Sylus sat there and looked at her trembling frame for a long quiet moment.
’Damn...’
Something hit him square in the chest.
’Here I was treating her like a greedy deceitful snake trying to line her own pockets and the whole time she was carrying this.’
Beneath all that sneaky confident exterior she’s just a terrified older sister trying to save the only person in the world she has left.
He exhaled slowly and his expression dropped into something much softer.
"Where is your brother right now?" he asked quietly.
Rina sniffled and wiped her face again. "He’s at our house in the lower district. Maybe lying in bed... barely holding on."
Sylus looked at her kneeling there on the floor with her messy rose-pink hair and red eyes and the last of her composure hanging on by a thread and felt something warm settle in his chest. She was clumsy and reckless and her plan had been genuinely terrible from start to finish but the reason behind all of it was the most honest thing about her and it made everything else matter considerably less.
He stepped forward and put his hand on her head and patted her silky rose-pink hair once, easy and warm.
Rina went completely still and blinked up at him with wide confused eyes like the gesture was a language she didn’t quite know how to read. "S-Sir...?"
"I won’t tell Lady Valessia about any of this," Sylus said calmly. "So you can keep working here without worrying about the dungeon. Understood?"
He pulled back and grabbed his butler jacket off the back of the chair and slung it over his shoulder and turned back toward the door with a genuine grin on his face. Read the latest chapters at g.com.
"Now get up," he said and held out a hand to her. "Let’s go get your brother sorted out."
Rina stared up at him with her tear-filled green eyes and the expression of someone who had just heard a language they didn’t quite speak yet.
"Are you... you’re going to help me?" she stammered.
"Yeah. Why?" Sylus threw his arms behind his head with complete casualness. "Got a problem with that?"
"N-No! It’s just..." She hesitated and her eyes narrowed slightly as she looked him up and down with open suspicious skepticism. "Why would a shameless total pervert like you offer to pay for an impossibly expensive cure out of nowhere? You’re not planning on making me your lifelong round-the-clock servant toy in exchange are you?!"
Sylus’s jaw dropped and a thick red vein practically popped on his forehead. "HUH?! Are you seriously calling the guy trying to save your brother a shameless pervert directly to his face?!"
"Eep — I-I’m sorry Sir!" Rina squeaked and dropped her head straight back into her palms like a frightened turtle retreating into its shell.
Sylus let out a long exasperated sigh and dragged a hand through his platinum hair. "Look. Since Valessia is staying overnight at the Academy I actually have free time today and it just so happens to be in the same part of the slums. Win-win."
Rina peeked through her fingers at him.
’He’s making up excuses just to sound cool isn’t he.’
Something warm and completely unwanted moved through her chest and she looked away before he could notice.
An hour later a sleek silver-trimmed noble carriage pulled to a heavy stop at the dusty edge of the city’s lower district and the contrast with the upper noble sector was immediate and total. Crumbling shantytowns stretched out in every direction, the buildings leaning into each other for structural support they weren’t really providing.
The coachman turned back from his bench with a worried tip of his hat. "Sir Butler I’m afraid the roads ahead are too narrow and unstable for the carriage to go further." You are reading on novelping(.)com, the official source.
"It’s fine," Sylus stepped out onto the cobblestones without breaking stride. "Wait here. We won’t be long."
"Understood, sir."
Rina stepped out behind him and smoothed her maid dress and took the lead without being asked. "This way. Follow me, Sir Sylus."
They moved through narrow winding alleys that smelled of damp wood and cheap tobacco and Rina kept stealing glances sideways at the tall white-haired butler walking beside her.
His striking red eyes moved across the dirty streets with complete calm and the shady figures lurking in the darker corners didn’t seem to register as anything worth reacting to at all.
’Is he actually going to buy it,’ Rina thought and her chest pulled tight with nervous doubt she couldn’t fully push down. ’That cure costs a mountain of gold. Why would anyone spend that kind of money on a random sick boy from the slums? What if this is some kind of cruel joke and he’s just waiting to see the look on my face when he pulls it back?’
She kept walking and didn’t say any of that out loud.
Sylus glanced around at the decaying streets and the foul mix of garbage and stagnant water hanging heavy in the damp air while hollow-eyed street dwellers watched them from dark alleys with the wariness of people who had learned that strangers in nice clothes meant something was about to change and rarely for the better.
He noticed how tightly Rina was clutching her apron.
"How much further into this dump do we have to go?" He waved a hand in front of his nose.
"Just a little bit more," she said softly and picked up her pace and turned down a narrow crooked alley and stopped in front of a rickety wooden hut that looked like a strong opinion might knock it over. "We’re here."
She knocked gently on the door and her voice dropped into something completely different from anything she’d used with him so far, soft and warm and careful. "Kai? Are you awake? It’s your big sister."
From inside came the faint sound of unsteady footsteps and then the metallic click of a rusty latch turning slowly.
The door creaked open.