He heard the voices before he reached the dining room.
He stopped outside the door.
Roz was on his shoulder. Neither of them moved for a second.
Arthur looked down at himself. Bleeding thigh, dirt on everything, both palms showing more than they should. He looked like he'd lost a fight with a forest.
Because he had.
He pushed the door open anyway.
The table was long. Longer than it needed to be for the number of people sitting at it. Candles down the center. Food already out. The kind of dinner that happened on a schedule whether anyone wanted it or not.
The Patriarch sat at the far head. Gold eyes open. Already looking at the door.
Arthur's body bowed before he finished the thought.
"I greet the Patriarch."
He straightened and turned his head left.
Orange‑red hair. The color of something caught mid‑burn, sitting just above blue eyes and skin so pale it looked like it had never seen direct sun. She was holding a wine glass by the stem and tracing the rim with one finger and looking at Arthur the way someone looks when they've already taken inventory of the damage and are deciding how to respond to it.
The memory arrived with the usual sting at the back of his skull.
Avara. Vexis's mother.
"Good evening, Mother."
"Good evening." Her voice was quiet. Not cold. Quiet in the specific way of someone who had learned to keep their volume down in this house. "Tell me why you're in that state."
'BECAUSE THIS IDIOT—' Vexis dropped beside Arthur, arms wide, then caught himself. He looked at Avara and his whole register dropped immediately. 'Mother.'
She couldn't hear him.
Arthur let out a small smile. "I was training. I didn't have the fare for a carriage so I walked back."
"I heard you dropped to Class F."
A laugh came from the right side of the table.
Arthur turned his head.
Blonde hair, blue eyes, a mole below his left eye. He was already leaning back in his chair with the relaxed energy of someone who had never once been the one in trouble at this table. He pointed at Arthur with his fork.
"Is that actually true, little brother? Class F?" Velja grinned. Not mean exactly. The grin of someone who found this genuinely funny and had no interest in pretending otherwise. "What did you do?"
"Made some choices," Arthur said.
"Incredible." Velja shook his head and went back to his food, still smiling.
Two seats down, Welya was looking at her plate. Eating. Not looking up.
But her shoulders were tight.
Arthur looked at the Patriarch.
The Patriarch looked back.
Last time Arthur had stood in front of this man the marble had come up to meet his face and blood had dripped onto white floor. The pressure had come from everywhere and hadn't stopped until Arthur couldn't hold himself up.
Now the Patriarch looked at him. Took in the bleeding thigh and the dirt and the torn palms.
And closed his eyes.
That was all.
Arthur held that for a second.
"Ourel." Avara set her glass down. "Prepare a bath. Have the healer sent up." She looked at Arthur. "Go and clean yourself. Then come back and eat with us."
A maid materialized at Arthur's shoulder so quietly he nearly stepped sideways.
"Master Vexis. This way please."
"Right." He exhaled. "Okay."
The bathroom was four times the size of his apartment.
He stood in the doorway and looked at it.
All of this for one person to get clean. This family spent more on tile than he had made in two years of sitting at a desk leaving comments on a webnovel.
He turned to the head maid.
"My bellus. Can you attend to him as well?"
She looked at Roz on his shoulder. Something moved through her face very fast. "Of course, Master Vexis. What does he need?"
"Pork legs. And beer."
A pause. Her expression did the thing people's expressions did when they were processing a request they hadn't anticipated.
Then she smiled. "Of course. The bathwater has an aetheric field embedded. Your wounds will begin closing on contact."
"Thank you, Ourel."
"It's my pleasure."
She pulled the door and left.
Arthur looked at the tub. Then at his ruined uniform. Then at the tub again.
He got in.
The heat hit first. Then the aetheric field underneath it, pressing gently against the cuts, and the searing sensation that followed was the same as Roz's healing in the alley but slower. More thorough. His thigh especially.
He hissed through his teeth and waited for it to pass.
It didn't fully pass. But it moved from unbearable to just bad, which was progress.
He pushed his hair back and looked at the ceiling.
'That went better than expected.' Vexis drifted near the far wall. His voice was at its lowest register. Not performing. Just present. 'Mother looked worried.'
Arthur said nothing.
'She always looks worried.' A pause. 'She's good at not showing it. But I know.'
"Brat."
Roz was at the edge of the tub. Sitting with his front paws folded, bow tie straight, red eyes forward.
"Yeah."
"The Patriarch of this house."
"What about him."
"I recognize him." Roz's voice was conversational. The way he sounded when something was enormous and he had decided to deliver it like it wasn't. "He was a student of Verul. My second caller."
Arthur went still.
The water moved once from the motion and then settled.
He looked at Roz.
"Verul trained him."
"Yes."
"And Verul had the same density I have."
"More, if we're being precise." Roz looked at the water. "Verul was the only person I have ever bonded who could sustain composite magic at full network extension without hitting the Aetherthin State." He paused. "Until tonight."
Arthur opened his mouth.
Roz looked at him.
Not the usual look. Something older underneath it. The look that had been showing up in small moments since the tavern and that Arthur had been filing away without fully opening.
"What is it you actually want?" Roz said. "Not survival. Not the next problem. What is it you're reaching for, underneath all of it."
The question sat in the steam between them.
Arthur looked at his hands under the water. The palms were closing slowly, the aetheric field doing its work. Vexis's hands. Long fingers. The Lestilaut crest on the uniform folded over the edge of the tub.
He thought about the desk. The cold coffee. The chair that made that noise. The city with usual traffic noises. The parents he never got the chance to meet.
He thought about LazyTurtle's last message.
If you know so much better than me, why don't you try writing it yourself?
He looked at Vexis.
Vexis was near the window. Not trying to pick anything up. Not testing the limits of his spirit form. Just standing there in the specific stillness that was different from his usual hovering.
This isn't my world and this isn't my body. Do I even have the right to have a want?
'You do'
Arthur's head snapped towards vexis.
'Tell me,' Vexis said. Quiet. 'What is it you're trying to do with my body. What are you actually trying to reach.'
Arthur sat up. Rested his elbows on his knees.
The water dripped from his arms.
What do I want.
This world was real. He knew that. Not a story anymore. Not chapters. Real weather. Real food. Real blood on real stones in a real alley where he had actually died for eleven seconds on a Tuesday morning.
Real people sitting at a long table who couldn't hear the ghost of their own son floating two feet away from them.
He looked at Vexis.
At the gold eyes that matched the ones in every mirror. At the face of someone who had been loud and entitled and cruel and was now watching a stranger live his life and had just quietly told that stranger he had the right to want something.
Arthur's mouth opened.
"I want a happy ending."
He said it simply. Because it was simple.
"For this stor— For this world." Arthur looked at his hands. "For you."
The steam moved between them.
Roz said nothing.
Vexis said nothing.
His face did the rest.