Chapter 152: 152. I Don’t Decompress. I Just Find New Opportunities to Scheme

There was some overlap between the two statements, which made the conversation sound like something that had happened before and hadn’t been resolved to anyone’s satisfaction.

Diana’s face went back to being amused.

“Well now… she thinks you’re together,” Diana said to Rex, as if she were giving him a summary of what she had just said.

“I’m aware of what she thinks,” Rex said.

“He hasn’t confirmed it,” Lily said, sounding like someone who had been dealing with this for weeks. “But he doesn’t deny it either, which is almost the same thing.”

“It isn’t,” Rex said.

“It is,” Lily said, sounding like someone who had already won the argument.

Diana laughed, which Rex had never heard from her before. It wasn’t the polite laugh that was part of social navigation; it was the real one, quick and unguarded.

It changed her face enough that Rex noticed it.

“Anyway…” Diana asked him, “How are you?” and her tone shifted from friendly to serious, similar to how someone who doesn’t ask casually would sound.

“I’m fine.” Rex said, “The day was hard, but rest can fix it.”

“Kaelira—”

“Is stable,” Rex said. “Aisella did a great job.”

Diana slowly nodded. “I heard the summary of the debrief, and Elizabeth thinks it was the work of demons.”

“Yes, she does,” Rex said.

Diana was paying attention to him in the same way she did when she was shooting arrows, like she was reading the information in front of her with more channels than just the obvious ones. Rex addressed the situation without altering his presentation.

“Theo said you’d want to decompress,” Diana said. “He invited us to his training hall. They have a good stock of beer and a proper archery range in the back.”

Rex considered this. “Us being who, exactly?”

“You, me, Lily, and whoever else is still standing by the time we get there,” Diana said. “Theo’s already there. Some of his people too.”

“Alright then, I’ll gladly take that offer,” Rex said.

…

Theo’s training hall occupied the ground floor and rear courtyard of a building in the western district that had been adapted from its original purpose as a storage facility into something considerably more functional for a family of fighters.

The ground floor was equipped as a serious combat training space, and the rear courtyard was large enough to run proper archery distances when the gates were open.

Rex found out when they got there that it was already full of a comfortable number of Theo’s people, a mix of fighters and Nightwing household staff who had apparently made it a tradition to end tough days this way.

There was food on the side tables that someone had set up without making a big deal out of it. The beer was local, not imported, which meant it had a straightforward quality that made it enjoyable for drinking.

Rex drank one cup and let Lily sit next to him. She did this easily, as if she had chosen this arrangement for the night and didn’t want to hear any feedback.

He talked to Theo’s people, most of whom he was meeting for the first time, and let the conversation go where it wanted to go.

There was something useful in being here that had nothing to do with strategy.

The day had demanded a particular kind of sustained performance, one that relied on resources beyond mere energy or ability. It required something more akin to the bandwidth necessary to uphold multiple simultaneous presentations of oneself without any of them faltering.

An evening where the required performance was simply being a person at a gathering with beer was a different kind of expenditure.

It was lighter.

For most of the first two hours, Lily was next to him, engaging in conversation with Diana. Rex believed her openness stemmed from two factors.

Diana had a unique ability to make people feel seen without any expectation of reciprocity, and Lily was in her maximum desire state. This state made her feel more open when she felt safe, which was much easier to be around than the alternative was.

The evening moved as evenings did. Theo’s people drifted in and out.

The food on the side tables decreased at the rate that it always decreases when fighters have been working hard and haven’t eaten properly since morning. The beer was replenished twice.

By the time the city’s night had settled fully into place and the courtyard had gone from busy to comfortable to quiet.

The group had naturally contracted, as groups often do at the end of evenings—gradually, without anyone making a specific decision, until those who remained were either still engaged in the conversation or too comfortable to leave.

Lily had been making noises for the past twenty minutes; this indicated she was exhausted but reluctant to leave without Rex. Rex had told her three times that she should go back to bed and that he would follow soon.

She agreed and didn’t move twice. The third agreement seemed to have worked, because she was now standing with her cloak on, and her face was making peace with the fact that she really had to leave this time instead of agreeing to do so.

“Don’t be too late,” she said, looking at Rex instead of the room.

Rex said, “I won’t.”

She gave Diana a goodbye that felt warmer than their acquaintance strictly warranted, a gesture Rex interpreted as Lily spreading her contentment throughout the room, and then she was gone.

Two of Theo’s people had also left. They were the ones whose conversation had naturally concluded rather than being abruptly interrupted.

The other three were doing something at the end of the hall that required them to physically demonstrate a technique or argument, which kept them completely focused.

Theo was at the table.

He wasn’t out cold. He was there like someone who had enjoyed one too many tasty beers after a long day: relaxed to the point where it didn’t matter how well he was doing, comfortable with the surface beneath him, and talking to the cup in his hand, which wasn’t really going anywhere.

When Rex looked at him, he glanced up and said something that could have been either a comment on the night or a response to a thought he had been mulling over since before Rex had looked. Then he rested his head on his arms on the table and remained still.

Rex stared at him for a moment. Then he turned to Diana, who was sitting across the table from where Theo had been.

She was also staring at Theo, still processing how adorable he was even asleep.

Then Diana looked up and saw that Rex was looking at her. Her face changed to the blank one she used when she was caught off guard and was trying to figure out how to respond.

“What’s wrong?” Diana giggled. “Are you feeling all tired already?”

The courtyard archery range was visible through the open door at the back of the hall, the targets were still set from whatever practice had been running earlier, faint in the light from the hall’s lanterns.

Rex said, “I believe you mentioned a rematch earlier.”

Diana looked at the range. Then at him. Then back at the range.

“It’s kinda late though,” she said.

“The targets are still there,” Rex said. “Or… are you chickening out on this one?”

“Hohhh… how dare you provoke me like that! Let’s go settle this then!” She easily picked up her bow from the rack by the back door, and Rex followed her into the courtyard.

The air was cool at night, and the city was quiet because it was past its busy hours and into its resting hours. The targets were set at forty meters, and the hall’s spill light lit up the range.

It wasn’t very bright, but it was enough.

“Get ready, Rex…” Diana smiled at him. “I won’t go easy on you because I know that you probably practiced with your classmate who’s also good at archery.”

Diana nocked an arrow without making a big deal out of it and looked down the range for a moment with the same kind of focused attention that he had seen her use every time she shot. It was like the moment before preparation when all the variables were being put into a single clean calculation.

She shot.

The arrow hit the center ring, not dead center but close enough to the center that the difference was meaningful only to someone who was measuring.

“Ah shit…!”

“It seems like the beer effect got on me… hic!”

“She really is drunk,” Rex thought to himself, knowing this was the perfect chance to use it.

She looked at Rex.

“Now it’s your turn,” she said.

Rex took the second bow off the rack. “Alright… let’s see if my luck is still by my side.”

He looked down the range and saw that the target was exactly where it was supposed to be. Diana was standing three feet to his left, watching him with the same level of interest that she brought to everything.

The night was quiet, the city was resting, and the day had been long and had cost things.

Rex lifted the bow, and his eyes already gave him many visions from his foresight, showing all kinds of possibilities that helped him hit the target accurately.

He let out the first half of his breath, held the second half, and looked at the middle of the target. He could feel Diana’s gaze on the side of his face like a specific warmth.

He shot it.

The arrow hit exactly where he wanted it to, dead center, and the sound it made when it hit was a small, clean sound that showed it had reached its target.

The quiet after it was different from the quiet before it.

Diana looked at the target. Then at Rex.

“You’ve been holding back,” she said, interrupting herself with a hiccup.

He put the bow down on the rack and looked at her. The light from the lantern in the hall was behind her, so her face was partly in shadow.

But his Emotional Insight didn’t need full light to see how warm her face had become since the arrow hit the target.

“Maybe,” Rex said.

Diana looked at him for a long time with the same kind of attention she had been giving him in bits and pieces all day, but now it was all put together into something more complete.

“You’re going to be honest and tell me you’ve been practicing,” she said.

Rex didn’t say anything.

“Rex,” she said.

“Diana,” he said.

The night held them both in its quiet, and behind them in the hall, Theo slept on.

[DIANA VON STARLIGHT: DESIRE LEVEL — 50/100 → 62/100]

’There’s my chance.’

Rex asked. “Why don’t we make this interesting with a challenge?”

“Sure. I’m down for it.”

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