The meeting room felt like a different world by comparison. Quieter. More considered. The kind of space where things were decided rather than celebrated. Jokull stood at the head of the table, composed as ever, his eyes moving briefly to Aine as she entered before settling back into the measured calm of someone with a schedule to keep.
He looked between them all.
"So. Dismas and Henay, you'll be at the event tomorrow." A pause. "Aine and I will welcome the guests."
"Okay," they agreed.
"I've already sent the dresses everyone will be wearing. You'll receive them when you get home." He said it the way he said most things, as though the logistics had already been handled and the conversation was simply a courtesy.
"Sure," they said in unison.
Jokull straightened his notes with the unhurried precision of someone who had never once lost his place. "You can all leave." Another pause, smaller this time, almost casual. "With the exception of Aine."
Chairs scraped back. Footsteps moved toward the door and faded down the corridor beyond it until the room held only the two of them and the particular quality of silence that exists between people who have kissed in an elevator and not yet decided what to call it.
Aine raised an eyebrow at him.
He responded with a slow, unhurried wink.
"What is it, school President?" she asked.
The title landed the way she always intended it, somewhere between formality and a tease. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, reluctant and genuine, the kind that arrived before he had given it permission.
"I can't wait for tomorrow," he said.
Aine looked at him steadily. "If you say so."
Her tone was measured. But it was warm underneath, and they both knew it.
He reached out and took her hands in his without asking, the gesture easy and certain, lifting one gently and pressing his lips to the back of it. The touch was soft. Deliberate. The kind that does not rush because it does not need to.
Aine looked at him.
And smiled. A quiet, unguarded thing that arrived without her permission and that she did not try to take back. The kind of smile she kept for a very short list of people and gave to even fewer.
"You should get going now," he said softly, his lips still close to her hand, his eyes on her face. "You need to rest."
"Okay."
He pressed his lips to her hand once more, unhurried, as though the moment deserved to be held a little longer before it was released.
"Stay safe for me."
She met his eyes. Something settled between them, quiet and warm and without the need for anything more complicated than what it was.
"Yes, President."
She turned and walked to the door, and did not look back, which was not the same as not wanting to.
The house was warm and still when Aine stepped through the door that evening. She had barely set foot inside when she spotted her father settled comfortably on the sofa. Without a second thought, she dropped her bag and ran to him, wrapping her arms around him and pressing a kiss to his cheek.
She pulled back, her hands still on his shoulders, her eyes moving over his face with the careful attention of someone checking for things that words would not report. He looked tired beneath the warmth. She noted it and filed it away without comment.
"You didn't inform me when you were leaving," she said, her voice carrying the specific mixture of relief and quiet reproach that only family can produce.
"I'm sorry, my queen," he said gently, his hand covering hers for a moment.
Before she could respond, before the moment had fully settled, a blur came barreling from the other side of the room with the kind of velocity that suggested it had been waiting, barely contained, since the moment the front door opened.
"Daddy!"
Tesni threw herself into his arms with the full, unrestrained force of someone who had never once in her life considered doing anything by half measures. The sofa shifted slightly with the impact. Her father laughed again, louder this time, his arms opening automatically to receive her the way they always had, the way they always would.
Aine watched them from where she stood.
Something moved across her face, soft and private and gone almost before it arrived. Not jealousy. Not resentment. Something quieter and more complicated than either. The simple, aching recognition of a man she loved being loved by someone else at the same time, the strange fullness of a moment that held too many feelings to name all at once.
She reached down and picked up her bag from where she had abandoned it.Then walked up the stairs.
And smiled, small and genuine, at the two of them tangled together on the sofa.
Some things, at least, were still exactly as they should be.
Mendoza turned to Tesni with a fond smile that softened the tiredness around his eyes. "Princess."
Tesni sat up eagerly, straightening as though the thought had been waiting all day for exactly this audience. "I have a big program tomorrow, Daddy."
He raised a brow. "Really?"
"Yes!" The word came out bright and certain. "I've been chosen as the face of Jade High and I'll be giving the speech too."
His face broke into a proud grin, wide and unguarded, the kind that arrived before he could compose it into something more measured. "I'm proud of you."
Tesni beamed.
The warmth of the moment was still settling when the maid appeared quietly at the doorway, a bag held carefully in both hands, her expression carrying the particular attentiveness of someone who had learned to move through this household without disturbing its currents.
"Good evening, Miss Aine." She stepped forward. "I think this belongs to you."
Aine looked up. "Yes, thank you—"
She had not even finished the sentence before Tesni moved.
The bag was out of the maid's hands and in Tesni's before anyone had quite registered the transfer, and Tesni was already on her feet, digging through it with the bright, unceremonious enthusiasm of someone who had never once in her life considered that a bag might not be for her.
"Tesni—" Aine started.
But Tesni had already found the accessory box. She flipped it open without hesitation, and for a moment simply stared.
"Wow." The word came out quietly, which for Tesni was remarkable in itself. Then louder, turning to Aine with eyes gone wide. "My favourite brand!" She held the box up toward the light. "Girl, see!"
Inside, nestled against dark velvet, sat a pair of diamond earrings. They caught the evening light the way only real things do, scattering it in small bright pieces across the ceiling and walls, tiny and extravagant and unmistakably chosen with care.
Tesni lifted one from the box with the reverence of someone handling something sacred, then turned immediately and held it close to Aine's ear, tilting her head to one side with the critical assessment of a person who took these things very seriously.
A slow smile spread across her face.
"You will look absolutely dazzling," she declared, with the full conviction of a verdict that was not open to appeal.
"Stop this," Aine said flatly.