The morning after the tea party fiasco, the Amster estate woke to a rumor that traveled faster than gossip and twice as destructive: Mr. Michael Lawrence was in the kitchen.
Servants froze in corridors. A maid dropped a stack of towels. Somewhere, a footman whispered, "Pray for the cutlery."
Lyn, still half-asleep and wearing an oversized cardigan over silk pajamas, stepped into the doorway and blinked. The kitchen looked like a minor battlefield. A mixing bowl lay abandoned like a toppled helmet. Two eggs rested in their shells in a frying pan—uncooked—but somehow smoking. The microwave flashed a heroic 88:88 as if time had lost meaning in the face of culinary disaster.
Michael stood in the middle of it all, sleeves rolled, expression grave. A whisk dangled from his fingers like a weapon.
"Don't," Lyn said gently, hands raised. "Whatever you're doing, don't."
"I'm making breakfast," he replied, in the same tone he used for corporate acquisitions.
"Are you threatening it first?"
He looked down at the pan. "It refuses to cooperate."
"You can't intimidate eggs. They don't have a sense of fear." She edged closer, eyeing the microwave like it might detonate. "Also, what did you do to the microwave?"
"It asked for a time."
"You gave it an existential crisis."
Behind them, Kai waited by the door, impassive, while Daren craned around him, curious.
"I could help," Daren whispered.
"No," Kai said, without looking away. "Stand down. This is a two-man operation: the lady and the hazard."
Lyn rescued the pan, cracked the eggs properly, and set a new one to heat. "Step one," she said, handing Michael a spatula, "no aggression. The goal is scrambled, not scorched earth."
He watched intently, as if taking notes in his head. "What if it turns on us?"
"It's breakfast, not a coup."
A few minutes later, she slid a plate toward him—soft scrambled eggs, buttered toast, and sliced fruit arranged like a peace offering.
Michael took one bite. Something in his hard expression loosened. He didn't smile—he never quite smiled—but his eyes warmed in a way that turned the whole kitchen brighter.
"It's good," he said.
"You sound surprised."
"I'm not familiar with 'good' at seven in the morning."
"Stick with me," Lyn said, trying not to be charmed. "I'll introduce you to the radical concept of edible food."
He reached for a piece of toast, fingers brushing hers. The touch was accidental, brief—and enough to set her heart skittering like a dropped marble. She cleared her throat and looked away, pretending to be fascinated by a bowl of oranges that absolutely did not require her attention.
Behind them, Daren leaned toward Kai again. "This is romantic, right? Cooking together is romantic."
"Incompetence shared is a bond," Kai said. "Statistically significant."
They ate at the small kitchen table—an unfamiliar act for Michael, who looked comically large and out of place on a chair meant for normal people. Lyn found she liked him better here: sleeves rolled, tie discarded, his impossible intensity softened by sunlight and jam.
"Today," Michael said, wiping a crumb from his thumb with military precision, "you'll have lessons."
"Lessons?"
"Etiquette. Security awareness. And we should address your tendency to stand near balconies and breakable objects."
"I don't intend to break things."
"I'm aware." He paused. "You're gravity's favorite."
"That's a mean way to say 'graceful.'"
"Graceful people are not tackled by pastries."
She groaned. "One tart. It was one traitorous tart."
"Statistics suggest recurrence."
"Statistics suggest I should push you," she muttered, but she was smiling.
The etiquette lesson was held in a sunny parlor with too many chairs and an alarming number of forks, as if the room were bracing for a civil war of silverware. A retired duchess—Lady Marris—arrived with a posture like a bayonet and the air of someone who had scolded emperors.
"Back straight," Lady Marris commanded. "Chin up. No slouching. Smile—but not like you're about to bite someone."
"That's a very specific smile," Lyn said.
"Practice."
Lyn tried a smile. The duchess stared as if inspecting a counterfeit coin.
Michael watched from the doorway with arms crossed, a silent wall of protection. Every time Lady Marris poked Lyn's elbow or tilted her chin, his jaw flexed. Yet he didn't interfere. It was new and weirdly nice: the restraint of a volcano.
When it came time for "walking gracefully," Lyn took two steps, caught her heel on the edge of the rug, and pinwheeled into a vase.
The vase wobbled in slow motion.
Daren made a dive worthy of an action film, catching it midair and sliding across the polished floor on his knees. He presented the intact vase to Lyn like a trophy.
The duchess sniffed. "Acceptable recovery."
Lyn bowed solemnly. "All thanks to my reflexes."
"Your reflexes did nothing," Kai said. "Daren performed a risk-adjusted intervention."
"I did," Daren agreed proudly, then added, "My knees hurt."
Michael's eyes flicked to Lyn's heels. He frowned. "New shoes. Lower."
"I can't go lower than this," Lyn protested.
"Barefoot, then."
"Michael."
"Barefoot is safer."
"Barefoot is weird," she said. "I'm not a feral woodland sprite."
The duchess raised a hand. "He is not entirely wrong. But we will compromise. Thicker heel. Shorter stride. No rugs."
"I will burn the rugs," Michael said.
"You will not burn the rugs," Lyn said.
"I will store the rugs in a remote facility with fire suppression," he corrected.
"Growth," Kai observed.
Security training followed. Ethan, calm and surgical, met them in the side courtyard with a placid smile and a table of innocuous objects: keys, hairpins, scarves, and a potted basil plant labeled "FRIEND."
"The basil is a friend?" Lyn asked.
"Yes," Ethan said. "You do not abandon friends in emergencies."
Michael gave him a look that said, This is not how I train my people, but he said nothing.
Ethan taught Lyn how to notice exits without looking, how to keep her phone positioned for a quick call, and how to use a hairpin in three surprisingly intimidating ways.
"The goal," Ethan said, "is not to fight."
"Then why the hairpin tutorial?"
"Confidence," Ethan replied. "And adverse outcomes, if necessary."
Daren raised his hand. "What about the basil?"
"You shield the basil," Ethan said. "It is a test of priorities."
By the end of the hour, Lyn had no idea if she was safer, but she did feel a little braver. She could identify lines of sight. She could reach a door without looking like she was fleeing. And she knew—most importantly—that if something went wrong, Michael would appear the way he always did: silently, suddenly, like a storm turning into a person.
"Good," he said when she finished a practice walk across the courtyard without tripping. Pride glinted in his eyes, stark and unguarded. "Again."
She did it again, mostly because she liked that look. She'd never had anyone look at her like that before—as if competence were a sunrise he'd been praying for.
In the late afternoon, Lyn declared mutiny. "No more training," she said, collapsing onto a loveseat with theatrical despair. "I demand leisure. Normal leisure. I want to go out."
"Out?" Michael repeated, as if the word were foreign.
"Yes. Like a normal person. Minimal security. Maximum snacks."
The silence that followed was the tense, heavy kind usually reserved for nuclear negotiations.
Finally, Michael said, "Fine. One hour. Low-profile."
"Two hours."
He considered. "One hour and thirty minutes. And Kai follows at thirty meters."
"Twenty," she bargained.
"Thirty."
"Twenty-five and he wears a hat."
Kai blinked. "A hat?"
"Deal," Michael said, eyes narrowed. "A hat."
Kai sighed, suffering nobly.
They sneaked out—if one could call a tycoon in a casual shirt and an heiress in a cardigan "sneaking." Lyn took him to an alley bakery that smelled like butter and secrets. The owner, a grandmother with cane-sharp eyes, narrowed at Michael as if sensing danger.
"He looks expensive," she whispered to Lyn while bagging pastries. "Don't let him marry you without a prenup."
Lyn choked. Michael, who could hear everything and pretended he could not, stood very still.
They ate on a park bench in the shade. Lyn inhaled a cronut and two mini tarts, vowing vengeance on all tea party portions. Michael ate slowly, watching her like she was performing a sacred ritual.
"You're staring," she said around a mouthful.
"I'm learning," he said.
"What? How to chew?"
"How to be here. With you."
It was so simple, the way he said it. No flourish, no heat—just truth. It landed in her chest like a new gravity.
A kid raced past with a yapping dog. The dog skidded to a stop at Michael's shoes, barked twice, then licked his ankle.
Michael looked personally betrayed.
"It likes you," Lyn said, laughing.
"I do not encourage that."
The dog barked again. Michael stepped back carefully, as if retreating from a very small grenade. Lyn reached down and ruffled the dog's ears until it melted into a puddle of canine joy.
"I could get a dog," she mused. "Or a cat. Or a basil plant."
"Basil," Michael said immediately.
"Why basil?"
"Ethan seems attached."
She giggled and handed him another pastry. He accepted it like a solemn pact.
Behind a tree, Kai lurked at precisely twenty-five meters, wearing a bucket hat that made him look like an undercover fisherman. Daren tried to match his distance, but kept forgetting how numbers work and had to scuttle backward every time Michael glanced over.
It was… nice. The kind of nice that felt like a stolen thing, lovingly hoarded. For almost an hour, the world shrank to a bench, sugar, and the impossible quiet of being beside someone who made terror look easy and tenderness look hard.
On the way back, Lyn tugged Michael into a tiny convenience store because she saw a shelf of instant noodles and nearly cried with homesick joy.
"These," she said, lifting a cup reverently, "are my culture."
Michael examined the label as if it might have secrets coded into its seasoning packet. "This is food?"
"Don't offend the gods."
She bought three—spicy, extra spicy, and call the fire department—and insisted on carrying the bag herself. At the register, the clerk smiled at them. "You two look good together," he said.
Michael said nothing. Lyn tried not to read every meaning into the word together.
Outside, a gust of wind nudged the bag from her fingers. She lunged, caught it by pure reflex—and didn't fall. She righted herself, triumphant.
"Ha!" She threw her arms up. "I defied gravity."
Michael's hand hovered near her elbow, unused. Pride moved through his face again, softer this time. "Good."
"Did you see that, Kai?" she called back.
Kai, twenty-five meters away, lifted a single approving thumb beneath the tragic bucket hat.
Daren clapped once, then remembered stealth and turned it into a cough.
Back at the estate, sunset draped the halls in honeyed light. Lyn retreated to her room with the instant noodles like a dragon with treasure. She perched on the window seat and stared at the gardens below. The wind carried the faintest chime—soft, almost correct this time. Not off-key. Just… shy of true.
Her phone stayed quiet. No new messages. No taunts. No ghosts bleeding through the screen.
She should have felt relieved. Instead, something prickled under her skin, a hush before something unnamed.
"Normal days," she told the basil plant Ethan had left on her desk (because of course he had), "are going to be rare, aren't they?"
The basil did not answer. It looked content. She decided to keep it alive out of spite.
A soft knock sounded. Michael didn't wait for permission—he never did—but his entrance was slower now, cautious as if approaching a wild thing.
"How was normal?" he asked.
"Delicious," she said. "And chaotic. And perfect."
He nodded, hands in pockets, a man trying to be small in a world that demanded he be enormous. "Tomorrow will not be normal."
"Business?"
"Opposition," he said simply. "The Council. Hale sniffing around. And… whoever is sending the messages."
Her smile thinned. "Right."
Michael looked at the window, the garden, the slant of sun. "But today was yours."
Something silly and fragile unlocked in her. "And the basil's," she said. "Don't forget the basil."
He tipped his head. "I would not dare."
He lingered, then turned to leave. At the door, he paused. "You were—" He searched for a word and found none. "Good."
"Look at you," she teased. "Proud dad vibes."
He grimaced. "Never say that again."
She laughed, and he left to the echo of it.
When the silence settled, Lyn touched the locket at her throat. For the day you forget, I'll remind you. A warm ache, not painful—like an old song almost remembered.
Her phone buzzed. She flinched. It was just a calendar alert: Meeting: Council tomorrow, 10:00 AM. Dress: armor. Rosa had a sense of humor after all.
Lyn snorted, closed the alert, and leaned her forehead against the glass. In the garden below, a groundskeeper adjusted a wind chime, testing it with a careful finger. The chime sang—clean and true this time.
She smiled. Maybe, just maybe, misfortune could learn new melodies.
Behind the hedges, a shadow slipped out of sight—a held breath, no more. Not threat. Not yet. Just a reminder: calm seas do not exist in this world for long.
But for tonight, there was basil. There were instant noodles. And there was, impossibly, a storm that had learned how to stand in a kitchen and try to cook for her.
Lyn decided to sleep early, to hoard her strength.
Tomorrow, she would face the Council.
Tonight, she would be normal.
And she would be fine.