"Yeah, I know," Maren murmured, gently bopping the snake on the top of the head with her chin. "Cara?"
The other woman stopped suddenly, her head snapping up towards Maren like she'd forgotten she was there.
"What?"
"You good?"
Cara's face turned back towards the floor. "Yeah. I'm fine."
"I wasn't aware that 'fine' tried to wear a hole in the carpet," Maren said, leaning over the edge of the bunk and resting her chin on her folded arms. Topaz eased her way out from under Maren's collar to rest on her wrist, tail dangling over the side. "Come on. Spill."
"It's - it's complicated." It came out in a sigh, and Cara's hands were back on her hips, elbows akimbo.
"Then explain it to me like I'm stupid." Cara's eyes glanced back up at Maren, a flicker of annoyance on her face, but she sighed again and flopped into her desk chair.
"Fine. Maybe breaking it down into small pieces will help me figure it out."
"Glad to be of service."
Cara stared at the wall behind her desk for a moment, seeming to gather her thoughts. Maren let her, letting the silence run as long as it needed to.
"My parents want me home for Rejuvenation," she said. Maren wrinkled her nose.
"That's a mage thing, right?"
"Yeah. It's when we replenish our magic. Give the new of-age kids their crystals." She touched her own crystal, hung from a chain around her neck. It held the energy she could draw from to use magic. As a sorcerer, Maren drew from the ambient magic the world produced on its own, and had never understood how the little crystal around Cara's neck lasted a whole year with the amount of magic they were expected to do for classes.
"My sister's getting hers this year," Cara went on. "Her birthday is right after the holiday, so she had to wait a whole year despite technically being of age. So it's important that I'm there."
"Does it clash with classes?" Maren asked. "Because I'm pretty sure they have to excuse you for that as long as you give advance notice."
Cara shook her head. "That's not it. It's - " She paused again, making a frustrated noise under her breath. "My uncle - no, it's - " She launched herself out of her chair again, resuming her pacing across the room.
"Small pieces," Maren reminded her. "Like I'm stupid."
Cara drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. "My family is...concerned about me. And my future."
"You're top of your class, or damn near," Maren said. "You're probably gonna get snatched up by a magic development corp before you make it off the stage at graduation. What do they have to be worried about?"
Again that dry, bitter laugh. "They're worried about my prospects."
"...ah." Maren pulled a face, sticking her tongue out at the idea. "Gross."
"Yeah." Cara scrubbed a hand over her face. "So basically if I don't show up at Rejuvenation with at least news of a romantic interest it's gonna be every conversation from now until I'm forty."
"I could go." The words left Maren's mouth before the thought finished forming. Topaz lifted her head, looking up at her in the most incredulity a snake could muster. Maren pushed her back down with one finger.
Cara was looking at her with much the same expression. "You what?"
"Go with you. To your thing." Maren shrugged, trying to keep the panic from rising as the actual concept of what she was offering took root. "They'll probably hate that I'm a sorcerer. Introduce me like you really intend to go the distance, we 'break up' a few weeks later, they're so relieved they stay off your back for fear of you making another disastrous choice."
Cara's laugh this time was one of incredulity. She stared up at Maren, wide-eyed and disbelieving.
"Do you know what this means?"
"I get to go to a big holiday party?"
Cara flopped back into her desk chair, hands over her face. Maren could barely hear her next words, muffled as they were by her hands. "I have to tell you. It's not fair if I don't tell you."
"Tell me what?"
Cara peered over her hands, then dropped them entirely. "What's my last name?" she asked, after a very pregnant pause.
Maren blinked. "Redgate?" It was how she had introduced herself, what all the professors called her, the name on their dorm agreement...it had to be her last name, right? They didn't just let people lie about that.
Cara smiled. "No."
"No?"
"No." There was a trepidation in her voice now, an anxiety around the corners of her eyes.
"...so what is your last name?"
Cara wet her lips, taking another deep breath. "My last name is Ashfall."
Maren froze. Topaz's head came back up, this time completely unnoticed. Her eyes darted to her desk, where boxes of carved crystals sat, the name "Ashfall" carved into the side in curling script. To her bag, where she kept vials and bags of magically charged powders, each with a stylized "A" on the container. "Ashfall". The biggest producer of magic enhancement and containment in the modern world. They had revolutionized magic by letting anyone pick up a crystal and cast a spell, and even changed how sorcerers used their abilities by allowing them to store magic energy in crystals and gems. The spells could then be unleashed with a thought, rather than having to go through the motions of casting. Maren had a pair of rings and an amulet herself, inscribed with the Ashfall name.
The most influential magical development corporation in the world. And Maren was rooming with the heir.
"You're shitting me."
Cara's smile grew. "I am not."
"Prove it," Maren challenged. Cara stood wordlessly and went to a little file cabinet in the corner, unlocking the top drawer with a press of a finger. She reached inside, pulling out a tray that Maren realized belatedly was the entire bottom of the drawer. Then from the recessess of the hidden drawer she pulled out a folder thick with papers. She removed one from the stack and handed it to Maren, all without saying a word.
Maren took the paper, trying to decipher the look on Cara's face and failing. The paper was her certificate of admission into the university, with her name printed in dark black ink at the top of the page. ASHFALL, CARA LOUISA.
At the bottom was a note, scrawled in a secretary's slanted cursive: "Student will use surname 'Redgate'."
"Your middle name is Louisa?" Maren said. It was a stupid comment in the face of the information she'd been given, and Cara snatched the paper back.
"It was my grandmother's name," she said, stuffing it back in the folder. She paused, looking up at Maren. "So?"
"So?"
"Still want to be my date?"
Maren looked down, chewing on her bottom lip. It was a little more than she'd originally signed up for.
"It's okay if the answer's no." Cara's voice was very gentle, almost apologetic, and Maren felt a wave of defiance wash through her.
"Yeah, I wanna go," she said, sitting up. Topaz wrapped herself around Maren's fingers, and Maren lifted the little snake to her shoulder automatically.
"It's a lot," Cara warned her.
"Yeah, probably. I still wanna go."
"...thank you." Maren would have sworn she saw a flash or relief in Cara's face as she turned back to the file cabinet.
"Besides, you know what this means?"
"What's that?"
"I get to go to a really big holiday party."
This time, Cara's laugh was genuine.
