Chapter 95: William, Wiwi to Those Close to Him

The silence around the table was almost immediate.

Not dramatic.

Just deeply shocked.

As though she had calmly announced plans to join a cult.

Eva blinked several times.

"Wait... you?"

Even Sean briefly looked up from his menu with the cautious expression of someone instinctively sensing that something unusual was happening.

Blanche, meanwhile, remained remarkably calm.

" Yes. Me."

" Blanche Callahan is voluntarily ordering alcohol," Eva repeated slowly. "So either the universe is collapsing... or someone is having a crisis."

"Both are possible."

The waiter returned a few minutes later with a bottle of white wine without even checking her age.

She opened it with almost solemn seriousness.

She needed it, after the miserable spiral of thoughts she'd had all morning and the looming possibility of meeting her biological father.

Because between her catastrophically misplaced feelings for Kiyan, Eva's predictable reaction, her parallel existence in the Otherworld, and the fact that she might potentially meet her real father in just a few hours, her brain was quietly beginning to request medical leave.

She poured herself a glass slightly too generously.

Then drank it far too quickly.

Though it wasn't as if the alcohol had any real effect on her anymore... aside from leveling up her skill.

Sean watched the scene with growing concern.

"Should we be worried?"

" Yes, Eva answered immediately."

" No," Blanche answered at the exact same time.

The problem being that she had already poured herself more wine.

Even though the white wine did not remotely pair with the burger she had ordered.

Not remotely.

The contrast between the dripping burger and the vaguely refined white wine was almost a gastronomic crime. A sommelier probably would have fainted on sight.

But Blanche absolutely did not care.

Today, her palate could suffer alongside the rest of her existence.

She bit into her burger before taking another sip with the grave expression of a woman enduring a contemporary Greek tragedy.

Eva was still staring at her as though she might suddenly climb onto the table and announce her departure for a life of piracy.

"You're scaring me."

"Me too, " Blanche admitted honestly.

And the worst part?

It was probably the most sincere thing she had said all day.

Especially since Sean had invited his brother Will.

Who was late.

William, for formal introductions.

Wiwi, for close friends.

When he finally arrived, he stopped dead in front of Blanche for several seconds, eyes wide.

The young man — dressed in a long skirt and a white linen shirt, with an eyebrow piercing and apparently a tongue piercing too — turned scarlet red, nearly matching his leather satchel. His face was an open book of pure astonishment.

He hurried to kiss both her cheeks, properly — lips against skin, nothing like a distant greeting.

Sean frowned suspiciously.

William pretended not to know Blanche.

Terrible actor.

Argy remained undefeated champion in that category.

There was no doubt he knew her already too.

" Blanche, this is my younger brother Will. Bro, this is Eva's best friend... and incidentally Winter's granddaughter, the princess."

" Delighted! " Will exclaimed as he sat beside her. "Call me Wiwi. And if you're okay with it, I'll call you B."

" With pleasure!"

Eva stared at her friend — practically her sister — in utter confusion.

"With pleasure?"

"B?"

Seriously?

That was not Blanche's usual style at all.

Blanche understood quickly: not only did he know everything, but she had apparently just gained a lifelong friend.

Much to Eva's sudden silence.

Almost jealousy.

First the vampiric prince, now her almost-brother-in-law?

Wiwi explained that he was Sean's twin and older brother — despite paradoxically being physically younger by several years.

His brother had been sent to the Otherworld with their father to continue the family legacy and learn how to fight.

The Oswalds belonged to draconic nobility.

And like every son born into the "high houses," one of them had to learn combat in their true form: that of a dragon.

Impossible to do on Epsilon, where the skies were heavily regulated.

"As for me, I served as your aunt's bodyguard here on Epsilon. Which means I'm a few centuries younger than my twin brother."

Anyone magical knew time flowed differently in the Otherworld.

But Blanche had not known that each of the country's four Towers possessed a portal leading directly there.

Sean had received special permission to access it.

Wiwi had not.

Remaining on Epsilon with her aunt had given him plenty of opportunities to cross paths with... a certain person.

Blanche understood the implication immediately.

His gaze made it obvious: he knew her from one of her time-travel journeys.

And he would keep the secret.

Unlike his brother, Wiwi was lively, exuberant, and utterly charming.

A tragedy for women that he was gay.

Blanche would happily have traded him for Sean, who suited Eva much better.

She had an excellent time.

The two young women learned far more than they had ever hoped for.

Blanche exchanged numbers with the blond, who promised her a girls' outing sometime soon.

He clearly had things to tell her...

After lunch — one entire bottle she had emptied by herself, plus another tucked into her bag — she went to meet Kiyan, fresh as a rose after a second shower.

It was time to discover her progenitor.

Her real father worked nights and never woke before four in the afternoon.

Reasonable for a stripper.

Which left her nearly an hour of travel alone with her favorite professor.

An hour she never would have imagined could be so... torturous.

Kiyan was impeccably dressed.

As always.

But even more so today.

He looked as though he had stepped directly out of a luxury magazine inaccessible to ordinary mortals, possessing that deeply irritating natural elegance of men who do not even need to try in order to look flawless.

His chocolate-brown three-piece suit fit him perfectly, understated and sophisticated at once.

The dark fabric emphasized the breadth of his shoulders and the narrowness of his waist with almost indecent precision, while the black wool coat added a quiet winter elegance to the ensemble.

The colors brought out his eyes.

And the highlights in his hair.

Under the pale afternoon light, his dark strands occasionally caught warmer, almost coppery tones that softened the natural coldness of his features.

Slightly.

Because he remained absolutely terrifying nonetheless.

And his scent...

By Babylon !

Blanche immediately felt her brain abandon all rational activity the moment he approached.