Chapter 82: Investment 82: Leaving Home Again
The morning they left was quieter than Elliot expected, the estate’s courtyard still bearing the scars of the previous night’s battle—scorched earth, a hastily patched breach in the outer wall, the lingering, unmistakable weight of violence that no amount of cleaning could fully erase.
Mira clung to him at the carriage’s door, refusing to let go even after Lyra gently suggested, twice, that her brother needed to actually board the carriage at some point.
"You’ll write," she said, more command than question, muffled against his chest.
"Every week," he promised. "Maybe more, if things stay quiet."
"They won’t stay quiet." She finally pulled back, eyes red-rimmed but steady, the same stubborn resolve he’d watched her cultivate over the past three days settling firmly into her young features. "But you’ll write anyway."
"I will." He knelt to meet her eyes properly. "And I want you to keep practicing that ward. Every day. Even when nothing’s happening. Especially when nothing’s happening."
"I know." She rolled her eyes, though the gesture lacked its usual playful edge. "You’ve told me twice already."
"I’m telling you a third time because it matters."
She threw her arms around his neck one final time, fierce and desperate, and he held her just as tightly, memorizing the moment against whatever uncertainty lay ahead.
Lyra embraced him next, her composure holding steady though her eyes carried the same lingering fear he’d seen in her the night before, when she and Mira had first been found safe in that clearing.
"Look after him," she said to Seria, pulling the younger woman into an equally fierce embrace that seemed to catch Seria genuinely off guard.
"Always," Seria said, some of her usual composed distance cracking into something warmer, more open than Elliot had seen her display outside of their most private moments.
Cassian was last, his farewell brief but weighted with everything the past three days had cost and revealed.
"The garrison should arrive by tomorrow evening," he said. "We’ll be as protected as this estate can reasonably manage. I need you to focus on understanding what you’re carrying, Elliot. Whatever the headmaster knows, whatever training Adonite can offer—use it. This isn’t finished, not by a long measure, and I refuse to lose you to ignorance when knowledge might have saved you instead."
"I will," Elliot said. "I promise."
Cassian studied him for a long moment, something proud and sorrowful settling behind his eyes—the particular expression of a father watching his child step fully into a burden he’d hoped, however unrealistically, might have waited a few more years to arrive.
"I know you will," he said finally, pulling Elliot into a brief, firm embrace. "Go. Both of you. And Elliot—"
"Yes, Father?"
"Whatever this Architect wants from you," Cassian said, voice hardening, "don’t give it to him. Not the fragment, not your loyalty, not anything. Whatever leverage he thinks he holds over this family, know that we would rather face him directly a hundred times over than see you compromised for our sake."
Elliot swallowed against the sudden tightness in his throat. "I won’t."
The carriage ride back toward Adonite Academy passed in comparative quiet, Seria’s hand never fully leaving his for more than a few minutes at a time, both of them processing, in their own ways, the weight of everything the past several days had irrevocably changed.
"Do you think the headmaster already knows about the Architect?" Seria asked eventually, breaking the long silence somewhere past the halfway point of their journey.
"Given that he embedded an Imperial in our class before any of this even started," Elliot said grimly, "I’d be shocked if he didn’t."
"Then he owes us considerably more honesty than he’s given so far."
"Agreed." Elliot’s jaw tightened, the memory of the prisoner’s fearful warnings still fresh and unsettling. "Fragments scattered across bloodlines. Someone gathering them for decades. If the headmaster’s known about any part of this, he’s had ample opportunity to warn my family before it nearly cost them everything."
Seria was quiet for a moment, studying him carefully. "You’re angry with him."
"I’m angry that Mira had to learn a defensive ward at ten years old because some ancient enemy decided our family’s bloodline was worth hunting," Elliot said, more sharply than he intended. He took a breath, forcing some of the tension from his shoulders. "Sorry. I know it’s not entirely fair to blame him for choices that were made generations before either of us existed."
"It’s fair to want answers," Seria said gently, squeezing his hand. "And it’s fair to be angry that you had to fight for your family’s lives before anyone thought to warn you the fight was coming."
He looked over at her, at the fierce, steady loyalty in her expression, and felt some of the day’s accumulated weight ease, however slightly.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "For everything. These past few days—I don’t think I could have gotten through them without you."
"You won’t have to find out," she said simply. "Not now, not ever, if I have any say in the matter."
Ahead, through the carriage window, the distant towers of Adonite Academy finally came into view, rising pale and familiar against the afternoon sky—and somewhere within those walls, Elliot knew, waited answers he intended to have, one way or another.
"Elliot," Seria said quietly, as the carriage began its final approach toward the academy’s outer gates. "Whatever the headmaster tells us, whatever this Architect turns out to truly be—I want you to promise me something."
"Anything."
"Don’t shut me out of it. Whatever comes next, whatever burden this fragment places on you—let me carry part of it with you. I refuse to be the fiancée who waits safely on the sidelines while you bleed for both of us."
Elliot turned to face her fully, something warm and unshakeable settling into his chest despite everything.
"I wouldn’t dream of trying," he said. "Not after everything you’ve already proven these past weeks."
She smiled, small but genuine, and rested her head against his shoulder as the carriage rolled at last through Adonite’s familiar gates.