Marcus stood outside Seraphina's office door for five minutes, practicing his speech.
"Professor Ashwood, I wanted to discuss Theodore's progress."
No, too formal.
"Hey, about my brother."
Too casual.
"As Theodore's older brother, I feel it's important we communicate."
Better, but still awkward.
He knocked before he could overthink it further.
"Enter."
Her voice could have frozen summer. Marcus opened the door anyway.
Seraphina's office was exactly what he'd expected.
Organized. Pristine. Cold. Books arranged by height and subject.
Scrolls sorted with military precision. Not a single personal item in sight.
She sat behind her desk, grading papers with the focus of a surgeon.
Her platinum hair caught the afternoon light from the window.
"Lord Marcus." She didn't look up. "This is unexpected."
"Professor Ashwood. I hope I'm not interrupting."
"You are. But since you're here, make it quick."
Marcus's prepared speech evaporated.
"Right. I wanted to thank you. For teaching Theodore."
She finally looked up. Her ice-blue eyes showed polite confusion.
"That's my job."
"Yes, but you do it so well. Theodore speaks highly of your combat instruction."
"He speaks of sword techniques. I doubt he remembers I'm attached to the lessons."
There was something in her voice. Frustration? Resignation? Marcus's emotional intelligence started tingling.
"I'm sure he appreciates you as an instructor," Marcus tried.
"Lord Theodore appreciates effective sword deflection angles." She returned to grading.
"Was there something specific you needed?"
This was going badly. Time for a different approach.
"Actually, I wanted to ask about his social development. Does he interact well with other students?"
Seraphina's quill paused. "Define 'interact.'"
"Talk? Make friends? Notice that other humans exist?"
A tiny smile threatened to crack her ice mask.
"He notices them when they're holding swords."
"That's what I was afraid of."
"Why do you care?" She set down her quill.
"The previous Lord Marcus wouldn't have noticed if his brother was raised by wolves."
The inherited memories confirmed this. Original Marcus had been too drunk to care.
"People change," Marcus said.
"Do they?" She studied him carefully.
"You've been different since the enrollment ceremony. Less drunk. More present."
"Maybe I finally grew up."
"In a single day?"
This was dangerous territory. "Sometimes life gives you a wake-up call."
"And sometimes people are replaced entirely."
Marcus's blood chilled. Did she know? How could she know?
Seraphina laughed. It was small and bitter.
"Relax. I'm speaking metaphorically.
We all wear masks, Lord Marcus. Some of us just get better at it."
"Is that what you do?" Marcus asked. "Wear a mask?"
The question slipped out before he could stop it. Damn life coach instincts.
Seraphina's expression shuttered. "I don't know what you mean."
"The ice queen thing. It's exhausting, isn't it?"
"I should ask you to leave."
"But you won't."
"No," she admitted quietly. "I won't."
Marcus sat down uninvited. His coaching brain was fully engaged now. "How long since someone asked how you're doing? Not Professor Ashwood, but Seraphina?"
"Three years, two months, and five days."
The precision hurt to hear. That was when her husband died.
"I'm asking now," Marcus said.
"Why?"
"Because you look tired. The kind of tired that sleep doesn't fix."
Her mask cracked. Just a hairline fracture, but Marcus saw it.
"Students see me as either a goal to surpass or an idol to worship," she said.
"Neither sees me as human."
"That's the point of the mask, isn't it? Keep them at a distance?"
"It's easier than explaining that their perfect professor cries herself to sleep."
The admission hung between them. Seraphina looked shocked at her own words.
"I shouldn't have said that."
"Why not? It's true, isn't it?"
"Truth has no place in professional relationships."
"This stopped being professional when you mentioned the crying."
She almost smiled. Almost. "You're not what I expected, Lord Marcus."
"Former drunk disappointment turns out to be decent listener. Headlines at eleven."
"Is that what you are? A decent listener?"
Marcus thought about his past life.
All those clients, all those breakthroughs.
"It's all I've ever been good at."
"That's not nothing," Seraphina said. "Most people are terrible at it."
"Including my brother."
"Especially your brother. He listens to swords better than people."
They both laughed. It felt dangerously comfortable.
"Can I ask you something?" Seraphina said.
"Sure."
"What do you get out of this? Coming here, asking about my feelings? What's your angle?"
Marcus panicked.
He couldn't say "I'm trying to set you up with my brother to prevent apocalypse."
"Maybe I just recognize lonely when I see it," he said instead.
It was too honest. Too real. Too much like his old self bleeding through.
Seraphina's mask fully crumbled. "I haven't talked to anyone like this since Richard died."
"Richard was your husband?"
"Captain Richard Ashwood. Killed in a border skirmish that didn't even have a name."
She touched her collar where the chain was hidden.
"I wear his ring but I can't even remember his laugh anymore."
"Grief is weird like that. It takes the wrong things."
"Speaking from experience?"
Marcus thought about his past life. Dying alone after helping everyone but himself. "Different kind of loss, but yeah."
"You're very strange, Lord Marcus."
"I get that a lot lately."
"It's not an insult." She started reorganizing already organized scrolls.
"This was... unexpected."
"Good unexpected or bad unexpected?"
"I haven't decided yet."
Marcus stood to leave. He'd completely failed his mission.
Theodore hadn't been mentioned beyond sword complaints.
"Professor Ashwood?"
"Yes?"
"You're allowed to be human. Even the ice queen needs to thaw sometimes."
He left before she could respond. The door clicked shut behind him.
Marcus slumped against the hallway wall.
What had he just done?
He was supposed to talk up Theodore.
Instead, he'd had a therapy session with his target.
"Smooth, Marcus. Real smooth.
'Hey, let me help you process your grief' isn't a wingman move."
But the worst part? It had felt right.
Natural. Like Seraphina had needed someone to see past her armor.
His emotional intelligence was screaming warnings.
The way she'd looked at him at the end. The way her voice had softened. The way she'd actually laughed.
"Oh no," Marcus muttered. "Oh no, no, no."
He'd made a connection. A real one.
The kind that had nothing to do with Theodore and everything to do with two lonely people recognizing each other.
This was bad. This was very bad.
He was supposed to be helping his brother, not stealing his future wife.
"Okay, damage control.
Next time I'll talk about Theodore. Nothing but Theodore.
Theodore, Theodore, Theodore."
But even as he said it, Marcus knew he was lying.
Seraphina had opened up to him.
Trusted him with her pain. He couldn't just use that for matchmaking.
His life coach ethics were fighting his save-the-world mission.
And ethics were winning.
"I'm going to doom the world because I can't stop being a therapist," Marcus groaned.
A student passed by, giving him a weird look.
Great. Now he was the noble who talked to himself in hallways.
Marcus pushed off the wall and headed for the exit.
He needed to regroup. Make a new plan.
One that didn't involve accidentally forming emotional connections with his brother's destined love interests.
But deep down, he already knew the truth. He'd do it again.
Because Seraphina had needed someone to see her, and Marcus couldn't ignore that kind of need.
He was the worst wingman in the history of wingmen.
The world was definitely doomed.