Chapter 124: Mira and the Guild [3]
Outside, on the street, the morning sun had risen enough to light the side of the facade where they’d walked on arrival. Nathan tucked the bag of two hundred coins into the inner pocket of his cloak, where the weight wouldn’t strain his right flank.
They walked in silence for half a block.
Then Liaraen spoke.
“Nathan.”
“Yes?”
“Mira is more honest than I thought.”
“Yes.”
“And more strategic too. She solved the money issue without you having to ask for either the amnesty or the extra payment.”
“Correct.”
“You did well going alone. In terms of me not intervening.”
“I thought the same.”
They walked another half block. Then Liaraen spoke again.
“Nathan.”
“Yes?”
“The final part. When she told you what she told you.”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t expecting it.”
“Neither was I.”
“Are you okay with the outcome?”
Nathan thought about it. He walked five more steps before answering.
“I’m okay with the outcome. Mira closed the door herself, on her terms, without forcing me to close it on mine. That saves me the uncomfortable conversation I probably would have postponed for months because I didn’t know how to raise it. And it leaves the professional relationship intact, which is what I needed to preserve.”
“And if at some point she changes her mind?”
Nathan glanced at her.
“Sprout. We’re talking four blocks from the guild where Mira just formally closed the door. Are you going to ask me about the hypothesis that she reopens it?”
“Yes.”
“Alright. If at some point she changes her mind, I’ll make the corresponding decision at that moment with the information I have at that moment. I have no intention of making promises about future hypotheses.”
Liaraen walked two more steps.
“Alright.”
“Alright?”
“Alright. It’s an honest answer. I prefer that to a promise you won’t keep.”
“Correct.”
They kept walking. Nathan felt the weight of the coin bag against his left side with each step. Two hundred silver coins. Six weeks of operation covered without having to resort to the Vaelith House advance or to Mira’s favors for non-public missions. Two problems solved in a thirty-minute conversation.
They turned the corner toward Selene’s neighborhood.
“Nathan.”
“Yes?”
“During the entire conversation with Mira, you didn’t mention the scythe.”
“Correct.”
“Nor the potential seventeenth master.”
“Also correct.”
“Nor the amount of divine attention you now have on you.”
“Also correct as well.”
“Why?”
Nathan walked a while before answering. Until the middle of the next block.
“Because the agreement I signed with Mira obliges me to pass her information that affects the guild. The scythe, the master, and the gods don’t affect the guild directly. They’re personal matters. If at some point any of the three becomes relevant to Hunter work, I’ll pass it to her. Until then, it doesn’t enter the agreement.”
“Alright.”
“Objection?”
“No. Correct legal reading. I was asking to confirm you were applying the agreement with precision instead of hiding information by reflex.”
“I’m applying it with precision.”
“Alright.”
They continued to Selene’s house. Nathan climbed the entrance step carefully. Liaraen opened the door with the key Selene had given her during the five days of care.
They entered.
Selene was in the kitchen. She looked up when she heard them.
“And?”
Nathan set the coin bag on the kitchen table.
“She’s not reporting me. Agreement signed with three conditions and one modification of mine. Two hundred silver coins in combined payment. Covers us six weeks without touching the Vaelith reserve.”
Selene looked at the bag. Then at Nathan. Then at Liaraen.
“How did she resolve it?”
Liaraen answered first.
“With professional pragmatism first and personal honesty after. She closed the door to any romantic possibility with Nathan before either of them had to force it. She did it herself, on her terms.”
Selene nodded.
“Alright.”
“Alright and nothing more?”
“Alright and nothing more. Mira is intelligent. I suspected it when I met her. This confirmation matches what I expected. Does Nathan need to rest?”
Nathan nodded.
“My ribs are asking for bed.”
“Go up. Liaraen will bring you something to eat in an hour. At five in the afternoon come down if you can and we’ll talk about the next step with the masters. The elven one already responded. He wants to meet Liaraen the day after tomorrow.”
“Alright.”
Nathan climbed the stairs slowly. On the second step he stopped, turned his head. He looked toward the kitchen. Selene and Liaraen were talking about something he couldn’t quite hear; probably the longer version of what Liaraen had summarized in two sentences.
He kept climbing.
He reached the room. He lay down without taking off his cloak. He closed his eyes.
Alright.
Mira resolved. Money resolved. Agreement signed.
Door closed on her side, on her terms, without registrable resentment.
Next step: Liaraen’s master the day after tomorrow.
Let’s go.
He fell asleep almost instantly.
—
V.
Downstairs, in the kitchen, Selene had served two cups of tea and Liaraen had sat down across from her with her cloak still on.
Selene took a sip before speaking.
“Liaraen.”
“Yes?”
“The part where Mira closed the door. How exactly did she say it?”
“She said that during the months before the journey she’d imagined a possible relationship with Nathan. That his absence had bothered her more than she’d shown. That my appearance had bothered her too. That over the last two months she’d watched Nathan operate and understood that the relationship she’d imagined wasn’t going to happen. That she was going to maintain operational distance over the coming years to adjust expectation to reality without resenting it. And that she wanted Nathan to know so he wouldn’t misinterpret it.”
“And Nathan’s response?”
“He thanked her for the frankness. Confirmed that he’d also enjoyed the conversations and that he hadn’t been clear whether the reading was mutual. Said he respected the distance she was going to maintain and that he wasn’t going to insist on recovering what she decided to close.”
Selene took another sip.
“Nathan handled it well.”
“Better than I expected.”
“And you?”
Liaraen picked up the cup. Drank. Set the cup back on the saucer carefully.
“Relief.”
“Honest?”
“Honest. Mira was the only variable I didn’t know how would resolve without me having to intervene. If she’d insisted on moving toward Nathan, I would have had to decide what to do over the coming months, and the options were all bad. Either I interfered and Nathan accused me of excessive possessiveness. Or I didn’t interfere and lost part of the space with him. Mira solved the problem for me, on her terms. She spared me the decision.”
“And Sella?”
Liaraen pressed her lips together for a fraction of a second before responding.
“Sella is another problem. But at least with Sella I know what the problem is and what her terms are. With Mira I didn’t know either of those things until today.”
“Alright.”
Selene nodded.
Then she leaned her elbows on the table and looked at Liaraen with longer attention.
“Liaraen.”
“Yes?”
“A direct question. Don’t be annoyed if it seems intrusive. Do you want to be with Nathan in the way Mira closed today?”
Liaraen lowered her gaze to the cup.
For nearly a minute she didn’t respond. Selene waited without forcing her.
When Liaraen raised her eyes again, the pale green eyes were more moist than they’d been minutes before, but without visible tears. Just the added shine.
“Selene.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know for real, or you don’t want to decide it?”
“Both things. I don’t know because I still haven’t had time to process what what I feel for him means to me after everything that happened over the last three months. And I don’t want to decide it because the formal guardianship obliges me to maintain the limit for ten more months, and if I decide before that term ends, I become the kind of person my uncles prepared me not to be.”
Selene nodded.
“Alright.”
“Alright and nothing more?”
“Alright and nothing more. The answer is honest. I’m not going to ask again unless you ask me to.”
“I appreciate it.”
Liaraen drank the last sip of the cup. She stood up. Before leaving the kitchen, she stopped in the doorway.
“Selene.”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for asking me things Nathan doesn’t ask me.”
Selene didn’t turn. She kept the cup between her hands, looking at the window that opened onto the back courtyard.
“Nathan asks you the things he knows how to ask. The ones I ask you are the ones he doesn’t yet know you need to be asked. Over the coming years, he’ll probably learn. Until then, I cover them.”
Liaraen looked at her one second more. Then she went up to her room.
And in the kitchen, with the midday light entering through the window and with the weight of the bag of two hundred silver coins on the table, Selene drank the last sip of tea and began planning the formal letter to the seventeenth master that she was going to send the following day.