My Enemy’s Enemy

Lucretia felt a headache coming on, being assailed on all sides by enemy action as she was.

Besides the usual humdrum threats aimed at her family and her government, the princess had underestimated Ruben’s pet witch (or was it the other way around?). Their itinerant meetings had made Lucretia assume the pink-haired woman and tied herself to the prince’s flag and that she didn’t exist outside it.

Oh, once she had her name, she had made her cursory inquiries into Ruben’s new associations, as she always did. What she got back were unconfirmed reports of a quack doctor who sold functioning snake oil, but nothing else.

Then, having spent a night at the Guard Station, Lucretia emerged to a building under siege and nearly under riot, within and without.

“Look, we know Cerise – she’s always did her best to stay out of trouble!” A man said to a poor receptionist, who was facing down a crowd of citizens who were filling up the main lobby.

“Sir, the suspect is being detained for further questioning, I don’t make the rules,” the clerk resignedly answered, firmly and futilely, but steadfast in refusing to cede ground.

“If there’s a fine she needs to pay, I’ll happily cover it for her! We just need her out of here as quick as possible!”

The Guard squinted at the leader of the group. “Are you family?”

“Well, no–” The man stuttered, before rallying. “But she’s like family! She’s taken care of us as the only doctor in the area that bothers!”

The crowd loudly proclaimed their support of the notion, their cries threatening to drown out the office, even as other Guards sidled in and called for silence. There was no violence for now, but they were being a nuisance.

“Yeah! Tell her Richard!”

“We’re not leaving until Cerise is out!”

Lucretia was only partially watching this chaotic scene. Elsewhere, she spied several more Guards rushing towards the holding cells in full plate. The princess beckoned for an officer to come over and explain the situation to her.

“The detainees are threatening to attack that woman you brought in the other night,” the Guard reported.

The princess sighed and shook her head. “Not that I’m surprised, but do we at least have a reason why?”

“Apparently she started this by demanding you see her. She shouted it for quite a bit until she upset everyone else in the adjacent cells.”

That damnable hag. Had she predicted this, or was she just naturally talented at being a universal problem?

Regardless, she brought things to a boil, so dealing with the witch was the first step to deescalating this scenario.

Without a word, Lucretia marched off to the holding cells herself. Descending the stairs, she made her way down to a noisy hallway, where men and women were rattling their cell doors, spewing death threats and other incidental noises, matched only by the armored Guards, who were shouting back their own warnings, to no avail. It seemed the sight of their captors choosing to treat them with caution only emboldened the detainees, who dared them to up their efforts.

Lucretia grabbed one bar, and flooded it with her gift.

The jeering and taunting quickly devolved into sudden shrieks. Hands darted back inside the cells as the steel iced over, and Lucretia was certain nearly every captive leapt onto their bench or backed up into a corner at the sight of the floor growing a carpet of skulls that leered up at them.

If there was any fighting spirit left, it quickly left with the sudden drop in temperature, low enough that Lucretia saw her breath visibly leaving her in foggy clouds.

“Don’t make me come back here,” the princess declared.

The silence was answer enough, and Lucretia stalked down the cells, occupants shying away from the presence of their cold ruler.

Even Cerise, who Lucretia spun about and faced sternly, had chosen to wait against the back wall of her holding cell.

“Yeesh, the Great Spirits really love you, huh?” The woman of the hour muttered under her breath, each exhalation steaming in the cold air.

“I’m going to add a few more public disturbance charges to your record,” Lucretia snapped, before gesturing for a Guard nearby to come over to attend to the lock. “Out.”

Latched metal snapped open and then closed, and Cerise was finally released to the outside world one more.

Lucretia was all business as she gestured Cerise to follow. “You’re going upstairs to tell all your friends upstairs that you’re fine and you’re assisting in an investigation–”

“Oh, now you want my help.”

“--And then I’ll throw you back in that cell, where I’ll put you out of my mind for a long time,” Lucretia curtly retorted. She was tempted to leave things there, but that moment of fleeting curiosity egged her on. “But before all that, humour me: What is so important you got into a shouting match so bad everyone here was well and ready to tear you limb from limb?”

“Well, the shouting match got you here, right?” Cerise snorted, before her expression firmed up. “Look, I bet you get death threats all the time, what with how you’re a pompous, stuck up, murder machine–”

Lucretia swirled around, glaring.

“--but you know I’ve been hunting down leads all this while, and I think someone’s seriously aiming for you this time.”

For a moment, there was just the silence and cold of the cells. The princess stared at the witch for an uncomfortably long period, before speaking again.

“You’d say anything to stay out of the cell.”

“Hey, you just said I’m ‘assisting’,” Cerise protested. “I’m not saying crap for no reason. You were there on the boat. Someone went out of their way to manufacture some serious poison… and… well…”

Cerise trailed off, and Lucretia kept waiting, placid expression showing a lack of interest.

“Well?” The princess dared her.

The witch grimaced, recalling the one hint she had. She didn’t want to use this card so soon, but it was also the only thing she had that tied everything together.

“Before you arrived, they were talking about the Sant-Lumieres–”

Cerise stopped at the sight of Lucretia’s darkening expression. That told of a woman who now had plenty of reason to listen.

“What.”