Chapter 856: Room Tours [Bonus - ]
Chapter 856: Room Tours [Bonus Chapter]
The cool mountain air rippled across the high plateau of Celestine Heights, carrying the clean scent of pine needles and damp crushed stone.
At the foot of the sweeping white granite stairs, the little group gathered beside the twin fountains.
They hummed with a soft chime, spilling clear water over tiers of dark polished basalt where broad-leafed ferns fluttered in the autumn breeze.
Silas stood with his hands loose in the pockets of his dark coat.
Nitocris sat on his left shoulder with her front paws tucked neatly together, her black tail curled over his collar and her violet eyes lazily sweeping over the four schoolgirls.
Beside him, Harper leaned one elbow on the carved banister, her violet hair catching the late afternoon sun and her glasses gleaming as she looked down at the tiny red-headed girl.
Martha stood half a pace behind the younger students with her hands smoothed over her crisp white apron and her gentle face still glowing as she stared up at the limestone mansion.
Silas tilted his head, his dark blue eyes crinkling with easy amusement.
“Well now,” he drawled, looking past Lia’s shoulder. “Looks like my little sister brought a whole delegation home from school today. Penelope, Kaede… and who’s this tiny crimson firecracker?”
The girl didn’t shrink under his gaze.
She took two precise steps forward and planted her polished uniform shoes in the gravel with military stiffness, her black satchel clutched across her chest like a breastplate.
Her face was mostly hidden behind a thick waterfall of crimson bangs, but she tilted her small chin up at an exact angle and projected an aura of cold aristocratic gravity that was comically oversized for someone whose head barely reached Lia’s shoulder.
“I’m Bridget Bloom,” she announced, her voice crisp and clear with perfect southern diction. “Second daughter of Matriarch Etilga Bloom, and younger sister to Seraphina Bloom, the rightful heir of our house… I transferred into Junior Cohort Class Three today, and I’ve formally decided to join your sister’s social circle.”
A brief silence drifted over the terrace.
Harper pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with one manicured finger, her violet eyes widening behind the lenses.
“Another Bloom…?” She muttered with the corners of her mouth twitching as she took in the haughty jaw and the gold flame brooch pinned to the girl’s lapel. “Good grief… The universe really can’t stop throwing that clan’s temperamental redheads into my life, can it?”
Despite the sharp words, there was real surprise in Harper’s expression.
Under those heavy bangs, the curve of Bridget’s mouth and the sharp line of her cheekbones were a terrifyingly exact miniature copy of Sera’s.
Silas’s eyebrows rose in pleasant surprise.
“Sera’s little sister?” he chuckled, the gold ring in his eyes flickering with faint, warm light. “Well, that explains the posture. I was wondering why someone three feet tall was glaring at me like she commanded a battle fleet… Welcome to our new place, Bridget.”
Bridget didn’t smile.
Beneath her fringe, her sharp crimson eyes narrowed as she began a silent merciless assessment of the two older teenagers standing in front of her.
First, she inspected Harper Whitmore.
…It took her all of two seconds to reach a conclusion.
’I don’t like her face,’ Bridget thought with her jaw tightening.
It was an arrogant face, framed by ridiculous expensive violet waves and smug wire-rimmed glasses that screamed boardroom.
Besides, Sera’s complaints about this exact woman had filled half the dinners Bridget could remember… According to her sister, Harper Whitmore was an insufferable meddling corporate harpy who used her billions to buy influence and buzzed around Silas like an aggressive wasp.
Seeing her lounging on the banister with that irritating victorious smirk only confirmed every terrible thing Sera had ever said.
Next, Bridget turned her scrutiny on Silas Graves.
She took in his casual stance, his unbuttoned coat, the easy smile and the completely ordinary way he stood on the gravel.
’He doesn’t seem like much…’ she thought, her brow furrowing slightly behind her bangs.
There was no crushing pressure rolling off him… He didn’t carry the stiff, posturing arrogance of the high-ranking heirs who regularly begged for audiences at the Bloom estate…
He looked like a remarkably relaxed young man who’d just come back from a stroll in the park but Bridget hadn’t survived years of clan tutoring by taking anything at face value.
This was the man who’d beaten Seraphina Bloom in open combat… This was the Lord whose water had swallowed her sister’s primordial fire whole, and who had turned her proud untouchable sister into a girl who couldn’t finish a meal without saying his name.
If he looked this relaxed, there was only one logical explanation.
He was hiding it… All of it…
’He’s hiding his presence…’ Bridget concluded with a tiny cold shiver tracing the back of her neck. ’A predator who keeps his claws in until the throat is within range. I’ll need to be far more cautious around him than I thought…’
She opened her mouth to deliver another formal proclamation establishing her clan’s boundaries…
Before she could get a word out, Silas moved.
He stepped forward, bent his knees, slipped his big hands under her arms and hoisted her clean off the gravel.
“W-What?!” Bridget gasped, her satchel sliding down to her wrist as her polished shoes dangled in the empty air.
Silas settled her in the crook of his right arm, perched against his side with the practiced ease of an older brother carrying an unruly sack of flour.
“Look at you,” he laughed, tapping the tip of her small nose with his knuckle. “You really do look just like Sera… Does the bossiness run in the family, or do they give you private lessons on how to scowl at people before breakfast?”
“U-Unhand me!” Bridget sputtered, her aristocratic dignity detonating as a wave of burning crimson flooded her pale cheeks.
She kicked her legs, trying to find purchase on thin air with her small hands pushing frantically against his solid unmoving chest.
“This is an unprovoked physical assault on an official representative of House Bloom! Put me down this instant, you crude barbarian! I’m a noble lady, not a sack of grain!”
“Calm down, squirt,” Silas chuckled, not budging an inch as he started up the grand white stairs toward the terrace. “So, how’s that fiery sister of yours doing? Still setting furniture on fire whenever she gets annoyed?”
Bridget’s face burned even hotter, the blush spreading down into her collar as she clutched his coat to keep from slipping.
“S-Seraphina is conducting a vital maritime campaign with flawless strategic precision!” she squeaked, her voice wobbling between embarrassment and fierce loyalty. “She does not yell at waves! She purges the sea with glorious primordial judgment and she only burns furniture when the upholstery offends her!”
“Right, right,” Silas teased, giving her a gentle jostle that made her teeth click. “Sounds like she’s having a great time… Tell her I said hello when she finally finds a cell tower.”
Harper walked up the steps beside them and let out a soft, amused snort.
“Careful, darling. Pamper that one too much and she’ll start demanding you toast her pastries with fire magic.”
On Silas’s other shoulder, Nitocris leaned forward to sniff Bridget’s crimson hair and let out a sleepy purr.
“She smells of dried chili peppers and stubbornness,” the cat observed, her ears twitching once. “A remarkably noisy child, Nyaa~”
“D-Did the cat just insult my lineage?!” Bridget gasped with her hidden eyes going wide.
’And why is the cat talking?’ she thought a second later. ’Why is nobody else surprised that the cat is talking too…? Is it a robot?’
“Ignore Nito, she’s an ancient gremlin,” Silas said, pushing through the tall glass-and-bronze front doors of the mansion. “Come on, everyone inside. Time for the grand tour…”
The foyer swallowed the group in warm quiet luxury.
Polished marble floors stretched out beneath a two-story atrium, orchids along the walls breathed out a soft vanilla fragrance, and the sheer size of the place silenced everyone at once.
Lia stopped just past the threshold, her hands clasped against her chest with her eyes reflecting the sparkling chandeliers overhead.
“Big Bro…” she whispered, her breath catching. “Are we… are we really going to live here?”
“We really are,” Silas smiled, setting a thoroughly ruffled bright-red Bridget back on her feet.
He took Lia’s small hand.
“Come on. Let me show you your room.”
He led everyone up the sweeping staircase, their footsteps muffled by thick woven runners along the wide corridors.
He walked past several grand guest suites and down the bright eastern hallway until he reached a pair of pocket doors framed in light maple, and slid them open.
Lia took one step inside, and her breath caught completely.
The room was huge and flooded with warm golden light from a curved bay window overlooking the private evergreen woods.
Beneath the window stood her old study desk, wiped down and gleaming, with her rune brushes, ink case and stacks of textbooks already lined up in perfect order on custom shelves above it.
Her soft quilted lavender bedspread was tucked over a big four-poster bed, her stuffed bears sat in a row on the window bench, and her little framed certificates from the Academy… well for the homeworks she did were already hanging on the pale cream walls.
Whitmore Logistics hadn’t just moved her things at all… They’d rebuilt the warm, safe feeling of her old bedroom five times bigger without losing a drop of it.
“My desk…” Lia breathed, happy tears shimmering on her lashes as she turned in a slow circle. “All my books… even my little ceramic rabbit on the nightstand! Big Bro, it’s so beautiful!”
She threw herself forward and wrapped her arms around Silas’s waist, burying her face in his coat.
Silas chuckled warmly and rested a hand on the back of her head.
“It’s all yours, Lia. You’ve got your own balcony out there, your own bathroom, and a desk by the window with all the light you need to study.”
Kaede and Penelope were already bounding across the room to test the mattress with squeals of delight.
“Look how high the ceiling is!” Penelope cheered, bouncing three feet into the air. “We could put a whole climbing wall in here!”
“I hereby grant this chamber my royal blessing!” Kaede proclaimed, flinging out one arm before flopping onto an oversized velvet beanbag. Then, in a completely normal voice, “Oh wow, this thing is so squishy. Lia, you have to try this…”
Bridget stood in the doorway with her satchel, watching the two of them roll around on a bed that wasn’t theirs.
’They’re touching her bed without permission,’ she thought, utterly baffled. ’And she’s laughing. Is that… allowed?’
Silas let them run around for a few minutes before herding everyone back into the corridor.
“Alright, Martha, your turn,” he said, guiding her toward the opposite end of the hall.
He opened the door to the housekeeper’s suite.
It was a big elegant room with rich cherry-wood trim, a private sitting area with a plush sofa and a tea table, a walk-in wardrobe, and a stone balcony looking out over the quiet rose gardens on the eastern side.
Martha stepped onto the threshold, clutching her apron, her breath trembling.
Her face went pale, then flushed with deep distress as her eyes swept over the velvet upholstery, the heated bathroom and the wide sitting area.
“Oh… oh heavens, no…” she stammered, taking a frantic step back into the hallway and bowing deeply toward Silas’s chest. “Master Silas, this is impossible! I’m only your housekeeper! A small cot in the basement or a corner behind the laundry room would be more than enough! To give rooms like these to someone like me… it’s improper! It’s far too much, Master Silas!”
Silas didn’t step back.
He caught her gently by the shoulders, stopping her frantic bowing with steady warmth.
“Martha,” he said, his voice dropping low and calm, leaving no room for argument. “Look at me…”
She hesitated, then slowly lifted her teary eyes to meet his.
“You take care of me and Lia every single day,” Silas said, his expression completely tender. “You cook for us, you fix our clothes, you drive the girls back and forth and you never complain once… You’re family, Martha. You’re not sleeping in a closet, and you’re not hiding in a basement either like a rat. You’re living in this room, you’re sleeping in that bed, and you’re having your morning tea on that balcony… Understood?”
Martha’s lower lip trembled, and a soft choked sob slipped out as she pressed a handkerchief to her eyes.
“Master Silas… you’re far too good to me…” she whispered, nodding in tearful surrender. “Thank you… thank you from the bottom of my heart…”
A few steps back, Bridget stared at the two of them with her mouth slightly open.
’He just told a maid she’s family,’ she thought, completely lost. ’Out loud and in front of guests…?’
At home, the servants didn’t even speak unless someone spoke to them first.
“No more crying,” Silas smiled, tapping her shoulder. “Because if you cry now, you’re going to pass out completely when you see the kitchen.”