Chapter 645: I Had Grown Used to Them

The story did not erase Rain's past, or undo the years of shame and the nights spent wondering why she had done it.

But something in it eased the sharpness of that shame. She began to carry herself with a little more ease, as though she had been granted a strange sort of privilege by comparison.

The two women now spent long afternoons talking, their voices drifting through the house in low murmurs. Their growing friendship was genuine, even if it often ended with Rain turning her irritation on me in the form of sharp pinches or well-aimed swats whenever Zanya's jokes grew too bold.

Sunshine, my second daughter, had always been drawn to anything soft and adorable.

The moment she saw Sekhmet—the cat beastkin with her restless tail and quiet green eyes—she was lost.

She treated the beastkin with the open delight of a child meeting a rare and wonderful creature, with a wonder that never seemed to fade.

Sekhmet, for reasons of her own, allowed the attention without complaint, permitting herself to be brushed, petted, and talked to for hours on end.

They would be found together in the courtyard, Sunshine chattering and Sekhmet listening with half-lidded patience, her tail flicking lazily in the sun.

Even Mandarin and Saharit continued their unexpected companionship. Whatever first tension had existed between them had melted into long conversations that stretched from the kitchen into the evening hours, conversations that sometimes included laughter, sometimes included silences that seemed comfortable rather than strained.

The house, which had never been truly gloomy, now held a different quality of light—brighter, louder, more alive than it had been in years, as though the walls themselves had remembered what it felt like to hold a full and busy household.

I had begun to believe, against my better judgment, that this strange arrangement might last a little longer.

But the change came without warning.

I noticed it first in the sudden stillness.

Every one of the Apex Girls froze at the same moment—not gradually, not one by one, but all at once, as though some invisible signal had passed through the air and touched each of them simultaneously.

Cups were set down, and conversations stopped mid-word. Their eyes widened, fixed on something none of the rest of us could see or hear, something beyond the walls of the hall and the house.

"Found him…" Zanya said quietly.

Her voice was different—lower, harder, stripped of its usual bright mockery. She rose from her seat in one smooth motion and crossed the hall to the corner where her blade rested against the wall.

Her fingers closed around the hilt with the ease of a woman who had done this many times before.

"Found who?" I asked, though part of me already knew the answer. "That Benjamin Mark person?"

A small, unexpected sadness settled in my chest at the thought of their leaving so soon.

I had grown used to the noise, the disruption, the strange new shape of my days. I had grown used to them.

They began to gather their things with efficiency. Cloaks were fastened, weapons checked.

As the others moved toward the gate, Zanya paused and turned back to face me and my family.

The fierce edge that usually lived in her expression softened, just for a moment.

She gave us a warm, steady smile—maternal in a way I had not expected from her, in a way that made her look older and kinder.

"Thank you for hosting us here, Agora," she said to me as she adjusted the upper portion of her robe, tugging the fabric straight across her shoulders before smoothing the short, dark garment that wrapped her lower half.

Sekhmet's tail flicked once behind her, a lazy, playful motion that belied the sharpness in her gaze.

She offered a cheerful wink, the green of her eyes bright even in the hall's fading light, catching the amber rays of the sun as though she had stored them somewhere behind her pupils.

"We've got to do our assignment now. Duty calls, old man. Don't look so gloomy already. We'll be back before you know it... probably. Maybe. If we feel like it."

Zuri, standing a little apart from the others, casually pushed a finger into one nostril and fished around with the unthinking ease of someone who had never cared for appearances.

"And I was getting hungry again, too," she said, her voice echoing that flat, unhurried quality that made it impossible to tell whether she was joking. "Well… dinner last night was amazing. Thank you for that. I'll remember it for a while."

She withdrew her finger, inspected it briefly in the light, then wiped it on the side of her grey robe as though the matter were settled, as though this were simply how one concluded a conversation.

Saharit settled her hat more firmly on her head, adjusting it until it sat just so, casting its familiar shadow across her features.

She gave my family a genuine, demure smile—not the polished smile of a diplomat, but something smaller and warmer.

"You have a wonderful family, Agora," She paused, her gaze drifting toward the smallest of their number, the small monster who stood apart from the rest with her usual heavy-lidded eyes and her mechanical stillness. "Say something to our hosts, Frigoris."

The girl tilted her head in a doll-like motion, the movement precise and unnatural, as though her neck were operated by gears rather than muscle.

Her heavy-lidded eyes did not quite focus on any of us, did not quite settle on any single face or object, but drifted across the hall as though she were seeing something else entirely.

"...Frigoris," she muttered, the single word final, a name offered in place of a farewell.

Star, who had been hovering near Hawthorne the entire time—lingering at his elbow, following his movements with her eyes, finding excuses to stay close—suddenly raised one small hand as though she could physically stop him from leaving.

"H-Hawthorne…? But about our wedding?"

The large man turned his head just enough to look down at her, his expression unreadable behind the calm that always seemed to settle on his features.

A short, low snicker escaped him.

"Do not be silly, little girl. I do not deserve someone as precious as you. And you certainly must not yoke yourself to dangerous folk like me. Do you understand?" He rested one heavy hand briefly on the top of her head, his palm covering her crown, his fingers spanning the small curve of her skull. "It was a pleasure making your acquaintance."

The six of them passed through the courtyard gate and into the street beyond without further ceremony or lingering looks or drawn-out farewells.

And just like that, they departed.