Story:

Peach held the laugh in for perhaps three seconds. Then she folded forward over the discussion-room table. “Oh, I wish I’d seen your faces.”

Violet looked at her.

“The two of you,” Peach managed, “sitting there while Ai-chan and Mai-chan negotiated your good behavior—”

Another burst of laughter defeated her.

After days of imagining the twins lost, frightened, or hurt, the picture was almost unbearable in its relief:

Ai and Mai safe, fed, and politely rescuing two queens of catastrophe from a comfortable cellar.

Violet pushed Peach the remaining distance out of her embrace. “I am delighted,” she said, cheeks pink, “that our imprisonment has improved your afternoon.”

Peach covered her mouth. It did very little good. Kicho laid a hand on her sister’s shoulder.

“Let her laugh, Onee-sama. She has earned a little.”

“I disagree with the quantity.”

“And we have not reached the important part.”

That finally steadied Peach. She wiped beneath her eyes and sat upright. “All right. I’m listening.”