Auther closed the door behind them quietly, careful not to wake Viola, and only then did he notice the light still burning at the far end of the room.
Lana sat at the desk, knees tucked up on the chair, pink hair half-fallen from its tie, scribbling furiously in a notebook crowded with symbols, ratios, and cramped marginal notes. She didn't look up at first, too absorbed in the page, muttering numbers under her breath.
For a moment, the room felt oddly normal.
Then Auther saw the diagrams.
Thin, branching lines mapped across a rough sketch of a human body, some circled, some crossed out, others annotated with angry slashes of ink.
Mana veins.
His chest tightened.
"How's it going?" he asked, trying for casual and failing a little.
She startled so hard the quill nearly stabbed through the page. Ink splattered. Lana yelped softly and pressed a hand to her chest, breathing fast.
"I—! You shouldn't sneak up on people," she said, voice too high, eyes refusing to meet his as she scrambled to blot the page with a cloth.
He smiled faintly. "Didn't know I was the scary one now."
She shot him a glare that lost half its bite when her gaze flicked, involuntarily, toward the bed.
Toward Viola.
Her shoulders stiffened.
"So," Lana said, a little too quickly, "how was your date?"
He blinked. "Date?"
She shrugged, pretending to rearrange her notes. "You dressed up. You brought pastries. You disappeared for hours. I assumed."
A pause.
Auther tilted his head, studying her. "Is that jealousy?"
The quill slipped from her fingers.
It clattered softly against the desk and rolled to a stop near the edge, ink bleeding into the wood. Lana stared at it like it had betrayed her.
"I—" she started.
Nothing came out.
Her shoulders drew in, posture shrinking, gaze dropping to the floor as heat crept up her neck. For several long seconds she said nothing at all, fingers twisting into the hem of her sleeve.
She could leave. She should leave.
That was always easier.
Then she remembered Viola's voice in the training yard—low, unguarded, saying he's important like it was a truth she didn't trust herself to hold.
Lana inhaled, shaky.
"No," she said finally, too fast. Then she swallowed and tried again, quieter but steadier. "No. I barely know you."
Auther waited.
The silence stretched.
Her courage wavered, then snapped into place with a small, angry breath.
"But," she continued, lifting her head at last, eyes still not quite meeting his, "I do know when someone strong is being treated like a toy. And I know when someone thinks flirting is harmless just because they don't feel the consequences."
That got his attention.
He frowned slightly. "You think I—"
She stood abruptly, chair scraping back, words spilling now that she'd started. "You almost died. And instead of resting, you're charming servants, provoking assassins, and dragging people into your orbit without thinking about what it costs them."
Her hands shook. She clenched them into fists.
"I didn't tell you I was fired because I didn't want your pity," she said, voice tight. "And I didn't come here to compete with Viola, or anyone else. I came because she asked me to help you—and because someone has to be honest with you when you're being reckless."
The room went very still.
Auther stared at her, stunned.
Then, quietly, "You talked to Viola?"
Lana hesitated, then nodded. "She cares about you. More than she lets on. And she's terrified of what happens when you don't need her anymore."
That landed harder than anything else.
Auther exhaled slowly, running a hand through his hair. "I didn't mean to make things worse."
"I know," Lana said, softer now, exhaustion bleeding through. "That's the problem you don't know what you mean you are falling for a woman you never saw anything past preliminaries."
She gestured at the notebook. "Your mana reserves are absurd. But your veins are narrow. Reinforcement potions might help, but if the calculations are off by even a fraction—"
"I die," he finished.
"Yes," she said flatly. "Horribly."
A beat.
Then, reluctantly, she added, "Which is why I agreed to help. Not because I want credit. And not because I'm brave. But because if you try this with someone careless, Viola will kill them. And probably you."
A ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth despite himself.
"Thank you," he said. "Not just for the math."
Her cheeks warmed. She looked away. "Don't make it weird."
From the bed, Viola shifted in her sleep, murmuring something unintelligible.
Auther glanced at her, expression softening.
Lana followed his gaze, and for a moment she saw it clearly—not lust, not conquest, but confusion. Fear. Something fragile trying to become real.
She closed the notebook gently.
"We'll work on your veins tomorrow," she said. "Tonight… just don't break anything else."
He nodded.
As she turned to leave, she paused at the door.
"And for what it's worth," she added, not looking back, "calling people monsters usually means you don't understand them yet."
Then she was gone.
Auther stood alone between the desk and the bed, staring at the closed door, realizing for the first time that wanting someone and choosing them were not the same thing at all.
And that scared him more than any poison ever had. Since he met this enigmatic guardian of his he only wanted her and her body tried charming her multiple times, but now they had oral sex before yet the romance bloomed far beyond that.
It now made his heat flutter sometimes and butterflies pile up when she threatened him but would all that go away when he lost his virginity with her, were his emotions genuine or just a prescription to get the drug that was her.
Did he want her or what she meant was she to be owned, he could not tell it was scarry.