Chapter 1273: Melissa ’Meets’ the Hidden Family Member

The elevator had barely begun its descent when Phei felt the change.

His fingers stiffened around Melissa’s hand.

It was subtle at first, a distant loosening somewhere behind his thoughts, followed by the strange sensation of a presence he had known for so long suddenly sinking beyond wakefulness. Eira had warned him this would happen once her body finally stopped running on stubbornness and whatever scraps of power she had forced herself to keep after Anarctica, but knowing it was coming did very little to soften the moment he actually felt her fall.

Melissa noticed his hand immediately.

Her happiness had survived the entire ride from the villa, warm and almost dreamy, yet concern entered her face the instant she looked at him. "Phei? What happened?"

He turned toward her and forced the worry out of his expression before it could frighten her unnecessarily: "Sorry, can we make a small stop first? There’s someone I need to check on."

Melissa searched his face for another heartbeat before nodding. "Of course."

Phei raised his free hand.

The Void answered unusually quickly.

A black-white opening of his portal spread across the elevator before the doors had even reached the next floor, its edges forming with a smoothness that immediately caught Phei’s attention.

His portals had always been fast, but the deeper Void inside him had changed even that. The portal formed almost as soon as he desired it, darkness opening cleanly through the air before revealing the familiar bedroom beyond.

Phei stepped through with Melissa beside him.

He deliberately used a portal rather than True Void Steps.

Perhaps that caution was unnecessary.

He had already carried another person through True Void Steps before and knew perfectly well that the ability could transport someone with him, yet Melissa was carrying his child now, and apparently discovering one was going to become a father came with a complimentary collection of irrational fears.

True Void Steps passed through the Void itself.

However instantaneous the journey appeared from outside, Phei understood better than most that the Void was hardly some harmless corridor between two doors. He was made for it in ways Melissa was not, and until he understood every possible effect it could have upon her and the tiny life growing inside her, he was not experimenting with his pregnant woman because convenience saved half a second.

The portal folded closed behind them.

Melissa glanced around Phei’s bedroom before turning toward him with a puzzled expression. "What’s are we..."

Phei had already released her hand.

He crossed to the bed quickly, planted one knee into the mattress and leaned forward with both arms extended.

Melissa stopped speaking.

There was nothing there, at least nothing she could see, or at least how Eira had told her to behave when she was with Phei.

Phei’s hands slipped beneath empty air with extraordinary care, one arm curving beneath something invisible while the other supported an equally invisible back. His expression softened as he lifted whatever he believed he was holding, drawing it carefully against his chest before sitting upon the edge of the bed.

Melissa stared.

Phei barely noticed.

Eira rested in his arms.

He could see every little sign of what the previous day had cost her; her complexion was already naturally pale, exhaustion had washed even more color from her face than he last saw her. Her lashes rested motionless against her cheeks, her lips slightly parted beneath breathing so quiet that someone without Phei’s senses might have become frightened.

Her beautiful wings had gone completely still.

That bothered him more than he expected.

Eira’s wings were rarely motionless even while she was asleep. Even when she sat around insulting him, stealing food or pretending some catastrophe was beneath her concern, there was usually some faint movement through them, a little twitch or shimmer betraying whatever mood she thought her face had successfully hidden<anno data-annotation-id="bd983603-6b86-a3f6-812c-e8979972761e" data-title=".">.¹</anno>

Now they simply rested around her.

Phei adjusted her against his chest and brushed several strands of hair away from her forehead.

’System.’

Blue radiance formed across his sight.

He had expected Eira’s slumber, she herself had already warned him that after everything the Endless Void and Phei had drained from her, her body could eventually force the decision upon her whether she liked it or not.

"How long?"

The answer appeared almost immediately.

[Eira’s slumber is estimated to last between one and a half weeks and two weeks but it will all depend on her recovery speed.]

Phei stared at the number for several seconds.

That was longer than he had hoped. Still, there was nothing in the notification suggesting danger for her long slumber, and that allowed the tension inside him to ease.

"Sleep, then," he murmured, thumb brushing gently across Eira’s hair. "You’ve earned it."

Melissa finally reached the limit of her patience.

She approached the bed slowly, gaze fixed upon Phei’s apparently empty arms. "Phei... I have been trying very hard to trust whatever strange thing you’re doing, but right now you’re sitting there cuddling air."

He blinked. ℴℴ𝘮

Then looked at her. "Oh."

Melissa folded her arms.

Phei’s lips curved sheepishly. "Where are my manners?"

"Currently missing, apparently."

He almost laughed: "I hate that you’re meeting her like this, because she’s considerably more impressive when she’s awake and insulting me, but..." Phei glanced down toward the sleeping fairy in his arms. "Melissa, this is Eira."

Melissa froze; a small fairy rested against Phei’s chest where there had been nothing seconds earlier.

She was not tiny enough to fit inside someone’s palm. Her body was closer in size to a young girl around eleven, though there was something so unmistakably otherworldly about her that the comparison became useless almost immediately. Pale hair spread across Phei’s arm in soft strands, framing a delicate sleeping face whose beauty seemed far too refined for anything human, while enormous fairy wings folded behind her in layered translucent splendor.

Those wings stole the rest of the room.

They carried the nature of Void-Ice without looking cold or lifeless, their crystalline translucence threaded with black-white radiance that shifted beneath the surface whenever the light touched them. Delicate patterns travelled through each wing like frost growing across moonlit glass, yet deeper within them drifted traces of darkness that seemed less painted there than captured from somewhere far beyond the world.

Melissa stepped closer without realizing she had moved.

"A fairy..." she whispered. Or, she just repeated what her reaction had did when Eira met her last time and revealed herself. But since they’d made a Pretend Agreement until Phei introduced her, she had to do this. Well, she was still impressive enough even now in sleep.

Still she hoped this was the first time she was meeting Eira which was a strange thing to think. But she’ll act like this was the first and do all the things Eira had refused her, and also, someone had questions to answer.

Phei smiled.

Melissa lowered herself beside him and reached toward Eira’s hair, hesitating only when her fingertips were almost there. "Can I?"

"She’d probably complain if she were awake."

Melissa immediately withdrew her hand.

Phei laughed softly. "Which means yes."

She gave him a look before carefully touching Eira’s hair.

The strands slipped softly beneath her fingers. Melissa’s expression melted almost immediately, her earlier amazement transforming into something warmer as she brushed a few locks away from Eira’s cheek and then lightly touched the smooth skin near her temple.

’Yeah, look at that you fairy, if you’d let me touch you, I wouldn’t be so pleased now, who’s laughing at last.’

"She’s so cute."

Phei’s smile became distinctly knowing.

Of course Melissa thought Eira was cute.

Sleeping Eira looked like something one should wrap in blankets, cuddle against a pillow and threaten kingdoms over if anyone disturbed her.

Awake Eira was a completely different educational experience.

Phei decided Melissa deserved the discovery naturally.

"She is," he agreed with suspicious innocence.

Melissa looked toward him. "Why did that sound like you’re hiding something?"

"No reason."

"Phei."

"She’s sleeping. We should respect the unconscious."

Melissa narrowed her eyes before glancing back toward Eira, already too fascinated to continue the interrogation.

The questions came next about Eira.

Phei answered as much as he reasonably could. Eira was his Familiar. She possessed Void-Ice, though explaining the full depth of that relationship would probably require several evenings and a large quantity of patience. She had been beside him for far longer than Melissa realized, helped him, protected Melissa and others, insulted him with remarkable consistency and, most recently, sacrificed so much of herself helping him survive that her body had finally demanded payment.

Melissa listened quietly at first.

Then her brows drew together: "She’s been with you all this time?" that she didnt know before.

Phei recognized danger: "Depending on how you’re defining all this time..."

Melissa’s eyes narrowed further.

He chose honesty."Yes."

"And you never told me?"

Phei considered several answers, rejected most on the grounds that he wanted to survive fatherhood, then leaned forward and kissed her.

Melissa remained offended through approximately half the kiss.

When he drew away, she was still glaring.

"That doesn’t answer the question."

"No, but it improved the atmosphere."

"Phei."

He kissed her again.

This one lasted longer.

Melissa’s hand eventually settled against his chest before she pulled back enough to look at him with the weary expression of a woman realizing her man had discovered a highly unethical negotiating strategy.

"You cannot kiss your way out of every conversation."

Phei glanced meaningfully toward her stomach. "Careful."

She frowned. "What?"

"You might be subconsciously teaching our child that scolding Dad is normal family behavior."

Melissa stared at him.

Phei maintained a perfectly serious face.

Her mouth twitched.

That was the beginning of the end.

<annotations style="display: none;">Yes, remember that time of pleasure, her wings had been resting but they’d react here and there.</annotations>