"What the fuck, Eve!?"

I had gone to Princess Asperia's room, and Eve was hanging around outside, and I immediately yelled at her.

She blinked at my outburst, looking down at me with a slightly worried look. "...what's wrong? Did I do something wrong?"

"...well, you killed Wren's entire family in front of her, for one."

Eve raised an eyebrow. "...yes, her new adoptive one. I did tell you that I killed them and I mentally tortured her and it was a mistake, and you didn't ask for details-- why are you mad, again?" She shook her head. "I even took her in like you asked me to, and I became Princess's slave like you wanted me to... I let you take my body and was silent during our meeting with Princess Adeline... what do you want from me?"

"They're talking about killing her now!"

"Okay, and you don't want that to happen, it sounds like. I can work with that, just... don't hate me, okay? I won't torture other girls anymore unless you're okay with it."

Acting all submissive and wronged... it just made me madder. "Just help her, okay?"

She furrowed her brow. "You know, it's really annoying how you want to be in charge but pretend that you're not in charge so you don't have to take responsibility." She ruffled my hair. "But sure. We're doing what I want tonight, though."

"Fine!"

Eve knocked on the door. "Princess? May I come in?" She glanced back to me, and added, "And Sasha as well?"

"Very well, this is, after all, your mess."

Eve opened the door and walked inside, and I followed behind her.

Wren was lying, presumably unconscious, on the Princess's opulent bed with Zince half-curled around her, within easy striking range if she wanted to end her life, I noted. Well, Eve could stop her if she really wanted to... but what would be the fallout from that?

Princess Asperia was lying on her pile of treasure, idly dancing a couple of coins over the back of her hands, and she smiled at Eve and I as we entered. "Hello darlings. You two doing okay?"

Eve kneeled in front of the treasure pile. "Sasha's upset with me because Zince wants to kill that slave, so no."

My rage became both hotter and colder as I disassociated a little. "Her name is Wren." I kneeled too, after a moment... it did little good to get the Princess upset with me, and technically she hadn't done anything wrong yet in this specific issue.

Princess Asperia set down the coins in her pile of treasure with a soft sigh. "Yes. So, currently she's a danger, because she can escape Zince, break into your room, and break out of Eve's mind magic. I'm not going to imperil my girls because you two brought an improperly broken slave with escape skills here."

Eve bowed her head. "It was entirely my mistake, I should've just killed her in the first place and not mentioned it to Sasha." What the fuck. "However, she does have value in a couple of ways right now. First, her survival is necessary for Sasha's happiness, and I can't be happy if Sasha isn't happy, and I can't perform well as a tool for my Princess if I'm not happy. Secondly, she's a part of my experiment on transmutation. Blood hunt should work on her. Conversely, I may be able to reverse that spell with enough research. I'd have to transform another girl to research that, so it's a waste to get rid of her."

Princess Asperia narrowed her eyes and picked up a golden cane from her hoard, reaching out with it to tilt Eve's chin up to look at her. "Why didn't you mention this before, my darling fiance?" Her voice ws sweet but slow, with a hint of lurking danger.

"Two reasons. First, it's not a sure thing at all, and I didn't want to get your hopes up. Secondly, because I wanted your fate tied in with the fate of slaves. It's when I found out you knew you were vulnerable to blood hunt that I truly trusted your motives for ending slavery for the first time-- getting rid of a vulnerability is so much more motivating than acting altruistically or fulfilling the wishes of your servants, from a strategic perspective."

"I feel like you're just giving me more reasons to punish you, Eve."

Eve was silent for a long moment, and then stared up at her resolutely. "Did you want dishonesty? Punish me if you feel the need to, but you shouldn't punish Sasha or Wren for my mistakes."

"Wren shouldn't even still be alive, I told you to kill them all."

"I understand that, Princess. It was my mistake."

Princess Asperia's gaze turned from Eve and wandered for a moment before settling on me. "Sasha. This girl is that important to you?"

"She was a dear friend of mine. I have inadvertently caused her downfall once already, then was unable to stop the second... will I not even be able to protect her from death? There are techniques from my world I may be able to use on her to stabilize her mind."

"Life and death are in my hands, not yours, puppy. You know that, right?" She raised my chin with the cane, but I couldn't meet her eyes.

"...yes, Princess. But please... you wouldn't let one of your girls die if they had done nothing wrong and you could stop it, even if it was strategically prudent, right?"

For what felt like an eternity, Princess Asperia was silent, staring at my face.

"...as you wish. Eve, you aren't seeing Sasha for a little while. That's your punishment." Eve started to tremble at Princess Asperia's words, but she looked back to me and carried on, "Sasha, you're in charge of Wren now. She's your responsibility. If she hurts or kills anyone, she's dead. If she leaves the harem, she's dead. If she in any other way causes problems of any kind, don't be surprised if I kill her. Understood?"

"...yes, Princess," said Eve. Her voice was soft and submissive. "I'll do better, I promise."

"See that you do."

I swallowed back my anger as best I could. Acting up wasn't going to help in this situation, and she was kind of already risking the people she cared about to let me protect one of mine. "...Yes, Princess. Thank you."

"Good girls. Now, do either you have any other complaints?"

Eve and I shook our heads.

"Good. Now, I have other things I should be doing, hurry along. Zince, take Wren to Sasha's room... I'll get you a new room, Eve, but you might should be setting out tonight to do some new tasks for me, if you want to quickly earn my forgiveness...."

More murders or similarly underhanded things, no doubt. I left the room before I heard more. Just desperate to help anyone in front of me, first Princess Adeline and now Wren... if I heard who she wanted to kill next, how was I going to just let her? But it's not like I had another plan to take power and end slavery... the one that I had was to talk to Princess Adeline, and that had kind of died in the water.

Eve, fucked up as she was, wasn't entirely wrong about me-- I was easily distracted from doing anything to accomplish my larger goals, rather, I just flailed wildly as I tried to save those in front of me. And I had just delivered the semi-recovering girl who had been acting pretty sweet to me recently further under Princess Asperia's power, no doubt to do more horrible things that would probably fuck her up even worse.

But for now, I didn't know anything I could do about that, so I continued to walk back to my room, eyes downcast. This didn't feel as much like home right now... no, well, it did feel like home, just the worst parts of home.

Zince slithered up beside me holding Wren in her arms. "Do you want me to keep you company until she wakes up?"

I wanted to be angry at her too, but what was the point? Her job was to keep the harem safe, and she acted on it. It wasn't her fault Eve had tortured a girl and brought her back here, even though it was partially my fault on both ends. "...could you?" I looked over to her. "Aren't you mad at me?"

Zince smiled slightly back at me. "For all that some may call me predatory... I don't actually like killing other slaves. She may have been a noble, but Eve made her into one of us, tortured and broken and expendable."

I swallowed and nodded. "I hope Eve doesn't do something even more fucked up when Princess Asperia sends her on one of those terrible missions."

"You're very weak, for someone who has racked up her own body count."

I wrapped my arms around myself, and shook my head. "I... killing was hard each time. Not physically, but emotionally. I kind of assumed it was the same for everyone else."

"You can get used to anything. Do you really thinking you're going to be able to save Wren?"

I nodded resolutely. "Yes."

But I had no idea. How did I even have a starting point with Wren? If she knew who I really was, she'd just spit in my face again, right?

After a little while, I reached the door to my room, and opened it up, holding the door open for Zince. She slid up onto the bed, laying Wren on it, and half-wrapped around her again.

I glanced around the room, and then awkwardly walked over to sit on the edge of the bed. I tried to think of a neutral topic.

"How long have you been working for Princess Asperia?"

"All of my life, past training."

"...training?"

"Mmm, you know."

"...but I don't?"

"Ah, I assumed it was still being gossiped about... maybe I'm not in the spotlight anymore. Suffice to say, I was raised as a sex slave and assassin." Fuck, this was not a neutral topic.

"So she just... bought an assassin?"

"No, killing her was my third job, under the pretense of being a new slave for her. I didn't expect to survive it, but she somehow found out that I was going to kill her, and talked me out of it and into working with her with perfect confidence as she lay with me in bed. It was some time before I learned why she was so fearless."

I nodded slowly. "I can see why that would be compelling."

"What did you do, before you crossed over into this world?"

"Uh, customer service work, mostly."

"...mmm, not familiar with that euphemism."

"Oh... I guess sort of like... a hired person who acts like the slave of a company and takes verbal abuse from customers and the like."

"...weird."

I thought about it for a moment. "...yeah, kinda was."

"You didn't have any other choices as a free person?"

"No, it was just... easiest, I guess. I did always like making people happy, when they weren't being utter jerks."

"Ah, so I'm a jerk to you."

"Oh, no... you've been really nice, Zince. I'm just... really uncomfortable with murder and death and slavery and stuff. We had less of that in my world, and like, that which there was, was kinda hidden from my eyes, I guess? I didn't have to think about it and be involved in it's repercussions all the time."

"You were nobility, basically? And you worked as some sort of pseudoslave?"

"...no. I was low-end middle-class... well, like, I guess I would've been in the top half of income in the world pretty easily."

"...middle-class?"

"You know... not rich or poor. But my country was well-off compared to most, so like... being unimpressive among a land full mostly of nobility, I guess?"

"Weird."

"...yeah." I shrugged a bit. "It made sense while I lived there, mostly."

"I guess you can get used to anything."

"Yeah." I looked down at Wren's sleeping body. "...I hope she can too."