Story:

“Now. Let us discover our queen.”

They looked around the circle.

Peach saw several high cards, glanced at her own reflection in the dark edge of the screen, and immediately looked away before she could make out the number.

Beside her, Shiki gave a low whistle. “Quite a round.”

Reika wore the ace of spades.

Butterfly held the nine of diamonds.

Every other card fell between them.

Irina checked twice. “Reika wins.”

Reika lowered her card, visibly pleased.

“And Butterfly?”

“The lowest,” Shiki confirmed.

Butterfly took the nine from her forehead.

For a moment, she merely looked at it. Across the table, Reika smiled.

There was nothing calculating in the expression. She appeared to be considering the sort of small treasure a classmate might carry: a keepsake from home, perhaps, or a charm attached to a bag.

“Only something you’re comfortable lending,” she said.

Butterfly heard her. She understood the words.

Somewhere beneath the first, irrational surge of feeling, she knew perfectly well that she could take off a bracelet, hand over a ribbon, or refuse altogether.

But Reika was sitting opposite her with that face.

Michiru-sama’s face.

The smile was different. The clothes were different. Even the voice belonged to somebody else.

It was not enough.

Her most precious thing. Nobu-kun.

Far away, in Yamato, he was fighting a war Butterfly could neither watch nor reach from this little room.

And here was that face again, smiling as though she was perfectly reasonable to occupy the side of Nobunaga while Butterfly was away.

The same sick fear found the same old wound.

Reika’s smile faltered.

“Butterfly-san?”