Royal Reboot: Level up, Your Majesty!

Chapter 40: Queen vs. Mission: Defrsot (The Thaw That Wasn’t)

Queen vs. Mission: Defrsot 

(The Thaw That Wasn't)

Theo was predictable. Chivalrous, gullible, always eager to rescue someone who didn’t need rescuing. Especially when that someone was charming and mildly tragic.

That was the theory, anyway.

The Queen of Shadows, tripped up by her own assumptions. Delightful.

“Reads well on parchment,” she muttered, eyeing the stack of bestselling paranormal romances on the library counter. Fangs, fur, forbidden love. Cerberus would be flattered.

A throat cleared. She looked up.

The boy across the desk was freckled, red-haired, and practically vibrating with nervous energy. He hugged a tower of paperback romances to his chest before setting them down.

This one she had privately christened "Jeremiah," after the biblical harbinger of doom and gloom. Quite fitting, she thought, considering his taste for tragic unrequited love.

"I-It's Joseph!” he squeaked.

Eydis raised an eyebrow. Her smile was polite in the way fire was warm: technically true, context-dependent.

“Interesting. Did my internal monologue become external without asking for permission?”

“Internal... monologue?" Joseph blinked. “You, uh, called me Jeremiah. On the bus. And just now. Outloud.”

She nearly sighed. The last thing she needed was another potential telepath, a budget version of Athena. The President was the only confirmed mind reader on campus, but Natalia’s unpredictability had taught her not to take “Gifted but unclassified” as reassuring.

That, and also…

She noted the black pin on his uniform. D-Class. Gifted, though just barely. Natalia had climbed back to C-Class and now carried her green pin like it meant something.

Which it did.

"Well, my apologies, J,” Eydis said, scanning the last book. “Enjoy the heartbreak. And take a complimentary wet wipe on your way out.”

“Complimentary w-wet—what? These books are PG-13!”

Eydis swiveled in her chair. “Is hygiene scandalous now? It’s flu season. Sanity wipes are standard issue.”

His freckles vanished under the rising flush of embarrassment. He opened his mouth, reconsidered, and then made a tactical retreat, muttering something about the link between hot and crazy.

With Jeremiah gone, Eydis leaned back.

Time to reflect.

She had “accidentally” run into Theo more times than the library’s layout should allow. Every calculated brush with him had been bait. Shared hobbies, strategically dropped questions, even the occasional well-timed smirk. All wasted.

Because Theo, dear Theo, had found religion.

Silver eyes glowing with cultish devotion, he preached the gospel of frostbite like the first high priest of the Church of Chills, like a man seconds away from constructing an ice fortress and belting out Let It Go in falsetto.

Who, exactly, was responsible for this?

Eydis sighed. Yours truly. It was all her.

“Borrowing” that ancient tome from him had ignited something. Just not what she intended.

He had fallen for frost theory. A passion that rivalled her own love for power and, well, herself.

Which led her here. Behind this forsaken counter, surrounded by overdue slips, misfiled Dewey decimals, and a leaning tower of steamy, trashy romance novels.

Trashy, of course, because true love was as real as a selfless Primal Sin. Except for that one time. The Saintess. The Charming-Lite sidekick. But that was a memory best left buried along with her dignity.

Theo stood at the far end of the room, cradling a new tome titled The Thermodynamics of Permafrost like it held the secrets to the universe. His silver eyes glowed as he walked toward her.

Seriously? Again?

Eydis snapped her gaze to the screen and started typing with the intensity of a woman inventing problems just to avoid conversation.

Ignoring Theo's puppy-dog eyes, (which, admittedly, were quite adorable), she mentally shifted gears. Plan A was dead. She’d endured enough of his enthralling (to him) snow-soaked mythology: endless tales of Silverkeep, frost giants, sentient blizzards, and noble sacrifices.

Operation Defrost Defrsot was officially on ice.

And with the gala five days away, she needed results, not more snow metaphors.

She exhaled sharply and pounded out a stream of keystrokes. Her fingers flew across the keyboard with a speed that screamed repressed violence. Mastering QWERTY had taken less time than most high-tier spells.

(And yes, she was very, very good with her fingers. Now, get your mind out of the gutter.)

A well-timed eyelash flutter at Birgit, the academy’s unofficial tech priestess, had earned her a crash course in computer literacy. Turned out computers were just oversized phones with better aim.

After all, a Queen was nothing if not adaptable. She had to admit, her stint as a librarian had been unexpectedly educational. Namely, she'd mastered the art of digital espionage (strictly limited to publicly available information, of course).

“Um, Eydis…”

The Alchymia City Hall website appeared on the screen. A few keystrokes later, she had the entire layout mapped in her head. The gallery sections clicked into place, filling the blanks and forming a mental blueprint. Plan B seemed plausible. Actually, it might even work. The place would be heavily guarded, of course, given the high-profile attendance.

But before Eydis could plan further, someone had to ruin it.

“Eydis!”

She didn’t look up at first. Probably another disciple of the sacred Bodice Ripper. Was there no intellectual curiosity in this realm beyond lusty vampires and werewolves?

But then came a familiar voice. She lifted her gaze and met a pair of clear, ocean-blue eyes.

“Adam?”

He smiled and set a small stack of books on the table. "You remember me, Eydis?"

"One doesn’t forget the boy who makes a cryptic comment about your identity and then disappears for a month,” Eydis said, tilting her chin. “That tends to leave an impression.”

Adam looked vaguely alarmed by that. She took the opportunity to glance at his reading materials. Still AI and Python. The first time, she’d assumed Python referred to reptilian linguistics. This time, she knew better. It spoke of logic, design, control.

Fascinating.

‘Perhaps,’ Envy slithered in her mind, ‘acquiring reptilian linguistics isn’t such a bad idea either. You mocked this serpent’s foresight last time. And yet—EEK.”

She zapped the Sin mid-gloat.

Adam cleared his throat. “I tend to check out a stack of books and then hole up and read in my dorm. Not very social, I guess.”

“Hmm.”

She didn’t believe him. She had looked for him, occasionally, in the brief pauses between Envy’s schemes, Gluttony’s appetite, and Astra’s everything. And Adam had been conspicuously absent.

A sharp voice cut in.

“Chop-chop. Some of us came here to read, not watch whatever this is.”

She had expected the green-haired willow from last time. Instead, it was a petite, raven-haired girl glaring daggers from behind Adam and tucking a romance under her arm.

Eydis smiled sweetly. “Apologies, Julia. I wouldn’t want to delay your rendezvous with Lord Broodingbite. I’m sure he misses you terribly.”

Julia spluttered and stormed forward. Eydis took her ID and book, scanned them, and handed them back without taking her eyes off Adam.

Adam chuckled, his gaze following Julia’s retreating back before turning to Eydis. "Do you have a photographic memory for names, Eydis?"

Eydis reclined in her chair. "I haven't the faintest idea what you're referring to, Adam Sapphire."

His eyes widened.

She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hands. “Tell me, Adam,” she purred, her gaze shifting from the gleaming green pin on his blazer to his ocean-blue eyes. “What exactly did you mean by knowing who I am?

He glanced around, suddenly more cautious. “About what I said… before. I didn’t mean to make it weird. I just… You are the Queen of Shadows, right?”

Eydis’s expression shifted. The amusement drained from her face. 

"You have my attention. Elaborate.”

Before he could answer, a sharp click of heels approached. Someone else. Another interruption.

Without looking, Eydis flicked her fingers. A subtle surge of dark energy curled beneath the approaching figure. The rug beneath them shifted just enough.

There was a muffled yelp. A thump. A book to the face.

Her eyes stayed locked on Adam’s. “Where did you hear that name, Adam?”