Chapter 43: Chapter 43: A Sudden Home Visit

Chapter 43: A Sudden Home Visit

Audra Sloane had nearly convinced herself that Cyrus Calder and Faye Larkin made sense.

While Cyrus worked through the problems in front of him, Audra watched him from across the classroom table with a stare that had grown less and less detached.

They were both low-visibility students in their own ways. Faye hid behind thick glasses and heavy bangs. Cyrus hid behind messy hair, dull posture, and that gloomy schoolboy disguise that made people forget to look twice. If someone only looked at the surface, the match had a miserable kind of logic.

If that was true, then his indifference toward her had an explanation.

If that was true, then what had Audra been doing all this time?

The thought left her feeling as if someone had quietly fitted a red clown nose onto her face and told her to keep teaching math.

Her attention sharpened again, and that was when she noticed the ring on his finger.

The imaginary clown nose got brighter.

He wore a ring.

Of course he wore a ring.

Audra lowered her lashes, then raised them again before her expression could shift too much. The ring was plain enough that she had missed it before, or maybe she had noticed and refused to give it the proper meaning. Rings could mean many things. Family, habit, fashion, some odd personal superstition. It did not have to mean romance.

If he was simply loyal to someone, then her dignity could still crawl back from the edge of humiliation.

A loyal boy was difficult, but not impossible.

A boy who already belonged to someone else would make her the joke.

Cyrus finished the last line of a solution, then paused with his pencil still resting against the page. He seemed to be checking his own work, focused enough that he had not bothered to ask why she had stopped speaking.

Audra heard herself ask, "Are you seeing someone?"

"No, I’m not seeing anyone."

Cyrus answered on instinct, still half inside the math problem.

Only after the words left his mouth did he seem to process what she had asked. His pencil stilled. His brows shifted faintly beneath the fall of his hair.

Why was she suddenly asking him that?

Was this another trick?

Audra’s face gave away nothing. The answer had come quickly enough that she did not doubt it. Her breathing settled, and the imaginary clown nose was gently removed by the very person who had put it there.

Everything was still fine.

Their time together was short. She had only begun. Once the tutoring continued, once he relied on her notes, her explanations, her schedule, her patience, and the practical benefit she had placed in front of him, she did not believe he could stay that unmoved forever.

People responded to care when it arrived steadily enough.

Cyrus waited for her to explain why she had asked, but Audra only lowered her head and began marking his paper. She did not follow up, did not tease him, and did not offer the kind of embarrassed smile that would have made the question seem accidental.

That confirmed it in his mind.

Beautiful women loved to wrap hooks in ordinary questions. Was he seeing someone? Did he like anyone? Was he lonely? Did he trust her? The words sounded casual on the surface, but every one of them could pull a person half a step closer before he realized he had moved.

Unfortunately for her, Cyrus had been through worse.

Rhea Maddox had already tested him with that warm, official, dangerous kind of concern. The woman from his past had used methods that made casual ambiguity look like a card trick performed by a child.

Audra Sloane’s attempt was clean, pretty, and calmly delivered.

Cyrus silently placed it in the same category as the rest.

She had skill, but she was not winning yet.

By the time tutoring ended, the classroom had gone dimmer with evening. Audra gathered her books with the same graceful control she used for everything, and Cyrus packed his own things at a slower pace. They said goodbye without anything unusual on the surface.

The ring remained on his finger.

Audra noticed it again before he left.

Cyrus did not notice her noticing.

Night came early around the streets near The Full Moon Lounge. By the time Cyrus finished work, it was only a little past ten, which still felt luxurious compared to the old closing hours. The streets had not emptied completely. A few cars rolled past. A couple left a diner laughing too loudly. The convenience store near the corner still glowed with that harsh, practical light that made cheap food look more reliable than it had any right to be.

Cyrus walked out with three hot dogs wrapped in foil.

Getting off work earlier deserved celebration.

Three hot dogs was not greed. Three hot dogs was a reasonable tribute to improved scheduling, increased study time, and the fact that Malcolm Baird had somehow agreed to adjust his hours without cutting his pay. A lesser person might have celebrated with something expensive. Cyrus was showing restraint.

In his opinion, a dollar-fifty hot dog from a convenience-store warmer was one of the finest bargains in the human world.

The only real flaw was storage. It was not the kind of food that stayed perfect after too long. If he could stockpile a hundred of them and heat them whenever he wanted, his quality of life would rise by a meaningful amount.

A Frostborn body could chill a bottled drink in his hand. That part was useful.

Somewhere in the world, there had to be a rare-blood line that handled heat the same way. If a person like that could warm food with a palm, then a hot dog could become fresh again in seconds. The thought alone made Cyrus respect a species he had never met.

The universe had given him cold.

Cold was good. Cold kept drinks perfect, made summer less disgusting, and helped him survive in rooms that would make other people shiver.

Cold did not reheat dinner.

Reality remained unfair.

He ate one hot dog on the walk, started the second near the intersection, and saved the third until he was close to his building. By the time he reached his apartment door, he had one foil-wrapped hot dog left and his key already in hand.

The neighboring door opened at the same time.

Daphne Whitlock stepped out with a small trash bag dangling from one hand.

She was dressed for home rather than school, wearing a white sleep dress with thin straps, her hair loose around her shoulders. The hallway light softened the teacherly precision she usually carried at St. Alder Academy, but it did not make her less noticeable. If anything, it made the situation worse.

A teacher appearing beside him at night, dressed like that, outside the apartment next door, was the kind of detail Cyrus did not want anyone else to see.

Daphne seemed just as surprised to find him there.

"Oh," she said, her voice gentle. "You’re just getting back?"

"Yes, I had work."

Her attention dropped to the foil in his hand. She did not ask immediately, but the small pause was enough.

"That’s your dinner?"

Cyrus glanced down at the hot dog. "It counts as dinner." 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Daphne’s mouth softened.

That expression looked kind.

Cyrus did not trust it.

"Wait here for a second," she said.

Before he could answer, she turned back into her apartment. She returned with a familiar insulated food container in both hands.

Cyrus recognized it at once.

This was real dinner.

Not convenience-store food. Not emergency food. Not something eaten standing up under fluorescent lights while pretending a tight budget was a lifestyle choice. This was cooked food, sealed warm, handed over without him needing to bargain.

Daphne offered it to him. "Here. Take this."

Cyrus accepted it with the respect the situation deserved. "Thank you, Ms. Whitlock."

"You’re welcome. I cook too much all the time anyway, so if you’re willing to help me with leftovers, you’d be doing me a favor."

Her voice was flawless. Warm, harmless, reasonable.

Cyrus looked at her face and silently sighed.

If someone heard only that sentence, who would guess this woman was also the person who had looked at his child-form body with the kind of interest no teacher should ever have? This was why dangerous people were troublesome. They rarely walked around announcing the problem. Sometimes they brought dinner and used a gentle voice.

Daphne tilted her head slightly, as if remembering something.

"Actually, since I caught you at a decent time, could you help me with a home visit?"

Cyrus’s fingers tightened around the container. "You mean right now?"

"Only if you have time. It’s not anything serious. St. Alder wants the paperwork finished, and since I’m already here, it would save everyone trouble."

A teacher wanted to do a home visit at ten at night.

Cyrus looked at the container in his hand.

There were moments in life when refusing was morally clean but practically stupid. He had just accepted food. He was also curious about what this so-called home visit would involve.

Besides, he was not in his child form right now.

If Daphne Whitlock tried anything strange while facing his normal body, Cyrus trusted his own chances. Frostborn strength was not something he could show casually, but it existed. Even without it, human society seemed to agree that grown men were the ones women should be careful around at night.

Strictly speaking, she should be the one worrying about entering a male student’s apartment alone after dark.

That concern was wasted on him.

Cyrus had no worldly desire to do anything to her.

He nodded. "I can spare a little time."

"Thank you. I’ll grab the folder."

Daphne returned to her apartment again. When she came back, she had added a loose cardigan over the sleep dress and carried a folder, a pen, and several printed forms. The cardigan made the situation look less absurd, though not by enough.

Cyrus unlocked his door and stepped inside first.

Daphne followed him into the apartment.

It was her second time in the room.

The first time, a little white-haired boy had been here.

For one brief instant, Daphne remembered the weight of that small body in her arms, the pale hair, the cool skin, the fragile stubbornness of a child trying not to seem frightened. The memory rose too clearly, and the corner of her mouth threatened to move.

She controlled it.

Cyrus placed the food container and his unfinished hot dog on the small table. The apartment was as plain as ever. A bed, a low table, basic storage, a small kitchen area that looked more theoretical than used, and almost no decorations. There were no posters, no family photos, no hobby clutter, and no second pair of shoes that suggested regular visitors.

It was a room built around survival, sleep, and leaving again in the morning.

There was no smell of neglect. No trash left around. No spoiled food. If anything, the place was cleaner than many student rooms Daphne had seen in her teaching career.

It was also cold.

Cool air met her skin the moment she settled inside, enough that the thin cardigan suddenly felt less decorative. Daphne let her attention drift toward the wall unit. The vent was open, which gave her an easy explanation, and she accepted it because the alternative would require questions she could not ask yet.

"This place cools down quickly," she said.

"I like it cold."

"That makes sense."

Cyrus gave no further explanation.

They sat across from each other at the low table. Daphne did not complain about the floor. Her own apartment had the same awkward layout, and she had already learned that this building forced people to adjust their pride to the furniture.

She opened the folder and turned to the correct form.

Cyrus watched her pen move across the page. Her handwriting was neat, fitting the image she kept at school. The form looked ordinary enough. Student name, grade, guardian information, living arrangement, notes from the visit.

Ordinary paperwork could still be dangerous.

Paper remembered things.

Files moved between hands.

A teacher with the right excuse could ask questions that a neighbor could not.

"Don’t worry," Daphne said, lifting her eyes to him. "This is mostly a formality. I’m not here to make trouble for you."

People who said they were not making trouble often arrived with the tools to make it easier.

Cyrus kept his posture relaxed. "I understand what you mean."

Daphne filled out another line. "Your teachers know you’ve been trying harder lately. That’s good. St. Alder can be demanding, and if a student is living away from family, the school likes to make sure there’s some support in place."

Support was a neat word for something that could sit across from him with dinner, a pen, and a school folder.

Cyrus lowered his gaze to the unopened food container.

Daphne followed his glance, then smiled faintly. "You can eat while we talk if you want."

"I’ll eat after we finish."

"You’re still cautious with me?"

"It’s easier to answer questions first."

Daphne’s pen paused for half a beat.

He had not said anything rude. He had not refused her. He had simply placed a clean boundary on the table and made it sound practical.

The boy in front of her really was different from the child she remembered. His school disguise made him seem duller, almost gloomy, but it did not make him weak. If anything, the distance in him became easier to see in a room this bare.

Daphne looked back at the form.

"All right," she said. "Then I’ll keep it simple."

Cyrus waited.

"Could you tell me a little about your family situation?"