Butterflies danced like sparks in the air.
Blue, orange, white — their wings flitted between towering hedges and clusters of wildflowers. The sun glistened off dew-kissed petals as a boy with pale skin and bare feet ran through the Opeol estate's private garden, arms stretched like wings of his own.
Elijah Marris laughed.
Not the crazed, sharp laugh that once echoed through the Spire's walls.
A real one.
A boy's laugh. Light. Gentle.
Kailean watched from a stone bench beneath a peach tree, a drink in hand, eyes hidden behind stylish sunglasses. She hadn't realized how tired she was until she'd brought Elijah here. The boy was a walking mystery — a ticking bomb with a soft smile and glassy eyes.
He was talking to butterflies now.
And, for once, she didn't find it odd.
"It's strange," Eli said as a monarch butterfly landed on his wrist. "Animals feel things in the… simplest way. No confusion. No guilt. Just instincts."
He looked over at her, eyes wide and calm.
"Happiness. Love. Fear. It's all… clean. Untangled. It's beautiful."
Kailean took a slow sip. "I guess we make things messy."
Eli nodded.
He sat down in a patch of sunflowers and daisies, arms wrapped around his knees.
Then, without a word, he curled into a ball and slept.
The wind moved gently through the garden, swaying the flowers. The butterflies perched on his hair. And Kailean Opeol realized that for all the danger in his file… Elijah was still just a boy.
But inside the estate?
Danger was exactly what was on her father's mind.
Kalen Opeol was not calm.
He stared at the cracked screen of the tablet in his hand — a flickering file on Elijah Marris — and then hurled it across the office. The impact left a spiderweb of fractures on the marble wall.
He stood with his hands pressed against the massive window, looking out toward the garden where his daughter and that boy sat.
His jaw clenched hard enough to crack molars.
The boy had been in the Spire.
Level Four.
He was the only escapee in the prison's long, brutal history.
And yet…
He had healed Kailean.
Saved her life.
With Hope.
Hope shouldn't be that powerful, not on its own. But Elijah's powers didn't stop at healing. They shifted — changed — based on emotion. Rage gave him physical enhancements — berserker strength, increased speed, resistance. Grief? Unknown. Love? He refused. Fear? Refused. Disgust, despair, joy?
Refused.
Even under torture, Elijah had only ever accessed Hope… and Rage.
He had limits. Emotional rules.
That made him unpredictable.
That made him terrifying.
And it made Kalen furious.
Not at the boy.
At the world.
At the system that put a child in the Spire.
At the deadbeat father who offered his son up for "testing."
At the Warden who looked the other way when a power was forced into Elijah's body like a parasite stitched to the soul.
And so, Kalen did what he always did when furious.
He turned to the one person he trusted.
"Miriam," he growled.
A woman stepped from the shadows beside the door, dressed in a black maid's uniform with a sheathed dagger on her thigh and no expression on her face.
She was his shadow. His blade. His protector.
His wife's most loyal friend.
"Yes, Master Opeol?"
"Get me the Warden of the Spire. Now."
Without a word, she walked to the desk, activated the holoscreen, and tapped in a direct call.
After a few rings, the face of Warden Regulus Vance flickered into view — tired, bandaged, with the burn marks of chaos still visible on his right cheek.
"Mr. Opeol," he rasped, "I'd rather this wait. We're still rebuilding after the breach. One prisoner's still unaccounted for. I assume this is important?"
Kalen didn't sit.
Didn't blink.
"I have the escapee."
Regulus stiffened. "You what?"
Kalen folded his arms. "I have Elijah Marris. And no, you're not getting him back."
The Warden's face twisted into rage. "That boy is dangerous! Do you know what he's capable of?! The amplification effect alone—!"
"I do know," Kalen snapped. "I know exactly what he's capable of. I also know he saved my daughter after your inmate — a mentor assigned by the academy — tried to murder her using illegal gas inhibitors."
"I had that man fired!"
"I wanted him tortured," Kalen hissed. "Thirty years in Level One? He'll be dead in a week."
"You're lucky he got anything—"
"No. He's lucky I'm wasn't dragging him there myself."
Regulus leaned in. "We're sending a team—"
Kalen interrupted. "You send a fly to my estate, and I will bury your prison in so much red tape and scandal that you'll wish you were a prisoner yourself. You took bribes. You allowed a child to be registered as Level Four without appeal. And you let him rot in a cell where he should've died."
The Warden was silent.
"I should gut you," Kalen said coldly. "But instead, I'll make a deal."
"…What deal?"
"You stay away from him. Forever. And I won't burn the Spire to the ground."
"If I refuse?"
"Then I put you in the Spire. And I don't think your prisoners will welcome you kindly, Regulus."
The call cut off before the Warden could respond.
Kalen stood in silence.
His breath fogged the glass.
In the distance, the boy lay in the flowers, sun on his face, butterflies in his hair.
So strange, Kalen thought. So broken.
But he saved Kailean.
No hesitation. No expectation of reward.
Just… a hand on her chest and enough emotional force to reverse death.
He was still a risk.
Still a wildcard.
But he had earned time.
Back in the garden, Kailean pulled a blanket over Elijah's sleeping form and sat beside him.
She glanced at the butterflies and said, "You really are something, Eli."
He didn't stir.
But the flowers swayed just a bit closer.
And the butterflies stayed.