Chapter 265: Pests, Novels About Himself, and Fourteen Whole Days
Chapter 265: Pests, Novels About Himself, and Fourteen Whole Days
Elyn’s POV
I crossed my arms.
"What is this I hear," I said, "about you locking the children up?"
Zorathys blinked.
There was a brief, almost visible shift in his expression — something that might have been confusion, or mild disappointment, or both layered together.
"I thought," he said slowly, "that I had done something to upset you."
He paused.
"But you’re talking about those pests?"
"The children," I said, "are not pests."
He considered this.
"They behave like pests," he said. "They look like pests. They speak like pests."
He said it with the calm certainty of someone presenting evidence that he found thoroughly convincing.
"Therefore," he concluded, "they are pests."
I stared at him.
"Is that your reasoning?" I asked. "That’s the full reasoning?"
"It is sound reasoning," he said.
"It’s not."
"It is."
I exhaled through my nose.
"Is it because you’re annoyed by their existence?" I asked. "Is that why you locked them up? Because they exist and that annoys you?"
He made a face.
A genuine, full expression of distaste that communicated, very clearly, that I had dramatically undersold the situation.
"Their existence alone is not enough to lock them up," he said.
"Good," I said, for once agreeing with his logic.
I didn’t even get to finish my words or fully agree with him when he spoke up again.
"Their existence demands killing."
I opened my mouth in shock.
"I only locked them up," he added before I could say anything more, "because I felt like it."
I looked at him. He looked back at me calmly, like what he had said was perfectly reasonable.
"Zorathys."
"Yes, Firefly?"
"That is not a reason."
"It is my reason," he said simply. "Which makes it a reason."
I was going to need a moment.
He seemed to sense this and took the opportunity to look back at the novel still open in his hand — hovering in the air in front of him, held there by a tendril of shadow that had clearly been assigned this specific task.
He glanced at the page and then sighed, gesturing for the shadow to close the book.
"I was getting to a good part," he said, and his tone carried genuine mourning.
I looked at the novel.
"What were you reading?" I asked, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
"A historical account," he said, "of how I dismantled my enemies from over a thousand years ago."
I paused.
"You were reading," I said carefully, "a novel about yourself."
"Yes," he said. "The writing is quite good too."
I didn’t say anything for a moment.
I genuinely didn’t know what to say to that, so I moved on, because there were things that needed to be addressed and Zorathys reading novels about his own historical victories was, apparently, just a detail of his existence that I was going to have to file away alongside the pajamas and the body pillow and the emotional distance from his stamp and, well... his existence.
"Why," I said, returning to the actual issue, "did you lock the children up?"
He sighed again like he could not believe I was still talking about this.
His wings folded inward and disappeared — a smooth, quiet retraction that left no trace — and he descended the rest of the way from the air, landing with a lightness that didn’t match how large and unhurried everything else about him was.
He stood before me.
"The pests," he said, "deserved it."
"They did nothing to you," I said.
He turned to look at me with an expression I could only describe as mildly offended.
"What makes you think," he said, "that they did nothing to me?"
I frowned.
"The pests you are so fond of," he continued, "destroyed your office."
I blinked.
"They..." I stopped. "What?"
"Your office," he said. "Walls, windows, furniture. Various creatures that had no business being in a palace. Considerable water damage. Also fire." He paused. "Also a gravitational anomaly."
I stared at him.
"The children," I said slowly, "destroyed the office."
"Yes."
"While I was holding court."
"Yes."
I processed this.
I took a breath.
"Okay," I said. "Hypothetically — and I’m saying hypothetically — let’s say I believe you. That the children destroyed the office." I held his gaze. "That’s not the main reason you locked them up, is it?"
Zorathys looked at me.
His ruby eyes were steady — that half-lidded attention that saw everything and commented on none of it, just held the gaze and waited.
He didn’t answer immediately. He just yawned and pressed the back of his hand to his mouth briefly before his eyes found mine again.
"You know me a little," he said.
"I know you somewhat," I corrected.
The faintest curve touched the corner of his mouth.
"The pests," he said, "are locked up because they disturbed my peace."
Why am I not surprised?
"Zorathys," I said softly. "Release them."
His earrings moved with the small shake of his head — a brief swing before settling.
I held his gaze.
"Zorathys," I said.
"Firefly," he replied.
"You have been ignoring me," I said, "for two weeks."
He said nothing.
"That is fourteen days," I continued.
Still nothing.
"Fourteen whole days," I said. "And in those fourteen days, you have not shown your face to me. Your door has not appeared. Your shadows move through the palace, which means you were here in the palace, which means you made a deliberate choice to be here and also to be entirely invisible to me."
He just continued staring at me.
"And then," I continued, "after fourteen days of that — fourteen days of no explanation, no appearance, nothing — the first time you choose to be visible, to actually show up somewhere in this palace, it is not to come to me." I kept my voice even. "It is not to explain yourself. It is not even to simply exist in the same space as me. It is to go to the children, who are children, and lock them in an underground cell?"
The room was quiet for a while and then Zorathys tilted his head.
"Are you annoyed," he asked, "because I locked the pests up?"
I looked at him.
"Or," he continued, his voice carrying that lazy, unhurried quality, "because I didn’t come to see you?"
I held his gaze.
"Both," I said.
Something moved in his expression.
He looked at me for a moment — that steady, half-lidded look — and then his brows pulled together very slightly.
"But Firefly," he said. "We are seeing each other right now."