As Moriko was ushered into the ba, Princess Kagami asked, “She has a curtained-off area, mind if we follow and tio talk?”

  “I have no problem with that, Yhness.” Moriko had very little body shyness, so she’d have been only a little self-scious about it even without the curtain, but she certainly appreciated the sideration of being asked. The curtained-off area iion tained a pair of magic circles inscribed onto the ceiling and floor, where she stripped down under mistress U’s instrus and stood in different poses while lights zipped about her. U said that this was taking her measurements, and Moriko believed her, she’d just never had this level of magic sing before. It did take her a moment to uand what the poses were for, they made various muscles strain in different ways whi turn would allow measurements to take her movements into at.

  The versation from the princesses oher side of the curtain was carried on mostly by them, and for the most part, it was just small talk that helped Moriko learn a bit about her … hosts? Maybe not teically yet, but it felt a lot like that’s how they were ag, and she was feeling obligated like a guest. She couldn’t think of a better word for it.

  The rest of the afternoon and the early evening became quite the busy flurry of shopping, with the first part being a sed dress to leave the shop in rather than her uniform. It seems that Mistress U kept a sele of ‘st minute’ dresses avaible in a near-ready state for the princesses’ venience, requiring only a minimal amount of adjustment to fit oended for Priiriana to Moriko, as they were the most alike in stature.

  This allowed Moriko to see why the royals were fident that U could pull a plete dress together in two days. Ohe decisions were made, the chosen dress was dropped onto a wooden mannequin that adjusted itself to match the measurements taken of Moriko. U eyed the dress a moment then grabbed several spools of different color a threads to put onto a set of spindles built into a nearby table. With her preparations plete, U drew a ft tool kit from her dress to reveal several ruched needles of silvery metal, a small pair of scissors, and a stitch cutter. With a toud murmured word these devices sprang to life and moved to her will. With expert swiftness she threaded eaeedle ahem to h, theo work making her adjustments, drawing in or letting out where needed, switg out a couple of panels of the skirt to make it move better for Moriko’s needs, and other small adjustments as well as finishing up the edges. She was doing the work of at least a dozen normal skilled seamstresses with the added advantage of not getting in her own way.

  Ihan half an hour Moriko had a brand new dress ready for her to head out oown with the princesses, and her normal soft boots would do well enough for this. Then it was time for accessories. The four princesses were definitely showing off, every pce they brought Moriko to had deadly options, many of which were close enough to the ons Moriko had trained in to be useful to her.

  Fancy, delicate-looking fans had ribbing of adamah cealed sharp tips. Parasols and umbrels had optiing from a short bde you could draw from the bottom like a dagger to a bde that could pop out from the top to make it into a small spear. The embroidery on slender gloves hid tial studs, which were backed by thin but surprisingly tough leather to protect the skih. Hairpins that doubled as thin knives. Weighted handbags. The list went on, and many were selected for Moriko with little ce for her to say no.

  Then there was jewelry. Everywhere they went the royals pared several pieoriko, and always bought at least one expensive piece, ‘for the shop owner’s time and trouble’ if nothing else. They were talking around a subject, but it became clearer towards the end of the shopping spree when Moriko was instructed to not wear any of the jewelry on the night of the dinner, it seemed that she would be loaned a small sele of royal jewelry for the duration of the evening.

  During all of this Moriko got a better feel for her hosts. Princess Kagami was the one she felt closest to in many ways, they were both the eldest sibling e families, and it showed in the ways she guided and subtly maniputed versations of her sisters to keep the pead avoid topics wandering too far afield. Kagami was also only two years youhan Moriko herself, though she had been married several years now. Her husband was a younger son from a southern barony

  Princess Kitiara was not quite as stern as her cool expression and northern coloration suggested, but her posure was due in part to her foilitary matters. She was married to the daughter of a Marquess from the northern border, who would have been the heir were it not for the issue of produg more heirs. Moriko hesitated a moment before making a suggestion when she learned about this. “Um, if she wants to i, the two of you might sider visiting the Azeria ? The kitsune are shape gers, and might know some magic to help you fix that issue temporarily?”

  Kitiara gave a slight smile. “Thank you, but we have already sidered that. her one of us is particurly ied in the role of father or mother here, and we’d both prefer to be on the front line if anything happened, so we’ve decided to keep things as they are.” It had been almost two hundred years sihere were any official flicts with the Trionean Empire, but even if retions were superficially friendly the different cultures were a source of stant tension along the border, and even without proof many were vihat many of the bandits in the northerories were financed by the empire.

  Priiriana, the one whose dress had been co-opted for Moriko and who was eo an elven noble, was the most enthusiastic about the shopping, and on more than one occasion had to be restrained by her sisters from buying even more things for Moriko. She hoped that the princess’s husband-to-be was well off because it seemed that the twe-year-old had little care about spending money. At least she seemed to have an eye for quality rather than wanting to buy every sparkling trihough that could get expensive fast too.

  While Tiriana had the most enthusiasm, Bridgette had the most energy. Scarcely a year older than Kazue, she burned with a passioensity that would not be out of pce at Sakiya’s mohough her talents were more towards the magical than the martial. She did not have the sort of excitable distractability that the kitsune did however, she was much more focused and could wax on about her studies in magic given the slightest encement. It seems that her magic was fueled by one of their older bloodlines awakening, and gave her magic more akin to that of a druid than a wizard, though with a focus on fire as a medium of renewal.

  Lady Yuriko was more reserved and seemed amused as she shadowed the group, though she did occasionally offer a suggestion or bit of guidance. Moriko was fairly certain that the kitsune represented more security than the rest of their guards bined.

  Physically Moriko could easily keep up with even Bridgette for energy, but this sort of new socialization was a touch overwhelming aionally exhausting, so she was quite gd wheher women decred the shopping finished and that it was time for supper. She was ushered into a restaurant with a discreet, unmarked entrance, where they were theo a private dining room after passing through a slightly more public area. The guardsmen that remained after packages were sent off to be delivered to Moriko’s room at the moook up stations in an outer room to the one where the women would be eating. Once orders were pced, the six of them were briefly alone for the first time since she had been ambushed, and Yurikht out a small blue orb and pced it oable where it began to glow. She stared at it for a moment, then nodded. “Speak freely.”

  Princess Kagami sighed as she rexed, which surprised Moriko as she had not realized that the other woman had not been rexed until that moment. “I think that went well. Moriko, I o apologize for something. While we did want to help you shop for everything, there was another purpose. Circumstances have already led to you and your spouses being drawn into some royal secrets, so you now get to enjoy another. Lady Yuriko here is also our current spymaster, as is tradition for the Azeria advisor. Our unofficial public appearah you has allowed her agents to watch the reas of surprised folk, and are undoubtedly keeping track of the as of anyone suspicious.” She gave Moriko a grin. “We may be a peaceful kingdom, but even with our advahere is some internal dissent, and there are a few external threats. So it’s best to keep track of people who react the most to this sort of surprise information. We ’t keep your dungeon a secret, so we might as well take advantage of the situation.” Kagami then turoward Yuriko with a lightly scolding tone. “As for you, you know very well that Mistress U hates it when you surprise her like that. This is why we do half our shopping when you are otherwise occupied.”

  Yuriko made a small show of lookiant, but Moriko rather doubted the siy of it. See, this was why she was nervous about dealing with nobility, none of this had even occurred to her as a yer of what was happening. It might not be as bad as she had been imagining for a public court, but she really hated not knowing or uanding what was going on around her with people that were supposed to be her allies.

  Kitiara chuckled at Moriko’s expression. “You wear your thoughts on your face when you aren’t guarded. I uand and agree, that’s part of why my wife Catherine and I have decided to leave things be when it es to potentially iing the position of Marquess. We’ll keep our focus on defending the northern border with our strength of arms, ahis lot deal with politics.”

  Moriko blushed slightly at being caught out, and it did not help that she could hear Mordecai ughing in the back of her head. He was curious about something however, and Moriko decided to at least bring it up. “Ah, that brings up a topic. Maybe it would be best to cover it ter, but I let you know now. Our ‘open-mindedness’ when it es to romance surprises him a touch, especially when it es to nobility. He doesn’t think it was allowed so openly when he was around previously.”

  Kagami held up a finger and the others all waited while she thought. After a few moments, she nodded as she made a decision. “I think it will take up more time than we have to go over such questions iail. While we will answer what you o know so that we hopefully write up an official treaty, I’ll make sure we pull together a copy of the founding charter and subsequent ges to help give all of you a better uanding of how everything works in this kingdom.” She smiled slightly. “I take it you are not a history buff, and only really ed yourself with rules that affected you? Don’t worry, that’s how most people in any nation deal with ws, but you have found yourself in a position where you o know more.”

  Moriko smiled at that. “Guilty. Oh, Mordecai is asking why you are being so generous with our shopping and with some of your secrets?” She gestured towards Yuriko, their retly revealed spymaster.

  “Ah, that one is easy.” Lady Yuriko said. “Having a dungeon near our kingdom is unpreted, and we want to get ahead of other people’s responses. You are teically situated ihe ra aside for all the various mountain tribes to maintain their own govers outside of our or Danuana’s political al systems, but you and your wife are citizens of Kuic, so the situation is plicated. What we are hoping for in broad scope is to vihe three of you to sign an alliareaty that would make your territory a sn vassal. This is not as straining as a standard suzerain-vassal retionship, not only is trol of your territory strictly your own but you have the freedom to work on your own fions separately, given that they do not flict with the security of Kuic. So to be blunt, we are both wealth and access to some of our secrets to entice you to trust us, and we do so with the anticipation that this will be beneficial in the long term for our kingdom.”

  So a bribe in other words. “And this is all to help warm us up to the idea?”

  Bridgette pouted a little at Moriko’s tone. “Don’t be like that. You are effectively our peer, and we have good reason to sider you truly a friendly state. We normally have to be super careful about making people close friends, but you were thrust into this position and we have a lot of information about you from the temple, so we want to make you a real friend. We just have to also deal with all the other stuff at the same time.” Crap, the girl’s sad face was almost as effective as Kazue’s, she just didn’t have ears or tails that could droop.

  Zagaroth