Read Novel Full Chapter 1815: Dispersing Ladies
Chapter 1815: Dispersing Ladies
The terrace was down to crumbs and casualties by the time Emily carried Aurora off to bed, the alchemist asleep before her head even found the maid’s shoulder, still faintly glowing with residual blessing.
Elisabeth Valorian watched them go, set down her emptied cup, and announced her imminent departure for the fourth time that morning.
"Allow me." Quinlan’s fingers flicked before the sentence finished landing, and a [Warp Gate] unfolded beside the table, opening onto sunlit stone in the human capital.
The Arch Priestess stared at it, then her eyes moved to Quinlan and narrowed into suspicious slits.
"You’re way too accommodating all of a sudden..."
"You wanted to leave. As a devout follower of the Goddess, would I dare-"
"Don’t you dare make such terribly ill-mannered jokes, Villain!"
Elisabeth scoffed and began moving toward the swirling doorway, accompanied by a lot of huffs and puffs.
"Can I visit you sometime, Eli~?" Seraphiel waved from her seat.
"Do not call me that." A pause, one step from the seam. "...I will consider it."
The gate winked shut on her exit, and the terrace felt briefly, strangely larger.
Quinlan leaned back and took stock of his morning. Ayame and Black Fang were nowhere to be found, which likely meant one sister had dragged the other somewhere private again, reluctance and all. He smiled into his tea and left that door firmly alone. Some things went better without him.
"Incoming," Seraphiel noted, chin tipping toward the garden path.
Lilith Ravenshade came up from the grounds with her sister at her shoulder and the Scarlet Lilies strung out behind them, Void riding Bronnya’s back with her cheek pillowed on the tanker’s shoulder, asleep or close enough to make no difference.
The enslaved Queen of Vraven, by the boundless mercy of her generous master, was permitted to spend time with her visiting sister.
"Villain." Lilith stopped at the terrace steps and inclined her head to Quinlan, courteous and precise. "Where is Black Fang? We have matters to discuss."
"Mm." Quinlan set down his cup. "You might want to visit the Vraven capital instead."
The pause stretched long enough for a bird to cross the whole garden.
"...Why," Lilith said, "would I want that?"
"Because Alexios is opening an investigation into the Ravenshade duchy." He said it the way other men discussed weather. "You could help them."
Void’s eyes cracked open a slit. "He’s sending us away..." she muttered into Bronnya’s shoulder, dejected down to the syllables.
Lilith had gone very still. Beside her, Morgana’s spine straightened by a degree that a less observant household might have missed.
"What investigation?" the elder Ravenshade demanded.
"What investigation?" Lilith echoed, flat and sharp in the same breath.
"I’ll let Alexios fill you in on the details." Quinlan’s smile gave back nothing at all.
"He’s really sending us away..." Void confirmed to no one, and burrowed deeper into her mount.
Lilith held the villain’s gaze for a moment longer, searching it for a game and finding only that pleasant, infuriating calm. Then she turned on her heel. "Lilies. We’re leaving."
A new [Warp Gate] bloomed open at the garden’s edge before she finished the sentence, the grey stone of the Vraven capital waiting beyond it.
She was three steps from it when Quinlan spoke again.
"Lilith Ravenshade."
There was no tea in his voice anymore. She stopped.
"I told you about this investigation as a courtesy, not so you could meddle with it."
He didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t need to. The warning arrived whole: whatever the crown’s diggers found under her family’s name, if she buried it, redirected it, or warned a single Ravenshade cousin of what was coming, there would be no conversation afterward. There would be no afterward at all.
Lilith scoffed without turning around.
"I became an adventurer for a reason. I won’t shield scum." She resumed walking. "Family or not."
Scar raised one knuckle to the mouthline of her mask and produced a pointed, artificial little cough, her eyes traveling from Lilith to Morgana and back, slow as evidence being entered.
The message was clear.
’Are you sure you’re not shielding scum, family or not? After all, you shielded your cunt of a sister.’
Lilith’s middle finger came up at her former scout without her stride breaking once.
Scar’s eyes danced.
Bronnya barked a laugh and hauled Void through the seam. Jallen offered the terrace a parting nod and followed. The Scarlet Lilies left like they did everything, fast and without ceremony.
Scar remained, watching the gate close.
"Master." Her voice had gone quiet. "Did you see?"
"See what? That your good friend of four centuries flipped you off?"
"...No, that’s nothing overly shocking. She’s the Orc Boss, after all."
"Ah, understandable. Then what?" Quinlan asked, instantly accepting the explanation.
"They walked into your portal without hesitation," she murmured, keeping her eyes on the empty air where it had been. "No one checked the far side or asked where it truly led. All that instinct they built to survive, and not one of them thought to doubt it." A pause. "They trust you."
She said the last part softly, the way she reported nothing else.
Quinlan looked at the spot too, and his smile changed shape, losing its performance. "...Yeah. You might be right."
Then he turned, and the warmth went right back into costume.
"Morgana."
The Queen of Vraven regarded him with a perfect poker face.
"Go with your sister. Help the investigation. Your knowledge of the duchy might expedite the process." He smiled, benevolent as a temple mural. "And spend some time with your sister while you’re at it. You’ve earned that much."
’You shameless, scheming, silver-tongued fraud,’ Morgana thought.
She knew exactly what she was being handed. He would be behind her eyes whenever it pleased him, watching the crown’s investigators from a chair in his own garden or wherever he decided to stroll that day, and he had wrapped the leash in so much generosity that refusing it would make her the ungrateful one.
The most galling part, the part she cursed him for with real venom, was that the kindness wasn’t even false, just free. It cost him nothing to be gracious, so he was, the way rain fell.
’May every gate you open deposit you in a latrine, you insufferable primordial con art-’
"Morgana dear," Seraphiel said pleasantly, buttering a fresh slice of bread, "kindly stop cursing our man inside your head."
"I was doing no such thing."
Her left eye twitched, once.
The Queen of Vraven said nothing further. Loudly. Then she walked through the reopened gate with her chin at an angle that dared anyone present to comment, and the villain’s garden was two Ravenshades lighter.
"She’s warming up to you," Seraphiel decided.
"Mm," Quinlan agreed. "Practically family."
Lucille’s voice arrived on the family channel.
Quinlan’s grin spread as he flicked the next gate open toward the inn. It was, by his count, the least convincing sentence his Bloodmonger had produced in her entire life.
She couldn’t wait a single extra second, despite whatever nonsense her delicate lips spouted.
Lucille’s request had gone out on the harem chat, also known as [Master’s Link], not too long ago, and the channel had rendered its verdict instantly.
Serika had signed on before Lucille finished the second sentence. Blossom had answered at a frequency that made Lucille wince before she giggled joyously. Kitsara had received the words ’best behavior’ before she managed to say anything at all, and was still sulking about the presumption on principle.
the fox had protested."> <I hadn’t even said anything yet,> the fox had protested.
Lucille had replied, sweet and immovable."> <Preemptive,> Lucille had replied, sweet and immovable.
Now the hunting party stood assembled on the lawn in full kit, polished to a shine no casual monster cull had ever warranted, because it mattered to Lucille, and therefore it mattered.
The gate’s surface rippled, and Lucille stepped through with her axe on her back, her hammer at her hip, and her daughter’s hand in hers.