Chapter 115: Woman Who Returned

Nyra followed Severin into the west records room and stopped along the long side of the table.

Her shoulder bag still hung from her shoulder. Her utility knife stayed sheathed at her waist. Alicia entered last, closed the door, and stopped on Severin’s right.

Nobody sat.

Nyra’s smoke-black ears turned toward Severin.

"Then here’s mine," she said. "I don’t start swallowing things because you won’t like hearing them."

"Then don’t."

Her eyes narrowed. "That was fast."

"You said you had terms. Give me the one that matters."

Nyra held his gaze. "Fine. If I find something bad under this roof, I tell you. If it points at somebody you trust, I still tell you. If it points at you..." Her tail gave a small movement behind her cloak. "Same answer."

"Good."

"Don’t say good yet." She leaned a little closer to the table without touching it. "There’s a difference between proof and a pattern I don’t like. I’m not going to dress a suspicion up and hand it to you as fact. But I’m not keeping the suspicion quiet until it turns into a body either."

That sounded more like Nyra.

"Then tell me which is which," Severin said.

"And if you think I’m wrong?"

"I hear what you have first."

"That’s not what I asked."

"I know."

He let the silence sit until her ears shifted forward.

"If I hear you and decide differently," Severin continued, "the decision is mine. If you’ve chosen to be with me, you don’t make another plan behind my back just because you wanted a different answer."

Nyra’s mouth flattened, though not in surprise. "So I get to tell you you’re walking toward a knife. I don’t get to steer your feet after you decide you like the knife."

"You can tell me again if I missed something."

"And after that?"

"After that, I decide."

A quiet breath left her nose.

She looked past him to Alicia. "Does that actually work? You tell him when you think he’s wrong?"

Alicia’s ears lifted. "If something matters, I tell Master. If Master decides after he knows, I follow Master."

Nyra studied her. "Even when it’s personal?"

"I won’t hide something from Master because I don’t like where it points."

The answer came without hesitation.

Nyra’s gaze lingered on Alicia, then returned to Severin. "Even if I were close enough to make it personal for you too?"

Alicia’s left ear angled sharply toward her. Her tail curled around her own ankle, held there, then loosened.

"All right," Nyra said softly. "That answers it."

Severin rested his palm against the table’s edge. "There’s another side to it."

Her eyes returned to him. "Yours."

"If you stop wanting this, tell me."

Nyra went still.

"Don’t disappear without saying it," he said. "And if you know something that can hurt me or someone under my roof, you don’t keep it because you’ve already decided you’re leaving."

She watched him in silence.

"You want me to tell you before I go."

"Yes."

"And still bring the bad news on my way out."

"If it matters, yes."

Nyra’s ears tipped back slightly. "You don’t ask for small things."

"No."

"What if I find something new after you’ve already decided?" she asked.

"Then you bring it."

"Even if you told me to leave it alone?"

"If the facts changed, the choice can change with them."

Nyra tapped a finger against the bag strap, then stopped. "And if the facts didn’t change?"

"Then neither did my answer."

Her eyes stayed on him.

"Then answer something," Nyra said.

"Ask."

"If I bring you something ugly about a woman here, something you don’t want to believe, and it’s solid enough to change what you do... do you actually want to hear it?"

"If it matters, bring it. I’d rather hear something ugly than choose blind."

Nyra’s eyes narrowed by a fraction. Severin had seen that look before when Deception Trace was part of a conversation. If she was testing him now, she gave him no confirmation.

He gave her nothing else to work with.

Nyra held his face in that sharpened focus through a slow breath. Then the tension around her eyes eased.

"All right," she said.

Alicia glanced at her, then at Severin.

Nyra’s eyes flicked to her. "What?"

Alicia’s mouth pressed together. "Nothing I need to say to Master."

Nyra’s ears twitched.

Severin almost smiled. "Keep going."

Nyra did.

"Suppose the source is good and the proof is thin."

"Then tell me both."

"And if I think you’re trusting someone useful too much?"

"Tell me why."

"You still use them."

"Maybe."

Nyra frowned. "That’s annoyingly unhelpful."

"It’s the answer."

Nyra’s ears shifted. "You really hate people making choices in your name."

"I hate finding out after they’ve spent my blood on it."

That stopped her. Her eyes dropped briefly to the table.

"Fair."

Nyra wasn’t finished.

"If the warning comes late?"

"Tell me why it came late."

"If the source lied before?"

"Tell me that too."

Her mouth pulled sideways. "And if I can’t prove it yet?"

"Then call it suspicion."

"Huh." She drummed her fingertips against the bag strap, stopped, then looked back at him. "You make this sound simple."

"The rule is simple. The facts won’t always be."

That earned a short, dry laugh from her. Nyra kept going, dragging the conversation into uglier cases that didn’t fit neatly inside the first answers. Severin made her pin each one to what she actually knew before he answered. By the time she finally stopped, the lamp wick had shortened and the room had grown warmer around them.

Eventually Nyra’s shoulders lost some of their tightness.

"The work wasn’t the whole reason I came back," she said.

Severin waited.

Her right ear turned away from him, then came back.

"It was part of it," she added. "I know what to do with useful work."

"And the rest?"

Nyra’s jaw shifted.

Her answer didn’t come quickly.

"I wanted to come back to you."

Alicia went quiet beside him.

Nyra kept her eyes on Severin. Her mouth tightened after the words, but she didn’t take them back.

"I want you, Nyra," he said. "Your work is useful. That’s not why we’re still standing here."

Her ears came forward.

"You say that like you already know what happens next."

"I know what I want next. That’s enough."

"For you."

"Yes."

Nyra watched him, then slipped the strap from her shoulder with her right hand. She lowered the bag beside her boot and set it upright against the table leg. Her knife stayed where it was at her waist.

She straightened again.

"There’s something else," Severin said.

Her expression sharpened. "Say it."

"Something you should know before this gets further than talking."

Nyra waited.

"Void Intimate can give me a functional Copy of an Original I know and choose when I’m intimate with a woman. At most 1 from that encounter. It doesn’t take the Original from her."

Nyra didn’t move.

Then her gaze dropped briefly to his hands before returning to his face.

"You can copy a Skill through sex."

"Yes."

"And the woman keeps hers."

"Yes."

Her tail shifted behind her boots. "You have to know which Original you’re copying?"

"I have to know it and choose it."

"It doesn’t just grab whatever is there."

"No."

Nyra said nothing.

"Why tell me now?" she asked.

"Because it can matter if we go that far. You should know before you decide whether we do."

Her eyes narrowed again, but not in the same way as before.

"You could’ve waited until I was already in your bed."

"I could have."

"But you didn’t."

"No."

Nyra looked down at the bag by her boot, then back to Severin.

The house beyond the closed door had gone quiet enough for the scrape of Nyra’s boot against the floor to carry.

She folded her arms.

"Then I have a different question," she said.

Severin waited.

Nyra’s eyes held his.

"Which Skill do you want?"