Chapter 42 - Mad At You

Stepping through the door felt like falling in place. There was no floor until there suddenly was.
Lillia’s feet splashed down within the Hearth of Memory.
Havoc was awake.
He sat at the edge of one of the pools, his injured arm submerged, his back turned to her.
The warm kiss of the steam-filled air washed over Lillia’s skin. She changed into the mini-dress to deal with the heat.
“Oh,” Lillia said. “You’re awake.”
“Where’d you go?” he asked. Lillia knew the tone from her father.
“Back to the dungeon.”
“Why?”
“We needed more parts for smithing,” Lillia said. She went to pull some of the spoils out of her inventory, but Havoc’s grunt stopped her.
“You get them?”
“Yes.”
“You hurt?”
“No.”
“Were you hurt?” he asked.
“I used a potion.”
“Hm.”
Havoc never turned around during the conversation. He was under the statue of Lillia and kept staring into the clear water of the pool.
Lillia took a cautious step forward. Havoc didn’t move.
She felt the question hovering on the tip of her tongue. As long as there was silence, she could wallow in uncertainty. Lillia bit the question back and headed over to the inert forge Havoc had summoned on the far side of the room.
Carefully, Lillia placed each piece she’d collected onto the small stone shelf beside the anvil. Glass and bloodfangs. Hopefully enough.
Havoc still hadn’t moved.
Lillia rearranged the items. First by number, then spread them out in even rows. Once she was trying to think of a third way to arrange the pile she finally let the question come off her tongue.
“Are you mad at me?”
“What?” Havoc asked.
“Are you mad at me?” Lillia repeated.
“That’s your question?”
Lillia turned around. “Well, yeah. It’s what matters, isn’t it?”
“No,” Havoc said. “It doesn’t matter if I’m mad or not. You gotta think about what you did.”
“Because it was wrong and you’re mad at me?” Lillia suggested.
“Kid.” Havoc stood. Lillia could see where the heels of his hands had pruned. He swore once in hobgoblin and then continued. “Me being mad or not ain’t the point.”
Havoc saying that didn’t relieve the growing pressure in Lillia’s chest.
“Isn’t it?”
“Kid. What the hell?” Havoc said. “I asked the important questions.” He pushed past her to check the stuff she’d brought. “Did you get what we needed? Are you hurt? What did you use?”
“But—”
“And yeah. Part of me’s pissed because I told people I’d keep you safe and then you went running off,” Havoc said. “But we needed this stuff. Didn’t we?”
Lillia looked over to the pile by the anvil. Nodded.
“Then it doesn’t matter if I’m mad. People get mad over stupid shit all the time. What matters is that the job’s done, and the job was done well.”
“Havoc.”
“Good work, kid. Tell me next time.”
Lillia lunged forward, pulled Havoc into a hug, and held him tight. First, he tried to pull himself out of it, then he relented, not hugging back, but accepting that Lillia’s arms were there to stay.
He was warm. Almost too warm to be comfortable, but in the moment it didn’t matter.
“You’re a piece of work, kid.”
Lillia peeled herself off of Havoc and cleared her throat as she stood up straight. After a moment, she folded her hands in front of her to return to princess-like behavior.
“I hope all this is enough,” she said.
“Bloodfangs are good,” Havoc said. “Don’t know what this glass is supposed to be.”
“Amalgam glass,” Lillia said.
“Still don’t know what that is,” Havoc said, “but I should be able to work with it.” He picked up one of the chunks and tested its weight. “Going to be interesting to see what I can do with more of the Inkblood. You said that was from the Architect. Yeah?”
“It’ll be for Rickshaw.”
“Pardon?”
“I told Rickshaw we’d sell him whatever you made from the Level 2 Architect’s materials.”
Havoc turned. Slowly. “Why?”
“Because I wanted him to take us to his market after we fought it, instead of letting me go there on my way up here when I had nothing to sell.”
“Lillia.”
“Yes?”
“You agreed to sell it before you knew what it was?”
“Well, I needed to make the deal then, and I didn’t know, so…” As Lillia spoke, she slowly came to the conclusion that any answer in this moment was going to be the wrong answer.
“See, now I am mad,” Havoc said. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Dammit, kid.”
“The shop is really important to get back to.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Havoc said. “But like I said, me bein’ mad isn’t about whether you’re right or wrong. Those next creations weren’t yours to sell.”
“Half of them would have been.”
Havoc let out a deep, prolonged sigh instead of continuing to argue with Lillia. Once he’d finished, he rounded the anvil, putting himself on the correct side of the workstation. As soon as he crossed the threshold, hungry flame appeared in the mouth of the forge.
“You’re right, kid. Right.”
Lillia heard the other half: Havoc was still upset.
“What are you going to make?” she asked.
“Whatever it tells me I can make with this stuff you brought,” he said.,” he said. “Let the material shape the form. Always better to make the best version of somethin’ with what you have than try to force it into a shape it doesn’t want.”
Lillia understood the shot for what it was.
“Then why did you make me the sword?” Lillia asked.
“You said you wanted one.”
“You just said it was worse. Harder.”
“You wanted it.”
“Havoc. ‘I wanted it’ is the antithesis of every other reason you’ve ever given me.”
“The what now?”
“Opposite of,” Lillia corrected. “Why?”
“What’s the sword’s name, Lillia?”
“…Hooke.”
“Yeah… She got what she wanted. Figured I wouldn’t hear the end of it if you didn’t.”
Lillia laughed. The softness made it sound like one of the courtesy chuckles she offered in court. It was legitimate; it simply matched the moment.
“Havoc, I name you my champion once again.”
The glitter appeared on Havoc’s skin as he picked up one of the bloodfangs.
“Sorry. I could have done that right away, I suppose.”
“You coulda,” Havoc echoed. “But I was fine.”
If that was fine, Lillia didn’t want to know what an injury looked like.
“I’ve got this one, kid. You take a load off and get ready to rest up for whatever’s next.”
Lillia didn’t leave. Havoc pulled his attention away from surveying the glass to meet her gaze.
“You will tell me if you need help. Won’t you?”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
Lillia nodded. That was going to have to be good enough.
It wasn’t clear if there was a cycle to the temperature in the baths, but the bath below Lillia’s statue had cooled since she had last been in here. While the first time—during her actual attempted bath—it had been near scalding, the temperature was now closer to that of a lake.
Specifically, the lake to the south of the castle that Lillia had been allowed to ride to even under her aunt’s rule.
There were a lot of hours of memory buried under the feeling of that cool water on Lillia’s shins.
Lillia pushed off the edge and stored her dress just as she was about to fully fall into the water. She slipped in and produced the soap in her hand.
Reaching into the inventory felt almost as natural as breathing now. What else had changed about her since she’d come in here? What else—
A horrific clang echoed through the Hearth of Memory as Havoc activated his blacksmithing abilities.
If Lillia was going to take a bath, she would need to be okay with it being less relaxing than the last one. And even that one had been more of a war than a bath.
This time at least, Lillia had the understanding that another bath was theoretically possible. After the fight with the Architect, with Cathria, they would either be dead, or she would be able to come back to the Hearth of Memory and take as many baths as she wanted.
Sure, resting made her clean, but there was something ritualistic about bathing that made her feel clean as opposed to just being it.
Havoc came over during a break in his work. Luckily, there were so many suds from Lillia’s attempts to clean her hair that she could hide under the surface and stay modest as opposed to telling him to stay on the other side of the room.
“Kid, before I keep working, I got a question.”
“Sure.”
“When you were gone, I took a walk around the room. Walked up to that mural that you’re on. Some of that fancy interface text came up.”
Lillia’s breath hitched. She hoped Havoc didn’t see it, considering she was mostly underwater.
“Said that I couldn’t use the mural to teleport back to the cathedral.” Havoc frowned then scratched under the armor plate lashed to his leg. “Take it you could’ve.”
“Yeah, that’s how I went out.”
“Then why are you still coming with me instead of skipping the Architect?”
“Because I’d just be leaving you here,” Lillia said.
Havoc nodded several times. The first was low and slow, the rest quicker than usual for the hobgoblin.
“Thank you, Lillia. I’ll go finish the work.”
He turned before Lillia could add anything else to the conversation. Instead of pressing the issue, Lillia sank further into the water until she could taste the soap on her lips.
Once she was done bathing, Lillia stepped out of the water and wrapped herself in Eisel’s cloak for the closest thing the dungeon had provided her to a towel. At least she could hide the cloak away in the collar once it was sopping wet.
Covered, Lillia headed over to the forge and stood by it for warmth. Havoc worked in silence, save for the occasional “On the left” or “You’re in the way.”
At some point, Lillia was dry enough. She closed her eyes and thought of rest. She didn’t know when Havoc joined her.
[You rest in the Hearth of Memory…]
[You rest safely and completely.]
[It is now day [4] of your quest.]
[You have conquered [1] elite enemy.]
[You have vanquished [1] boss.]
[You’ve been busy. Haven’t you?]
[You have leveled up! Level 5 - Stats Increased!]
[You have leveled up! Level 6 - Please choose a Skill - Run the Court selected]
[You have leveled up! Level 7 - Adaptive Regalia Empowered! Up to 3 of the same material can now be combined into a single dress.]
[The way is shut.]