Chapter 523: Trespassing

"What do you mean you’re not going to help me inside?"

Eira hovered at eye level, wings beating in that lazy, deliberate rhythm she used when she wanted to look bored on purpose. Void-black eyes flat. Patient.

The patience of a being who’d already made her decision and was now waiting for the slower species to catch up.

"I mean

exactly

that," she said, voice bright and cutting. "I’ll drop you there. But not inside the house."

Phei stared at her.

He stared at her the way you stare at a vending machine that just ate your last dollar and spat out nothing but a metallic clunk—confused, offended, and one wrong second away from shaking it until it coughed up change or justice.

"How do you expect me to get inside then?"

She shrugged. Tiny crystalline shoulders rising and falling with the devastating indifference of someone else’s problem.

"That’s up to you to figure out. You’re the horny dragon who wants both a mother

and

her daughter. The least you can do is put some effort into it."

"You’re not making sense. That place isn’t somewhere I can just waltz into alone. There’s Consort and her—"

He stopped.

"Oh."

Eira watched the understanding arrive. Slowly. Like a train pulling into a station two minutes late, brakes screeching, passengers annoyed.

"You can’t expose your powers there because it’s risky for your

exposure."

She nodded once. Crisp.

"I was starting to think all the brain cells had been frozen."

His eye twitched.

Eira didn’t care. She continued without pause, voice lilting like she was reciting a grocery list instead of explaining existential peril.

"Although Consort can’t see me or trace the void portals back to me, and her master relies on Consort for sight sometimes, the Ashford Estate is

his

territory.

His

domain. The moment my powers touch too near, I risk being discovered by that powerful being. And from there..."

She trailed off, letting the silence finish the sentence.

Phei nodded. Once. Sharp.

"Fine. At least drop me as close as you can."

Eira’s face didn’t change.

But behind him—where he couldn’t see—a grin flashed across her crystalline mouth. Quick. Wicked. Gone before he turned.

She created a void portal.

****

The maid

screamed.

Or

tried to.

One second she was walking down a dim service corridor on the estate’s ground floor—alone, carrying fresh towels, minding her own business at an hour when most of the household staff had already retired to their quarters—and the next second

reality cracked

open three feet in front of her like black glass shattering inward.

A vertical tear lined with smoking frost and void-black edges.

A boy stepped out.

She fell on her arse.

Towels exploded in every direction—white cotton blooming across the corridor like startled doves. Her eyes went the size of dinner plates. Her mouth opened.

Sound began to build in her throat—the raw, primal scream of a woman who’d just witnessed something that violated several laws of physics and all of her personal boundaries.

She scrambled to her feet.

Phei was faster.

Two strides and he had her—one arm wrapping around her waist, the other hand covering her mouth, pulling her back against the wall in a single smooth motion. Her back hit the stone. His chest pressed against her. His palm sealed the scream before it could escape.

"Relax,"

he whispered. Close. Mouth near her ear. Charm Speech’s voice low and steady. "I’m not here to harm you. Nothing to worry about. Just breathe."

The tension in her body—coiled tight, every muscle locked in fight-or-flight—began to dissolve. It drained out of her in stages, like water finding its way through sand. Her shoulders dropped. Her breathing slowed.

Her hands, which had been clawing at his forearm, softened and settled.

Charm Speech doing miracles. Not just calming her but persuading her—seeping into the panic centers of her brain and gently, irresistibly, replacing danger with

safe

.

Replacing intruder with

someone I should listen to.

"I’m going to let you go slowly," he said. "And I hope you don’t shout."

She nodded against his palm. Small. Obedient.

He let go. Slowly. Hands withdrawing, stepping back half a pace, giving her space.

She turned.

Looked at him.

Her knees buckled.

Not all the way—she caught herself on the wall, one hand slapping against stone—but the wobble was real.

Her eyes traveled his face in the dim corridor light—the jaw, the cheekbones, the purple eyes that weren’t just purple but glowed faintly in the shadows—and her mouth opened and closed three times without producing a single word.

"You’re—you—I’m not—is

this—"

She pressed both hands to her cheeks. Squeezed. Like she was checking if her face was still attached.

"Am I

dreaming?

I’m dreaming. This is a dream. I fell asleep in the laundry room again and this is—you’re not real. You can’t be real. You can’t be standing in this corridor because that would mean you’re in the Ashford Estate at eleven at night and that doesn’t make any—"

She looked at the towels scattered across the floor.

Looked at the fading frost marks where the portal had been.

Looked at him.

"Oh my God, you’re real."

Phei smiled—slow, easy, the one that always made people forget they were supposed to be afraid.

"I’m real."

"You’re here."

"I am."

"In the Ashford Estate."

"Apparently."

"At eleven at night."

"Seems that way."

Her eyes were shining. Her hands were shaking. She looked like a woman who’d been handed a winning lottery ticket and was trying to decide whether to cash it or frame it.

"How did you—the portal—the ice—you just appeared out of—"

"Oh, my... why are you

here—no.

It’s not my job to ask you why your here but my job top freak out that you’re here."

"Long story." He held up a hand. Gentle. "I need your help."

She straightened instantly.

Shoulders back. Chin up.

The wobble gone, replaced by the rigid posture of a woman who’d just been given a mission by someone she’d follow into traffic.

"Anything."

Phei glanced once over his shoulder—corridor still empty, frost marks already fading into nothing—then back to her.

"Take me to Elena’s room. Quietly. No alarms. No guards. No one sees me until I’m inside."

The maid blinked. Once. Twice.

Then she smiled—small, dazed, a little delirious.

"You want to sneak into Miss Elena’s room."

"

Yes."

"At eleven at night."

"Yes."

"In the Ashford Estate."

"Yes."

Her smile widened—bright, reckless, the smile of someone who’d just been given permission to break every rule she’d ever followed.

"Okay."

She bent—quick, efficient—gathered the fallen towels into a neat stack, tucked them under one arm like a shield.

"Follow me, sir."

She started walking.

Phei followed—silent, steps measured, every sense tuned to the house around him.

Behind them, in the empty corridor, a faint crystalline giggle echoed once—soft, delighted, gone before anyone could turn.

Eira had stayed outside.

But she was watching.

And she was

enjoying

this far too much.

****

A/N:

What do y’all think of her?