"This is all your fault."

  Still bleary-eyed from having been woken up early by soft knog at her door, Jordan took in the sight oher side of her door. Sofia stood there, in her pajamas, wearing fuzzy white slippers and an ice-cold gre that only a Theliosian, with their famous bone-white hair and pale blue eyes, could deliver quite so frostily.

  "Ah?" Jordan asked, wholly unprepared to have a gring Sofia at her door so early in the m. She tried to shake off the m fatigue. Sofia hadn't wokehat early, only a half-hour before normal rising time. By the gre, she suspected Sofia had woken and been uo get back to sleep, then stalked over to Jordan's room for … some reason?

  Then Jordan remembered what st night had bee opportune day of that ridiculous bet of Sofia and Natalie's—and the tiredness cleared away on its own.

  "Oh?" Jordan said. "What happened? What's my fault?" She opehe door and waved Sofia in, who stalked in, tinuing to shoot gres even as she moved to the chair in the er of the room and sat. "How'd st night go?"

  "Awfully."

  "O-Oh?" Jordan's heart sank, before sensing that something was off in the way she'd said awfully—there was a certain ck of despair or heat in the word, at least for the worst-case interpretation Jordan had defaulted to. "Awful how?"

  "I took your advice."

  "My advice?"

  Sofia's cheeks colored, but she didn't turn her eyes away, her anger overruling her embarrassment for once. "I told Natalie I wahe girlfriend experience,' if we were going to be doing all of that."

  Jordan's attention was instantly captured. She sat on the edge of her messy bed o the chair Sofia was sitting in. "And what happened?"

  "What you said would. She agreed to a date." She punctuated the statement by crossing her arms.

  "That's … good, isn't it?" It was more than she'd expected from Sofia, holy. She had figured the two of them spend all night together and, somehow, not talk about a sihing.

  "And the her clothes ba," Sofia said ftly.

  Jordan blinked.

  Slowly, she patched together an image of what Sofia was saying. In fact, she felt like she khe girl well enough to guess what had happened in a more prehensive picture than she was being given. The request had probably e at a rather pivotal moment—say, right before the deed was about to be done. Sofia had found the ce to open her mouth and make her iions at least one pert clear. Then Natalie had put a stop to things, with her fiden Sofia's willingness put into question, or perhaps deg that such a climactic event should be saved for after the date, not before.

  Jordan's lips twitched in amusement. "And so, what, you're bmihat the two of you didn't sleep together?"

  "Of course not." Sofia's gre doubled, betraying her words. "Why would I be upset by that? I should be thanking you, if anything."

  A here she was, gring.

  "Her cock is pretty amazing," Jordan said. "So I'd get it if you were a little upset." Her lips twitched.

  "Don't be crude," Sofia said.

  "But that's the problem, right?" Her amusement by this whole situation grew by the sed. "What, getting a date out of that idiot doesn't make up for losing out on a night of mind-blowing sex?" Jordan tapped her fio her lips, putting on a show of sideration. "Maybe you should've just shut up and ehe ride, then."

  Sofia narrowed her eyes at her. Jordan could tell there was even a bit of truth ieasing: Sofia had obviously wa night to tinue like it would've, barring her interje. And Jordan sympathized. If she'd been in Sofia's position, about to be taken by Natalie for the first time, especially with a full week of forepy w up to the event, she'd be a bit fuming by the anticlimax too.

  But hey. The post-date sex was going to be amazing, she bet.

  Jordan ughed. "Okay, but you did get a date out of it. So at least there's that. It's not all bad."

  Sofia's lips pursed. "I suppose."

  "And you're finally willing to admit that's something you want from her?" Getting more, like a fession to a crush, was obviously off the table, sidering the extreme levels of delusion—or at least denial—she was dealing with on both ends of this retionship, but she would take baby steps where she could find them.

  Sofia sniffed. "I'm willing to see how it goes," she said nonittally.

  Okay. Half a baby-step then, not a full o was still something.

  "So that's a win? You'll just have to wait a bit longer. Be a bit pent up." Jordan feigned a surprised pause. "Oh. Is that why you came to me? Am I supposed to make … reparations, for messing that up for you?" She waggled her eyebrows. "I mean, I'll have to ask Natalie first, if you wao say sorry in that way."

  "W-What?" That, finally, pulled a blush out of the girl's angry demeanor. "Shut up. I came here to tell you that you meddle too much. That's it."

  "Personally, I don't think I meddle enough." She raised her hands i. "But, I'll apologize for depriving you of Natalie's cock. As far as I'm ed, that is one of the worst crimes a person could it."

  Sofia sputtered. "Stop being so crude!"

  "Natalie's dy-like rod, then?" Jordan suggested. "I'm not sure how to put it in a non-crude way."

  In a huff, Sofia stood up. "Well, take this as an official notice that I'm upset with you."

  "You're sure you weren't just sharing the good news in a way that preserves yo?" Jordan asked with a grin.

  Sofia didn't deign to respond to that; she walked to Jordan's door to make to leave.

  " I help you pick out your outfit?" Jordan asked. "I know what she likes. And I think together, we make her head explode, when date night es."

  Sofia hesitated, hand on the doorknob. She sniffed. "Perhaps. I'll let you know."

  Jordan internally transted: yes, please.

  Sofia left. Jordan's attention lingered on the closed door for a bit, before she fell backward into her bed and stared up at the ceiling. A few seds passed before she started ughing.

  Well. Good for them.

  ***

  A half-hour ter, the team was dressed in delving gear and assembled downstairs. There was a ensioween Natalie and Sofia, an uated thing of actal eye tad flushes, that Jordan was absolutely delighted to see. Jordan had all kinds of questions for Natalie.

  But unfortunately, it would have to wait. They had professional lives to worry about as much as personal ones. After a light breakfast, they set off in the magical carriage to the edge of the Duskwood. It was time to put ao the goblin menad for all.

  The question was, with Greed a known influenow, what would they be finding out there, amongst the trees?