Chapter 65: Barely One Day Left

13th March, 1551.

The coffeeshop sat tucked into a quiet corner of Kingsmere, its windows catching the early afternoon sun until the whole place glowed faintly gold.

Outside, the sky stretched wide and cloudless, the sort of clear that made the whole city look freshly painted.

I sat at a round table with Mary, Theodore, Arthur, and Mr. Tony.

Between us sat cups of coffee slowly going cold, a plate of finger sandwiches nobody had touched, and a stack of pound cake that Theodore had eyed twice and reached for neither time.

Nobody was talking, and the silence had settled in comfortably enough that it didn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon.

Mary sat with her lips pressed into a thin, careful line, an expression that took real effort to hold steady.

Theodore kept his gaze fixed on the table, shoulders hunched forward like he was trying to make himself smaller.

Arthur wasn’t even pretending to be present, just staring at a point somewhere past the sugar bowl.

Only one person at the table looked entirely at ease.

Tony leaned back in his chair, sipping his coffee like this was any other lazy afternoon, completely unbothered by the tension thick enough to spread on toast.

If I was honest with myself, I had assumed that there was a very slim reason reason I would ever return to the realm so quickly.

Tony, apparently, had called us here for one reason: We needed another teammate.

And he’d already picked her.

Sera.

The reasoning was simple enough, at least the way he had explained it.

She had achieved Inferior Awakened status on her very first trip into the Realm, something her entire team combined hadn’t managed to pull off. She’d done it alone. That alone had apparently been enough to earn her a seat at this table, whether she wanted one or not.

I turned the thought over slowly, unsure whether to feel proud or faintly ill about it. Possibly both.

A bell rang softly as the door swung open.

Sera stepped inside, scanning the shop until her eyes landed on us, and made her way over with the easy, unhurried stride of someone who had absolutely no idea what she was about to walk into.

She dropped into the empty chair beside me and reached for one of the sandwiches before she had even fully sat down.

I looked at her then at Tony, wondering if she would know that it is actually Mr. Draeus who is wearing a weird mask.

"Afternoon," she said, mouth already half full. "What’s the occasion? Someone die?"

"Not yet," Theodore muttered, not looking up.

Sera raised an eyebrow at him, then let it go, apparently deciding whatever mood had settled over the table wasn’t worth chasing down before she’d finished eating.

Tony set his cup down with a soft clink and folded his hands together. "Miss Sera. Thank you for coming."

"You said it was important." She glanced around at the rest of us, taking in Mary’s stiff posture, Arthur’s thousand-yard stare, the untouched cake. Something in her expression sharpened, just slightly. "This looks important."

"It is." Tony’s tone didn’t shift at all, easy and unhurried, the way he always sounded right before dropping something enormous into a conversation. "You’ll be joining Edmund’s team going forward."

Sera blinked.

The sandwich stopped halfway to her mouth.

"I’m sorry, the what now?"

"The Realm of the Evil," Tony said, patient as ever, as though he were simply confirming the weather. "You accomplished something remarkable on your last excursion. Alone, no less, while your team failed to manage it collectively. That sort of result doesn’t go unnoticed."

Sera set the sandwich down entirely now, and I watched her expression shift through several stages in quick succession, confusion first, then something that looked almost like pride, and finally landing somewhere closer to wary disbelief.

"That’s..." She exhaled, long and slow. "That’s a lot to digest over lunch."

"Take your time," Tony said. "The offer isn’t going anywhere."

She looked around the table again, this time settling on me specifically. "You knew about this?"

"Found out this morning," I said. "That you may go with us... I knew about me of course for like two weeks."

"Comforting."

Mary finally spoke, voice quieter than usual. "It’s not as bad as it sounds. Mostly."

"Mostly," Sera repeated flatly.

Arthur, apparently deciding it was time to rejoin the land of the living, offered her a tired smile. "The company’s decent, at least."

"High praise from someone who looks like he’s about to be sick."

"I resent that," Arthur said, though he didn’t argue the point any further.

Theodore finally lifted his head, some of the heaviness in his expression cracking just enough to let a little humor through. "Honestly, welcome to the team. Someone else can share the misery now."

Sera let out a short laugh, more surprised than amused, and picked her sandwich back up like her hands needed something to do while the rest of her caught up. "You’re all acting like I just got drafted into a war."

Nobody answered that right away, which was probably answer enough on its own.

She caught the silence, glanced around at each of us again, and her humor faded into something more measured. "Alright. Someone explain this properly. All of it. Not the polite version."

Tony inclined his head slightly, the closest thing to approval I’d seen from him all afternoon. "A fair request."

And so, over coffee gone lukewarm and cake finally getting eaten, we told her everything. The prophecy. The path toward Saints. I watched her face carefully as it all came out, watched the disbelief settle into something steadier, something closer to resolve, the same shift I imagined must have crossed my own face not so long ago, across a very different table.

By the time we finished, the sun outside had shifted, throwing longer shadows across the shop floor, and Sera sat back in her chair with her arms crossed, staring at the last piece of pound cake like it held the answer to a much harder question.

"Well," she said finally, "I suppose someone has to keep all of you alive."