Chapter Text
As with all good things, Operation Strix came to an end. He had gotten what he needed, ahead of schedule.
Loid— no, Twilight, looked over his belongings. Personal artifacts accumulated over the course of the year or so undercover. The suitcase lay open on his bed, ready. He hesitated. He had hesitated now for fifteen minutes. He was beginning to consider putting it off for tomorrow, leaving.
Someone knocked on the door, and he hastily closed the suitcase, stowing it under his bed again. Yor had retired already, so it would probably be Anya, unable to sleep.
“Come in?”
The handle turned slowly, and there she stood, teary eyed.
“What’s the matter, Anya?”
“Papa, please don’t leave. Stay with me and mama and Bond.”
Twilight bit back his surprise. “I would never leave. Did you maybe have a bad dream?”
Anya shook her head vigorously. “Liar. Papa, I know you’re a spy.”
His heart beat faster. It was not the first time his cover had been blown, but this somehow… hurt.
“Don’t be mad at me.”
He sat down on the bed and patted the mattress next to him. “I’m not mad, Anya.”
She came over and climbed onto the bed.
“How did you find out? What gave it away?”
“I knew since you first came to the orphanage…”
Twilight blinked. “But…”
“I… I can read minds. Please don’t be mad.”
“I’m not— you can read minds?”
She nodded.
Several objections sprang up, but at the same time a lot of her strange behavior made sense in that light. There was an easy way to test—
“You’re going to ask me to guess what number you’re thinking of.”
“How— okay, fine.” He thought of Sixty-seven-and-a-half.
“Sixty seven and a half.”
Twilight nodded. But could she do it twice? How about the square root of ninety-nine?
“What’s a square root?”
“Okay, I’ll believe you for the moment.”
“Please don’t send me back to the bad people.”
“The… bad people?”
Anya fidgeted. “I don’t remember much, I was very little when I ran away. Four, I think. They kept me in a strange room and made me solve problems and read minds all day. Poked me with needles and put sticky things with wires on my head.”
Twilight filed away that information for later. He’d have to get in contact with WISE and ask for permission to investigate this organization that experimented on esper children.
“Thank you for believing me, papa. Are you going to stay?”
“I’ll see what I can do. In any case, now I can’t leave you here if I go. You know too much, and you’ll be too good a spy. Handler would scold me for not bringing you along.”
Anya looked down. “There’s something else. With mama.”
“What?”
“She’s got a secret, too. I— I don’t know if I should tell you. You have to promise not to be mad. Promise not to leave.” She started to sniffle.
Twilight sat there, and his brain kicked into high gear. Was Yor a spy too? But he had vetted her thoroughly, she had a perfectly ordinary job, and none of her mannerisms… He had to know. It was worrying, but also strangely exciting. He’d have to think of how to find out how much information he had inadvertently leaked to her and—
“Promise not to leave, papa. I love mama!”
All his many thoughts stopped. He reached out and wiped her eye. “I promise. Spy’s honor.”
Anya sniffled. “She’s an as-as-in. Thorn Princess. Garden.”
That made ice run down his neck. That didn’t explain any of her erratic behavior. Was he in danger? Was Anya in danger?
“I think we need to go wake mama up.”
“Don’t be mad at her.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
“Are we telling her the truth?”
“If I don’t, you’ll just tell her, won’t you?”
Anya nodded.
He got off the bed, and lifted Anya up. They went to Yor’s bedroom and he knocked on the door.
Twilight was prepared to wait patiently but the door opened quickly, revealing Yor, looking as lovely as ever in her nightgown.
“Loid?”
“We need to have a family meeting, Yor.”
She rubbed her eye. “It’s eleven in the night.”
“I know.”
“Why are you dressed?”
He was still wearing slacks and shirtsleeves.
“Long story. Let’s make tea.”
Yor followed them into the kitchen. In passing he turned on the light in the living room, leaving the kitchen half-lit, and let Anya sit on the counter. Then he put over water in the kettle.
“Loid, you’re making me worried.”
“It’s okay mama.”
Twilight leaned against the counter. “Yor, what I’m about to tell you has to remain absolutely secret.”
Something changed in Yor’s demeanor. A kind of calm preparedness. Her tiredness and worry disappeared. “Right.”
“I’m a Westalisian spy.”
“Oh. That’s…” she paused, and Twilight saw her eyes flick to the knife block on the kitchen counter.
“Don’t— Please, Yor. It’s not what you think.”
“Okay. What is it, then?”
Twilight took a deep breath. He had the apartment swept for listening devices by WISE’s people at random intervals, so he was certain there were none. He then swept it himself, sometimes, removing the WISE-planted ones — he valued his family’s privacy. If they wanted his opinion, they could ask for a report.
“In the interest of full disclosure, my codename is Twilight. You’ve probably heard of me.”
Yor’s surprise was evident.
“I adopted Anya — she’s not from a previous marriage, I’ve never been married — and agreed to this fake marriage as part of an undercover operation to spy on Donovan Desmond, using Anya’s status as an Imperial Scholar to get into his inner circle.”
“I see.”
“That operation came to a close last week, so I was going to skip town.”
“You— you were just going to leave me and Anya?”
He nodded, and felt ashamed, for some reason. Her tone was harsh.
“I stopped papa,” Anya said.
“Listen,” Twilight rubbed his eyes. “I know your secret too, Thorn Princess.”
Now she moved for the knife, with terrifying speed. Twilight didn’t react. He could have reached for his hidden pistol, or done anything else to defend himself, but he stood there, with Thorn Princess pressing a kitchen knife to his throat.
There was a deep and all-consuming killing intent in those eyes of her’s. Almost fascinating to behold so close. He knew he ought to be scared.
“Mama, don’t hurt Papa.”
He felt her stiffen and she staggered back, dropping the knife. The tip buried itself in the floorboards.
“Nobody else knows,” Twilight clarified. “Our daughter told me.”
Thorn Princess spun to look at Anya.
“Our little girl is a mind-reader.”
“I— but— what?” She looked between him and Anya. “What?”
“It’s true, mama. Oh, and Bond can see the future.”
That gave Twilight pause. “How— right, mind-reading.”
He bent down to pluck the knife out of the floor boards. The tip had been bent. He’d need to take it to the sharpener and have it fixed. He left it on the counter, handle turned towards Thorn Princess.
“So, yeah. Secret’s out.”
He sighed. Somehow a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
Thorn Princess seemed to relax a little. “So what now?”
“I’m going to ask for permission to investigate the organization that Anya ran away from — some kind of secret research institution, if I understand it right.”
Anya nodded.
“I… might need an assassin’s help.”
“I’ll have to… ask for permission.”
“In fact, WISE might have need of the services of a competent assassin in general.”
Thorn Princess studied him for a long beat. “Garden might not be so opposed to having connections to the Westalisian espionage system either.”
“Uncle Yuri works for the es-es-es,” Anya said.
Twilight looked at her, then at Thorn Princess.
“News to me,” she said. “I… I’ll deal with him. If he found out— it would be bad. It’ll be complicated though,” she giggled darkly. “I can’t exactly kill my own brother.”
Twilight nodded. It wasn’t rare that she giggled, but in this context, it felt different.
Then Thorn Princess started laughing. “What a mess, huh?”
“Hm?”
“I unknowingly pretend-married a spy.”
“Who didn’t know you were an assassin or that his own adopted daughter was an esper,” Twilight continued, he chuckled. “What a spy I am, huh?”
He turned to grab the teapot and tea tin, putting them on the counter.
Anya spoke up. “Mama, I made papa promise not to leave me, or you. Do you promise not to leave either?”
She looked at Anya, and then in a single gentle movement swept their daughter up in a gentle embrace. “Of course I would never leave you, Anya.”
“And Papa, too?”
Thorn Princess looked at him. “And Papa, too.”
Then Anya yawned. “I’d like to go to bed, now.”
“Of course, sweetheart,” Thorn Princess said, and carried Anya off to her room.
Twilight felt… something about that, and the image lingered in his mind.
The water reached boiling, and he heated the teapot with a bit of it, before adding tea leaves and pouring water on to brew. From Anya’s bedroom he heard Thorn Princess’ voice sing a lullaby — the lyrics indistinct through the door.
He put cups and the teapot on the table, and sat down to wait.
For some reason he felt a lot of things, in this moment. Getting the secret out was liberating, like opening a tap.
He sat there for five whole minutes, thinking. Mostly about Yor— Thorn Princess. All their interactions, all their… pretending.
Handler had… off-handedly mentioned that if Operation Strix ran much longer it would start to be suspicious how little physical affection he and Y— Thorn Princess displayed in public. It had already once come to a head when Yuri had demanded they kiss.
That fool. At least now he would be dealt with, whatever that meant.
But he had dutifully sat down and thought about what exactly could be done about that problem, and come to the abhorrent conclusion that having a second child would be the best way to render his cover impeccable.
Why he thought about that now, he wasn’t quite sure.
Thorn Princess came back, and took a seat across from him, still in her nightgown, but she’d gone to get a cardigan from her room. Yet he felt the most exposed, in his day clothes. Like he was the illegitimate intruder and she owned the house.
“Twilight.”
“Thorn Princess.”
“It’s not poisoned, is it?” She gestured to the teapot.
Twilight poured himself a cup, added a dash of milk to cool it, and took a sip, in lieu of an answer.
She followed suit.
“So… what do we do?” she said. “Apart from the ‘mutually beneficial agreement’ that our respective organizations might be open to. Do we keep up the charade? What about Anya?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“You don’t know…”
“Look, it’s as sudden to me as it is to you— we’ve been keeping up the charade for so long, we have a routine and a cover. Let’s maintain the status quo for the time being until we hear back from our superiors and make a plan of action.”
She nodded. “Loid isn’t your real name, is it?”
“No.”
“What’s it like?”
“Hm?”
“Being a spy.”
A single word came to mind. “Lonely. What’s it like being an assassin?”
“The same. Only I am Yor Briar. Killing people is a dark secret I keep far away from the things I truly care about. You… do you even care about anything? This? Anya?”
He looked into his tea, away from Thorn Princess’— Yor’s piercing glare.
“I didn’t at first, but…”
“But what?”
“All spies are fallible. We have procedures at WISE to deal with getting overly attached to cover identities. It was inevitable that—”
“She’s your daughter, Twilight. Our daughter.”
“I know.”
She sighed. “If you really are going to leave, I’ll take her…”
“I’m not. Not only would Garden probably send someone to kill me, but Anya has too much potential for me to leave her behind. At the very least I’d bring her with me to Westalis.”
“She’s my daughter, too.”
He paused. Then he rubbed his fingers through his hair and rubbed his eyes. This was a right mess.
“I feel like such a fool.”
Twilight looked at her.
“You know? I was just starting to think maybe this could be it… That you were a good and kind man, and I might have a stable thing. I… I really enjoyed your company. You’re handsome and considerate and I love Anya like my own child. But the Loid I’ve lived with this whole time is a lie.”
“A white lie,” Twilight said. “The best cover is maintained effortlessly. I haven’t exactly been pretending to be someone I’m not. Just a fake name and papers. Even the job— I actually have a medical degree in psychiatry.”
He reached for the napkins to offer her one. She took it and wiped her nose.
“And… I do enjoy your company, too. I really do. You’re beautiful and kind and funny and very good to Anya. I… could hardly ask for a better wife.”
She snorted. “We’re not married.”
“Everyone thinks we’re married.”
“Because we lie about it.”
“We have a marriage certificate on file.”
“It’s a forgery.”
“We’ve been living together and raising a child for over a year.”
“Playing house like children.”
“We’re at least a little bit married.”
She chuckled.
He reached out, offering his hand to her on the table. She took it.
“How about we start over? My name is… well, at this point it might as well be Loid.”
“What’s your birth name, if I may ask?”
He looked away. “I think that’s one of the things I’d like you not to know. It doesn’t matter. You and Anya know me by that name, that’s all that matters.”
“Okay.”
“I was born in Westalis, and… I had a rough upbringing. I was orphaned due to the war, and I lied about my age to join the military. I was a terrible soldier, so I became a medic instead and eventually became an army doctor at nineteen.”
“A medical degree that young?”
“They called me a genius… I was very interested in soldiers who suffered from shell-shock, which led me to specialize in psychiatry. But I also stagnated there, so I applied to WISE and they trained in espionage, which I was even better at than medicine. I’ve been Twilight for a little over a decade, now. I’m thirty-three.”
“Why a spy?”
“Because… because paradoxically, so long as this is a cold war of espionage and intrigue, houses aren’t being bombed and children aren’t being orphaned. Like I was.”
She rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. It was like the truth was struggling to get out, now. He wanted to tell her everything.
But he had to give her a turn. “So now you know a bit of who I am.”
“Well… I’m Yor Briar, and that is the name my parents gave me. Yuri and I lost our parents when I was thirteen. Car crash. I raised him myself — though I’m beginning to doubt I did a good job if he’s in the SSS.”
“Yeah, well… you’re an assassin.”
She nodded. “I’m— I’m very strong. I think you’ve seen. I don’t know why. Maybe… maybe I’m like Anya.”
“We’re a family of extraordinary people. I’d believe it at this point.”
“Someone noticed, and Shopkeeper — that’s my handler, I’m sure you have one as well — mentored and trained me in the arts of killing. It gave me the money to make sure Yuri and I were taken care of.”
“Who did you kill, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Corrupt politicians, mafia bosses… rapists.”
He nodded. At least Garden seemed to have a moral code. Now it was his turn to stroke her hand with his thumb.
Yor smiled. “How many people have you killed?”
“Nineteen. I’ve put over fifty in the hospital. You?”
“Seventy-four.”
He gave a low whistle. “So why the government job?”
“Cover. The Shopkeeper set it up, much the same as you. It helps pay the bills when there’s no… we call them customers.”
There was a noise from Anya’s bedroom, and Loid found himself rising immediately. He walked to her door on quiet, quick steps and opened the door noiselessly, slipping into the dark room to find Anya asleep with a concerned expression on her face. She gave a little whimper.
He knelt down beside her bed and stroked her cheek. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “papa is never going to leave you.”
That seemed to still her, and he gave her a kiss on the forehead before heading back to the living room — but Yor stood in the door, hand on the jamb.
She took a step back to let him into the living room.
“What’s the matter?”
“You’re a very good father, you know that?”
“I try my best.”
“Not many people do.”
“I could say the same of you.”
She smiled her beautiful smile. He smiled back.
“It’s very late, we should get back to bed.” Loid went to the dining table to collect the cups and teapot, bringing them to the kitchen and washing them up — no sense in putting that off.
Yor joined him there, taking the wet cups off his hand and wiping them with a towel.
He looked at her. “You’re… different.”
“How so?”
“Usually you’re a lot more easily flustered.”
She shrugged. “I guess I’ve got nothing to hide. I worried so much about being a good pretend-wife, appearing normal… but we’re not normal at all, so I don’t have to be either. I feel like I can drop the act. I’m a terrible liar.”
“Is this what you’re like when you… work?”
“No. That’s a lie, too.”
He poured the rest of the tea out and rinsed the pot, putting it on the drying rack. He leaned against the counter and looked at her.
“You’re like this with Anya.”
“Yes. I don’t have secrets to keep from her. Doubly so now I know she’s an esper.”
“Yeah.”
She put the towel on the hook on the wall and stepped up to him. “And now I don’t have to keep secrets from you, either.”
“Not unless you want to.”
“I have one question.”
“Shoot.”
“You called me beautiful, before.”
“You are.”
“Have you ever thought about… doing anything about that? Not being so chaste with me?”
“You always seemed uncomfortable with the prospect of physical intimacy, and we agreed it was a ruse only for the sake of appearances, so I—”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He hesitated. Yor was standing quite close; he could smell the remains of her daytime perfume.
“Of course I have. As I said, you’re beautiful. And I spend most of my days in your company; that I would develop feelings for you was to be expected, but I’ve deliberately kept them in check out of propriety.”
She put a warm hand on his chest. “I always held myself back; I didn’t want to intrude on you and Anya. I thought she missed her late mother — turns out I shouldn’t have worried at all.”
Loid felt heat rise to his face. Yor looked up at him with a blush.
Then on impulse he closed the distance to her lips. Soft and warm, like he had imagined many times, but even so the kiss set his heart aflutter something awful.
He pulled back.
“I— I’m sorry,” he stammered, “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Do it again,” Yor said. She closed her fist around the fabric of his shirt, and pulled him in for another kiss. This time her hand crawled up to his neck, and his own hands found her hips like they belonged there. They twirled around and she hopped up to sit on the counter and put her legs around his waist.
“Anya is asleep, we should be quiet,” she asked.
“Your bedroom or mine?” he replied.
“Double bed, obviously. Condoms?”
“Top shelf in the bathroom.”
Every soldier knew to keep them on hand. He had given out thousands over the scant few years he spent as an army doctor.
They split up. He went to make his bed, Yor to the bathroom. She was back before he could get much father than pulling the blanket free. She threw a handful of foil-wrapped condoms on the bed and immediately put her hands on him.
He pushed her onto the bed, she unbuttoned his shirt and unbuckled his belt, he pulled off her nightgown, she pulled him close; all amidst kisses and nibbles and caresses.
The rest, well…
The next day…
Handler sat down on the bench next to Twilight.
“You look well,” she said.
“Thank you. Likewise.”
Anya was playing with Bond, running about without a care in the world. She had complained a lot that morning about he and Yor being too affectionate.
“Finally consummated the marriage, huh?”
He glanced at her. “Is it that obvious?”
“Only to anyone with eyes. We’ll be ready for your extraction—”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Pardon?”
“Anya is an esper. She claims — and I believe her — that there’s a secret research organization here in Ostania, conducting ESP research.”
“An esper?”
“She reads minds. She’s known I was a spy since the first day I adopted her.”
Handler spun to look at him. “What? Has she leaked anything?”
Twilight shook his head. “I’d attribute much of Operation Strix’s success to her knowing what Operation Strix even was. She’s an invaluable asset, but also proves that Ostanian ESP research, if it proves fruitful, could be a disaster for WISE operations here.”
“You want to stay and investigate.” It wasn’t a question.
“Exactly. Anya and Yor is going to help me.”
She hesitated. “Telling your wife would be irresponsible.”
“She already knows. This is for you to know only: she’s a professional assassin working for the organization known as ‘Garden’, responsible for the culling of some of the very worst criminal elements in the country. Code name Thorn Princess. I’m willing to act liaison to the organization on WISE’s behalf.”
He glanced at her. “And our dog can see the future.”
“Twilight, what the hell.”
He shrugged. “Anyway, Yor and I are not going to have a problem with appearing to be a happily married couple anymore, as you might have already deduced. I’m kind of regretting we had to forge the marriage — I would have liked a ceremony.”
Handler patted him on the shoulder. “Very sad indeed. I’ll inform command and draw up a formal operation and budget. You should tell Nightfall.”
“Why?”
“Because she is obsessed with you and have been trying to win your heart for over three years at this point.”
He looked at her. “What?”
“You really are oblivious about women’s hearts, Twilight. Though with one possible exception, it seems.”
The same day, elsewhere…
Yor walked into the garden. Shopkeeper was on their knees in one of the flowerbeds, weeding.
“Hello, Thorn Princess.”
“Summer is treating your garden well, I see.”
“To be honest, I’m hoping for rain. You requested this meeting; what for?”
“My husband, Loid.”
“You asked for permission to kill him a while ago. I already gave it.”
Yor shook her head. “That won’t be necessary. He revealed to me that he is actually Twilight, the famous Westalisian spy. As I understand it, the goals of WISE and Garden align on several points, and I would like permission to act liaison to his organization. They have far superior information-gathering capabilities, and more funding.”
“Does he know who you are, Thorn Princess?”
“Yes. Our adoptive daughter is an esper. She reads minds and has known about each of our secret identities since the first day, and revealed it all to prevent Loid from leaving us, now that his mission is over.”
“An esper… I see. With the proper training she might make a fine assassin.”
“She has also told Loid and I that she escaped from a research facility somewhere here in our fine country, where they are not above experimenting on children. I think the world would be more beautiful without such an organization of unscrupulous scientists. Don’t you think?”
Shopkeeper smiled. “I quite agree. You have my permission to act as our liaison to WISE, for the time being, Thorn Princess. I commend your initiative in making this proposal.”
She gave a deep bow.
“Do give my regards to your spy husband and mind-reader daughter.”
“Our dog also sees the future.”
Shopkeeper chuckled. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Incredible. Good to see you, Thorn Princess. You look radiant.”
“Oh, Loid treats me very well — if you know what I mean.”
“I’d prefer I didn’t.”
She gave another bow, and left.
Six months later…
Yor washed the blood off her hands and needles. It had been a messy job, all things considered.
“Pass the peroxide,” Loid said next to her, having finished his post-combat weapons check.
It was good to have backup.
“If our intel is good, that was the last of them.”
“What’s going to happen to the other kids?”
“WISE will see they are adopted to good homes in Westalis and kept secret.”
She wiped her hands in a mostly clean towel and passed it to her husband. She checked her wristwatch. “We’ll be just in time for date night, too.”
“We’ll have to remember to buy the Authens a box of chocolates; they truly are saints.”
Loid corrected his butterfly, she adjusted her hair, then they left the scene of carnage hand in hand. Garden’s cleaners would take care of the mess; WISE the cover-up.
Six months later, still…
Having woken up with a terrible headache and nausea, Yor had called in sick to work, seen Anya and Loid out the door, to school and the hospital respectively, and gone to vomit up her breakfast.
Taking a nap didn’t help, and around noon there was knock on the door. She opened, looking about as bad as she felt, and found Yuri standing there.
“Hello, dear sister — before you throttle me again, Loid called. He was concerned for your health.”
“Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Forced time off. I have some vacation days saved up — use it or lose it.”
Yor nodded and waved him inside. “How’s— what’s-her-name?”
“Chloe? Good, very good. Our three-month anniversary is next week. Sis, are you okay?”
“No.”
“Flu? Food poisoning?”
“Loid and Anya would have it too.”
Yuri nodded slowly. “Go sit on the sofa, I’ll make you tea. Can I borrow the phone?”
Yor sat down. At some point Yuri came by and served her tea and an aspirin. He spoke on the phone with Chloe, but Yor didn’t have the wherewithal listen in.
“I’ll just head out and buy some groceries.”
She waved him off, waiting for the aspirin to take hold.
Some time later he came back, and she had to shuffle off the sofa to open for him.
“Don’t be mad.”
“Mad about what?”
He opened his shopping bag and pulled out a small cardboard box. A home pregnancy test.
“I know you have irregular cycles, so you might not have noticed anything amiss. I spoke to Chloe, and she thought at least you should rule it out. If it’s positive, call Loid. He’s an actual doctor. And the father.”
He handed her the shopping bag.
She gave him a hug. “Thank you, Yuri.”
“Take care, okay?”
Fifteen minutes later…
The phone rang, and Loid picked up.
“Loid Forger, Psychiatrist.”
“Hi Loid, it’s me.”
Something in Yor’s tone set him on edge.
“I’m pregnant.”