Her education was brutal.
Maher Xander was a relentlessly logical, and therefore terrifyingly cruel, teacher. He dragged her (sometimes literally, through the canvas "doors") to the shadowed corners of his world.
He forced her to watch as he negotiated with beings that defied physics—beings made of smoke, electricity, or pure, condensed greed. He forced her to learn the hierarchy, the protocols, and the horrific bartering system of the supernatural world, just as a CEO would force a new intern to learn corporate policy.
She was not allowed to show fear. She was not allowed to show pity. She was not allowed to show anything.
"Emotion is a liability," he stated, his voice flat, as they stood on a rooftop in Kota Tua, watching a Wewe Gombel trade a stolen child for a favor from a Djinn. "You are my property. You reflect me. I am not... liable."
Rossie had become numb. The iron bracelet on her wrist was a permanent, cold weight. The girl from Senopati was gone, replaced by this silent, shaking creature who just... endured.
Then, the routine broke.
She was in the penthouse lounge, staring at the static city, when he appeared from his study. She tensed, expecting a new, terrifying lesson.
He was wearing his long, black overcoat. He was going out.
"I am attending to business," he said, adjusting his dark leather gloves. "I will be gone for several hours."
Rossie blinked. She kept her eyes fixed on a spot on the floor. This was new. He had never, not once, informed her of his schedule. Why was he telling her this?
She simply nodded, not daring to speak.
He did not leave. She could feel his silver gaze fixed on her.
"The air," he said, his voice striking the silence like a stone. "It is… stale."
Rossie looked up, confused. "What?"
"The recycled air in this dimension. It is perfectly filtered, but it is dead," he analyzed. "I hypothesize this is a contributing factor to the malfunction you call 'sickness.' Your fragile human biology requires... variables."
He was talking about her fever. He was referencing it.
He walked to the void-wall, the one that masqueraded as a window. He looked out at the false night.
"This is inefficient," he murmured. He tapped the 'glass'.
The smallest sliver of the wall slid open.
A sound hit Rossie like a physical blow. The sound of real Jakarta.
It was distant, muted, but it was real. The faint, chaotic symphony of traffic from Sudirman. The high-pitched wail of a distant ambulance. The humid, tangible scent of rain-soaked concrete and pollution.
She hadn't realized how total the silence had been until it was broken.
She stood up, her legs trembling, and took a step toward the wall. She could smell the rain. She could hear her city. Tears instantly flooded her eyes. It was the most human, most real sensory input she'd had since her "death."
"Do not approach the opening," he commanded, his voice sharp. "It is merely an... air exchange. But the atmospheric pressure differential is significant."
He had opened a tiny, functional crack in her cage, letting in the sounds and smells of the world she had lost.
Was this a test? Was this a new, complex formBof cruelty? To remind her of what she could never have?
She stood frozen, her fists clenched, the sounds of her lost life washing over her.
"I... I understand," she whispered.
Maher watched her. His analytical gaze was fixed on her face, noting her tears, her trembling, the way she inhaled the scent of the city like a starving woman. He was studying her reaction to the new stimuli.
"Yes," he said, more to himself than to her. "The introduction of controlled variables. This should improve asset resilience."
He was troubleshooting her. He was optimizing his property.
And then, he did the second thing.
He walked to the archway to leave, but stopped. He turned.
"The fever," he stated, his voice flat. "It... has not returned?"
Rossie's heart stopped.
She stared at him, absolutely breathless. He had asked her a question. A personal question. He had remembered.
She was so shocked, she couldn't form words. She just shook her head. "No."
"Good." Maher nodded once, a sharp, clinical motion. "That is... efficient."
He held her gaze for one second longer—a cold, silver, unreadable assessment.
Then he turned and was gone.
Rossie was left alone in the vast, silent room.
But it was no longer silent.
From the tiny crack in the wall, she could hear the faint, beautiful, agonizing sound of a siren wailing, ten thousand feet below.
She collapsed onto the chaise lounge, not in anger, but in a new, terrifying form of angst.
He wasn't being kind. He wasn't being "sweet." He was a cold, logical being, performing efficient maintenance. He saw a flaw in his asset (she got sick), he hypothesized a cause (stale air), he implemented a solution (opened a vent). He saw a previous malfunction (the fever), and he did a follow-up check (asked if it had returned).
It was the cold, detached process of a mechanic checking an engine.
But he had asked. He had noticed. He had remembered.
He had treated her, for one brief, agonizing moment, not as a portrait, but as a thing that had functions, that had variables, that had... a health status.
Rossie put her head in her hands, the sound of the city a mournful song in the background, and she wept.
It was the cruelest, most "Maher" form of sweetness imaginable. It was a cold, functional act of maintenance that her starved, broken, human heart was desperately, stupidly, trying to interpret as care.
And she hated him for it. She hated him for it more than any of
his overt cruelties.
She hated him... because a tiny, treacherous part of her was, for the first time, grateful.