Shilo helped Lytah prepare a simple dinner of chicken and rice. Neither one of them had spoken much after lunch. Shilo was still feeling too resentful and ashamed of his jealousy to say anything, not that there was anything to say.

She set the table for four with a booster seat strapped to one of the chairs. Her husband was bringing their little girl back home since in Shilo’s brief stay, he’d already proven himself no threat. 

Lytah’s quarters were impeccable, not an item was out of place. The apartment consists of three bedrooms, a study, living area, and dining room, along with the typical washroom and small kitchen. Everything from the tatted lace doilies on the elaborate carved tables to the decorative crystal energy-lamps atop of them down to the fragile looking dinnerware being laid out on the embroidered linen tablecloth, presented itself with a luxurious and sophisticated feel. The apartment was trying to impress, and for someone like Shilo whose bed of late consisted of whatever barn or goat-shed he could break into, it was doing a fine job of just that.  

Lytah sat down at the table and instructed Shilo to do the same. She didn’t sit at either head, just at the side with Shilo beside her as they waited patiently for her husband to arrive. The food was out on the table waiting to be dished out, serving utensils placed, and the pot of tea was warm with cups at the ready. Everything was set and they just sat here, waiting. There must be some sort of routine to all this, she sat proper and upright with her hands on her lap. She even went so far as to scold him whenever he placed his elbows on the table. This was nothing like how she ate when it was just the two of them. She was relaxed then. But this? This felt wrong.

“Uh, why aren’t you sitting at the head? The few times I’ve been in households that ate fancy at a table, the man sat at one end and the woman the other.”

“Not my place. The head is for my husband and any honored guests. Now be quiet, he’ll be home soon. And don’t do anything to embarrass us, I actually enjoy your company.”

“Huh, what now?” 

She hushed him instead of explaining herself. The whole conversation was off. She’s the wife but it wasn’t her place? Then to say she actually enjoyed his company? He thought he was trapped here. Would he get thrown out if he acted like an ass?

“No, you’d get put in someone else’s care. So please, behave.”

“Did you just read my mind? Quit that!”

“And while we’re on that subject, you felt a slight vibration in the core of the steel balls. Didn’t you?”

“No?”

“Don’t lie to a Sensitive, it’s demeaning.”

“I’m not a mage! I’m not a muscle man! I’m just a damn blacken freak! Ask anyone who owned—I mean, cared for me!”

“Just hush it.”

They sat there in awkward silence for what felt like an eternity. Now that he was told not to speak, Shilo wanted to—if anything just to argue that the vibration coming from those balls could be explained by some unmagical means—but she hushed him with every breath. Any time he tried to fidget, she stopped that too. He felt himself starting to nod off when the door finally opened.

“Lytah.”

“Romin,” speaking his name as a way of greeting, Lytah rose from her seat to pull out his chair before helping the child into hers. 

She served the girl first, then made a plate for Romin. Shilo started reaching to dish out his own food but the looks he received stopped him mid reach. With a sigh, he laid his hands back on his lap and waited for Lytah to serve him. He didn’t understand, the only person who needed any help fixing their plate was the little kid. But he’d been to too many different households to know what proper edict was anymore. He’d seen dinner as free for all at some houses, encountered the other extreme where everyone had to line up holding their plate, and met about all points in between. One house, you even had to thank everyone from the gods down to the seed in the ground before you could eat. 

Thinking of that, the house of his birth was kind of the same. Nana Juo would dish out the food for him and his mother, then have them give thanks to Earth Mother Dra and Sky Father Sel before they supped. Fancy people just have too many weird customs for him to keep them all straight. All he wanted to do was eat.

They ate in silence, save the periodical humming coming from the small girl who looked about four. Once her husband was finished eating, the lecture began.

“Lytah, how many times have I told you not to interact with those barbarians? I don’t care how they’re attached to Prime Chancellor Zeir, thugs guised as bailiffs are more cultured than those two louts. I know we Hybryds were trying to avoid having any form of royalty, and having the two heads of government wed each other would be the same as forcing a monarchy down our throats. But still, marrying Wenray would have been a damn sight more logical than…”

Lytah clenched her jaw and avoided his gaze.

“I’m getting off tangent,” he said, clearing his throat. “Anyway, their affiliation with the Chancellor is the exact reason why you were forbidden in the first place. Who knows what information they’ll glean from you to report to the Chancellor. You’re too naïve, Lytah, and that naivety could cost me my seat on the Council. Staying away from them is the best recourse. It’s for your own good as well as mine.”

She still hadn’t said anything to refute his words, she just stared at her half-eaten plate of food.

Romin sighed, “I know forbidding you does nothing, really. You just stay away for a few weeks and then fall back to your same old habits. You harbor this fallacy that those barbarians are your family, which is something I can’t even begin to comprehend. Mundanes and mages do not hold to the same principles, especially when those mundanes are warriors. Those warmongering brutes all have delusions of grandeur and perceive mages as inferior when they themselves are in fact the ones who are subsidiary to us.”

Lytah kept her face perfectly blank as she continued to stare at her plate.

“Falling in with them lowers your integrity to your fellow mages. You’d soon be viewed as a secondhand conjurer who only fools the weak willed into believing you’ve performed some miracle. You’ll lose credibility, and I’ll become a laughingstock.” 

Still not speaking or looking away from her plate, she moved her fork to the table as if to single she was finished.

He frowned at her lack of utterance. “I could go on all day about the clashes and vices of different class alignments in relationships until I’m blue in the face and it still wouldn’t sway you. Would it? I’d just be wasting my breath. Earnestly, I would appreciate a little decorum out of you if at all possible. Pretend you care at least, dammit.” He wiped his hands off with a linen napkin and then tossed it angrily on the table before retiring for the study.

With a sigh, she helped the girl down and began clearing the table. “Shilo, the room is all prepared for you if you want to go to bed now.”

“He’s sleeping in your room, Lytah? Are you going to sleep with me? Or do I sleep with Daddy? Why is he here? Daddy didn’t tell me,” the girl rambled on while giving Shilo the stink eye. “He looks funny. Why’s his clothes so big? Why didn’t his grammy dress him right? Where’s his daddy? Did his mommy die too? Why is he black? He doesn't look strong. Is he strong? Why do we have him? I don’t want him here, he looks weird.”

“Hydee, stop being rude. Shilo will be staying with us for a while so be nice. Now, go find a book for us to read before bed.”

With one last sour scowl towards the ragamuffin of a boy, Hydee ran off to the bookcase.

“Delightful child,” Shilo said with such an air of artificial sweetness that Lytah narrowed her eyes in a glare.

Shilo sat on the bed in his bedroom. Correction, Lytah’s bedroom. The room was small, just big enough for a bed, a chest of draws, and a tiny writing desk not much wider than its chair. The desk was positioned under a window that overlooked the park, which only added to the caged feel of the room. He felt like a prisoner looking out the window towards the lie that was wishful freedom. 

He flopped back on the bed with a huff. No wonder those two guards questioned her marriage if she lives like this. I question it right now.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Lytah entered Romin’s bedroom and quietly shut the door. She stood there a few moments fiddling with the sleeve of her nightgown waiting to be acknowledged. Truthfully, sleeping on the sofa would have been more preferable, but she didn’t want the embarrassment of explaining herself to the boy. Appearances meant everything after all, she grimaced to herself, and theirs wasn’t the typical marriage. 

With an inaudible sigh, Lytah muttered, “Sorry, I, eh, moved my belongings in here to let Shilo have my room. I can sleep in Hydee’s room if that’s more appropriate.”

“No, you can share my bed,” Romin said as he sat up and patted the spot beside him. “It’s fine, Lytah. I’m no longer cross with you.”

Lytah nodded and crawled in bed. The bed was comfortable even if the rest of her was not. “How long are we caring for the boy?”

“Until the Council gets answers. So, tell me, what have you learned?”

“He knows nothing. He can’t even perform the simplest spells. Either Archmagus Litton cursed him before dying of his not so mysterious death or the mage who killed Kaya somehow hindered his mana. Either way, it’s not a simple mana block.”

“But he is the right boy, right?” Romin leaned in close and cupped her cheek as he softly uttered, “He is Kaya’s son?”

“Yes.”

“Is he as powerful as his mother was? Can his mana be cultivated?” Romin ran kisses down the pulse of her throat. “More importantly, can you harness it?”

“I-I’d have to unlock his mana, and I’m not sure how it’s even blocked.”

“But it is possible,” he said between kisses as he ran a hand up her nightgown, fondling her small breasts. “I don’t intend to just control the vessel like that fool, Litton, I want the vessel’s mana for my own. And you, my pet, can you do that?”

“I…” His mouth covered hers, trapping her words behind his kiss. 

She let out little gasps where appropriate to encourage him to finish. It will be over soon. He didn’t do it out of love, it was never about love. 

While he slept, she snuck out towards the bathroom to wash the smell of him off of her. Once done, she crept into Hydee’s room and curled up next to the girl. Lytah knew it was all a lie, the man would never love her, he only cared for the abilities she possessed and how it elevated his station. But she still couldn’t leave. Lytah silently shed her tears while holding Hydee, a child she had grown to love as though she were her own.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Shilo stilled, he heard footsteps approaching. He pressed his ear to the door and released his breath, the footfalls passed on by. It had been quiet for hours now and still no one had checked on him. Trusting lot.

He removed the pin and gently slid the window open to peek his head out. The rain was cold upon his neck and clouds blocked out the moon, but a streetlamp down below highlighted the building. He made a sour face. The apartment was three stories up. There were ledges on every window so with some careful planning, he might be able to get down without breaking his neck. If not for the rain making everything slick. 

With a curse, he slid the window closed and replaced the pin before pressing his head to the cool glass. The lady had been nothing but kind and she did find someone to take in Asha. Besides, he had no clue where to find Asha, and as happy as she looked, no hope that she’d even want to leave with him if he did.