My Wife Rules The World

The garden was stone paths and moss and a small pond with a still surface. The trees had been shaped over decades and held their form without effort. Quiet in the way only old, well-kept places are.

Emilia had been here once before, accompanying Iris for the annual visit. She remembered the garden then too — the rest of the mansion was maintained through visible effort, but the garden felt older than the effort put into it.

Felicy was already seated at a low table near the pond's edge, a shawl across her shoulders. She looked up when Emilia was brought through and her expression was warm and unhurried.

"Emilia Sterling." She gestured at the seat across from her. "Sit."

Emilia bowed briefly and sat.

Servants appeared within seconds, moving quietly, setting down a tray with tea and small dishes. Felicy waited until they'd finished and withdrawn before picking up her cup.

"How is Iris," she said.

"Lady Iris is well." Emilia set her own cup down. "In fact, I came today on her behalf. She has a request."

Felicy looked at her.

"Lady Iris wishes for you to oversee the Nuclear Project," Emilia said. " She told me to inform you that she wants to proceed with the final stage."

The garden stayed quiet.

Felicy's teacup was halfway to her mouth and stayed there. Her eyes moved to somewhere beyond Emilia's left shoulder and held. Several seconds passed without her moving.

Then she set the cup down and stood. She wasn't angry — her face showed something harder to name than anger, closer to resignation that had arrived earlier than expected. She stood with her back to Emilia for a moment, one hand resting lightly on the table, looking at the pond.

Then she turned around and sat back down.

"Well." She smoothed the front of her shawl. "It looks like her little plan of breaking the link with Leon didn't work properly."

Emilia kept her expression steady. She had come expecting a conversation about the Nuclear Project and instead Leon's name had arrived within the first minute.

It wasn't the first time his name had come up unexpectedly.

She knew there was a link between Iris and Leon. Iris had mentioned it herself on one of the rare occasions she had been less than completely closed on the subject — had said it was what caused the headaches, the physical cost of keeping him at a distance. Emilia had never asked for further detail because Iris had not invited further questions. But she had formed a theory over years of close observation — that maybe the link between Iris and Leon was connected to Lady Iris's ability to kill anyone, from anywhere, without being physically present though she had never said it aloud.

"How is Leon doing," Felicy asked.

"I'm unable to say." Emilia paused. "Lady Iris ordered a complete cessation of all monitoring some time ago. We have had no information on him since."

Felicy looked at her. "Complete cessation."

"Yes."

A short silence. Felicy glanced at the pond surface. Then picked up her teacup.

"Has he started wearing the bracelet?" she said. "The one Iris gave him six years ago."

Emilia held herself still. "In the final days of monitoring before the order came through — yes. He was observed wearing it consistently."

She turned the bracelet over in her mind as she said it. Dark beaded, simple. She had filed it years ago as a parting gift — something given on the day Iris had told Leon she was cutting all ties, Leon's birthday. A closing gesture. She had understood it that way for years without questioning it.

She was no longer certain that was what it was.

"I had assumed it was simply a farewell gift," she said carefully. "Given when Lady Iris ended contact. I'm beginning to think that assumption was wrong."

Emilia had thought that Lady Iris had finally put an end to all connection with Leon when she ordered to stop the monitoring entirely. But now…

Felicy was quiet for a moment. Then seeing the confused expression on Emilia’s face, she set the cup down and looked at her directly.

"Ask me what you want to ask."

Emilia took a moment to organize it properly. "From everything I have known — Lady Iris's involvement with Leon has always been framed as an obligation. A promise made to his grandfather, Simon Ashford. Her personal visit to Leon months before his high school graduation — I understood that as managing the side effects of their link, nothing more. Since Lady Iris insisted on maintaining distance & severing all ties with him that’s way I always believed that she was not personally fond of Leon & didn’t want to get involved with him. Completely removing him from her life. Was I wrong about all that? "

Felicy listened to all of it without interrupting.

Then she made a short sound that was almost a laugh.

"Not fond of him," she said. She repeated it back flatly. "Emilia. You are gravely mistaken about something. Saying Iris is not fond of Leon is perhaps the most incorrect statement I have heard in a long time."

Emilia waited.

"Iris is not just fond of Leon," Felicy said. " She is obsessed with him, her childhood sweetheart. And if she could arrange things exactly as she wanted — she would take Leon, put him somewhere safe and completely removed from everyone else, somewhere only she could reach him, and keep him there. Like a bird in a Golden Cage. That is how much she wishes to have him to herself."

She said it plainly, just information, nothing added to it.

The garden was very quiet.

Emilia absorbed it. One beat of stillness, then her expression stayed where it was.

"Then why," she said. "If that's true — why is she so insistent on keeping all ties cut. Why endure the headaches, the cost, the side effects of keeping him away, if—"

"That is the more important question," Felicy said. "And I will answer it." She paused. "But not today."

Emilia looked at her.

"There are things I need to discuss with Iris before I share them further." Felicy stood, this time with clear purpose. "Tell her I would like to meet her" She looked toward the pond briefly. "And tell her — before she commits to the final stage — that there is another way to break the link. One that does not require the Nuclear Project." She met Emilia's eyes. "Tell her exactly that. She will understand."

Then looking away Felicy said in a low voice such that Emilia couldn’t hear " Though this method may come exceptionally cruel on Leon that’s why I didn’t want it to come to this"

---

The river ran fast over the stones in the center, quieter at the edges. The tree cover came close to both banks, which was probably why Rone had called the stop here before continuing to where Grovin is.

Leon sat on a rock near the bank with two of Rone's team members standing a few meters behind him. His wrists weren't bound. He watched the water move over the stones.

Rone was further up the bank with his back to him, talking to someone on his band.

The water was cold-looking even from a distance.