CHAPTER 405: CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BREAK THE TOYS THEY STILL NEED 2

"No," Lilith said. There was no pause. "I do not feed on them in that way. I touched where it would make her blink. I do not cut that place deeper than a blink."

Elowen’s eyes flicked to hers, and there was warmth in the small smile that moved her mouth.

"And I put those pictures on a shelf," she said. "I did not break them to prove I could. That is our peace."

"It is," Lilith said.

The Matron watched their eyes, not their power. She nodded as if making a mark in a book only she could see.

"Good," she said again. "Keep that peace. The world will try to spend it for you."

The Ancestress turned her attention to the veins still glowing in the root beneath Elowen’s feet. "You drew deeply," she said softly. "More deeply than you let mortals see."

"Yes," Elowen said. No apology lived in that word—only fact.

"Can you still stop when stopping matters?" the Ancestress asked.

Elowen let out her breath in a long line. "Yes," she said. "When stopping protects those we hold."

"Then stop," the Ancestress said gently. "Not forever. For now."

Lilith’s smirk curved at the edges, a lighter shape than it had been a moment before. "Ask what you came to ask," she said. "You did not pause a world only to check our manners."

The Matron laughed low. "No," she agreed. "We came because we smelled a thread in your fight that does not belong to either of you."

She lifted one finger. The space near it rippled. A cold, faint taste of black wax moved in the air, the kind that clings to things that should not be sealed.

"A letter. A debt. A hand that wants to move pieces without touching them."

Elowen’s gaze sharpened. "Valakar," she said.

Lilith’s expression cooled the way water cools when the sun goes down. "And the knife he invited to the table," she said. "Drosirael."

The Matron’s eyes stayed mild and did not blink. "Did you feel another signature riding their wake tonight?" she asked. "We did."

Elowen listened to the broken hush of the arena. The root under her feet spoke in the way old things speak, not aloud, not with words.

A slow memory rolled through the wood, like wind rolling through tall grass. She shook her head once.

"Not in the seal," she said. "But I felt it in the world before we came here. In the way orders moved. In the timing of a call cut short."

The Director’s face passed through her mind and was gone. She did not hold it. "Something watched. Something old. Not Valakar. Not Drosirael. Not ours."

"Not ours," the Matron echoed. "But willing to whisper in our halls." Her mouth curved like someone looking at a board and seeing a piece they had not set there.

"The Old Compacts lift a finger, and mortals build a temple. This one did not lift a finger. It breathed. That is enough."

"And the exam realm," the Ancestress said quietly. "You think it is safe enough for your children. You think it is not safe enough to ignore."

Lilith’s eyes slid toward the curve of the night she could not see from here. "It will hold," she said. "Until someone asks it not to."

Elowen’s answer came over hers, not in protest, but the way two musicians strike the same chord. "We will be there when it opens," she said. "We will let them stand as students, but not alone."

The Matron’s smile turned fond despite the subject. "You two speak like sisters when it is about him," she said. "It is sweet."

Lilith gave her a look that would have made a lesser woman rethink a century of choices. The Matron laughed anyway.

"We also came for this," the Ancestress said, and now her tone lost the soft edges and showed bone.

"If Valakar and his blade-friend test the world soon, if they choose to push where mortals feel confident, if they prod that exam, you will not answer them here. Not in the seal.

Not in a sealed thing at all if you can help it. You will draw them into dirt that knows your names. You will make them fight on ground that loves you more than it loves them."

Lilith’s crimson eyes warmed a fraction. "I prefer theaters that know me."

Elowen’s mouth curved. "Forests that have heard me sing."

"Good," the Ancestress said.

The Matron lifted her chin toward the still ceiling. "There is another piece," she said. "A quiet god.

The one the Director keeps company with by not saying so. You both felt that shade brush the edge of your lives this week."

"Yes," Lilith said. "It looked at me and I did not look back."

"Yes," Elowen said. "It stood behind him, and it did not move."

The Matron’s eyes brightened with a kind of pleasure that did not belong to cruelty. "Let it stay quiet," she said. "If it comes to the table, do not greet it first."

"And if it speaks?" Elowen asked.

The Ancestress answered that, her voice low as leaves brushing stone. "Then remember that silence can carry more promise than any oath," she said. "Some gods keep their word by never giving it."

The arena listened. The roots underfoot hummed once and stilled. The mirrors held their softer glow. The rivers slid a little and lay still again, like tired animals easing their weight.

"Last question," the Matron said. "For me, not for the seal. Are you both done for the night?"

Lilith looked at Elowen. Elowen looked back. They did not smile first. They nodded first.

"Yes," Lilith said.

"Yes," Elowen said.

"Good," the Matron said, and her smile came easy again. "Then I will use my old right to do something you two never do fast enough."

She snapped her fingers. It was not a sharp sound. It was the sound of a candle being snuffed gently.

The page above the band melted into harmless light and floated up like a lantern rising.