"Silver, hi. Can you help me with something?" Emma asked, stepping lightly into the hallway where she spotted the tall, silver-haired woman moving with her usual silent grace.
Silver turned to her without pause, her expression flat and unreadable. "What is it?"
Emma didn't mind the curt tone. After all, she'd already seen Silver work in the kitchen, focused, efficient, quietly intimidating, and had silently admired how easily she carried herself.
Not beautiful in the traditional sense like Evelyn, or soft like herself, but strong. Like the face of a warrior in a storybook. Emma couldn't help but appreciate that.
"I'm looking for Evelyn."
"Library," Silver said simply.
Emma blinked. "Could you tell me how to get there?"
Silver nodded and gave a quick explanation. Emma listened carefully, thanked her with a warm smile, and turned to go.
She found the library quicker than expected. It wasn't huge, but it was old, with wooden shelves that carried a deep scent of ink and parchment.
Evelyn was sitting alone near the back, a strange book in hand. Emma slowed as she got closer.
The pages were turned to an illustration of a woman lying on a white bed, soaked in blood.
Emma raised a brow. "What… are you reading?"
Evelyn didn't react immediately.
She had already felt and sensed Emma coming, she was about as subtle as Caelen, honestly, and had half-expected her to say something like that. Without responding at first, she closed the book slowly and set it down on the table.
She turned to see a young woman who was in a maid's outfit, and that made her make a confused face when she saw her.
Emma stood awkwardly across from her, still in her maid outfit. She fidgeted, tugging at the hem of her skirt. "Uhm… also, this outfit. Don't say anything. I… I wore it for Caelen. Just to see if he'd react."
Evelyn tilted her head, her sharp, analyzing eyes narrowing just a bit. Her face didn't change, but her aura did.
"It's fine, I'm not judging anyone here, so you can feel anyway you want, but I want you to see something
After a moment, she pulled out her phone without a word, tapped something, then held it up to Emma.
"This you?"
Emma blinked and leaned in. The photo showed two females, one a young girl, maybe six or seven, her face mostly hidden under a thick robe, only a bit of blonde hair visible.
Beside her stood an older woman, mid-twenties maybe, in a black tunic with a long, lazy braid and a scar cutting through her lips. The background looked dusty, almost like a border village.
Emma stared at it longer than she meant to.
"Yes," she finally said, quietly.
Evelyn lowered the phone but kept her eyes on her. "Thought so. You looked familiar to her, which Silver also said somehow. I had Silver look into you and Caelen after… you know. The seed talk. She only found this."
Emma's voice stayed casual, almost indifferent. "You could've just asked. I might have told you. If you really wanted to know."
"Hmm," Evelyn hummed. Emma looked eager, so she slipped the phone away. She crossed her legs and leaned back. "You planning to tell me now?"
"Maybe," Emma said, her tone a little teasing. "We'll probably end up working together, right? Might as well share a bit."
Evelyn squinted. "Working together?"
"I mean, I could convince Caelen for you."
"For what?"
"Your vengeance thing with the elf, right? Caelen told me."
Evelyn looked amused, not surprised. She gave a small shrug and mumbled, "I wonder how different people like you two even met. A church girl, clearly important, ends up here being a demon—makes no sense."
"You want the short version?" Emma asked.
Evelyn gave her a side glance. "You want to tell me?"
Emma sat down across from her and smiled faintly. "Yeah. I don't see a problem with it. I kind of… want to tell someone anyway."
Evelyn didn't interrupt. She watched closely, her expression unreadable but her body language open. Curious.
Emma looked at her hands for a second, then began. "I don't remember much about my early childhood. It's all blurry. But I do remember being moved from wherever I was born to the church. I must've been five or six."
Evelyn nodded slowly, saying nothing.
"Life there was… structured," Emma continued. "Every day was the same. Wake up, pray, do service. Fix whatever was broken or dusty. Eat. After that, most of the other kids would have their duties. Mine was different. I worked alone."
"Doing what?" Evelyn asked, actually intrigued now.
"Healing potions."
Evelyn's brow raised. "Wait—you know how to make them?"
Emma laughed lightly. "Not exactly. The church had everything already. I just had the two affinities: water and light. That's all they needed."
"That's all?" Evelyn echoed.
Emma nodded. "They gave me this weird bracelet—it helped combine the two. My water magic abilities were used for one spell that could only create clean water, nothing special. But when I poured it into a potion bottle with that bracelet on, it reacted, maybe the water turned different. The church used it to help people."
"So that's how it works…" Evelyn muttered. "I've been trying to buy ingredients from churches before. They always say no."
Emma tilted her head. "They probably think outsiders would mess up the process, or the most obvious reason is that they don't want to share."
Evelyn grinned faintly. "So, they don't want to share secrets"
Emma shrugged. "Could be both."
Evelyn leaned back in her chair, the candlelight brushing her face in soft gold. She listened without interrupting, her eyes quietly fixed on Emma while she spoke.
The story was simple, but something about the way Emma told it made it feel more personal than dramatic.
It wasn't the tale of a girl saved by a hero; it was two kids in a somehow broken place, finding some kind of way to get close to each other.
"The woman in the picture," Emma said, tapping her finger lightly on the rim of her glass, "she taught me a few spells, just enough to defend myself. She said I'd probably need them one day. I don't think I was ever supposed to learn magic the way I did cause the church said it was unnecessary."
Evelyn stayed quiet, nodding once.
"She was only around for a few years. I think I was about thirteen when she disappeared. That's also around the time I met Caelen."
Emma gave a small smile. "He was different. Quieter than the others, but… real. He didn't act like the other kids in the church who were always trying to prove something."
Evelyn glanced at her, listening intently.
"He started selling the potions I made by the church's order. It was something small at first, but he was smart about it. Smarter than most of the people running the place. He'd bring back little things—candy, small gifts. He'd even tell me stories that weren't in the Church's books. Stories about nobles, cool magic he saw, and how the church operates sometimes, things I wasn't supposed to hear. But it made the world feel bigger."
She paused to breathe, her tone softening a little.
"He got punished more than once. Just for helping me. For giving me food." Emma tilted her head. "I think that's when he stood out. Not because he tried to cheer me up, but because he kept doing it, even when it cost him."
Evelyn looked down at her hands, her expression unreadable.
"I guess that's when I started wanting to spend more time with him," Emma said, voice a little lighter now. "That's the short version. There's more, but… you get the picture."
Silence settled between them for a few moments. Evelyn's posture eased a bit, and she finally nodded again, this time slower.
"I understand now," she said. "The way you look at him. The way you talk about him."
Emma gave her a small smile.
"He might seem harsh to you and Lucy sometimes, especially with how he reacted to you earlier. But Caelen usually does his own thing. Don't hold it against him. Everyone's got something that makes them complicated. Look at Silver, if she acted the way she does around anyone else, they probably wouldn't tolerate her."
Evelyn let out a dry laugh. "Yeah. That girl's a walking test of patience."
Emma giggled quietly, taking another sip of her drink.
Then she tilted her head and looked over with a curious expression. "Now it's your turn."
Evelyn blinked. "What?"
"I just told you my side of things. Now it's your turn to share yours," Emma said. "At least tell me what's really going on with you. Maybe if I know more, I can talk to Caelen. In my own way."
Evelyn narrowed her eyes slightly, unsure if this was a genuine offer or a subtle trick to get her to open up. She studied Emma's expression. Nothing seemed forced. If it was a ploy, it wasn't a bad one.
"…You're persistent," Evelyn said, a slow smile tugging at her lips.
Emma leaned in slightly, hands folded under her chin. "Just a little."
"Fine," Evelyn said. "But I'll keep it short. You're not getting the whole story tonight."
"Short's fine," Emma said. "I'm not greedy."
Evelyn sighed and rested her elbow on the table.
Her fingers tapped against the side of her glass for a few seconds. Then, slowly, she began to speak.
"When I was young, my grandfather still held onto the idea that peace with humans and elves was possible. My father believed it too, for a time. He was a scholar, not a warrior. He used to say knowledge was the only weapon worth sharpening. "
"I really loved my grandfather." Evelyn said with a smile as she reminisced about the times she was with him
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