Bell let out a long, disappointed sigh and stared up at the stars.
"And here I thought she was really beautiful," she said. "Mom always said so. She told me there were so many male leads falling in love with her that she lost count."
"They fall in love with her because the game tells them to," Max said. "That's the whole mechanic. Pick a route, and the boy falls. It doesn't matter if you're charming or not."
"That's depressing."
"That's game design."
Bell snorted and pulled his jacket tighter around her shoulders. A few strands of her blond hair were blowing across her face, and she tucked them behind her ear. Then she paused, and her silver-grey eyes narrowed. A thought had been circling in her head for the last ten minutes, and now she finally caught it.
"Anyways, Max. I forgot to ask you two questions. I know I'm interrupting again, but I can't help it. Your backstory is so bizarre that I keep running into things that don't add up."
"It's fine. If I were in your place, I'd interrupt too. Ask away."
"First," Bell said, raising one finger. "How did you even discover that game? Seriously. There's no way a guy like you would play something like that. Did you find it because your mom played it?"
Max opened his mouth, but she was not finished.
"And second." She raised another finger. "How did Sylan know that he wasn't Duke Xavier's son? As far as I remember, the whole reason he became the Act Three Middle Boss was that Duke Xavier never loved him. Sylan thought the Duke was his father. He never found out the truth, not even when he died. He never knew that the Duke was his uncle all along."
Max listened to both questions with a patient expression. When she finished, he nodded and rubbed his chin.
"Good questions. I'll start with the first one. Yes, I discovered that game because of my mom, Arkeninna, God rest her soul. She played it before I did. But she didn't play it for the protagonist, or for the male leads, or for any of the characters."
"Then what for?"
"The thing is..."
Max stopped. He scratched the back of his head, and Bell could see him searching for a way to say it.
"You remember what I told you about my mother in my first life? Empress Marriane Margaret? How she believed she was a transmigrator?"
"Yeah. The villainess body, the red grail, the whole thing."
"She really did transmigrate. Ten times before that life. In that world, it was her eleventh."
"Okay. So what does your mom from your first life have to do with the mom in your second life?"
Max said nothing. He only looked at her, and he waited.
Bell stared back. She had always been quick, and the pieces were sliding into place faster than she wanted them to. Her eyes widened, and her mouth went slowly slack.
"Don't fucking tell me," she whispered. "No way."
"Yeah," Max said. "Yes way, Bell."
"HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!"
She scrambled up onto her knees. Her voice broke into a squeak and then bounced off the glass towers across the street.
"You told me that your mom believed her original life was on Earth! And then later on, she and your father Revan discovered that she was from that world, the same universe where that game takes place! And now you're telling me that both of your moms, who are both dead, by the way, God rest their souls, are the same person?!"
"Yeah."
"Does that mean your father was reincarnated into this world too?!"
"Yeah."
"This is so confusing! What kind of plot twist is this?!" Bell clutched her stomach and bent forward. "A hurling plot twist! I think I'm going to hurl!"
"I know," Max said gently. "I totally understand. I felt the same way when I first read it."
"Read it?"
"In my dad's journal. Dietrich's journal. On the very last page, he wrote it all down. He wrote that the two of them were the same people as before, reborn." Max looked at his hands. "My mom, once she finally remembered everything, stayed in that world, because it was her original home. When her life there ended, her soul went back to Earth, and she lived again. A quiet life. A boring one, as my dad wrote it. She didn't mind."
Bell was breathing slowly now, listening.
"And my father's soul followed hers. By instinct, the journal says. He was reborn in this world as the Half-Blood Prince, a royal member of the Vampir family. But when he was born, he didn't remember anything. He was just a young vampire prince with a good sword arm and a bad temper." Max smiled faintly. "The only reason he ever remembered was because he met my mom in this world. And she made sure that he remembered everything. She wouldn't let it go until he did. She wanted them to be together again, with all their memories."
"That's..." Bell exhaled. She sat back on her heels and pressed her palms against her cheeks. "That's some eternal love, Max. Even in death, they followed each other, wherever the other went."
"Yeah."
"So that's why she played the game."
"Right. She didn't play it for the story. She played it for the world." Max shrugged. "She told me once that it felt like watching a movie that was filmed in your old hometown. You don't care about the plot. You just want to see the streets again. I never understood that, until the journal."
Bell nodded slowly. Then a new thought struck her, and she frowned.
"But then you were brought into this world too, weren't you? As Max. But you didn't remember anything about your first life, did you? So what about your twin sister?"
Max went still.
He looked at her for a long time. The playfulness drained out of his face, and he let out a deep, tired breath.
"I really don't want to talk about my estranged twin sister," he said. "But all right."
He turned his eyes toward the moon.
"Sadly, she wasn't born into this world. I don't know why. Maybe it was her punishment. Maybe her soul simply didn't choose to come, because of the guilt she carried for what she did to us. To her own family."
The wind rustled the golden lights, and for a moment, neither of them spoke.
"I see," Bell said softly. "That's sad, Max."
"Yeah." Max nodded. "It is."
He gave himself a few seconds, and then he rolled his shoulders and sat up straight.
"Anyways. Your second question. How did Sylan know that he wasn't Duke Xavier's son?"
"Yeah."
"The simplest explanation I can give is this. Sylan saw my memories. All of them. But I never saw his." Max held up a hand before she could protest. "It's because I had to meet a requirement to open a quest, and the quest is what unlocks Bethany's lore. So I only learned about her after I met the conditions. Unfair, right?"
"Very unfair," Bell said.
"Right? He knew everything about me, and I knew nothing about him. That was how it worked. I was the one who had been intruding, and he was the one who had the information."
"I see," Bell said slowly. "It does make sense. If that's the case, then no wonder he knew."
She leaned back on her hands and tilted her head. The next thought arrived almost at once, and her eyebrows drew together.
"But then how did the male leads find out? And Avoinese? With her main character syndrome? She seems like she'd rather die than let anyone else know a secret before she did."
Max blinked.
Then he burst out laughing. It was a sudden, helpless laugh, and he had to wipe his eye with the heel of his hand.
"Hahaha! 'Main character syndrome.' Oh, that's perfect. That's exactly what she has."
"I'm serious!"
"I know, I know. That's why it's funny." He took a breath. "To answer your question. I told them myself. I announced it to the whole Central Continent. I stood up in front of everyone and said that I was never Duke Xavier's son. I was his nephew."
"You what?!"
"I did it on purpose. I wanted everyone to know." Max shrugged. "And Sylan's cousins were shocked. All of them. They finally understood why their parents had broken up. It wasn't because of Sylan. It had never been because of Sylan. It was because of a goddamn misunderstanding and a total lack of communication. That's all it was. A lack of communication, and a child who paid for it."
Bell's expression softened. She was thinking of her own family, of silent dinners and cold hallways, and she did not say anything.
"After that, I distanced myself from them," Max said. "They tried to approach me. They said they were sorry. But I really hated them, Bell. I hated them a lot. Because of them, a child had grown into an eighteen-year-old man without ever feeling a single day of familial love."
His voice did not rise. It was low and flat, and it was far more frightening than his shouting had been.
He looked up at the stars and let the silence stretch.
"I won't lie to you," he said at last. "I always told myself how lucky I was to have parents like mine. My dad. My mom. I never doubted it. And I had the audacity to call Sylan a sore loser the first time I met him. I called him a brat, and an ungrateful delinquent, without even acknowledging his pain. I never once thought about what it felt like to grow up in that world without anyone who could love him, or even treat him as a friend."
He turned his hands over and looked at his palms.
"That's why I later named him Chrono Van Hemreis, and adopted him as my son. I wanted to show him what it was like to feel familial love, with someone you can trust more than anyone else. The way I felt it, in my first life and my second."
Bell's eyes widened. Slowly, a smile spread across her face. It was a small smile, but it was warm, and it reached all the way to her eyes.
"That's good," she said softly. "You adopted him as your son, even though he was already eighteen. That's really good, Max."
"Thanks."
"And now that you've named him Chrono, it makes much more sense. From what you've said, he had clock-like irises, right?"
"Yeah." Max smiled. "He did, when I first met him. Little gears, ticking away."
"Chrono. Time." Bell nodded. "It's a good name."
Max coughed into his fist. The softness in his face had made him a little self-conscious, and he sat up straighter and cleared his throat.
"Anyways. Let's continue, before I forget where I was."
"Yeah," Bell said. She settled back in with her chin on her knees. "Let's continue."
***
The sitting room was warm. The fire crackled in its marble hearth, and a faint smell of jasmine tea drifted through the air. Sunlight spilled across the white floor from the tall windows, and in the middle of it all, a silver-haired woman sat on a velvet couch with her legs crossed, waiting.
Max had stayed quiet for a long while, nodding thoughtfully. Now he cleared his throat and straightened his sleeves.
"I see, Your Highness," he said. "In that case, I would expect some payment."
Inside his head, Sylan groaned.
'Damn,' Sylan said. 'Here I thought you were going to do it for free, Max.'
'Hah!' Max shot back. 'Even if she's my crush, there's no way I'm doing it for free. I'm a former hitman, Syl.'
'So much for being a hitman. You gave away a secret earlier without trading for anything.'
'Shh. Just shut up and let me talk, geez. You always cut in.'
'Fine, fine,' Sylan muttered. 'Asshole.'
Avoinese had not moved. She was watching him over the rim of her teacup, and for the first time since he had been untied, something in her face seemed to change. It was not warmth. It was closer to approval.
"That is good to know," she said. "That you are not doing this for free."
"Why is that, Your Highness?" Max asked. He tilted his head, honestly confused. He had expected her to be offended by the demand.
"I hate people who do things for free." Avoinese set her cup down on its saucer with a delicate click. "They gain favors from me, and then they use those favors as a way to get close. They want to be remembered, and they want to be owed. It is a trap, and I have seen it a hundred times. That is why I like people like you, Ser. Professionals. People who ask about the payment first."
Max blinked. It was the nicest thing anyone had said to him all afternoon.
'This is the first time Avoinese has ever complimented someone other than the Crown Prince of Solania,' Sylan said. He sounded almost impressed, and a little sick about it.
Max agreed. He had known this woman for a very long time, even from the game, and he could not remember a single time when she had said anything kind to a person who was not her fiancé. It was a historic occasion. He felt oddly proud.
He straightened his back and tried to look like a professional.
Avoinese lifted her teacup again and took another slow sip. The sunlight caught the silver in her hair, and the small mole beneath her right eye seemed to darken. She seemed to be savoring something, and it was not the tea.
"Five hundred royal gold coins," she said. "Each time you give me intel."
The words hung in the warm air of the room.
For a second, nothing happened. The fire crackled. A bird chirped somewhere outside the window. Max sat perfectly still, with his mouth half open and his hands frozen on his knees.
He had been prepared to haggle. He had planned to ask for fifty, and he would have been delighted with a hundred. He had a speech ready about the risks of spying on a prince. But five hundred? Each time? That was more than a commoner family earned in ten years. It was more than some lesser nobles saw in a season. It was enough to buy a house, a horse, and a small vineyard, all with a single report.
Inside his head, a ghostly voice had also gone completely silent. Sylan was staring, too, and the gears in his golden eyes had stopped turning.
Then, at exactly the same moment, they both screamed.
"FIVE HUNDRED ROYAL GOLD COINS?!"