Cecilia couldn’t believe the government had actually hidden her for a whole week.

Seven days with the suffocating isolation of being too important to wander freely, seven days of Cha SoHee’s hovering and Lilyca’s revelation jumpscares and Ivy Cassia’s terrifying, sunshine-bright manipulation...

And then it was over.

The moment the world’s governments realized that the talk about her online and offline was not going to die down, that every attempt to control the narrative only made the story grow larger and stranger and more beyond their grasp, they simply gave up.

The footage of the blonde goddess holding back the reservoir had been viewed more times than there were people on the planet, after all

There was no containing or managing this. There was only letting her go and hoping she remained benevolent.

When Damon saw her off at the facility’s private exit, his eyes dropped immediately to her midsection.

It was noticeable now. Before, she had looked slightly bloated, just a vague, ambiguous swelling that could be dismissed as a large meal or an unflattering angle.

Now, there was no mistaking it. The gentle curve of her belly pressed against the fabric of her clothes showed the life growing inside her.

She was more than nine weeks pregnant now, and a dragon’s egg grew a great deal during a short period of time. It should have been noticeable far sooner, but Cecilia’s figure inclined to hide things until now.

"The Association won’t bother you until you give birth and recover." Damon said. "I don’t know about the world’s governments, though. President Cassia especially is a willful person."

Cecilia smiled at him. "I don’t mind. She is your wife, so I will trust her too."

In this world, Ivy Cassia had apparently been part of their alliance from the very beginning. She didn’t know the details or how the marriage had happened, or whether Magnus Karas had some complicated relationship with that woman in this world, but there must be some kind of similarity here too.

Damon sighed. "I said don’t put your trust so easily in people, and that’s especially for Ivy."

Cecilia shrugged. She smiled and nodded to him, receiving his nod back.

Her husbands were waiting for her in the car. She turned and walked toward them, her hand resting absently on the swell of her belly.

Behind her, a moving truck rumbled to life with its cargo holding the detritus of their week-long occupation.

Damon watched them go. His expression was tired but unreadable, as he decided not to immediately leave. He stood at the edge of the parking lot and his eyes tracked the car until it disappeared around a bend in the road.

"This is the result of the DNA test, Sir."

Cha SoHee materialized at his elbow. She held out a manila envelope and Damon took it. He slowly opened the flap.

He had tasked her with this special mission of getting Cecilia’s DNA for testing, and he had truly expected his intuition to be correct. Cecilia Araceli, an orphan raised in a clinic, might be—

Huh?

Not... a match?

But they looked too similar! The cheekbones, the gait. He had been so sure.

"Have you checked it over and over again?" Damon asked, voice sharper than he intended.

"Yes, Sir. I submitted her hair and her toothbrush. It is definitely her DNA."

Damon hummed, his brow furrowing. "I see. So I can also be wrong."

But then he thought it over.

"Did you compare this to President Cassia’s DNA in the database?"

"Yes, Sir."

Ah.

Damon made a complicated expression. "That database might not be accurate. And she is not the kind who would... ha..."

The Cassian Twins were not exactly known for their transparency. Their DNA profiles in the international database were almost certainly deliberately incomplete.

He sighed. Getting Cecilia’s DNA had been challenging enough with her three boyfriends hovering around her like a royal guard.

But getting his own wife’s DNA was even more impossible. That woman was Ivy Cassia, after all.

Today, he would need to steal her toothbrush himself.

***

It took a while, but Cecilia finally found it again. Dr. Summer Silver’s burial site.

The grave was modest, a simple flat stone set into the earth of a quiet cemetery on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by wild grass and the distant murmur of traffic.

No grand mausoleum or elaborate statuary. Just a name and a date. Cecilia had found this grave in the school romance scenario too. Just as plain.

Here, in this alternate universe, she was still dead.

"I wonder why you’re dead every time." Cecilia said flatly. But the pain of losing the same mother in three different realities could be heard in her casual tone too.

"In the real world, in the school romance scenario, and here. It’s unfair. Eastiel and Arkai got to meet their dads. Why can’t I meet you?"

She bit into her sandwich, thick slices of roasted meat and something tangy that Oathran had packed for her that morning. She chewed ferociously, slightly angry.

"I’m pregnant, by the way." She swallowed and took another bite. "Also, it’s out of wedlock."

The wind blew gently across the cemetery, rustling the wild grass and carrying the faint scent of summer flowers. It was a beautiful day.

"And I actually cheated on my husband. Technically. Because our divorce hadn’t been finalized yet. No," she paused, correcting herself, "I hadn’t even actually signed the document when I cheated."

The wind picked up, just slightly.

Cecilia imagined, briefly, what Dr. Summer Silver might have said to that. Probably something calm and clinical, followed by a very long, very disappointed silence.

"And... I conceived the baby while having a four-way orgy."

The wind didn’t answer and the grass didn’t wither. The sky didn’t open up to deliver divine judgment.

But Cecilia was fairly certain that if Summer Silver weren’t already dead, that sentence would have done the job. Either a stroke or a heart attack.

She lay back on the grass, her sandwich resting on her belly, which was now definitely a belly, round and impossible to hide, framed the flat gravestone with her arm, as though she were draping it across her mother’s shoulders.

"Doctor, I also need to tell you. I just learned that I’m super broke right now. I used all of my resources to gamble, and the only way I can earn them back is going to be through gambling again."

The gacha was technically a gamble too, after all.

She took another bite of her sandwich, chewed and swallowed.

"Let me tell you, I mess everything up." Another bite. "I’m even going to court for a lawsuit against my soon-to-be ex-husband. It’s going to be sooooooooo bad."

She talked as she chewed her food,

"And the news has been broadcasting me half-naked in the middle of a dam not long ago—"

[Cecilia, what are you trying to do...?]

The System sounded hesitant.

Cecilia didn’t even blink. "Can’t you see I’m trying to wake my mom up? These are the lines that would usually wake your dead parents no matter how dead they are."

...

...

...

[You know that out of everything you’ve done, this is the most ridiculous, right?]

"Thanks."