Chapter : 1633

  "It's smart," Mina said. "It means the machine doesn't just run on you; it runs with you. It becomes an extension of your own rhythm. It might solve the overheating issue with the Lilith Stones."

  Lloyd smiled. It was a genuine smile. "You're amazing. You know that?"

  "I'm an archaeologist," she shrugged. "I just know how to read dead people's mail."

  Lloyd laughed. It felt good to laugh. It felt strange, like using a muscle that had atrophied, but it felt good.

  "Mina," he said, his face turning serious. "Thank you. Not just for... this. But for pulling me out. I was in a dark place."

  "I know," she said. She leaned down and kissed his forehead. "Don't go back there. If you feel yourself slipping... come find me. Or I'll come find you."

  "Is that a threat?"

  "It's a promise."

  They lay back down. Lloyd pulled the blanket up over them. The air in the underground lab was chilly, but he felt warm.

  He thought about the future. It was messy. He had a wife he had divorced in his heart but was legally bound to. He had a fiancée who was a foreign princess and a strategic genius. And now he had a lover who was the sister of his wife and the only one who knew his true self.

  It was a disaster waiting to happen. It was a ticking time bomb.

  But as he held Mina close, listening to her steady breathing, Lloyd realized something. He didn't care. He would deal with the fallout later. Right now, he was alive. He was sane. And he had a reason to keep fighting that wasn't just hatred.

  "Goodnight, Lloyd," Mina whispered.

  "Goodnight, Mina," he replied.

  He closed his eyes. The nightmares were still there, waiting at the edges of his mind. But tonight, they didn't come. Tonight, he slept a dreamless, peaceful sleep, guarded by the woman in his arms and the metal giant standing watch in the dark.

  The morning sun didn't reach the underground laboratory directly, but the complex system of mirrors and shafts Lloyd had installed channeled the daylight down, filling the room with a soft, diffused glow. It washed over the concrete floor, the scattered tools, and the silent, imposing form of the Aegis suit.

  It also illuminated the two figures sleeping in the shadow of the machine.

  Lloyd woke up slowly. For the first time in weeks, he didn't wake up with a gasp, reaching for a weapon that wasn't there. He woke up feeling... rested.

  He became aware of the weight on his chest. He looked down. Mina was sound asleep, her face buried in the crook of his neck. Her breathing was slow and rhythmic, a warm puff of air against his skin.

  The cold, mechanical hum of the laboratory—the ventilation fans, the mana-conduits—was pushed into the background. The primary sound in his world was her.

  Lloyd lay there for a long time, just watching the dust motes dance in the light shafts. He felt a profound sense of calm. The frantic, jagged edges of his grief had been softened. They weren't gone—the hole Jasmin left would never truly be filled—but the wound had been cleaned and bandaged. It wasn't bleeding out anymore.

  He shifted slightly, trying to ease a cramp in his leg without waking her. Mina stirred. She made a soft, protesting noise and tightened her grip on his shirt.

  "Five more minutes," she mumbled into his chest.

  Lloyd smiled. "The sun is up. The manufactory shift starts in twenty minutes. If you want to avoid being seen by the morning crew, we need to move."

  Mina groaned and opened one eye. She looked at him, then at the room. Reality came rushing back.

  "Right," she said, sitting up and rubbing her face. "Secret affair. Political disaster. Morning crew."

  She looked at him, and her expression softened. There was no regret in her eyes. No awkwardness. Just a quiet, heavy understanding.

  "How are you?" she asked.

  Lloyd sat up, stretching his stiff back. He checked his internal state. The rage was there, but it was cold now, controlled. The despair was there, but it was manageable.

  "Better," he said honestly. "I feel... focused. But not crazy focused. Just... ready."

  "Good," Mina said. She stood up and began to straighten her rumpled clothes. She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to tame the bedhead. "Because you have a lot of work to do. And I have to go translate a chapter on ancient cooling runes before I forget the syntax."

  Chapter : 1634

  Lloyd stood and walked over to her. He reached out and fixed her collar, his hands lingering on her shoulders.

  "We can't do this often," he said quietly. "It's too dangerous. For you."

  "I know," Mina said. She placed her hands on his chest. "But we did it. And it helped. That's what matters."

  They stood there for a moment, a tableau of intimacy in the cold lab. They were partners now. Not just intellectual equals, but conspirators in survival.

  "Go," Lloyd said gently. "Before Alaric comes in and drops a beaker."

  Mina smiled, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him quickly. "Don't forget to eat. Real food. Not potions."

  She grabbed her books and slipped out of the lab door, checking the hallway before disappearing.

  Lloyd watched the door close. He let out a long breath. He felt lighter.

  He turned to the Aegis suit. He walked up to it and placed his hand on the chest plate.

  "Okay," he said to the machine. "Break time is over. Let's finish this."

  ________________________________________

  Lloyd spent the next hour running a full diagnostic on the neural link. The results were promising. His mind felt sharper, less cluttered by the noise of trauma. He was about to start the final calibration sequence when the door to the lab opened.

  It wasn't Mina. It was Ken Park.

  Ken looked impeccable as always, his uniform crisp, his face a mask of stoic professionalism. But Lloyd knew him too well. He saw the tension in Ken’s jaw. He saw the shadow in his eyes.

  "Lloyd," Ken said. He didn't come in. He stood by the door.

  "Ken," Lloyd said, wiping grease from his hands. "If you're here to tell me to eat, Mina already lectured me. I promise I'll have lunch."

  Ken didn't smile. He stepped into the room, holding a small, sealed scroll in his hand. It wasn't the royal seal. It was a crude wax seal, the kind used by the common courier service in the lower districts.

  "It's not about lunch," Ken said. His voice was heavy.

  Lloyd froze. The calm of the morning evaporated. "What is it?"

  "A courier just arrived at the gate," Ken said. "From the Weaver district. It's a letter from Mrs. Weaver's neighbor."

  Jasmin's mother.

  Lloyd felt a cold spike of dread in his stomach. He hadn't gone to see her yet. He had been too cowardly. He had sent gold, sent food, but he hadn't gone himself. He couldn't face her.

  "Read it," Lloyd commanded, his voice tight.

  Ken broke the seal. He scanned the short, messy scrawl. He looked up, his face grim.

  "It's bad, Lloyd. Since the news... since the funeral... she has taken a turn. A catastrophic turn."

  "Is she sick?"

  "She has stopped eating," Ken said bluntly. "She refuses food. She refuses medicine. The neighbor says she just sits in her chair, holding Jasmin's old doll. She says... she says she's waiting."

  Lloyd closed his eyes. "Waiting for what?"

  "Waiting to die," Ken said. "The neighbor says her will to live is gone. It faded the moment we put Jasmin in the ground. It's like... like she felt the cord snap."

  Lloyd gripped the workbench until his knuckles turned white. This was the aftershock. The ripple effect of his failure. Jasmin was dead, and now her mother was dying of a broken heart. It was another body on his pile. Another tombstone in his head.

  "She wants to see you," Ken added softly. "She keeps asking for 'The Young Lord'. She wants to know if her daughter died brave."

  Lloyd swayed. The weight was crushing. He wanted to say no. He wanted to hide in the suit. He wanted to run back to the oblivion of work.

  But he felt the ghost of Mina’s touch on his shoulder. You have to live. You have to face the rubble.

  He opened his eyes. They were cold, hard flint.

  "Prepare the carriage," Lloyd said.

  "Lloyd," Ken started, "you don't have to—"

  "Prepare the carriage, Ken!" Lloyd snapped. "I am going. I owe her that. I owe her the truth."

  Ken nodded, a flicker of respect in his eyes. "I'll bring the horses around."

  Ken left. Lloyd was alone with the machine.

  He looked at his reflection in the black visor of the Aegis. He looked tired. He looked old. But he didn't look crazy anymore.

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  "I'm sorry," he whispered to the empty air. "I'm so sorry."

  Chapter : 1635

  He grabbed his coat. He checked his pockets—he had the hairpin. The one he had given Jasmin. The one they found in her hand. He would give it to her mother. It was all he had left of her.

  He walked out of the lab, leaving the safety of the dark underground for the harsh light of the surface. He had a war to fight, but first, he had a mother to face. And that terrified him more than any Devil King.

  The carriage ride to the Weaver district was quiet. It wasn't the peaceful quiet of a library; it was the suffocating quiet of a waiting room before a surgery. Lloyd sat across from Mina, his hands resting on his knees. He wasn't shaking anymore. He had moved past shaking into a state of cold, vibrating tension. Ken Park sat on the driver's box outside, but Lloyd could feel his bodyguard’s anxiety radiating through the wood of the carriage.

  The Weaver district smelled like boiled cabbage, wet wool, and hopelessness. It was a sharp contrast to the ozone and oil smell of Lloyd’s laboratory. Here, the poverty wasn't a statistic; it was the mud on the road and the thin faces of the children watching the fancy carriage roll by.

  "You don't have to do this alone," Mina said softly. She reached out to touch his hand, but Lloyd pulled away slightly. He didn't mean to be rude, but his skin felt too sensitive, like he was sunburnt.

  "I do," Lloyd said. "I am the Lord. I am the one who gave the order. The buck stops here, and all that."

  "That's an old saying," Mina noted.

  "It's a good saying. It means I have to pay the bill."

  The carriage stopped in front of a small, leaning house. It looked like a strong wind would knock it over. The roof sagged, and the windows were patched with oiled paper. It was the kind of house that apologized for existing.

  Lloyd stepped out. His boots sank into the mud. He adjusted his coat. He was wearing his fine noble clothes, not his lab gear. He felt like a peacock walking into a graveyard. It felt disrespectful to be this clean.

  A neighbor, a stout woman with arms like tree trunks and a face like a dried apple, was waiting for them. She wiped her hands on her apron and bobbed a clumsy curtsy.

  "My Lord," she said, her voice trembling. "She's inside. She... she ain't good. She talks to the doll like it's people. And she forgot that jasmin died.I think something happened to her memory. But she doesn’t know that, she is dead."

  "Thank you for your information," Lloyd said. "Ken, stay here. Guard the carriage. Don't look at anyone menacingly. Try to look... approachable."

  Ken, who naturally looked like a statue carved from granite and bad news, nodded stiffly. "I will attempt to look... mild."

  Lloyd and Mina entered the house. It was dark inside. The air was thick with the smell of sickness and old lavender. In the corner, sitting in a rocking chair that creaked rhythmically, was Mrs. Weaver.

  She looked small. She had shrunk. Lloyd remembered seeing her once before, from a distance. She had been a vibrant woman then. Now, she was a husk. Her skin was grey, stretched tight over her bones. Her eyes were fixed on a small, ragged doll in her lap. She was stroking its yarn hair with a terrifying tenderness.

  Lloyd felt a lump form in his throat the size of a fist. He had fought monsters. He had stared down a Devil King. But this... this terrified him.

  "Mrs. Weaver?" Lloyd asked. His voice sounded too loud in the small room.

  The woman stopped rocking. She turned her head slowly. Her eyes were cloudy, but they sharpened when they landed on Lloyd.

  "The Young Lord," she whispered. Her voice was like dry leaves. "You came."

  "I came," Lloyd said. He walked over and knelt beside her chair, ignoring the dust on the floor. "I heard you weren't eating."

  "Not hungry," she said. She looked past him, towards the door. "Where is she? Where is my Jasmine?"

  This was the moment. The truth was sitting on Lloyd’s tongue, heavy and bitter. She died. She died saving my father. She died because I wasn't fast enough.

  He looked at her frail chest, rising and falling with shallow breaths. He looked at her hands, trembling on the doll.

  Chapter : 1636

  If he told her the truth, she would die. Right now. Her heart would simply stop. The only thing keeping her tethered to this world was the thin, fraying rope of hope. If he cut that rope with the knife of truth, he would be a murderer.

  Lloyd made a decision. He decided to be a liar. He decided to be the best liar in the history of the kingdom.

  "She's not here," Lloyd said. He forced a smile onto his face. It felt like stretching rubber. "She... she couldn't come. She's busy."

  Mrs. Weaver’s face crumpled. "Busy? Too busy for her ma?"

  "No," Lloyd said quickly. "Not like that. She... Mrs. Weaver, Jasmine isn't just a maid anymore. She's special. You know that, right?"

  The woman blinked. "Special?"

  "Yes. She has a gift. A rare, powerful gift. The Diamond Spirit." Lloyd leaned in, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "The King himself noticed her. He... he recruited her."

  "The King?" Mrs. Weaver’s eyes widened. "My Jasmin?"

  "Yes. She's been selected for a special training program. Top secret. Only the elite. She's training to be a Royal Protector. It's very intense. She's in a secret location in the mountains. No communication allowed. It's for national security."

  Lloyd felt dirty. The lie tasted like ash. But he kept going. He layered the lie with gold and glitter.

  "She wanted to come," Lloyd continued. "She begged me to come tell you. She said, 'Tell Ma I'm eating my vegetables and I'm learning how to use a sword.' She's going to be a hero, Mrs. Weaver. A real hero."

  Mina, standing by the door, watched him. Her face was unreadable, but her hands were clenched into fists. She knew what this was costing him.

  Mrs. Weaver stared at Lloyd. She wanted to believe him. She desperately wanted to believe him. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, but then it faded. The mother's intuition, that deep, primal radar, pinged a warning.

  "She would have written," Mrs. Weaver whispered. "Even if it was secret. She would have sent a sign. She... she feels gone, My Lord. I feel it in my bones. It's cold."

  Lloyd froze. The lie wasn't working. Words weren't enough.

  "She is training," Lloyd insisted, his voice cracking slightly. "She is getting strong. She is going to be the strongest woman in the kingdom. You have to eat. You have to get strong too. So you can see her when she comes back. If you die... she'll have no one to show her medals to."

  Mrs. Weaver looked at him. Her eyes bored into his soul.

  "I need to see her," she said. Her voice was flat, absolute. "I don't need medals. I don't need the King. I need to see my girl. Just once. If I see her... if I see she's okay... then I'll eat. I'll eat the whole pot of stew."

  She grabbed Lloyd’s hand. Her grip was surprisingly strong.

  "Bring her to me, My Lord. Please. Just for a minute. Bring my baby home."

  Lloyd looked at her pleading face. He looked at the doll. He felt the trap closing around his neck. He had promised a miracle he couldn't deliver. But looking at this dying woman, he knew he couldn't say no.

  "Okay," Lloyd whispered. "Okay. I'll bring her. I promise."

  ________________________________________

  The ride back to the Ferrum Estate was a descent into madness. Lloyd sat in the carriage, staring at his boots. He was vibrating. His mind was racing at a million miles an hour, bouncing off the walls of his skull like a trapped bird.

  "You promised her," Mina said quietly. "Lloyd... you promised to bring a dead girl to tea."

  "I know what I did," Lloyd snapped. He didn't look at her. "I bought time. She was going to die tonight, Mina. I saw it. Her bio-rhythm was failing. The hope... the lie... it gave her a battery boost. She'll eat tonight. She'll wait."

  "She'll wait for a ghost," Mina said. "What happens tomorrow? Or the next day? You can't produce Jasmin. She's in the crypt. We buried her."

  "Physics," Lloyd muttered. "Biology. Magic. It's all just data."

  "Lloyd, stop. You're spiraling."

  "I am not spiraling! I am strategizing!" Lloyd yelled. He ran his hands through his hair, pulling at the roots. "There has to be a way. Necromancy? No, that's evil, and it brings back rotting corpses. Illusions? No, Rubaiya proved illusions are empty; a mother would know. A golem? No, too mechanical."