Chapter 254: Baby Squirrel

He was reviewing the structural blueprints for a covert storefront in the Lower Ward.

The heavy doors clicked open, and Seraphina marched in.

She didn’t look like a victorious mafia boss today.

She looked like a confused, irritated six-year-old.

She climbed into her designated chair, crossed her arms over her chest, and let out a long, heavy, and incredibly dramatic sigh.

The blue dragon lollipop stuck out of the corner of her mouth like a mobster’s cigar.

Roan didn’t look up from his blueprints immediately. He reached out with a finger, adjusting his silver-wire glasses.

"That is a sigh that carries the weight of a collapsing empire," Roan drawled smoothly, his pitch-black eyes flicking up to meet hers.

A soft, incredibly fond, amused smile touched his lips. He set his quill down, folding his hands on the desk. "What plagues the baby squirrel today? Did Alistair finally discover that you replaced his imported herbal tea with dried grass clippings?"

"He hasn’t noticed yet. He said the new blend was ’earthy’," Seraphina mumbled around the candy. "This is a family issue, Mr. Balcony Ghost. I am facing a verrrryyyy big geopolitical paradox!"

Roan leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands, giving her his undivided attention. The chaotic trickster loved a good paradox. "Lay it on me, Little Boss. Who do we need to blackmail?"

"Nobody," Seraphina groaned, slumping down in her chair. "That’s the problem. I don’t know who the bad guys are anymore. I mean, Papa’s Uncle is a bad guy. He’s a walking, talking pile of moldy garbage, a pig in shiny clothing. But Uncle Caspian and Aunt Elara..."

She pulled the lollipop out of her mouth, pointing the sticky blue dragon at Roan.

"You know, Uncle Caspian just snuck up on me in the hallway like a ninja, shoved this incredibly expensive candy into my hands, patted my head, and told me to stay safe," Seraphina explained, her voice rising in frustration. "He looked at me like he was about to cry! Aunt Elara does the same thing! Whenever the Count isn’t looking, she smiles at me! A real, warm, actually-nice smile!"

Roan watched her, his expression softening.

He saw the genuine distress in her dark eyes.

For all her terrifying intelligence and adult cynicism, she was deeply, fiercely protective of Kaelus, and this contradiction was hurting her.

"They abandoned Papa," Seraphina continued, her voice cracking slightly with protective anger. "They left him alone in the freezing cold when their dad died. They let him become the monster so they could go live in the warm, sunny Capital. They are supposed to be selfish and mean. But they aren’t! They act exactly like Papa! They put up a cold, prickly wall, but inside, they’re just soft, sad, guilty puddles! If they are so nice, why don’t they just say sorry?! Why don’t they just make up with him?!"

Seraphina threw her hands in the air in exasperation. "I can fix ledgers! I can invent magical cell phones! I can orchestrate the downfall of a Viscount! But I do not understand why these three grown adults would rather suffer in silence than just have a five-minute conversation!"

The study was quiet for a long moment.

Roan didn’t laugh.

He didn’t offer a sarcastic quip either.

The ancient Archmage, who had lived for over two decades, had watched empires rise and fall, looked at the tiny girl with an expression of melancholic understanding.

The ghost of Cecil flickered in his black eyes, a silent testament to the complexities of the human heart.

He stood up, walking around the desk.

He didn’t loom over her. He crouched down, placing himself at her eye level, his facade completely melting away, leaving only the wise, tired soul beneath.

"Seraphina," Roan said, his voice a low, incredibly gentle, velvet hum. He reached out and softly tapped the center of her forehead. "You possess a mind that can calculate the curvature of a spatial fold in your sleep. You look at the world, and you see numbers, logic, and leverage."

He offered a sad, knowing smile.

"But human hearts are not magical devices," Roan murmured. "You cannot simply unscrew the back panel, rewire the circuits, and fix a broken relationship. Trauma is not logical. Guilt is not a math equation that can be balanced. Sometimes, the people who love each other the most are the ones most incapable of bridging the gap, because the gap is built from their own shame."

Seraphina stared into his pitch-black eyes. She felt the heavy truth in his words.

"If Caspian and Elara truly abandoned Kaelus when he needed them," Roan explained softly, "the guilt of that action has likely festered inside them for fifteen years. They don’t apologize because they believe they are unforgivable. And the Archduke doesn’t reach out because he believes he is unlovable."

Roan stood up, smoothing down his charcoal suit jacket.

"You cannot force them to fix it, baby squirrel," Roan advised, returning to his desk. "No matter how brilliant you are, you cannot hack a family. They have to choose to work on it themselves."

Seraphina looked down at the blue dragon lollipop in her hand.

She thought about Kaelus, sitting in the dining hall, looking like a shattered ghost.

She thought about Caspian, acting like a thief just to give her a piece of candy.

Roan was right.

She couldn’t hack their trauma.

She couldn’t force them to apologize.

But she was the Sovereign of the North.

She didn’t accept defeat.

’I can’t fix the circuits,’ Seraphina’s internal mastermind concluded, her dark eyes narrowing with sudden determination. ’But I can act as the catalyst. I can throw a wrench into their misery-machine and force them to confront each other. I have no filter. I am a six-year-old child. It is my biological right to ask highly inappropriate, deeply uncomfortable questions.!

Seraphina shoved the lollipop back into her mouth.

She hopped off the chair.

"Thanks for the therapy session, Mr. Balcony Ghost," Seraphina declared, her swagger fully returning. "I’ll invoice you for the consultation fee later. I have a infiltration to execute."

Roan laughed, watching her march toward the door. "Give them hell, Boss."

****

The Nacht Capital Estate boasted a magnificent, glass-domed conservatory filled with exotic orchids and imported tropical ferns.

It was a beautiful, serene space that Count Valerius absolutely despised, claiming the humidity ruined the starch in his cravats.

Therefore, it was the perfect sanctuary for Kaelus’s siblings.

Seraphina slipped into the conservatory, moving with the silent grace of a trained operative. The warm, humid air smelled of blooming jasmine.

Sitting on a wrought-iron bench in the center of the greenery were Caspian and Elara.

They were alone. The Count was currently in the dining hall, demanding that Sebastian procure him a specific vintage of imported cheese, a demand Sebastian was maliciously fulfilling by bringing him the most pungent, mold-covered wheel of cheese in the cellar.

Caspian was leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his head in his hands, looking defeated.

Elara was sitting beside him, her hand resting gently on her brother’s back, her beautiful face etched with weary sorrow.

"We cannot keep doing this, Cas," Elara whispered, her voice trembling. "Watching Count Valerius insult him... watching Kaelus stand there and take it... it’s killing me. Every time I look at him, I see the boy we left behind. We have to tell the truth. We have to tell him why we left."

"We can’t, El," Caspian groaned, his voice rough. "If we tell him the truth, it ruins everything. It invalidates the sacrifice. We made our choice. We have to carry the burden so he doesn’t have to."

"But he hates us!" Elara sobbed quietly, a single tear escaping her emerald eyes. "And I don’t blame him! But I miss my brother, Cas. I miss him so much."

Snap.

Seraphina intentionally stepped on a dry twig near the entrance of the conservatory.

Caspian and Elara jerked upright.

The masks of bored, aristocratic superiority instantly slammed back into place.

Caspian crossed his arms, his face hardening into a scowl. Elara quickly wiped her tear away, snapping her lace fan open to hide her face.

Seraphina waddled out of the ferns, carrying a small, illustrated book about Northern wildlife. She looked at them with wide, innocent dark eyes.

"Hello," Seraphina chirped brightly. "The knights are busy polishing their swords, and Papa is looking at ledgers. I’m bored with nothing to do. Can I sit here?"

Caspian and Elara exchanged a panicked glance.

The terrifying, miniature Archduke, who had almost ordered their Uncle baked into a pie just days ago, was asking to sit with them.

"I... suppose you can," Elara stammered, her maternal instincts completely overriding her political facade. She subtly shifted on the bench, making room for Seraphina.

Seraphina didn’t sit next to her.

With her audacity, Seraphina climbed directly onto the bench, crawled over Elara’s expensive emerald silk gown, and plopped herself squarely into Elara’s lap.