“Well?”

Misericorde gathers herself up onto hands and knees, probes her midsection with impatient fingers. Results inconclusive. “.... No. Do it again. Harder.”

Anise, standing over her, not a hair out of place, recalibrates an eyebrow. “You’ll break,” it says, in the tone of one commenting on the weather. Its half-lidded eyes, dark and heavy as tourmaline, bear an expression of profound disinterest.

Misericorde wants to swear. “That’s the point. That’s the point. What part of I want you to hurt me don’t you understand, I don’t care if I–”

“This one cares.” Anise marks a half-circle around Misericorde’s half-slumped body, its shoes ticking on the polished hardwood of the cellar floor, even as a metronome. Misericorde loathes that effortless perfection, and Anise knows it. That’s why she chose it for this. “If it breaks you, it’ll get in trouble. We’re all supposed to get along nicely here, Misery.”

“Stop doing Caretaker’s voice.”

“It’s a good impression. She sounds like that.” Well, she does, but -

“It’s disrespectful.”

Anise laughs, three perfect, lilting a-ha couplets. The worst part about Anise’s laugh, Misericorde has decided, is that it actually does come naturally, right down to the slender curl of hand before mouth. “You’re so confused, Misery. Do you still think you’re a good doll?”

“Look, I’ll– I’ll say I fell down the stairs again, just–”

“You can't really expect that excuse to hold.”

Anise’s little half-moon smirk is unbearable, intolerable, just fucking right, and at this point Misericorde makes the mistake of saying:

“Please.”

Something kindles in the well of those lazy tourmaline eyes, and Misericorde realises, belatedly, that Anise is as good at playing hard to get as it is at everything else.