I was wrong about tomorrow.
They didn't even wait until midnight.
Knock, knock.
I sat up so fast I nearly fell out of bed. The moon had barely moved. Marika's sword still leaned against the wall where I'd left it, and the house was dead quiet.
"...Who is it?"
"It's me." A soft voice. "Are you awake?"
Sis Hana.
I opened the door. Hana stood in the hallway in a long night robe with a shawl around her shoulders, holding a candle in both hands. Her black hair was loose for once, falling in waves all the way down her back.
"I couldn't sleep," she said. "I thought maybe you couldn't either."
"Good guess."
She slipped inside, set the candle on my desk, and sat on the edge of my bed. Then she patted the spot beside her.
I sat.
For a while, she just looked at me. The candlelight made her eyes look even gentler than usual, which I hadn't thought was possible.
"Does anything hurt?" she asked. "Your head? Your chest? You barely touched your dinner."
"I'm fine, Sis Hana. Really."
"You'd say that even if you weren't."
...Fair.
She smoothed the blanket over my knee, the way she used to when I was little and had nightmares. Then her hands went still.
"Do you remember the gate?" she asked quietly.
I didn't have to ask which gate. Or which days.
"When Mother and Father didn't come back," Hana said, "we waited there. All four of us. Every day, from morning until dark. Naomi kept saying we should go inside, and then she'd stay anyway." Her fingers tightened on the blanket. "I kept thinking, if I just knew. Where they were. If they were hurt. If they were... anything. Even bad news would've been better than not knowing."
My throat went tight. Those were almost exactly the words that had been circling in my own head an hour ago.
"I don't ever want to wait at that gate again," she whispered. "Not for you. Not for anyone."
She looked up at me.
"So... would you bind me, Fabian? Tonight?" A small pause. "Before the others ask?"
I stared at her.
Sis Hana. Gentle, kind, motherly Sis Hana. Just tried to cut in line.
"You planned this," I said.
"I'm a little bit sneaky," she admitted, cheeks turning pink. "Only a little."
I laughed despite myself. Then I looked down at my hands.
「Covenant」 sat at the back of my mind, quiet and waiting. I reached for it, and the knowledge began to unfold—
Knock, knock.
We both froze.
"Fabian." Marika's voice. "You awake?"
Hana's eyes went wide. She looked at the door. She looked at me. She looked around my room like a soldier searching for cover.
Then she blew out her candle, crossed the room in two silent strides, and climbed into my wardrobe.
The door clicked shut behind her.
...Did my sister just hide in my wardrobe?
My sister just hid in my wardrobe.
"Fabian?"
"C-coming!"
Marika came in holding a steaming cup in each hand, and she was already talking before I'd closed the door.
"Don't get the wrong idea. Hana made too much warm milk, and it was going to go to waste."
From inside the wardrobe came a very small, very offended sound.
I coughed loudly. "Thanks, Sis Marika."
She shoved one cup into my hands and stood in the middle of my room with her arms crossed, still holding the other. Her twin tails were down for the night, tied into a single loose braid I'd seen maybe twice in my whole life.
"I'm just checking on you," she said. "That's all. You looked pale at dinner. If you collapse in the night, Naomi will blame me for not noticing, and I'm not getting yelled at because of you."
"Very considerate."
"I know."
She glanced around my room. At the desk. At the window. At the sword leaning against the wall, where her eyes lingered half a second too long.
Then she set her cup on the floor, sat down in my desk chair backwards, and folded her arms over the backrest.
"So," she said, way too casually. "That third skill."
There it is.
"Tactically speaking," Marika went on, "I'm the obvious choice. Naomi's the commander. She has to stay at the center of everything, not tied to one person. And Hana would stop in the middle of a fight to bandage the enemy."
A second offended sound from the wardrobe. Slightly louder.
I coughed again. Louder.
"Me? I'm the vanguard," Marika said, ignoring it. "The stat boost makes the most sense on me. It's simple math."
"Simple math," I repeated.
"Simple math."
I sipped my milk. It really was very good milk. Somewhere inside the wardrobe, the person who supposedly made it was quietly fuming.
"Is that the only reason?" I asked.
Marika opened her mouth. Closed it.
She looked at the floor.
"You're reckless," she said finally. "You know that? You've been reckless since you were ten. You charged Naomi with a stick on your very first day, and you've been charging things ever since." Her fingers tightened on the backrest. "You're a Saint now. People are going to bleed in front of you. And you're going to run toward them. Every single time."
"...Probably."
"Definitely." She glared at me. It was a very weak glare. "So if you end up somewhere stupid, I want to know. I'm the fastest. I'll get there first. That's all. That's the whole reason."
Her ears were going pink again.
"Sis Marika," I said. "That's really sweet."
"It's tactics."
"It's sweet tactics."
"I will pour this milk on your head."
Knock, knock.
Marika's head snapped toward the door.
"Fabian." Naomi's voice. Low and steady. "Are you awake?"
Marika moved before I could blink. One second she was in my chair. The next she was across the room, yanking open my wardrobe and diving inside—
—and stopping dead.
From where I stood, I couldn't see into the dark. But I could hear.
"Hana?!"
"Shh!"
"What are you doing in here?!"
"What are YOU doing in here?!"
"I'm hiding, obviously!"
"So am I!"
"Move over!"
"There's no over to move!"
The wardrobe door swung shut with a muffled thump. It rattled once. Then it went perfectly, suspiciously still.
I looked at the wardrobe.
The wardrobe did not look back.
It's a big wardrobe, I thought. It is not a two-knight wardrobe.
"Fabian?"
I grabbed Marika's abandoned cup off the floor, hid it behind a stack of books, and opened the door.
Naomi stood in the hallway in a plain dark shirt and trousers, her short silver hair still damp from washing. She didn't have a candle. She didn't need one. Big Sis could probably walk this entire house blindfolded.
"Can't sleep?" she asked.
"Is anyone in this family sleeping tonight?"
Something that was almost a smile touched her mouth. She came in, and instead of standing at attention like she usually did, she sat down on the end of my bed.
That alone was strange enough to make me nervous.
From the wardrobe came a tiny creak.
Naomi's eyes flicked toward it.
"Mice," I said.
"We don't have mice."
"New mice."
She looked at me for a long moment. Then she let it go, which was even stranger.
For a while, neither of us said anything. Naomi stared at her own hands, resting on her knees. They were scarred across the knuckles, calloused from years of the sword. I'd never really looked at them before.
"The morning they left," she said quietly, "Mother came to my room before dawn."
I went very still.
"She ruffled my hair. Like I was still little." Naomi's voice didn't waver, but it was quieter than I'd ever heard it. "She said, 'Keep the house standing until we're back.' That's all. Then she went down to the courtyard, and Father was already waiting for her, and they rode out."
She paused.
"They didn't come back. So I never stopped."
I didn't know what to say. So I didn't say anything.
"The day the news came, I signed every paper the Crown sent. I sat at Father's desk until the candle burned out. Then I went to the stables, where nobody could see, and I cried until the horses got nervous." A breath. "Once. Only once. After that, there wasn't time."
Big Sis cried.
I'd known her my whole life. I'd never once imagined it.
"You asked when they were coming home," Naomi went on. "Every day, for a month. And every day, I told you 'soon.'" Her jaw tightened. "I lied to you thirty times, Fabian. I couldn't make myself say it."
"...I remember," I said softly. "I thought you were just busy."
"I was a coward."
"You were fifteen."
She shook her head, just slightly.
"When you told us about 「Covenant」," she said, "I thought about that month. About not knowing. About lying to you because I couldn't stand the truth." She finally looked up at me. "I'm the head of this house. If anyone is going to carry that bond, it should be the one who promised to keep it standing."
Her eyes were wet. Just barely. Just enough that I almost didn't notice.
And then—
Creeeak.
The wardrobe door gave a long, ominous groan.
Naomi turned.
The door burst open, and Hana and Marika tumbled out in a tangle of limbs, nightclothes, and one loose braid, landing in a heap on my rug.
Hana was crying. Openly, messily crying.
Marika had her sleeve pressed to her face and was very obviously also crying, while also very obviously pretending she wasn't.
Silence.
Naomi looked at them.
They looked at Naomi.
I looked at the ceiling and prayed to all eight gods for the strength not to laugh.
"How long," Naomi said, very calmly, "have you two been in there?"
"I can explain," Hana sniffled.
"The part about the stables—" Marika started.
"You heard the stables?!"
Big Sis's face went red. Not angry red. Mortified red, all the way up to her ears. I had never seen that color on her in my life.
"You—both of you—eavesdropping—in your brother's wardrobe—"
"She was in there first!" Marika pointed at Hana.
"You came to ask him for the Covenant too!" Hana pointed back.
"So did you!"
"So did she!" They both pointed at Naomi.
"That is not the point!"
"It's a little bit the point," I said.
Three heads turned toward me. I raised both hands in surrender and scooted back on my bed.
"Both of you," Naomi said, pointing at the floor like she was issuing battlefield orders. "Training yard. Dawn. Fifty laps."
"Fifty?!" Marika yelped. "That's abuse of power!"
"That's leadership."
"Hana's the one who started it!"
"I didn't start anything! I just got here first!"
"That's what starting means!"
"Sixty laps," said Naomi.
Hana lunged forward and threw her arms around Naomi's neck.
"You cried alone in the stables," she sobbed. "For ten years, you never told us."
Naomi went stiff as a board. "Hana. Let go."
"No."
"That's an order."
"No."
Marika stood there with her arms crossed, glaring at the wall. "I'm not hugging anyone," she announced.
About three seconds later, she stomped over and hugged them both from the side, still glaring.
"This doesn't count," she muttered.
Naomi stopped struggling. Slowly, awkwardly, like she'd forgotten how, she put one hand on Hana's back and the other on Marika's head.
"...Sixty laps," she said. Her voice cracked, just a little. "Each."
"Fifty," Marika said into her shoulder.
"Sixty."
"Fifty-five."
"Seventy."
"Fine, sixty!"
I didn't try to stop any of it.
I just sat on my bed and watched my three sisters argue and cry and hug and argue some more, all at once, in the middle of my room, at an hour when every sensible person in Greymark was asleep.
Ten years ago, this house almost fell apart.
It didn't. Not because of the laws, or the Crown, or the title on Naomi's seal. It held together because of nights like this. Because of three stubborn knights who'd rather die than admit they cared, caring so loudly the whole house could hear.
Somewhere in the middle of it, I realized I was smiling so hard my face hurt.
And somewhere in the middle of that, I realized something else.
I already knew my answer.