Chapter 67: There’s No Place Like Home

When Uriel pushed open the dorm room door, a wave of familiar scents hit him. freshly dried laundry, the aroma of home cooking, and that faint, indefinable fragrance clinging to his mother—something between wildflowers and fresh laundry.

He slumped onto the edge of the bed, his shoulders dropping a full two inches.

After two nights on the Knights' headquarters benches, the threadbare pattern on the welcome mat suddenly looked like the finest carpet in the world.

Tian closed the door behind him. The lock clicked. She turned, and her soft eyes swept over him from bottom to top, left to right.

Not combat mode this time. Scanner mode.

"You've lost weight," she said.

"It's been two days," Uriel replied, shrugging off his coat and hanging it on the rack. "I'm not melting that fast."

Tian ignored him. She reached out and pinched the meat of his upper arm through the sleeve, rolling it between her thumb and forefinger. Her expression didn't change, but when she pulled her hand back, her fingertips brushed the edge of her apron.

Uriel recognized that gesture instantly. He'd seen it when he was seven, right after he'd tumbled out of an oak tree and scraped his knee raw.

"Food first." Tian headed for the dining table, then glanced back over her shoulder. "Sit. Wait."

Uriel migrated to the armchair, sinking into the cushion that had long ago molded itself to his exact shape. A glass of room-temperature water sat on the table. He picked it up and took a sip.

Tian moved with terrifying efficiency. She'd already scavenged ingredients from the inn's buffet bar, borrowed a set of cookware, and was now assembling a feast.

Twenty minutes later, a loaf of crusty bread, roasted root vegetables, and a massive bowl of beef stew materialized in front of him. The stew was a slow-simmered masterpiece of beef, potatoes, carrots, and onions. The broth was thick, a thin sheen of oil floating on top, and the savory steam punched him right in the sinuses.

Uriel picked up his spoon and took a bite.

Then he pulled a facial expression he could never have managed in the Order's interrogation room. The corners of his mouth dragged downward, his brows pinched together, and his eyes squinted into slits.

"What's wrong?" Tian sat across from him and leaned back slightly at the sight of his face.

"Saltier than usual," Uriel said.

Tian blinked, already half-rising to dump the broth and start over.

"But it's perfect," he mumbled around a second mouthful. "The Order's mashed potatoes had zero salt. Tasted like wallpaper paste. This bowl is exactly what I need to bring me back from the brink of starvation."

He shoveled in another spoonful, cheeks bulging. Between chews, a muffled mutter escaped. "Nothing beats Mom's cooking."

Galatina practically began to radiate pure, unfiltered bliss.

She tilted her head, watching him eat. The curve of her smile widened by the millimeter, and the faint golden halo usually restrained in her eyes rippled outward like sunlight hitting a jar of honey. She said nothing, just propped her elbow on the table, rested her chin in her hand, and watched him scrape the bowl clean.

When Uriel used the last chunk of bread to mop up the final drop of broth and shoved it into his mouth, she finally moved. Her hand reached out and tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear.

"There's more," Tian said, standing to collect the bowl. "Still in the pot. I'll get you another serving."

"Half a bowl."

"A full bowl."

"...Three-quarters."

"Deal."

---

Food coma achieved, Uriel face-planted onto the mattress.

His face was buried in the pillow, arms dangling off the edges. The warm, heavy satisfaction in his stomach was spreading to his limbs, peeling away layers of muscle tension like an onion. The soreness from sleeping on that miserable bench suddenly became impossible to ignore.

Then Tian reminded him that lying face-down right after eating was a terrible idea.

He didn't change positions. He just emitted a muffled groan that hovered somewhere between a sigh and a death rattle.

"Shoulders hurt," he mumbled into the pillow.

Before the last syllable landed, two warm palms pressed flat against his shoulder blades.

Her thumbs drove precisely into the stiffest knots, the pressure calibrated to the exact threshold between agony and ecstasy. She pushed from the shoulder joint toward the spine, and with every stroke, Uriel's back rose and fell in a slow rhythm.

"Here?"

"Hiss—yeah, yeah, right there."

"Anywhere else?"

"Lower back. Oh god, my spine is basically dust."

Tian's fingers migrated to his lumbar region and began to knead, working the muscle like over-proofed dough.

Uriel turned his head just enough to expose half a face, complete with pillow creases. His voice wobbled in time with the massage.

"Mom."

"Mm?"

"You're way better than the Order's medics. They just handed me a bottle of the cheapest healing potion they had."

Tian's fingers paused.

Only for a microsecond. Then the kneading resumed, the pressure unchanged. But Uriel felt that fractional hesitation. He knew that rhythm too well.

It was Tian's mental bookmark for I need to have a little chat with them later.

The massage lasted about fifteen minutes. Tian's hands worked from his neck down to his mid-back, then circled back to his shoulders in a relentless loop, until Uriel's breathing grew long and heavy. His eyelids were barely open.

Then her hands left his shoulders and switched to gently patting the back of his head.

"Wash up before you sleep."

"Ugh..."

"Listen to me."

Uriel dragged himself upright and shuffled toward the bathroom. Halfway there, Tian snagged him by the collar, hauled him two steps back, and shoved a stack of clean pajamas into his chest.

She propelled him toward the bathroom door. "Wash your hair, too. It's greasy enough to fry an egg."

Uriel took the pajamas and disappeared inside.

When the hot water hit his scalp, his brain went blissfully blank. Every strategy, every conspiracy, every yandere lesbian cousin—it all dissolved into static. He stumbled out with his hair still dripping, a towel slung around his neck, and immediately face-planted back onto the bed.

Tian intercepted him, caught him by the shoulders, and ruthlessly towel-dried his hair until it was merely damp.

The duvet smelled like sunshine.

He inhaled deeply twice. And then he was out.

---

He had no idea how much time had passed when the doorbell rang.

Uriel cracked one eye open. The light bleeding through the curtains suggested he'd been out for maybe an hour. He closed the eye and decided to ignore it.

The bell rang again. Then came the soft pad of Tian's footsteps heading for the door. The hinges creaked. Someone spoke in the hallway. The voice was quiet, muffled by the bedroom door, but he recognized the timbre instantly.

So Uriel sat up.

He rubbed his eyes, shoved his feet into slippers, and pivoted onto the sofa in one fluid, groggy motion.

Lumina stood in the entryway. She wore civilian clothes, looking less like an elven mage and more like a senior student dropping by to collect homework. But her posture gave her away. Spine perfectly straight, toes aligned with the doorframe gap, hands hanging motionless at her sides. You couldn't fake that kind of military discipline.

She saw Uriel and gave a crisp, microscopic nod. Then her gaze locked onto him—pajamas, dark circles under his eyes. Her expression didn't shift, but her eyes flickered slightly, as if cross-referencing data.

"Scribe," she said, stepping inside. "I heard you've been released from the Order's headquarters."

Uriel leaned against the wall and yawned.

"I just got back, and you're already here." He cut the yawn short and tossed out a casual jab. "Do you have people watching the Order?"

"Yes." Lumina's answer came without a single wasted syllable. "All four exits are under surveillance. I received the report the second you walked out."

"...Impressive."

"As it should be."

Uriel watched her standing in the foyer. Posture like a marble statue, expression cold enough to freeze hell, but the tips of her ears were flushed a faint, undeniable pink. She'd been praised.

"What else have you set up?"

"Estrella is also being monitored." Lumina's speaking pace ticked up a fraction. "She's at the Adventurer's Guild organizing search parties for Seraphina. Four squads have been assembled so far, and she's still recruiting."

Uriel scratched his head.

Makes sense. She wouldn't just sit on her hands for two days waiting for me.

This tracks. Estrella is the kingdom's top-ranked adventurer. Raising a posse to find her missing cousin is standard procedure. The real question is—does she actually care about finding Seraphina, or is the search just a smokescreen for something else?

He shelved the thought. Bigger problems first.

"Have they found Seraphina yet?"

He asked it casually. The exact tone he used when assigning routine tasks: validate the subordinate's effort, then check the progress bar. Classic middle-management cadence.

Lumina didn't answer right away.

She stood frozen. The fingers at her sides curled inward by a millimeter. It was a microscopic tell, but Uriel's Observer made him hyper-aware of physical details.

She was thinking.

Not thinking about how to answer. She was dissecting the meaning of the question itself.

Inside Lumina's head, multiple scenarios were firing simultaneously.

Scenario One: The Scribe is evaluating the results of a critical assignment. This is a performance review.

Scenario Two: He already knows the answer and is testing whether I'll lie or fail to produce results.

Scenario Three: He genuinely cares about Seraphina's safety, and the question is entirely literal.

Scenarios four through six branched off from there, each carrying its own risk matrix and contingency plan.

She selected the safest option.

"Not yet." She raised her eyes and met his gaze head-on. "We're pushing hard. The search radius has been narrowed to three outer districts of the capital. Grid sweeps are underway."

Her jaw tightened a fraction when she finished. She looked like a defendant awaiting a verdict.

Uriel studied her.

He could see the guilt radiating off her. She was treating "not found" as a personal dereliction of duty. This was a woman who had turned "completing the Scribe's orders" into a religion at age fourteen. Failure was heresy.

Crap. Lumina, you're really going all in on this.

He couldn't exactly say honestly, I've got nothing either. That would crater morale.

Uriel glanced sideways at Tian, who was sitting on the sofa. Tian tilted her head, looking from him to Lumina, her face practically screaming Does Mommy need to step in? but keeping her mouth firmly shut.

Uriel pulled his gaze back.

Right. He couldn't send Tian. If she went out "searching," it wouldn't be a covert op. Her idea of a search pattern would have the same stealth profile as a tactical nuke. And whatever she ended up "finding" would probably end up "dealt with." He didn't want to picture the body count.

Uriel walked to the window.

The afternoon skyline of the capital stretched out—jagged rooftops tiled in grey, edged in gold by the slanting sun. He raised his right hand, bringing his thumb and middle finger together to form a focusing circle over his eye.

Observer. Activate.

He tuned the frequency to roughly silver-rank and pushed his perception outward—not seeing through walls, but reading the ambient Aether signatures layered across the city. Each person left a faint trace, like a heat shimmer above a stone. He filtered through the dense clusters in the commercial district, the thin scatter in the residential zones, the dead zones where mana didn't flow.

Nothing. Nothing. Still nothing.

The crowd washed through his perception like sand through a sieve, leaving only a blur of ambient light. No trace of Seraphina's specific signature.

He dropped his hand.

"Can't see her," he said.

Lumina's expression didn't change, but her shoulders sank a fraction of an inch. A tiny, almost invisible deflation. Uriel caught it.

Silence stretched across the living room for a few seconds.

Uriel felt a twinge of guilt. Not just for the "mission failed" part, but for the "I dumped the task on you and my own brilliant plan is also a brick wall" part.

He was the Scribe. He was supposed to be the guy with the master plan, the one who always had an ace up his sleeve. Right now, his sleeve was empty, and his brain was running on fumes. If he lost even the illusion of intellectual superiority in front of Lumina and the Brigade, he'd be voted off the island.

Time to bluff.

He cleared his throat and scrambled for a save.

"Think about what the Lady Witch and I are right now." He spread his hands, injecting a self-deprecating lilt into his voice. "Students at the kingdom's top academy. The campus just got hit. We're both under a microscope. We can't exactly go sneaking around the city."

He nodded at Lumina, flipping his expression from self-mockery back to dead serious.

"So I'm leaving it to you. Find her. Come back and tell me where she is."

The moment the words landed, Lumina's head snapped up. The cool, sharp light in her eyes re-focused like a lens clicking into place. She raised her right hand and pressed it flat against her left breastbone in a crisp, minimalist salute.

"Understood."

She dropped her arm, turned, opened the door, and pulled it shut behind her with a soft click. The rhythm of her heels striking the corridor floor was at least twice as fast as when she'd arrived.

Uriel stared at the closed door, rubbing the back of his neck as a belated thought surfaced.

Wait. Doesn't she usually sneak in through the window? Walking through the front door—isn't she worried about being spotted?

"She's walking faster," Tian's voice drifted over from the sofa.

"...Yeah." Uriel shuffled back toward the bed. Sleep was calling his name again. "Means her morale bar just refilled."

As he hit the mattress, one question bounced around his skull on an endless loop: Where the hell is Seraphina?

But exhaustion won the argument. His consciousness wobbled at the edge for two seconds, then dropped straight into the dark.