Chapter 674: A Day Without Urgency

Kael remained seated at the base of the statue for a few more minutes before Sylphie finally stood.

"Come on."

He looked up.

"Where?"

"Away from that table."

Kael looked at the closed page of the First Archive.

"I’m about twenty meters away from it."

"Exactly. I want to increase that distance."

He could have argued that he wasn’t working. Technically, he was merely sitting in the same place where other people were working, observing documents he hadn’t opened and listening to conversations he wasn’t participating in. After considering that defense for a few seconds, he realized Sylphie would probably point out that he was constructing legal arguments about the definition of rest.

So he stood.

"Where are we going?"

Sylphie started walking toward the side corridor.

"Garden."

Umbra emerged from the shadow of a column.

"He’s going to try coming back through the other door."

"I’m still here."

"I know."

Kael followed Sylphie without arguing.

The mansion’s garden was on the southern side of the estate, protected by two stone wings and a low wall overlooking a wooded region beyond the grounds. It wasn’t particularly large, but there were old trees, gravel paths, wooden benches, and flowerbeds that apparently received far more attention than Kael had ever noticed.

He had passed through there dozens of times.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d stayed there by choice.

Sylphie noticed where his gaze stopped.

"You’ve never noticed the flowers."

"I have."

"What are they?"

Kael looked at the red flowers beside the path.

Then at the white ones.

Then at Sylphie.

"Flowers."

Umbra appeared between two trees.

"Technically correct answer."

Sylphie shook her head.

"I’m not going to teach you."

"I didn’t ask."

"That’s exactly why."

They continued walking.

Sylphie stopped a few times to touch leaves, check a young tree, and remove a dead branch from a bush. Kael walked beside her without any specific purpose. After the first few minutes, having no destination began to bother him.

"Are we going somewhere?"

"No."

"Then why are we walking?"

"Because you have legs."

Kael looked at her.

"That argument works for a lot of bad decisions."

"Today, it works for a walk."

Umbra followed them through the shadows of the trees, appearing only whenever she had some comment she considered necessary, which meant she appeared far more often than Kael considered reasonable.

After making a full circuit of the garden, they reached a small artificial pond near the southern wall. There were two benches, several moss-covered stones, and small fish swimming beneath the surface.

Sylphie sat down.

Kael remained standing.

She looked at him.

"No."

"I didn’t do anything."

"You were assessing whether you could turn a walk into a patrol."

Kael sat down.

"That’s an accusation without evidence."

Umbra emerged from the shadow beneath the bench.

"You checked three exits, two windows, and the top of the wall."

"Habit."

"Exactly."

Kael rested his arms on his knees.

For several minutes, none of them spoke.

There wasn’t much sound beyond the leaves, the water, and people working far enough away that their voices couldn’t be understood. Kael realized he was trying to identify footsteps by their weight, direction, and rhythm. Once he noticed, he consciously stopped.

Sylphie didn’t comment.

Maybe she’d noticed.

Probably.

She picked up a small stone beside the bench and threw it into the water.

The stone sank without skipping.

Kael looked at her.

"That was terrible."

Sylphie turned her head.

"You want to try?"

"No."

She handed him another stone.

Kael accepted it.

He chose the angle, adjusted his wrist, and threw.

The stone skipped six times before disappearing into the pond.

Sylphie stared at him.

"You practiced that?"

"When I was a kid."

"Of course."

Umbra appeared on the other side.

"Do it again."

Kael found another stone.

Seven.

Sylphie narrowed her eyes.

"Now it’s a competition."

"You started it."

"I threw a rock into the water."

"And lost."

She stood.

Over the next ten minutes, Kael discovered two things.

The first was that Sylphie learned far too quickly.

The second was that she had absolutely no moral problem with using a minimal amount of natural mana to subtly alter the surface of the water.

Her stone skipped nine times.

Kael looked at the pond.

Then at her.

"You moved the water."

"Prove it."

"I felt it."

"Feeling isn’t proof."

Umbra started laughing.

Kael pointed at Sylphie.

"You’ve spent too much time with me."

"Maybe."

He tried one more time.

Eight.

Sylphie won.

She looked excessively pleased with herself.

Kael accepted defeat with less dignity than he would have admitted.

By the time they returned inside the mansion, it was close to noon. Kael expected someone to appear with a report.

No one did.

Amelia passed them in the corridor carrying three folders, saw Kael, and simply said:

"No."

"I didn’t ask anything."

"You looked."

"I have eyes."

"Use them in another direction."

She kept walking.

Sylphie waited a few seconds.

"You want to follow her."

"No."

Umbra appeared behind them.

"Lie."

Kael continued toward the dining room.

Lunch was busier than breakfast. Eleonor appeared after a few minutes, followed by Seraphine and the nameless man. The latter still carried the dented cup, although now he used it to drink water, which seemed like a practical evolution of that relationship.

Kael watched as he chose his food.

He avoided the apple.

He took bread, roasted meat, potatoes, and a small serving of some vegetable he examined for far too long before putting it on his plate.

"Testing?" Kael asked.

The man nodded.

"Seraphine said taste counts too."

"It does."

He chewed the vegetable.

Made a bad face.

Then pulled the paper he carried from his pocket and wrote something down.

Eleonor watched him.

"Are you going to record everything you don’t like?"

"For now."

"That could become a very long list."

Kael looked at his grandmother.

"Personal experience?"

Eleonor ignored him.

The meal continued without any serious discussion. For the first few minutes, that almost felt artificial. Kael was used to meals being used for planning, interrogation, analysis, or decision-making. At this one, Seraphine asked Eleonor how the city’s markets worked. The nameless man wanted to know why there were three different kinds of bread at the same meal. Sylphie explained that one of them contained honey. Umbra appeared only to steal a piece of meat from Kael’s plate before disappearing again.

Kael looked at the empty space.

"She doesn’t even need to eat."

Umbra’s voice came from beneath the table.

"Doesn’t make it any less tasty."

"Take some from your own plate."

"I don’t have a plate."

"Your problem."

A second piece disappeared.

Kael moved his plate to the other side.

Sylphie started laughing.

After lunch, Kael discovered that his nonexistent plan for the rest of the day had been replaced by one Sylphie had prepared.

"Bath."

"I took a bath yesterday."

"You got into the water, stayed for five minutes, and got out because Amelia called."

"That still counts."

"Today it’ll count better."

The mansion had a large bathing room in the residential wing, with a shallow pool of water heated by simple mana channels. Kael rarely used it because a normal bath was faster.

Sylphie apparently considered speed to be exactly the problem.

She left clean clothes outside and pointed toward the water.

"Half an hour."

Kael stopped.

"You’re setting a minimum time for a bath?"

"Yes."

"That’s absurd."

"You can stay forty minutes if you prefer."

Kael got in.

The hot water made his ankle ache for the first few seconds before it relaxed. His shoulder took longer. Kael rested his head against the stone edge and remained still.

For maybe three minutes.

Then he started examining the mana channels in his own body.

"Stop."

Kael opened his eyes.

Sylphie was on the other side of a wooden divider.

"You can’t see me."

"I don’t need to."

"I was only checking."

"You’re resting."

"Checking my own condition isn’t work."

"Kael."

He stopped circulating his mana.

"This is getting scary."

"Good."

After some time, he actually relaxed.

When he got out, his shoulder was less stiff and his ankle felt almost normal. He put on the clothes Sylphie had left for him and found Umbra waiting in the corridor.

"How long?"

"Thirty-seven minutes."

"You counted?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I bet thirty-two."

Kael looked at her.

"With who?"

"Sylphie."

"Who won?"

"Sylphie."

Kael decided not to ask how much.

The next activity was his choice.

He went to the library.

Sylphie allowed it because he promised not to research the First Archive, ancient projects, the Order, genealogies, rituals, or any subject that could be turned into work within five minutes.

Kael found a book about travels through the far north.

Not a political treatise.

Not a military map.

Just the accounts of a woman who had spent years traveling between small communities near frozen regions, describing food, roads, animals, and people.

He sat near a window.

He read forty pages.

At some point, Sylphie appeared with tea.

Umbra occupied the nearby sofa and remained almost completely still, something Kael knew meant she was awake, just uninterested in forming an entire body.

Kael read about a village where houses were built partially underground to retain heat. Then about fishermen who stored fish beneath the ice. Then about a species of almost white-furred deer that migrated hundreds of kilometers during winter.

That part made him think of Edras.

He noticed.

He kept reading anyway.

Not every association needed to become an investigation.

Late in the afternoon, he closed the book.

Sylphie was asleep on the opposite sofa, an empty cup on the table beside her. Kael remained quiet so he wouldn’t wake her.

He could have left.

He didn’t.

He went back a few pages and continued reading.

She woke almost an hour later.

"You’re still here."

Kael raised the book.

"I’m reading."

"For pleasure?"

"Don’t make it weird."

Sylphie smiled.

"I’m trying to process it."

Kael finished the Chapter.

At the beginning of the evening, the three of them returned to the garden. This time, no one needed to convince Kael. The temperature had dropped slightly, and the sky was partially covered by normal, irregular clouds that looked nothing like Aeris’s perfect pattern.

They sat near the same pond.

Sylphie found a stone.

Kael raised his hand.

"No."

"Scared?"

"You cheat."

"You never proved it."

Umbra appeared behind the bench.

"I have a proposal."

Kael immediately became suspicious.

"No."

"You haven’t even heard it."

"Experience."

She ignored him.

"Three throws each. No magic."

Sylphie nodded.

Kael looked at both of them.

"You’re going to referee?"

"Yes."

"That makes it worse."

Even so, he picked up a stone.

This time, he won by two points.

Sylphie demanded a rematch the next day.

Kael agreed before thinking too much about it.

When they returned to his quarters, there was no report waiting at the door.

No glowing crystal.

No messenger.

Kael stopped for a moment, checked out of habit, and went inside.

Sylphie followed.

Umbra disappeared into the room’s shadows.

Kael sat on the bed and realized his body was tired in a different way. It wasn’t exhaustion from mana, combat, or lack of sleep. It was simply the result of walking, eating, bathing, reading, and spending an entire day without demanding that his body function beyond what it needed to.

"That was strange," he said.

Sylphie sat beside him.

"What?"

"The day."

"Because nothing tried to kill you?"

"Among other things."

"You could get used to it."

Kael looked at her.

"Don’t promise things you don’t control."

"I didn’t promise. I said you could."

He thought about it.

It was a small distinction.

But a correct one.

Kael lay down.

This time, he didn’t ask whether Amelia had found any new problems.

He didn’t ask how many audits remained.

He didn’t ask whether the page was still closed.

Sylphie turned off the light.

Umbra remained somewhere near the wall.

Kael closed his eyes.

There would still be work the next day.

There would be Valgrin, contracts, ancient facilities, and probably dozens of decisions no one had anticipated when the First Archive was created. Maybe some completely different problem would appear before they finished even half the audit.

But none of that needed to be solved that night.

Kael fell asleep knowing that other people were still working without him.

And, for the first time in a very long time, that didn’t feel like a risk.