Waking up from a coma was starting to become a habit Jett really wanted to break. It lacked the productivity of a good night's sleep and usually involved more people poking at his ribs than he was comfortable with.
He opened his eyes to find the ceiling of his shabby room still as damp as he remembered. However, the air felt different, thick with the scent of bitter herbs and the kind of medicinal incense that screamed "expensive intervention."
"He's awake," a voice muttered. It wasn't the gravelly bark of Steward Grevin, but the clinical, dry tone of someone who had seen too many internal organs.
Jett tilted his head. A woman in slate-grey robes was hovering over him, her fingers glowing with a faint, pulsing green light.
[Target Detected: Physician Morna]
[Threat Level: Low]
[Status: Deeply Confused]
"Morning," Jett rasped, his throat feeling like he'd swallowed a handful of dry crackers. "If you're here for the autopsy, you're about three days early. Or late. Time is a bit fuzzy when you're drinking for two me and the reaper."
Physician Morna didn't laugh. She didn't even crack a smile.
"You survived Widow's Breath, Jett Voland. By all laws of medicinal Aether, your lungs should be a fine purple slush and your heart should have crystallized. And yet, here you are, making silly jokes."
"I have a very stubborn personality," Jett said, sitting up with a groan. His body felt lighter, the heat from the PR-C now a dull, comfortable hum in the back of his mind. "It's my only survival trait. That, and a complete lack of shame."
"Your Prana channels are... stagnant," Morna continued, her brow furrowing as she retracted her glowing hand. "There is no circulation. No flow. It's as if the poison simply hit a wall and decided it had better places to be. How?"
"Maybe the poison realized it had no future in a body this broke?" Jett suggested. "Economic migration, while winking at her."
[System: Toxin Refined into 1.2 Essence. Analytical Mind active. Currently detecting elevated cortisol in the physician.]
The door to his room creaked open, and Steward Grevin stepped in. He looked significantly less purple than he had in the Great Hall, replaced by a look of wary interest that Jett found far more nauseous.
"The Matriarch requires a status report," Grevin said, ignoring Jett entirely and looking at Morna.
"He is physically stable," Morna replied, packing her vials. "But medically impossible. I cannot explain the lack of organ failure."
Grevin finally looked at Jett. For the first time, there was no sneer. There was curiosity. In the Vane Duke Estate, being useless was a sin, but being an anomaly was a commodity. "The Matriarch has sent compensation for the... 'unfortunate vintage' incident."
He dropped a heavy stack of documents onto Jett's lap. "Records from the kitchen logs, staff movements for the last month, and supply chain. Since you were so vocal about young master Revas's fashion choices, Lyra Vane has decided you can prove it. If you're right, you're a strategist. If you're wrong, you're a slanderer who will be lucky to spend the rest of his life in the mines."
Jett looked at the papers. This was it, the shift from punching bag to an investigator. "So I've been promoted from 'useless pig' to 'unpaid investigator'? I really need to negotiate my benefits package."
"Consider your continued breathing your benefits package," Grevin retorted before turning on his heel and leaving with the physician.
Jett sighed, leaning back against the headboard.
He spent the next few hours diving into the documents. To anyone else, it was a mess of dry numbers and names. To Jett's PR-C enhanced mind, patterns began to emerge like ink on a page. He cross-referenced the purchase of "red dusting powder" disguised as spice with the shifts of the servants assigned to Revas's wing.
[System: Analytical Mind has identified 3 potential suspect categories. Suspect 1: Revas (Primary). Suspect 2: The Head Chef (Coerced). Suspect 3: An external party masking as a Vane loyalist.]
"Focus on Suspect 1," Jett whispered. "Revas isn't smart enough to hide his tracks; he's just rich enough to think he doesn't have to."
A soft knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. Not the Steward's bang. This was light, hesitant.
"Come in," Jett said, expecting a servant with more bitter soup.
The door opened, and Sera Vane his wife stepped inside.
She wasn't wearing her formal Matriarch-in-training robes. She was in a simpler, high-collared white dress, carrying a small jade box. She looked at him, and for the first time, her icy eyes didn't look through him. They looked at him.
"You look less dead than I expected," she said, her voice like the first crack of ice on a spring pond.
"High praise, Sera. I'll put it on my resume," Jett replied, sliding the investigation documents under his blanket. "Is that my funeral shroud? A bit small, isn't it?
Sera didn't bite. She walked to the small table by his bed and set the jade box down. "It's an alchemical salve for internal bruising.
Mother ordered it, but I... I wrote the instructions for the application myself. The physician tends to be overly complex."
Jett blinked. That was a shift.
[Bond Progress: 4% (Pragmatic Cooperation Unlocked)]
"Thanks," Jett said, his voice losing its edge for a moment. He looked at her closely. Up close, the "perfection" of her cultivation was a lie. He could see the faint tension in her jaw, the way she breathed with a measured, forced rhythm.
"Sera," he said, before she could turn to leave. "Why do you do it? The peak of the Third Tier is genius enough for your age. Why push for the Fourth when your meridians look like they're made of glass?"
Sera froze. She turned back, her expression shifting from cold to lethal. "What do you know about my meridians?"
"I know that perfect movement is usually a sign that you're afraid of breaking if you move any other way," Jett said, gesturing vaguely. "I might be a 'useless waste of silk,' but I'm a very observant one. You have, what? Three months before that Aether instability hits your core?"
The silence in the room was absolute. Sera's hand twitched toward the hilt of the small blade at her waist, but she stopped. The fact that he knew was a threat, but the fact that he was the only one who had noticed was... something else.
"Seven months," she corrected, her voice barely a whisper. "The Festival is in seven months. I will be ready."
"You'll be a very beautiful statue in seven months if you keep this up," Jett said. "But hey, what do I know? I'm just the guy who survived the poison you all missed.
"
Sera stared at him for a long beat, her icy mask flickering with something unknown.
Without another word, she turned and swept out of the room, her white robes fluttering like a warning flag.
Jett reached for the jade box. Beneath the salve, there was a small slip of paper.
The Grand Matriarch has re assigned you. You are no longer to catalog wine. You will report to the private study of the matriach tomorrow at the eighth bell. You are to be her personal correspondence organizer.
Jett whistled low. "From wine-taster to the Matriarch's secretary. I'm moving up in the world. Or she just wants to keep me close enough to bury me personally."
He leaned back, a smirk playing on his lips as the PR-C pulsed in his chest. "Eight bell, huh? I better find a robe that doesn't smell like shit."
As he closed his eyes to rest, the system gave him one final notification for the night.
[New Title Unlocked: The Invisible Husband (Reputation: Interesting)]