The garden was peaceful today.
No lessons to attend, not that he has one yet though...
His father was away on business.
Adam and Liam were occupied with their studies somewhere deep in the mansion.
And so---
It was just the two of them.
Fainyx sat in his usual spot near the flower beds, a small plate of cookies resting beside him on the garden bench. The afternoon sun was warm without being heavy. A gentle breeze moved through the flowers, carrying the faint sweetness of the Kalmia blooms he had grown himself.
Estrella sat across from him, back straight, hands folded neatly in her lap.
Then she ruined her own posture by leaning forward with both hands on her cheeks and a completely undignified expression on her face.
"You're so cute," she said for approximately the fourth time that afternoon.
Fainyx looked at her.
Then looked back at his cookie.
"I missed you so much young master," she continued, completely unbothered by his lack of response. "Every single day. I kept thinking, I wonder what he's doing right now. I wonder if he's eating properly. And now here you are." She smiled warmly. "Eating cookies in the garden just like always."
She watched him for a moment.
Her expression softened further.
"Young master," she said quietly. "Yesterday. When you held up that paper---"
She stopped.
Fainyx glanced at her.
Estrella's smile had changed.
Still warm.
But her eyes had gone bright.
"You smiled," she said.
Her voice came out smaller than she intended.
"It was so small I almost thought I imagined it. But I didn't." She pressed her lips together, clearly trying to hold herself together. "In all the years I've cared for you, I've never seen you smile before."
Her eyes filled.
She laughed at herself immediately, pressing the back of her hand to her cheek.
"Look at me again," she said, half exasperated. "Crying in the garden this time."
Fainyx watched her.
He reached over quietly and held out a cookie.
Estrella laughed properly at that, watery and warm all at once and took it.
"Thank you," she managed.
She composed herself slowly, dabbing her eyes with her sleeve, until only the brightness remained.
Then she looked at him again.
Really looked at him.
Something gentle and wondering in her expression.
"You really took after her," she said softly. "When you smile like that."
Fainyx stilled.
His eyes moved to her face.
Estrella noticed.
She held his gaze.
"Your mother," she said quietly. "You look just like her when you smile."
The garden was very still for a moment.
Fainyx reached for his notebook.
He wrote carefully.
[ Can you tell me about her? ]
A pause.
[ I'm curious. ]
Estrella looked at the question for a long moment.
Something moved behind her eyes, hesitation, memory, the particular expression of someone deciding how much of something precious to share.
Then she exhaled softly.
And smiled.
"...Alright," she said. "But young master, what I'm about to tell you." She glanced briefly toward the mansion, then back at him. "This stays between us. Only myself and Mr. Weinhart know the full of it. Not even your brothers or your father knows about it."
Fainyx nodded once.
Estrella folded her hands in her lap and was quiet for a moment, as if finding the right place to begin.
"I first met your mother before she was the Duchess of Nocte," she said. "Before any of that. I was her personal maid when she was still living with her family."
She smiled softly.
"Her name was Celestyne. Celestyne Von Solmere."
She said it the way people say names they hold dear carefully, like something worth preserving.
"The Von Solmere family are a Marquis house. Prestigious, well respected, and very proud of their name." She paused. "Your maternal grandparents. You have never been told about them I assume?"
Fainyx looked at her. He remembered when he was a baby he saw someone arguing that looks related to his mothers but he don't know if it was his grandparents.
So he just shook his head once.
Estrella nodded slowly, unsurprised but with a quiet sadness behind her eyes.
"I thought as much," she murmured softly.
She smoothed her skirt and continued.
"They are good people. Stern perhaps, the way noble families tend to be, but good." A small pause. "Your mother was their daughter in every sense, brilliant, determined, and absolutely impossible to argue with once she had made up her mind."
She laughed quietly to herself.
"Your mother was a magician," she said. "Not just any magician. She was famous, genuinely famous among those who knew of her. Brilliant beyond measure. The kind of talent that only comes around once in a generation."
She paused.
"But she was also trained as a knight."
Fainyx's eyes shifted almost imperceptibly.
Estrella caught it and smiled.
"I know. Surprising isn't it? A noblewoman trained in both magic and the sword." She shook her head with quiet admiration. "She pursued both without telling anyone who didn't need to know. She said one without the other felt incomplete."
She looked at Fainyx carefully.
"You have her eyes. And perhaps more of her than you realize."
Fainyx said nothing.
But he was listening very carefully.
"She never liked sitting still," Estrella continued, a warmth entering her voice. "She never liked being told what she was allowed to do and what she wasn't." A small laugh escaped her. "So she did what she wanted."
She glanced at him sideways.
"She became an adventurer. In secret. She hid her identity entirely, took on a name no one would connect to the Von Solmere house."
She smiled.
"They called her The Silver Wraith."
The name settled into the garden air quietly.
"Nobody knew who she really was. Not her party members. Not the guilds she worked with. Not even the monsters she defeated." Estrella's voice carried a quiet pride. "To the world she was simply The Silver Wraith, a dual wielder of magic and blade that nobody could quite explain and nobody could quite catch."
She shook her head slowly.
"And I went with her."
Fainyx looked at her.
Estrella caught his expression and laughed.
"Ahaha... I know what you're thinking." She waved a hand. "I should have refused. I should have told her parents. I knew very well I could have been dismissed for it." She tilted her chin up slightly. "I didn't care."
Her voice settled into something quieter.
"I was her maid. But I was also her friend. And she needed someone who knew the truth and wouldn't betray it." A beat. "So I went with her."
She reached over and picked up the cookie Fainyx had offered her earlier, turning it absently in her fingers.
"I wasn't a mage or a knight like her," she said. "But I was useful in my own way. I had a good eye for traps, the mechanical kind, the magical kind, all of it. I could spot them before anyone else." She smiled. "So she put me in her party."
She took a small bite of the cookie.
Her eyes went distant for a moment.
Fond.
"We went through some terrible places," she said, almost to herself. "Dark ones. Dangerous ones. Places that should have killed us more than once." She paused. "But your mother was extraordinary. I never once doubted we would come out the other side as long as she was there."
Fainyx was very still.
Listening.
Estrella's smile shifted.
Became something warmer and more exasperated all at once.
"She was also," she added, "the worst cook I have ever encountered in my entire life."
Fainyx stared at her.
Estrella pressed her lips together fighting a smile.
"I mean it. Once, she tried to make soup." She held up one finger. "Just soup. Simple soup. And somehow, somehow young master, she managed to burn it." She paused stopping herself from laughing too much. "It was charcoal. Actual charcoal. In a pot."
Fainyx stared at her for another moment.
Then looked down at his cookie.
Estrella laughed.
"So that became my job as well," she said. "Trap detection and cooking. For a party led by a genius magician knight who could level a dungeon floor but could not boil water without incident."
She shook her head, still smiling.
But when the laughter faded the expression that replaced it was something deeper.
Quieter.
She looked down at the cookie in her hands.
"She used to tell me..." Estrella began, then stopped.
Started again.
"She would say, 'Estrella, you're not my maid. You're my family.' "
Her voice had gone very soft.
"She said it so easily. Like it was just a fact. Like it required no ceremony." Estrella exhaled slowly. "I used to argue with her about it. Tell her it wasn't proper. That I was her servant and she shouldn't say such things."
A pause.
"She never listened."
Fainyx looked at her.
Estrella's eyes were bright again.
But she was smiling.
"She helped me more times than I can count," she said quietly. "More than I ever helped her. She was that kind of person, the kind who gave without keeping track. Who protected the people around her without making a fuss about it."
She looked at Fainyx.
Really looked at him.
At his silver hair with its faint green gradient.
At his violet eyes with their crystalline shimmer, still and clear and watching her the way his mother used to watch people, like he was reading something the rest of the world couldn't see.
"She was my master," Estrella said softly. "And my best friend. And my family."
She reached out.
And gently patted the top of his head.
"So you see," she said, her voice steady despite everything shining in her eyes, "taking care of you was never just a duty to me."
She smiled.
"It never could be."
The garden was quiet around them.
The flowers swayed.
The breeze moved through the flowers, catching the afternoon light.
Fainyx looked at the flowers for a moment.
Then down at his notebook.
He wrote slowly.
[ She sounds like someone worth knowing. ]
Estrella read it.
And this time she didn't try to stop the tears.
She just let them come, laughing softly at herself as she wiped them away, the sound of it bright and warm and a little broken all at once.
"She was," she said.
"She really was."