Chapter 140 – Like Father Like Daughter
(Lyra)
The world didn't end with a bang.
It ended with a closed door.
His door.
Yesterday he'd come back from killing an Old God half-dead on his feet, arms full of Witch. Today the house felt… tilted. Like someone had moved a load-bearing wall in his gravity.
And me?
I had slept maybe three hours. Total. Badly.
Every time I drifted off I saw her—Nyxa—wrapped around him like she'd known him forever, like she had the right.
I stepped out into the hallway.
Julia was already there.
Of course she was. Perfectly dressed, hair pinned, face composed. Only the tight skin around her eyes gave anything away.
We looked at each other.
No greeting. No pretense.
We both turned toward his room.
***
The door was shut.
He never shut it on us. Not completely. There was always a crack, a sliver of "if something goes wrong, someone will see."
Today: solid.
I didn't knock.
I kicked.
The door slammed open hard enough the hinges complained.
Empty.
No Erynd.
Of course.
Yara had mentioned, too casually, that "Brother left early, northern cells, nothing big."
I hadn't cared about the "nothing big."
I cared that he'd gone without waking us. Again.
Then I saw her.
Nyxa.
Curled in the middle of his bed like a cat that had never once worried about being allowed there.
She was wearing one of his shirts.
Of course she was.
It hung off one shoulder, hem riding up just enough to show the top of her thighs and bare shin. One arm was flung over her eyes, the other wrapped around his pillow, fingers fisted in the case like it owed her money.
Julia's voice went flat.
"Get up," she said.
Nyxa groaned.
Dragged her arm down. Blinking at us like we were very boring ghosts.
"Oh," she muttered. "You two again. Please bother someone else. Father's not here."
Father.
The word hit something raw in my ribs.
Julia's mana tightened so sharply I felt it across the room.
"Get. Up," she repeated.
Nyxa stared. For a moment I thought she'd go back to sleep just to spite us.
Instead she yawned, slow and unbothered.
"You're loud for this early," she said. "Is this a territorial thing? Do I need to pee on the furniture so you understand it's mine now?"
I stepped forward before my brain could veto it.
"He is not your territory," I snapped. "That bed isn't your territory. That pillow sure as hell isn't your territory. Who even are you?"
Nyxa rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand.
"Nyxa Milton," she said. "Obviously."
My stomach dropped.
"Milton?" I echoed. "You think you can just take his name?"
She blinked at me, slow.
"I didn't take it," she said. "He gave it."
Oh, I was going to kill him.
Later.
When he wasn't recovering from divine combat.
And being clung to by eldritch… daughters.
Julia stepped in then. Calm. Precise. Deadly.
"You will get off his bed," she said, "you will explain the nature of your relationship with our Lord, and you will stop calling yourself Milton until he confirms it."
Nyxa tilted her head.
"Our Lord," she repeated, tasting the phrase like it was sour. "You talk like employees fighting over office access."
The corner of Julia's right eye twitched.
"You don't understand boundaries," I said. Electricity prickled under my skin, itching for release. "This room is where he sleeps. Where he rests. Where we—" I cut myself off. Too late.
Nyxa's eyes sharpened.
"Where you what?" she asked, genuinely curious.
Julia's mouth pressed into a line.
"Where we relieve stress," I said before she could dress it up in better words. "After missions. After near-deaths. After days like yesterday. With him."
Nyxa stared.
Once. Twice.
Then her whole face twisted.
"Ugh," she said, with genuine, visceral disgust. "Why would you tell me that?"
"You asked," I shot back, stung.
"I didn't ask for visuals," she said. "He's my father."
"That's not—" Julia started, then stopped, visibly recalculating. "He has not sired anyone."
Nyxa shrugged.
"Flesh isn't the only way to have family," she said. "But thank you for oversharing your sex schedule. I'll be sure to scrub that from my brain later."
Heat crawled up my neck.
She was grossed out. By us.
Somehow that felt worse than her gloating.
My fingers flexed, water coalescing in the air around them, familiar as breath. I wrapped it into a whip, tighter, thinner, threaded it with crackling lightning until the whole length hummed.
Julia's hand dipped into her coat and came back with the ugly dagger she used when paperwork needed to be minimized.
We didn't talk.
We lunged.
***
The whip snapped through the air toward Nyxa's wrist, fast and mean, aiming to coil, drag, hurt. Julia came in low, a shadow dart with steel teeth.
Nyxa… flicked.
Just her fingers.
Like she was brushing dust off a table.
Something invisible hit my chest.
No mana flare. No spell pattern. Just decision.
The world went sideways.
The door frame hit my shoulder and the floor caught my back hard enough to knock the wind out of me. My whip evaporated, water turning to harmless damp and then to nothing at all.
Julia slammed into the opposite wall, rolled, came up with her dagger still in hand like it had never left. Shadow threads started to rise—then unraveled in mid-air, fraying into useless dark.
The door swung shut between us with a clean finality that felt personal.
"Fuck," I wheezed.
"Open it," Julia snapped.
Inside, Nyxa's voice came, muffled but clear.
"Don't make me rearrange you properly," she said. "I'm being very polite right now."
My vision spotted red.
"Polite?" I shouted. "You threw us across a room!"
"That was the gentle version," she replied. "You really don't want to see the other one before breakfast."
Julia's knuckles were white around her dagger.
"Witch," she said, low and dangerous, "you are in his house. Sleeping in his bed. Wearing his shirt. The only thing keeping you alive is my assumption that he would be upset if I turned you into a stain. Do not mistake that for fear."
A beat of silence.
Then the latch clicked.
The door eased open a crack.
"You want to talk?" Nyxa said. "Fine. Come in. Try not to bleed on his sheets."
Julia and I traded a look.
We both understood:
If she'd wanted us dead, we would be.
If we pushed this all the way, we'd drag his room into it, his space, his only real refuge. He would hate that more than any bruise.
I hated that I cared.
We pushed the door.
***
She was standing on the floor now.
Not sprawled. Not draped. Just standing.
And suddenly every instinct I had was screaming.
Her outline blurred at the edges, like her body was drawn with a shaky pen. Shadows behind her didn't match the angle of the light; they stretched up the walls, thin and root-like, trembling. The air around her felt thicker, like breathing through someone else's lungs.
Julia sucked in a breath.
My whip refused to form when I reached for it. The water just… wouldn't answer.
"Happy?" Nyxa asked, voice calm. "This is closer to my real weight. I'm trying not to break the floor."
Her eyes were still human-shaped. Brownish, with weird flecks. Everything else screamed wrong.
I swallowed hard.
"How are we supposed to… destress," I said, the word sour, "if you're camped in his room like this?"
"Try a hobby," she said dryly. "Knitting. Knife throwing. Emotional maturity."
Julia's voice cut through.
"Enough," she said. "You've made your point. You are powerful. You can throw us around without trying. Congratulations. That doesn't answer the question: why are you here?"
Nyxa's gaze slid from her to me, then back.
"Because he told me to stay," she said. "Because this is where he is. Because he is my anchor and I am his shield in places you can't see."
It was almost reasonable.
I hated that too.
Julia didn't move.
"You talk like you've known him longer than any of us," she said. "You haven't. We've been with him from the Academy. From the trenches. From the start of Yggdrasil. We've bled for his mad ideas. We've watched him break and drag himself back up."
Nyxa's expression flickered.
Something like hurt. Like she wanted to say you have no idea.
"Congratulations," she said instead. "You got here first. I got here from a different direction. It still ends with me, in his bed, holding his pillow while you two stand in the doorway arguing."
That shut me up for a second.
"Are you… in love with him?" Noelle would have asked gently.
I wasn't Noelle.
"Do you want him?" I demanded. "Like we do?"
Nyxa's nose wrinkled.
"Absolutely not," she said. "Ugh. No. No. He's my father. Why does everyone in this world lead with crotch questions?"
Heat flared up my neck.
Julia's ears went faintly pink.
"You're the one in his bed," I shot back.
"Because it smells like him and I spent a very long time thinking I'd never smell that again," she snapped. "I don't want what you want. I want him to keep existing. Preferably without being torn into interesting pieces by things from between the stars."
The sincerity in that hit like a slap.
I looked away first.
Julia finally sheathed her dagger.
"We are not enemies," she said slowly. "Not by default. But if you hurt him—"
"If I hurt him," Nyxa cut in, "you won't need to kill me. He will stop being my father and I will stop being anything that belongs in this house."
She said it like an absolute.
Like a law.
Like she'd thought about it. A lot.
Julia studied her for several long beats.
"Then get off his bed," she said, softer. "Use a guest room. We will… discuss arrangements with him when he returns."
Nyxa glanced back at the mattress. The rumpled sheets. The dent where she'd been curled.
Then at the pillow clutched in her hands.
She hugged it tighter.
"I'm keeping this," she said. "Until he gets back."
"As long as you and the pillow are in a different room," I muttered.
"Fine."
She stepped between us, bare feet whispering on stone, veil forgotten on his bedpost, pillow held like a lifeline.
As she passed, she paused.
Tilting her head up to look me in the eye.
"You really do use him like a lightning rod," she observed. "It's exhausting to stand next to."
"Welcome to the family," I said tightly.
She huffed.
"I already named myself Milton," she said. "I was here before your paperwork caught up."
Julia twitched at that.
"Names have consequences," she warned.
Nyxa smiled, small and sharp.
"So do attachments," she said. "You should know. You're all hanging off the same man."
Then she padded away down the hall, hair swinging, pillow pressed to her chest, the faint scent of him trailing in her wake.
I watched her go.
"I hate her," I said.
Julia exhaled. Long. Controlled.
"No," she murmured. "You don't. Not exactly."
I didn't answer.
Because she was right.
And that was the worst part.
If Nyxa had been a simple threat, I could've killed her or died trying.
Instead, she was… family.
Twisted. Unwanted. Terrifying.
And if there was one thing Erynd Milton collected without meaning to, it was terrifying strays.
***
(Erynd)
I sneezed.
Hard.
Mana jolted in my channels; Gungnir vibrated faintly at my back.
Edward paused mid-sentence.
"Bless you, Boss," he said, smirking.
Yara tilted her head.
"Someone talking about you," she said.
"Or I inhaled god-rot," I muttered, rubbing my nose. "Given my life, either is possible."
Melody's laughter buzzed at the base of my skull, wicked and delighted.
"Oh, Master," she purred. "You should hear what they're saying."
"No," I thought back firmly. "I absolutely should not."
I straightened, forcing my attention back to the map, the reports, the next crisis.
Behind all of it, one deeply unhelpful thought tried to surface:
When I get home, I am absolutely not opening that door without knocking first.