It's been a week since my casual magic session began with the twins. I called it casual since it was held under the guise of us friends talking and playing. Alyson has been keeping her mouth shut, but it didn't mean that my parents were in the dark concerning this.

After all, it's not like there were only us children present in the room. Renata was always there with us. Sometimes Hannah too when she wasn't busy taking care of Adam. But since they were maids, they weren't allowed to join in the conversation unless we asked them to.

With Renata and Hanna's daily reports, the adults could monitor us without having the need to be present in the room. So, with them not saying anything about me learning some basic theories from the twins, I guess, all was good.

Be as it may. Apparently, Adam has been making a fuss about coming into my room lately. To be fair, he did view my room as his playroom. It must be frustrating as a two-year-old toddler to be told you can't go play where you want.

But thanks to his endless whining, Adam finally got what he wanted...

Howard and Helena won't be coming to my room today.

On the other hand, Adam, Maya, Alyson, and George were all gathering in my room. The whole gang was here. Color me surprised because it was not even the weekend, but George, with big dark circles under his eyes, was chilling on the sofa beside Maya.

"Why don't you go and have a rest, Father? You seem so tired."

'I know part of it is my fault. I'm sorry...' I sighed quietly at the sight of the exhausted man.

"This is resting, Alex." He answered as Maya landed her head on his shoulder.

'Well, the man knows his body best...'

"Okay...," I replied.

"Bro-bro!" Called the toddler, jumping excitedly on the bed.

"Adam, be careful!" Warned Alyson.

"I got him, sister."

"Bro, hurry-hurry!"

"O' spirit of the wind, the prosperous and zealous gale, bless upon me your favor. Sailing wind!"

Upon the completion of the incantation, a gust of wind appeared beneath Adam's feet as he jumped high in the air. It was more like a wind carpet than a wall, but hell, that's lame. I ain't saying that.

Anyway, the wind carried him and kept his body floating in up and down in the air.

"Hihihi! Papa! Mama!" He called out giddily.

'Okay, now down slowly.' I commanded.

Adam then asked for another round and another one after that. Of course, I kept playing with him. In fact, I was treating it as training. Training to at least be able to speak out an incantation in case the need arises.

My incantation was crude and not as refined as Howard and Helena, but it was enough for me. I only need them for disguise, after all.

So, after remembering the key points of the incantations, I activated my magic. Of course, while controlling the mana flow in the middle of all that. It was still the word magic that I used, and the mana disturbance was always chaotic if I didn't control it. Way different than, say, Howard or Helena when they use magic. But like I said, it was enough.

Howard told me that magic worked when we offered both prayer and a sigil to the spirit of an element. In short, the incantation was the prayer, and the sigil was the formula.

A prayer or incantation spoke for itself, while the sigil kind of resembled how math and physics formulas worked. Something along the line where you need to estimate the distance, power, and speed before summing up how much mana you need to pour in to satisfy all the inputted variables.

It was a load of fuckin' hard work, fellas. What's more, the higher the spell's level, the more complex everything became.

I really have to hand it to Helena, though. Hailed as the prominent genius in the field of magic, I've seen her writing an example of an advanced spell from a Novice class and solving it so easily like it's a fucking two plus two equals four.

Anyway, that's that.

Back to the matter at hand.

With George here, I could afford to settle yet another important issue. But before that, let me explain something first.

My blessing of danger has been growing magnificently for these few years. At first, it operated simply and directly with the law of cause and reaction. If I did this, it may or may not bring danger to my life, and henceforth...

Now, I could enlarge the scope just a bit further.

And here's how it works. By strongly imagining myself in a certain situation or condition to the point of self-hypnotizing myself, I could more or less predict what would happen to me. And from that, I could somewhat predict the future, albeit indirectly. Of course, since were were talking about my blessing of danger, I mean that, in the context of whether I would be in danger or not.

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An example of that would be if I imagine myself losing Word Magic for the rest of my life, then what? Of course, I'd die. The world was on the path of doom, after all.

Now, using that very loophole, I was able to find out the fate of my newly gained friends, the twins. How, you might ask? By tying themselves to my fate. Nah, it was more accurate to say that I was tying myself to them.

By self-hypnotizing myself to believe that Howard's role would be one of the keys to winning the final battle against the dark forces, I was able to clutch my blessing to the cause behind his madness.

Helena's death.

If Helena died, then we'd lose a key, that was, Howard. And if we lost him, then the world would get destroyed...I died.

After layers of layers of inducing myself...the familiar buzzing finally sang beautifully within my soul.

We finally got to Helena's death would equal my death. Using the process of elimination which almost took everything out of me and so much time, I was able to deduce one very important point.

She'll die within three years. If I leave both of them alone, Helena will die, and Howard won't be able to prevent it. Heck, he didn't even know that she would die, much less help her. And it's not like I'm telling him the future will do any good. No, it might be counterproductive instead. He might think it was a cruel joke, or I was a crazy son of a bitch...Either way, the chance he would heed my warning would be slim at best.

That's why I have to take matters into my own hands. I needed to protect her, which brought us to this moment, where I was about to give George another massive headache yet again.

"Father,"

'I need to keep Helena close by my side and protect her for three years. That's my mission for now.' I concluded inwardly.

"Yes, Alex?" George's weary eyes opened as he heard me calling.

"It's been a week since my friends stayed here, and I've been having so much fun every day, but sadly, they have to go back soon..."

'Okay, my first card...The sympathy play,'

"Can I have them stay longer? I like my friends a lot!"

'Your turn, George!'

He narrowed his eyes at my pleading. Sighing, he said, "We can't have that, Alex. There's too many...No, it's not good for your friends and for us."

'Right, who am I kidding? I can't pull the sympathy play. I'm not Alyson...'

Shrugging mentally, I went on to push my case further.

"Why is it not good, Father?"

I knew he never talked about politics in front of his family, and my job was to find that crack in his defense while luring George to my well-crafted trap.

"They are royalties, Alex. Their safety is a matter concerning that of a kingdom's security. Staying for a week away from the royal palace is a stretch already. All the more so when we have this vigilante called Black Nightmare running amok all across our fief. They might be cleaning bandits for some odd reasons, but a magician with such prowess and, moreover, one with such unclear origin won't bode well in the eyes of the royal guards."

'Wait, Black Nightmare? Isn't that...me...? Is that what they've been calling me? Must be the robe...'

George's answer was logical and sound, but it still stayed well within my expectations. Well, him mentioning the black nightmare was a bit surprising, but it didn't matter.

"But isn't the royal palace way more dangerous than our home? I heard from Howard and Helena that it's a place where you have to keep your guard up all the time. And that vigilante won't be able to come here because we are the Dawson, isn't that right, Father?"

'He can't come because he's already in here...'

"Ha...It's still a no, Alex. There's still no good reason to stay with us for so long. They're not even our family." Refused George for the second time.

'And got you!'

After waiting for a while, the chance finally appeared.

"Family?" I asked, feigning innocence.

Seeing that, his face twisted and turned as though he could feel the foreboding feeling crawling up his skin.

"Then, let's become one. Why don't I have Helena as my fiance?"

"Oh, my!" Maya gasped.

"Alex!!" And Alyson shouted.

"Fiance? Sister is angry?" While Adam timidly asked.

"No, I am not mad, Adam. Your sister is just surprised. Come here..." Alyson fetched Adam into her hands, hugging him as her eyes squinted sharply toward me.

I ignored them and locked my eyes at George's, who was still lost in his own thoughts.

'That's right. Think about it, George...This is a risky move alright, but the risk also came with a huge benefit...surely you can see that.'

Boreas kingdom today was akin to a chess board filled to the brim with players. Those in power would set the board and place their pieces while the rest, whether they wanted it or not, had to play the game and George chose to stand and build a fortress on a dangerous cliff instead of accepting the dagger proposed by the warring sides. He was able to rally the other with his skills, but a cliff was still a cliff. One wrong move and down he went...

What I nudged to his plate right now was an offer too good to pass out.

I was offering George a chance to flip the fucking board altogether and set the board himself. Things would get much more complicated and chaotic, but the reward was as real and clear as the sun hanging in the sky.

He would be the one to set the rules, and everyone would be forced to play on his board, not theirs.

"Do you want to marry the Fifth princess, Alex?" George asked after taking some moment to think.

"Marry? I just want them to stay longer." Answered me.

"Are you even aware of what you're asking right now, Alex?"

"I only want them to stay with us, Father. Please." I sincerely replied.

"I see..." George stood up, making his exit from the room. "I will give my decision as the family's head tonight after dinner. Bryon, follow me."

"Yes, my Duke." Answered Bryon.

'Phew...glad that went well.' I exhaled long.

I knew for a fact that it was a success based on George's reaction. If I failed, then he would've told me right on the spot.

He was a brilliant man with tons of experience. Surely if it's him, he could sense that the benefits far outweigh the risks.

The fact that he left until tonight before telling us the answer could only mean he needed time to solidify the details further.

"Do explain to me what you have in that head of yours...dear Brother?" Alyson's chilling voice rang low.

Well, it's not like I could dump massive homework on George and be the only one to walk away scot-free.

Explaining and convincing the furious Alyson and Maya, for once, won't be easy, I think.

'O fate...do smile kind on my path.' I prayed...