"Hmm, is that true?" He whispered, thinking to himself. I let him have the moment. Let him imagine his heroic speeches whistling through gaps in his front teeth.
"Haha, we are here," I said, taking a seat at the table Rebecca set up in front of the mansion in the open. The tablecloth was a cool, crisp white, the silver catching the light, the porcelain thin enough to reveal a shadow of my fingers when I lifted a cup.
"Outside?"
"Yeah, it's a lovely day. I would rather not waste this lovely day by sitting inside," I said, taking a sip from the cup of tea on the table. It scalded my tongue pleasantly. I watched him decide whether to sit.
"Right." Mr. Pendragon said, sitting on a chair and going silent. He folded his hands atop his knee like he was pinning himself to the seat. Good boy.
We sat in silence with our respective guards behind us, just looking at each other. Wind ran small fingers through the flags above the mansion, making a nearby cypress murmur. On the pads, the trainees' sparring had devolved into breathy laughter and grunts and the occasional high shriek when someone landed a pretty throw. It was all theater, and yet the emotion was real: the way their shoulders loosened once they realized the plane wouldn't crush them, the way their eyes kept slanting toward us, not quite able to look away.
5 minutes later
The silence has not been broken. I let it stretch until it sang. Mr. Pendragon's jaw worked once, then was still. I refilled my cup and clinked the spoon against the rim once, an intentional, delicate chime. He did not flinch, to his credit.
'I wonder what Kitsu is doing now? Is she annoying the girl or just playing with a knife in her hands?' I thought, trying to make the time go by faster. The mental image of Kitsu twirling a knife while humming made my mouth twitch. She would hum something cheerful, too. The more murderous she felt, the sweeter the tune.
10 minutes later
'This is getting annoying.' I thought, pouring myself another cup of tea. The steam curled like a cat. A fly tried its luck and died of scald in the same second. I fished it out with the spoon and set it gently on a napkin. I did not offer it to him. I was not that kind of host.
"It's been 15 minutes. Where is my sister?" He finally cracked, the words dropping like stones.
"Ah, you see, my girlfriend froze them inside one of the rooms, so we are trying to break it open currently," I said calmly with a small, proud smile. Pride felt good in my chest. I wore it like a pendant with her name carved on the back.
"Tsk, what do you mean by that? How can your 14-year-old girlfriend make something that you take more than 15 minutes to break through?" Mr. Pendragon said, glaring at me. The vein at his temple pulsed. I entertained the brief, lovely fantasy of flicking it.
"Well, you know she is exceptional," I said, smiling proudly while taking another sip of tea. The porcelain hid my teeth.
"As if she will be that strong only after five years of training," Pendragon said, glaring at me. He leaned in like closeness could make disbelief turn true.
"Pfftt, hahaha, what a joy it will be if you meet her," I said, laughing at his naivety. I couldn't help it. Men like him put the world in boxes and then got offended when the boxes burned.
"What?" Mr. Pendragon said, intensifying his glare. If glares had weight, the table would have buckled.
"Oh, if you glare even more, some killing intent will leak out. Now that we don't want it, after all, Kitsu is really sensitive when it comes to killing intent. Especially if the killing intent is pointed at me." I said, bluffing mostly because I was not sure Kitsu would actually feel it through the ice wall she made. But I had learned early: say confidence with enough backbone, and the air around you hardens to match.
"If what you say is true, then Stacy must have trained her herself." He spoke reluctantly, as if acknowledging the truth left a bitter taste in his mouth.
"Huh? You don't know? For being a spy-loving country, you guys seem far too bad at it." I was actually surprised that they didn't know that she was Stacy's disciple. I let my eyebrows lift. It was the smallest gift and also the meanest.
"What!!" Everyone on the federation side yelled, leaking killing intent. It spilled like a burst pipe-raw, ugly, practiced. Their guards' hands went to weapons by reflex, not use, a choreography we all recognized and chose not to follow to its end.
"Kya!!" The sound knifed out from the mansion: high, sharp, and startled. I didn't even have to turn to know exactly whose voice that was, and my grin came on its own.
"What?" Mr. Pendragon said, looking at the mansion, surprised at the shout. Surprise first, then fear, then anger arrived like his three favorite friends.
"I have warned you she is sensitive to killing intent," I said with a smile. I let a little of my heat leak then, enough to warp the air above my cup for effect. The tea rippled.
"You, you bitch!" Mr. Pendragon cursed, standing up and walking to the mansion. He did not run. He walked like a man who believed doors would open or break rather than accept his refusal. He was probably right; men like him got that too often.
"Oh, you're going to trespass now," I said, not standing up from my seat to stop him. My nails tapped the cup once, twice, thrice. Behind him, his assistant's hand flicked-the pilot would keep them hovering low but steady. Good. I liked competent enemies. They made the world more fascinating.
"Your commander isn't here, so what are you going to do?" He tossed over his shoulder, the words thrown like a dare.
"I warned you not to try and attack Kitsu when you see your sister without any arms, but I won't do anything." I watched his shoulders tighten at "without any arms" and let the ambiguity hang there. He heard what he wanted to hear. That was the trick: people built their own traps and begged you to call it fate.
"We will see about that." The man spoke without even looking at me. He had stopped grinding his teeth, at least. I would give him that.
"Sheesh, what do you think you are doing?" A dominant female voice said something, making me smile and recognize it. It came not from the mansion but from the path that cut between the rose hedges, a voice that did not need volume to fill space.
"What? How are you?" Pendragon, surprised, turned to look at Stacy. He missed the way even the wind seemed to pause like a dog lifting its head for its mistress.
"Well, I've got some ants in my territory. Do you really think I wouldn't come?" Stacy said, looking at Pendragon as if he were a little child. Her boots were still dusty from the run, and her braid was messy in a way only speed could make. She carried no visible weapon and did not need one. Men like him could list the ways she could kill him with a spoon and still underestimate the spoon.
"Welcome home, Stacy," I said with a nod. I meant it. The line of my shoulders eased without my permission.
"Yeah, I feel so welcome here," Stacy said, looking at all the guards smiling in relief. The relief spread like a tide I didn't fight-spines uncoiled, hands drifted inches away from hilts, and lungs remembered how to be lungs. Stacy's gaze flicked over the plane, the table, the open door of the mansion at the end of the gravel path, and then finally settled on Pendragon again. The corners of her mouth tipped up in a way that wasn't a smile and promised, very politely, hell.
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Chapter 167: Devil Fire magic is quite potent.
"So, when do I get my sister back?" The commander asked, his voice low, clipped, but sharp enough to cut through the still air of the courtyard. His eyes burned with an intensity that felt like he wanted to tear the answer out of us instead of wait for it.
"Get her back?" Stacy slowly repeated the question, raising one eyebrow as she leaned back in her chair. She crossed one leg over the other with the kind of unhurried grace that said she didn't consider his rage worth speeding up for. "She is our prisoner. Why would we just give our prisoner back?" Her tone was mild, but every syllable dripped disdain.
"Because this will lead to a war that you started," the commander snapped. His teeth ground audibly; I heard it even from where I sat, and the tension that hung around him spread out like a choking miasma.
Stacy tilted her head at him, and the motion was familiar-too familiar. My lips twitched when I realized she'd picked it up from Kitsuna. The little brat's habits were starting to infect us all. "We started?" Stacy repeated, her tone lilting, almost mocking. "Don't joke like that. You people are the ones who've sent spies into our country multiple times. Then, when that wasn't enough, you tried to start a monster stampede on our land. Hello, do you even know what you are saying?"
"You have no proof we did any of that," Pendragon scoffed, straightening in his chair. His broad shoulders flexed, as if that alone could protect him from her accusation.
"Are you sure we don't have any?" Stacy asked, her eyebrow arched like a blade, daring him to step closer.
"Yes," he said flatly, refusing the bait. He wasn't stupid; I'd give him that.
"Really? Okay, then listen to this." Stacy slid her scroll onto the table with deliberate slowness and tapped it. The surface shimmered before a girl's voice spilled into the air, sharp and clear as if she were standing right beside us.
"Ah, yes, my pets, they were busy leveling up in the dead forest."
The words cut the silence like a knife. Every soldier behind Pendragon shifted uncomfortably, their eyes darting between him and Stacy.
"Now do we have proof?" Stacy asked, cutting the recording with a flick of her finger. Her eyes gleamed as she leaned forward slightly.
"Hah." Pendragon pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled slowly. "You know that sister of mine..." His sigh carried both frustration and reluctant acknowledgment. Then he looked up, gaze sharpening. "What do you want?"
"Oh, it's not that much," Stacy said casually, sliding a folded piece of paper across the table. She smiled like she'd just given him a gift, though we all knew it was a demand.
Pendragon unfolded it, and his expression tightened the further his eyes traveled down. "Lady Stacy, you are asking for too much," he said, his voice polite but taut, like a bowstring about to snap.
"Am I?" Stacy tilted her head again, her eyes narrowing in mock thought. "Didn't know your sister's life would be of that little worth."
"They're blackmailing us now," Pendragon muttered with a dry laugh that had no humor in it.
"Yes," Stacy said shamelessly, her voice smooth. "You started all this after all."
"Tsk. I want my sister first."
"Mr. Pendragon, that's not how negotiations work. You do know this." Stacy's tone didn't change, not even a flicker of sympathy or patience. She was a wall, and he was the fool trying to punch through it.
"Tsk. Fine." He placed the paper down and gestured with his fingers toward his assistant. "You take your time and get everything on this list. You have thirty minutes."
"Yes, sir." The assistant quickly took the paper, already fishing out his scroll and whispering urgent orders into it.
"Woah, thirty minutes? Are you sure he'll make it?" Stacy asked, her voice full of humor, though there was a note of genuine doubt tucked beneath it.
"Yes," Pendragon said firmly.
"Okay. If it's like that, we will go see your sister." Stacy stood smoothly, her chair scraping back over the stones.
"Uh, Stacy," I muttered, leaning toward her with a whisper, embarrassed and obviously faking it, "we still haven't gotten through the ice wall."
"That's fine. It should go faster if you try to do it, but why would we do that?" She whispered back, her lips twitching into an evil smile that confused me.
"What do you mean by that?" I muttered, brow furrowed.
"Don't do anything. Let him blast through it himself, Kayda." Stacy's eyes glittered with the kind of amusement that made my gut sink.
"Okay," I replied while nodding slowly, although a sense of suspicion gnawed at me.
[5 minutes later in the mansion.]
"What is this?" Pendragon demanded, staring at the thick wall of ice sealing the guest room. His breath puffed faintly in the chilled air, and his soldiers shuffled uneasily behind him.
"Ice magic, of course," Stacy said, shrugging as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"I can see that," he snapped, turning on her, "but why is my sister on the other side of it?"
"Well, she's being held prisoner by my daughter. Didn't you know this already?" Stacy tilted her head again, mocking him with the same gesture as before.
"So, tell her to open up," Pendragon demanded, his patience unraveling.
"I already tried to call her, but she's unreachable. I think her scroll is out of power," Stacy explained with another shrug, casual as tossing a stone into a lake.
"She can recharge her scroll with mana, though. Why isn't she doing that? Is she dumb ?" One of Pendragon's guards muttered under his breath.
Every eye turned on him. Pendragon's glare froze the words in the man's throat.
"I don't know. I can't see through walls," Stacy replied breezily, deliberately ignoring the insult.
"She is your daughter, isn't she?" Pendragon asked sharply.
"She is adopted, but yes."
"Fuck this," Pendragon growled, pulling back his fist and slamming it against the wall.
Crack.
"Ugh!" His knuckles split on contact, the sound of bone giving a muted echo through the hall.
"Did you just break your hand?" Stacy asked, her tone amused, not concerned.
"..." He ignored her, coating his bleeding hand with wind magic and lashing at the wall in slashes that rang like knives against glass. Shards of ice shivered loose but reknit almost instantly, glimmering like steel.
"Hmm, this process is going to take a while. Get us some chairs, please," Stacy said, turning her head toward the nearest maid.
"Will do, ma'am," the maid replied with a bow before hurrying off.
"Kayda, is there any update you haven't told me about?" Stacy asked suddenly, her sharp gaze sliding to me.
"Hehe, well, you see..." I rubbed the back of my neck and looked away, laughing awkwardly.
"I can see that her ice magic has become something really annoying to deal with," Stacy said, watching Pendragon's futile slashes, "but not perfect just yet."
"Yes, I'm also surprised that her ice magic got this strong just from her new discovery," I admitted, letting some honesty slip through.
"New discovery?" Stacy repeated, one brow raised. "New discovery?"
"Yes. She's got something new to show you," I explained, nodding once.
