She tapped her fingers once on the desk.
"Of course she’s a great mage," Heena said. "One of the best in the empire, possibly one of the best on the continent. It’s said the Emperor had to practically ’beg’ her to accept the title of Duchess and join the family formally. And if it hadn’t been for the late Empress — Celeste’s mother, who was the Duchess’s closest friend — he never would have convinced her."
Estov just stared at her, mouth slightly open, trying to process.
"Wait," he said. "Wait, okay, fine — so she’s powerful, she’s clever, she figured ’’ out. But—" he pointed at her, accusatory, "—how the ’hell’ did she not figure out ’you’?!"
Heena looked at him for a long mont.
Then she laughed.
It was short, sharp, almost a scoff.
"Because," she said, "I am not a lovesick fool who gave away half of my cultivation to so bastard just because I ’fell in love,’ and now that sa bastard is chasing across seven worlds like a deranged stalker."
Estov’s face went completely, utterly blank.
Oh.
Oh no.
Right.
He ’had’ done that. In a previous world — one of the early ones, before he’d learned better — he had fallen for an NPC. Hard. The kind of falling that makes people do stupid things. And he had given that person half of his power, his cultivation base, everything he’d built up, because he’d thought love was worth it and the NPC was dying and he couldn’t bear to let them go.
And now that person, obsessive and possessive and entirely unhinged, was hunting him down world after world, refusing to let him go, showing up in every new assignnt like a curse he couldn’t shake.
So of course his power was weaker than it should be. Of course soone like the Duchess could see straight through him.
Heena watched realization settle over his face like a blanket and kept going, voice sharp and precise.
"With your current state," she said, "sure, no ’normal’ magician or human could tell the difference between you and the original. Your acting is decent. Your knowledge of Aston’s life is thorough enough. But she’s not a normal magician. She’s a ’great’ magician. And more than that—"
She leaned forward slightly.
"Have you ever actually checked your ’behavior’? You can fool the consorts. You can fool the so-called male lead, the female lead, the entire court if you’re careful. But do you genuinely think you can fool soone who knew Aston like the back of her own hand? Soone who watched him grow up, who argued with him, who knew every one of his habits and quirks and tells?"
Estov opened his mouth.
Heena didn’t let him speak.
"You think you hid all the traces of being different?" she asked. "The real Aston — even after he was exiled, even after his reputation was ruined — used to talk to the Duchess constantly. She was one of the only people in the palace he was genuinely close to. And she left on a diplomatic mission just ’days’ before you took over his body."
She pointed at him.
"When she dragged you by the ear tonight," Heena said, "what did you do?"
Estov blinked, thrown by the question. "I... I stayed quiet. Tried to be respectful. I didn’t want to make it worse."
"Exactly," Heena said. "The real Aston would have started ’swearing’. He would have called her nas, insulted her family tree, probably threatened to put frogs in her bed like he did when he was twelve. And she would have laughed and smacked him upside the head and called him a brat. That’s how their relationship worked. They weren’t formal. They were like chaotic siblings who had known each other too long to bother with politeness."
She let that sit.
"The mont you acted ’polite’," she said, "she knew. The mont you showed her respect and deference instead of the loud, obnoxious familiarity Aston always had with her, she understood that you weren’t him."
Estov sank slowly into the nearest chair, head dropping into his hands. "I’m so dead," he muttered. "I’m so unbelievably dead."
"No, you’re not," Heena said, picking up her pen again. "If she wanted you dead, you’d already be dead. Probably in a way that looked like an accident. The fact that you’re standing here ans she’s decided you’re either useful or not a threat to . Possibly both."
Estov looked up at her, eyes wide and slightly wild. "And you’re just — ’fine’ with this? She knows about transmigrators! She could expose us both! She could tell the entire court, the Emperor, everyone—"
"She won’t," Heena said.
"How do you ’know’?!"
"Because," Heena said, eting his eyes with perfect calm, "she loved Celeste. The original Celeste. And as long as I am doing right by this empire — fixing the sses the original left behind, handling the crises she ignored, making the lives of the people she cared about better — the Duchess will protect . Even if I’m not the person she raised."
She dipped her pen in ink.
"She cares about results," Heena continued. "Not identity. As long as I’m good for the empire and good for the people Celeste loved, she doesn’t care who I am on the inside."
Estov stared at her for a long mont, then let out a strangled, slightly hysterical laugh. "You’re insane."
"And you’re still in my office," Heena said without looking up. "Leave. I still have seven thousand words of apology left to write, and you’ve already wasted enough of my ti."
Estov stood, slowly, still looking at her like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.
Then he turned and walked to the door.
He paused with his hand on the handle.
"Heena," he said quietly.
"What."
"...Thank you. For not panicking."
She didn’t look up. "Get out, Estov."
He left.
The door clicked shut behind him.
System 427 peeked out from behind the taphorical curtain where he’d been hiding. "Host," he said carefully. "That was..."
"Efficient," Heena said, turning back to her letter. "Now let finish this before my aunt decides I need to write another ten thousand words."
The system floated in silence, head bowed, not saying anything. Just hovering there with the particular miserable stillness of soone who wants to be asked what’s wrong but won’t bring it up themselves.
Heena watched him for a mont, then sighed and set her pen down.
"What is it?" she said. "If you want to say sothing, just say it. Stop making that face. It’s bad luck."
The system lifted his head slowly.
His eyes were huge and glassy, fat tears pooling at the edges, threatening to spill over. He looked, objectively, like the world’s most heartbroken stuffed animal. A tiny lion cub on the verge of absolute emotional collapse.
Heena blinked.
Part of her brain noted, sowhat involuntarily, that he was genuinely quite adorable when he cried. The fluffy ears, the big wet eyes, the way his whole face scrunched up — he looked exactly like a stuffed toy soone had accidentally gotten damp. But that thought was imdiately followed by actual concern, because she had never seen him like this before, and sothing about it made her chest do an uncomfortable thing.
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