Author's Note: Happy Holidays!

So the other day I'm blithely going about my life, pretty much having resigned Intoxication to the mental bin of "never to be finished" when I received a friendly, moving, eloquent plea from one Elora Story asking for an Intoxication post for Christmas. To be honest, I kind of groaned, having all kinds of mixed up thoughts and feeling on the matter: But it's been so long, I've mostly forgotten the plot, I can't possibly get back into it, it's too complicated, I've got too much going on, I don't want to promise anything I can't deliver. Etc, etc, ad nauseum.

But then, a stroke of luck. My boss gave me some unexpected time off and I used that time to read what I had written for the conclusion of Intoxication. With time has come a certain degree of clarity and I was able to shuffle some scenes around in a way that felt impossible before, and to drop unnecessary ones that gave me fits. In the vein of pure honesty, some plot threads are going to be dropped. Things that should have meant more will fizzle out instead. I am aware of this and it bothers me a great deal, but at this juncture I'm sure anyone still reading this monster of a story would agree that it's better to have a conclusion, any conclusion!, rather than let Intoxication die an inglorious death because I couldn't stop dithering.

Intoxication: Chapter Twenty-Three

I know you've got the best intentions
Just trying to find the right words to say
Promise I've already learned my lesson
But right now, I wanna be not okay

So let me just give up
So let me just let go
If this isn't good for me
Well, I don't wanna know

-Katelyn Traver, You Don't Know

Shafts of bright autumn sun flickered through the delicately tatted holes of lace. Amber held the sample of Emerald Isle lace, said to be the best in all the kingdoms, up and examined the tiny stitches with narrowed eyes. She lifted another equally complex and delicate length trying to decide which pattern should grace the train of her wedding gown. Weighing them back and forth, she finally tossed both aside on top a pile of silk swatches and huffed out a sigh. Her mind was too discomfited for such fiddly details.

An uneasy mood had settled upon her the day she quarreled with Sofia and refused to budge since, nibbling at her thoughts like a mouse worrying a chuck of cheese. She and Sofia were rarely at odds, having minor disagreements usually overcome easily by Sofia's gentle encouragements nudging Amber towards better behavior. This argument was different, and it put Amber in a foul mood. One made fowler by the damper it put on what should be her incandescent joy for planning her wedding. The wedding.

Like prodding a sore tooth, she couldn't stop worrying over the details over and over, round and round in her thoughts. The conclusion of these long hours provided that their row wasn't entirely to blame for her uneasy mind. No matter who began their disagreements, Sofia always— always— came to make it right, usually within hours, but never more than a single day. They had never gone so long not on speaking terms, and it was this detail that made Amber admit that her sister was not herself. And that she had not been herself for some time. Once she recognized this simple truth, Amber began to see an unfolding pattern stretching back over months. Sofia had been acting strange for nearly the entire year: irritable, moody, her smile not as bright as usual. Amber could smell a good scandal a mile away, and her innate sense for drama told her that somehow her younger sister was embroiled in some sort of controversy. But this didn't wash with Sofia's usually open and honest nature. In such an assumption, that Sofia would immediately confess to the slightest transgression, Amber had made excuse after excuse for her sister's strange behaviors, and freed her attention towards the more appealing distractions, like Zandar's suit for her hand. But Zandar was hers now, their wedding approached at startling speed, and despite the many, many details to plan to attend to before the day, Amber could not concentrate on a single one because she could no longer excuse or ignore the little voice that whispered that something was simply not right with her sister.

More than sororal concern, the nagging feeling was impeding her wedding planning.

There was nothing for it. If Sofia wasn't going to come to her, she'd have to take the winged-horse by the reins and do it herself.

Weaving through piles of bolted fabrics, tables overflowing with delicately painted china patterns, and reams of invitation parchments, she crossed the room and pulled the servant's bell. A maid appeared promptly, and Amber relayed her desires. After another, slightly longer, but not by much, wait, Baileywick arrived, bowing his awaiting posture.

"Has Sofia returned from the fair yet? I need to speak with her."

His passive face showed neither surprise nor impatience with her clipped tone. "Princess Sofia returned a few hours ago. She'd in her suite but left word she did not wish to be disturbed. Would you like me to deliver a note on your behalf?"

A note, my foot," Amber thought uncharitably. Somehow she had the instinctual understanding that a polite note of entreaty would be met with an equally polite excuse, if not out right denial.

"No, thank you, Baileywick. It's enough to know that she's home. Perhaps I'll seek her out later, when she's feeling up to having a visitor."

She didn't feel the least pang at this lie. Sofia was going to see her today, now. Again that startlingly strong instinct told her the time fore timid inquires had passed; she needed to shock her sister out of the complacent malaise she'd imposed upon herself.

With a courteous dismissal the steward left. She waited a minute, sure he'd be gone from the hallway, busy with the storage details of the autumn harvest, then glided out of her room as if her actions were entirely unquestionable. No servant but the stalwart steward would question her actions, and only he would move to intercede, and only on behalf of another royal. Generally, courtesy and good manners worked to avoid any conflicts of interest, but in this case Amber was determined. She'd done the best she could to wipe Baileywick's conscience clean, and if all went as planned, he'd never need to know.

Amber hesitated outside Sofia's door, her confidence quelling for the first time. In that hesitation she heard muffled voices from inside her sister's room. She paused, listening, wondering if Sofia was conversing with one of her maids. But, no, the other voice was deeper, resonating, and unmistakably male.

Amber drew back, a hand pressed to her open lips. Did her sweet, innocent sister really have a man in her room? Her thoughts reeled, trying to keep any wild conclusions at bay. Baileywick was the only male servant who would be allowed in one of the princesses' chambers unchaperoned, as he was above reproach. But the timbre was all wrong. If not Baileywick, then who could Sofia possibly have in her room?

She pressed her ear against the door in a shameless attempt to hear more. Their voices were too muffled by the heavy wood to make out a words, nor the identity of the distinctly male speaker. When footsteps approached, she hastened back. Down the hall an alcove nestled back holding a pedestal and a vase of flowers. It was behind this Amber hid, knowing again that she didn't want to be found gaping openly outside Sofia's door when it opened.

Had Sofia snuck Sebastian into the castle somehow? She hadn't seemed very eager be physically affectionate before, let alone initiate a private liaison. Perhaps Sofia taken her advice, trying harder to cultivate a physical attraction to the prince? The thought made Amber's stomach clench with something akin to guilt.

The door creaked open, and it wasn't Sebastian's voice that Amber heard. She dared to peek around the corner, eyes widening as Sofia exited her room, followed by Cedric.

That wasn't so unusual, she knew. Sofia often spent long hours sequestered with the sorcerer, but never in her private rooms. Shocking, but excusable, if not for the mussed and distinctly sated look of the pair. Sofia's lightly flushed cheeks and bright, bee-stung lips stripped away and notion that the two had merely engaged in some benign discussion. As if in confirmation, just ten Sofia reached up, fondly tucking a loose strand of the sorcerer's bangs.

"When do you leave?" Sofia asked.

Amber listened hard, holding her breath to pick out every word. They held little meaning, something about a sorceress and Cedric's family. Still, a picture began to form, and Amber understood enough to know that Cedric was leaving his post as royal sorcerer. He'd tried to do so before, she remembered, at the end of last winter, but father had engaged Sofia to intervene and the Sorcerer had stayed.

Sofia drew in a trembling breath, showing a bright smile that contrasted greatly with the heartbreaking look in her eyes. "I'll miss you when you're gone."

At the look on her face, or perhaps it was the tremble in her sister's voice, Cedric wove a hand into Sofia's tumbled hair. The touch shocked Amber with its casual intimacy, but not nearly so much as the kiss that followed. Amber watched, amazed and unable to look away. It was a kiss of passion and undeniable feeling. It took her mind immediately to the fairytale histories of her youth. To the stories of heros and maidens. And of more mature tales, of, "whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same" and "every atom of your flesh is dear to me as my own" and "you have bewitched me body and soul".

It made her flush and think of Zandar.

Sofia made a strangled, distressed sound, tangling her fingers in the sorcerer's clothes, clutching him to her as the kiss went on and on. Two players merely footnotes to the emotion that throbbed through the air.

Amber had never found Cedric attractive, even as she crested womanhood and realized, along with several of her peers, that the men around them were not so unobtainable as they once seemed. Always been driven by the single-minded goal to snare a prince, she paid little attention to any man of lesser status. Still, she'd endured long bored hours with her peers playing games of the mind, some listing off attractive men who they would avail themselves of it permissible. Hildi thought the Enchancia sorcerer exotic with his mismatched hair and arcane air. Amber had disagreed, sneering for good measure. No, she did not find Cedric attractive. She didn't find him ugly. She found him nothing, a minor annoyance at times, and an instrument to be used when magic suited her to achieve her ends.

The kiss broke on a mutual gasp, and Amber was fiercely grateful that the strange tension within her had been broken as well. Shock and confusion returned in its wake. Cedric turned, striding purposefully away as Sofia watched him go. Her sister waited until the sorcerer vanished around the corner, then with a heavy sigh, she turned. Amber stared at her sister much the same way Sofia had looked after her apparent lover, entranced and unable to look away. With a steady hand, Sofia swiped a tear from her cheek then raised her eyes.

Their gaze locked. Amber hadn't realized that she stepped from her hiding place, drawn forward like moth entranced by a flame. She thought she knew her sister implicitly, knew her mannerisms and her feelings. Sofia was almost insipidly predictable at times with her steadfast conscious. That she was— Amber's mind reeled— having an affair with their sorcerer was too much to absorb.

Sofia froze, startle by her unexpected audience. Amber barely opened her mouth to speak before her sister was beside her. Sofia took her arm, compelling Amber into motion, whispering urgently. "In here, please."

Amber followed numbly, allowing herself to be led into the recently abandoned suite. Sofia's room looked the same as always, except the bed was a riot of rumpled bedding. A flush burned through Amber's face, realizing with new clarity what those tousled sheets implied. Her mouth worked but no sound came.

"Here, sit." Sofia pressed her into the vanity chair before hastening to set the beds to rights.

Amber managed to find her voice. "Baileywick told me you'd come back from the festival. He said you didn't want to be disturbed, but I came to make amends. I heard a man's voice in your room." She sank against the chair back, wide-eyed but staring at nothing at all. She gazed at her sister with an imploring expression. Explain this, it said, make it make sense.

Sofia bit her lip. "It's not what you think—"

Amber found her voice at once, exploding with all the pent-up confusion and hurt of the past days. "Not what I think!" she shrieked. "How can you possibly say it's not what I think?"

Sofia cringed but said nothing.

Amber couldn't sit still so she got up and to pace. "I don't understand. I watched you kiss Sebastian and you looked ready to run from the room. Now I see you kissing our sorcerer and, and—" Amber paled, struggling greatly with her thoughts. As if admitting a shameful secret, she whispered, almost to herself, "The gods help me, I'd give my right arm to have Zandar kiss me that way."

Her eyes cut sharply to Sofia, taking in her mussed hair, loose tied dress, and flushed expression. "Sofia, have you been with him?"

Sofia sighed, a tired sound. "Amber—"

"No," Amber raised a finger, turning sharply. All at once she found she could no longer stand Sofia's denials or equivocations. "Answer me straight, Sofia, have you …" She struggled a moment for the right term, though several came to mind. She settled on, "Slept with Cedric?"

Sofia hung her head then raised it defiantly. "Yes," she said, "But only on a few occasions."

"A few occasions! Oh, is that all?" Amber's shrill tone verged on hysterical.

"I've only been with him three times, twice today and once on Valentine's Day. And, well, there was that incident on my birthday, but that wasn't— I mean, we didn't— He just—" she babbled, watching as Amber's eyes grew larger with every word. "I'm guessing you don't really want the details."

"No," Amber replied faintly, "I'd rather not know the details, thank you."

"But, no, we have not been sleeping together. And we won't be doing so in the future. Cedric knows that," her voice caught on a rough note. She cleared her throat and tried again. "He knows that I must marry Sebastian."

Amber gapped openly, her mouth working open and closed, sputtering until her thoughts caught on something of substance. "You couldn't have been with Cedric on Valentine's day. You were sick on Valentine's Day. You had to miss the ball because I—"

Her eyes widened to saucers, her breath catching on the realization. "Because I spilled that potion on you. Oh god, I did this."

"No, Amber," Sofia explained patiently. "I mean, the potion set things in motion. I sort of seduced Cedric that afternoon. And I was sick that night because of all the chemicals absorbed from it, but no your potion didn't cause me to feel anything that didn't already exist."

"It didn't? Are you sure?"

Sofia snickered in a humorless way, picking at her nails. "I've gone over all this with Cedric already. When he discovered that I was under the influence of a potion he—" She winced at the memory. "Under its influence, he thought I had no self-agency. He blamed himself."

Sofia looked up at her wide-eyed sister, willing her to understand. "He was convinced that he'd taken advantage of me. That's why he tried to resign. The first time anyway."

"And this time?" Amber snapped, irritated to be so out of touch with her reality as she thought she understood it. "I heard your conversation. It sounded very much as if Cedric was leaving his post as our Royal Sorcerer."

Sofia wrapped her arms around herself, shivering despite the warmth of the room. "That's because he is. He's resigned for good this time. Dad's already secured a replacement."

Amber floundered, latching on to the only thought that made any sense to her at the moment. "But he can't leave! Not now! I'm planning the most lavish wedding the realms have ever seen. I can't do that with some new sorcerer—"

"Sorceress," Sofia amended gently.

"I don't care!" Amber shrieked, stomping her slippered foot. "She'll be new and untested. You remember how long it took Cedric to become proficient at his job. And now he's one of the best, and I must have the best."

A teasing smile turned up the corner of Sofia's mouth. "He is isn't he?"

The look — the light— in Sofia's eyes made Amber think, not of Cedric, but improbably of Zandar. His handsome dark face, his dazzling smile, the way his deeply brown eyes traced her face, always with a subtle disbelief, as if constantly reminding himself that she was truly his and amazed each time to realize it. What if Zandar wasn't the right sort of man? What if her parents weren't blissfully happy with her engagement? Thoughts of her prince reminded her of another prince. There was another player to consider in this strange game.

"And what about Sebastian? Is he not one of the best as well?" This came out less sure than Amber had intended. She wasn't defending the prince, per say, but she felt an instinctive need to defend her own position, as if Sofia's sordid dalliance had poked holes in her carefully constructed world.

"Yes," Sofia said, but the light faded from her eyes. She didn't sound admiring. Merely accepting of the answer.

"And doesn't he deserve some consideration in all this? On going or not, today you've given yourself to man who is neither your suitor nor your fiancé and Sebastian is certainly one and very nearly the other. Did you not think of him at all? Do you care nothing for him?"

If she'd yelled, perhaps she could have garnered some reaction from her sister rather than weary resignation, but Sofia only shrugged. "Sebastian may be my suitor, but his is not my fiancé yet. I'm not proud of myself, if that's what you're asking."

"No, that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking, don't you love Sebastian? Do you not care for him at all?"

Sofia hesitated, answering with an obvious carefulness. "I admire him a great deal. He is a good man and will be a great king to his people."

"But you don't love him," Amber answered her own question, seeing the truth of it plainly as the patterns on her own dress. Such a simple notion, but it left her thunderstruck.

"No," Sofia said, "But, perhaps, I will come to love him in time. I should love him, I know that."

"But you don't," Amber was talking to herself now, "You can't love him because …"

She stopped there unable to say. Sofia's eyes blazed again, two hard sapphires in her pale face. Defiant, daring Amber to continue. She was prepared to face Amber's assumed scorn. That look made any ill-will in the blonde princess had fizzle to nothing. She was so confused.

"But I thought …"

I thought you loved Sebastian was what she was going to say, then realized mid-sentence that she had never know it to be true, only assumed. Made with good cause but an assumption nonetheless. Still, how could Sofia go one courting a man she didn't love, giving every intension she intended to marry him? How could Sofia lead him on only to spurn him at the last?

The answer came to her crystalline and fully formed. It filled her with cold shock.

Because Sofia didn't intent to spurn him. She intended to marry him, despite not loving him.

"Don't worry, Amber," Sofia said, perhaps reading the distress in her sister's eyes, "everything will proceed as you expected. I'll marry Sebastian and you will marry Zandar."

"But, I love Zandar," she said as if that explained everything.

"That's nice for you," Sofia said without malice. All the emotion seemed to have drained from her, as if say it out loud lent some starling finality to it all, "I am happy for you Amber, truly I am. I always expected I would fall in love and it would be this beautiful, magically, uncomplicated thing. I never expected it would be so messy, nor cause so much pain. But sometimes life is not as neat as a fairytale in a book."

Sofia's eyes dropped as she blinked. Amber wondered if she was fighting back tears. But as quickly as the change came, her sister appeared to master herself, straightening her spine and looking up with an eerie mask of indifferent calm.

"Who are you, Sofia?" Amber whispered, the words low and desperate before she could stop herself. The young woman before her bore very little resemblance to the sister she cherished. "Who have you become?"

Sofia's brows pinched together, her mouth thinning into a tight line. "I've merely grown up, Amber. We can't all live in a fairy tale. You got your prince charming, and I will marry mine, as is expected of me. I will try to be the wife and queen Sebastian deserves, but forgive me if I can't feel much happiness about it at just this moment."

Sofia rose with a poise that highlighted Amber's own dizzying distress. The brunette crossed to the door, opening it wide. "Mom and Dad will be expecting us at dinner soon. I need to make myself presentable. If you wouldn't mind."

Amber rose, the frostiness in Sofia's voice and gaze cooling her to the bone. Just as she came level to her younger sister, she paused and looked deep into those flat blue eyes, searching. For a moment, less than a second before Sofia dropped her gaze to look away, Amber saw a fissure of raw pain, a chasm of despair that threatened to swallow her whole.

Her mouth opened, intending to say something— anything that would wipe the look from her normally vivacious sister's eyes, but Sofia cut her off.

"Just go, Amber, please."

The blonde hesitated a moment longer, wanting to do something to shake that mask of indifference off Sofia's face. To help her with that deep, raw pain she was hiding from everyone. That instinct came again, informing that there was nothing for it just now. Sofia had built a wall of denial too high to climb and too thick to break.

"I'll leave," Amber said evenly, throwing a significant look the other woman's way, "But this isn't over, Sofia. Despite what you may think, I am here for you. I always have been."

Nothing. Not a fissure. Not a crack. Part of her had hoped Sofia would break, throw herself into her sister's arms and weep, but she did neither. It wouldn't be that easy. The steadfast nature of Sofia's heart had hardened into a casing of iron.

Amber left, her discomfited mood worse than when she'd arrived.

Despite the impression of impatience she often showed, Amber could be patient when the situation called for it. She knew how to rage and demand to get what she wanted, and it usually worked, but she was crafty enough to know when lying in wait for an ambush proved a better defense. For now she'd wait and observe, but not for long.

The evening was all she needed to confirm her half-formed thoughts and tenuous conclusions.

At dinner the family talked lightly about the day, their various activities regarding and outside the festival. Sofia made no mention of leaving the fair early, nor of seeing their royal sorcerer at all. She also neglected to mention Cedric's impending leave and Amber realized her father had never brought up the subject either. She inferred the news a secret and that the sorcerer had informed Sofia directly.

Once her sharpened attention was drawn towards something, no detail went unnoticed. She saw for the first time the slight strain at the corners of Sofia's mouth, the flickering of her eyes as she sought out answered that weren't out-right lies but treaded the edge of the truth to support the illusion of a happy, carefree day spent at a festival surrounded by friends. Amber had no doubt that Sofia had seen Ruby and Lucinda, but their conversation must have been much shorted than Sofia was letting on.

Aware of her sister's alterations, she was amazed none of them had spotted it sooner. As James told of the village cart pull, a competition designed to show off the strongest horses in the kingdom, Amber tuned him out, thinking hard. She was trying to recall the last time Sofia had mentioned their sorcerer, Cedric as Amber now had to begrudgingly think of him. Sofia used to prattle endlessly about their magical experimentations, but that had dropped off around late winter, and now Amber knew why.

She remembered too her truncated conversation with the sorcerer on Valentine's Day. With an inward cringe, Amber recalled how she'd promised to check on Sofia should the potion take an unexpected turn, and how Amber had forgotten, having been distracted by a new appreciation for Zandar's conversation. Back in February, she'd only taken impartial note when Cedric had answered the door dressed casually and not in his usual robes. She did recall with clarity his surprise when she mentioned the potion, as if … As if Sofia had never told him. Amber knew now that there had been no antidote and the potion had worked its effects to much stronger results than intended.

No matter what Sofia said, Amber felt guilty. Certainly, her actions since February had been of Sofia's own choosing, but Amber couldn't dismiss the voice that told her she was responsible for the corner Sofia had worked herself into. If Amber hadn't made her ill-fated revenge potion then she wouldn't have spilled it onto Sofia. And if she hadn't doused Sofia in an infatuation potion then her sister would not have boldly acted on her feelings for their servant. Now that she was looking, Amber could see the twisting unbroken chain of consequences. She didn't have all the details, but she didn't need them to know Sofia's behavioral changes began in mid-February.

And now her sister had dug herself into a hole so deep she could no longer see the sun, it would seem. Her family was blind to this, or if they saw anything, they excused it as Amber once had. Well, the time for excuses was over. Amber silently sipped her water, her eyes unconsciously narrowing as something like a plan took form in her mind.

For the second time that day Amber stood before a closed bedroom door. This time she heard the unmistakable rumble of a man's voice and a girlish echo of feminine laughter. She rolled her eyes, sneering a disgusted scoff, then rapped soundly on the wood. The giggle cut short followed by rapid whispers.

Above a great deal of frantic scuffling, she heard her brother's voice call out, "Um, who is it?"

"It's your sister. Now remove whatever trollop you've taken up with for the evening and let me in."

The string of colorful curses that followed she heard clearly, but ignored them, inspecting her nails instead. When the door opened a disheveled young woman stepped out, blushing to her hairline. A maid, by the uniform. Amber gave her a cursory glance, dismissing the girl at once. She scurried gratefully away before the princess changed her mind about having any interest in her identity.

James's broad shoulders filled the doorway, doing up the last buttons of a crisp linen shirt. "Damn it, Amber, what do you want?"

She pinned him with a look known to make servants quake and even princes want to run and hide. "Much as it pains me, Brother," she said evenly, "I need your help."

Author's Note: The quotes Amber thinks of when she witnesses Cedric and Sofia kiss are as follows:

"whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same." -Wuthering Heights

"Every atom of your flesh is dear to me as my own." –Jane Eyre

"You have bewitched me body and soul." –Pride and Prejudice

In the interest of addressing all those dropped plot threads, which are admittedly probably not as dire as I feel they are (kill your darlings and all that) I've decided to add a little note at the end of the chapters addressing anything that may have gotten left out and why it's not there. Some will be small details, some will be bigger.

Potential dropped plot thread: I didn't include a scene where Sofia actually drinks the Siphilium because it's heavily implied in the last chapter that she intends to do so.

Reviews please. :) You guys are awesome!