She doesn’t know when it started. She knows where– the School for Good and Evil. But she doesn’t know when, and that is bothersome. Afterall, every story needs a setting, and if she can’t recall the time of the setting, what does that say about her story?
But she knows when, and maybe that’s enough for her to understand the why.
When, is when Rafal (she still called him Principal of Evil then) brought a girl with a head of flaming red hair to the meeting between gifted students and the principals. It was the last few months of school, and the students were all on the verge of graduating. Rafal introduced the girl whom Clarissa had only seen once or twice in the hallways with a flourish of his hand: “This is Lesso.”
That was it, really. He gave her her name, she sneered at everyone, and everyone else accepted her without question. And that was that.
Except it wasn’t that, not for Clarissa. Because she didn’t mean to see the signs, but she saw them anyway, recognized them from a million miles away: the way Rafal’s hand lingered on the red-haired girl’s back, shoulder; the way Rafal looked at her, contemplative and manipulative, and the way the girl looked back, with stars for eyes; the way the girl clung to his every word despite the sneer that seem permanently plastered on her face and the sarcasm she treated everyone else with.
But what was Clarissa supposed to do? Her principal was Rafal’s brother, and she had no evidence, only a gut feeling tugging at her and the image of the girl’s eyes too focused on Rafal. And besides, Evil couldn’t love. Whatever the girl felt for Rafal, whatever Rafal felt for the girl, it couldn’t have been more than teacherly admiration and a student’s attentiveness. Right?
So she turned her head and looked the other way. Not entirely, of course. Her teachers taught her that Good is supposed to have empathy, and the stories she reads tell her that Evil very rarely doesn’t deserve the empathy she is taught to have.
It damned her. That empathy.
“Lesso!”
The girl sneered mightily at her. It was certainly a skill, and one Lesso had mastered to degrees that not even Rafal could match. She didn’t reply. Clarissa wasn’t bothered. She hadn’t expected True Evil’s protegee to like her very much. She was, after all, True Good’s protegee. They were bound to be on opposite sides one day.
“Have you received your Story yet?”
The girl smirked. “Hoping you’ll be my nemesis, Dovey?”
Clarissa was more shocked by the way Lesso knew her name than what came out of her mouth. “The Storian matches nemeses based on ability, Lesso. I think you’ll match well with Aurora.”
Unexpectedly, Lesso cackled. Aurora was beautiful, yes, but lacking in almost every other category and was as slow as a sloth. She was kind, though, so she passed her courses without much fanfare. They all quietly believed that the Never who would be paired with her would have an easy time maintaining the Balance. “Quite the tongue you have on you, princess.”
Clarissa waited, but she seemed to have nothing else to say. She prodded, after a moment, “Well?”
“You were absolutely correct.” Lesso deadpanned, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to find a sleeping draught to finish off my nemesis.”
Lesso ignored her indignant protests, and cackled loud enough for both Evers and Nevers to notice and glance in their direction as she strode down the hall, the cane she carried easily separating the crowds before her.
Clarissa never did find out about Lesso’s Story. She chose the path of a Fairy Godmother despite knowing her parents would likely disown her in practice– never in name, that would bring shame to the family’s Good name– because she refused to choose a prince. It bothered her, to think that she needed to lead her life according to the Storian’s whims. Being a Fairy Godmother offered a respite from that, and she seized the opportunity gladly. She rode out her Story without much fanfare, helped a few other Stories while she was at it, and received a great recommendation from various old classmates that she helped out to become Dean of the School for Good.
She didn’t think much about the girl with flaming red hair and eyes reserved only for Rafal. The only time the girl returned to her thoughts was after she heard about the duel between the two brothers, and how Rafal had lost to the Schoolmaster. She remembered starry eyes underneath a head of tumultuous red curls and wondered if there would be more than the Schoolmaster mourning Rafal’s death. But after that, Lesso was quite far from her thoughts. She had her own Story to attend to, and after that, her own reputation to cultivate.
Then she stepped into the room for her very first staff meeting, and there, scrawled across her chair and looking for all the world like she’d rather be anywhere else than there, tapping her silver coated claw-like nails against the table, was Lesso.
It was like an electric charge was shot through her entire body, head to toe. Lesso hadn’t noticed her yet, focused on twirling the cane that was a carryover from their school days, but she couldn’t move from her spot rooted by the door.
“Professor Dovey?” An inquiring voice sounded, alerting her presence to everyone else in the room. “Are you all right?”
She cursed herself mentally as she turned around, composing herself. She didn’t need to make the wrong impression on her staff, especially not on the very first day. “Of course. How are you, Professor Anemone?”
The history teacher didn’t seem to see anything off with her, and they walked into the room together. Clarissa pretended not to notice the moment at which Lesso noticed her, but she did, and she couldn’t figure out what was the flash of something that trekked across her eyes when she saw Clarissa.
She sat to the right of the table, and waited for the Schoolmaster to appear.
Many changes were happening at the same time back then. The Schoolmaster introduced the changes this year to the curriculum, and rather than the hatred Clarissa had thought Lesso would hold against the person who murdered Rafal, she saw only nonchalance when the Schoolmaster stood and told Clarissa that history classes were to be replaced with beauty classes.
“I’m sorry?” Clarissa asked, once the din of Good teachers protesting had calmed down. “Beauty classes?”
“Am I expected to teach that?” Anemone was looking less and less bewildered and more and more furious by the minute as the news sunk in. “Beauty classes?” She scoffed. “What will our students ever need that for? Charming their nemesis to death?”
Lesso cracked a crooked smirk at that. “Isn’t that what Good is best at, anyway?”
There was a symphony of insulted noises from the Good side and delighted cackles from Evil side, but Clarissa was too busy trying to comprehend both that Lesso hadn’t changed at all since her schooldays and the major changes this would bring to her curriculum. “History is important, though,” she said once the teachers had calmed down. “Our students need to learn from their history.”
“Yes, but certainly you would agree, Professor Dovey,” the Schoolmaster spoke with a wily cunningness that felt almost out of place. “That beauty is an important attribute. After all, Good of the heart will certainly reflect in a Good appearance.”
“I’m not so sure about that, but–”
“Good. Then it’s settled?” The smile was calm, but a shiver ran down Clarissa’s spine nonetheless.
She fell silent.
She should have remained so, but something in her shifted when the Schoolmaster dismissed the meeting. “Lady Lesso!” She called out as the Evil dean turned to head out. “May I have a word?”
The dean didn’t slow down as she continued her stalk out of the staff room, but Clarissa didn’t let that bother her. She just walked faster, and reached out before she could think better of it to grab the dean’s arm so that she was forced to stop. She dropped her hand immediately, though, when Lesso quite literally froze on the spot. “Sorry! I just need to talk to you.”
Lesso turned around, her eyes belying a weird mixture of anger and amusement. “Alright, then, princess. How can I help the number one Fairy Godmother in all the lands?”
She felt her face burn, not the least because of the nickname. “Oh. You know about that.”
“How could I not? You’re just so… Good.” Lesso’s smirk could only mean that she was enjoying this more than Clarissa had expected.
“Thank you, glad we agree.” Lesso just chuckled, again, and Clarissa continued, “Will you join me for dinner?”
A perfectly arched brow raised, “My, my. Fraternizing with Evil, Professor Dovey?”
Clarissa resisted the urge to roll her eyes just barely. “I’m new. I need to understand the workings of the school again, and I only know you. Trust me,” she added, seeing Lesso’s brow raising higher, “you’re not my first choice for a dinner partner either.”
“How flattering. In that case, you won’t mind trekking over to my side of the bridge now, will you?”
She sensed a trap somewhere, but with a sigh she allowed herself to fall into it anyway. “Of course.”
Lesso studied her for a moment, as though making some decision, but also as though trying to figure her out. “Bring antidotes.” With that, she moved forward, and this time Clarissa didn’t follow her.
Clarissa wished she could say it was the birth of a great friendship. Or at least a great cooperation.
It wasn’t.
Over the years, they developed a certain routine. They threw dig after dig at one another– Clarissa suspected that secretly, Lesso enjoyed it just as much as she did, even though they both pretended to be annoyed– got used to standing next to one another but ready to throw each other under the bus at any point, and understood one another. That didn’t mean they were friends. They weren’t.
For instance, friends didn’t flinch away from, say, a light touch on the shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she had said, shocked by Lesso’s reaction to her touch. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t scare me, princess.” Lesso replied gruffly, her cane inches away from searing off Clarissa’s hand. She straightened stiffly. “Although you’re lucky you still have that hand. Now, what do you mean, I can’t use the whips on Evers?”
“They’ll fail Beauty if you leave scars, Lesso. You know that.”
Lesso’s face closed off, just slightly. “A scar or two won’t disfigure them.”
“Try telling that to the Schoolmaster’s new rubric.” Clarissa rubbed her eyes tiredly. “Just, I don’t take the Nevers to the beauty salon during orientation, so how about you let me worry about my students?”
“Fine. But if I catch another Ever rooting around in my poison garden for ‘beauty potion materials’ I will make their lives hell.”
The lines between the two of them weren't as clear cut as Clarissa often told herself they were. She knew it, though she denied it for the most part. Because even though Clarissa still didn’t know Lesso’s first name, her hometown, or even if she needed the cane she carried, Clarissa was the only person in the school who could confidently say that Lesso preferred royal purple, disliked poison generally but not arsenic, and used the Doom Room less than people would expect.
It was odd, the way Lesso let Clarissa see parts of herself and then hid the rest as far away as possible. But as time went by and they spent more time working together, Clarissa grew to cherish the crude, blunt, often rude ways of Lady Lesso. Some things always remained taboo, though. Rafal, for instance, was never mentioned.
They were drinking wine together, after going through the schedule for yet another school year, the first time Clarissa realized something terrible had happened to herself.
“Your students are weak,” Lesso said, her third cup of wine nearly drained. “And yet mine still die, year after year, in waves, to Evers that barely know how to tell poison ivy from dandelions.” The words were disdainful, but they couldn’t quite mask the hurt underneath. Clarissa knew that whatever Lesso showed the world, the time she spent hunched over essays and lesson plans alone gave away the amount that she cared for her students.
“Well, is that bad? What would the world be like if Good always lost?”
“But Evil hasn’t won in a century, Dovey. Not since–” Lesso nearly growled, but cut herself off. “There is no balance if Good is always winning. And how is Good winning? With winsome fucking smiles and lavender scented swords. How the fuck is it that I spend my days making sure my students are strong enough to withstand everything and yet they lose, year after year, to yours?”
Clarissa emptied her own cup. “How should I know, Lesso? Year after year, my students begin to forget that being Good is not about having the best dresses or the shiniest sword. And that winsome smile you hate so much? You know what happens if they don’t have that? They get turned into fish. Fish, Lesso. Do you think I want to see this?” She swallowed hard. Conversations with Emma rung through her ears. “You know what Emma thinks? She thinks this is all some conspiracy on the part of the Storian. She thinks that Good is becoming weaker, just as Evil is, and we’re all going to die.”
“Fucking hell.” Lesso got up to pour herself another cup.
“You know what one of my kids wrote in an essay about the power of empathy, the other day?” She couldn’t get herself to stop talking. She blamed the wine. “He said that empathy is weak. Because being empathetic means that they’re waiting for other people to come help them. He didn't even know the difference between ‘empathetic’ and ‘pathetic’!”
“Meanwhile, I get letter after letter about students that have died to that kind of hero.” Lesso sounded furious now. “Where is the fucking balance, Dovey? Where the fuck is it?”
The quiet after Lesso’s question, demand, rang.
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
They both fell silent after that. There was very little to be said in the face of inevitability and something called ‘fate’. Or, in other words, the Storian.
The days went on smoothly, though year after year Clarissa could feel her love for what she used to think was Good fade. Then two Readers came and upended the life she had created for herself, the comfortable, numb, brainless life.
It was terrible, she thought to herself. Terrible that after so many years, so many decades by her side, it was through Sophie’s mouth that she heard the words: “Leonora. Leonora of Gavaldon.”
The way Lesso had froze, the blood draining from her face in an instant, had been more confirmation that Clarissa needed. She had barely heard the jabs and insults that Sophie threw at Lesso afterwards. Her blood was still racing in her veins. Leonora. The name was sweet on her tongue.
‘Leonora.’ Light. Compassion. How the name must have haunted Lesso.
She was brought back to the presence by the name that haunted her nightmares being brought up, Lesso hissing it out as though the very name burned her tongue to speak: “Rafal.” And with that, Clarissa was thrust back into the present. Of course. Rafal knew Lesso’s full name, knew where she was from, probably even knew whether or not Lesso needed a cane to walk. All because Lesso… Lesso had loved him.
Regardless of what the stories claimed, Clarissa wasn’t blind, and in the years since she was a school kid she had long since come to recognize that the starry-eyed look Lesso had in her eyes when she looked at Rafal back when they were at school was nothing less than love.
So of course, of course Rafal knew everything about Lesso while Clarissa had to learn everything she had through the mouth of someone else, through the likes of someone like Sophie, using this information– when it should have been, is, precious and important– to hurt Lesso.
Clarissa turned on her heels and left the room. She knew Lesso would have seen her; the day someone sneaked into a room without Lesso finding out is the day the world ends. She couldn’t face her yet.
She was able to face Lesso for about five seconds before she, along with the rest of the teachers, were turned to dolls. Being turned inanimate was a similar feeling to dying, Clarissa found, and she disliked it. Immensely. When they’re turned back to humans, Clarissa twisting her arms and legs just to make sure that they were no longer plaster and had become her flesh again, Lesso turned to her with flames in her eyes.
“I know.” Clarissa said, silencing Lesso before she could speak. She was tired for a lot of reasons, and she wasn’t in the mood for another one of Lesso’s lashings. “I won’t say a word.”
Lesso didn’t ask her what she was talking about. She didn’t smile or thank her either. Instead, she nodded. “Clarissa.” She acknowledged, and then strode off.
It was the first time Lesso had ever addressed her as ‘Clarissa’, and the sound of her name on Lesso’s tongue was fire to Clarissa’s heart. It was doused quickly once she returned to her own rooms.
In the haste of her joy at being restored to being a person from being a doll, she barely registered the information that the Schoolmaster was Rafal. In her rooms, though, away from the ruckus of the future, she closed the door and sank to the floor, her skirts swadling her. Storian above, she had been so idiotic. How had she not realized that she, and the rest of Good, was being played like a fool? She had once been smarter than this. She had once been empathetic, kind, good. And yet now she, like the rest of the school that she had spent more than half her life working, fighting for, was nothing more than a farce of Good.
How had no one, not even her, thought to wish for the wishfish to be free before? The diadem in her hair suddenly felt like a million stones weighing down on her, and she wretched it off, wincing at the sharp pins of pain that stabbed her as the diadem tangled in her curls. It clattered to the floor, still glittering and gleaming, mocking her with its beauty.
She buried her head in her hands. Perhaps she wasn’t Good. Perhaps she was a Never clad in beautiful clothing and golden light. A Never hidden under aesthetics. How had she forgotten, somewhere along the beauty classes and bickering with Lesso, that Evil deserves empathy and Good gives that empathy?
Lesso. The thought shot a bolt of lightning through her entire body. Storian above, she really was being so selfish and Evil, wasn’t she? She had completely forgotten to take into account Lesso’s feelings right now. Lesso, who had loved Rafal, who had lived with his death for so many decades now, who had had him returned to her for such a short period of time before he was torn away from her again. Who had met him once again, knowing that he had betrayed her.
She paused. Was it Good for her to feel empathy for true Evil’s lover?
But the image of Lesso in pain, not that she had ever seen it before but she could imagine, quickly swept away any inhibitions she had. Whether or not it was Good, and maybe it wasn’t Good and maybe she was selfish, but thinking about Lesso’s pain made her hurt. She stood quickly, not bothering with her diadem. She had to find Lesso.
Sometimes, looking back, she thinks maybe this is when it started.
“Lesso?” She knocked, timidly, on the closed and tightly warded door to the personal rooms of the Dean for Evil. There was no answer. She tried again, more assertive this time. “Lesso?”
The door opened. Lesso stood on the other side, an eyebrow raised imperiously. Her jacket was off, leaving her in only her shirt and waistcoat, and the sleeves of her shirt were rolled up to her elbows. The eyebrow only went higher into the red curls that floundered around Lesso’s face when she registered Clarissa standing in front of her door.
“Has another Evil twin come back to life?” Try as she might, Clarissa couldn’t hear anything in the dry, sardonic tone of the Dean of Evil. Lesso’s eyes scanned her, and her brow crinkled for just a moment. Clarissa wondered what she saw. She was sure she looked a fright, eyes red from the tears she hadn’t realized she shed, diadem missing and hair a mess, arms still tense from being turned into a doll a mere few hours ago.
Clarissa shook her head, but asked anyway. It was what friends did for one another, check in with one another. Right? “May I come in?”
To Clarissa’s surprise, Lesso stepped to the side without a word and let her in. It was odd, though Clarissa didn’t think much further on the topic. Lesso very rarely let her come into her rooms, even though they often met in Clarissa’s for the meetings. Clarissa had never pushed. Then again, she had never shown up at Lesso’s doorsteps, either.
“Nightcap?”
Clarissa let out a sigh she hadn’t known she’d been holding. “Please.”
The wine Lesso handed her sat comfortably in her stomach, warming her, and gave her enough courage to ask: “Are you alright?”
Lesso had settled down comfortably in a chair opposite of Clarissa. The question made her raise an eyebrow, disbelief written across her face. “Am I alright?” Her eyes narrowed. “Princess, your hair is literally resembling mine at the moment. And you’re asking if I’m alright?”
Clarissa blamed the blush on the wine. “I just…” She took a deep breath, another gulp of her wine for good measure, “I know that you and Rafal… I just wanted to make sure you’re okay after what happened with Sophie and Agatha.”
Lesso blinked at her. Clarissa gulped another mouthful of wine.
Then Lesso started laughing. Truly laughing, not the Evil cackle she does most of the time to ‘maintain her reputation’. It was the first time she had laughed this way in front of Clarissa, and though she knew the Dean for Evil would not take well to this suggestion, she was adorable.
“Oh, Storian.” Lesso chortled out somewhere between laughing so hard Clarissa worried for the wine sloshing in her cup. “Dovey, I-” She broke off, more waves of laughter overtaking her.
“Lesso!” Clarissa was beginning to feel foolish. “I’m being serious here!”
“Princess,” Lesso chuckled again, “I don’t know where you got this impression, but I have very few positive feelings towards Rafal.”
“But-” Clarissa stuttered. “But you… I don’t understand.”
Lesso sobered then, and appraised her with a look that Clarissa couldn’t recognize. “You really don’t, do you?” She mused, before setting her glass to the side. For a moment, Clarissa thought she was about to strangle her for bringing up things that she didn’t want to talk about. But instead, Lesso’s fingers went to her high-collared shirt, and they unbuttoned it.
“Wha- Lesso, what are you doing?” Clarissa tried very hard to hide the flush she could feel spreading from her neck. “Lesso!” She exclaimed, trying very hard not to pout when Lesso actually did stop, a button away from revealing whatever it was she wore underneath the shirt. She wasn’t sure why she wanted to see what Lesso was wearing underneath, but she was also pretty sure she shouldn’t want to. “What are you doing?”
“Showing you why I have very little good to say about Rafal. What did you think I was doing, princess?” The smirk playing on Lesso’s lips was definitely mocking Clarissa.
“O-Oh. Okay.”
She sat very, very still, trying to force the heat she could feel rushing up to her head as Lesso’s nimble fingers made quick work of the rest of her buttons. She was reacting too much, she chastised herself in her mind. She had seen Emma near naked as well, and she hadn’t even given it any thought at all. She needed to get a grip. It was just Lesso, after all.
It was just Lesso.
Storian above, Lesso was wearing a violet brassiere that was violently purple against the pale skin of the swell of her breasts, and Clarissa found herself wanting to… She shook her head, and feigned nonchalance. “So you hate Rafal because he didn’t like purple?” She deadpanned, feeling more like herself. Lesso said nothing, instead turning around and oh Storian.
Clarissa’s hand flew to her mouth, and she wanted to go back in time and pull out her own tongue for what she said.
Lesso’s back was pale, too. Pale, which only provided a sharper contrast to the lines of glaring red that were crisscrossed against the backdrop of skin. The scars shone, even in the dim light of the Evil tower, and they were everywhere.
Clarissa hadn’t even noticed she was on her feet until she realized she was standing inches away from Lesso’s exposed back. She reached out, very gingerly, to touch Lesso’s arm. Lesso didn’t flinch away from her this time.
“Did,” she swallowed hard against the lump that formed in her throat. “Did he do this to you?”
Lesso shrugged, turning back around to face her. They were inches apart, but Clarissa was too horrified to feel anything except the overwhelming desire to gather the Evil dean in her arms. “Most of them. He believed that Evil couldn’t be Evil without at least a few disfigurations.”
Clarissa blinked hard against the tears that stormed her eyes. “Storian, Lesso, I...”
“So, to answer your question, princess, I’m fine.” There was nothing fake about Lesso’s blase attitude even as shock faded from Clarissa, overtaken by an almost overwhelming sense of anger. “Annoyed at the fact that he was Schoolmaster for so long and watched as waves of our students died, yes, but love? For him?” Lesso scoffed.
“He died too easily.” It was the first time Clarissa had heard that type of anger in herself. “If I had gotten my hands on him, he would have regretted every single thing he ever did to you.”
Lesso blinked.
“How dare he. How dare he hurt you this way, when you- When you-” She was breaking up, the sobs that she hadn’t known she had inside of her ruining her as they wretched from her. “How could he, when he knew you? When- When he had Leonora while the rest of us made do with- Storian above, Lesso, I- I- I was happy. Happy for you, did you know that? Happy that you knew love. And this is how- Storian, I-”
She was silenced by the feeling of Lesso’s arms around her and the press of Lesso’s still naked skin against her own.
“You’re going to hyperventilate.” Lesso’s voice was muffled. Her arms were too tight against Clarissa, as though she were unused to hugging people, but her arms were around Clarissa and Clarissa didn’t think she would trade this for anything in the world.
“Breathe, princess.”
She tried. But each breath she took was filled with the musky, soil-like scent of Lesso, and each time she breathed she remembered the horrific scars marking Lesso’s skin. So she cried, knowing how selfish and un-Good it was for her make Lesso comfort her when she had come to comfort, not be comforted, but unable to stop. She cried until time and place blurred in her mind, and she wasn’t sure how but she fell asleep like that, burrowed in Lesso’s arms and in so much pain she could almost touch it.
She woke up in a bed that wasn’t hers, and for a moment was blinded with panic. Until a voice, gruff with sleep, said, “Sleeping beauty awakes.”
“So you think I’m beautiful?” Was the first thing her brain conjured, and she blurted it before she could remember that maybe, their relationship wasn’t just jabs and insults now.
Lesso chuckled. “Glad to hear you sounding more like yourself, princess.” Clarissa sat up from the vast expanses of the bed to see Lesso sitting up as well on the sofa next to the bed.
“Did you sleep there, last night?” Clarissa was mortified. She had shown up at Lesso’s door, assumed Lesso still loved– because there was no doubt in her mind that Lesso had loved Rafal at one point, though that love had long since soured and expired since then– Rafal, and then cried herself to sleep in Lesso’s arms. Then she had taken Lesso’s bed, and Storian above when would she actually start being Good? She felt grimy.
“Didn’t want to crowd you.” Lesso yawned, and the feeling of something sweet and soft bloomed in Clarissa’s heart.
“You should’ve woken me.”
Lesso smirked. “You’re funny when you snore.”
“I do not snore!” The audacity!
“It was just a great whale imitation, then.”
She glared hard at Lesso’s smirking form. Then she remembered why she was even in Lesso’s bed to begin with, and her gaze softened. “Thank you for telling me, by the way.”
Lesso shrugged, and began to stand up. “Couldn’t have you spreading rumors about me loving someone.” She moved towards the bathroom. “We have to work on the unification efforts today, by the way. The beauty teacher sent a dove.”
“Oh. Okay. Did you reply?”
Lesso turned back around just to give her a toothy grin, before gesturing towards a pile of ashes on the windowsill. “The bird startled me.”
“Lesso!”
Lesso cackled as she closed the bathroom door behind her. Clarissa burrowed down in the blankets that smelled like Lesso and groaned. Emma was going to murder her. After asking for every minute detail of the night she spent in the Evil dean’s bed. She blushed. That made it sound scandalous.
When they walked down to the staff meeting together, Clarissa could read the questions in Emma’s eyes. She ignored them.
“Do you think we’re doing alright?” Clarissa asked, reclining on Lesso’s sofa again. She often found herself there the past few months, mostly because they had been too tired to trek back into their own rooms after nights trying to create a new curriculum.
“I’m Evil. I don't care.”
Clarissa rolled her eyes. “Fine then. Do you think you’re being Evil enough with the curriculum?”
Lesso’s grin was positively wolf-ish. “Always.”
Clarissa rolled her eyes again. “So, have you spoken with your teachers yet? Have they agreed to having the orientation ball in the School for Evil?”
“They found the idea heinous.”
“So they agreed?”
“They look forward to poisoning all the students this time around. Not just the Nevers.”
Clarissa made a mental note to stock up on her antidotes before the ball.
“Oh, and princess?”
Clarissa looked up from her notes. “Hm?”
“You know me as Leonora now, too.”
They fell asleep together more often than not now, as well. It became habit at some point, and Clarissa couldn’t bring herself to wish it any other way. It was how she found herself asking Lesso the million dollar question one night, right as they were both about to fall asleep.
“Will you be my date to the orientation ball?”
Lesso was silent. Clarissa wanted to reach out and touch her, but though Lesso was much more agreeable to physical touch now she still wasn’t the most touchy person in the world.
When Lesso finally did speak, she sounded as though she were trying her best to sound blase. “You’d better not tell me this is because you want us to present a united front.”
“Actually, that was going to be one of my reasons. But more importantly, I want to go. With you.” Clarissa held her breath.
If the quiet indicated anything, Lesso was holding her breath too.
“Asking me out on a date then, princess?”
Clarissa pushed down her nerves. She was lying in Lesso’s bed, for Storian’s sake. What was she terrified of? “If you’re amenable to that.”
“I would be.”
“Then it’s a date.”
Lesso groaned. “Fuck, princess, you’re going to be the death of my reputation.”
Clarissa’s beam was probably bright enough to light up the entire room.