Chapter 113: Contradiction

Chapter 113: Chapter 113: Contradiction

Chapter 113: Contradiction

Cyrus spent the entire morning writing in his notebook.

He sat at his desk with his legs folded beneath him, trying to record every memory he could still reach before any more of them slipped loose. Names, places, years, the order of events, the shape of his escape, the people he had met in Grayhaven, and every warning future Cyrus might need if his current self became unreliable.

The more he wrote, the less secure he felt.

Still, writing was better than doing nothing.

The knock came near noon.

Cyrus paused with the pen still in his hand.

A few seconds later, he set it down, reached for the personal safety alarm hanging beside the desk, and walked to the door with the small device already wrapped in his fingers.

That had become instinct lately.

Before opening any door, check the alarm.

Before stepping into any risky situation, keep it close.

Before dealing with Daphne Whitlock, assume the alarm was not enough but better than empty hands.

He opened the door.

Daphne stood outside.

She did not bother with small talk.

"Lunch," she said. "Come eat in my apartment."

"All right."

Cyrus agreed without much hesitation.

Daphne blinked.

The arguments she had prepared stopped at the edge of her mouth, useless before she could deploy them. She had planned to say that he had the personal safety alarm anyway, so she would never really do anything to him by force. She had planned to make herself sound harmless enough to get him through the door, then find another way to at least look at Cory again once he was inside.

She had several steps prepared.

None of them were needed.

Cyrus had answered too quickly.

Daphne’s eyes brightened for half a second before she forced her expression back under control.

Cory.

Just seeing Cory would be enough.

Probably.

Maybe.

Cyrus followed her next door.

While Daphne went to the kitchen to serve the food, Cyrus sat at the table with the alarm still in his hand. His fingers did not loosen around it. He could eat with one hand if necessary. He had done less convenient things for survival.

After all, he really could not beat Daphne.

That was the most important fact in the room.

Daphne was not Isolde, and she was not part of the Frostborn cage, but she was still dangerous in her own way. A teacher, a landlord, a woman with giant-blooded strength, a person who could cross the hallway at midnight and try his door with a key. None of that belonged in the safe category.

At the same time, Cyrus needed to test something.

If the ring truly began eating away at his memory, could Daphne become a fallback after he forgot too much?

The thought was terrible.

The fact that he was considering it meant his situation had already become worse than terrible.

Daphne was also after him. He knew that. There was no need to pretend otherwise. But compared with the worst ending, compared with being dragged back and turned into someone else’s breeding stock, Daphne’s side of the scale looked almost acceptable.

Not good.

Not safe.

Acceptable, when compared with absolute disaster.

Besides, she was a landlord.

Cyrus had heard that landlords held an unusually strong position in the human world. While plenty of people spent their lives fighting for a stable place to live, Daphne owned enough space to rent part of it out.

That was impressive in a deeply unfair way.

Cyrus glanced around the apartment.

When would he own a place of his own?

Could he trick one out of Daphne?

He looked down at the alarm in his hand, then at Daphne, who sat across from him after placing the meal on the table.

He wanted to trick her.

The cost felt dangerous.

Daphne was looking at him too.

For a brief moment, they simply faced each other across the table.

Cyrus picked up his chopsticks, then asked, "When are you refunding the other half of the rent?"

Daphne looked as if she had expected the question.

She was silent for a moment before answering.

"Cyrus."

Her tone became oddly serious.

"Did you know that once fraud passes three thousand dollars, it becomes enough for a criminal complaint?"

Cyrus looked at her.

"If I refund another payment to you," Daphne continued, "do you think that could be counted as fraud?"

"You were the one who said you would refund the rent."

"I said I would refund it to Cory."

Daphne spoke with the confidence of someone who knew she had no moral ground and had decided to stand proudly on it anyway.

Cyrus paused.

Daphne leaned forward slightly.

"Transform now, and I promise I will not do anything. I will only look. You still have the alarm in your hand, right?"

Her gaze was open, bright, and completely shameless.

"When I have looked enough, I will count the money as Cory’s living expenses. How does that sound?"

For a moment, Cyrus truly did not know what to say.

The suspicious woman’s argument somehow sounded almost reasonable.

That was the worst part.

He lowered his eyes to the alarm and tightened his grip around it.

Then he thought of the notebook on his desk, the ring on his finger, and the warning he had written that morning. He thought of Isolde, of lost memories, of needing resources, leverage, and possible shields before the situation collapsed entirely.

If Daphne really kept her promise this time, that would tell him something.

Not that she was safe.

Only that she could restrain herself when the alarm was present and a clear exchange had been made.

Cyrus made his decision.

Daphne watched him without blinking.

His body began to shrink as if the edges of him were melting inward. His hair lightened into white. The lines of his face softened, and his frame grew smaller until the version Daphne had been thinking about for days sat across from her in the chair.

Cory appeared.

Daphne did not look away for even a second.

Cyrus’s expression remained calm after the transformation. He pushed up his sleeves, adjusted his position at the table, and began eating without saying another word.

The alarm stayed in his hand.

Daphne also kept eating.

Or at least, she pretended to.

She held her rice bowl and lifted bites now and then, but her attention never really left him. Her eyes followed the curve of his lowered lashes, the pale hair near his cheek, the small hand gripping the alarm, the quiet way he focused on the food as if her stare did not exist.

Cyrus ignored her.

His eating speed did not slow just because he had become smaller. If anything, the food tasted better because it had become part of a transaction he was clearly winning. He got lunch, information, and possibly the rest of his money. Daphne got to stare at him like a starving person watching a bakery window.

That was her problem.

When he finished eating, he set down the chopsticks and stood.

Daphne still had not done anything.

She walked him back to the door without reaching for him, without blocking the way, and without testing the alarm. Before he left, she transferred the remaining rent refund into his account.

Cyrus checked the notification.

The money had arrived.

He looked up at Daphne.

Daphne smiled.

The smile was not comforting, but the money was real.

Cyrus returned to his own apartment and locked the door behind him.

Fine.

Maybe she could be useful later after all.

He still fastened the chain.

During the afternoon, Cyrus took out his workbooks for the first time in what felt like a while and began studying.

The Fall Festival had been lively enough to make normal schoolwork feel strangely distant. He had played too much during the last few days, or at least played more than his usual amount. Haunted houses, fireworks, shifts, food stalls, cakes, conversations, and strange women had filled the weekend until assignments felt like something from another life.

Unfortunately, school remained school.

If he planned to stay hidden as an ordinary student, then he needed to behave like one.

He worked through practice questions until the afternoon light thinned.

Sunday dinner arrived in the familiar food container again. Daphne had clearly prepared it, though she did not knock this time. Cyrus brought it inside, ate, cleaned up, and made sure to fasten the chain lock before going to bed.

The night passed without dreams.

When Monday morning arrived, Cyrus woke earlier than usual and reached for the notebook before getting out of bed.

He sat under the dim morning light and read through the records he had written the day before, trying to summon images to match each line.

Recent memories remained intact.

The Fall Festival.

Faye’s house.

Daphne’s lunch.

The rent refund.

The first page he had torn out.

The dreamless night.

Nothing seemed to have vanished overnight.

Cyrus frowned.

That was strange.

Did the ring need some kind of trigger before it stole memories?

A dream?

A certain amount of time?

Contact with someone?

The ring going cold?

Or had the older memories already been damaged before he noticed, and the process was not as steady as he feared?

The question rose in his mind, and he marked it in the notebook with a heavy question mark.

He would keep watching.

Because of the delay that morning, Cyrus left for St. Alder later than usual.

By the time he reached the classroom, several of the more diligent students had already restored the room to its original arrangement on Sunday. The haunted-house curtains were gone, the desks had been returned to their rows, and only a few faint tape marks and scraps in the corners hinted at the festival that had filled the room two days earlier.

The ordinary classroom should have felt quiet.

Instead, it was noisier than usual.

Cyrus stepped through the door and immediately noticed several students gathered around one corner of the room.

Iris Wexley stood behind Owen Keats, half hidden by his shoulder. She was asking something of Faye, who sat quietly at her desk.

Faye’s hands rested in her lap.

Her head was lowered slightly.

The surrounding classmates watched in a way Cyrus did not like.

He walked toward his seat with mild confusion, though his expression did not change.

Someone noticed him.

"Look, he is here too."

"Let us wait and see first."

The whispers were low, but not low enough.

Cyrus put his bag down.

As he got closer, he heard Owen asking Faye, "You really do not know?"

Faye did not argue.

She only shook her head.

Cyrus looked between them.

"What happened?"

Owen turned around as if he had been waiting for him.

"Oh, Cyrus. You came at the right time."

Cyrus did not like that sentence either.

He slid his bag into place and stood beside his desk.

Owen scratched his head, looking almost exactly as conflicted as he had on Saturday evening when he stopped them in the hallway.

"The day before yesterday, you and Faye were the last two students on duty, right? When you handed in the money from our class activity, did you confirm the amount inside?"

"Yes, we confirmed it."

Cyrus nodded.

It had only been two days. He remembered it clearly.

Faye had been the one to suggest checking the amount before they handed over the cash box. At the time, she had mentioned that the total was the clearest proof of whether their class project had been popular. It was a quiet, unintentional comment, but Cyrus remembered it because Faye had sounded genuinely happy.

The money was not just money to her in that moment.

It represented everyone’s work.

Cyrus glanced at Faye, then looked back at Owen.

"What is wrong with it?"

Owen scratched his head again.

"When Iris and I checked afterward with the class records, the amount our class earned seemed off."

"Why did you not say so at the time?"

"We were not sure then. It only seemed strange."

Cyrus found that answer vague.

He looked at Faye.

She sat silently, not defending herself, not accusing anyone else, and not trying to make her voice louder than the room. That made the situation worse, because silence was too easy for other people to fill with suspicion.

Cyrus’s tone stayed calm.

"What about the two students who were on duty before us?"

"They also confirmed there was no problem when they handed it over," Owen said. "Iris can testify to that."

Cyrus turned his head and looked around the classroom.

Several classmates avoided his gaze.

Several did not.

Then he looked at Iris, who stood half a step behind Owen. Her expression was composed, and her eyes were calm enough to look almost detached.

The classmates around them were not calm.

Their gazes had already changed.

Disdain had begun to gather in them, faint but visible, as if the answer had been decided before Cyrus even entered the room.