"Theodore?"
"Vex." He laughed once from the ground. "Didn't see you. But I was kind of hoping to run into you. This being your estate and all."
Arthur reached down.
Theodore took the hand and came up. He brushed the front of his cloak off and looked at the ground briefly like he was checking whether the fall had been witnessed.
It had been witnessed by approximately fifteen people.
Arthur looked at the Vernon crest on his cloak.
"You're a mercenary?"
Theodore's face did the specific thing of someone caught doing something mildly embarrassing. Not guilty. But caught.
"It's— yeah. Saw their notice at the Alasaur tavern. Figured I'd pick up some credits for the night."
'He's not tied to them directly.' Vexis drifted right, voice low.
Arthur patted Theodore's shoulder.
The shadow anchor moved from his hand to Theodore's shadow as he did it. Quiet. Easy.
Theodore didn't feel anything.
"Welcome to the estate then." Arthur smiled. "Let me know if you need something."
"Sure. Thanks, Vex."
He started to move back toward his squad.
Arthur turned for the main entrance.
"Uh, Vex."
He stopped.
Theodore was standing with one hand raised slightly. Not quite stopping him. Just making himself available to be stopped.
"Are you alright? You didn't show up to class for five days. I heard you got into some kind of accident."
Arthur looked at him.
Not pushy. Just present.
"I'm fine," Arthur said. "Resting. I'll be back Monday."
"Oh." Theodore nodded. "Good. That's good." He looked at his shoes briefly. "I wasn't sure if you'd be back for the culmination. Kreasial's been asking."
"She has."
"She pretends she hasn't. But she has."
Arthur almost smiled.
"I'll be there."
Theodore nodded again. Started to turn.
Then stopped.
He turned back with the expression of someone who had made a decision and was now committed to it whether it was a good idea or not.
"Actually. Since you're here." He reached up and touched the Vernon crest on his cloak. Didn't look at it directly. "I was kind of looking for you tonight."
Huh.
"Okay," Arthur said. "What is it."
"Could you." Theodore paused. Chose his words. "Not mention this. The mercenary thing. To anyone at the academy."
Arthur looked at the crest. Then at Theodore's face.
"You know how it works for scholarship students." Theodore's voice stayed even but there was something underneath it doing a lot of work. "We have restrictions. A lot of them. No external paid work. No affiliation with any commercial body. If the academy finds out I'm picking up mercenary shifts on the side I lose the scholarship." A beat. "I lose everything basically."
Arthur was quiet for a second.
He thought about Theodore going home after class every day.
A scholarship student from a family with nothing to fall back on, doing the only thing available to him on a Friday evening to make the numbers work.
He thought about Havier. About what falling looked like when there was nothing underneath to catch you.
"I won't say anything," Arthur said.
Theodore exhaled. Small. Controlled. Like he'd been holding it since the question.
"Thanks." He said it simply. "Really. Thanks, Vex."
"Don't thank me." Arthur turned back toward the entrance. "Just don't get caught doing something actually stupid."
Theodore made a short sound that was almost a laugh. "Yeah. I'll try."
Arthur walked through the main doors.
The hall was larger than it looked from outside.
Long tables down both sides. Food already laid out, the kind of spread that existed to be seen as much as eaten. A low string arrangement coming from somewhere near the back. In the center of the room an open space of polished marble that could only mean one thing.
Rich people dancing. Right. Of course.
Welya was already seated, back straight, watching the room.
Velja had a bottle of wine and the posture of someone who had attended enough of these to stop pretending to be interested.
Avara moved between guests near the far wall, smiling at people with the practiced ease of someone who had been doing it for years.
The Vernon family entered next.
They settled at the table across the floor.
Vak sat down, looked across at Arthur, and smiled. Then his eyes moved sideways.
To Welya.
Something tightened in Arthur's chest. He recognized it now. The same feeling from the fountain. Not entirely his. Sitting somewhere between his ribs and Vexis's.
He gritted his teeth and looked away.
Five people walked through the main doors.
Light blue hit his eyes first.
A broad shouldered man led them. Light blue hair, long, worn loose.
He moved through the room like the room had already arranged itself around him before he arrived.
Next to him a grey-templed man in a long white robe, older, the kind of face that had seen things and stopped reacting to them.
Behind those two, a pair of women with identical faces. Twins, same height, same posture, watching different parts of the room simultaneously.
Last, a man with spiky hair and a black bellus on his shoulder. The bellus's eyes moved independent of the man's. Scanning.
The Patriarch crossed the room to meet them.
The hall noticed. Not loudly. Just a slight shift in where people were looking.
"Brat." Roz's voice dropped. Sharp in a way it didn't usually go. "These people."
Arthur looked at him.
"I can feel it. Faint but it's there." Roz's eyes had gone still. "Aetheric essence of an elf. On at least two of them."
"You're certain?"
"I was raised in the Emerald Kingdom for three centuries. I don't mistake that."
Arthur looked back at the Blauenstein group settling near the head of the room.
Aetheric essence of an elf on a human meant one thing.
It didn't come from proximity. It didn't come from contact.
He looked at Vak across the floor. The white suit. The easy posture. The operation that had been building toward Elven Tears since before Arthur arrived in this body.
These bastards are already using it.
He needed to hear what the Patriarch was saying.
He leaned back in his chair. Elbows on the table. Chin in his hand. Just a bored second year at a family banquet.
He closed his eyes.
Found the density. Dropped it low.
The shadow anchor moved along the base of the wall, slow, pressing into the marble where the light didn't reach, threading through the gaps between guests' feet. The room was dense with aetheric fields. He could feel the resistance. Like pushing through water that kept thickening.
He almost lost it twice before it reached the head table.
It merged with the shadow under the tablecloth and settled.
His perception opened.
"Thank you for having us, Vaelis." Ealon. His voice was even. The voice of someone used to rooms listening when he spoke.
"Glad you could make it." The Patriarch. Just as even. Two people who had spoken before and didn't need warmup. "We'll get into the details once the evening settles."
"Of course." A brief pause. "It's been a while."
"It has."
Avara's voice came in, guiding them toward seats. The conversation closed.
Arthur held the anchor and listened to the nothing that followed and tried to find the shape of what was underneath it.
These two men had history. The kind that didn't need to be said out loud.
What is this banquet actually for.
'I don't know.' Vexis said quietly. 'I've never seen Blauenstein at our estate before.'
Arthur kept the anchor steady.
Then it went wrong.
The blue-haired man stopped mid-step.
Slowly his head turned.
Not toward the room. Not toward the Patriarch still speaking beside him.
Directly at Arthur.
Across the full length of the hall. Through the crowd and the noise and the distance.
Ealon looked straight at him.
Arthur didn't move.
His anchor was still active. He could feel it under the table thirty meters away. Merged. Invisible. Something no one should have been able to detect from that distance with that much noise in the room.
Ealon's mouth curved up. Slow. Just slightly.
Not surprised.
Not angry.
Interested.
Arthur held his breath.
Am I actually fucked right now.