Help! My Moms Are Overpowered Tyrants, and I'm Stuck as Their Baby!-Chapter 187: S

By midnight, the world felt quieter but it was the heavy hush before a thunderstorm, not the gentleness that came with peace. The castle had changed since my flight; the very stones seemed to bristle with rumor and magic, every shadow ripe with accusation. My boots barely made a sound as I slipped through hidden passages, but even so, I felt the weight of a thousand unseen eyes, all whispering the same word: traitor.

Traitor. The word fit like a stone in my shoe: uncomfortable, persistent, impossible to ignore.

I took a winding staircase to the tallest of Arcanum's spires, the one so old even the headmaster pretended it didn't exist. Here, the dust was thicker, the chill sharper, and the air threaded with cobwebs both literal and magical. I passed a suit of armor with a suspiciously smug helmet and a grandfather clock that chimed thirteen as I walked by. Because of course it did.

At the top, a heavy door barred my way. Carved into its wood was a sigil: a spiral inside a burning circle. I pressed my palm to it, willing my magic into the groove. The wood shivered, the spiral spun, and the door swung open with the silent efficiency of a well-fed cat.

Inside: velvet darkness, faintly luminous runes crawling along the walls, and the boss. S.

She sat at a table scattered with maps, tomes, and what appeared to be a half-eaten plate of lemon tarts. Her cloak was blacker than midnight and shimmered at the edges, as if refusing to be bound by mundane reality. Her hair was a stormcloud, coiled and wild, and her eyes—when they found mine gleamed with too many secrets and not nearly enough mercy.

"You're late," she said, her voice neither harsh nor kind. Just matter-of-fact, as if lateness itself was a minor sin to be tolerated until it wasn't.

I swallowed, closed the door behind me, and straightened my spine. "I was followed."

S arched a brow. "And are you still being followed, Aria?"

"Not unless the portraits have learned to walk." I tried to keep my tone light, but the joke fell flat in the dense, expectant air.

She gestured to the chair across from her. "Sit. You look like someone who's just discovered betrayal is a messy business."

I sat, feigning nonchalance. My hands, traitorous in their own right, trembled slightly in my lap.

S reached for a lemon tart, considered it, and then slid the plate to me. "Eat. I don't need you fainting before you've delivered your report."

I took one, if only because refusing food from her was a poor survival strategy. The tart was sharp and sweet, the taste at odds with the bitterness in my chest.

"Well?" S said, eyes fixed on mine. "Is it done?"

I hesitated. The moment stretched, runes shifting on the walls as if they, too, were waiting for an answer.

"Velka was freed," I said, finally. "By Mara and Elira. I did what you asked I trapped her, replaced her with a clone, tried to keep Elyzara in the dark as long as possible. But it unraveled. I'm exposed. The whole school knows."

S didn't react didn't flinch, didn't sigh, didn't so much as blink. She simply reached for a small vial, turned it over in her fingers, and smiled. It was not a smile that inspired confidence.

"So the time for subtleties is over," she said, almost to herself. "How tiresome. Still this is not entirely unexpected. Velka has a talent for being inconvenient, and Mara and Elira have always had more muscle than sense. Did you at least retrieve the artifact?"

I slid the golden mask from my satchel and placed it on the table. Its runes glimmered, casting ugly shadows that wriggled like worms. S's expression warmed fractionally, the way winter sunlight might almost be mistaken for kindness.

"Excellent," she breathed, fingertips barely grazing the mask. "This will be…useful."

I couldn't help myself. "What exactly does it do?"

She smiled again, this time with real amusement. "Are you curious because you want to learn, or because you fear what I'll do with it?"

I hesitated. Honesty felt dangerous, but lying was pointless. "Both."

She leaned back, fingers steepled. "It's a focus an amplifier for illusion and control magic. With it, one could not only replace a single troublesome vampire, but perhaps rewrite the memories of an entire council. Or if one were ambitious bend the loyalty of a kingdom."

I shivered. "And Elyzara?"

S's eyes darkened, gleaming. "Elyzara is a problem and an opportunity. You were correct to sow doubt among her friends. But now that your cover is blown, we must move quickly. The longer Velka is free, the more likely she'll uncover the rest of our network."

The word network made my blood run cold. I'd always suspected S was not alone in her ambitions, but hearing it aloud was like discovering you'd been dancing over a pit all along.

I cleared my throat. "What do you want me to do?"

S tapped the mask, thinking. "You will leave Arcanum tonight. The mask goes with you. I have arranged a safe house beyond the city, near the Weeping Woods. There, you will await further instructions and if you can begin preparing the mask for the ritual."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

S leaned forward, her gaze sharp enough to cut glass. "And Aria there is no going back now. The others may hate you. Elyzara may never trust you again. But what we're doing is necessary. They want to preserve a broken world. We will build a better one. Remember that, when regret starts gnawing at your bones."

I wanted to argue. I wanted to say that it wasn't that simple, that sometimes I missed the warmth of laughter in the common room, or Elyzara's stubborn faith that people could be better. But I knew what that would get me.

Instead, I forced a grin. "Of course, S. Better worlds for everyone. Just so long as I get a tower with good sunlight."

She smiled a brief, predatory flash. "You always did have taste. Now go. And Aria? Don't get caught."

As I stood to leave, she added, almost as an afterthought, "One more thing."

I paused, heart skipping.

"If Velka comes for you and she will do not underestimate her. She holds more power than even she suspects. Do not let sentiment slow you down."

I nodded, but as I slipped the golden mask into my cloak and turned to go, I couldn't shake the feeling that S knew exactly what haunted me: that somewhere, beneath all the calculation and betrayal, I still cared. That maybe I cared too much.

Back in the hall, the cold hit me like a slap. I moved quickly, avoiding the pools of moonlight that spilled through the arrow-slit windows. My mind spun with plans escape routes, lies to tell if I was cornered, spells to keep Velka at bay. But my heart kept circling back to the common room, to Elyzara's shocked eyes, to the moment everything had slipped through my fingers.

By the time I reached the base of the spire, I was shaking with adrenaline, exhaustion, and something that might have been grief. Or guilt. Hard to tell, these days.

I paused at a window, staring out at the grounds below silvered with frost, scattered with the shadows of old statues. Somewhere out there, Elyzara and her friends were regrouping. Planning. Preparing to hunt me.

I wondered what I'd do if I met them again. I told myself I'd be ruthless, clever, impossible to catch. But the truth the uncomfortable, stubborn truth was that some part of me still wanted forgiveness, even if I knew I didn't deserve it.

A laugh, sharp and brittle, escaped my lips. "Get it together, Aria. You chose this."

I slipped out through a servants' door and made my way into the frozen night. The city waited, sprawling and unknowable, while the Weeping Woods loomed in the distance like a promise or a threat.

As I moved through the shadows, every instinct screamed at me to keep running, to look back, to be ready for Velka or Mara or even Elyzara herself. The mask felt heavy at my side a reminder of what I'd done and what I might still do.

But even as I fled, I could not outrun the memory of Elyzara's face, or the whisper of doubt that said perhaps, just perhaps, I was not beyond redemption. Not yet.

For now, though, I had a job to do. I would see this plan through. I would outwit them all.

Frost crunched beneath my boots as I slipped through the sleeping city, every alley whispering with secrets. Above, the Weeping Woods waited, their twisted branches catching the moonlight like skeletal hands. I kept moving, heart pounding a traitor, a fugitive, a pawn with delusions of being queen. Somewhere behind me, I could almost feel Velka's shadows stirring, Elyzara's disappointment pressing in like fog.

But I pressed forward, clutching the mask, chasing a future I couldn't quite see. One misstep and it would all end but for now, I ran, daring the world to try and catch me