Chapter 31 – A Request That Was

Everything had ended very quickly.

Lyon sat in the back seat of the car with his eyes closed, his head resting against the seat, replaying the last twenty minutes for the fourth time and still unable to believe any of it had actually happened.

Because right when Cya had finished saying those words...

Right when Lyon was still processing the fact that he'd just witnessed the leader of the Hogwarts Guild stutter in front of him.

At that exact moment.

Knock knock knock knock knock.

Someone had pounded on the suite door with an urgency that left absolutely no room for interpretation.

And from there, everything had turned into a disaster.

Four guild members had rushed inside, all wearing their uniforms, all talking at the same time, all wearing the expressions of people who hadn't been able to locate their boss for half an hour and had started seriously considering the possibility that she might be dead.

They'd said something about an accident.

A portal. A team inside. A complication.

And Cya, who had been trembling three seconds earlier, transformed before Lyon's eyes into a completely different person.

Straight back.

Flat voice.

Short, precise questions.

Five orders in forty seconds, each directed at a specific person, each with a deadline attached.

And then she'd turned toward him.

"I'm very sorry," she'd said.

Nothing more.

And now Lyon was back in the car.

The same car.

The same seat he'd arrived in.

◇◆◇

In the front seat, the driver had both hands on the steering wheel and her back held so straight that it was starting to hurt.

She was nervous.

Very nervous.

Because the guy wasn't doing anything.

He was literally sitting in the back with his eyes closed and hadn't said a single word since getting in.

He hadn't given her any instructions.

He hadn't made any gestures.

He hadn't looked forward even once.

And yet...

Even so, the driver could feel the presence of that guy behind her as if it had physical weight.

'He's intimidating,' she thought, a small shiver running through her. 'He's not even doing anything, and he's intimidating. How does he do that?'

And then there was the other thing.

The question the driver had been asking herself ever since she'd first picked him up.

'What does he actually do?'

She had been analyzing him throughout the entire drive.

Point one: Guild Leader Cya, a woman who hadn't allowed anyone to touch her in three years, treated him with a level of intimacy that shattered every known precedent.

Point two: Guild Leader Cya had offered him, right in front of her, a room at the hotel and the use of her personal driver, things Guild Leader Cya didn't even offer guild directors.

Point three: the guy had accepted all of that with complete calm, without showing the slightest sign of being impressed.

Point four, and this was the strangest one of all: the guy never looked at her.

At her.

Ever.

Not once.

Not when she opened the door for him, not when he walked past her, not even when she spoke to him.

'Only people who are way above you act like that.'

The driver swallowed.

'Could he be a high-ranking Hunter? Maybe he's working undercover!'

Because it made sense.

It made a lot of sense, actually.

There were Hunters who operated without public records for security reasons.

There were Hunters from powerful families who worked under false identities.

There was an entire category of people whose official lives were deliberately boring so no one would ask questions.

'A college student living in a cheap apartment... that's the perfect cover. It's TOO perfect.'

The driver tightened her grip on the steering wheel slightly.

And then, without even realizing it, she pressed down a little harder on the accelerator.

◇◆◇

The car stopped.

Lyon opened his eyes and looked out the window.

His building.

His actual building, with peeling paint on one corner, a front gate that never closed properly, and the hallway light that had been flickering for the past eight months.

Lyon blinked.

"Wow," he said in a dry tone. "That was fast."

The driver straightened up.

"I took a shortcut, sir."

"Ah." Lyon nodded, still half-asleep, and stretched a little in his seat. "Good job, then."

And that comment, those three words spoken without any particular intention by a sleepy college student, landed on the driver like a medal being pinned to her chest.

'Good job... He said I did a good job.'

The driver felt a level of professional satisfaction wildly disproportionate to the size of the compliment, and for one second, she completely forgot that she'd been nervous.

Lyon opened the door and stepped out of the car.

"Thanks for the ride," he said, closing the door behind him. "Good night."

And then it happened.

The driver suddenly rolled down the window.

"Wait!"

Lyon stopped halfway to the gate and turned around.

"Yeah?"

The driver opened her mouth.

And out of that mouth came, without passing through a single filter, without any supervision whatsoever, without any part of her brain having enough time to intervene, the following sentence:

"Can I have your number?"

Silence.

Lyon looked at her in confusion.

"My number?"

"Yes."

"What for?"

And that was when the driver realized what she'd just done.

The realization hit her all at once, brutally, like someone waking up in the middle of a dream only to discover they were standing in the kitchen.

'...What did I do? What did I just do? Why did I ask for his number? WHY DID I ASK FOR HIS NUMBER?!'

Because there was no reason.

None.

She was a guild employee asking for the personal number of a civilian she'd just driven home.

There was no operational justification.

No protocol backing it up.

Absolutely nothing.

There was only curiosity.

A huge, uncontrollable curiosity that had been building during twenty minutes of silent driving, fueled by an earlier trip that the driver was making a tremendous effort not to remember in detail.

And a few intrusive thoughts she fully intended to never examine for the rest of her life.

The driver improvised.

She improvised badly.

"It's just... I'd like to..." The driver swallowed. "I'd like to have a cup of tea with you sometime."

'...'

Lyon looked at her for a second.

Then he smiled a little, with the tired kindness of someone who had just realized it was eleven at night.

"I appreciate the offer. But I can't right now."

"You can't?"

"No." Lyon scratched the back of his neck. "I have a girlfriend."

And he turned around.

"Good night."

Lyon walked through the gate, climbed the entrance steps, and disappeared inside the building, leaving behind a luxury car parked on an ordinary neighborhood street and a woman in a guild uniform sitting behind the wheel with the window still rolled down.

The driver remained completely motionless for three seconds.

Then she rolled the window back up.

Then she placed both hands on the steering wheel.

And then she lowered her forehead until it hit the leather.

Thump.

'Why did I do that?'

Thump.

'Why?'

Thump.

'Why? Why? Why?'

Thump.

'I asked my boss's boyfriend for his number.'

Thump.

'I asked my boss's boyfriend for his number. After seeing him. After seeing THEM. After she considered KILLING ME for getting in the way.'

Thump.

'I'm going to die.'

Thump.

'I'm going to die, and I'll completely deserve it.'

The driver lifted her forehead from the steering wheel, adjusted her uniform with trembling hands, and started the car with the shattered dignity of a woman who was going to think about this every night for the next several years.

◇◆◇

"Well, well," the voice said inside Lyon's head as he walked up the stairs. "Quite the gentleman."

'So now you're talking?'

"Now I'm talking."

'You were quiet the entire drive.'

"I was enjoying the silence." The voice paused. "But what you did just now was good. You rejected her immediately. No hesitation. Very proper of you."

Lyon shrugged as he put his key into the lock.

'Well, Cya said she was going to be a good girlfriend.'

"And?"

'And if she's going to do her part properly, then I'm going to do mine properly too.'

The voice didn't answer that.

Lyon opened the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind him.

The apartment was exactly as he'd left it: small, dark, with the food baskets Cya had brought still stacked on the kitchen table and bags of new clothes lying beside the door.

Lyon didn't turn on the light.

He wasn't hungry, because before leaving the suite, he'd eaten a considerable amount of snacks that Cya had practically shoved into his hands.

He didn't feel like taking a shower.

He didn't feel like doing anything.

Lyon walked the four steps separating the door from his bed, dropped face-first onto the mattress without even taking off his shoes, and by the time he'd decided whether moving was worth the effort, he was already asleep.

His breathing grew slow.

Deep.

Steady.

A few seconds passed.

And then, in the darkness of the apartment, Lyon's body began to change.

◇◆◇

It happened silently.

A faint red light traveled over his sleeping body from head to toe, just once, and everything began rearranging itself in its wake.

His shoulders narrowed.

His brown hair grew lighter until it turned completely white, lengthening until it spilled over the pillow.

The sports clothes that had fit him perfectly a second earlier now hung loosely in some places and became very tight in others.

And when the light faded, there was no longer a college guy lying on the bed.

There was a girl.

The girl remained still for a moment.

Then she opened her eyes.

And those eyes were red.

Not the muted red Lyon's eyes usually had when he used his female form.

The girl slowly sat up, moved to the edge of the bed, and stretched both arms over her head.

Crack.

"Aaaah..."

The sound that came from that mouth was the first sound the voice had made with an actual throat in a very long time.

She stretched to one side.

Crack.

Then the other.

Crack.

Then she ran her tongue over her teeth, grimaced, and spat onto the floor.

Ptooey.

"Ugh."

The voice wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked toward the kitchen with disgust.

"Three-day-old snacks. Bread with who knows what on it. And that sweet thing from the orange bag." She got out of bed and walked barefoot across the apartment, still wearing a disgusted expression. "How can he eat that? How can a creature with my genes voluntarily put that garbage inside his body?"

She looked at the kitchen table, where the baskets were still sitting.

"And this isn't food either."

She sighed and ran a hand through her white hair.

Then she stopped in the middle of the room.

And her expression completely changed.

The annoyance vanished from her face as if someone had erased it, leaving behind something far calmer.

And far less pleasant.

The voice raised one hand.

Then snapped her fingers.

Snap.

Nothing happened for two seconds.

Then, in the darkest corner of the apartment, right where the shadow of the furniture merged with the shadow of the wall, the darkness moved.

It didn't open.

It didn't tear.

It simply moved, as if it had depth.

And from that depth, someone walked out.

It was a girl.

A young woman with short black hair cut right at her jawline.

She wore something dark and fitted, without decorations, insignias, or anything else that could identify her.

And she had red eyes.

The girl stopped three steps away.

Then, in one smooth movement, she lowered herself onto one knee and bowed her head.

"Princess."

The voice looked down at her.

"Get up. I hate it when you people do that."

"Yes, Princess."

The girl stood, her hands folded in front of her and her gaze respectfully lowered.

"What do you require?"

The voice walked over to the apartment's only chair, turned it around with her foot, and sat on it backward, resting her crossed arms over the backrest.

"I want information."

"About what?"

"About a human."

The girl waited.

"Her name is Cya."

And the voice, who had been waiting all night for exactly this moment, added the surname slowly, savoring it.

"Cya Hogwarts."

And the girl reacted.

Barely.

It really was barely noticeable.

A blink that came half a second too late.

The tiniest tension in her shoulders.

A movement of her fingers that stopped before it could fully happen.

Any normal person would've missed it.

The voice didn't.

In fact, the voice noticed so quickly that she was already getting up from the chair before she'd even finished processing it.

"Oh."

The girl said nothing.

"Oh, now that's interesting."

The voice walked toward her without any hurry, her bare feet silent against the floor, and stopped one step away.

"You already know something about her?"

The girl kept her gaze lowered.

"..."

"I asked you a question."

"I can't answer that, Princess."

The voice tilted her head slightly.

"You can't?"

"No." The girl swallowed, but her voice remained firm. "It's sensitive information."

Silence.

And then the voice smiled.

It was a slow smile.

Genuine.

Delighted.

"Well."

She took one step back.

"Well, well, well."

She ran a hand through her white hair, staring up at the apartment ceiling with an expression that would've sent anyone who knew her well running for their life.

"So that human really does have something special about her."