Crazy Awakening: My luck can copy Talents.

Ishtar, beside him, waited until Lira was out of earshot before leaning toward Adrián and murmuring:

"Brother-in-law."

"Yeah?"

"Never answer Lira’s questions about your human life."

"Ah."

"Yeah."

"A little late for that."

"A little late, brother-in-law."

"...What’s she going to do?"

"Nothing bad. Probably. But information in Lira’s hands is like water in a plant’s. It grows things you didn’t even know you were planting."

"Ishtar."

"Yeah?"

"You could’ve warned me earlier."

"I could’ve. But today wasn’t my day to be useful. I’ll try tomorrow."

Adrián dragged a hand down his face.

Then someone else approached from the head of the table.

Adrián looked up.

Kael Vandragh was standing beside his chair.

Very tall.

Very still.

Arms crossed over his broad chest.

His empty wineglass forgotten on the table.

Electric-blue eyes fixed on Adrián without blinking.

"Vega," he said, completely neutral.

"Kael."

"Stand up."

Adrián stood.

Kael was much taller than him.

For the first time since arriving at the Alastor building, Adrián felt physically small.

Kael looked him up and down with the clinical assessment of someone calculating exactly how much weight the object in front of him could lift.

Then, without warning, without any change in expression, without a sound—

he placed an open hand against Adrián’s chest.

And pushed.

It wasn’t a hard shove.

It wasn’t an attack.

It was the kind of push an adult gave a child to move them away from somewhere they weren’t supposed to be.

Almost condescending.

Almost paternal.

But it was enough.

Adrián stumbled backward helplessly into the chair, caught his foot on one of its legs, and dropped onto the black marble floor with the parchment still clutched in his hand.

Silence.

Ishtar stopped breathing for half a second.

Rhea, on the other side of the hall—where she had been speaking quietly with Silvano—snapped her head around like a rifle locking onto a target.

Kael didn’t look at her.

He kept staring at Adrián.

Who was still sitting on the floor.

"Vega," Kael said, in exactly the same neutral tone as before. "Free advice. I’m only giving it once. House Alastor has a reputation. A history. Weight. We’re part of that history."

His eyes stayed on Adrián.

"You, until you prove otherwise, are dead weight."

"..."

"When you go out on that contract tonight, you have two options. Execute it properly and prove you’re not the waste of space you look like, or screw it up and confirm everything I already think about you."

Kael’s expression didn’t move.

"I’ll be there. I’ll be watching. And if something goes wrong, I’m not carrying the consequences for you."

"..."

"Understood?"

Adrián stared up at him from the floor.

His brain processed three things simultaneously.

One: I could activate the Mask and probably catch him off guard.

Two: I have no idea how to control it and would probably destroy half the room.

Three: Rhea would kill me even harder than Kael would.

He breathed out.

Then slowly got back to his feet.

He brushed off his pants.

And looked Kael directly in the eyes.

"Understood."

"Good."

"Kael."

Kael, already halfway through turning away, stopped.

He turned his head slightly.

"What."

Adrián held his gaze.

"Next time you shove me, I’m warning you first."

Silence around the table.

Beside him, Ishtar very slowly put her lollipop back into her mouth and smiled around it with genuine delight.

Kael stared at him for several seconds.

His expression didn’t change.

But something shifted, very slightly, in those electric-blue eyes.

A hint of surprise.

A revised assessment.

"Interesting," he said. "So you do have a voice."

He turned away.

"We’ll see if you have anything else."

Then he walked toward the exit, his heavy footsteps echoing across the marble.

Rhea, on the other side of the hall, said nothing.

She only looked at Adrián with an expression he couldn’t quite read.

Silvano, beside her, did smile.

Very faintly.

With the satisfaction of a mentor seeing something go exactly the way he wanted.

Ishtar elbowed Adrián in the arm.

"Brother-in-law."

"Yeah?"

"That was stupid. And dangerous."

She grinned.

"And I loved it."

"Thanks."

"Kael is going to make your life miserable now."

"He was already going to make my life miserable."

"Good point."

Adrián rolled up the parchment in his hand.

Squeezed it.

Then he looked toward the door Kael had disappeared through.

Then toward Rhea on the other side of the hall.

Then down at the parchment with Marina Ríos’s name written inside.

Okay.

First contract in four hours.

One of the five new-moon cases.

Border zone with Fallen activity.

And a guy twice my size waiting for me to fail.

Completely normal.

Everything’s fine.

He turned toward Ishtar.

"Ishtar."

"Yeah, brother-in-law?"

"Let’s get dinner. I need to eat before this."

"I already had them make something. I knew you’d be hungry. Newly reincarnated people are always hungry after introductions. It’s the stress. Come on."

She stood and started walking toward the door.

Adrián followed with the parchment still in his hand.

As they passed the table, without turning around, she added:

"Oh, brother-in-law. One tiny thing."

"About what?"

"Lira."

Adrián’s steps slowed.

"When she asked you about your human girl. Yuki, you said?"

"...Yeah."

"Lira never asks questions because she’s curious."

Adrián looked at her.

"Never."

Ishtar kept walking.

"I’ve been in this house for eighteen years. Lira’s been here for seventy. And in seventy years, Lira has never asked anything because she cared about the answer."

Her voice lost some of its playfulness.

"There’s always a reason."

A few more steps.

"Always a plan."

Then:

"And always, always, a plan that takes a very long time to execute."

Adrián stopped.

"...What are you telling me, Ishtar?"

She kept walking.

She answered without looking back.

"Nothing, brother-in-law. Just free information."

She reached the door.

"Keep an eye on your human friend."

A pause.

"That’s all."

And she left the hall.

Adrián remained standing in the doorway.

The parchment still in his hand.

Marina Ríos’s name almost burning against his skin.

A warning about Lira that he had no idea how to process.

And the very specific feeling of a man standing at the edge of a pool table who had just realized he was no longer one of the players.

He was the ball.

And everyone around the table had a cue.

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