Chapter 103: The Harem Situation

Uriel lay flat on his back in the center of the king suite's absurdly oversized velvet bed, staring at the ceiling.

The bed was so big it was ridiculous. Sprawl in any direction — horizontal, vertical, diagonal — and you still couldn't reach the edge. Five people could sleep in it without touching. He gazed up at the crystal chandelier overhead, which probably cost more than his entire wardrobe, and he stared at it and questioned his life choices.

A small plate of complimentary hotel chocolates sat on the nightstand, gold foil wrappers catching the candlelight.

This room was what Lumina had described as "the only space that can adequately accommodate the Scribe and the Witch, though it remains regrettably modest." It was ten times the size of his academy dorm. The bathroom faucets were gold-plated. The toilet had gold trim.

He turned his head and glanced to one side.

Galatina sat propped against a mountain of pillows, a book open across her knees. The bedside lamp cast a soft glow across her profile, painting her as the very picture of maternal serenity.

Uriel returned his gaze to the chandelier.

His brow furrowed.

Well.

We're sharing a bed.

He counted on his fingers. How long had he and his mother been roommates? Four years. Which meant the last time he'd shared a bed with her was also four years ago.

He shifted uncomfortably in the center of the mattress. His entire body squirmed like something trying to avoid an inescapable reality.

Special circumstances call for special treatment, he reasoned internally.

They were already here. He couldn't sleep on the sofa — his mother would never agree to that, and Lumina wouldn't either. Right. Special circumstances. Special treatment. Fine.

"Little Uri."

There it is. Inevitable.

"How are things going with Miss Seraphina?"

Galatina had closed her book and rolled onto her stomach, legs kicking up behind her, chin resting on her hands, with the exact smile Uriel had learned to fear: Mom was digging for romance.

"Fine, I guess." Uriel kept his voice deliberately flat.

"What does fine mean?"

"It means... fine."

Galatina's swinging feet stopped completely. She was clearly unsatisfied with that answer. A thinking silence settled over her.

Uriel caught her expression from the corner of his eye. He knew he wasn't getting out of this tonight.

"We broke up," he said. "School's done. We don't see each other anymore. Feelings fade. Better to end it cleanly."

Galatina went still. Her hands were still propped under her chin, but her fingers had gone slack.

Then she smiled. Brighter than before. With a note of genuine, unironic approval he hadn't seen coming at all.

"You didn't string her along. You made a clean decision. That's real maturity, little Uri. I'm proud of you."

That hit a little too close to home.

She always did this. Whatever he told her, she found an angle to turn it into a compliment. Every time.

That was worse than getting scolded, because he knew perfectly well he'd made a mess of it. Seraphina had treated the whole thing as a transaction from day one. While he'd been agonizing over his next move, she'd already jumped off the cliff. Clean break? There hadn't even been enough of a relationship to break cleanly.

"She's still in the capital, actually." Galatina hadn't finished, naturally. She tapped her chin with one finger, head tilting thoughtfully. "Do you want me to come with you to talk things through properly?"

"No." He shut that down immediately. "It's over. You don't keep showing up at someone's door once you're not in school together. There's no point."

Galatina gave a thoughtful hmm.

Then she went quiet, picked up her book again, and Uriel finally caught the title. Navigating the Mother-in-Law Relationship: A Complete Guide.

She found her page and resumed reading. Five minutes of actual peace followed. Uriel closed his eyes.

A soft sound came from beside him — the book closing. The slight give-and-spring of the mattress edge as she stood. The door opening gently, then closing.

Uriel opened his eyes and stared at the empty bed edge and the shut door, mildly baffled.

She's not making a midnight snack, surely. She wouldn't drag me out of bed just to eat something. Would she?

He remembered there was a specific kind of hunger called Mom thinks you're hungry, and decided to keep lying down regardless.

Less than thirty seconds passed.

A scream punched through the suite's soundproof door and the thick-carpeted hallway and went straight into Uriel's skull.

"WHUAAAH—!?"

Kira's voice. Unmistakably. The girl who turned red to her collarbone from a single headpat. The one who rolled around in her blanket writing Delusion Diary entries after a compliment.

That sound had come from her.

Uriel shot upright, feet halfway off the bed — and the door opened.

Galatina walked back in. Two people followed her.

Lumina came first, pointed ears flushed the palest shade of pink, fingers interlaced in front of her with the rigid formality of someone trying desperately not to fidget.

Fenria came second. Tufted ears ramrod straight, tail sweeping wide arcs behind her, amber eyes shining with the excitement of someone about to do something very stupid.

Uriel watched this procession assemble and slowly let his back sink against the headboard.

Lumina stopped three paces from the bed, cleared her throat, and began in her usual measured tone — until the second half of the sentence, when each word started floating slightly untethered from the rest.

"Apologies for the intrusion, Scribe. The Witch said... the room is quite large. The bed is quite large as well. So perhaps, like we used to —"

Her gaze drifted sideways. She reached up and began winding a strand of green hair around her index finger. One loop. Another. The pale pink at her ear tips was spreading in real time down toward her jaw.

"— all together. As a family."

Uriel watched the hair-winding. Something in his chest went clunk.

Oh no.

The little kid who used to sit on the cottage floor and listen to him bullshit was a teenager now.

Fenria, oblivious to Lumina's blossoming maiden heart, repeated it at full volume.

"All together!"

She sprinted three steps, launched herself into the air, and landed on the bed with an impact that rattled the headboard. She scrabbled across the mattress on all fours and planted herself at Uriel's right side, tail going full helicopter, one hand already reaching for his arm.

Uriel pulled both arms back at light speed and locked them across his chest.

Same reflex he'd used throwing Little Tangerine in the Ancient Canopy Rainforest.

Can't let her grab on. She's not the same size she was four years ago. She’s not a little kid I can just brush off anymore.

Fenria grabbed empty air, then cocked her head at him, ears drooping slightly. Uriel extended one finger and waved it back and forth in front of her face — the way you’d tease a dog. Then he reached up and tapped her ear, tracking left to right, right to left. The ears perked back up.

On his left side, Lumina settled onto the bed edge with the precise, composed posture of someone attending a formal banquet. She sat down and immediately found a small wrinkle in her skirt. She smoothed the same tiny wrinkle three times. It did not appear to require three attempts.

Galatina stood at the foot of the bed with her hands pressed together against her cheek.

She looked like a farmer admiring a very successful harvest. Her golden eyes were full of something deeply specific that Uriel did not want to name.

He caught that look.

Every hair on his back stood up.

Clack.

The door again.

Kira stood in the doorway. She had clearly gone back to her room to prepare, because the bangs that usually curtained half her face had been carefully tucked behind one ear. She had changed into a different set of clothes. A nightgown. With lace trim.

She had also applied perfume. A faint floral scent drifted through the gap in the door.

Her face was red all the way down to her neck. Even her ears were scarlet. She was breathing in shallow bursts, chest rising and falling with the aftermath of an extremely intense internal debate that she had clearly lost badly. She'd probably already storyboarded an entire R-18 route in her head.

Uriel looked at Kira.

He looked at Lumina, elegantly rewinding her hair on his left.

He looked at Fenria, her wagging tail thumping against his wrist.

He looked at his mother at the foot of the bed, practically glowing with approval.

A memory surfaced from somewhere he had filed very deliberately under Do Not Revisit.

Four years ago. The old cottage. The fire crackling. His mother watching three small girls leave down the path, and saying —

"Those were three daughters-in-law, little Uri. Mom's heart hurts."

SHIT.

Oh, no. No no no no.

Mom. You were — you were serious —

He'd told himself at the time she was joking. He'd even asked her once, carefully, whether she understood the difference between daughters and daughters-in-law. He thought the matter had been closed. He thought it had been filed away and forgotten.

So why now…?

He looked left. He looked right. He looked at Kira still standing in the doorway preparing to enter the battlefield.

This is not a joke.

NOPE! No way in hell.

He had treated these three as kids because they were kids. He'd told them bedtime stories when they barely came up to his shoulder. He'd held Lumina's hand around a pen when she couldn't get her grip right. He'd hand-fed Fenria when her canines hadn't finished growing in. He'd explained the concept of compound interest to Kira when she still couldn't do trigonometry —

No. Nope. Hard no. This is not a direction we are going in. Under any circumstances.

At this critical juncture, Uriel made a decision.

"HYAAA!"

He sucked in a breath, grabbed the nearest goose-down pillow, and launched it like a grenade. He threw his hands up into some frantic, unhinged martial arts pose, spun his entire body, and kip-upped onto his feet.

Four blank stares met him.

"Come on!" He forced the brightest smile he could manage.

"Pillow fight!"