House Rules

You're still thinking about the texts when the elevator opens on the sixtieth floor at seven fifty-eight.

She kept them short. Of course she did. But somewhere after one in the morning the format had slipped, just slightly, and you'd lain there with the phone on your chest reading the same few lines until the sky went gray.

Now she's behind the crystal desk in charcoal instead of white, gloves on, coffee untouched, looking at you like last night never happened.

"You're two minutes early," Ottoline says.

"Is that bad?"

"It's noted." She stands. "Walk with me."

The training floor of Nordlys Tower is the size of an airplane hangar, fifty floors up, with a ceiling of reinforced glass and the whole city gray and rainy beyond it. Hunters in silver-and-white gear are sparring in marked rings. Somebody throws a fireball. Somebody else catches it.

Nobody looks at the porter. Everybody looks at the director. You watch it ripple across the room as she walks past, people straightening, conversations stopping, a young hunter actually walking into a pillar.

She doesn't seem to notice. She stops at an empty ring near the windows and turns to face you.

"Rules," she says.

She holds up one gloved finger.

"One. Contact once a day. Five minutes at most."

Two fingers.

"Two. Three percent. That's the ceiling. More than that in a day and you risk backflow. Fever, bleeding, organ stress. Your body needs time to grow into what's being released."

"Released from what?"

Three fingers. She ignores the question.

"Three. Every time, I ask. Every time, you answer. If you say no, that's the end of it. No argument, no explanation needed." She lowers her hand. "That one isn't negotiable. Not by you, not by me."

"And if you say no?"

Her eyes flick to yours. Something surprised in them, like nobody has ever asked her that.

"Then it's no," she says.

The blue window blinks open in front of you, as if it's been listening.

[SYSTEM RULES UPDATED]

[1. Key turns only with Key-bearer consent AND Vessel consent.]

[2. Safe release limit: 3% per 24 hours. Exceeding limit causes BACKFLOW.]

[3. Contact without mutual consent: contact only. Key does not turn.]

[The System approves of these rules. The System notes they were already the rules.]

You laugh before you can stop it.

Ottoline's head tilts. "What?"

"The window. It's got jokes."

"It does that." Something almost like a smile touches one corner of her mouth and is gone. "Mine used to. When I was young. It stops after a while."

"Why?"

"Probably because you stop laughing." She takes off her right glove. "May I?"

"Yes."

Her fingers slide into yours. Cold, then warm. The window floods with text.

[KEY-BEARER CONSENT: YES] [VESSEL CONSENT: YES]

[SEAL INTEGRITY: 94% → 92%]

[MANA OUTPUT: 44 → 49]

[RANK: E. D-rank threshold: 50. So close. The System sympathizes.]

[SKILL UNLOCKED: FEATHERWEIGHT]

[Make anything you carry weigh nothing. You have been doing this badly for four years. Now do it on purpose.]

You stare at it. Four years. Since you awakened. All those times you carried double and Tibor joked you were part mule. All those times your back should have given out and didn't.

She lets go. Exactly five minutes. You notice she's counting on the wall clock.

"Skill," she says. "What is it?"

You tell her. Then, because there's a rack of training weights right there, you walk over, grip a four-hundred-pound plate, think light, and lift it over your head like a pizza box.

The sparring rings go quiet around you.

Ottoline's face doesn't change, but her bare hand has curled into a fist again, and there's frost on her knuckles.

"Good," she says, very softly. "That's good, Ethan."

"Director."

The voice comes from behind you. Smooth, warm, amused.

You turn. A man is crossing the floor toward you, and every hunter in the room tracks him the way they tracked her. Early thirties. Dark hair falling across his forehead in a way that probably takes effort. Eyes an unlikely gold. A face so symmetrical it looks designed, and a Nordlys vice-captain's insignia on his collar.

"Ludovic Kastellan," Pernille murmurs, appearing beside you from nowhere. "A-rank. Lightning. Vice-captain. Was expected to marry her for about three years. Don't stare."

"I wasn't staring."

"Everyone stares at Ludovic. Don't."

Ludovic stops beside Ottoline, closer than anyone else has stood all morning. He looks at her bare hand. Then at you. Then at the four-hundred-pound plate you're still holding over your head.

"So this is the mystery man," he says. "The internet's very excited about you. I'm told you were an F."

"Still getting used to it," you say, and lower the plate. Lightly.

"Mm." He smiles. It's a good smile. It doesn't go anywhere near his eyes. "Ottoline, the Seoul delegation's at nine. You've got your glove off." He says it gently, the way you'd tell someone their tag is showing. "People are watching."

"Let them," Ottoline says.

Ludovic's smile stays exactly where it is. "Of course." He turns to you. "Welcome to Nordlys, Ethan. Try not to break anything. Some of us have been here a long time."

He walks away. Ottoline pulls her glove back on, slowly, and doesn't look at you.

"He's not wrong," she says. "People are watching. That's a problem."

"Why is it a problem?"

She opens her mouth to answer.

The doors at the far end of the training floor open, and the whole room changes. It's like a cold front coming through. Hunters put down their weapons. Instructors stand up straighter. Even Ludovic, halfway to the elevators, stops and turns.

The man who walks in is in his sixties, broad-shouldered, silver-bearded, handsome in a hard, old-money way. He wears a gray suit and no gloves, and he walks like he owns the floor, because he does.

"Ragnvald Nordahl," Pernille breathes. "Chairman. Her uncle."

You feel Ottoline go still beside you. Not calm still. Animal still.

Ragnvald crosses the floor without hurrying. He nods to a few hunters by name. He pats an instructor on the shoulder. Everyone smiles back at him. Then he stops in front of the two of you, and his eyes, the same gray as hers but older and flatter, settle on your face.

He looks at you for too long.

Long enough that you feel it in your spine. Long enough that the System window flickers at the edge of your vision, a single gray line you can't read.

"Ottoline," Ragnvald says, without taking his eyes off you. His voice is warm. Fatherly. "Where did you find him?"