Chapter 479: 479. Even Talking To Her Nieces More Makes Her Mind Conflicted

Elizabeth absorbed this with the expression of someone who found the observation simultaneously reassuring and mildly unsettling.

"The Key situation," Diana said. "If Rex is addressing it directly with Grandmother, then whatever account comes out of that meeting is the account Grandmother is going to work with."

"Elizabeth, you know as well as I do that when Grandmother decides what she believes, the institution follows."

"Which means your concern about what she’ll think becomes less urgent," Lily said. "Rex is in there right now making the determination for her."

"And his version of the Key situation is going to be whichever version is most useful."

Elizabeth pressed her lips together briefly. "That is both the most and least reassuring thing you could have said."

"I know," Lily said. "But it’s true."

Diana shifted her weight slightly.

"He came back," she said, which was a smaller thing than it sounded like, delivered in the tone she used for things that had weight behind them.

"What?" Elizabeth said.

"From the canyon," Diana said. "He went in knowing about the Legion."

"He dealt with what he found in there without getting any of you killed."

"He kept Iris’s situation from becoming worse than it was, and Aurelia came back alive, and the Key question didn’t become a public crisis." She looked at the office door. "Whatever he told Grandmother, it will be enough."

"And it always is."

Lily nodded, which was unusual for her because she typically did not agree with Diana’s statements unless it was necessary; however, this time she nodded with the specific quality of someone who had independently reached the same conclusion and was confirming the path forward.

The silence that settled afterward felt distinctly different from the silence in the corridor. This one felt more comfortable, like the silence shared by people who had expressed what needed to be said and were now simply existing in the space that followed. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Elizabeth looked at both of them. She looked at them the way she had been looking at them since they were small, and she thought about the fact that the conversation she had just had with them felt fundamentally different from the conversation she would have had with either of them two years ago, and she was not entirely sure what to do with that information.

’These two... they really trust Rex a lot... and they all seem genuinely about it.’

"May I ask you something?" she said.

"Yes," Lily said.

"Both of you," Elizabeth said.

Diana looked at her. "Okay."

Elizabeth chose the words carefully, as she did with things that mattered. "It’s something personal and maybe private, but here goes..."

"Why?" she said. "Not the how, not the what—I’ve seen the what."

"But why Rex? Specifically."

"You are both capable and clear-eyed in ways that most people are not, and I know you have been around individuals who sought your attention and trust, but most of them did not succeed." She paused. "So what is it about him that stands out the most?"

"Like you, for example, Diana... you changed your direction fast with Theo, and now you’re with Rex."

Diana only nodded.

Lily did not answer immediately, which was itself informative because Lily’s natural mode was to answer quickly and revise on the fly. She sat with the question for a moment, looking at some point beyond Elizabeth’s shoulder as if she were finding the answer in the air rather than in a place she’d already looked.

"He doesn’t perform," Lily said finally. "While everyone performs."

"Even people who are genuinely kind perform their kindness because they want it received in a specific way, and that’s fine, that’s just how people work."

"But Rex is the first person I’ve spent time with who doesn’t seem to need the performance."

"He’s just... there. Whatever he’s doing, he’s doing it completely, and if you happen to be in the room while he’s doing it, you get all of it." She looked at Elizabeth. "Most people make you feel like you’re getting half their attention."

"Rex makes you feel like you’re the only thing in the room that matters, not because he’s trying to make you feel that way, but because when he’s with you, you are."

"He’s dangerous," Diana said. "I mean that as a factual statement, not a warning."

"He’s genuinely dangerous in ways that I have watched most people fail to be even when they were trying. And he never makes it about how dangerous he is."

"He just does whatever the situation requires and then goes back to being ordinary." She was quiet for a second. "I’ve spent my whole career around people who either underestimate their capabilities or make their capabilities the first thing you know about them."

"Rex does neither. He makes his capabilities available and then sets them aside, and that restraint is... it tells you something about a person."

"It tells you they know exactly who they are and they don’t need you to know it."

Elizabeth was quiet.

"Also," Lily said, "he reorganized the spice shelf."

Diana made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh.

"I’m serious," Lily said. "It was the first week since we’d met."

"No one asked him to."

"He just noticed it was wrong and fixed it, and that night dinner was better than it had been in a month, and he didn’t say anything about it."

"He didn’t expect to be thanked." She looked at Elizabeth. "People who do things without needing to be seen doing them are rare."

"Rex does it constantly."

"And there’s a lot of reason why I loved him the most, but I can’t put into words other than actions..." Lily chuckled while rubbing her hair. "Well, to conclude everything that he is..."

"...he’s amazinggggg~!"

Elizabeth looked at her youngest niece for a moment and then at Diana, and she thought about what it meant that these two people, who were both completely unique and both very clear-eyed, had arrived at the same place through routes that had almost nothing in common.

She thought about Helena’s letter in her coat pocket and about what Helena’s reaction was going to be when she came back and found the household in its current configuration. She also thought about the fact that she had deliberately arranged for Rex to stay in that household this morning rather than telling anyone what Helena’s letter had said.

She was not entirely sure what that decision said about her.

"Lily," she said.

"Yes."

"If Rex were wrong about something," Elizabeth said. "If he made a decision that you knew was wrong, not just difficult or complicated but genuinely wrong..."

"Would you say something to him?"

Lily considered this with the genuine seriousness she brought to questions she thought deserved it.

"Yes," she said. "I would tell him."

"He’d listen," she paused. "He might not change the decision. But he’d listen."

"How do you know he’d listen?"

"Because he’s listened before," Lily said. "He doesn’t agree with me just to make me feel better; he genuinely considers what I’ve said."

"He actually thinks about what I’ve said. Sometimes he thinks about it for two days and then comes back and says I had a point about something."

"That’s... most people don’t do that."

Diana said, "He told me once that the most useful thing a person can do is tell him what he can’t see from his own position."

"He said it like it was obvious." She looked at the door again. "Most people say things like that and don’t mean them, while Rex means it."

’They... are changed... yeah, I noticed that.’ Elizabeth thought. ’Their loyalty... devotion... and even obsession are clear to him.’

’I remember that Rex said he already had sex with both of them... which means... it’s already too late.’

Elizabeth thought about the canyon and about what Rex had told her in the Academy garden when she had pushed him about the Key, the way he had given her the honest answer when the easier answer was available.

She thought about Alexander, how certain he was that he had stumbled, and how that certainty was something Rex had made him believe completely and effortlessly. She also thought about the fact that the story had held up not because Alexander had been manipulated into something harmful but because Alexander’s certainty had made his account credible in a way that protected everyone involved.

She was not sure what category that fell into, and she had not been certain about it.

"I worry about you both," Elizabeth said. "Not about Rex specifically."

"About the position you’re in."

"We know," Diana said.

"And you’re not worried about it yourselves."

"We’re not unaware of it," Diana said. "That’s different."

"Diana has always been better at risk assessment than worry," Lily said. "It’s a specific skill."

"I have the worry and she has the assessment, and between us we cover everything."

"And between you," Elizabeth said, "what’s the assessment?"

Diana looked at her steadily.

"That the position we’re in is better than the position we were in before," she said. "And that the things we were missing before are not things we’re missing now."

Elizabeth held her gaze for a moment. Then she looked back at the window, observing the water, the edge of the island, and the morning light as it appeared at that time of day.

She stood in the quiet corridor with her arms still folded and her weight on her back foot, breathing out once, slowly, in the manner she did when she was setting something down.

’Will I become like them if Rex continues to ruin me again every night...?’

’Oh, Alexander... if that happens, you’d better find someone who deserves you more than I do.’

She was still worried. The worry had not resolved into anything clean or simple.

But it was sitting differently than it had been twenty minutes ago, which was something.

She looked at her watch.

Thirty-eight minutes.

She put her watch away.

’I just need to wait for the result...’