—for her—

“You’ve got a good head,” Rosalie says quickly, and turns to hurry towards Shadowheart. “Shads, I love you to pieces, but as I have said ten times in possibly the last hour, you have got to fucking quit it—”

Damn it all to the Hells, Gale thinks. Her vague little Weave imagining floats back to him: not a firm, dramatic, passionate kiss, but an earnest little brush of mouths. A shy hello. 

~~~

Marigold hadn’t actually been expecting to find anyone else under the table. She’d sort of been hoping for the opposite: a people-free location, somewhere that no one was looking at, where she wouldn’t be surrounded by a thousand incredibly thin people wearing as little as possible because they didn’t have any reason to feel like an overstuffed sausage when they wore a glorified bra to a social engagement. And she wasn’t one of those thin-girls-who-thought-they-were-fat-but-were-really-just-charmingly-curvy, either–she had cellulite, she couldn’t ever find anything in a Target, and stretch marks covered her hips and breasts and upper arms in such a way that low-rise jeans and corset tops wouldn’t have looked half as charming on her, at least in her estimation. 

Not that the size of the people here was what had Marigold under the table–no, that was just what she’d been thinking bitterly about for the first fifteen minutes of the party, as soon as effortlessly beautiful Evie had shown up with equally effortlessly beautiful Amara, both of them looking practically emaciated, both of them wearing the sorts of things that Marigold had sort of thought people only wore for Instagram photos. And absolutely everyone at the party was beautiful, too, of course, with Marigold easily the biggest girl there, never mind that she didn’t know anyone there, because she still didn’t know a single meaningful thing about Evie. 

Evie had swanned off immediately once it was clear that Marigold was “settled in,” or at least “settled in” by her definition, which mostly seemed to mean “physically present.” Marigold suspected that she was off with Amara, or with one of the many boys bearing down on her like they could smell blood in the water. That was the sort of thing that was supposed to concern a sister, wasn’t it? Would have, if it was Marigold getting flirted with at a strange party and Roslin and Lenora lingering reprovingly in the corner–but Roslin and Lenora would never have left her alone at one of these, and Evie had, which was maybe the difference between adoptive and biological sisters. Wonderful to find that out now.

So Marigold had stayed standing there, awkwardly, and made excruciating conversation with people she hadn’t wanted to talk to, because she’d come here to talk to Evie, to spend time with Evie, to learn more about a sister who she’d lost and somehow found again, only to find that the feeling wasn’t mutual and Evie really just wanted to go be social with another party-goer in the host’s bathroom. And she wouldn’t have ducked under the table if not for the fact that one of the party-goers had asked, “Wait, you’re Evie’s sister? That chick she’s always talking about who got, like, murdered or some shit?” at which point Marigold had found herself so blazingly angry at Evie that she’d known she couldn’t talk to anyone at the party anymore.

Hence: table! Not the world’s most normal hiding place, but most of the party-goers were drunk enough that no one was looking very hard for Marigold. She’d seen a flutter of movement under the tablecloth, remembered that one of the hosts had mentioned a cat, decided that mortification was better than fielding even one more question about a story no stranger had any right to (and no sister had any right to tell). So she had ducked under the table, and she had found her eyes locked with eyes so green they seemed to glow in the dark.

Marigold said the only thing she could think of. “Is this seat taken?”

The eyes blinked. The face they belonged to was pale and sallow, possibly East Asian–though of course, Marigold, being something of a mix of things herself, had never been very good at ascertaining where anyone else hailed from, which made guessing probably not a good idea. The girl had long, dark hair, blacker than even the dim light around them, and she was wearing thick-framed black glasses that only added to the large luminescence of her eyes. She didn’t say anything, just tucked her feet in so that Marigold could shift all the way under the table.

Marigold never did well with silences, and she wasn’t really sure how to fill this one. What did the standard social contract have to say about dinner table conversation when one or both party members found themselves under it? “Do you, um.” She smiled awkwardly. “Come here often?”

The small smile that danced across the girl’s face immediately settled Marigold’s nerves. Anyone who smiled at an awful joke like that would probably be a very permissive conversationalist, which Marigold always needed in a conversation partner; her mouth ran on and she wasn’t very good at stopping it when it started. 

“I’m Marigold,” Marigold offered.

The girl raised a hand and waved. She was wearing quite a lot of rings and none of them matched. More than a few were the cheap plastic sort one might get as an arcade prize. She said something, barely a whisper, but the music was loud enough that even a whisper would have been impossible to hear.

“Sorry?”

The girl bit her lip. She leaned forward. At normal volume, she said, “Beetle.”

“...Beetle?” repeated a bemused Marigold.

The girl jerked her thumb towards her chest.

“Oh, you’re Beetle?”

The girl smiled again. She was wearing lipstick, Marigold noted, blood-red, but with a blackish undertone that made her look positively gothic. There were really quite a lot of things to look at when it came to this girl; it felt like Marigold could spend more than just a few centuries looking at her, and still have places she wanted to keep looking. Mostly the eyes. Her lashes were sharp and thin, like spider legs.

“I’m Marigold,” said Marigold, winced, and said, “I think I said that already.”

Beetle moved forward a bit more. Stared at Marigold, unblinking. Marigold felt pleasantly unmoored and incredibly aware of how pretty this girl was. Was this the sort of party where people kissed each other? Marigold was a bit too sober for drunken kissing, but maybe Beetle was drunk and wanted to kiss her. She didn’t smell like alcohol. She smelled…sort of like hand sanitizer. A lot of hand sanitizer. 

Beetle moved back again, still staring, still smiling. Clearly this interaction appeared to be going successfully, at least from her perspective, which was a baffling relief. Marigold was fairly certain all she’d done was say her own name and usurp Beetle’s solitary hiding place.

There was a crash from the living room, followed by raised voices. Marigold flinched involuntarily.

Beetle’s hand rested on her shoulder, feather-light, as if waiting for permission to close her fingers and hold Marigold all the way. It was a surprise, but not an unwelcome one; Marigold liked very much when people touched her, though she wasn’t always sure how much touching was allowed between people who barely knew each other. She shrugged her shoulder up a bit so that it connected more firmly with Beetle’s hand, which made Beetle smile again, reassuringly, and tighten her grip just enough to make it less of a hovering question.

“It’s a bit loud,” Marigold confessed.

Beetle nodded emphatically. 

“Do you think anyone will notice if we, I don’t know,” Marigold glanced furtively at the moving feet around them, “leave the table and go somewhere else?”

Beetle said, “Oh, I don’t care. I don’t know these people.”

Her voice, while warm, was somehow a lot lower than Marigold had expected–a warm alto voice. This, too, Marigold liked immensely. She let Beetle steer her out from under the table, made brave by Beetle’s hand on her upper arm. A few people by the table stepped back, alarmed and bemused, and Beetle fixed them with a hard look that held nothing of the still, sweet curiosity she’d shown Marigold under the table, which made Marigold like her even more.

Evie was kissing Amara on the sofa. Marigold turned her eyes away, towards Beetle, as they stepped quietly outside.

The street was silent save for the muffled sounds from the party indoors. It was chilly, but pleasantly so; Marigold hadn’t brought a jacket, and didn’t half regret it. She liked the cold. 

Beetle said, “I don’t think I’ve seen you at one of these before.”

“So you don’t know these people, but you’ve been here enough times to know I’m new to this?”

“I live upstairs,” said Beetle. “They mostly just invite me to be nice. I came today because it’s November and I have a shit-ton of discount Halloween candy that I didn’t know what to do with, so I was just like, hey, why not give it to a bunch of drunk people and keep it from cluttering up my room forever?”

“Where did you get the discount Halloween candy?”

Beetle smiled. “At the grocery store.”

“Too much to just eat yourself?”

“I have little siblings,” said Beetle. “I was putting together a care package to send to them in California, but I guess I sort of overestimated how much Halloween candy was gonna be in those bags. You know how usually they fill potato chip bags only halfway? Kinda thought the Halloween candy bags would be like that. Or maybe I wasn’t really paying attention. I don’t know.”

Marigold asked, shyly, “Do you still have candy left over, or would we have to go back into the party to get it?”

“I got like seven bags,” said Beetle. “I think I brought four down. I left three upstairs because I felt like I might need them for something.” She shrugged, then smiled. “I guess it’s this?”

“You’re awfully nice, you know,” said Marigold.

“Not a lot of people tell me that,” said Beetle.

“Well, you are! I wouldn’t give my candy away to a stranger, if I had any–”

“Oh, please. You’re not a stranger. We’re under-the-table buddies. That’s basically like the antisocial shut-in version of brothers-in-arms.”

Marigold was opening her mouth to say something else when a car across the street honked its horn, once, twice, three times, with particular urgency. She recognized the sound immediately. Turning slowly, she exhaled through her teeth with exasperated frustration. “Oh, hold on,” she said, and crossed the street.

“No no no don’t come over here!” shrieked Roslin from the front seat. “We’re not here! We’re–Mom, why would you do that?!”

Thea said, “Bunny, did Evie leave you at that party by yourself? I keep saying–”

“Did you follow me here?!” Marigold demanded. 

“We came along to try to stop her,” said Lenora, who was sitting in the backseat with Sofie in her lap. She added, somewhat redundantly, “Didn’t work.”

Sofie babbled. Marigold said, “You brought Sofie?! It’s well past her bedtime! And you know I’ve been trying to get her on that regular sleep schedule–”

“Couldn’t find a babysitter,” said Thea.

“One of you could have stayed home! I told you,” Marigold continued indignantly, “I said it was fine, and it is, and I don’t need some sort of police escort if I want to go and spend some time with my sister–”

“I don’t like the look of some of the people that girl trusts,” said Thea ominously.

“You don’t like the look of anyone, Mommy,” said Marigold, even though she did actually agree. “Butt out.”

“Will you need a ride home?” said Thea. “Don’t see Evie round.”

Marigold had, in fact, come to the party with Evie, and her phone was still the old flip phone that Thea had gotten all of them because Thea didn’t believe in smartphones, so calling an Uber wasn’t really an option for her in the same way that it would have been were her mother, oh, remotely fucking normal about anything. But the thing about Thea was that because Marigold couldn’t call an Uber, Thea would also do things like this, which, annoyingly, pretty much balanced things out.

She said, “You came to give me a ride home?”

“Case you needed one,” said Thea. “Parties run late for girls your age. And you don’t go to these things often.”

Marigold said awkwardly, “Well, I’m–sort of going to go get Halloween candy from this girl’s apartment?”

Lenora sat up straighter, staring incredulously. Roslin said, “Bunny, how are you even a real person. Oh my god. She’s literally going to kidnap you.”

“I am twenty years old,” said Marigold.

“They’re going to–” Roslin was starting to laugh. “They’re going to have to put your face on the fucking milk cartons. You’re going to be the first ever college student to get kidnapped the same way they get kindergarteners. You would literally get into an unmarked van for candy. This is why we’ve gotta drive out with the baby at butt o’clock in the morning and make sure you’re not getting yourself roofied or something!”

Thea stiffened. Marigold said, “Rosie, do not say roofied in front of Mom?”

“You’re the one saying I’m going to get Halloween candy from this girl’s apartment in front of Mom!”

Marigold glanced over her shoulder. Beetle was standing across the street. The March family was pretty historically good at being really loud for no reason, which meant that there was a less-than-zero chance she’d heard all of that, even with the distance. “Look, just–wait in the car, I’ll call you,” she said.

“Not even slightly,” said Thea. “You’ll get the candy and you’ll come home.”

“I am twenty years old! Mom–”

“You’ve got class in the morning and you’re not taking the train before it’s light out, which you’ll have to do to get to campus on time. We’ll wait out here to drive you home.”

“God,” said Marigold, “fine,” even though she wasn’t really all that mad and they all knew it. Having a family who drove across town just to make sure you got home safe wasn’t always a guarantee. She leaned in through the open window and pressed a firm kiss to Thea’s cheek. “I love you, mommy.”

“My bunny,” said Thea. Her hand passed gently over Marigold’s hair. “Evie been good to you?”

Marigold didn’t really want to answer that question. She squeezed Thea’s hand and hoped that this would count as a response. 

Lenora said, “If she turns out to be a total bitch, we’ll stab her.”

“Do not talk about stabbing in front of the baby,” said Marigold immediately. She turned back towards the lit-up house and the too-loud music, picking up the pace. 

Beetle was still standing there, waiting. She said, “Cute family!” in a tone of voice that was decisively amused without being mocking, which Marigold liked. 

“They brought the baby out at whatever the fuck time it is,” said Marigold tiredly, “just to make sure I was fine, which I am. You’re not going to, like, take me up to your apartment and murder me with your Halloween candy, right?”

“I’m thinking of calling it Death By Chocolate,” said Beetle, straight-faced. Marigold snorted. “Bummer you’ve gotta go, though. Kinda felt like we should get to know each other.”

“Really?” said Marigold. Her heart flipped over.

Beetle smiled, that eerie, lovely smile, and said, “You ever just feel like maybe you’re supposed to know someone?”

Yes. No. Sort of. Marigold had felt that way about Thea, Roslin, Lenora, very much Sofie, but it hadn’t felt like this. “You could be wrong,” she said, carefully.

“Okay, yeah, I could be,” Beetle gamely agreed, turning on her heel to head back towards the house. Marigold followed. “Tell me about yourself.”

They walked through the front garden, everything halfway wet the way it always was on that kind of a cold November night. Beetle didn’t take the front door in, instead weaving carefully towards the side of the house and a rickety set of stairs leading up to an upstairs apartment. Plants, Marigold noticed: she had a whole bunch of plants in pots on the landing outside the apartment, which felt a lot like their home and all the plants Ros was always fussing over. Maybe that was one of those supposed-to-know-her feelings right there. 

“Well, I’m Marigold,” she said. “Marigold Baker. I mean, technically Marigold Riverborn, but that’s way too long a story to tell this early in the relationship, probably, so let’s just say Marigold Baker for now. I’m in culinary school—”

“Marigold Baker in culinary school?” said Beetle—again, laughing, but without any malice to it. “I’m kind of obsessed with you already. Keep going.”

Marigold grinned at her shoes, darting her eyes back up as they climbed the stairs. Beetle’s miniskirt rode up a little and showed off a rip in her fishnets, higher up her thigh. “I’m in culinary school,” she continued, “because I want to be a pastry chef, like, licensed and everything. My mom Thea runs a body shop and I think it would be super great if I could figure out a way to make it a body shop that also serves cupcakes. We kind of have to look into all the different business things we’d have to do for that? And Thea’s money’s still tied up in the divorce, which is—so not something I’m supposed to be talking about. Do not tell her I said anything.”

“Sure,” said Beetle, mouth twitching. “I kind of haven’t met your mom, so I feel like that might not be too hard?”

“Well, if we’re supposed to know each other and you’re obsessed with me, it stands to reason that you will meet my family,” Marigold pointed out, “them being my beating heart and all.”

“Oh,” said Beetle, “you’re one of those family-is-everything girls! Kinda dig it.”

What a complicated sentence. “I’m…adopted,” said Marigold carefully; it was not the whole story, but it was as much as she gave out. “As are my sisters. So, yes, they all mean a lot to me. We sort of chose each other.”

Beetle tilted her head thoughtfully. “Neato,” she finally said.

“What about you?” Marigold asked. “Is family everything?”

Beetle’s easy smile flickered. She said, “I’ve got a brother and a sister and I send them a shit-ton of candy whenever I can, like I said.”

Marigold knew the cadence of a half-truth. She didn’t press—just watched Beetle unlock the door.

The apartment was wallpapered, and poorly, in an intricate black-and-emerald pattern that made the space feel even darker than it probably was. Beetle turned on the lights to reveal that the walls were covered in photo frames. “Bugs,” she said cheerfully.

Marigold scanned the walls, a fascinated smile stealing across her face. Every framed photo was of a different insect—some of them drawings, some photographs, some scientific diagrams, all with a small identifying label attached to the frame. “Beetle!” she said, delighted.

“Yeah, it’s actually Beatrice, but Beetle feels like a better opening statement,” Beetle supplied. “Makes people go oh, okay, all the bugs make total sense, rather than whoa, that chick’s got so many bugs in her house! Is Marigold your name, or is it just ‘cause, you know, the hair?”

Marigold twined a red curl cheerfully around her finger. “Marigold is really my name!” she assured Beetle.

“Does anyone ever call you anything else?”

“Mari, usually.”

“How do you feel about Goldie?” Marigold’s nose crinkled. Beetle threw up her hands and said, “Mari it is. Or, I don’t know, what about Riri?”

Marigold felt a slimy shudder run through her. Face perfectly composed, she said, “My sister’s boyfriend calls her Riri. So.”

“Oh, which sister?” said Beetle with interest.

“...The one who invited me to this party,” said Marigold.

Beetle waited. When Marigold did not supply any further information, she said, with a note of friendly and deliberate finality, “Sounds complicated,” and moved further into the apartment. “Do you have, I don’t know, an Instagram or something? I kinda want to send you this artist I follow. I feel like you might really like her work.”

“...No,” said Marigold awkwardly. “My mom’s sort of got a whole Luddite thing going on. Like, right down to all the machinery-smashing.”

Beetle said, “You know the Luddites were just trying to go for job security, right? Not the worst thing to have happening.”

Marigold grinned a bit. “My mom is big on job security,” she agreed. “And also fucking up computers.”

“You should get an Instagram.”

“I use my sister’s. I’ll give you hers.”

“Your party sister?”

“No,” Marigold giggled, mostly because she wasn’t sure what else to do, “the sister in the car. Um, one of them. Roslin.”

Beetle was rummaging in a cabinet. She pulled out a large orange bag, handing it to Marigold, and said, “Take it. No razor blades, swear to God.”

Marigold opened the bag and laughed out loud. There wasn’t a trace of any name-brand candy—rather, the bag was full of themed chocolate, milk and dark and white chocolate insects in a variety of shapes and sizes. “You’ve got a really consistent aesthetic!” she observed. “So you just send a whole bunch of chocolate bugs to your siblings, usually?”

“Nah, they get the name-brand stuff,” said Beetle. “This candy’s what I bring out for the cute girls.”

Marigold blinked, nervously, and kept her smile on her face, not entirely certain what to say next. An affirmation, possibly? It wasn’t as though she hadn’t been considering it, only that as soon as it was on the table, it felt objectively terrifying. She wondered if her reticence would be read the wrong way and the candy would be put back in the cabinet. She hoped it wouldn’t.

Beetle’s smile softened a little and she ducked her head. “But if you want the name-brand candy,” she started.

“Probably it would be a bit easier to transport,” said Marigold awkwardly. “This is a full bag of unwrapped chocolate, and I really don’t want to take all of your good bugs home.”

“A good bug going with a good bug,” said Beetle, solemnly.

“I have no idea what that means.”

Beetle took the orange bag away and handed Marigold a fun-sized bag of Snickers bars. She said, “It’s seriously fucked up that I don’t have a party mix bag on me; this thing is depressingly uniform. Oh, fuck, are you allergic to nuts?”

Marigold shook her head.

“God. Good. Should have asked about food allergies before I just started handing you shit.” Beetle smiled again, self-deprecatingly. “Snickers okay? I might have some other stuff if you wanna see.”

Marigold didn’t care one way or the other. She liked this beautiful, strange liminal space she’d stepped into, where she was suddenly an almost-grown-up holding a bag of Halloween candy with a new friend who thought she was pretty. She wanted to stay in it a bit longer.

“What do you have?” she asked.

Beetle turned back towards the cabinet. “Uh, Three Musketeers, Butterfingers, and this one’s kinda polarizing, but a whole bunch of York peppermint pies.”

“What’s polarizing about peppermint?”

“I knew this guy who said it was like eating a bunch of toothpaste. Almost put me off it for a year or two before I forgot I totally love eating toothpaste.” Beetle shifted the bag down. “Is that a yes to the peppermint?”

“Norie loves peppermint,” said Marigold.

“Okay, but they’re for you. Do you like peppermint?”

Marigold blushed, and smiled again. “...Yes to the peppermint.”

“And because I’m kinda thinking maybe you end up giving all of them to Norie,” said Beetle, “because you’ve got that kinda sparkly-sweet thing going on, I’m going to give you the Three Musketeers too and say those are for your mom and your sisters, and the peppermint’s literally just for you.” She considered. “Two are for Norie, who I’m guessing is…your other sister?”

“My other sister!” Marigold brightly confirmed.

“So which one brought you to the party?”

Marigold thought about Evie, almost certainly throwing herself at someone who wasn’t her insufferably slimy boyfriend, and her jaw clenched.

Beetle didn’t ask again. “That enough candy for you?”

“Almost too much!” said Marigold.

“No such thing as too much candy,” said Beetle firmly. “At least not if you’re starting from zero. I’m starting from seven bags; I’ve gotta offload some of this shit.” She took a handful from the orange bag, pressing a collection of half-melted bugs into Marigold’s hand. “Take at least a few. Y’know, as, like, a token of my affection, or whatever.”

She was blushing a little, which showed up really easily on her pale face. Marigold felt a sense of profound satisfaction that her own golden-brown skin didn’t redden half as visibly. “Thanks for the beetles, Beetle,” she said, which made them both smile. “Can you actually hold onto them for a second, though? I’m going to give you—”

“Your sister’s Instagram?”

Smooth and sweet, Marigold said, “My number.”

“Oh, shit, okay!” said Beetle. Her blush deepened and she smiled in a way that was much more silly and excited. “Sure! But I do want your sister’s Insta too, because that thing in your pocket is super obviously a flip phone, and I’m one of those long texters.”

“I’ll just make an Instagram and text you,” said Marigold. “The handle is—”

“—no, man, you gotta check to see if it’s available before you—”

“Marigold underscore Baker underscore Tasty underscore Pastry underscore Nature apostrophe S no space Masterpiece.”

Beetle bit her lip, clearly trying not to laugh, and said, “Dude, that is not gonna work with the character limit. Just give me your sister’s for now so we don’t have to call each other like old people.”

Marigold pressed the melting chocolate into Beetle’s hands. It felt sort of like a kiss, somehow—wet and sticky and silly. Full of warm honesty. There was a magnetic whiteboard on the fridge, a schedule written out in neat handwriting. “Is it okay if I—”

“Go ahead, man!”

Marigold wrote her phone number, and Roslin’s Instagram underneath, then added, in parentheses, Marigold Baker the Party Girl, with a little heart next to it. She liked the thought of existing as Marigold Baker the Party Girl on someone’s fridge. She wondered if Beetle would do what she’d do were their positions reversed, and just never erase it, letting the erasable marker dry into that permanent foreverness that was the worst thing ever to clean. 

Beetle said, “Okay, cool. Tell your sister I’m gonna text her and it’s gonna be about you.”

“Ominous,” said Marigold. “I hope you say nice things.”

“No, dude, I’m gonna text her to talk to you. We’re not starting a group chat about you when there’s still so much stuff I don’t know about Mystery Marigold. Like, okay, what’s your favorite color?”

“Green,” said Marigold.

“Don’t tell me now!” said Beetle. She handed Marigold the chocolate back. “You go have a nice class tomorrow, okay? Get down there before your family thinks I killed you.”

“I don’t think I’d mind if you did,” said Marigold. “Bug girl.”

“Flower girl,” Beetle said, like they’d said goodbye like this forever. Maybe they really were supposed to get to know each other. 

~~~

Thea had put on “Baby Shark” to try and get Sofie to go to sleep, which wasn’t working, because whenever Sofie saw Marigold, she’d stay stubbornly awake until Marigold came back to rock her to sleep. Under most normal circumstances, because Sofie was the kind of baby whose idiosyncrasies seemed perfectly designed to psychologically torment her caregivers, “Baby Shark” would put Sofie perfectly to sleep so long as it was played exactly fifteen times in a row, but they’d hit seventeen and Sofie was still babbling half-coherent nonsense to an exhausted-looking Lenora, who kept trying to hand her off to Roslin.

Marigold hurried over to the car. Sofie said, “Mama!”

“We’re not doing that, she’s twenty,” said Thea, but Sofie was already making grabby hands towards Marigold, who scooped her up in a flurry of kisses. 

Roslin said, “Are you trying to reason with the baby?”

“The baby is a little terrorist who cannot be reasoned with,” said Lenora. “We need to get home so I can play first-person shooters and not listen to Baby Shark, ever again.”

Thea said, “Get in the back, bunny. How was the party?”

Marigold wasn’t sure how to tell them all about Beetle. She didn’t know if she wanted to. She sort of had to tell them about some of it, though, so she said instead, “Rosie, it’s okay that I gave someone your Insta, right? She wanted mine—”

“Dude, make your own,” said Roslin. “How many times is this gonna have to happen?”

“No one needs to be on social media,” said Thea immediately.

“Okay, well, Mommy, I am twenty-five, you don’t get to take away my phone,” said Roslin. “This would not be a problem if you just got, like, a MacBook or something. Whatever you have in your office is legitimately evil.”

“I bought a computer,” said Thea stubbornly. “I have a computer. I don’t see the problem.”

“That thing has to be from, like, the Revolutionary War!”

Marigold settled into the backseat with Sofie, resting her cheek against Lenora’s shoulder. She said, “Actually, there weren’t computers in the Revolutionary War—”

“Do not start this at like one in the morning.”

“You started it at like one in the morning.” Marigold buckled Sofie back into her car seat.

“Defending you! Do you want Mom to start burning laptops in the backyard again?”

“That was out of context,” said Thea immediately. “And mostly an accident, anyway. Didn’t realize lithium did that.” She started the car. “We turning off Baby Shark now?”

“No, Sofie likes it,” said Marigold.

“YES,” said Lenora. “Sofie’s awake anyway, Mari—”

Sofie had fallen asleep. 

“See, you have to leave it on now,” said Marigold, “she will wake up if you turn it off. We all know this.”

“Torment nightmare torture baby,” said Roslin affectionately. “You know sometimes it starts to make me sleepy when I listen to it? Something about the baby shark doo doo do do do do—”

“I will kill you if you start singing it, Roslin, it’s bad enough that we have it on without—”

“Doo doo do do—”

Thea said, “Quiet, I need to make this turn!”

Marigold cuddled into Lenora’s shoulder again. Lenora said, “Your baby is ruining our life.”

“Stop calling Sofie her baby,” said Thea. “Mari is too young to be raising a kid.”

“I’m twenty!” said Marigold.

“You’re a baby,” said Roslin. Her eyes lit up. “Baby Mari doo do do—”

Lenora said, “I am going to murder you, Roslin. I am going to kill you dead.”

“No murder until I’m done getting onto the highway,” said Thea, eyes on the road.

The girls quieted. Marigold cuddled into Lenora until Lenora leaned forward and towards her, letting Marigold use her as an all-the-way pillow. “Good party?” Lenora asked quietly.

Marigold didn’t answer. She wondered whether Evie would even notice she was gone.

“You’ll see her on her Monday shift,” Lenora said. “You can catch up with her then, if she wasn’t—I mean, you know, if she got. Distracted, or something.”

Marigold said, “It was a good party,” and realized that she did actually mean it. “I…met someone.”

“Oh, shit!” said Roslin from the front seat. “Goth Halloween candy chick does, like, bug taxidermy?”

“Roslin, do not stalk her Instagram!” yelped Marigold. “Just—just give me your phone! Give me your phone so I can—”

“I AM MERGING!” said Thea. “YOU ALL NEED TO FUCKING SHUT UP!”

Sofie squirmed happily and continued to sleep. Marigold was fairly certain it would be six more plays of Baby Shark before they were in the clear. 

~~~

beetlenecromancer: hi marigolds sister lol

beetlenecromancer: can u send me her insta when u have it? she said she’d make one

strawbrosie33: hey man if you fuck up my sister i’m going to use norie’s poison kit to poison you

strawbrosie33: HI THIS IS MARIGOLD

strawbrosie33: SORRY

strawbrosie33: SHEHS TRYINGG TO GBRAJB THE POHNE BACKC

beetlenecromancer: lmao

beetlenecromancer: nw

strawbrosie33: I AM ROSLIN I TRIUMPH

strawbrosie33: im so serious though bro i will literally kill you she is so fucking baby. you have no idea

strawbrosie33: you’ve known her for like five minutes we’ve known her forever she is THE BABIEST

strawbrosie33: Hi this is Marigold again I am So So So Sorry