I lost track of time inside the Space archive.
Celeste Morningstar's notes were meticulous, obsessive, beautiful. Page after page of experiments, failures, theories. Diagrams of mana flow that hurt my head to look at. Calculations dense enough to make a mathematician weep.
And buried among it all, like treasure hidden in plain sight, her core hypothesis:
The Space element does not create something from nothing. It creates a fold in reality, a pocket that exists parallel to our own. If such a pocket could be linked to one's mana core, the limitations of the core become irrelevant. The pocket becomes the storage. The pocket has no natural ceiling.
I'd read that paragraph seventeen times. Maybe eighteen. I'd lost count around the fifth reading, when my hands started shaking.
No natural ceiling.
This was it. This was the answer. The theory that scholars had dismissed as wishful thinking, sitting in a dusty archive because no one with a room-sized core and a Space element had bothered to test it.
No one except me.
————————
A knock on the archive door pulled me from my research haze.
"Young Master?" Aldric's voice, muffled through the spatial barrier. "Dinner will be served in half an hour. The Duke and Duchess request your presence in the small dining room."
Dinner. Right. Normal human activities. Eating. Sitting. Making conversation that didn't involve theoretical mana physics.
I emerged from the archive to find the restricted section painted in the amber light of sunset. Had I really been in there for hours?
"I'll be there," I said.
Aldric nodded, something knowing in his parchment-colored eyes. "I took the liberty of laying out appropriate attire in your chambers. The Duke prefers formal dress for family dinners."
Formal dress. For a family dinner.
Welcome to nobility, where even eating with your parents required a costume change.
————————
The small dining room looked different in evening light.
Morning sun had made it feel intimate, warm. But now, with candles flickering in silver holders and shadows playing across the walls, it felt almost sacred. Like a space set apart from the rest of the world.
The table was already set. Four places. Fine china, crystal glasses, silverware that probably cost more than my entire previous existence. In the center, an arrangement of flowers I couldn't name filled the room with a subtle fragrance.
And around that table sat my family.
Duke Varys occupied the head, looking slightly less exhausted than yesterday but no less commanding. He'd changed into a dark evening coat that somehow made his silver-streaked hair look distinguished rather than aged.
Esper sat to his right, radiant in deep purple silk that matched her eyes. She was saying something to Varys in a low voice, and he was leaning toward her with an expression I could only describe as devoted.
And at the far end, silent as a statue, Michael stared at his empty plate like it had personally offended him.
"Lucifer." Varys noticed me first, his stern face softening into something approaching warmth. "Come. Sit."
I took my place across from Michael, trying not to feel like I was walking into an ambush.
————————
The first course arrived moments later. Soup, something creamy and fragrant with herbs I didn't recognize. The servants moved like ghosts, appearing and disappearing with practiced efficiency.
"How was your day?" Esper asked, and the question was so normal, so mundane, that it caught me off guard.
Oh, you know. Found a four-hundred-year-old theory that might solve my fundamental inadequacy. Had an emotional moment with the butler. Contemplated the nature of spatial reality. The usual.
"Productive," I said instead. "I visited the library."
Esper's spoon paused halfway to her lips. "The library?"
"The restricted section." I kept my tone casual. "Michael mentioned it might have information relevant to my element."
Across the table, Michael's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. I wasn't supposed to credit him. He'd specifically told me not to thank him.
Too bad.
"Is that so?" Varys's gaze shifted to his eldest son. "I wasn't aware you two had spoken."
Michael's response was characteristically brief. "We crossed paths."
"He was very helpful," I added, enjoying the way Michael's expression flickered with something between annoyance and... was that embarrassment?
Esper's eyes moved between us, missing nothing. A small smile played at the corners of her lips.
————————
The conversation flowed more easily after that.
Varys talked about a trade agreement with the Dwarf Empire, something about mining rights in the northern mountains. Esper mentioned a merchant delegation arriving next week. Michael contributed occasional monosyllables that somehow communicated entire paragraphs.
And I watched.
I watched the way Varys's hand found Esper's under the table, a gesture so casual it had to be habit. The way Esper angled her body toward him even while speaking to me. The way Michael's posture relaxed, just slightly, whenever Varys laughed at one of Esper's dry observations.
I watched them be a family.
This is what you missed, I told myself. This is what twenty-three years without parents looks like from the outside.
The orphanage had fed us. Clothed us. Given us beds and basic education and the absolute minimum required to keep children alive. But it had never given us this. This warmth. This ease. This sense of belonging to something larger than yourself.
My throat felt tight. I took a sip of water to hide it.
————————
"You're quiet tonight."
Varys's observation cut through my thoughts. The main course had arrived at some point, some kind of roasted meat with vegetables I was eating on autopilot.
"Just thinking," I said.
"Dangerous habit." His tone was light, but his eyes were assessing. The Duke's eyes. The ones that had built an empire and kept it standing through sheer force of will.
"The academy," I said, because it was true enough. "Six months isn't much time."
"No." Varys set down his fork. "It isn't. But you have resources, Lucifer. Knowledge. A family that will support you. Use them."
A family that will support you.
He said it like it was obvious. Like of course I had a family, of course they would help, of course that was simply how the world worked.
I'd spent twenty-three years learning the exact opposite.
"I will," I managed. "Thank you."
Something passed across Varys's expression. Something that looked almost like pain.
————————
Dessert was some kind of layered cake, rich and sweet and probably worth more calories than I'd eaten in a week during my previous life. I barely tasted it.
Michael excused himself first, citing training. He paused at my chair on his way out, and for a moment I thought he might say something.
He didn't. Just a brief nod, there and gone, before he vanished through the door.
Actions speak louder than words, I reminded myself. The nod is enough. The nod means he sees you.
Esper left shortly after, pressing a kiss to Varys's cheek and squeezing my shoulder as she passed. Her fingers lingered for just a moment, like she wanted to say something but thought better of it.
And then it was just me and the Duke.
————————
"Walk with me."
It wasn't a request. But it wasn't quite an order either. Somewhere in between. The voice of a father who'd spent two years watching his son self-destruct and was still, somehow, trying.
We walked in silence through the mansion's evening corridors. Past portraits of ancestors I was only beginning to know. Past windows that looked out onto gardens I'd never explored. Past doors that led to rooms full of secrets I hadn't earned yet.
"When you were seven," Varys said eventually, "you told me you wanted to be just like Michael. Strong enough to protect everyone."
The memory surfaced, borrowed from a life I'd never lived. A small boy with crimson eyes looking up at his father with absolute certainty.
"Things changed," I said quietly.
"Yes." He stopped at a window overlooking the estate. In the distance, I could see the dark line of the Abyss Jungle, a reminder of the dangers that bordered Morningstar territory. "You stopped believing you could be strong. So you stopped trying to protect anyone. Including yourself."
Ouch. But he wasn't wrong. The original Lucifer had given up at fourteen and spent two years proving everyone right about him.
"I'm trying now," I said.
Varys turned to face me. In the dim light, with shadows playing across his features, he looked every inch the SS-rank powerhouse who made royals think twice about crossing him.
But his eyes were soft.
"I know." He placed a hand on my shoulder, heavy and warm. "That's all I've ever wanted, Lucifer. For you to try. The rest..." He smiled, just slightly. "The rest we can figure out together."
Together.
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
————————
I lay awake that night, staring at the painted ceiling of my too-large room.
So this is what family feels like.
Not perfect. Not easy. A father who loved me but didn't know how to reach me. A mother who saw too much and asked for too little. A brother who hid his heart behind walls of ice.
But real. Present. Mine.
For the first time since I'd opened my eyes in this body, I felt something other than determination.
I felt like I might actually belong here.