Chapter 16: Freedom . . . . . with Supervision
One of the Event Centers/Social areas, the rich called their clubhouse at Cranston Estates, was the sort of place rich people built so they could pretend community happened naturally when enough money was spent on polished wood and expensive stone was placed in the same. Most of the conversation here often lacked genuine social skills, but the rich, being far too prideful to admit that they didn't know how to be social like ordinary people, mostly kept around out of spite.
It sat on a gentle rise near the center of the neighborhood, all mountain-lodge elegance and smug good taste, with towering windows, a wide stone patio, an event hall nobody called an event hall because that sounded too public, and public things often attracted common folk. The center had enough small side rooms for meetings, committees, subcommittees, and passive-aggressive arguments about businesses, landscaping, politics, and much more to flourish beautifully all year round.
Anika hated coming here alone.
Not because the place itself was ugly. It wasn't. It was warm and overdesigned and smelled faintly of coffee, wood polish, and the sort of scented candle that cost more than her first 3 bicycles. The couches were too soft. The art on the walls was too expensive. The front desk staff smiled with the kind of professional emptiness that suggested they'd seen every kind of rich nonsense and no longer had the strength to react.
No, Anika hated coming here because this building held one of the most dangerous creatures in the entire Cranston Estates ecosystem, and maybe even the world.
Bored wealthy women.
She moved through the clubhouse with a cloth tote over one shoulder, grabbing the supplies Mrs. Patel had sent her for: a stack of fresh table linens that had been delivered to the wrong building, a box of tea tins someone from the kitchen staff had set aside and forgot to pick back up, and a thick bundle of forms Dr. Wakati had no interest in signing but would eventually need to glare at, read, and sign before handing them right back. Her goal was simple.
Get in then Get out.
Do not get dragged into a conversation. Do your best not to accidentally agree to volunteer for anything. Do not, under any circumstances, make eye contact with anyone wearing pearls or fancy earrings, as that would only draw their attention toward her.
She had nearly made it.
She was already halfway back through the main lounge, nearly to the side exit, when she heard it.
"Anika."
Her spine nearly left her body.
She stopped, closed her eyes for half a second, and silently asked every god she could think of why they hated her in particular.
Then she turned around with the best smile she owned, the bright and polite one, the one that had protected her from years of nonsense.
"Mrs. Penderghast," she said warmly.
Priscilla Penderghast stood near one of the lounge tables with a cup of tea in one hand and a smile on her face that wasn't really a smile so much as a weapon someone had taught to wear lipstick. She was one of those women who always looked expensive in a way that felt aggressive. White. Rich. Perfect hair that probably feared humidity as a moral weakness. Her clothing was cream and pale blue and had likely cost more than Anika's family had spent on groceries in the last two months. Her jewelry was tasteful in the way people described diamonds when they were trying not to sound insane.
She also had way too much time on her hands.
And, apparently, far too much information.
"You do remember me," Priscilla said pleasantly, and there it was again, that smile of hers, all polished teeth and social pressure. "How lovely. I was beginning to think Dr. Wakati's household trained people to float through the neighborhood like elegant little ghosts."
Anika laughed lightly, because that was what one did when a woman like this insulted you in a tone normally used to compliment someone's house wallpaper.
"Oh, we try not to haunt anyone . . . or at least not before lunch."
Priscilla gave a small, approving tilt of the head, as if rewarding a clever dog for sitting on command.
"Well," she said, "I'm glad I caught you. I had the most interesting conversation recently."
That sentence alone told Anika this was about to become a problem.
"Did you?" she asked.
Priscilla took a delicate sip of her tea and let the pause stretch just long enough to be annoying.
"I ran into your younger brother at the soccer fields the other day."
Anika's smile did not move.
Inside, however, something dark and immediate rose from the center of her spirit and began making plans.
"My brother," she repeated. "How nice."
"Yes, sweet boy. Very talkative. I believe his name is Arjun, isn't it?"
Now that surprised her.
Most people in Cranston Estates barely knew the names of the staff who had worked in their homes for years. They remembered titles, sometimes faces. Not names.
Anika kept the smile in place.
"Yes. That's my brother."
Priscilla nodded as if they were discussing roses.
"He was chatting with my son, Preston."
Of course his name was Preston.
Of course.
She had never met the boy properly, but she knew of him the way one knew of a recurring seasonal rash. Bright little sports star. Top grades. Proper posture. Golf lessons. Tennis lessons. Piano lessons. Karate lessons. Leadership training. The kind of child rich parents talked about as if they had handcrafted him themselves.
Priscilla, naturally, did not miss the chance to mention him.
"You know, Preston is such a remarkable child. Captain material already, and at his age. Excellent reflexes, top of his class in mathematics, and his coach says he has what he calls 'natural field intelligence,' which I suppose means he sees the game differently than the other boys. I always say that some children are simply born with gifts if they're raised properly."
Anika nodded through this with the expression of a woman being held hostage by upper-High-class eugenics.
"I'm sure he's very gifted."
Priscilla sighed like this was the burden of her life.
"He really is."
Then, finally, after polishing her son for public display, she returned to the point.
"Anyway, your brother mentioned that he had a younger brother. Around five, nearly six perhaps?"
There it was.
Anika kept her voice easy.
"He must mean Dr. Wakati's grandson."
Priscilla made a face.
Not a dramatic one. Just the tiniest crease at the nose. The sort of look people gave when someone had technically answered the question but not in a way they found satisfying.
"Yes," she said, drawing the word out a little. "That is what he said after, eventually. Still, one does begin to wonder."
Anika did not ask what one wondered. She had lived too long among people like this to step willingly into open traps.
Priscilla went on anyway.
"It's just that no one ever sees him."
"Mmm."
"Dr. Wakati is one thing, of course. Everyone knows he values privacy."
"Mmm-hmm."
"But a young child?"
Anika smiled.
"Dr. Wakati and his family live very privately."
Priscilla waved one elegant hand as if privacy itself were a charming eccentricity that had gone on a bit too long.
"Yes, yes, of course, but surely the child comes out for something."
Anika said nothing.
Priscilla leaned in just slightly.
"Field day. Holiday events. The younger children's socials. The little harvest fair last month. We do try to make things welcoming here."
"Mmmmmmmhhhhmmmm," said Anika, giving the exact sound of polite agreement without an ounce of actual agreement in it.
Priscilla did not seem discouraged.
If anything, she looked energized.
"So anyway," she said, "my daughter is turning seven this Sunday."
Anika waited.
"We're having a birthday party."
Anika kept waiting.
"And then a family group outing to the Gotham Zoo."
"…Okay."
Priscilla smiled wider.
"It would be lovely to have children around her age there."
"…Okay."
"It would look a bit odd if one of the only children her age in the Estates simply never appeared at anything."
"…Okay."
Priscilla's tone never changed, and somehow that made it worse.
"And, of course, as a member of the homeowners' association, if I noticed patterns of unusual isolation involving a child, well… one does have obligations."
Anika stared at her.
There it was.
The threat, wrapped in lace and perfume and deniability.
Not loud enough to quote. Not blunt enough to challenge cleanly.
. . Just enough.
Priscilla tilted her head.
"Not that I'd want to report anything, naturally. It's simply that Penelope's birthday is very important to her, and she does so hate when things feel incomplete. She's my perfect little princess."
Of course the daughter's name started with P too. Of course it did.
Anika stood there with her tote bag, her perfect smile, and the overwhelming urge to disappear before she became a cautionary tale.
Instead she said, very evenly, "I'll get back to you."
Priscilla brightened, victorious in the quiet way rich women often did.
"Yes," she said. "Do that."
Anika nodded once, turned, and left before her mouth could get either of them into trouble.
By the time she got back to the mansion, her jaw hurt from smiling.
By the time she found her brother, she had already decided on violence.
Not real violence.
Sibling violence.
The educational kind.
Which was why, ten minutes later, Arjun was pinned on the carpet in one of the downstairs sitting rooms, his arm twisted not so gently but meaningfully behind his back while he gasped apologies into the rug.
"I said I'm sorry!"
"Do you know what privacy means?" Anika demanded, tightening the hold just enough to remind him that remorse should arrive with greater effort.
"Yes!"
"You say that, but then you go outside and tell rich strangers things."
"I didn't tell her things, I told her one thing!"
"That is still a thing, Arjun!"
Dr. Elias Wakati sat nearby in an armchair with the tired posture of a man who had seen stranger scenes in his home and therefore refused to overreact on principle. One hand rested against his chin while he listened.
"Anika," he said mildly, "perhaps do not break your brother before the middle of the day; he still has schoolwork to do, and he might need both of his arms to complete it."
"I'm not breaking him," she said. "I'm shaping him."
Arjun made a wounded noise from the carpet.
"This doesn't feel like shaping."
"That's because you're ignorant."
Elias sighed softly, but there was the faintest hint of amusement under it. He had heard the whole story already. Priscilla Penderghast. The invitation. The threat hidden inside neighborhood concern.
He was thinking. That was usually more dangerous than anyone in the room wrestling on the floor.
Before he could answer, the far door opened and Beryl came in first, walking backward and pointing a training stick at Kairo with the solemn authority of a battlefield commander. Kairo followed behind her, covered in hay from shoulders to slippers, holding an apple in his mouth like a small, furious farm creature.
"I'm telling you," Beryl was saying, "one does not come up behind a pony like that."
Kairo yanked the apple from his mouth just long enough to object.
"I wasn't behind her for that long."
"You were still behind her, moving around and spooking."
"I didn't think that was a real thing, maybe just some lies t.v shows and movies made up, I honestly wasn't even doing that much, animals shouldn't get spooked so easily."
"It is when horses are involved."
Marzipan, apparently, had not appreciated whatever Kairo had tried today, because there were bits of hay in his silver-white hair, down his shirt collar, and somehow stuck to one eyebrow.
Anika, still holding her brother to the floor, stared. Arjun twisted enough to see and immediately forgot his suffering.
"What happened to him?"
"Horse," said Beryl.
"Pony," Kairo corrected, deeply offended. "A big pony, And she overreacted."
Beryl stopped walking and planted her hands on her hips.
"You spooked Marzipan by attempting to 'sneak into her stable,'"
"It . . . I was trying to improve my stealth."
"She is a pony, not an enemy fortress."
"She was standing in the way."
"Of what?"
Kairo opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Thought.
"…Freedom."
Beryl made a face at the ceiling like she wanted witness protection from children.
Before anyone could continue the argument, Madame Xanadu stepped through the wall.
Not the door but the wall, as casually as another person might step through a beaded curtain.
She crossed the room with that same impossible calm of hers, took one look at Kairo, and with a flick of her fingers stripped every bit of hay, dust, and pony-related indignity from him in a swirl of soft blue-green light.
Kairo looked down at himself. "thank you," he said.
"You are late," Madame Xanadu replied.
He sighed the sigh of a five-year-old boy carrying the burden of too many responsible adults.
"I'll go get the crystal ball, a baseball bat, and a new mop bucket."
Madame Xanadu paused, thought for one second, then said, "Take two mop buckets. I do not want a repeat of last time."
Beryl grinned the grin of a woman who was in on the joke. Arjun, still trapped on the floor, looked increasingly delighted by this household.
Kairo turned to leave, already muttering to himself about unfair magical labor conditions, but Dr. Wakati spoke before he could make it two steps.
"Kairo."
The boy stopped. Something in Elias's voice had changed.
Not sharp or angry, Just serious enough to pull the whole room into stillness.
Kairo turned back. Hay-free now, bright-eyed, still a little flushed from training, still carrying that restless little storm inside him that never really left. He looked from his grandfather to Anika to Beryl to the still-unfortunate Arjun on the carpet.
"Yes?"
Elias folded his hands. "For some time," he said slowly, "I have kept you close. Closer than most children would like. Closer than is fair, perhaps."
Kairo blinked. This was not where he expected the conversation to go.
Elias continued.
"I did it because I feared what might happen if something went wrong outside these walls. I feared for you. I feared for others. And perhaps, if I am being honest, I feared the world having too much of you before you were ready."
The room had gone very quiet now.
Even Beryl wasn't speaking.
Kario, feeling his grandfather but emotion in his words, had apsently grabbed hold of Aurielis, warm at Kairo's throat, but even she had gone still.
Elias looked at his grandson with a softness that hurt to witness.
"But there comes a point when safety becomes another kind of cage," he said. "And I do not wish to raise you inside one, if I can help it."
Kairo just stared at him.
Elias exhaled once.
"There is a birthday party this Sunday. A child in the Estates. And afterward, a trip to the Gotham Zoo."
For one incredible second, nothing happened.
Then Kairo laughed. Not a polite laugh. Not a small one.
The laugh of a freed prisoner in the body of a five-year-old.
"Oi—ahh! After ten thousand years, I'm free!" he shouted, throwing both arms in the air. "It is time to conquer Earth!"
Arjun lost what remained of his dignity laughing into the floor. Beryl covered her mouth with one hand, shoulders shaking.
Anika finally let her brother go because she needed both hands free to deal with whatever came next.
Dr. Wakati pinched the bridge of his nose.
"I should warn you," he said dryly, "this family may be… a little much."
Kairo did not care.
He cared so little that he immediately began running in circles around the room with the wild, ecstatic energy of a child who had just been handed sunlight in the form of permission. He used his powers without even thinking, little bursts of temporal correction making his feet too fast, too sure, too impossible. He ran up the side of the wall. Across part of the ceiling. Back down again like gravity had briefly lost the argument.
"Freedom!" he cried. "Freedom, at least!"
Then, because he was Kairo and pop culture apparently survived reincarnation better than common sense, he pointed dramatically toward nothing in particular and shouted, "I have been in the darkness for too long!"
"See?" said Beryl, absolutely delighted. "Structured rebellion."
Anika just shook her head, "maybe . . .,"
Before the room could lose him entirely, Madame Xanadu lifted one hand.
A translucent cube of magic dropped around Kairo mid-celebration and froze him in place halfway through another lap up the wall. He did not stop moving exactly. The magic simply held him in a neat glowing block of suspended outrage.
He pressed both hands to the inner surface and glared.
"This is oppression!"
Madame Xanadu gave the cube a thoughtful glance.
"This is transportation," she said.
Then she began guiding the floating magical box toward the door like it was an overactive luggage cart.
Dr. Wakati, who had somehow retained enough seriousness to continue being an adult, turned toward Beryl.
"Miss Hutchinson."
She straightened at once, though the grin was still trying very hard to live on her face.
"Yes, Doctor?"
"Are you able," he asked, with all the dignity of a man pretending his grandson was not currently trapped in a magic cube shouting about liberty, "to escort him to the party and the zoo?"
Beryl brightened in a way that should have alarmed everyone more than it did.
"Oh, absolutely," she said, in the happiest, most aggressively British way possible. "I'd be honored. I'll keep him tidy, respectful, properly supervised, and only moderately revolutionary."
Inside the cube, Kairo slapped one hand dramatically against the glowing wall.
"I heard that!"
"Yes," said Beryl. "That was on purpose."
And with that, the household shifted again around the shape of something new.
Not safety or Not exactly, ''safety'' . .
Something a little riskier than that.
maybe a little Freedom - Supervised, warded, watched freedom.
But freedom all the same.