Chapter 267: Warmth

After that little incident with Seraph, Gray, along with the Elf Princess, was led towards the Headmistress’s Office.

In other words, Aurora’s office.

It was large, which was expected.

But Aurora organized it in her own way, so it followed her logic and didn’t worry about how a headmistress’s office usually looks.

Books on shelves that had been placed by interest rather than category.

A tidy desk belonging to someone who dealt with things right away and never left anything unfinished.

There was a big window that looked out over the academy grounds, carefully chosen for the view.

Aurora sat behind the desk.

Gray stood in front of it.

The elf princess stood a bit to his left, her dark green eyes scanning the office with quiet curiosity, taking it in without drawing attention to herself.

Aurora looked at both of them for a moment.

“The standard dormitory arrangements won’t work,” she stated.

“For obvious reasons.” Her eyes moved briefly to the elf princess.

“Having an unregistered individual in the general student housing creates documentation problems I don’t want to deal with.”

“Mm,” Gray nodded, humming lightly.

“There’s a separate residential block on the eastern side of the grounds,” Aurora continued.

“Originally built for visiting faculty. Currently unoccupied. Two rooms, shared common space, separate from the main student areas.” She looked at Gray.

“You’ll move there.”

The elf princess nodded once, without commentary.

Gray nodded.

“Good.” Aurora looked at the elf princess.

“There are clothes in the faculty residential stores, standard issue but clean. Someone will bring food within the hour. The bathing facilities are private.” She paused.

“I’d suggest starting with those, in that order.”

The elf princess looked at her.

Something moved through her expression that was the closest thing to gratitude she had shown anyone except Gray since they left the Nether Realm.

“Thank you,” she mumbled.

Aurora waved her hand once.

“Wait outside for now. I need a word with him.”

The elf princess looked at Gray briefly.

He nodded.

She turned and left the office, the door closing behind her with a soft, definitive sound.

The office went quiet.

Aurora looked at Gray, who was also staring back at her.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

It was the kind of quiet you get when one person has thought out what they want to say while the other has already guessed it.

“You know who she is, right?” Aurora asked.

“Elaríen,” he replied instantly.

“Eldest daughter of the Elven High Council. Disappeared a few years ago. Presumed dead by half the kingdom and politically withdrawn by the other half.”

Aurora’s eyes didn’t change.

“She’s not presumed dead anymore,” she sighed.

“Right now… she’s sitting outside my office.”

“Yes.”

“Which means the moment her existence becomes known,” Aurora stated, “every party that benefited from her disappearance has a problem. And every party that was looking for her has a reason to move.”

She folded her hands on the desk.

“The Elven High Council will want her back. The demons who held her will want to know how she got out. The kingdom’s political structure, which has been operating for more than five years around the assumption of her absence, will need to recalibrate.”

“I know,” Gray nodded.

This was something normal, as Elaríen was supposedly the next empress of the Elven Kingdom, and also the most pure elf in terms of bloodline.

But despite all of those risks, Gray still needed her help with something. Her Spirit Energy was going to be extremely important for him.

“That recalibration, depending on how it goes, could involve armed conflict between the Elven territories and whoever they decide is responsible for her captivity.” She looked at him calmly.

“Which, given that she was found by a human student at a human academy, could very easily be pointed in a direction that becomes inconvenient for everyone here.”

“I understand.”

Looking at his deadpanned expression and extremely calm words, Aurora sighed, furrowing her eyebrows as she gave him a tired look.

“It’s a war, Gray… not some kind of skirmish.”

Gray looked at her and shrugged.

’A war would be more beneficial to me than anything else…’ he added inwardly.

“You understand that I just said war,” she said.

“I heard you.”

“And your response is to shrug.”

“I’m not planning to start a war,” he spoke calmly.

“I just need one thing from her. After that, she goes back to wherever she decides to go, through whatever channel she decides to use. What happens after that is between her and the people she goes back to.”

“And if what happens after that involves armed conflict that traces back to this academy?”

“Then that’s a problem for after.”

Aurora narrowed her eyes, looking at him for a long moment.

The look she gave him wasn’t the usual warm glance she often showed.

Instead, it was a different one, more serious and revealing, showing the deeper truth of who Aurora really was beneath her typical facade.

At this, Gray wanted to curl up his lips, but held himself back.

“You’re very calm about very large consequences…”

“What do you mean?” he blinked twice, almost innocently.

“What’s here is a girl who spent a lot of time in a Nether Realm cell and needs food and sleep. There’s no such thing as consequences…”

Hearing his words, Aurora snorted.

“Whatever… just keep her out of sight. Don’t register her name in any academy documentation. If anyone asks, she’s a visiting relative,” she paused slighly, giving him a warning last glance.

“And whatever that favor is, do it quickly.”

“No worries, I intend to.”

He turned toward the door.

“Gray.”

He stopped.

“I’m serious about the war,” she spoke in a completely serious tone.

“I know you are.”

He opened the door and walked out.

The elf princess was standing in the corridor outside, her back against the wall, looking at the academy grounds through the window at the corridor’s end with the expression of someone relearning what normal air felt like.

She heard him come out and looked at him.

He gestured forward without speaking and started walking.

She followed as Gray led her towards the eastern residential block.

It was obviously quieter than the main dormitory buildings, separated from the student traffic by a stretch of garden that had been maintained well enough to be pleasant and ignored well enough to be private.

The building was smaller than the main ones, with two floors and a straightforward design that focused on function rather than beauty.

Aurora had apparently sent someone ahead.

The door was unlocked.

Two rooms on the second floor, both prepared, clean linens, a lamp burning in each.

The common space between them had a table, two chairs, and a window that looked out over the garden rather than the main courtyard, which suited Gray fine.

He set down the few things he had carried from his previous room and looked around once.

“Good enough,” he nodded in complete satisfaction.

The elf princess stood in the common space doorway, looking at the room with an expression that moved through something briefly before settling.

She had been in a cell for half a century.

A room with a window and clean linens was probably nothing.

She turned to him.

“I haven’t introduced myself,” she noticed and spoke.

“No.”

“You probably already know who I am.”

He nodded once.

She accepted that without particular reaction.

“Elaríen,” she said anyway.

“Though the few friends I had shortened it.”

“To what?”

“Elin.”

He nodded.

She looked at him for a moment.

“What did she say to you? Aurora.” Her voice was direct. “You don’t have to tell me, but I’d rather know.”

Gray looked at her.

“Keeping you here could start a war,” he didn’t bother hiding the truth from her.

“Between the Elven territories and anyone they decide is responsible for your captivity. Given that a human student at a human academy is the one who found you, the direction that points isn’t comfortable for anyone here.”

Elin took the news calmly, showing that she had already thought about it and was just confirming what she suspected.

She was quiet for a moment.

“…Are you sure you want to keep me?” she asked.

Gray looked at her and smiled lightly.

“I still need you to do me a favor… Until then, you won’t be able to escape my grasp, whether you want to or not.”

He reached over as he said it, his attention already half turned toward the corridor, and his fingers brushed her ear lightly, tracing the outer edge of it where a long, thin wound ran from the middle curve downward, the kind of wound that had been left untreated long enough to need proper attention.

“This needs to be looked at.”

Then he turned and walked toward the corridor.

“There should be a medical kit in the lower cabinet. I’ll find it.”

He disappeared around the corner.

Elin stood exactly where she was.

She didn’t move for a long moment.

She raised her hand and gently touched her ear where he had brushed it, feeling the warmth of that brief, light touch lingering against her skin.

She stood in the peaceful common area of her apartment building, with neat linens around her and a window that looked out at a garden.

Nobody had touched her gently in half a century.

Nobody had touched her gently in considerably longer than that, if she was being honest about it, the Elven High Council’s definition of care having always been closer to management than warmth.

He hadn’t even noticed he’d done it.

That was the part that caught her somewhere she hadn’t expected.

He had looked at the wound and reached out and touched it the way someone touched a problem they intended to solve, without ceremony, without asking permission, without making it into anything except what it was.

And somehow that mattered more than if he had meant it.

She lowered her hand.

Her face was warm in a way she chose not to examine too closely.

She had spent almost half a century in a cell, feeling invisible, feeling discarded, feeling like the disownment had been the world’s way of confirming what the Elven Court had always implied about her.

That she wasn’t worth keeping.

And then this person, who had walked into a Nether Realm fortress carrying a sleeping snake and moving through demon guards like they were a mild inconvenience, had told her she wouldn’t be able to escape his grasp.

Like she was worth holding onto.

She stood in the quiet common space and felt, for the first time in a very long time, something she had almost forgotten was possible.

Wanted.

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