For the next month, Arnica Osten lived in Misk.
She stayed in Dunne's house and she spent his money on groceries, and clothing, and bedding, and toiletries, and as far as Omni could tell, he was more or less fine with it. He might have even been enjoying it. Gowri called her his girlfriend, which he said was inaccurate, but which Omni thought seemed pretty accurate.
Three days a week, Omni worked his apprenticeship just as he had for the past year, since he'd been hired, and every week, he made slightly better bases and kept the coilers hotter with more and more efficiency. The other four days of the week, he hung around Gowri at the Al'Trosk or Arnica around Misk, where she made him try new and fancy cafes and talk to her while she judged boutiques and department stores in upper class neighborhoods in Misk Omni had always only ever tried to avoid, but that he was growing somewhat accustomed to. There was a reason rich people always put in so much work to stay rich. And he didn't mind Arnica, either. She was funny and pleasant enough, and he couldn't really dislike her even if he wanted to because Dunne liked her and it was really the first time in ten years that Omni had ever seen him seem to remotely enjoy the company of anyone for longer than few hours.
And as Omni ate at fancy cafes and explored stores he couldn’t afford to look in the windows of without a fancy Viollan woman accompanying him, he learned everything Arnica Osten knew about alchemists and the Alchemic Guild in Violl, which was much more than he had expected. Omni asked if she had ever trained in alchemy, or if she had wanted to be an alchemist, to which she said no, she found the scientific side of it boring, but that she had been on four dates with a Viollan alchemist named Rislo Leaque, who Omni had never heard of and assumed must have been a pretty mediocre alchemist. Arnica also knew about the cultivation of alchemic herbs and flowers and the alchemic values of wild flora and a surprising amount about birds and animals more generally and he was pretty sure she must was incredibly smart, but she was also just as strange, sad, incompetent, and surly as everyone else in Misk. Maybe she belonged there.
A week into her time in Misk, Arnica started working with Monterro , organizing documents and encoding new documents, tabbing up ledgers, and other boring, elaborate, precarious administrative duties alongside supplying a new feed of information about Violl at a cheaper rate than his other informants. She said she was willing to give him a deal because everything in Misk was so affordable and also because once she had gotten access to Dunne's floorboards, she hadn't needed as much as she'd thought she would. And besides, favours were good things to do for powerful people and as it stood, Monterro was the most powerful person she still knew. She worked mostly days Omni also worked, but she told him most everything about the work, including that Dunne didn't seem to like it, but that he had no say in the matter, and ultimately, it would have only cost him more to talk Monterro out of it. He was cheap, she said, and she didn't live cheaply, even in Misk. Omni thought it was funny, because he had never considered Dunne cheap before. Bitchy, but not cheap.
As the weeks went by and Omni ate crepes and learned about fancy tea and which varieties he liked and which he disliked and which were just gross, the newspapers pumped out information about the upcoming wedding. Multipage photo spreads of potential wedding gowns from fashion designers in Violl, Hollair , and even Ing . Commemorative magazines that could be purchased for an extra five jin with glossy, color printed photographs of Prince Vikram Volkov and Euphorbia Osten, with some occasional shots of their parents. Some stalls hawked commemorative items, temporal souvenirs--plates and flags and drawings commemorating the date and location of hte wedding, all sold with the information that if one got to Qentas early enough and waited all day, the Crown Prince and Princess might, after the ceremony, walk amongst the crown and perhaps sign a few hundred tokens just as King Maathen always did at public events. And everyone knew, the earlier in his reign Maathen had signed something, the more it was worth at auction. (If the documentation was there, of course).
On the 16th day of the 3rd Month, the second Sixthday of the Month, and Omni's second day off of the week, stopped at one of these stalls so Arnica could inquire about a special Viollan magazine she liked that should have released a new issue the day prior, Omni purchased a mass printed watercolor painting of Euphorbia Osten with the knowledge he would never get it signed, but hung it on his wall anyway. Arnica smiled at him and he felt stupid for it. It was her sister. And she really hadn’t accomplished much other than being hot and seeming nice. And Arnica was probably somewhat jealous of her for the fact that in a few weeks she would be direct heir to the throne, and that, in all honesty, she was just a little bit hotter and seemed substantially nicer than Arnica, herself. But then, as they stood at a stall on morning two weeks out from the wedding and he held the picture down at his side in shame, she rifled around in her coat pocket until she produced a hair clip and handed it to him.
"Here, if you can't get her signature, take this."
"What is it?"
He turned over the object in his hand, only half sure it was a hairclip because it looked so complex and potentially painful where what he thought was the clasp was.
"It was hers. I took it a while ago, but I didn't realize it was two pieces, so it doesn't actually clip. But it's been in her hair."
She smiled in a way that didn't make him feel embarrassed or stupid at all and only a bit guilty for thinking Euphorbia seemed nicer.
"You don't have to take it--I know it's a broken hair clip. I just thought you might want it--see, those are her initials."
She pointed a short, angled, lacquered fingernail at three small letters on the underside of the clip and Omni squinted.
"Oh shit, it does..."
He tried to withhold a smile.
"I can really have it?"
"Sure. I've got no need for it. Keep it, hawk it, sleep with it, whatever you want."
"I'm not gonna sleep with it...it's like...it's like a commemoration of our future Queen, Arnica! That's such an important person--what if she does incredible things and is remembered forever and I have this? I can pass it on to, like, my grandchildren and shit. I'm not some creep, this is about history! And culture! And our Nation! I'm not a creep."
"I didn't say you were."
Arnica only smiled and Omni broke into laughter.
"I'm still gonna see if I can get her to sign this at the Wedding..."
He held his poster up and held the hairclip over it.