Chapter 52: Terrible Idea

He trailed off, his eyelids drooping heavily, his body swaying slightly in the chair.

"You will sleep, too," Seraphina finished for him, pointing a stern, chubby finger at him. "Right now. If you don’t want to sleep on the bed with me, then sleep on the couch over there. Or I will scream for Dr. Thorne to come back!"

Kaelus looked at the plush, velvet sofa on the other side of the room.

It looked incredibly unsuited for a man of his size.

But as he looked back at the small, bossy child sitting in the bed, perfectly safe and commanding him with absolute authority, a soft, exhausted chuckle escaped his lips.

"As you command, Mushroom," Kaelus surrendered.

He stood up, unclasped his heavy midnight-blue coat, and tossed it over the chair.

He walked over to the sofa, didn’t bother taking off his boots or his sword belt, and collapsed onto the velvet cushions.

He was asleep before his head fully settled into the armrest.

Seraphina watched him sleep, a warm, fond smile playing on her lips.

The terror of the past three days was fading, replaced by a sense of security.

She had a mystery to solve regarding the handsome Marquess, but she wasn’t worried.

She had the Reaper of the North sleeping on her couch.

She was untouchable.

.

.

.

Two Days Later

The recovery period at the Myer estate had been agonizingly boring for Seraphina, but incredibly beneficial for the collective mental health of the Black Bastion.

For two full days, Kaelus had enforced a strict "absolute rest" protocol.

Seraphina had been confined to the guest annex, drowning in silk pillows, hand-fed peeled grapes by Sir Boris, and read incredibly inappropriate military histories by Sir Lucas, who had given up on puppy metaphors entirely and was now just summarizing famous sieges using fruit as visual aids.

But on the evening of the second day, Seraphina’s boundless, six-year-old energy had returned with a vengeance.

She was bouncing off the walls, mentally and physically.

The sun had set, painting the sky over Oakhaven in deep, twilight blues.

Kaelus was sitting at the writing desk in the corner of her room, fully recovered from his exhaustion, looking sharp, lethal, and devastatingly handsome once again as he reviewed the logistics for the teleportation gate transit scheduled for the following morning.

Seraphina was currently hanging upside down off the edge of the mattress, her hair brushing the floor, watching the Duke work.

"Papa Duke," Seraphina announced to the floorboards.

"You will give yourself a rush of blood to the head, Seraphina," Kaelus replied without looking up from his parchment. "Sit upright."

Seraphina grunted, doing a sloppy somersault backward until she was sitting cross-legged on the bed.

"I’m bored," she declared. "And my tummy hurts from too many grapes. And Dr. Thorne said I am one hundred percent healthy now! He used the green rock and everything."

"You are recovered," Kaelus agreed, dipping his quill. "Which is why we depart at dawn."

Seraphina pouted. "But we didn’t get to see anything! I fell asleep before we even got to the fun part of the city! Sir Gally said Oakhaven has a Night Market. He said they have glowing lanterns and fire-eaters and sugar spun into the shape of dragons!"

Kaelus’s quill stopped moving.

A dark, heavy silence fell over the room.

The last time he had taken her to a market in this city, she had ended up screaming in agony, scratching at her own skin, and plunging into a three-day coma.

The very concept of taking her back out into those streets, among the crowds, exposing her to unknown variables and unseen threats, sent a spike of pure, post-traumatic dread straight into the Archduke’s heart.

His face turned incredibly dark.

The air in the room chilled slightly.

"No," Kaelus said flatly, his tone leaving absolutely zero room for negotiation.

"But Papa!" Seraphina whined, deploying her ultimate weapon: the wide, pleading eyes of a deprived orphan. "We’re leaving tomorrow! I’ll never get to see a sugar dragon! I’ve been stuck in this room for days! Even the walls are boring!"

Kaelus slowly turned his head to look at her.

His violet eyes were entirely devoid of sympathy. "The last time we engaged in tourism in this city, you nearly died. We are not repeating the experiment. You will remain in this secure perimeter until we transit the gate."

"But it wasn’t the market’s fault!" Seraphina argued, crossing her arms stubbornly. "And it wasn’t the cake’s fault! It was just a... a weird magical hiccup! I promise I won’t hiccup again! Please? Just for an hour? You can bring your sword! You can bring the whole Vanguard! We can make a giant circle of knights around me so nobody can even look at me!"

Kaelus stared at her.

Logically, it was a terrible idea.

It was a security nightmare.

The Night Market would be crowded, chaotic, and impossible to fully lock down.

But he looked at her face.

She was practically vibrating with excitement.

She had spent the last five years of her life in a drab, gray orphanage, denied every joy a child should experience.

He had promised himself, as he sat by her bed holding her hand, that he would give her the world.

Was he going to deny her a spun-sugar dragon because he was afraid?

’I am the Reaper of the North,’ Kaelus reminded himself, his pride warring with his paranoia. ’If I cannot protect a child in a provincial market square, I do not deserve to wield a sword.’

He let out a long, heavy sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"If," Kaelus began, his voice slow and dangerously low, "and I mean if, I agree to this absurd excursion..."

Seraphina gasped, her eyes lighting up like stars.

"You will not leave my side, not drop my hand, and not accept food from anyone unless I personally inspect it," Kaelus listed, his rules ironclad. "And Lucas, Gallahan, and Boris will accompany us, too."