CHAPTER 76: LORD ROWE

Osiris Lawless sat at his desk, one hand cradling a cup of tea while the other lazily flipped through a folder of reports.

The pale morning light streamed through the tall windows of his office, glinting faintly off the medals and sigils pinned to the far wall. His office was quiet, save for the faint scratching of a quill from his assistant in the outer chamber.

That quiet shattered in an instant.

Raised voices rang out from beyond the door, angry, and growing closer. The muffled tones of his guards trying to calm someone were drowned beneath a single, thunderous voice.

"Osiris!"

The door slammed open without so much as a knock, banging against the wall with a force that rattled the frames of the maps hanging nearby.

A tall man strode in, his tailored coat sweeping around him like a storm wind. His dark hair was slicked back, the streaks of silver near his temples doing nothing to dull the sheer force of his presence.

His eyes, an icy, piercing blue, locked onto Osiris with something between fury and desperation.

Lord Rowe.

Juniper’s father.

"Osiris," Rowe said, his voice gravelly, and strangely calm for someone with that much rage and pain in his eyes, "it has been a month."

Osiris set his tea down without hurry, his expression unchanging. "Indeed."

"A month since my daughter was taken," Rowe continued, each word slowly being filled with restrained rage. "A month since you assured me that the Investigation Authority had the situation under control."

"And yet," he stepped closer, placing both palms flat on the edge of Osiris’s desk, "you still haven’t extracted the location of my daughter from the boy you captured."

Osiris’s eyes flickered, just once, before returning to their calm focus. "Interrogations of this nature take time. We are... getting closer."

"Closer?" Rowe’s voice rose sharply. "Closer?! You’ve had him in your custody for weeks! For a fucking month, Osiris! I was told you were the best at getting to the truth. And yet, here we are. No daughter. No location. Just excuses!"

Osiris leaned back slightly in his chair, folding his hands in his lap. "Lord Rowe, I understand your concern. But the subject is... resilient. Breaking him requires delicate work. If I push too hard too fast, I risk losing valuable information."

Rowe straightened, the tension in his shoulders clear. He began to pace in front of the desk, his boots clicking loudly against the polished floor.

"Then give me five minutes with him." He said suddenly, turning to face Osiris again. "Just five. I’ll have the truth out of him faster than any of your methods. Whatever you’ve been doing clearly isn’t working."

Osiris didn’t answer immediately. He reached for his tea again, taking a slow sip before setting it back down. "That will not happen."

Rowe’s jaw clenched. "You think I can’t do it? You think I won’t?"

"I think," Osiris said evenly, "that the chain of command exists for a reason. If every noble father stormed in demanding to question our suspects, we’d have chaos. And besides... my methods do work. This subject is just a bit more... resilient than normal. The results simply require patience."

Rowe’s expression shifted, his rage morphing into desperation. His voice dropped, losing some of its edge.

"Osiris... she’s my daughter. My only daughter. Do you have any idea what it’s like to wake up every morning not knowing if she’s alive or dead? Not knowing if she’s cold, hungry, in pain?"

"I imagine it is difficult." Osiris replied, his tone bland.

Rowe’s hands curled into fists at his sides. "Then do your job! Go out there and find her! I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care who you have to burn through to get the truth. Just. Find. Her!"

His voice broke on the last word, raw emotion spilling past the mask of the composed noble. The guards outside the door stepped in, exchanging brief, tense glances with Osiris before moving toward Rowe.

"Lord Rowe," one said cautiously, "you need to calm down—"

"Calm down?" Rowe barked, turning on the man. "My daughter is out there in the hands of some lunatic, and you want me to calm down?"

The guards didn’t argue further. They each took an arm, and despite his protests, began to lead him toward the door.

"Osiris!" Rowe shouted over his shoulder. "If you let her die, I will hold you personally responsible!"

"You hear me, Osiris?! You! Will you be able to handle it? Will you?!"

The heavy door slammed shut behind him, muffling the echoes of his voice down the hallway.

Silence filled the office once again.

Osiris reached for his tea, unbothered, taking another slow sip as though nothing had happened.

His gaze shifted to the corner of the desk where a separate folder lay, one containing every report on Noah. The subject. The "student" Lord Rowe wanted so desperately to break.

He tapped the folder lightly with two fingers, his mind drifting.

A month. A month of exposure to the S-rank soul-burning spell. A month of deprivation, of fear, of pain so intense that most mages, noble or not, would have been broken days ago. And yet...

Noah still hadn’t confessed.

Still hadn’t given him the location of Juniper Rowe.

Still hadn’t surrendered entirely to the agony.

All he’d been spouting was his fanciful story of raiding a C-rank monolith with a few noble kids. Noah had ingrained the story so deep in his own mind, that Osiris had a few theories.

Osiris leaned back in his chair, the faintest crease forming between his brows.

Perhaps... it wasn’t just sheer stubbornness. But that was unlikely. Even if it was the result of training, no training could withstand his spells.

Or maybe there was something else at play here. A spell that can manipulate the soul. Mages with Soul Affinities could cast a powerful S-rank spell to change the memories written on the soul.

But there were few Soul Mages in existence, and none that powerful.

So, what could it be?

His thoughts turned to race. Bloodline. The strange, elusive qualities of non-human ancestry and the way it sometimes manifested in resilience, magic tolerance, or even outright immunity to certain effects.

Could that be it?

Could Noah’s race, whatever it truly was, be shielding him somehow?

Osiris’s lips curved into the barest hint of a smile.

"Interesting." He murmured to himself.

Whether it was nobility, race, or some hidden trick, all he knew was that Noah was different. And Osiris would find out exactly why.

One way or another.