One writer. Two universes.
by Benjanun Sriduangkaew and Devi Lacroix
It begins, as all such things do, in an odd and trivial manner: a story that gets posted online chapter by chapter, caught only because Viveca and Olesya both have got staff tracking search engine alerts. Viveca because she has a legal reputation to maintain, Olesya because she hates it when nosy journalists and amateur detectives poke into her business. She has arranged a fair amount of hits, over the years. What annoys her the most is their image of her—they see her as a brute while she considers herself more of a machiavellian queen.
In Singapore, Olesya reads the story with growing, amused bafflement—she doesn’t offend easily, in this regard. In Hong Kong, Viveca reads and feels alternately outrage and incredulity. Her feeling on the matter settles into an admission that the entire thing, however preposterous, is rather funny. Over time, both sisters share the thing with their partners, who all have… varying reactions.
The writer is anonymous. It doesn’t take long to track her down.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
“What I don’t understand,” Viveca complains, setting her book aside, “is why the weretiger can’t have tiger ears while in human form. It’s a nonsensical rule that contradicts how shapeshifting is portrayed in the rest of the book.”
“First,” Fahriye replies, not opening her eyes from where she is dozing on the couch, “it’s been stated that Dallas can, apparently, only take the forms of people whose hearts she has eaten. This might be literal? And second—contrary to my previous point, nothing textually bans her from shifting to an intermediate form.”
“I follow Maria Ying’s pseudonym on social media,” Viveca says. “She said Dallas can’t do it. She’s very insistent on that for some reason.”
“We could kill the author,” Yves shouts from the kitchen. “Roland Barthes would approve.”
Fahriye finally cracks open an eye. “You’re just angry that the best sex scene in the book is you fucking your co-American.”
“My co-American? That sounds racist. And you’re okay with her aging you up and putting you in an affair with Viveca’s mom?” Yves retorts. “Plus, I don’t think you and I speak once in the entire book? What’s up with that?”
“You didn’t actually have that kind of… relations with Mother, right?” Viveca has been worried about this prospect for years, and now Maria fucking Ying has made it canon. “Right?”
Her older wife sits up to look at her, horrified. “Of course not. Obviously, your mother was attractive, but I don’t sleep with my employers.” A pause. “Present company excluded. And I don’t have some… fetish. Not that one, anyway.”
Yves steps around the kitchenette. “Hey, don’t insult your wives, Budak—it’s not a fetish to enjoy the company of someone ten years your senior.”
“I appreciate the thought, but I meant snagging both the mother and daughter. That’s a little weird. A lot weird.”
“Also,” Yves adds, “you’re just grumpy that your cop version doesn’t get a single sex scene.”
“We could try to sue,” Fahriye suggests, “and as for the sex, it was tastefully implied.”
“‘Any resemblance to real persons living or dead is accidental…’” Viveca sighs. “I’m sorry, but Hua is a terribly common surname, and I can’t file to copyright our names. It’s not a visual medium, so we can’t sue over our likenesses being misused either. Besides, you have to admit—the thing with Mother excepted—it’s sort of entertaining. Yves, do you want me to buy you a true-black suit and colored contacts?”
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
“Why would the sea witch have Inspector Budak marry my sister? Of all people.”
Dallas purses her lips. “I thought you’d be more upset about her painting you as a sadistic egomaniac. The part with the knife is, I have to admit, rather sexy. Serial killer sexy. Positively bestial.” What would she not give to be hunted through dark alleyways by a knife-wielding Olesya.
Olesya acts as if she didn’t hear. “The age difference is all wrong. Bodyguard Budak met my sister when Viveca was a teenager. It’s really creepy, actually.”
Chang’er adjusts her reading glasses, the little nervous tick she does when she’s about to disagree with Olesya. “This version of the Inspector is about ten years younger than her real-life counterpart, so it’s actually less… problematic… that gunrunner Viveca and bodyguard Fahriye are in a relationship.”
“There’s still an entire nest of consent and power dynamics that are entirely unacknowledged.”
Dallas frowns. “I mean, that’s the whole thing that makes the story hot? Each member of the throuple has different strengths and weaknesses, and who has the relative power in any scene readily shifts. Also,” she adds, “you bought me in a cage.”
“That’s not the same. You intentionally got yourself captured—”
“Well, I am happy with how I’m depicted in the story.” The alchemist nods. “A little sex-obsessed, but I got to kill someone in the first book—”
“I don’t remember you in the first book?”
“The fox-faced poisoner who offed what’s his name, the fuckhead? That was clearly me. And then I show up to lust after Olesya for a good chunk of the second book, which is very in-character.”
“Speaking of characters,” Olesya continues to complain, “what the hell was up with that Aileen Samosir person? She shows up in literally one scene, and then cryptically talks about her husband. What even was the point? Is there even a mage by that name?”
“She’s a hot milf who offers up her beard of a husband as a sacrifice to the cartel’s ambitions. Honestly, it’s about what I expected from the author.”
“In this, the tiger and I agree.” Chang’er knocks back her mimosa. “True equality is more sexy milfs.”
Olesya shakes her head in confusion. “What? No? She didn’t kill her husband.”
Chang’er prides herself on being a careful reader. “The whole thing about her giving Olesya the access code to the guest house?” She also has an underappreciated flair for the dramatic: “That was her signing her contract with the cartel—in his blood.”
“That really wasn’t clear.” A pause, while Olesya drums her fingers on the table. “We should get you both white suits, though. Maria Ying is right about one thing—it looks good against the blood.”
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
“Do you get the impression that Maria Ying’s real self-insert is… Chang’er?”
Dallas straightens up in her seat. She’s been curling up, half-asleep in the morning sun while the coffee maker does its work and fills the loft with its aroma. Slightly chocolatey, with floral notes, according to the fancy packet. “Why? She literally named a water witch after herself. Who gets to heroically tear Cecilie Kristiansen out of her chest.”
“Who also,” points out Olesya, “doesn’t get laid. When everyone else’s going at it like rabbits. Or cats in heat or what have you.”
The American scratches her chin. “I need you to confirm I have never gone out with Yves.”
“What?”
“I mean, maybe I actually dated Yves in the Pacific States and don’t know it? Like we had a sordid past together and she’s pretended not to recognize me? With what happened with Yuwada, I’m not taking any chance, and this Maria Ying girl seems to have thought about it in detail—”
“You didn’t. And if you cheat on me with my sister-in-law, I’m going to have her perforated by snipers. There’s your confirmation. You’re not going to let an incredibly tawdry piece of fiction gaslight you.”
“Okay,” Dallas says, looking relieved. Then she smirks. “Do you need me to put on a catgirl costume? Meow meow?”
“Listen.” Olesya starts filling their mugs. “Maria isn’t reading deeply into our subconscious desires and unearthing hidden psychological artifacts. She’s making it all up.”
“That sounds like a yes to me.”
“If reading all this has awakened something in you, who am I to stand in the way of your self-expression?”
“You’re just mad she wrote you as a terminally ill sister living in Viveca’s shadow.”
“Oh, no.” The cartel queen sniffs. “I’m annoyed she thinks I wouldn’t shoot through a schoolbus to get at my target. Now that’s slanderous. Her actual… literary endeavor, I have no problem with. In fact, I’ve paid to put more eyeballs on it. Have you seen how it completely ruins our SEO? Nobody searching for Olesya Hua is going to get anything but utter lunacy about witches, tigers, and warlocks. In fact, I might pull a few strings to have it optioned for the big screen.”
Dallas sips from her mug. “Do I get to play me?”
“And put your face in front of millions? Absolutely not.”
“Do I get cat ears?”
“I hate you,” Olesya says mildly. “No, wait, actually this might be a good way to get back at Maria. Cat ears it is. We’ll make it a mandatory clause in the movie option.”
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
“For the record, Ms. Hua, I would never cheat on you with Inspector Budak.”
“I know that. And you better not hit on her,” the warlock adds. “Not for my sake—Olesya had a huge crush on the woman. Probably still does.”
The demon blinks, gold flashing in the black. “She has a crush on her mother’s lover?”
“She did her level best to ignore the obvious clues to their affair. Like the fridge thing. Or the toothbrush thing, or the cologne thing.” After a moment, she adds, “I’m not that psychologically unwell, am I? Gunrunner-me desperately needs therapy.” Left unsaid: warlock Viveca clearly does not, she’s perfectly hale, thank you very much. The only concerning thing she’s ever done was becoming a hermit after she erased Yves from the mortal world. She does not count the mass slaughter and so forth she did in the name of revenge against Cecilie; that was normal mage behavior.
“You’re the picture of health, Ms. Hua,” says her demon gravely. “Physical and otherwise. Considering the circumstances of your life, you’ve held up remarkably well. Nor have you played psychological games with me.”
“It’s kind of hot, though. The games, I mean.” Viveca turns over the book, examining its back cover critically. “Have you ever tried roleplaying?”
“No,” Yves says in a tone that makes it obvious she has, probably with Dallas, the lucky cat. “What do you have in mind?”
“The—you know, that part.”
“I do not know, Ms. Hua.”
Viveca mock-pouts. “The part where she goads her bodyguard into slamming her against the wall?”
“Ah.” The demon’s smile is languorous. “Do you have a thing for consensual non-consent, then?”
“A little.” She’s been wrist-deep in her demon and heard the resultant leviathan noises, a deep-sea susurrus of pleasure; there is no place for shame in their marriage. “I trust you to handle me perfectly.”
“In that case, I’ll send the sea witch a thank-you note for giving us new ideas for the bedroom.”
“Don’t you dare,” Viveca says with a little feigned gasp. “She’s going to turn green.”
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
The remote Scottish cottage is no one’s idea of a vacation, and it’s always struck Maria as odd that the late Elizaveta Hua—not only a powerful practitioner but wildly wealthy—purchased and kept such a property. But she hasn’t come here for fun; she has come to pay a visit to the cottage’s sole resident.
To her surprise, Fahriye—formerly of Sealing and Containment, now a homunculus—lets her in. She half-expected to be turned away, possibly violently. “Hello, Inspector,” she says. “I hope I’ve found you well?”
“More or less. Do come in.”
Maria steps over the threshold. It fails to electrocute her dead on the spot; that is a promising start. “I take it you have, ah, read the books. For what it’s worth, I never intended for you to see it.”
“The Huas have seen it, as have their weretiger and their demon.”
“Yes, well, that was inevitable. I’m more worried about your reaction. People hold you in high esteem, Inspector, myself included.”
The woman’s expression is, quite literally, stone. Then it softens. “That version of me… pursuing Viveca Hua is rather disorienting, certainly, and I’d have preferred not. But my relationship with the demon—Yves, I mean—is wholesome and well developed, and I like the part where this other Elizaveta told this other me to take care of her daughter. ”
“I was trying,” Maria begins and then falters. “I think—I wanted this version of you to be able to heal. To move on and be happy. I know that’s a little stupid, Inspector, we barely know each other.”
“To move on and be happy,” Fahriye murmurs. “What a thing that would be.”
“I’m sorry for being presumptuous.”
“Not at all. Bodyguard Fahriye seems like such a happy woman. I should see her as aspirational. And,” she adds, “you’ve written her as the kindest, gentlest of them. Dependable, a real foundation. I’m flattered. You’re a more thoughtful person than you let on.”
“Of course not. I wrote all this for a lark.”
Fahriye snorts and leans against the unlit fireplace. At the moment it is warm, or as warm as Scotland ever gets; the hearth will not see use again for a few months. “Planning to pen a third?”
“Gods, I don’t think so. I’ve been playing with fire as it is. The Huas might decide two is fine but three is a bridge too far. My muse is leading me elsewhere, anyway. I’ll come up with my own characters this time, I promise.”
“What’s the next one going to be about?”
“Giant robots,” Maria says, confident. “A brooding underworld lord and a new-made cyborg goddess born to challenge her. It’s going to sell so many copies. A girl’s got to have something to fall back on, Inspector, in case my information brokerage career doesn’t work out.”
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
Maria admires the sight of her new bodyguard. Recadat Kongmanee is a recent hire, a wraith of sharp lines and flashing eyes that follows Maria as closely as her own shadow. Not many people have the resources to address their trauma with a bodyguard; in hindsight, it probably isn’t a coping mechanism that her therapist would recommend. But in Maria’s defense, she met Recadat at a PTSD group therapy session, so her shrink couldn’t be too angry with her methods.
A convenient coincidence, but Viveca Hua thoroughly vetted Recadat herself, and Yves provided a laconic “sometimes things break your way”; that her friend—and, after all this time, she hopes that she can call Yves a friend—conducted her own, more strenuous investigation is left unsaid.
These days, it’s mainly politics—to Maria’s disappointment, her creative career has brought little mortal peril—and over the past year and a half, Recadat has become something like Maria’s aide-de-camp; a natural fit for a woman already occupying a position of deep trust and dependability. Maybe Recadat wasn’t as new to Maria’s life as her first assessment implied; the budding politician has come to rely on the woman in a great many things, not just coordinating her security detail.
At the moment, Recadat is proofreading a printed copy of Maria’s manuscript.
“It’s very fun,” she says, marking an out-of-place conjunction before turning to the next stapled page. “You’ve got a lot of imagination, Ms. Ying.”
“You like it?” she says, pleased. She is, after all, only human: it took a while for her to get past her infatuation with Yves Hua, and Recadat—handsomely androgynous, sleek and eye-catching—has been of incredible help in that regard.
“I’m not very well-read, but yes.” Foolish self-deprecation; in actuality, Maria knows the woman keeps shelves of quite sharp nature writing. “It’s got so much energy; very exuberant. Thannarat’s going to enjoy it when she’s back from holiday with her wife, if you want to share it with her. May I ask,” the bodyguard adds lightly, “how come I’m not in these books?”
Maria leans forward, delighted. “Would you like to be? You’d be the first to ask.”
“Sure. It’s like being immortalized, in a way. As long as I get a signed hardback.”
The politician-slash-author steeples her fingers and grins. “Well, the first book’s all finished, but for the sequel? I’ve got an idea.”