Chapter 960: Violet At The Threshold
Violet at the Threshold (Arthur’s POV)
By late morning the penthouse sounded like a house instead of a headquarters.
We’d fixed the squeaky wheel on Stella’s workshop cart, tuned the reading lamp in her nook so it slid kindly from "read" to "sleep," and printed a silly photo of the three of us—Stella mid-tongue, me failing to look dignified, Rose caught laughing. Stella put it on the shelf above her bed with both hands like placing a ward stone. The room’s hum changed half a note. Small, real things do that.
"Agenda item four," Stella said, hopping off the bench. "Test balcony wind. Scientific hair assessment."
"Shoes," Rose said, catching her by the elbow. "The tiles get hot."
"Operational footwear engaged," Stella reported, racing for her sneakers.
I stood a second longer than I needed to, watching the way Rose smoothed Stella’s braid and the way Stella leaned into the touch without thinking. It landed in my chest the way a door closes right for the first time after you fix the hinge. Quiet satisfaction. Also a clean line of responsibility: I had let the world eat most of my hours for months. Today I was not letting it back in.
We were halfway to the balcony when the entry chime answered the elevator.
Two soft notes. Not an alarm. A courtesy. The ward flashed the ID across the living room panel without me asking.
REIKA — ACCESS OK.
"Saved by the bell," Stella said, pivoting in place. The fox under her arm tilted like a tiny judge. "Reika’s here!"
Rose’s eyes flicked to mine—automatic check, old habit, not permission. I nodded, already walking to the door.
It slid open before I reached it. Reika stepped in with her usual grace, the kind that makes it look like doors were built to accommodate her and not the other way around. Violet hair braided tight and clean. Jacket off, plain blouse and slacks, a canvas market bag on one shoulder, another looped at her elbow. She had that efficient Saturday look that has saved my life more times than most people know.
"Welcome home," she said, and the formality thinned when she saw me. The corners of her eyes softened. "Master."
"Reika," I said, and took one of the bags before she could argue. It was heavy and smelled like herbs and garlic. "You brought half a garden."
"Dinner insurance," she said. "Contingency plan A through C. Also snacks." Her gaze checked my face like a medic—color, focus, posture. Satisfied, she moved on.
Stella hit her at speed.
"Reika!"
Reika set the second bag down and opened her arms without breaking stride. Stella fit under her chin like she’d been designed to live there. Reika kissed the top of her head, then leaned back far enough to inspect her like a project. "You have been up to crimes," she said, mock-stern. "Chocolate?"
"Physics," Stella said at once. "And we fixed the wheel. And calibrated the lamp. And—"
Her mouth ran ahead of the room. Her eyes went to Rose, bright the way they get when she wants to show someone a good thing.
"—and Mom did my braid."
The word hung a breath too long before the room remembered how to move.
Reika didn’t drop her smile. She didn’t gasp. She didn’t do anything that would have been rude in front of a child. The shift was smaller than that: a half-breath caught, a blink that took one heartbeat more than usual, the tiniest tightening where collarbone meets shoulder, as if an invisible strap had been pulled one notch too tight.
I felt Rose go very still beside me. Not scared. Careful.
Stella barreled on, unarmed and unstoppable in the way truth is at twelve. "Mom made the light perfect. And she knows the knot that doesn’t catch on hinges. Look." She turned, displaying the braid like a patent. "Structural integrity."
Reika’s eyes tracked the line of it. Professional appreciation registered, because she is always honest with the work. Then her gaze lifted to the photo on the shelf—our silly print still drying at the edges. I watched the data settle: the braid, the lamp, the word, the picture that had not been there last time she tucked Stella in.
"Beautiful," she said. Her tone was correct. Her voice was a fraction lower. "You look... very happy."
"I am," Stella said fervently. "We’re making boring on purpose."
"That is a high art," Reika replied. She reached and fixed a flyaway hair by Stella’s temple, fingers steady. Then she set her hand on Stella’s shoulder like she always does when she is about to pivot the room. "You promised Charlotte you would finish your reading module today."
"I did finish," Stella said. "Mostly. Eighty-five percent."
"Ninety-five is the floor," Reika said, gentle, automatic. "Go bring it here. We will check together, then you can show me the wheel and the lamp."
"Okay," Stella said, already spinning toward her suite. She stopped, sudden thought rattling out. "Mom helped me understand the last problem. She explained it like a person, not a book." She shot off down the hall, socks sliding on polished wood.
The apartment exhaled with her. A different air rushed in.
Reika watched the empty doorway for a beat longer than she had to. Then she turned back with a smile so perfect it might have been measured with a ruler.
"Congratulations," she said to Rose. Polite. Precise. A tone she uses in courtrooms and budget meetings when no one in the room is as smart as she is and she is choosing not to notice. "On your... promotion."
It was a knife with velvet on it.
Rose didn’t flinch from it. She stepped forward a half step, hands open at her sides where Reika could see them, voice even. "I asked last night," she said. "She chose. We were going to tell you. We just... kept the morning for ourselves."
Reika’s eyes came to me at that last word. Ourselves
. There are honest words that are worse than lies.I put the market bag on the counter so I wouldn’t crush the basil. Very carefully, I didn’t move closer to either of them. "You were with her for months when I wasn’t," I said. Plain, not defensive. "You kept her world from tipping. That doesn’t change now."
A better man might have found a softer sentence. I am still learning how to be the kind of man my family deserves. Reika heard the intent anyway; I saw it in the way her jaw unclenched halfway through the second clause. But intent isn’t inoculation.
"She calls me Reika," she said, and it should have been nothing. It was not nothing. "Sometimes ’Rei’ when she runs out of breath. That is... also a word you choose."
Rose nodded. "It is." She took another half step. "You have been there. You are there. This doesn’t take anything from you."
Reika held her eyes. "That is a claim," she said softly. "We will see if it is true."
The faucet dripped once, a tiny treacherous sound. Somewhere in the city below, a siren wound up and then away. The fox on Stella’s armchair looked pointedly neutral.
Stella thundered back in with a stack of light boards and the certainty that she was bringing the most important thing anyone would hold today. She skidded to a stop at the edge of the carpet, saw Reika by the counter, saw Rose by me, read nothing that would trouble a child, and beamed at all of us at once.
"Okay!" she said, planting her module on the island. "Mom, you sit here. Reika, you sit here. Daddy, you’re not allowed to help unless it’s a safety thing."
Reika’s gaze flicked to the spot Stella patted—right beside Rose. For a heartbeat she did not move.
"Reika?" Stella prompted, oblivious and eager. "Please?"
Reika set down the second canvas bag with care a surgeon would respect. The handles made no sound against the counter. She smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle from her blouse, every motion neat, everything exactly where it should be.
Then she walked to the island and stopped opposite Rose instead of beside her.
"Of course," she said. The smile she put on was flawless. Her eyes were not.
"Master," she added without looking at me, the word too crisp by half. "After we finish Stella’s module—"
She didn’t finish.
The ward light over the door pulsed once, sensing tension it could not categorize.
Stella looked up, pencil mid-air, mouth open to ask a question she would remember.
And Reika’s hand, the one resting on the countertop, curled very slowly into a fist.