"Wait. Weren't you two just dating like, I don't know, three or four months ago?!"

Fractal shrugged, her wings twitching slightly as they folded back into her spine. "We were. Then we weren't. Then we were again. And we decided tying the knot just made sense. Besides—this way, we both have someone from Danatallion's Halls who we're willing to stab for. Romantic, right?"

I blinked. "Stab for. Not 'stab with'?"

"Semantics," she replied with a little grin.

I rubbed my temples. "Okay, no. I get the logic, I guess. And yeah… fine, I'll admit it—I was charmed by Fallias."

Fractal turned slowly, her grin widening like a cat's. "Smitten."

"I wasn't smitten—"

"Oh no, you absolutely were." She nodded solemnly, as if reporting on weather patterns. "Your heart rate accelerates whenever she walks into a room. I mean—spikes. Like a swoon-prone poet seeing their muse."

"I am not a swoon-prone anything—"

"Unlike Alexandria," she went on, completely ignoring me, "you trust Fallias' words instinctively. You don't cross-check or second-guess her. You listen to her like she's a living prophecy. Which is rare, because you don't do that for anyone."

I squinted. "Do you… keep notes on my emotional state or something?"

"Your blush gives it away," she continued, ticking the signs off on her fingers like a doctor diagnosing a terminal case of infatuation. "You turn the same shade as a summer peach when she compliments you. One small touch and you stiffen up like a snapped quill. Not to mention—"

"No. Nope. Don't you dare say it."

"—a certain part of you tends to get… noticeably interested whenever she's near." She tilted her head innocently, as if she hadn't just drop-kicked my dignity into the abyss.

"Okay, that last one is not fair. Absolutely not. That's off-limits information. That is treason, and I will have you tried for war crimes. I don't want to hear any of that from someone I see as my little sister."

She clasped her hands behind her back, positively glowing with satisfaction. "Then maybe your little sister shouldn't be able to read every hormonal signal you give off like a book with its spine broken."

I buried my face in my hands. "No ma'am. No mam. Not today. I am drawing the sibling line right there. That is sacred territory. Sacred. Like ancient ruins. You don't touch it, you don't talk about it, you just respectfully back away and forget you ever saw anything."

Fractal laughed softly, clearly enjoying herself. "Too late, big brother. Consider the excavation complete."

I groaned. "Why can't you go back to the good ol' days when you just transformed into birds and said cryptic nonsense like, 'The sky speaks in feathers' or something?"

She smiled. "Oh, don't worry. I'll still do that. I'm just also emotionally intelligent now."

"Fantastic. Emotional maturity and psychic violations. Exactly what I needed."

Fractal walked ahead, still smiling to herself as she inspected the estate's garden walls, which were now blooming with creeping vines and stubborn moss. I followed behind, dragging my dignity behind me like a broken wheelbarrow.

"Just... remind me," I muttered, "when exactly did you start keeping track of my biological functions like a nosy apothecary?"

She twirled once on her heels, her long coat fluttering around her like a gust of ink. "Around the time you started keeping secrets from me. So... day three, maybe four, after we met?"

"That's a little invasive."

She arched a brow. "That's a little hypocritical."

I sighed and glanced toward the horizon. The folds of the land curved gently, sun pooling in soft golden bands along the hill crests. The sheep grazed like animated clouds. It should've been peaceful, but my mind buzzed.

"You know I didn't mean to shut you out."

"I know," she said, her voice softer now. "But I'm not mad. Not anymore. Just... protective."

"Of me?"

"Of you. Of this place. Of the people tied to you. Of Sven, too. He sees things in you I hadn't noticed before, and that makes me nervous. In a good way."

I hesitated. "You think he'll be a good steward?"

She nodded. "He's better with numbers than I am. He's a compulsive list-maker, owns three different ink stamps, and color-codes his rations. He was born to manage assets."

"So a bureaucrat."

"An effective bureaucrat. Which is exactly what you need. You've got vision, Alexander. But you don't build an estate on vision alone. You need someone who can worry about how many shovels we own and whether the grain cellar is pest-proof."

That stung a little more than I liked, but she wasn't wrong.

"Alright," I said finally. "Let's meet him. But I'm not shaking his hand if he wears gloves indoors."

"He doesn't," she said. "He's weird, but not creepy weird. Just obsessive."

"Great," I muttered. "One more genius in my life with an extremely specific talent set and zero social calibration."

She paused mid-step. "You're aware you just described yourself, right?"

"I am very socially calibrated."

"You're emotionally constipated and allergic to compliments."

"That's not—okay, I'll concede the second one."

She giggled and began walking again, slower this time so I could catch up. The manor loomed ahead, its silhouette cut against the blue sky, banners fluttering from its spires. The Everis Hills crystal hummed in my pocket—alive, connected, feeding me back an almost imperceptible warmth through my palm.

"So," I said after a long pause, "you're engaged."

"Don't say it like I've committed treason."

"It just feels sudden."

"You've had a near-death experience every other week since you turned sixteen. How is my life moving too fast?"

I opened my mouth, paused, then nodded. "Point made."

"You've met Fallias what—six times?"

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"Seven."

"And you trust her. You like her. You even blush when she breathes near you. I've seen you."

"Do you have to narrate everything like it's a romance novel?!"

Fractal just smiled. "If the prose fits."

The manor gates came into view, and the guards—wearing the patchwork colors of the Everis Hills, still figuring out which way the buttons went on their uniforms—saluted clumsily. Fractal waved back. I nodded. A child peeked out from behind the gatepost, eyes wide. She scurried off the moment I looked at her.

"Population: 112," I muttered. "Still sounds fake."

"It won't for long. Soon it'll feel like home. Yours, and theirs."

We entered the foyer. It smelled like fresh bread, dry ink, and the faintest trace of sheep dung. The floor had been polished—someone had taken pride in the job. I almost tripped on a bucket that had been left just behind the main stairwell.

"You do realize Sven moved in already, right?" Fractal asked.

"What?"

"He's already here. Been here a week."

I turned slowly. "You let a bureaucrat into my house without warning me?"

She grinned. "You were busy naming your chimera."

Basarioel, still slung over my shoulder, snorted softly, as if offended.

Fractal led me through the hall to the drawing room. Inside, a tall man with a shaved head and one silver earring was hunched over a table with scrolls and account books arranged in an aggressive semi-circle. Three different quills, each dipped in different shades of ink, were moving in tandem. Not magical quills. Just him. Writing with both hands and using one foot to annotate a margin.

"Sven?" Fractal called.

"Hmm?"

"You've got a guest."

He looked up from the sea of parchment, eyes sharp but not unkind—calculating, but not cold. A man who read rooms as easily as ledgers.

"Ah," he said, rising with the precise grace of a soldier. "The lord of the land himself."

He clicked his heels together with practiced formality and extended a hand, palm open, respectful but confident. "My name is Sven Aurun. Technically a Visitor from Dominus Blanche's Domain. I serve now as steward of your estate, if you'll permit it."

He waited until I took his hand before continuing, the handshake firm, steady—like a man who'd once held the line in something far bloodier than bureaucracy.

"My Arte is Triplication. Any projectile that originates within my aura and has passed through my hands may be cloned into two additional copies. Efficient, but limited by what I can physically touch."

He tilted his head slightly, eyes flicking toward Fractal before returning to mine.

"I believe your mother possesses a variant of this Arte. A Bioweaver's version, yes? Septuplication. Elegant, but… considerably more chaotic."

I nodded, studying him more closely now. He had the posture of a man who had not just trained, but internalized the discipline. There was a sharpness in his shoulders, like he was always ready to march. The earring, a single ring of matte iron, marked him plainly as a Blanchean—one of their old traditions, used to identify those who had left their home dominion with permission to serve elsewhere.

"So," I said, not yet releasing his hand, "you plan to marry my little sister?"

He didn't flinch.

"Yes," he said simply. "I do."

He let the word hang in the air a moment—unapologetic, but not defensive.

"She is a bird of beauty without peer. But more than that—she is motion, recursion, reflection. Her name fits her. Fractals upon fractals is all I see when I look at her. Not because she's chaotic, but because she reveals more wonder the closer you observe."

He smiled, not at me, but at the thought of her.

"Her bismuth constructs are art, yes, but they pale before the mind that shapes them. Her wit is sharp, her humor is strange. Her madness... well, that only makes her honest. And her honesty is what drew me in first."

I narrowed my eyes slightly. "You speak like a poet."

"I speak like a man who's already found something rare and intends to hold on to it."

Fractal, leaning lazily on the doorframe behind me, gave an exaggerated yawn. "Gods, I leave you two alone for two minutes and we're already posturing like it's a duel."

I ignored her. "And if I told you I wasn't sure I approved?"

"Then I would thank you for the honesty," Sven said. "And ask what I must do to change your mind."

I stared a beat longer, then released his hand.

"Don't break her heart," I said.

He inclined his head. "If I do, I'll hand you the crossbow."

Fractal made a tsk sound and pushed herself into the room. "Boys, boys. There's a kitchen full of food, and I am starving. If you're done measuring egos, maybe we can move to something productive."

Sven raised a brow. "I was being productive."

"You were giving a monologue."

He looked at me. "Was it too much?"

I shrugged. "Little flowery."

"I'll edit it next time."

"Don't," I said. "She likes the flowers."

Fractal grinned. "I do."

The dining room of the Duarte estate had been restored with minimal elegance—nothing garish, just clean linen, high-backed chairs, and the warm scent of roasted rosemary game drifting from silver trays. Fractal had insisted on setting the table herself, arranging bismuth-cut candles in the center that flickered in odd refracted hues, making the shadows ripple across Sven's face.

He didn't seem bothered by it.

I leaned back in my chair, one leg crossed, glass untouched.

Sven sat across from me, posture straight but not stiff. His plate remained untouched, utensils aligned precisely.

"So," I said, "you want to be my steward."

Sven didn't blink. "I was under the impression that I already was, until you tell me otherwise."

Fractal, halfway into her second helping of buttered root mash, chimed in, "He reorganized the entire archive while you were in the Otherrealm. Color-coded it. Alphabetized it in three languages. I almost cried."

"You did cry," Sven corrected gently. "Twice."

She waved him off with her spoon. "Technicalities."

I narrowed my gaze. "And why would a man from Blanche's domain, with an Arte like Triplication, trained like an officer, end up as a steward? That's quite a pivot."

He folded his hands. "Because war taught me to maintain order. And peace requires those who understand the cost of both."

"That's not an answer."

"It's my answer."

We held the silence for a moment. Fractal popped a grape in her mouth and rolled her eyes.

I gestured with a piece of bread. "You're sharp. Educated. Disciplined. You could've taken a command post in almost any Otherrealm border. Instead, you're here, managing supply chains and estate ledgers. What's the real reason?"

Sven tapped a finger against the side of his goblet. "Would you believe me if I said love?"

"No."

"Good," he said, smiling faintly. "Because love brought me here. But reason made me stay. I've served warlords, merchants, and technocrats. I've watched realms burn because the wrong person left their house in the wrong hands. Your estate is a foothold. A symbol. If it collapses, people notice. If it thrives, you become harder to uproot."

I studied him.

Fractal shoved her plate forward. "He also makes a mean rice porridge. Just saying."

I ignored her.

"What do you know of our household's enemies?"

"Plenty," Sven said. "I've read every report, including the ones hidden behind your brother Carlile's fail-safes. I know which guilds tried to bribe your staff. I know who still owes the family debts from before the last cycle. I even know your cousin from Marr tried to sell one of the orchard plots to an Otherrealm mining company under a false name."

He let that sink in.

I leaned forward. "And if I said I needed my steward to be more than a bookkeeper?"

"I assumed as much," he said. "A steward isn't just a record-keeper. I would be your blade in quiet halls. Your negotiator when you cannot be seen. Your cleaner when things get... messy."

Fractal sipped from her glass, smirking. "He means blood. He says it nicely, but it's blood."

"Not always," Sven said.

"Usually," she countered.

I looked down at my plate, then back up. "And if someone offered you more? A domain of your own? Gold? Favor?"

"I already have the favor I want."

"And the gold?"

He shrugged. "Gold's a tool, not a goal."

"And the domain?"

"I'd rather serve in a house worth serving."

There was a long pause.

I studied the lines of his jacket. The stillness in his shoulders. The calm certainty that wasn't arrogance—it was readiness. Like he'd already made peace with who he was and why he was here. That could be dangerous.

Or exactly what I needed.

"Final question," I said. "Why triplication?"

He tilted his head. "Pardon?"

"Your Arte. Why choose it as a weapon?"

He didn't answer immediately. "Because it rewards intention. You can't flood the field with shots you haven't studied. You must touch it. Understand it. Prepare it. No reckless chaos. Everything I fire, I fire with forethought."

He met my eyes. "Just like I choose my allegiances."

Fractal made a quiet hmph, looking satisfied.

I let the silence hold, then finally pushed my chair back and stood. I extended a hand.

"You're hired. But if you betray my house—"

"You'll kill me."

I smirked. "No. I'll make you run until my sister catches you."

Fractal grinned wide. "Oh, please do. I haven't hunted in days."

Sven took my hand, and shook it once. "Understood, Lord Duarte."

"Good," I said. "Now eat. You're part of the family now."

And family, I reminded myself silently, was both shield and spear.

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