Chương 199: Chapter 179: We Are Breathing Fire, Victoria

[Time]: Summer Break, Day 48 — 7: 25 PM [Location]: White City · The Wisteria · Greed Umbrella Suite The suite door clicked open. Mihaye Grün stepped across the threshold. Hathaway's first reaction was a sharp, involuntary spike of resentment. Where were you? The demand flared and immediately ran into the wall of evidence. Mihaye looked spectacularly, uncharacteristically depleted.

The former holder of the Fire Dragon Mandate, who usually radiated the chaotic, unhinged momentum of a degenerate gambler on a winning streak, possessed the hollow-eyed posture of someone who had just survived a forced march through a conceptual meat grinder. Then the entity walking in beside Mihaye stepped into the room, and every remaining particle of resentment evaporated. She never had a chance, Hathaway registered, the cold, structural epiphany arriving without drama.

Mihaye was intercepted before she could reach it. Avenka stepped into the suite. The Aspect of Possibility stood easily two meters tall, and every microscopic shift of her frame radiated a kinetic, frictionless energy that made the air in the room feel highly pressurized. She moved like a localized weather system, her thick, naturally curling mane shifting constantly, the cat ears perched in her curling hair twitching in rapid, continuous micro-adjustments.

Above her shoulder, Katalu drifted in, the Greater Lantern Cat's luminous fur casting a soft glow across the black tailcoat and sweeping cloak beneath. In Avenka's right hand, a black-lacquered cane capped with a sculpted cat paw spun through a seamless, high-speed rotation over her knuckles. Hathaway's breath caught. That motion. Evangeline had performed the exact same gesture minutes ago.

But where Evangeline's twirl had been slow, deliberate, a theatrical projection of aristocratic boredom wrapped around lethal intent, Avenka's cane spun with zero embedded subtext. She simply had hands and the cane was there, and remaining perfectly still was biologically incompatible with her operational parameters. Her developer brain processed the visual frame automatically: Evangeline in her immaculate, blinding white plumage; Avenka in sharp, tailored black with gold-stamped hosiery.

At a passing glance, the mirrored theatrical extravagance made them look like a deliberately curated matching set. Then her logic engine threw an uncanny valley exception. Not a matching set, Hathaway registered, a cold spike of clarity cutting through the residual panic. The genuine article and the forgery. Avenka's aesthetic was the effortless extrusion of her existence: she simply wore what she was.

But standing opposite her, Evangeline's untouchable arrogance and flamboyant plumage suddenly read for exactly what they were: a meticulously compiled operating system with nothing running underneath. The closer the imitation mirrored the original, the more violently the void bled through. Avenka crossed the room with the frictionless, bouncing cadence of something entirely unbothered by gravity, and came to a stop in front of Cecilia.

With an old-world gentleman's flourish, she swept the top hat from her hair, took Cecilia's hand, bent her towering frame into a bow, and pressed a brief, sincere kiss to the back of the Witch's knuckles.

"You have grown into a beautiful young lady, Cecilia," Avenka said. Her cat ears went on twitching. Hathaway's eyes tracked to Cecilia. Cecilia's shoulders dropped. The composed architecture of her frame evacuated all at once. It wasn't the careful respect she offered Irene, or the fond exasperation she held for Mihaye. Without thought, Cecilia's free hand rose and lightly brushed her own left cheek. That is muscle memory reaching for a specific coordinate. A phantom memory of a touch from a very long time ago.

Cecilia exhaled a long, careful breath.

"I apologize for allowing you to witness such an embarrassing side of me." Avenka shook her head, leaving the apology deliberately unacknowledged with the warm, easy certainty of someone who had never required one. She pivoted on her heel, her black cloak flaring, and directed a wide, exaggerated W-shaped feline grin at the newly bound Servant.

"How does it feel to be caught?" Avenka asked, her rapid-fire voice carrying a bright, sunny undercurrent of amusement.

"Little bird." Evangeline drew her brows together into a scowl of genuine, deeply unimpressed aristocratic grievance.

"You are truly wicked." Avenka pressed a single finger to her lips, her eyes curving into bright, liquid crescents.

"Enjoy your new life." Without waiting for a response, she pivoted toward the center of the room. Her bright eyes found the Fifth Seat of the High Council.

"Irene! Irene!" Avenka announced, her voice pitching up with capricious, absolute entitlement.

"Let's go. I want to buy books. You are coming with me." Irene's golden eyes widened by a precise, involuntary fraction of a millimeter. The flawless, sunny composure she wore like high-grade armor flickered, betraying a microsecond of genuine, unscripted surprise.

"I'm afraid I have other matters to attend to at present..." Avenka had already crossed the distance and seized Irene's wrist in an iron grip.

"Cat doesn't want to hear it," Avenka declared. Hathaway's linguistic processor threw an exception it had no handler for. Cat. She had met Lantern Cats who spoke the common tongue. They still called themselves "cat." She had never heard a Witch use that pronoun. Not even Cat Witches. Avenka was already marching toward the suite door, her cane punching silently into the living grass with each impatient stride, dragging the undisputed greatest living melee combatant behind her like a reluctant shopping cart.

Irene let out a small, resigned sigh. She offered the room a single, polite farewell nod, and then both women ceased to occupy the spatial coordinates of the suite, taking the entirety of their combined atmospheric pressure with them. Mihaye Grün looked at the empty doorway. The expression on her face was that of a prisoner of war who had just heard the liberation sirens.

She turned to the room and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial stage-whisper, which, in the acoustics of the now-silent suite, was perfectly audible to every living being present.

"What exactly," Mihaye asked Wei Changqing, "did I miss?" Wei Changqing's expression remained a portrait of serene, undisturbed neutrality.

"Evangeline is Cici's slave now." Mihaye's face underwent a Level 7 tectonic collapse. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. Her eyes moved to Evangeline, scanning the woman for any visual confirmation of this impossible report. Evangeline looked back. The Celestial Witch was currently leaning against her polished cane with the effortless, untouchable arrogance of a young lord appraising a disappointing antique.

There was precisely zero subservience in her bearing. Mihaye closed her eyes, shook her head, and let out a long, heavy exhale.

"This," Mihaye declared, "is the single worst financial decision I have ever witnessed in my entire life." She turned to Cecilia.

"As long as you're happy." A brief pause. Her sharp eyes swept the five world champions: the fractured emotional architecture of the past hour. Mihaye took two natural, unhurried steps toward the entryway. She stopped at the doorframe and looked back over her shoulder. The exhausted gambler was gone. The interim coach of the Minothnago Academy looked back at her students.

"I will book the victory banquet," Mihaye stated, her voice carrying the grounding weight of a mentor closing a meeting. Then, her tone dropped a full octave into something significantly colder.

"We will discuss the four points you dropped in the Final later." The door clicked shut. Mihaye and Katalu were gone. The silence rushed back in. Victoria shifted. She was preparing to step into the center of the wreckage: if the room contained only Cecilia, Evangeline, and herself, it became a Wellington family matter. Cecilia looked at her and preempted the sequence.

"Vicky," Cecilia said softly.

"You and Hathaway still have things to discuss, don't you?" Evangeline's head tilted. The liquid amethyst tracked slowly from Victoria, to Hathaway, and back to Victoria, taking in the tension in their shoulders, the unsaid variables between them. The Celestial Witch smiled.

"You've grown up, Vicky." Victoria's face went dead.

"You are the only person in existence who has no right to say that to me." Cecilia turned her head to Evangeline.

"Please go outside. Sister." Hathaway's boots froze to the floor. Beside her, Victoria's breath caught. Evangeline's eyes widened by a fraction. The theatrical composure slowed.

"This is truly unlike you, Cici."

"Because you cannot simply leave either, can you?" Cecilia replied, her voice perfectly smooth, devoid of malice or triumph. A statement of facts, read from a contract.

"I am exercising my authority as your Master." Evangeline stared at her. Then she laughed. It was a loud, breathless laugh that bounced off the vaulted ceiling and pulled genuine tears to the corners of her eyes. She shook her head, shrugging with an effortless, fluid acceptance of the absolute absurdity of her own existence. She lifted her cane and walked past Victoria and Hathaway without a sideways glance. Just before crossing the threshold, Evangeline turned.

She removed her hat, swept it across her chest, and executed a sweeping magician's exit bow to the audience. The door sealed behind her. Victoria waited until the locking mechanism finished its pressurized hiss. Then, without turning her head, she reached out and took Hathaway's hand. Her grip was iron. She looked back at the room one last time.

"You will call me tomorrow morning, right? Sister." Cecilia offered a small, tired smile.

"I will." Victoria turned and pulled Hathaway toward the door. [Time]: Summer Break, Day 48 — 8: 30 PM [Location]: White City · Corner Hand-Ground Coffee Pavilion The transition from a dimensionally-sealed bloodbath to a street-corner coffee kiosk was causing Hathaway's developer brain to drop frames. Three blocks from The Wisteria, the main avenue thinned into a quieter side street. Victoria's pace slowed. A small, battered wooden kiosk occupied the corner, its worn signboard barely legible.

The air around it smelled intensely of roasted earth and impending doom. Victoria stopped. She pulled her coin purse.

"Two cups of the house special." The shop manager was a Dwarf Witch. She was currently standing atop a massive, heavily reinforced cardboard box, which brought her head into rough proximity of the transaction window's lower frame. Even with the assist, she had to tilt her chin upward to establish a line of sight with Victoria's face.

"Two Vissel hand-ground," the Dwarf Witch confirmed. She puffed her cheeks, her expression a mask of absolute, unblinking granite. She stretched both arms upward, gave a short, determined hop, and her thick, voluminous curls bounced violently as she yanked a heavy glass jar from the top shelf. Hathaway stared at the contents. The Vissel coffee beans resting inside were roughly the size of the Dwarf Witch's entire fist. Dense, gnarled, possessing the structural integrity of compressed river stones.

The Dwarf Witch slammed a massive wooden mug onto the counter. Hathaway estimated the vessel could comfortably hold five liters of tavern ale. The Dwarf Witch reached into the jar, extracted a single, fist-sized bean, and held it directly over the rim of the mug.

"Kiai!" The thick forearm corded. Veins pressed against the skin like steel cables under load. A sound resembling a geological fault line adjusting its position cracked across the quiet street. The fist-sized coffee bean disintegrated into fine, aromatic powder, cascading into the mug. Her grip strength, Hathaway's tactical processor noted in genuine, quiet horror, is comparable to a Greater Lantern Cat. I am updating the threat-assessment database for local baristas.

Two massive, ink-black mugs of concentrated coffee were shoved across the counter. The Dwarf Witch shook her curls once.

"Please enjoy." The aroma rising from the mugs was extraordinary. Rich, concentrated, intensely fragrant. Hathaway's sinuses cleared instantly. Her brain flooded with dopamine. It really is pure hand-ground, she thought, slightly traumatized by the manufacturing process. She lifted the mug with both hands and took a generous gulp. The liquid hit her tongue. A thermal explosion detonated inside her skull. Her face flushed a violent, catastrophic crimson in half a second.

Completely bypassing metaphor, she exhaled a literal jet of low-temperature blue flame into the evening air. Across the small standing table, Victoria had also taken a sip. Victoria's face was an identical, blazing shade of crimson. Tears were visibly welling in the corners of her pale eyes. But the aristocratic firmware refused to yield: Victoria's expression remained locked in its signature, immaculate deadpan even as a thin curl of smoke drifted from her nostrils. The Dwarf Witch looked at them both.

"Weak girls," she said, and turned back to her counter. Is this a date? Hathaway's logic engine wheezed, the question surfacing unbidden through the agony. No documented account of romantic history begins with both parties voluntarily detonating their own respiratory tracts. She looked at the tears clinging to Victoria's eyelashes. She ordered the most hardcore item on the menu without checking the debuff sheet, and now we are both on fire.

In perfect, unspoken synchrony, both of them pushed their five-liter mugs to the far edge of the table. They sat there, panting, waiting for the structural integrity of their throats to rebuild itself. Victoria spoke first. Her voice carried a slight rasp from the smoke.

"What exactly is our relationship now?" Hathaway's brain slammed into a wall. Shouldn't I be the one asking that?! Why does this feel like a project manager demanding an explanation for a missed deliverable? She tested the parameter space.

"... Roommates?" Victoria's brow drew together in a sharp, displeased frown. Hathaway swallowed against the residual burn.

"... Friends?" Victoria reached for her mug. She took a small, spiteful sip. She immediately slapped a hand over her mouth, coughing a shower of bright sparks into her palm, and redirected the full weight of her glare directly at Hathaway through the smoke. Hathaway shrank back. She laced her fingers together, unlaced them, and dropped them to her lap.

"Why are you the one asking me?" Hathaway mumbled. Victoria did not answer. The glare intensified. Under the weight of those pale, tear-rimmed, extremely displeased eyes, Hathaway's composure began to disintegrate. Her mouth opened and the words came out in a frantic, incoherent stream.

"I mean, you were the one who started all of this, not that I'm saying that's what I meant by that, what I actually mean is I'm not sure I was prepared for this specific conversation yet, and this setting is technically wrong for this kind of discussion, we're breathing fire, Victoria, maybe if we thought about the variables for a bit longer—" Victoria's pale eyes went completely, terrifyingly cold. She stood up. She's leaving. I failed the dialogue check. The route is aborted.

Hathaway's head snapped up, her mouth opening to deploy a frantic override— Victoria reached across the small table. Her hand closed around the lapels of Hathaway's coat and hauled her forward. Victoria leaned down and kissed her. Hathaway's lips were entirely, completely numb from the Vissel spice. She couldn't feel the physical pressure. Couldn't register temperature or texture.

Her first kiss, happening at a street-corner coffee kiosk, her mouth chemically anesthetized, both of them actively crying from industrial-grade chili burns. The conditions possessed absolute, total, comprehensive zero cinematic romance. But Hathaway's eyes were open. She had never been this close to Victoria's face before. She saw the slight, involuntary tremor in Victoria's lowered eyelashes. She looked past them, into the pale blue irises beneath, the color of clear early-winter sky.

Through the spice-induced tears pooling at Victoria's lower lashes, the blue looked vast and glassy, like the sky inverted and trembling on the surface of a frozen lake. The kiss felt like it stretched across a geologic epoch. It ended in a fraction of a second. Victoria released her lapels and stepped back. Hathaway stood frozen. Slowly, mechanically, she raised her hand and pressed it against her mouth, palm facing outward.

"... Girlfriend," Hathaway whispered. Victoria did not look at her. She turned her face toward the bustling street, her posture reasserting its immaculate aristocratic geometry. The tips of Victoria's ears were burning bright scarlet.

"... Mhm," Victoria said.