Of course, though he wanted to explain that he hadn’t cut up the plants and flowers for some kind of vicious reason but that Maximus had to do so to properly help defend Ryan, there was no way that he could do that. If he did, then he would have to explain exactly what he had to defend himself against, and that certainly wasn’t something he was just going to do. It sounded like Runar had some connections within the police force, but Ryan doubted that those matters had anything to do with the street officers who had come to arrest Ryan after he was found in the botanical gardens after closing, leaving behind a trail of destruction.

  Just the destroyed pipes and the flooded planters were more than enough reason to be arrested. As he sat there at the edge of the police station, Ryan looked up at the grey-beige ceilings. The smell of cigarettes and instant coffee clung to his nose. But soon, Ryan was glancing over to the door on the other side of the room just when it was pulled open. Runar was the one who stepped inside. Ryan had called Anders to ask him to come pick him up, but it seemed like the dwarf had told Runar after all, no matter how much Ryan had asked him not to. Which, of course, he did expect in the end. At the end of the day, both Anders and Yamada were Runar’s aides, not Ryan’s friends.

  That being the case, though, there was someone else who arrived with Ryan’s uncle: his mother. The moment Ryan saw her, he could feel his heart drop into his stomach. Her face was a mixture of relief, concern, and some very potent disappointment. Not that Ryan could blame her. He would be disappointed with himself as well if he were in Mary’s shoes.

  Mary immediately came rushing over to him but was stopped by a policewoman. Runar talked to her for a few moments, and she let Mary over to her son after all. But mostly, Ryan was focused on his uncle. If it weren’t for him, then he would probably end up having to stay in a cell for the night, but Runar was apparently able to pull some strings and make it so that he could be picked up. Even if he was nineteen years old, it seemed that Ryan was still basically a kid to these policemen.

  “Ryan …” Mary muttered, looking down at her son. She squatted in front of him, wrapping his hand in both of her own. “What happened? I thought you said you weren’t doing stuff like this anymore.”

  “… It’s complicated. I’m sorry,” he replied, looking away. He couldn’t dare look his mother in the eyes right now. He wasn’t ashamed of what he did, obviously. Ryan had done what had to be done to help save Maribelle, but his mother obviously didn’t know about that. From her point of view, her son who had bragged so much about having changed and basically starting a new life after awakening did the same thing he always did. All she saw was the same kid who broke into the arcade with his friends in eighth grade, or the kid who trashed the car of the shitty manager that was harassing his friends at their job. From her point of view, this was just proof that Ryan hadn’t changed at all.

  “It’s fine, don’t worry.” With a slight smile, the corners of her mouth barely curling up, Ryan’s mother cupped his cheek with her hand. “I’m just glad you’re okay. Did you get hurt anywhere? Your clothes are in complete tatters … did you get in a fight with someone?”

  Ryan shook his head, still refusing to actually look at his mother. It wasn’t like he could explain the reality of the situation right now. In the end, Ryan just shook his head.

  “It’s complicated …”

  Mary looked at Ryan nervously, especially when she got a better look at the state he was in. She was about to ask him something else, but then Runar came up from behind her.

  “We can go. Come on,” he said, turning around immediately. For some reason, he was acting even more annoyed than Mary was, and that was in turn pissing Ryan off quite a bit. Closing his eyes for a moment, Ryan tried to take a few deep breaths. He couldn’t freak out at Runar right now. Rather, after what Ryan had said to him earlier before leaving for the botanical gardens, he really didn’t want to say anything at all.

  Ryan got up and walked up to a nearby police officer, who took the metal bracelet off his arm. This wasn’t some kind of handcuff but rather a tool to track when someone was using magic or skills. If such an ability was detected, it would let out a high-pitched signal. There were some similar things to block the use of magic to some degree, but those were a lot more expensive and weren’t used for low-level awakened like Ryan.

  Once the bracelet was removed, Ryan followed his uncle and mother out of the building. The car was parked in front of the station. Instead of Yamada, it seemed like Ryan’s mother was driving, though it was still that same black car that Yamada usually drove.

  Ryan got into the back seat and his mother and uncle got into the front. In almost-complete silence, the three headed out from the parking lot. They arrived pretty soon, and not a single word had been said the whole ride. It was more than just uncomfortable. The air was so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

  Ryan got out of the car and approached the building’s front door that led right up to the flat, but while Mary was parking, Runar pulled him into the café. Silently, he approached the counter and grabbed the small metal pyramid tucked away behind it, placing it onto the counter between himself and his nephew, breaking the tense silence the moment it was active.

  “Are you serious?” Runar asked, staring at his nephew with an annoyed frown. “I get that you were upset earlier, but trashing the botanical gardens? Have you lost your mind?”

  Ryan narrowed his eyes as he stared back at his uncle. “Excuse me? You don’t even know—”

  “I don’t even know what? What you’re going through? Gods, I should have known better, but you’re really still just the kid that Mary warned me about.” Runar sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I know you would get into trouble and beat up people. I know about all your arrests and your criminal records. But you just seemed like such a good kid that I thought it was all a bit exaggerated, but how could you just go and trash the botanical gardens? Didn’t you go there to meet with that spirit, Maribelle? How could you do that to her?”

  “… You done?” Ryan asked, pushing his hand into his bag, rummaging around inside of it to look for something. As he did that, Runar let out a deep, long sigh.

  “Am I done? No, Ryan, I’m not done. You seriously need to—”

  Interrupting his uncle, Ryan slammed his phone, or at least its remains, onto the table. Confused, Runar looked back at his nephew, about to ask what was going on. But Ryan spoke up before Runar could say anything.

  “Richie, a friend from university, was affected by some kind of weird corruption and is working for the Shadows. He was there and infected Maribelle with that same corruption. That friend of mine is a Technomancer, and he blew up my phone, attacked me with robots, and then locked me inside the greenhouse. Maribelle controlled the plants in the greenhouse to try and kill me, but I was able to cure her by pouring the corruption cure into the sprinkler system. But while navigating the space, Maximus did have to cut through some plants; sorry. Oh, and that guy that shot someone’s brains into my face a couple weeks ago? Yeah, he was there as well and shot at Gaia’s back a few times, so if we’re done here, I’m gonna go upstairs and fix her. Is that alright?” Ryan looked at his uncle, staring intensely into his eyes. He didn’t feel that same sense of shame that he did with his mother, so he didn’t hesitate for even a moment. Rather, he was just incredibly mad at his uncle right now. Or maybe some sadness was mixed in with that as well, learning what Runar really thought about him in situations like this. But right now, Runar was completely stunned.

  “I—”

  “Seriously, the fact you would even think that I would vandalize a place like that just because we had a small fight kinda makes me even more mad than I was earlier. You know that I haven’t been doing that shit since I awakened, and you also know that whenever I get hurt recently, it’s because of all of this shit.” Ryan waved his hands around, pointing vaguely at everything. “So, what makes you think that this time would be different?”

  Runar stayed quiet, looking at his nephew while clearly unsure what to say in response. His demeanor had changed completely now. But at this point, Ryan really didn’t care anymore. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and turned around toward the back of the café. “I’ll order a new phone. Hopefully, it’s going to get here tomorrow, but if it doesn’t, you know why you can’t reach me.”

  Ryan walked through to the back of the café and made his way upstairs. At this point, he was really just exhausted and wanted to change. He had been given some really baggy clothes at the police station since most of his actual clothes were torn, and they really weren’t the most comfortable and smelled like kilos’ worth of dust. He should probably take a shower as well and then treat himself with some healing salve.

  His mother had also finally parked the car and made her way inside. She looked at Ryan as he walked by the living room, and tried to wave him inside. He would prefer to get right into the shower, but he figured he should give his mother some time right now.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Mary asked. “Seriously, totally sure?”

  Ryan slowly nodded. “I promise, I’m okay. I’m just tired.”

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  Ryan hesitated. He did want to tell her about it all, but he still didn’t know how to really explain things to her. He would have to talk about his father as well, and he couldn’t bring himself to do that right now. So, instead, he just had to lie to her, and he really didn’t want to do that.

  “I just ran into some pretty rough guys,” he explained, looking at his mom nervously. She didn’t seem quite satisfied with that response, though.

  “Then what was that about you vandalizing the gardens?”

  “It’s … I didn’t … It wasn’t like that, Mom, okay? I promise,” Ryan explained, but Mary frowned lightly.

  “Then why didn’t you tell that to the police? I don’t know what your uncle said to them to make them calm down, but they seemed rather upset when we were at the station.”

  “Because if I had told them, it would have caused trouble for Maribelle,” Ryan explained. “The flower spirit that I went to visit earlier.”

  “Can you tell me?”

  Ryan closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “No. Not right now. I’m really sorry; it’s just really complicated, and I … I just can’t tell you right now.”

  Smiling lightly, Mary rubbed her son’s shoulder. “Okay. Then tell me when you can. As long as you can promise me that you’re not in any trouble.”

  Again, just like it had been during this whole conversation, Ryan could feel his stomach drop. He didn’t want to lie to his mother, but he probably had to right now. It wasn’t like he could talk about people who wanted to kill him. Though the fact that his mother was so supportive about every little thing did make him feel even worse about lying to her. Even so, with a light smile on his face, Ryan replied, “I’m not in a trouble. I promise.” Slowly turning around, he continued. “I’m going to grab some clothes from my room real quick and then take a shower and stuff. I could use a shower right now.”

  He turned around and left the living room, trying to avoid looking at his mother’s reaction. Ryan just wanted to get away and do his own thing for a little while. Not talk to anyone and just listen to music while fixing up Gaia’s back. Of course, her body being made of solid rock, the bullets hadn’t fully pierced her or anything, but they did seem to have cracked a few sections of her back. It was better to fix those things up as fast as he could, as far as Ryan was concerned.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Mila’s Day

  Stuffing his mouth with piping-hot street food, Ryan turned around and stepped up to Silvia, who had been waiting right behind him with a vegan version of the same food that he had just bought. They were sitting together on the bench at the rooftop garden, enjoying the smell of the street vendors’ food permeating the air today. Being the day of Mila, the Great Spirit of Farming, today was a celebration of farming and food, meaning that the whole city practically transformed into a single massive farmer’s and food market.

  “So … what exactly happened yesterday? You said you fell down the stairs? You still haven’t told me about it, and you didn’t respond to my texts, either,” Silvia pointed out, a little bit of dejection in her voice, and Ryan awkwardly leaned back against the railing. He looked at the planter with the copper wildflowers that Gaia was currently caring for, planting new seeds that she had gathered from the recently harvested flowers. There was really quite a lot that he should tell Silvia right now.

  “Okay … so, when I called you yesterday, I fell down the stairs in front of Kindly’s room. I was pretty excited, because, well …” Ryan pointed at the wildflowers. “Those little things can cure corruption. And they did, and now Kindly is pretty healthy. Well, healthier than he was yesterday morning, at least.”

  Silvia’s eyes widened. “Wait, seriously? Kindly, that was the mimic, right?” she replied, before really catching up to what her friend just said. “Hold on, you fell down the stairs? Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”

  “A little. But Kula was in the area, so he came by and healed me. And yeah, Kindly is the mimic,” Ryan explained. “The reason that I wanted you to come here is actually pretty simple. I want you to work with us to improve the planters for the wildflowers to increase their growth speed. I figured maybe we could go downstairs and you could use your Insight skill on the Dryads or something.”

  With a bit of relief that her friend was alright, Silvia took a bite of her food. She chewed for a few moments, already brainstorming a bit, before slowly nodding. “I should be able to come up with something. But healing corruption, that’s a pretty big deal, isn’t it? Why aren’t you … well, excited about it? Or as excited as you should be, at least?”

  Ryan closed his eyes. He knew that he would have to tell Silvia and Modak about this sooner or later, but it felt a bit rough to do. But either way, it couldn’t be avoided. Since Modak was busy getting his project in order for this coming Thursday, Ryan just figured he should tell Silvia for now instead of putting it off. And so, Ryan told the whole story of what had happened the day before. Of course, he did leave out the fights with Runar, because that felt a little unnecessary to add into the mix. In the end, Silvia sat there, the food in her hand growing colder by the second. Ryan felt almost bad that he hadn’t waited until they were both done eating.

  “So, Richie is just evil now? Just like that?” Silvia asked, baffled. “And you can’t cure him with the flowers?”

  Hesitant to reply too certainly in any particular direction, Ryan just ended up shrugging. “I don’t know. I think so, maybe? But his corruption is really different from the normal kind. It’s more stable, I guess. I cured Maribelle right away after she was infected, but with Richie, it has to have been a while now, so I just don’t know if it would work out the same way. That doesn’t mean I won’t try, though, obviously.”

  Silvia set her food next to her on the bench and placed her hands in front of her face while taking a deep breath, trying to concentrate and think properly. “Do you think I can do anything to help? Maybe … make the cure stronger somehow?”

  Ryan was about to shake his head when he stopped himself. Thinking about it, he realized there might be a way for Silvia to do exactly that. “What do you think would happen if you turned the wildflowers into paint?”

  Sitting in the living room, Ryan looked down at his new phone. He had just finished setting it all up and was trying to log in to all of his accounts again. Luckily, all his contacts were synced with his account, so he didn’t have to worry about not being able to reach anyone. As he was sitting there, trying to figure out who to text first to let them know he had his phone back, the flat’s front door opened up and someone stepped inside. To his surprise, a middle-aged, red-skinned, four-armed man walked past the living room door and toward the kitchen.

  “Chantora?” Ryan let out, surprised. Peeking his head into the room, Chantora stopped walking and waved at Ryan with a smile.

  “Ah, yer not out tonight? I thought Mila’s day is pretty big for college kids these days.” The chef laughed slightly, and Ryan shrugged.

  “I’m going out in a bit, yeah. But it’s still a bit early right now, so I’m still taking care of some stuff,” Ryan responded, and Chantora let out a long, jealous sigh.

  “Six? Too early?” he said almost jealous of Ryan’s youth, crossing his four arms in front of his chest, “That mean you’ll be joining us for dinner?”

  “Are you here to cook?”

  “Aye, together with yer uncle. I heard your mum was here, so Runar suggested we have an old folks’ Mila day celebration!”

  Ryan grinned lightly. He was still mad at Runar, but that didn’t mean he didn’t love his uncle at the end of the day. And the vibe of how Chantora was talking right now was pretty interesting to him. “Hmm, that so?”

  The chef awkwardly averted his gaze, looking away. Ryan knew better than to tease Chantora about this, but it was clear there was something going on between him and Runar. That being the case, he did wonder something else. “What about Liam?”

  “Hm? The lad’ll be sleeping, won’t he?” Chantora replied as if it were obvious, but Ryan just looked back with an awkward expression.

  “He’s a vampire; he sleeps like three hours a night,” Ryan pointed out. “He usually goes to bed around two or three in the morning.”

  “Ah … well, I won’t mind his company for a while, either. It will be an old and young folks’ night, then!”

  Ryan scoffed, nodding. “Or I could take him with me. I’m headed over to my friend’s place; his brothers are Liam’s friends, so they could hang out a bit. They’re orcs and kids, so they probably won’t sleep much either.”

  Of course, that was really just an excuse. Ryan wasn’t really headed to Modak’s place. Instead, he was going to spend the night down in the basement again, and having Liam spend the evening with them didn’t sound like a bad idea. Plus, having Liam of all people sit there while Chantora, Runar, and Mary were eating a meal cooked by an Awakened chef felt a little mean from Ryan’s perspective. He quickly pushed himself off the couch. “So, what are you making?”