Chapter 224: Same Bed
Jane was quiet for a moment with the quality of quiet she had when processing something that required actual processing rather than just acknowledgment.
"Thank you for the material." He said. "Both times. Nemo told me what you sent."
"Your domain needed it." She said, with the simplicity of someone for whom the action had been obvious. "And your familiar." A pause. "The evolutions progressed correctly?"
"Domain is at the 4th Order." He said. "Ileana is at 4th Origin Mythic Class. Leon is at 4th Origin. Magnar is at 4th Origin."
Another pause, longer.
"Your domain is at the 4th Order." She repeated, with the particular quality of arranging a significant piece of information in the correct position relative to everything else she knew.
"Yes." He said.
She was quiet again, the silence carrying weight.
"The lost elven kingdom." She said eventually. "The timeline has narrowed further, I need you in the clash realm before you start your evolution, there are things to go over and I want to see your current state directly." She paused. "How soon can you be ready?"
"Tomorrow." He said.
"Then tomorrow it is." She said.
A pause that was different from the informational ones.
"Neil." She said.
"Yes?" He said.
"I am really glad you came back from that realm." She said, in the register she used when she was saying the actual thing rather than the professional version.
He looked at her in the display for a moment.
"I told you I would." He said.
Something moved in her expression.
"Tomorrow." She said, and ended the call.
He sat on the wall section with the cool night air around him and the domain barrier luminescent at the edges and the settlement quiet in the late hour.
"You heard all of that." He said internally.
"I hear most things." Freya replied, with the dry quality she sometimes had. "The lost elven kingdom. I have been thinking about what that place might mean for us."
"Tell me."
"The elven ruins are old enough that the dimensional architecture of them is different from anything built in the current era." She said. "The barriers between spaces are thinner in places like that, the older the construction the more the boundaries have degraded over time." A pause. "For a phantom, a place with degraded dimensional barriers has certain implications."
"You could get a body." He said.
"The possibility exists." She said. "It would require the right conditions and the right materials and the right moment, all of which are unknowns until we are actually inside." Another pause. "But the possibility exists."
Neil thought about this.
"Caleb and Rabid Wolf will be there." He said.
"I know." She said. "And phantoms may also be present if the dimensional barriers are thin enough to have allowed incursion before the kingdom opens to outside access." A pause. "Which is a problem and an opportunity simultaneously."
"Your father’s people." He said.
"And yours." She said, with the even quality she had when stating something she had fully processed rather than something that still had rough edges on it.
They were quiet for a moment, the particular kind of quiet they had between them when both were thinking about the same complicated thing from slightly different angles.
"My father’s competition." She said. "The one he is conducting against Jackal. You and I are both pieces in it." She paused. "If we are both present in a place with thin dimensional barriers and phantom activity, the possibility that the competition comes into direct contact with us is not negligible."
"I know." He said.
"I want my body back." She said, and her voice had the quality of something said without any performance, just the direct statement of what was true. "I have been patient about this for a very long time and I am willing to be patient for longer if necessary, but I want it back."
"I know." He said again.
"When we go to the elven kingdom." She said. "I need you to prioritise it if the conditions arise. Not over your own survival, not at an unreasonable cost, but if the conditions arise and the window is there, I need you to not let it close."
He thought about this.
"Agreed." He said.
She was quiet for a moment.
"You and I have more in common than I expected when this started." She said. "That is not a complaint, it is just something I have been noticing."
"Same." He said.
"Get some sleep." She said, with the dry practicality she sometimes deployed. "You have a lot of things to do tomorrow."
He sat on the wall section for a little while longer after she went quiet, looking at the domain and the settlement around it and the sky above it, and then he got up and walked back toward the main building.
He pushed open the door to the room and stopped.
Ileana was sitting on the left side of the bed in her nightwear with the small light beside her and the settled expression of someone who had made a decision and was comfortable with it.
Jane was sitting on the right side of the bed in her own nightwear with a face that was doing several things at once, the cheeks red and her eyes not quite able to meet the door when it opened, her hands folded in her lap with the posture of someone trying to appear more composed than they were.
Neil stood in the doorway and looked at the two of them.
He could tell immediately whose idea this was.
Ileana met his eyes across the room with the expression she had when she had done something she was entirely confident about and was not going to defend because it did not need defending.
Jane was examining something on the far wall with the focused attention of someone who had decided that looking directly at the situation was not something she was ready to do yet.
He stood there for a moment.
Then he went to the bathroom without saying anything.
He heard Jane’s voice through the door, low and uncertain, asking something.
He heard Ileana’s voice respond, calm and reassuring, the tone of it carrying the particular quality of someone managing another person’s anxiety with the steady patience she brought to things she cared about.
He washed and came back out in his own nightwear and stood at the edge of the bed.
"I am starting the evolution tomorrow." He said. "Both of you have gotten stronger while I was gone, and when we go to the lost elven kingdom you need to be prepared for what that place will ask of you."
He climbed onto the bed and lay back.
On his left, Ileana moved toward him with the easy and practiced quality of two people who had been sharing a space long enough that the movement was automatic, her head settling against his arm and her arm across his chest in the familiar configuration.
She looked toward Jane with a slight gesture of her head.
Jane looked at her.
Then she looked at the space on Neil’s right side.
Then she looked at the wall again.
Then she mustered something and moved to his right and lay down beside him, her back not quite against his side at first, the careful distance of someone doing something they wanted and had not yet fully decided they were allowed to want.
He moved his arm under her, the same way it was positioned under Ileana’s head on the other side, and she went still at the contact for a moment.
Then she settled.
Her arm came across his chest from the right, meeting Ileana’s from the left, and she turned her face toward him slightly with the expression of someone who has just been given something they had stopped believing they would receive.
"Thank you." She said, very quietly, not to him specifically but to both of them or to the room or to whatever had arrived at this point.
Ileana made a small sound that was warm and undemanding.
Neil looked at the ceiling.
He wrapped his arm around Jane’s waist on the right and Ileana’s on the left and the room was quiet and warm and the domain was stable outside, and after a while all three of them were breathing in the slow rhythm of sleep.
He woke before either of them.
The small light was off and the room had the particular quality of early morning, the light just beginning to change at the edge of the window, and the two people beside him were still asleep with the deep and unguarded quality of genuine rest.
Ileana was peaceful, which was how she always slept, the composed and calm quality she had when she was awake present even in sleep except without the awareness behind it.
Jane was pressed against his side with her face half hidden against his shoulder, and her expression in sleep was younger than the way she looked when she was awake, the careful management of herself that she carried when she was conscious absent, and there was a tension in her brow that had not been there earlier in the night.
He had noticed it around three in the morning, some dream or memory tightening her expression in a way that was not peaceful, and he had pulled her closer without waking her, and after a few minutes the tension had released and she had settled again.
He stayed still until he was certain he could move without waking either of them, then got up with the careful movement of the predawn hours and went to wash.
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