Unfortunately for the struggling official, the easy and quiet deliverance he was waiting for did not arrive when he needed it most.

Instead, what came was a familiar easygoing voice he absolutely did not expect to hear at this very inconvenient moment.

"Experienced in what?"

Killian flinched all the way to his toes as though someone had just said something deeply incriminating, when in reality it had only been a simple greeting.

The question itself was innocent.

Completely clean.

There was no accusation hidden in it, no implication, no suspicion. It was simply the curiosity of someone who’d clearly arrived late to the party and wanted to know what everyone was talking about.

In fact, it was someone who wasn’t even physically at the party for reasons they would never be able to explain scientifically.

Thankfully, however, that question was enough to stop the madness in the form of several cadets ganging up on the poor ol’ Killian.

Ha! In his dreams.

If only.

For in truth, the eldest son of House Nox realized that this was now far more dreadful than his earlier situation.

For a brief, horrifying moment, the official genuinely wondered whether he’d actually done something wrong.

Which was ridiculous.

Nothing inappropriate had even been said.

So why was he reacting like this?

Slowly, Killian turned toward the projection, where D-29 had apparently decided to enlarge Jax’s face to an unreasonable degree. The redhead looked well-rested, comfortable, and completely unaware that his virtual arrival had somehow made the situation more challenging.

But the cadets didn’t seem to realize this, just as he himself was wondering why he was reacting the way he was.

He felt like he needed to cough. Like about three times to get rid of the imaginary thing stuck in his throat.

What was he even going to say in defense of that?

Ah, but wait.

Why would he even need to explain himself?

And explain what?

Nothing had happened.

Nothing was happening.

And yet the longer he stared at the redhead’s face on the projection, the more he found himself irrationally irritated by the fact that he couldn’t immediately answer such a simple question.

Wasn’t this just maddening?!

Thankfully, before anyone else could say anything catastrophic and before Killian could spend another second questioning why he was having trouble responding in the first place, the attention shifted.

"Jax!"

"Did you just wake up?"

The transition was so abrupt it almost gave him whiplash.

One moment, the room had been focused entirely on him.

The next, the gremlins and their orcish backup had collectively abandoned their previous target and crowded around the projection instead.

Unfortunately, the peace only lasted for about thirty seconds.

Then Ollie, who looked increasingly distressed the longer he thought about what he’d just witnessed, suddenly turned toward Jax and launched into what could only be described as complete word vomit.

The blonde didn’t seem to remember where the story was supposed to start. In fact, it was questionable whether he even cared about that part.

"My brother says they’re pretty! And me, I think their hair looks like crystal threads, and they’ve got wings! Actual wings! They were all shiny too! My brother said they looked like fairies!"

Jax blinked.

Then blinked again.

The redhead looked as though he was genuinely trying to follow along but had unfortunately gotten lost somewhere around crystal-thread hair.

Meanwhile, the tattling chatterbox continued barreling forward with the full support of an equally enthusiastic golden-eyed brother, who kept nodding beside him like a well-fed woodpecker.

It was honestly surprising that they somehow understood each other.

But they apparently did.

"Ah, of course, that’s important, but even more so was how fairy one said this—" Ollie suddenly repositioned himself, straightening his back as though he were really on the talk show stage.

He even copied the facial expressions.

"And then the other fairy twin said this—and agreed! And then bam!" The blonde clapped as if an explosion had happened.

Everyone jumped, but he just continued with extreme gusto, where if his words couldn’t reach anyone, well, he could at least be sure his feelings did.

"They said they want him!" The blonde dramatically pointed toward Killian.

"As in both of them! Both! Not one! Two!" Ollie practically screeched. "And then they said they’d even be willing to split him into three with work!"

Silence.

A beat later—

"THREE!" Ollie repeated in horror. "I don’t even know how that works! Do they take turns? Do they make a timetable? Is there a chart involved?!"

Jax opened his mouth. Or at least he attempted to, but like a fish underwater, he simply closed it again so he could just listen.

"And then they said they’d move here, and then they said they’d take care of him, and then they said they’re Royals too, and then they—"

The blonde finally ran out of oxygen.

"Haaah!"

He bent over dramatically, panting as though he’d just finished a marathon.

Then, after a few seconds of recovery, he suddenly straightened.

"Did I already say they’ve got wings?"

Jax, who had at least managed to retain that piece of information, nodded eagerly in a show of support.

"Yes."

"Right!" Ollie yelled. "They really do!"

The blonde threw both arms into the air as though this discovery alone justified everything that had happened.

"But did I mention how they clearly want to take the father—no, mother," Ollie corrected with a huff, "of my niece?!"

His eyes widened in renewed disbelief.

"What kind of quadruple thing are they trying to pull?!"

Luca immediately gasped.

Ollie, however, was only getting started.

"He’s already a family man!" he declared. "An experienced family man at that!"

With all the confidence of a prosecutor delivering his final argument before a jury, Ollie dramatically extended one arm and pointed a sharp, accusatory finger directly at Killian.

"So how could they even think of doing something like this?!" he demanded.

There was a momentary pause as the planets realigned. Or maybe that was just what it felt like for the eldest Nox, whose vision definitely swam.

At the side, Killian felt rather nauseous as he listened to the whole thing, only for it all to somehow circle back to the topic of him being experienced just when he’d assumed they’d finally weathered that particular disaster.

The official could barely bring himself to look at the holographic projection anymore. More specifically, he couldn’t seem to meet the clear eyes of the person appearing on it.

Which was, frankly, beginning to drive him a little insane.

At this point, even Killian was starting to feel as though he’d committed some unspeakable crime, when all he’d actually done today was go to work.

Work.

That was it.

He woke up, attended meetings, signed documents, solved problems, heard hallucinations, granted wishes, took care of his patient, attended more meetings, and somewhere in the middle of all that, two foreign royals publicly declared their intentions toward him in front of what was likely half the Empire.

One of those things was not like the others.

Unfortunately, before Killian could continue lamenting the unfairness of his existence, he discovered that life apparently wasn’t done tormenting him yet.

Because after listening to Ollie’s increasingly dramatic explanation, Jax tilted his head thoughtfully and asked, with all the innocent curiosity of someone trying to understand the situation,

"Oh, is she not your first child too?"

The room fell silent.

The Empire’s youngest Chief of Staff nearly frothed at the mouth as an unimaginable amount of stress finally left his body in a single exhale.

But it left him conflicted. Extremely so.

And had he not been sitting on a particularly sturdy chair, he was fairly certain he’d have found himself right back in that very moment when his life took a turn right into whatever this was.

__

Right. That was very much like Jackson Taylor.

Unpredictable.

Unforeseeable.

Entirely whimsical.

Nothing at all like the orderly routine that had served as the foundation of Killian’s life for as long as he could remember.

And just as no one could ever predict what might come out of the redhead’s mouth next, neither could they predict when he’d come crashing, quite literally, into someone else’s carefully structured existence.

It was a turning point that had somehow been glossed over.

Even now, after so many things had already crossed the point of no return, it remained a day they rarely spoke about.

That day when he’d been scared half out of his wits while being chased by a black mass and a whimpering voice pleading for help, before nearly cracking his head open after slipping—more like slamming—and screeching his lungs out.

Yes.

That day.

It had dawned on him quite late, but looking back now, the Elders’ assumption that he had been the one doing all the rescuing never quite sat right with him.

After all, if that had truly been the case, then how in the world had they ended up in such a ridiculous situation to begin with?