Chapter 180: Patience to Take It Slow

Chapter 180: Chapter 180: Patience to Take It Slow

Chapter 180: Patience to Take It Slow

Night had settled over Grayhaven, leaving only a scattering of streetlights glowing along the quieter roads.

Inside Daphne Whitlock’s apartment, she sat upright in front of her computer with unusual concentration.

Several security camera feeds filled the screen.

One showed the hallway outside the apartments. Another covered the building entrance. A few more captured sections of the surrounding street and sidewalk.

Daphne’s attention remained fixed on the camera with the clearest view of Cyrus Calder’s door.

She could no longer remember exactly when checking the footage had become a habit.

Cyrus’s general routine had gradually settled into her memory.

She knew when he normally left for St. Alder.

She knew roughly when he returned.

She knew which evenings he usually worked at The Full Moon Lounge and which days his schedule was less predictable.

Cyrus did not follow his routine perfectly, which made arranging apparently accidental meetings more difficult.

Daphne could have made sure they crossed paths every single day if she wanted.

That would have been far too obvious.

Repeated coincidences eventually stopped looking like coincidences, and Cyrus already possessed enough caution without her giving him another reason to become suspicious.

So Daphne chose likely windows instead.

She took out the trash around the time he might leave.

She returned from errands near the time he usually came home.

Sometimes she brought food.

Sometimes she merely happened to be in the hallway.

She never pushed it far enough to make the pattern undeniable.

That had been their rhythm for quite some time.

Reading Cyrus’s diary had given Daphne an advantage, but only a limited one.

His written entries recorded important events, fears, plans, and people he considered useful.

They did not reveal everything he intended to do.

Daphne still could not fully understand what Cyrus ultimately wanted from her.

What she did understand was that he was preparing for the possibility of losing more memories.

He wanted people around him who might remain useful afterward.

For now, Daphne’s priority was simple.

She needed to make sure Cyrus did not leave.

Everything else could wait until she found the right opportunity.

Daphne was in no hurry.

She had plenty of patience.

Her eyes moved across the monitor.

She increased the playback speed and began reviewing the footage from earlier that day.

Morning passed quickly across the screen.

Students left for school.

Neighbors came and went.

Delivery drivers entered the building.

Cyrus never appeared.

Daphne slowed the recording slightly.

Maybe he really had been sick.

That possibility had only just entered her mind when an unexpected figure appeared in the hallway footage.

Daphne immediately restored the video to normal speed.

Vera Sable.

The school nurse entered the building around lunchtime.

On camera, Vera happened to meet a delivery driver carrying food upstairs.

The footage had no useful audio from that distance, but Vera spoke to him for several seconds before taking the order herself.

Then she walked directly toward Cyrus’s apartment.

Daphne leaned closer to the monitor.

Why was Vera here?

The hallway camera did not capture the inside of Cyrus’s apartment, naturally.

It only showed the door.

Vera rang the bell.

The door opened.

After a short exchange, it closed again.

Vera remained outside.

Then she rang repeatedly until Cyrus reopened it.

Daphne’s eyes narrowed.

Vera appeared to block the door once when Cyrus tried closing it.

There was another exchange.

Eventually, Cyrus stepped aside and Vera entered.

The door closed behind her.

Daphne stared at the frozen image.

So Vera and Cyrus knew each other outside school.

That itself was not impossible.

Vera worked at St. Alder.

Cyrus frequently visited the nurse’s office for medication.

But this looked considerably more personal than a school nurse checking on a student.

How close were they?

How long had they known each other?

What exactly was their relationship?

Questions appeared faster than Daphne could answer them.

She checked the timestamp.

Vera had entered shortly before noon.

Daphne resumed the footage at increased speed.

The hallway remained empty.

Minutes disappeared.

Then an hour passed.

Then another.

Nothing changed.

Even watching at high speed, Daphne spent more than ten minutes waiting for the apartment door to open again.

It finally did in the late afternoon.

Vera emerged nearly four hours after entering.

Daphne immediately slowed the recording.

The image quality was not perfect, but Vera’s condition was noticeable.

Her steps looked less steady than when she arrived.

Her posture also seemed slightly different.

She passed out of the camera’s range and disappeared around the corner.

Daphne paused the footage.

Nearly four hours.

A man and a woman alone inside a closed apartment for that long.

Daphne did not want to jump to the most obvious conclusion.

Still, she remembered something else.

The unusual scent she had noticed when Vera passed her in the hallway.

Then the similar scent inside Cyrus’s apartment when Daphne visited later.

They had been the same.

Daphne stared at Vera’s blurred image.

So something really had happened.

Her expression darkened.

Cyrus’s relationships were apparently more complicated than she had realized.

Her thoughts moved back to Halloween night.

Helena Baird.

Rhea Maddox.

Vera Sable.

The women surrounding Cyrus at the lounge had not merely been customers who happened to like an attractive bartender.

Maybe Cyrus had developed separate relationships with several of them through his work.

That possibility changed things.

His options were wider than Daphne had assumed.

If Cyrus ever decided he needed somewhere else to stay, someone else to support him, or simply another person to rely on, there were probably several women willing to help.

With his appearance, finding someone prepared to take him in might not be difficult at all.

That made keeping him in this apartment more important.

Daphne leaned back slowly.

The glow from the computer reflected across her face.

A faint, complicated curve appeared near the corner of her eyes.

If Cyrus had so many possible places to run, then making him choose her voluntarily would be far more satisfying than simply removing those alternatives.

Especially if he came to her when he was vulnerable.

If he ever lost his memories again and found himself uncertain about everyone around him, Daphne wanted to be the person he considered safe enough to approach.

The thought of his younger Frostborn form briefly crossed her mind, but she forced the image away before it developed further.

Whatever her private fascination with that form, Cyrus’s vulnerability was still something she needed to handle carefully.

If she rushed, he would leave.

Daphne returned her attention to the monitor.

There was no reason to hurry.

She could wait.

The following morning, Cyrus woke early.

He opened the package of suppressants Vera had given him and automatically counted out five pills.

Then he remembered what had happened the previous day.

After a moment of consideration, he added one more.

Six pills sat in his palm.

Cyrus looked at the blister pack.

Half of it was already gone.

At this rate, the entire box would barely last six days.

He frowned.

He was starting to feel like he survived on medication rather than food.

Still, going to school while his Frostborn biology was unstable would be worse.

Cyrus swallowed the pills and waited.

While they took effect, he opened his diary and checked the latest entries against his current memories.

Nothing significant appeared to be missing.

That was enough.

By the time the medication fully settled into his system, the lingering physical problems had faded back to their usual manageable level.

Cyrus looked outside.

Grayhaven was gloomy that morning.

The sky was overcast, and the weak daylight made the buildings across the street look flatter and colder than usual.

He got dressed and left the apartment.

As usual, he happened to run into Daphne in the hallway.

She had a lunch container and a sandwich ready for him.

Cyrus accepted both.

"Thank you, Ms. Whitlock."

"You’re feeling better today?"

"I’m doing much better."

Daphne nodded.

"That is good to hear."

Their exchange lasted only a short time before they separated.

By now, these hallway meetings had become so normal that neither of them treated them as anything unusual.

Cyrus started toward St. Alder at an unhurried pace.

He had made it roughly halfway there when his phone vibrated.

Cyrus pulled it from his pocket.

Helena Baird was calling.

That was unusual enough that he answered immediately.

"Helena?"

Her familiar calm voice came through the phone.

"I wanted to tell you something."

"Did something happen?"

Helena paused as though deciding how to phrase it.

"It is nothing serious. You do not need to worry about the problem between your job and the school anymore."

Cyrus slowed slightly.

"Everything is handled?"

"You can keep attending school and working as usual."

The answer was exactly what he had hoped to hear.

"Thank you, Helena."

"You do not need to thank me."

The call ended soon afterward.

Cyrus put his phone away and continued walking.

A quiet sense of relief settled over him.

He had only mentioned the dean’s warning to Helena two nights ago.

One full day had passed.

Now the problem was gone.

The Baird family clearly possessed more influence than Cyrus had originally understood.

Or perhaps Helena herself did.

Either way, she had become one of the most dependable connections in his life.

Cyrus could understand why humans liked talking about having powerful people behind them.

It really was convenient.

Still, one part of the situation remained unresolved.

Someone had submitted the anonymous complaint that alerted the dean to his job.

Cyrus still did not know who.

As St. Alder came closer, he began noticing more students on the sidewalks.

The usual glances followed him.

Since cutting his hair and stopping the old habit of hiding his face, Cyrus had learned to ignore most of them.

Today, however, a few felt slightly different.

Some students whispered after recognizing him.

A couple of expressions carried an oddly knowing quality.

Cyrus noticed but did not stop.

Maybe he was imagining it.

By the time he reached senior advisory three, students were still arriving.

Cyrus took his usual seat in the back corner.

From there, he could see most of the classroom without being at the center of it.

He quietly studied the faces around him.

Anyone from his class who had visited The Full Moon Lounge before would probably be familiar to him.

His memory was good enough for that.

But someone could have entered on a night Cyrus was busy, recognized him from school, and left without ever speaking to him.

If that person had anonymously reported him afterward, there might be no way to identify them.

His current appearance was distinctive enough that avoiding recognition completely was unrealistic.

Cyrus let out a quiet breath.

Sometimes there was no clever solution.

He might simply have to accept this one.

A familiar figure appeared beside him.

Owen Keats looked down with a surprised smile.

"You’re back already. Does that mean you’re feeling better?"

Cyrus looked up.

"I’m mostly better now."

Something in Owen’s expression seemed unusual.

Cyrus was about to ask when Owen grinned.

"You know what rumor started while you were gone yesterday?"

Cyrus gave him a curious look.

"What are people saying?"

Owen lowered his voice, clearly entertained.

"Apparently you skipped school because you were off entertaining some older woman outside campus."

Cyrus raised an eyebrow.

Human imagination remained impressive.

He disappeared for one day, and somehow the explanation had already become that.

Owen laughed at his reaction.

"I figured you hadn’t heard yet."

Cyrus leaned back slightly.

"At least they’re creative."

Owen reached into his bag.

"Anyway, there was something else yesterday that actually matters."

He pulled out a printed notice and handed it across the desk.

"This came out while you were absent. It’s for an upcoming school event."

Cyrus accepted the paper and lowered his eyes toward it.