sunday seven

from "Tuesday's Child", and yes I already know it's probably going to be novella-length like Ariaste's "Attempting the Impossible" and Speranza's "With Six You Get Eggroll" before it and therefore I will want to post it as not a one-shot and therefore setting off the title with quotes instead of italics is me kidding myself:

Not that Émilie, armed with absolutely nothing except diplomacy and pink-enameled fingernails, will be able to do a single bit of good for anyone. But Adrien still lives in the mansion Émilie bought, and would have had no reason to remove her voice print from the security access list; Gabriel's personal phone line is still active, though with a recorded tenor voice she doesn't entirely recognize saying "You have reached the voicemail of Adrien Agreste" instead of Gabriel's familiar brusque baritone; and though she has neither her brooch nor either Miraculous, that is undoubtedly for the entirely sensible reason that someone might steal them far more easily from her bedside than from her safe. Once she's home, she'll be able to make real plans.

—What on God's green earth have people done to her courtyard wall?

The mural is beautiful, Émilie must admit: a small turtle tussling with a black kitten among marigolds and sunflowers; a large bee and a purple butterfly hovering over yellow cinquefoils and white chrysanthemums; a fox kit hiding in a patch of chamomile, poised to pounce on an oversized ladybeetle in flight. But why is there a mural? Eleven years later or no, Gabriel would never allow—