Chapter 149: Small Mercies

Chapter 149: Chapter 149: Small Mercies

The hallway had become something close to familiar over the last few days — the particular quiet that settled over the building whenever the rain eased into a lull, the steady rhythm of everyone finding small routines inside a world that no longer offered any large ones.

Penelope found Killian near the stairwell door, a pack already slung over one shoulder, checking the edge of his knife with the same methodical care he brought to everything. ℯℯ𝑙.

"You’re heading out," she said. Not quite a question.

"Personal errand." He didn’t elaborate immediately, which had become its own kind of tell — Killian rarely withheld information without reason, and the reasons were usually ones he wasn’t ready to share yet. "Shouldn’t take long."

"Alone?"

"Faster that way." He glanced up, catching something in her expression before she’d fully decided to let it show. "You don’t have to worry."

"I’m not worried," Penelope said, too quickly, and immediately regretted how thin it sounded.

Something shifted behind Killian’s composed expression — brief, almost imperceptible, a flicker of quiet pleasure he clearly hadn’t expected to feel and wasn’t entirely sure what to do with. He covered it well, but not quite well enough that she didn’t catch the edge of it.

"I’ll be careful," he said instead, adjusting the pack’s strap. "I always am."

"You’d better be." Penelope crossed her arms, some of the earlier heaviness she’d been carrying finally thin enough these last few days that this — simple concern, plainly stated — didn’t feel like it cost her anything to admit. "Come back in one piece, Killian."

"I intend to."

She held his gaze a moment longer than strictly necessary, then turned back toward her own door, leaving him to whatever quiet errand he wasn’t ready to explain yet.

The penthouse greeted her with an unexpected sight the moment she stepped inside — Kai and Aunt Mary both grinning at her from the couch, twin expressions of barely contained mischief, while Erik sat in the armchair across from them, Aurora cradled in one arm, a warm bottle tilted carefully against her mouth, his eyes narrowed at Penelope with the particular suspicion of a man convinced someone was eyeing something that belonged to him.

"What," Penelope said, immediately wary.

"Nothing," Kai said, entirely unconvincing.

"You were gone a long time," Aunt Mary added, far too innocent.

Penelope felt heat crawl up her neck before she’d even fully processed why. "I was talking to Killian in the hallway. That’s it."

"Sure," Kai said, drawing the word out with obvious delight.

Erik’s eyes stayed narrowed, Aurora’s small hand curled around his finger as she drank, and something about his expression made Penelope think, absurdly, of a man guarding livestock from something circling just outside the fence.

"Erik," she said, desperate to redirect the conversation entirely, "do you and Kai want to train? In the space?"

Erik’s suspicion dissolved almost instantly, replaced by immediate, practical focus. "Now?"

"Now’s fine."

"Good." He rose, carefully transferring Aurora into Aunt Mary’s waiting arms, pressing a brief kiss to the top of her head before straightening. "Let’s go."

The three of them slipped into the space together, the familiar pull tugging them out of the penthouse and into the wide, golden fields, the crystal spring winding its usual quiet path toward the mountains in the distance.

The spar didn’t take long to turn one-sided. Erik moved through both of them with the same economical precision he always brought to training — a controlled burst of lightning that sent Kai stumbling, ice forming beneath Penelope’s feet before she could fully commit to a strike, every exchange ending exactly the way Erik intended it to.

"You’re both getting better," he said afterward, barely winded, watching Kai pick himself up off the grass with a groan. "Doesn’t mean either of you have caught up yet."

"Give it time," Kai muttered, rubbing his shoulder. "I’m still recovering from the emotional damage of you winning every single time."

"Then let’s find something you’re actually good at," Penelope said, already turning toward the stream. "Lake?"

Kai brightened instantly. "Lake."

They jogged the short distance together, laughter finally breaking free from both of them — until they rounded the last bend and found Aunt Lucy and Ben already there, Aunt Lucy up to her elbows in dark soil, directing Ben with the particular brisk authority of someone who’d clearly decided his help was mandatory rather than optional.

"Oh no," Kai said, delighted. "Farm labor. Ben, my condolences."

"Don’t," Ben said, not looking up from the row he was weeding, "even start."

"I wasn’t going to say anything," Kai said, already grinning. "I was just going to mention how nice it is that some people get to enjoy their afternoon while others—"

"Kai." Aunt Lucy didn’t even glance up. "Since you have so much energy for talking, come help with the next row."

Kai’s grin dropped instantly. "Wait, no, I was just—"

"Now, dear."

Ben, finally looking up, wore an expression of pure, unrepentant satisfaction as Kai groaned and trudged reluctantly toward the soil, muttering something about betrayal and unfair labor practices the entire way.

Penelope laughed, watching them both get roped into rows of vegetables, and let the sound settle warm in her chest before turning quietly away, drawn by some pull she hadn’t fully examined toward the path that led to her old house.

She let herself inside, the familiar quiet greeting her the way it always did, and crossed straight to the small portrait resting above the mantel — her parents, young and smiling, frozen in a moment neither of them had known would become the only one she’d ever truly have of them.

She studied their faces for a long moment, something warm and a little sad settling behind her ribs, and finally allowed herself a small, genuine smile — steadier than it had been just days ago, before Erik’s confession had finally lifted the weight she’d been carrying alone.

"Miss you both," she murmured, and meant it.

She lingered another moment before turning and stepping back out, letting the pull of the outside world draw her home again, back to Aunt Mary’s side, back to Aurora’s small, contented sounds and the distant echo of Kai’s ongoing protests about vegetable labor.

The penthouse welcomed her back into its familiar warmth, and she’d barely settled onto the couch beside Aunt Mary before the sound cut through the quiet — sharp, insistent, coming from the pocket of her cardigan.

Penelope’s whole body went still.

The satellite phone.

She stared at it for a long moment before finally, slowly, pulling it free and looking at the screen.