They were almost gone when the guards stopped them.
The teleportation circle in the lower transit hall had already been activated, silver runes glowing beneath their boots, when the heavy doors at the far end of the chamber burst open and two Celestian guards hurried in with the little boy between them.
Neris.
Lara stopped so abruptly that Malvoria nearly walked into her back.
For a heartbeat, no one spoke. The room still held the smell of charged magic and old stone, but now there was something else too. Fear. Confusion. The sour discomfort of people carrying out an order they knew was cruel.
One of the guards bowed stiffly, very pointedly not looking at Lara for too long.
"By order of the court," he said, "the child is now Lara's responsibility."
Lara stared at him as if he had started speaking in a dead language.
"My what?"
The guard visibly regretted existing. "The woman, Selene, has relinquished custody. The judges ruled that the boy is to pass into his blood parent's care."
Malvoria let out a disbelieving laugh, sharp and ugly. "So they throw a child at her five minutes after exiling her. Very efficient."
Raveth muttered something in demon tongue that sounded like a death threat. Veylira said nothing at all, which was somehow more alarming.
Neris did not cry. He stood there in his too-good little tunic, one hand clenched in the fabric at his chest, staring up at Lara with a solemn, guarded expression that made him look much older than three.
Lara looked back at him.
What the hell was she supposed to do with a child?
The thought hit her with absurd force. It should have been secondary to everything else. The exile. Sarisa. The court.
The humiliation. But no. The loudest thing in her head was still the same dumb, panicked truth: I do not know how to talk to this little guy.
Aliyah had been different. Aliyah had arrived into chaos, yes, but Sarisa had been there, fierce and frightened and impossibly beautiful with a newborn in her arms.
Aliyah had been theirs, from the first screaming second. There had been no distance, no introduction, no courtroom, no stranger handing over a child like a package too inconvenient to keep.
This was a boy with Lara's fire and a stranger's history, and now the world expected her to just… what? Be someone's parent on command?
The guard, perhaps misreading the silence, guided the child forward a little.
Neris resisted.
Not loudly. He just dug in his heels and looked at Lara with those amber-red eyes, wary and defiant.
Gods.
She really did know that look.
"Fine," Lara muttered, mostly to herself. "Yeah. Great. Sure. Give me the kid."
Malvoria's head turned sharply toward her. "That is the least reassuring sentence you could have chosen."
"It's all I have."
The guard released the little boy's shoulder as though he might bite. Neris did not move toward Lara. He just stood there, small and stiff and deeply unconvinced by the entire arrangement.
Lara exhaled.
Then, because she was out of options and dignity had clearly died somewhere around the dungeon, she crouched down until she was closer to his height.
The boy's gaze sharpened.
Lara looked at him for a second, taking in the dark hair, the tiny horn buds at his temples, the nervous little set of his mouth. He was trying hard not to be afraid, which meant he was absolutely terrified.
"Hi," Lara said.
Neris blinked.
That, apparently, was the full extent of Lara's brilliant parenting strategy.
Behind her, Malvoria made a strangled noise that was probably laughter.
Lara ignored her. "Listen, kid, I know this is… weird." She winced internally. Weird? Excellent word choice, genius. "And I don't really know what's going on either. But nobody here is going to hurt you."
Neris's eyes flicked to the guards and then back to her. He still didn't speak.
Lara looked over her shoulder. "Can we leave now before I get worse at this?"
"Please," Veylira said. "Before the boy decides we're all incompetent."
"I already have," Malvoria muttered.
The teleportation circle flared brighter. Raveth stepped into it first, then Veylira. Malvoria took one look at Neris still rooted to the floor, sighed, and scooped him up with all the ease of a woman who had spent years carrying one chaotic child and occasionally another fully grown demon.
He stiffened immediately.
"I know," Malvoria said, not unkindly. "I'm very beautiful and frightening. You'll survive."
Then the world twisted.
Teleportation was never graceful. It grabbed the body and soul alike, pulled them through a seam in reality, and spat them out somewhere else with no concern for comfort.
Lara stumbled as Malvoria's castle rose around them in a rush of black stone, warm torchlight, and the familiar scent of demon magic.
Home.
Or close enough to it.
It had been a while since Lara had stood here properly, not as a guest passing through, not as a woman stealing a night's sleep between missions, but as someone arriving because there was nowhere else left to go.
The great entrance hall stretched out in all its ridiculous demonic grandeur, vaulted ceilings disappearing into shadow, crimson banners stirring in the draft, polished obsidian floors reflecting the firelight in warped gold.
Neris buried his face in Malvoria's shoulder.
"Good reaction," Raveth said dryly. "At least he has taste."
Malvoria handed the child over to one of the waiting servants with careful instructions and then turned to Lara, spreading her arms wide. "Well. Act like it's your house for now."
Lara looked around.
It was a strange sentence to hear.
She had never had a house. Not really. There had been barracks, guest rooms, camps, road inns, hidden caves, a hundred temporary roofs over her head.
Adventure, battle, wandering, running. And then, somehow, Sarisa's castle had become the closest thing to a home she'd ever known.
Not because it belonged to her, but because Sarisa and Aliyah were there. Because there had always been a room she could find if she came back late enough, angry enough, wounded enough.
This place was not that.
This place was Malvoria's home. Elysia's. Kaelith's. It was filled with family and warmth and violence and weirdly expensive rugs.
It was safe, probably, but it did not yet know the shape of Lara in it. And now there was a child standing just behind the servant's skirts staring at her as if waiting to see whether she would become a monster or a joke.
"It's weird," Lara said honestly.
Malvoria nodded. "It is."
Elysia appeared from one of the side halls at that exact moment, moving like she had known down to the second when they would arrive. She took in Lara's face, the child, the collective exhaustion radiating off the whole group, and went very still.
Then, because she was Elysia, she crossed the room and put a cup of something warm into Lara's hand before saying a single word.
"Drink this."
Lara obeyed automatically.
"Good," Elysia said. Then she looked at Neris. "Hello."
The boy looked back at her but remained silent.
Elysia smiled with that terrifying gentleness of hers. "You can stay here. No one will force you to talk until you're ready."
Neris blinked once.
Then looked at Lara again.
Lara cursed internally.
Because there it was again, that terrible, bewildering thing. Expectation. Confusion. A child looking at her like she might know what to do.
She absolutely did not.
The great, mighty Lara Valthorne, who had killed monsters, survived sieges, broken bones with her bare hands, and punched a prince through a wall, was now defeated by a very small boy and the complete absence of an instruction manual.
She cleared her throat.
"So," she said, immediately hating herself, "uh. You hungry?"
Malvoria put a hand over her face.
Raveth barked out a laugh.
Elysia, because she loved chaos almost as much as she loved her family, turned away suspiciously quickly, shoulders shaking.
And Neris—
Neris finally said something.
Very small. Very serious.
"I already ate."
Lara stared at him.
Then, because apparently the world had decided to mock her to death, she nodded once and said the only thing she could think of.
"Right. Good. Great. Excellent start."