Archive of Our Own

It starts with a coincidence.

A series of coincidences, really: Yor can’t find her shoes, she has to clean her weapons, Franky takes too long to come over and babysit. It’s all right, she tells herself—she’s still well within the timeframe that the Shopkeeper told her about, and with how fast she works, she should have more than enough time to get in and get out, job done.

When she arrives at the hotel where her target is staying, it’s her first sign that something is wrong. The elevator ascends slowly, too slowly, and outside the door, the guards are already knocked out. The door is ajar. The Shopkeeper hadn't insinuated anything about this mission would be more difficult than normal, or even that it was anything crazy. Routine. Easy enough for someone like you, he'd said, and she's never had a reason not to believe him. Faith—in herself, but above all, in him. Yor keeps walking.

“Hello, Vice Minister Kade,” she says, her voice carrying across the empty hallway. “I’m sorry for the intrusion—”

But the words stick in her throat when she enters the room. The aftermath of a fight, coffee table upended, lamp shattered.  The light from the hallway, lapping at her heels, streaming in as she pushes the door open further. In the center of it all, two men.

She recognizes the first from the Shopkeeper’s file. Lucian Kade, newly appointed Vice Minister for Ostania’s Ministry of Transportation. Traitorous scum, the Shopkeeper had called him. In need of pruning. Now, unconscious. Still breathing, by the way his chest rises and falls. But he's bruised, his clothes are torn, and he's lolling over in the chair he's currently being tied to. And kneeling in front of him, ropes in hand, is Vice Minister Kade.

So, so important, Yor has known for years, to memorize the target’s face, their build—front and back, inside out. Dark hair, fleshy face, strong chin. The broad shoulders, the bony wrists. The crooked knuckle of his left index finger. Study the photo so thoroughly that you could pick them out of a room with your eyes closed. Now, as though asking her to prove that exact sentiment, there are two of them.

The man with the ropes in hand pauses in his task, staring at her with open-mouthed surprise. He wasn't expecting anyone. That means the Shopkeeper's intel still holds true. Garden hasn't been compromised. The man recovers a second faster than Yor does—a drawback. A clue. Not a threat, the Shopkeeper had said about Kade. Enough strength in just your pinky finger to finish the job, I’m sure.

His arm draws back, throwing something at her; her body reacts before her mind does, unfreezing, letting instinct take over. A conversation between them, and she replies with a stiletto. Gauging his speed. He dodges, but not well enough. Slower than her. She grazes his cheek.

“We haven't met,” she says to him. “I don't know who you are, but I don't think you're Vice Minister Kade.”

He's crouching, cornered animal, and she gets the impression that he's scanning the room from the corner of his eyes for any escape routes.

“Unfortunately, I came here to take his life. If you continue to stand in the way of that, I’ll be forced to take yours, too.”

His hand shifts at his side. The glint of a gun. Yor's eyes narrow.

“Then again,” she says, “if you point a blade at someone, you shouldn't be surprised to have one pointed at you, too. Maybe you're the real one. Maybe you aren't. There's only one way to be sure.”

She can’t say with any certainty which one of them is the first to break their standoff. He's lifting his gun, finger on the trigger, at the same time that she's lunging at him with her stiletto outstretched. They go down in a collision of hard limbs, grappling for the upper hand. Yor is stronger; she ends up on top of him. Weapon at his throat. His gun pressed up against the underside of her chin.

Yor can throw her weapons faster than a bullet, of course, but when it's in her hand, she's limited. She doesn't like to stab. She could slit his throat, but her wrist doesn't have as much range of motion as she would like here. Caught in their stalemate, she and this imposter breathe hard. Together.

Another coincidence, one could say, what happens then: the clouds outside shift, uncovering the moon. Light streams in through the window. Illuminating Yor’s face.

The gun at her throat, the tense grip this man has on it, slackens. Something shifts in his gaze as he holds hers; something open and raw, woundlike.

Yor doesn’t hesitate. She pushes forward with the tip of her blade. Feels the way it catches on something firmer than skin—a mask. She wants, she realizes, to see his face. To fully uncover this overlap between faces and identities. She has never had a discrepancy between them. She's given a face and a name, and those always match. And then she kills them. End of story.

She has never killed someone whose face she hasn't seen.

“May I have the honor of taking your life?” Yor asks.

In response, he lets his arm fall to his side, taking his gun with it. No further threat to her life. He's given up—but why, she doesn't know. She doesn't think about that. She's a weapon. A tool. She isn't made to think, she's made to do.

Her blade, now, has pierced through the material of his mask. Found the edge. With her stiletto, she pulls it up, and then it's she who is letting her weapon clatter to the ground. So, so loud. If only she hadn't seen. If only the clouds hadn't moved, the curtain was drawn, they had ended their fight just a few inches to the left. If she were later, or earlier. If she had been named anything else.

Because there, in stark black, curling right over the man's pulse point, is her name.

Yor immediately pushes herself off of him, flies backward until she hits the wall. Her, now, the cornered animal searching for an escape route.

“No,” she whispers. “No, it's not... That's not possible. You're not…”

Another mask. Another fake. It's not real. It can't be. The man's eyes don't leave hers. Look on his face unreadable. But it's not his face. She needs to get out of here.

She's slipping in her heels as she stands, runs out the door. Instinct, again—at the last minute, she gathers her wits about her enough to throw another stiletto at Vice Minister Kade, still bound to the chair. A wet gurgling sound as her weapon hits its mark. She should stay behind to confirm that he's dead.

Instead, she runs as fast as she can. Can still feel the eyes on her long after she's stopped.

Yor should go home. There's still a role to play. She needs to update the Shopkeeper. She needs to throw up. And she does: filthy as she is, blood and bile all together. Shaky legs take her to a nearby payphone. Shaky fingers fish a spare dalc out of the holster hugging her thigh. They, automatically, dial the only number she can think of. The only person she wants, needs to talk to.

He picks up almost immediately. “Hello?”

“Yuri,” she whispers.

“Yor?” He perks up, excited, before worry bleeds into his voice, audible even through the phone. “What's going on? Why are you calling so late? Are you okay? Did something happen? Did Loid—”

“No!” Yor takes in a shaky breath. “No, it's not... It's just... I…”

Yuri waits—if not patiently, then at least silently, for her to find the words. Her eyes blur with tears. When had she started crying?

“I just wanted to hear your voice,” she says. “Tell me about your day.”

“Okay!” says Yuri, before launching into an explanation, minute by minute, of everything he did since he woke up that morning. The words wash over her—the specifics, she doesn't hear, but she does hear the tone of his voice. The routine that she lets herself sink back into, so familiar. Exactly what she used to do as a kid, when there was a kill that was a bit too much for her to handle emotionally. When the weight of the world felt like it was too heavy on her shoulders. When all she wanted, so badly, was to feel normal.

This is fine. Everything is fine. She's safe. Yuri is safe. Loid and Anya are safe. That's all that matters.

“… Hey, Yor, are you sure you're all right? Is there anything you wanna tell me?”

She's silent for a moment. “Good night, Yuri,” she finally says. “Sleep well.”

She hangs up. Trudges back home. She has to change out of her clothes, she remembers too late—but really, she's covered in far less blood than she usually would be after a night out. Just a few cuts and bruises, a few tears in her dress. She's already formulating a lie on the tip of her tongue for what to tell her family—not her family, not really.

But thankfully, when she gets home, it's late, too late. Even Bond barely looks up at her arrival, though his tail does thump up and down happily as she offers him a pat on the head.

Even though everyone is asleep, the lamp in the living room has been left on. Awaiting her arrival.

Yor allows herself one extra moment in the light before she switches the lamp off. Something comforting, she thinks, about darkness.

The Shopkeeper calls the next morning—early, too early, but Yor has not slept anyway—with an apology. His fault, he says, that he hadn't gathered enough intel for her. Hadn't considered the possibility that her target would be under the watch of other organizations. That he made things difficult for her.

It's on the tip of her tongue to refuse, to wave away his apology. It wasn't difficult, she wants to say. She wasn't injured. The job was done. There were no problems.

“Who was he?” she asks instead. “That… That man.”

“Twilight,” the Shopkeeper says, and Yor drops the phone.  The receiver slips out of her hand, cord tangling and spinning around her wrist like a noose. She hears the Shopkeeper's voice as he continues talking. She hears none of the words. Again, she goes through the motions. Grapples for the phone again, places it to her ear. Says goodbye when he falls silent. Places the phone down gently. Lets her knees give out beneath her, and falls to the floor.

She knows the name, has heard it whispered in Garden. The equivalent of a boogeyman. Another assassin, too green, too full of himself, had asked, once, what to do if they ever ran into Twilight. Do not engage, the Shopkeeper had said, voice hard.

The greatest spy of Westalis. The man with a hundred faces. And, somehow, her name scrawled on his throat.

Yor reaches up to her own throat, fingers tracing over the bare skin. Her whole life, she has been nameless, unmarked. Maybe it wasn't real, she tells herself. A trick of the light—but. He hadn't known she was coming, did she? He'd looked surprised at her arrival—and even more surprised when he'd finally seen her face. That means he knows who she is. Her name, her face, her job. Her family.

No. It doesn't have to mean anything, does it? Maybe it doesn't. She certainly doesn't have his name. So she’s his soulmate, but not the other way around. Which is fine. Nothing has changed about her life, has it? All she has to do now is get up. Easy enough. And now—

“Mama?”

Yor shoots to her feet. “Anya! Good morning! Sorry, did I wake you?”

Anya stands before her in the darkness—small, so small—sleep cap falling over her forehead. But the look in her eyes is far too alert for this early in the morning.

“Is Mama... okay?” Anya asks carefully.

Yor forces a smile. “Of course, of course!” she says breezily. “Here, are you hungry? Want me to make you some breakfast? Or some cocoa?”

She hurries to the kitchen, grabbing everything she needs for cocoa. It's only when she's measuring out the powder that Anya asks, “Is Mama scared?”

Scared? What a strange question. Why would she be scared?

“Mama's hands are shaking.”

Oh. They are. There's cocoa powder all over the counter. Slowly, Yor places the teaspoon down on the counter. Takes a deep breath. Two. Three.

“I’m okay, Anya,” she says. But that doesn't feel right. It tastes like a lie, sharp and bitter. She tries again. “I just didn't sleep well.”

Anya nods. “Mama worked late last night.”

“I did,” Yor agrees. She picks up the spoon and tries again, with more successful results this time around. “How did you sleep?”

“Okay,” says Anya. “It was loud, though.”

Yor winces, guilty. She'd tried so hard to be quiet last night, but maybe she'd missed something.

Anya keeps watching her for a moment, before she says, “Can Anya ask Mama a question?” She sounds more serious than Yor has heard her in a while. Once again, like it does so often, Yor feels her heart break for this small creature who's deigned to let her into her life, to allow her to share some of her world.

“Of course,” Yor says. “Anya, you can ask me anything. I hope you know that.”

And of course, Anya wants to ask about soulmates. Not for the first time, Yor considers just how intuitive Anya can be sometimes. But children so often are—she remembers being young, Yuri knowing what was on her mind before even she realized it for herself. A question of trust, and with trust, comes the question of identity. If you were wearing a different face, a small voice in Yor’s head whispers, would she still trust you?

“Anya always trusts Mama!” Anya adds.

Yor is getting far too transparent.

Cocoa done, she pours it into two cups and beckons Anya to sit with her at the dining table. Early, still; Loid shouldn’t be up for another hour or two. This time, then, belongs only to them.

“You want to know about soulmates,” Yor begins. “Did someone say something at school?”

After a moment, Anya nods. Yor figured as much. That's how Yuri came home asking about it one day, too. It's a thing around kids that age, she thinks, as they're growing up. She can't help but wonder, of course, if she was the same way. She must have been, surely, but it feels like a lifetime ago. Someone she can't even recognize as herself anymore. A different face. She's spent longer without a soul mark than she has dreaming of one. It's impossible to reconcile anymore— impossible to dream of having something she can never have.

That doesn't mean she's never done it, though. They call them dreams for a reason, don't they?

“Okay,” says Yor softly. “Let's start from the beginning.” She leans across the table to wipe at the cocoa mustache that Anya's sporting on her upper lip, relishing in the way the girl giggles. The sound—light, cheery—cuts through the tension that hangs over Yor's shoulders. “What do you know?”

Anya perks up. The same way she does when she's studying with Loid or Yuri and they ask her a question that she's sure she knows the answer to. That glee, that confidence. It makes Yor smile, too.

“You get your soulmark when you're old,” she says, “and it's the name of the person you're supposed to love forever! And who loves you back! And you live happily ever after together.”

There it is. That fairy tale. It's a nice fantasy, isn't it? Yor cannot begrudge her for having it at all. Not Yor, who lives in a house that is not hers. Married to a man who is not her husband. Drinking cocoa with a girl who is not her daughter.

Something unreadable passes over Anya's face, and Yor realizes that she's been silent for too long.

“That's right,” she says. “Well, sixteen isn't old, not really, but I suppose the rest of it is right. What did you want to know, then?”

Anya's smile falls. Worried.

“What happens,” she says, “if someone doesn't have a mark?”

A little bit more of Yor's heart breaks. “Oh, Anya, you don't have to be scared about that! It's really rare to not have a mark, and you have a long time until you turn sixteen. Don't worry—”

“But what if,” she insists. “What happens then?”

Anya's blinking fast now in that way she does when she's trying to stave off oncoming tears. When, Yor wonders, had she gotten to know Anya this well? All of her mannerisms, a language that's second nature to read.

Yor takes a long drink of cocoa. Too much powder. It's more bitter than usual. That lie taste, again.

“Nothing,” she says with a little shrug. “Nothing happens. You just... You just live.”

That's really all it is. No mark should mean that you're just living a normal, average life, shouldn't it? You're born, you live, you die. And all you can hope for before then is the ability to maybe make a difference—if not on the world, then at least on someone who matters to you. But there's nothing driving you, then. None of the excitement of every day. No thumbing through the phone book, no locking eyes with strangers on the street. Hoping beyond all hope that that moment will come—eyes meeting, sparks flying, everything in between. You know, everyone says. You just know.

“Does that mean… No one loves you?” Anya asks.

“It doesn't have to! You still have your family and friends. You can find people who love you for who you are, in spite of the names on their bodies. Besides, the marks can be kind of sad sometimes, right?”

“How?”

“Like if you found your soulmate,” says Yor softly, “and if they... died.”

Anya blinks at the mention of her mother, however indirect. It’s easier than it should be, Yor thinks mournfully, to skirt around the topic of Loid’s first wife. No pictures, no reminders—save for the color of Anya’s hair and the faraway look in Loid’s eyes sometimes when he thinks no one is watching. They’d only spoken about her once, back when the need for their fake marriage was established.

My first wife and I were soulmates, Loid had said, and, well, it isn’t exactly easy, in this society, to be without one.

He hadn’t asked about a name on her skin, and Yor hadn’t offered to share.

She’s heard it all before, though, and his words were an understatement in the most extreme sense of the word. As the years pass and Yor remains conspicuously soulmateless, without a name she’s openly searching for, rumors have spread everywhere she goes. Some people think her soulmate is dead. Name on her skin grayed out, scratched over, a chance missed. Others see her and they know the truth. That there is no one in this world who is meant to love her the way everyone else is loved.

Either way, it’s always pity she’s on the receiving end of.

“Mama,” Anya says carefully. “Anya has to tell you something. I think Papa—”

“What about me?”

Mother and daughter turn together toward the third member of their little farce. Loid’s standing in the doorway, still in his pajamas but otherwise far too awake for this early in the morning.

“Loid, you’re up!” Yor stands, wincing as her chair scrapes against the floor. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting you for a while. Let me make you some coffee!”

She doesn’t realize when something is wrong. It’s just the routine they follow every day, the scripts they read off of. She makes him coffee, he thanks her for it. Takes a seat at the table, pulls the newspaper toward himself, asks Anya if all her homework is all ready to go. A play of domesticity—she’s long since stopped asking who the audience is. One thing when they’re out and about, another entirely in the comfort of their own home.

Yor is grateful for it, though. What better way to learn normalcy than to have it at all?

Her hands are shaking less as she’s pushing herself through the motions—cup, water, coffee grounds, steady, steady, milk, saucer—and only afterward, when she has a perfectly made cup of coffee to show for it, does she realize that the room has been silent for far too long. When she turns, everyone is as she left them. Loid is still, eyes narrowed as he watches her move around the kitchen. Anya’s gaze flits between them both apprehensively.

Yor’s hands raise self-consciously to her face. Did she miss a bloodstain somewhere? Some kind of sticker that says, I’m an unloveable assassin, maybe? Or what about—

“Mama looks great this morning!” says Anya, punctuated by a high-pitched laugh. “The same as always. No—no blood or anything else out of place. Right, Papa?”

Loid startles as though he’s been stabbed. Consciously, he places one foot in front of the other, making his way to his usual seat at the table rather robotically. He stares into the cup of coffee Yor places in front of him as though there’s something in it. Oh, no. Is there? Had she accidentally made something other than coffee? So many mistakes lately, this and Anya’s cocoa and last night—

"Yor," he says, "are you... working late again tonight?"

Yor blinks at him. "No," she says. "I don't think so."

There shouldn't be any more late nights for a while. After such a large gap in their information, what with the interruption of her mission last night, it'll take the Shopkeeper a while to get things back to normal. To ensure that all of his informants are dealt with, in whatever way he determines to be best.

Interruption. Problem. Mistake. Those are good words. That's what the man from last night was, after all. Good words. Neutral words. A blot of ink spilled onto her script, but that's okay. She can still make out all the words written underneath.

"How did you sleep, Loid?" Yor asks, taking her seat at the table across from him. She wraps both hands around her cup of cocoa to keep them still. Anya stares between them as though she's seen a ghost.

And Loid... His eyes are still narrowed. She doesn't think she's ever seen him look this on edge. His way of seeing a ghost, perhaps.

Silly Yor, Yuri's voice says in her head, repeating words from so long ago. Ghosts aren't real! No, not a ghost. A threat. Those eyes—calculating, cataloging. Yor's nails dig into her palms. She's seeing things. It's not fair to Loid or Anya to let anything affect their life like this. She came into this arrangement a certain way, and she's going to keep being that way.

"Fine," Loid says after a moment. He clears his throat before taking a sip of coffee. Waits for one second, two, three, before he adds, "The coffee is delicious. Thank you, Yor."

With the feeling of heat rising in her cheeks, so too does relief in Yor's chest. This, she knows how to respond to. But before she can, Loid shifts, sits up straighter. There's the slightest gap between the top two buttons of his pajama shirt. Hardly a few centimeters of skin; nothing worth even a second glance.

And yet.

Yor stares at that gap. At the way his throat bobs when he swallows the coffee made by her hands. At the unmarred skin, so very pale.

She doesn't know Loid's first wife's name. It must have been tragic, watching his mark fade along with her. A part of him, in more ways than one, gone forever. How must it have happened: graying, scratching, a slow disappearance? Or, simply, gone? A knife thrown, a life taken.

She wonders if it hurt.

"Maybe it wasn't real," she murmurs. "Am I dreaming?"

"Mama's hands are shaking again,” says Anya, and her voice sounds so very far away.

It's a mistake to think that Yor could leave the house in one piece.

There are different scripts she follows in each walk of life, and the gaps between them are where she falls flat on her face, so to speak. At home she is wife and mother. At work she is City Hall employee. At night she is Thorn Princess.

What is she in between those times? Who is she? When she was younger, it was easier, in some ways. Sister was something she always was, always needed to be. But these days, not so much. Yuri's older now, and on his own. She's a sister when he comes over, when he calls. When he thinks of her, of course. In his mind, she is always sister. But—

It's a ridiculous thought, really, but what's the proof? They look the same, everyone always says. But now, if someone were to see Yor walking down the street, what would they think of her? There is nothing about her that says wife or mother or sister. That, she knows, is the appeal of soulmarks. Anyone can look at you and immediately know that you are loved—or even if not now, you will be someday. A certainty.

Yor, with her blank skin, shivers in the cold.

As she walks, not looking where she's going, she runs into someone. An old man.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she exclaims. "I wasn't paying attention—I'm so sorry, are you all right?"

He waves her off. "My fault," he says, rather curtly, before sidestepping and walking past her.

Frozen in the middle of the sidewalk, Yor watches him go. She only got a flash of his face: tall, gray hair, patches of stubble lining his jaw. No one she recognizes.

But that would be the point of a disguise, wouldn’t it?

When she finally manages to move, it’s in the same direction of the man. He’s walking fast, darting around pedestrians with his head ducked. Hat low on his forehead. Yor walks quickly behind him. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, has no end goal here—but that’s what her life is, isn’t it? Has always been. With no marks, how do you know which direction to go? All you can do, maybe, is follow the one person who might have an answer for you.

She’s almost caught up now. Just a few more steps, quicken her stride, and—

There, across the street, someone is staring at her. Even from here, Yor can see the green of their eyes. A woman: tall, blonde, immaculately made up. Upon meeting Yor’s eyes, she immediately looks away. As though not expecting to be caught. Guilty.

Yor stops, again, in the middle of the street. Another face that she does not know. She’s surrounded by them. If she were to count them all, she knows, without a doubt, they would add up to a hundred.

Walk, Yor. One foot in front of the other, that’s it. Make it home in less than a hundred steps; each one rips another mask off. Don’t lower your gaze. Close the curtains. No moonlight at this time of day. Close your eyes, that’s it, and it’s dark now. Too dark to identify a person’s face.

You know what they call that time of day?

Nails scrabble against the door, fingers squeeze the handle, and she’s crashing into the apartment in a cloud of relief.

“Yor?” Loid rises from the sofa, looking alarmed. “Are you all right?”

She walks forward on shaky legs. One hand flies out to meet the wall, stabilizing herself. “Loid,” she says, testing the name out.

“What’s wrong?”

He comes closer, and then stops. An invisible barrier between them. What he’s always done, so conscious of invading her space, of respecting any boundaries that she’s put up.

Carefully, Yor takes one step forward, and then another. Tearing the wall down, brick by brick, with her bare hands. And in that opening, she sees something she has seen a hundred times before: his eyes are so very blue.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she says, and wonders just what his skin would look like in the moonlight.

Yuri calls the next morning, asks Yor out to coffee. A rarity in itself—usually, he'll just stop by unannounced, something that both she and Loid have long since gotten used to. It's a bit terrifying, actually, how quickly Loid is able to whip out that Fake Marriage kit during those times. But the fact that Yuri calls first, that he plans something out, the way his voice sounds over the phone, it all adds up to a picture that Yor doesn't quite like.

"Is everything all right?" she asks.

Another clue: he doesn't immediately respond with his numerous assurances that everything is fine, that he's an adult now and that he doesn't need her to baby him, that he's perfect now that he's heard her voice.

"Six tonight," he says instead. "I won't be late."

And that, well, that makes her feel a bit better. No matter how strange Yuri's acting, he still won't ever break a promise to her. But Yor has a feeling that he might show up early, so she gets there before their meeting time to wait for him. When she sees Yuri approach, she lifts a hand to wave to him, the corners of her mouth automatically turning upward. When he meets her eyes, he's stiff, as though preparing himself for something. A look that she's seen on his face before, sure. But a common look, right? Easy enough to mimic—

Stop, Yor. This is your brother. You know him. You're not being fair to him or you.

"Yor! You came!" Yuri cheers when he's within shouting distance, making everyone else in the cafe and on the street turn around to give him dirty looks. Yuri, as usual, pays them no mind. Of course it's him, Yor tells herself. She knows him. This is the same boy she raised—no matter how often he insists that he's a man, now. Proven further by the way he insists on buying tea for her.

"What is it, Yuri?" she asks when they're both seated. "It isn't like you to call out of the blue like this.”

"Not like you, either," says Yuri, and unwittingly, she's thrown back into that night. Stumbling, fingers so cold, alone, dialing on the payphone. A voice coming through the phone pressed to her ear. Stark black lines illuminated by moonlight. It takes her a moment to realize that Yuri's still talking. She schools her expression into something more neutral. Reaches with those cold, cold fingers for her Sister script.

"Do you remember my sixteenth birthday?" he's saying now.

"Of course," Yor says immediately, because she remembers everything about Yuri.

She'd taken on a few extra jobs to be able to afford a present for him, something that she wanted to make sure that he would like. And she'd gone out and bought all the ingredients for a cake, attempted to time everything so that it would be ready exactly by midnight. And it was, but the sound he'd made when his mark had begun to come in, the way his hands had pressed to his ribcage as though in pain, had sufficiently distracted her. The cake had come out burnt, though knowing her, that's what it would have been like anyway.

"I cried so hard that day," says Yuri, and she has no doubt that the look on his face now is mirrored by hers: that faraway flush of being transported into a memory, remnants from the life when it was just the two of them, Yor and Yuri, Yuri and Yor. "I wanted it to be your name so badly."

She allows herself a small, indulgent smile. It was common, she learned then, for kids to latch onto their primary caretaker—even more so for one that had no one else in the world. We’re soulmates, Yor! Yuri had been saying ever since he was old enough to pronounce the word, never mind enough to know what it truly meant. But that’s not really fair, she thinks; so many years she’s lived on this planet, and she doesn’t know what the word even means.

But I don’t have your name, she’d told him gently.

That doesn’t matter! I don’t need a mark to tell me how much I love you.

“I remember,” Yor says, voice warm. She doesn’t tell him, not then and not now, that she, too, wanted that. Some small part of her. Such an awful thought. It’s a job of a parent, a sister, a caretaker, to hope that a child will one day leave the nest, so to speak. Prepare them to take on the rest of the world, then step back to let them do just that. Wrong of her to hope, wish, pray that he would be tied down. That the mark of her name on his skin would mean something. I exist, it would say, even if only to Yuri. I mean something to someone. I am real.

Yuri doesn’t meet her eyes. He’s worrying the pastry he ordered into small pieces, tearing it with a kind of anxious organization. Lining up the crumbs, one by one. She wouldn’t be surprised if he were counting them in his head: ones, twos, tens, twenties. A hundred. When he finally speaks, it’s so quiet that she thinks she’s misheard.

“I met her.”

Yor swallows her tea too quickly, eyes watering at the way it burns her throat. Lucky, then, that she can pass them off for happy tears.

“You… what? Yuri, that’s great!”

When he looks up at her, his mouth is a straight slash across his face. “Is it?” he asks.

They blink at each other, silent. A tear slips down Yor’s cheek; Yuri’s eyes track the movement with an unnerving amount of focus.

“I don’t know,” Yuri says, pushing a hand through his hair. The floodgates open. “I knew it would happen one day, and I thought I was prepared but—I don’t know, the feeling, I’ve never felt anything like it, and it was just… I knew. I felt sure in a way I haven’t in a long time. Maybe ever.”

“That’s great, Yuri,” she replies. “But I don’t understand why you’re upset about it.”

Yuri opens his mouth, closes it again. A dent forms between his brows; this, finally, is a familiar reaction. She’s given a name to an emotion he didn’t know he was feeling. Anxiety, anger, sure. But upset? Sadness is something he doesn’t often let himself feel.

“Upset,” he repeats, as though tasting the word. Another pastry he can tear into pieces. "It's just..."

She waits for him to gather his thoughts.

"I don't like feeling something that you can't," he says quietly, a confession.

Something shatters within Yor. “Oh, Yuri—”

“I know, I know, we’re grownups now, and we lead different lives. You’re married. And I’m…” He looks like he’s trying very hard not to cry. Yor reaches across the table, takes one of his hands in both of hers. Gently, like glass. She will not let him shatter like she has.

“It’s okay, Yuri,” she says. “Some things are just… not in the cards for me. And that’s okay. I have a good life here, and so do you. You’re happy, aren’t you?”

After a moment, he nods—a barely there motion, but there all the same.

“There you go.” She squeezes once, before letting go. “That’s all I want. For you to be happy. Go get to know your soulmate, okay? I can’t wait to meet her.”

He says something under his breath, then, so quietly that she wonders if part of him meant for her not to hear. “Are you happy, Yor?”

In lieu of answering, she takes another long sip of tea.

This is ridiculous. One of the more ridiculous things she’s ever done—she, who sought out Garden when she was younger, she who married and promptly began living with a man she hardly knew. And yet.

Another coincidence, the way she’d heard Sharon and Millie talk earlier today; despite the way she had tried so, so hard not to listen, the pertinent information had found its way to her ears. Cultural Exchange Gala. Foreign ministers in attendance. Admission is by invitation only. The kind of place, she thinks—knows, somehow—where a spy would find himself tonight.

Yor stands straight, resisting the urge to teeter on her heels. Her hands are in fists at her side, mouth pressed into a thin line. Nearly there, now. Only a few more minutes until she’s inside, which is also approximately how long she has to begin to think of a plan. Or to once again attempt to answer the question of: what exactly is she doing here? Nothing but a whim. She’d donned her black dress. Let Loid know that she was going to meet a friend. He had to head back to the hospital, he’d replied, for some overtime. So much paperwork. But Franky could watch Anya. Take as long as you want, Yor. No rush.

As though what she wants has ever been taken into account.

So many people, fancy suits and jewelry. Rich. The most she could bring herself to do was scrub the blood out of her dress. The same one that she’d worn that night. The rips and tears aren’t visible unless you know where to look. There’s one at the hem of the dress that Yor had stared and stared at, needle and thread in hand. It would have been so easy to fix; just a few stitches and it would have become invisible. Grayed over, like it had never existed in the first place.

But now, it exists, a fact only proven by the way her fingers keep fighting the urge to trace along the seam. Ridiculous. The line moves up, and Yor moves with it.

When she reaches the front of the line, she’s face-to-face with a man in a suit holding a clipboard.

“Name?” he asks, sounding bored.

Are you Twilight? Yor wants to ask. She bites down on her tongue, hard.

“Yor,” she says instead, because she is too ridiculous to have come up with a fake name. Too ridiculous to do anything other than give herself away. What a fool you are, Yor. “Yor Forger.”

The man flips the page on his clipboard, and Yor can do nothing but watch. As though he would actually find her name on here. He flips and flips and he’s going to know that she is a fraud, that she is only here to track down her elusive spy of a soulmate—but no, that’s not right, he’s not her soulmate, is he, and yet—

“Go ahead.”

Yor blinks. “I—I’m sorry?”

The man looks annoyed, now. “Go ahead, ma’am. You’re on the list.”

“Oh,” she says faintly. “Thank you. I’ll just… go inside, then.”

They must have hired this man to keep people out, of course, but that, Yor thinks, works both ways. Now he is behind her and he is barring her exit. There is no escape. She takes in the room that she’s found herself in. Dim lights, gauzy dresses, the clink of champagne glasses. The very definition of place that Yor would never be on the list to get into.

A woman crashes into her, shoulder-checking her on her way from the bar.

“Oops!” She grabs Yor by the shoulders, though that seems less to stabilize Yor and more to keep herself from falling. The bittersweet scent of alcohol wafts off the woman’s breath. “Sorry, babe, didn’t see you there!”

“Are you Twilight?”

The woman frowns. “Huh?”

“It’s no trouble,” Yor says. “Don’t worry about it.”

She’s going crazy. Calm down, Yor. Take a breath. Keep walking. One foot in front of the other, that’s it.

She walks over to the bar. Impatient for a drink, needs something to take the edge off. Doesn’t even have the patience to wait for the bartender; there are two half-empty glasses of champagne on the bar counter. She downs them in a single breath, one, two.

“Whoa,” someone says. “You, uh, you all right, there?”

The bartender’s found her. Yor eyes his brown hair and brown eyes with a now familiar amount of suspicion.

“Are you—” she starts to say, but the words die in her throat when he leans forward on the bar, resting his hands on the counter. Sheila adorns his forearm, wrapping around his skin like a well-loved bracelet. His sleeves are folded just high enough to show off the name. With pride.

He raises an eyebrow. “Am I…?”

“Water,” she manages. “Please.”

He fills a glass, and she expects him to slide it across the bar to her, but instead he holds it out to her. Forces her to reach out. To feel her fingers brush against his. It feels like nothing. Cold, maybe, because of the condensation. Slippery. But there is no spark, no feeling of things falling into place. It simply feels like anyone. Like they’ve touched a hundred times before, and this is just one more.

Yor, unconsciously, breathes out a sigh of relief. Takes a sip of the water, and then drinks more deeply until she’s drained the glass. Lets the man take it from her to refill. Doesn’t feel anything the second time their fingers brush, nor the third when she takes the glass back.

“Thank you,” she says.

He eyes her for a moment, before asking, “Are you okay?”

“Why—” Her tongue is so heavy in her mouth. It takes some effort to turn it in the direction she wants, to make it do her bidding. But Yor has always been strong—strength, the one thing she always has. You’re strong, Yor. “Do I not look okay?”

The bartender exhales, something that feels like it wants, very much, to be a laugh. “I didn’t say that.” He turns his head, casts a glance over at the other side of the bar. No one waiting for a drink, and the couple balancing on the barstools over there looks like they would not appreciate being interrupted. “You just… the way you walked over here, I mean. You looked…”

Angry, maybe. Out of place. A mess.

“Scared,” he finishes, and his voice softens. A confession only for her ears.

Yor takes another sip of water, head floaty from the champagne. “Have you met her?” she blurts.

The man blinks. A second of buffering, before she can almost see the way he snaps back, adjusting to the speed with which she’d pulled the conversation along. “Who?”

“Sheila,” she says, jerking her chin at his exposed arm.

He follows her gaze, draws his arm closer to himself slightly. A private sort of longing, it must be. After a moment, he nods.

Leaning forward, Yor balances her head on her hands. “What was it like?”

Reaching behind him for a rag, the bartender begins to wipe off a section of the countertop that, to Yor’s eyes, already looks spotless. Something to do with his hands. Keeping himself busy. She knows the feeling.

“Fine,” he says, too casual.

“That’s it?”

“If you’re asking if my world changed, or whatever they say,” he tells her, the slightest hint of granite in his voice, “then no.”

He sounds defensive, she thinks. Wall up. Another that she can, if not tear down, then at least knock on.

“I didn't mean it like that,” Yor says, even though she kind of did. “I’m sorry.”

He sighs, heavy. “No, I'm sorry. It’s just—”

“I met mine!”

The words spill from her mouth as suddenly as if she'd knocked her water glass over; she finds herself wondering if that rag in his hands can mop them up as easily. Trying to change the subject from the way she's trodden over all of his boundaries, pried into his personal life, this drunk stranger, whom he doesn't even know, who he was kind enough to check on because he thought she looked scared.

The bartender blinks at her, taken aback.

“Or, he met me, I guess,” she says. She must be drunk.

The man swallows. Yor watches the way his throat bobs—anything to keep her eyes from meeting his, in her embarrassment. Transfixed by the motion.

“What... does that mean?” he asks carefully.

She drains her water glass again, trying to buy herself some time. Roles reversed now, him watching the movement of her throat as she swallows. Words that she's thought dozens of times before. Surprisingly easy to voice them aloud.

“Just that,” she says. “I’m his soulmate. He's not mine.”

He’s stunned, now, like all the emotion she forced out of her voice found its way into him. So much so that Yor worries that she'd accidentally let something slip that she didn't quite mean to. I’m an assassin and I’m here to track down a spy. She does have her stilettos on her—a precaution, in case running into Twilight tonight didn't quite go the way she was expecting it to. But that's not right either, that implies that she has expectations, and she doesn't, really, she wants answers, maybe, but that also isn't quite right because that implies that she has questions, and—

“Who's your soulmate?” the man asks, and he sounds so absolutely broken. Yor is so very drunk.

“I don't have one,” she says, punctuating the sentence with a little shrug—one that catches her off balance, makes her nearly topple off of her barstool. The man's arm shoots out like he means to catch her—quick reflexes, this one, Yor can appreciate that—but he stops just short of making contact with her. Doesn't really need to; Yor's got quick reflexes too, even when her mind doesn't, and she catches herself with little effort. The man's fingers curl into a fist. Avoiding contact with her bare skin.

Doesn't want to touch someone like her, probably. Disappointed, but not surprised. On the outside, where someone like her belongs. Not worthy of being touched by someone like this man, not like Sheila is.

“You don't have one,” he repeats. That same hardness back in his voice. As though she's offended him, somehow. Yor casts a glance around at the rest of the bar, the other people around them. They're going to kick her out. They're going to throw her out for offending the bartender and then they're going to figure out that her name wasn't even supposed to be on the list in the first place. No matter that she wasn't the one who put it there. They're going to call the SSS, aren't they? Oh, and Loid and Anya will be expecting her home soon.

“I’m nameless,” Yor tells him softly, and it sounds like an apology. Sorry for being here. Taking up your time. Sorry for being me.

“That's impossible,” he insists, with so much conviction that Yor believes him—believes that she's gone her whole life missing a name on her skin, all she had to do was open her eyes and of course it would be right there. Silly Yor. “That's not…”

“It's okay, though!” So many times she's convinced herself, it comes easy to convince him, too. “I’m not missing anything. I'm married, actually. I have a husband and a daughter—stepdaughter. And my brother, he actually just found his soulmate.” A laugh bubbles out of her. He does not laugh with her. “So, you know, things are good. I have everything I want.”

The rag he's holding has slipped from between his fingers, landing on the counter between them in a soft heap. Yor takes it, smoothes out all the wrinkles, begins to fold it anew.

“And your soulmate,” the bartender says. “What about him?”

That question, it jolts something in Yor; the same one she came here to find an answer to tonight. What about him? What about Twilight? So many questions. Why didn't he find her—he, who can scrounge up information on anyone with just a snap of his fingers? Why did he let her live? Why didn't she kill him? He must know her, certainly—the way he'd looked at her all but cemented that. Then he should know about Loid. About Anya. Have they been in danger from him, this whole time, and she didn't know?

Has he been Loid?

She tries to think back, to wonder if there's ever been a time he acted odd, strange, anything that sticks out. Nothing comes to mind—but then, of course it wouldn't. They call him the man with a hundred faces for a reason. No one would be able to tell.

Shouldn't his soulmate be able to? If that's truly what she is. Another face he put on, perhaps. Another mask.

“I don't know,” Yor says, and her voice wobbles, the way it does when she's close to tears. She hopes she won't cry here—but maybe if she does, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. Just one more on a long list of things she needs to apologize for.

She tells herself she imagines the split second of alarm that flashes over his face; it disappears so fast that it could just be her imagination, anyway. Expression setting into stone. Like he’s come to a decision.

“It’s late,” he says, “and you’re upset.”

She wonders if she should try to deny it, but both of those things are facts.

“Why don't I take you home?”

Immediately, Yor shakes her head. “No, no, I’m married, I don’t think my husband would like that.”

Another lie, maybe. She doesn't think Loid would care, really. Maybe he's back already. In his own room, door closed. Nothing for her at home but a lamp left on, awaiting her arrival.

And isn't that enough? Isn't that already more than she deserves?

“And besides,” she says, her eyes darting to his outstretched arm, “I… I don't think Sheila would like that very much. You should go home to her.”

“Go home,” he repeats—to himself. “To my soulmate.”

“Not—not that I would try to tell you how to treat your soulmate or anything, because I definitely wouldn’t know!” Again: she laughs. He doesn't.

“Then let me call your husband to come take you home.”

“Oh, no, that’s all right—”

“You've been drinking,” he says gently. “You don't have to wait out here—I can take you to the back. You can be alone for a bit, if you'd like.”

Alone. Where someone like her is meant to be. Yor's body seems to come to a decision before her mind does—she stands, but too sudden, and the wave of sobriety that had been beginning to wash over her recedes all at once, leaving her knees wobbly and her ankle twisting out from underneath her. But then there's a hand at the small of her back, the only thing keeping her upright, and her new bartender friend is much, much closer than she remembers him being.

“Careful!” he says. “Come on, it's this way.”

“What about your job?” she manages to say around the lump in her throat.

A little smile twists at the corner of his mouth, a private joke she's not in on. “They'll manage without me.”

She casts another glance out at the rest of the room, remembering what she came here for, but her vision is still blurry with tears and her hands are shaking. This is no place for stilettos. This is no place to kill a man who could love her.

And even if he couldn't, a voice in her head whispers, even if he wouldn't doesn't won't, does it matter? A hundred faces. Couldn't one of them be enough for you? Wouldn't you like to play pretend with him? You, in your farce of a family? Wouldn't you be so good at it?

“—or. Yor!”

She's leaning back against a wall now, she realizes. Hands on her shoulders. Brown eyes blinking at her in concern.

“Stay here,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”

And then he's gone and Yor is alone and alone and alone. It is so very quiet. She slides down until she's seated on the floor and her head is hidden between her knees and finally, finally she lets herself cry. She's sixteen again, waiting and waiting for a name that will never come. She's seventeen and twenty-three and twenty-seven, washing off the pity people look at her with like it's blood. She's twenty-seven and she's content. She's twenty-seven and she's thinking about how content is so very far away from happy. She's twenty-seven and she’s—

Not alone.

Footsteps coming closer. Someone kneeling in front of her. Taking her face in their hands. Wiping the tears off of her cheeks. Blond hair and blue eyes.

“Loid,” Yor says.

“Your dress is torn,” he says quietly, and he rubs the split hem between his fingers. It might as well be a soulmark, the way his touch makes her shudder.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to take you home,” says Loid, a lamp in the darkness. “May I?”

A question of trust, and with trust, comes the question of identity.

“Okay,” she whispers. “Okay.”

He pulls her to her feet; she isn’t prepared for the change in elevation and suddenly, frighteningly quickly, she finds herself eye to eye with his neck, with the slightest gap in between two buttons of his shirt, and Yor wonders.

Wonders about the fact that she’d never told the bartender her name. How he’d said it like he had a hundred times before. As though he’d traced his fingers along the letters over and over and over again. Wonders if she would find remnants of ink on Loid’s forearm, if she were to roll up his sleeves.

She wonders if Twilight, beneath the masks and the secrecy and the unreadable eyes, even has a name.

Slowly, Yor lifts her trembling fingers. Rubs the collar of his shirt like he had her dress. It would be so easy to push the fabric aside.

“Loid,” she says, “are you…”

He watches her with unreadable eyes. Cold, like her fingers. His, too—condensation. A feeling, shared.

“Go ahead, Yor,” he says. “Ask me what you were going to.”

Another wall. But there is safety behind walls, especially ones they are on the same side of. Cut off from the rest of the world as it changes.

“Can we go home?” Yor says in a small voice. “I’m tired.”

Something in Loid's shoulders relaxes. “Yeah,” he says. “Let's go home.”

It's cold outside, and he pulls her close, an arm around her shoulders. Yor allows herself this moment. Another moment, as she leans into his warmth. Not enough to be world-changing, maybe, but when you add up enough of them, it’s something different. A wall built brick by brick.

Now, if someone were to see Yor walking down the street, they would see someone by her side. You know what they call that time of day?

The sun has already set, but the sky is a pleasing shade of blue, and there is a streak of stars, like ink on skin, lighting their path home.