TMWDS Chapter 24

The words were accurate. In a room where the protocol required those of higher standing to address first, Yulia had been unable to make a single proper introduction. She had been hovering near the wall since arriving.

The elderly relative she was staying with had long since retired from society, kept few social connections, and had been unable to offer Yulia any practical help.

Yonas was, if anything, worse. He had used looking after his sister as an excuse to attach himself to the Duke's company, and had shown virtually no interest in whether she was managing on her own—they didn't know anyone here either, so what would it change if he came, he had said.

'He never understood this.'

The wallflower. The woman who spent a party standing at the edge of the room, unable to join any group. That had been Yulia, every single time.

And now someone she hadn't thought to expect had simply offered to help.

"I—of course I would be glad. You really don't have to go to this trouble for me—I wouldn't know how to begin repaying—"

"If I'm going to marry the Duke, Yulia and Yonas and I will all become closely acquainted, won't we? It's purely self-interested. Please don't feel any obligation."

As she said it, Ionna drew Yulia gently away from the wall and into the room.

Yulia straightened away from the edge she had been leaning on and watched Ionna's back with a slightly dazed expression.

The ball with Ionna at her side was a completely different world.

They had barely taken three steps before someone was already greeting them.

"Dame Ionna! Running into you here—what on earth is the occasion?"

"What, am I not allowed at events like this?"

"It's always been a mystery to me why someone who drinks like you do has no interest in parties. If you or the Commander had only been a little more fond of leisure, our shifts would have ended so much earlier."

The man who had been trading words with Ionna so freely turned his attention to Yulia.

"And who is this lovely young lady beside you?"

"Ah—this is the younger sister of Yonas, who serves closely under Duke Leroy. Yulia—this is Sir Florian, a fellow member of the Imperial Knights."

"How do you do. I'm Yulia Becker."

Yulia managed to keep her voice steady despite the thudding in her chest.

Once the conversation had started, the rest came easier. People began to find their way toward them on their own.

Ionna didn't have a wide circle of acquaintances, but the narrow one she did have consisted almost entirely of young, promising knights.

For Yulia, who needed to dance with as many men as possible, there was no better arrangement.

Yulia danced with the men Ionna introduced her to, and when each piece ended she was brought to a new face and returned to the floor, and it went on in that pattern until she lost count.

For the first time in any of these evenings, she genuinely forgot to watch the clock.

"Oh—it's gotten so late already."

She had been so absorbed in dancing that when she finally looked up, it was already time to leave.

For a girl who had spent every previous ball counting down the minutes to departure, it was almost impossible to believe.

Ionna asked, calm as ever.

"Do you have a set time to be home?"

"Yes—my brother is coming to collect me. Oh—would you come out with me and say hello?"

An unescorted late-night journey home was not something to encourage. Yonas, if he had any sense, would not forget to come and collect her.

Ionna nodded without hesitation.

"Of course."

The entrance was quiet—the party was nowhere near its end. They found Yonas quickly, waiting nearby.

"Yonas! Over here!"

"Hey, Yulia. Next time, when it's time to come out, just come—"

Yonas was heading toward them at a brisk pace when he stopped mid-sentence with a blank expression.

"Dame Ionna?"

A strange, brief stillness followed. Yonas's expression shifted and then slowly set into something harder.

He closed the distance between them in a few strides and moved Yulia behind him with a rough hand.

"What's your game?"

For the consideration she'd been extending this evening, this was a rather aggressive reception.

Yulia, too, seemed taken aback by her brother's behaviour, staring at him with something close to alarm.

Ionna answered flatly.

"'Scheming' is a rather strong word for it."

"Have you been investigating me?"

"Was Yulia being your sister some kind of classified intelligence?"

"Everyone knows you don't attend events like this. Approaching my sister deliberately—don't tell me it wasn't intentional."

She hadn't failed to anticipate this. Yonas had always been fiercely protective of his family—even in the version of things she had already lived through. The manner was simply a little unpolished.

She was gathering herself to correct the misunderstanding when a sound like a watermelon splitting open rang out, and Yonas's head tipped forward.

Yulia had punched him in the back of the head.

"Why do you always do this—accusing someone when you don't even know them?!"

Yonas turned around with an expression that said he genuinely could not believe what had just happened.

"Yulia. What—why—do you have any idea—"

"What exactly did Dame Ionna do to me inside that ball? Do you even know what she did for me in there?"

"Okay. Calm down. I don't know what you think is happening here, but let's go home and finish—"

"Look at you—you don't know what I'm talking about right now. You're thinking: why is she suddenly like this."

Before Yonas could so much as form a response, Yulia had already named exactly what was behind his eyes.

When he flinched—caught precisely—Yulia's face twisted.

Everything she had been carrying all season came out at once.

"Of course you don't know. You weren't paying attention to what I was doing. You dropped me here and thought you'd done your part."

Since the incident seven years ago, House Hance had kept largely out of the capital. Its vassal families were no different.

When the connection went quiet, influence in the city drained away. House Becker's name had been all but forgotten.

The Beckers were not wealthy enough to buy connections the way others did. And Yonas and the Baron were not the kind of people to leverage their closeness to the Duke for personal advancement.

"I've had no one in the capital. No one. I've spent every one of these evenings against the wall. There was a night I left without speaking a single word to a single person—"

Her voice had gone tight and thin.

Yulia pressed her teeth together, as if she found it humiliating to be saying this at all.

Ionna watched. Yonas seemed to be deciding whether to lower his voice and try again.

"What? What does that have to do with any of this—no, actually, if it was bothering you, why didn't you say something earlier? If you'd told me sooner I could have—"

"If I'd told you sooner—what? If I'd explained it clearly enough, you'd have deigned to come? Is that what you're saying?"

She had cut off his response before he could complete it. Yonas went silent.

Yulia looked at him with something raw in her expression.

Her voice was going wet at the edges.