"Are you gonna be okay with this, Button?"
Button bit her lip, shifting from foot to foot at the top of the stairs leading down into the wine cellar. Lapis could sense immediately the anxiety burrowing from within Button, the panic Lapis had once taught her how to mix herbs to manage. "Yeah, I'm fine."
Lapis reached out a hand to grasp Button's slender arm. "Button. Are you, uh, sure?"
Peals of guilt chimed within her. She'd only split them up like this on impulse, to avoid being paired with Olivine when she was still feeling a little... well, the point was, it had only occurred to her after the fact that she was sending the most skittish of her friends down alone into a dark basement.
"Mm." Button gave a small nod. "Yeah, I can do it. I mean, I sleep in an attic."
Lapis withheld a smile. Lapis and Minni had hedged up two dozen little glowballs when Button had moved into Minni's attic. This cellar wouldn't have those. "Alright. Remember, just look to see if that sorority b--jerk is down there. You don't have to confront her directly."
"Aw, I bet she could take her." Minni emerged from the sitting room, coming up from behind Button to grasp an arm and rest her chin on Button's shoulder. "Right, Button? You totally wouldn't, like, dissolve into a blushy mess like last Solstice, right?"
Button's cheeks went robin's-breast red.
"
Minni,
" Lapis snapped. "Not helpful."
The witches from the Barrow Wood Sorority came en mass to the village only rarely. Usually it was just one of the more diplomatic members, like Sapnettle or Espin, in to buy supplies. The Solstice Festivals, though, saw them at center-stage, and they were a little infamous for the amorous mischief they brought with them every year.
"Oh, don't worry, Button." Minni nuzzled Button's neck. "Like, you'll totally be fine!" She giggled. "Unless that witch gets the idea to disguise herself as
Lala
, anyways!~"
Button whimpered.
"Minni!"
Minni looked up at Lapis, eyes sparkling with playfulness. She looked questioningly to Button.
Button swallowed. "N-No, it's... it's fine." She disentangled herself from the bimbo's clutches. "B-But maybe, um, you shouldn't tease me with things that are probably..." She looked over at Minni. "I mean, if they would know to do that, it's... I'm not the one who told them, am I?"
She turned away quickly, nerves clearly getting the better of her, and hurried down the stairs.
She didn't see what Lapis saw: the stricken look that flashed across Minni's face, guilt and shame, ever-so-brief and then gone again.
As Button's light faded into the darkness, Lapis reached habitually to close the cellar door. She stopped herself just in time--all Button had was a candle, after all.
She looked at Minni, chewing on her cheek. "You deserved that."
"Totally." Minni giggled, giving a carefree shrug. "That's, like, the fun in teasing Button, right? Someone's gotta teach her to stand up for herself."
Lapis stared hard at her. She wanted very badly to bring up Minni's behavior with the Sorority. But now wasn't the time.
Minni didn't seem to notice Lapis's internal battle. She turned and started skipping towards the mud room; Lapis followed a short ways. "Besides, Button knows I'm just having fun! You should give it a try sometime."
Lapis rolled her eyes. "I have plenty of fun. I just don't... harlot myself out to every pretty face that shares a smile."
"You can, like, say whore, Lapis~" Minni twirled, her short red skirt rising up over her tight boyshorts, and kicked her foot back, hands clasped behinds her back as if concealing mischief. "It's kinda hot when you swear."
Lapis flushed. Minni's eyes sparkled, reminding Lapis that Minni, beyond everyone, had a seventh sense for when someone was turned on. "I cannot believe you wanted to be a Ranger once."
"Me neither!" Minni darted in and kissed Lapis on the cheek. It was her favorite greeting, but Lapis stiffened as the proud bimbo's heat pressed in close, as she smelled Minni's light strawberry perfume. Minni always had the best perfumes. Lapis would know; she foraged Minni's ingredients for her. "Being a slut is
way
more fun~"
Lapis swallowed.
Minni pulled back and giggled. "Course, if I hadn't apprenticed with the rangers, I never woulda, like, met you and brought you back to meet the others! So I guess it paid off." She twirled around again, and Lapis tried not to notice how her shorts hugged those smooth, luscious curves. "Have fun in the kitchens! Let me know if it gets too hot in there~"
Lapis bit her cheek hard as she turned away. She forced her breathing to steady, timed it with her footsteps.
Of all the girls in their group, the one she absolutely
refused
to allow to get to her was
Minni
.
~ ~ ~ ~
The scent of chamomile brought Button some small comfort as her candle's warm yellow light cast horrid shadows across the stairwell. Her footfalls tapped softly against stone.
She couldn't stop looking at the ceiling. That was what one was meant to do in a dungeon, wasn't it? Always look up.
And this felt like a dungeon. She reached the bottom of the stairs. Her little candle didn't do much but buzz against the darkness, a single stubborn firefly. Pillars of hewn stone arced into the ceiling in the form of barrel vaults. The vaults crisscrossed down the hall like four-legged spiders. Open doorways dotted both sides of the hall, their doors long since rotted and termite-eaten into mulch. One or two rusting braziers were still bolted to the pillars, but only ashes remained of the torches that once were.
Still, it wasn't as dark down here as she'd expected. That was odd. She felt like she was seeing a lot more than the light of a candle ought to be revealing. Button studied the stone brick walls of the wide hall.
She blinked rapidly. No. It couldn't be. Nobody would be so...
She looked at her candle.
No. There was no way. She swallowed her doubts and as much of her fear as she could stomach and approached the closest doorway.
She smiled weakly as she noticed tiny ants skittering from one of the cracks between the archway bricks. She tried to comfort herself with that. She wasn't the only living thing down here.
She couldn't stop thinking about how Lapis had looked in the
veil
. That slack-jawed expression, that husky tone of utter abandon.
It hadn't looked like a witch's prank.
In the darkness of the halls beneath an abandoned castle, the shadows of stories of a ravenous ghostly baroness stretched all too long.
As Button stepped into the doorway, she whispered the names of what insect gods she could remember--only two, and neither ant-based, but Vescensweet of the Honey Candle had always been a comfort to her, and Paynterlily of the Stained Glass Wings had to be friend to winged ants, at least, hadn't she?
She noted several old barrels piled against the wall of this room. Something dark and congealed pooled around them. Probably leaked wine. Hopefully leaked wine.
Would the witch be hiding in one of the barrels? Not likely. She managed a small laugh at the mental picture, though, and her laughter gave her courage to pass through the arch and into the room.
This had been a buttery, she guessed, noting the old shelves. There were still a couple of old jars on them, and she couldn't resist reaching up and taking one down from its shelf. She held the candle up to it. The liquid inside was of thick golden amber.
Her lips parted in delighted surprise. It was
honey
. She tilted it from side to side, admiring how easily it poured, shimmering in the candlelight. She took down the other one as well. Honey almost never went bad if it was properly sealed, and both of these jars seemed to be in perfect condition.
She tucked them into her satchel. Her fear felt a little lightened now, if only by excitement at her find. She'd have to tell her own bees all about it when she got--
From behind her there rose a groaning creak.
Panicked quills of hoarfrost stabbed through Button's heart. She spun around toward the doorway, her candle sputtering from the motion.
There hadn't been a door there a second ago.
But something else besides the door now inhabited the archway.
Shreds of pale, diaphanous fabric, illuminated by flickering candlelight. Pale elbow-length gloves, the fingers daintily caressing down the old metal door. A wide-brimmed white hat with a flowing veil.
Sharp teeth glittered behind that veil.
The figure moved wrongly. Jerkily, unevenly. Sometimes it was like she--it--was reversing its own motions, going back in time. Then it would twitch back to the present with lightning speed. Its figure seemed to shift, the joints displacing as if the bones beneath its pale skin were never still. As if the bones were alive and crawled where they willed.
And the figure was closing a door that hadn't existed a second ago.
"Wait!" Button cried.
The figure paused, and Button had a moment of intense, icy regret.
Warm breath tickled her ear.
Button realized that she couldn't move.
Her thoughts leaped and stumbled and raced on all fours in a panic. She willed motion into her body. Nothing happened. She could feel everything, her muscles felt fine, but she tried with all her might to make them tense, to twitch so much as a finger, and...
nothing
. As if in a nightmare, her body would not obey.
"Such a pretty thing." The voice in her ear was warm and wet. So were the lips that smacked so lightly against her earlobe. "Wouldn't you
like
to stay here with me?"
