The silence lasted several seconds.
Several very long seconds.
Shawn stood in the center of the room.
Iris stood in front of him.
Neither of them said a word.
Shawn blinked.
Iris blinked.
Shawn looked around with wide eyes, processing the situation.
The room was large.
The walls were stone.
There was an enormous bed to his right.
A window to his left.
And right in front of him, less than three meters away, stood the vampire queen with an expression Shawn wasn't quite sure how to classify.
'What the hell is going on here?' Shawn thought, glancing at the door Iris had been blocking with her back until just seconds ago. 'Why was she sitting on the floor? Was she kidnapped? Were we both kidnapped? Are we locked in?'
Shawn looked at the window.
It was open.
A soft breeze slipped through and brushed against his back.
And then Shawn slowly lowered his gaze with the same energy of someone who already knows what they're going to find but needs to confirm it anyway.
His hands moved on their own.
One went to his chest.
The other went lower.
Shawn closed his eyes for a second.
'Of course,' he thought, with a calm that came straight from sheer exhaustion. 'Of course.'
It wasn't the first time.
He'd already been through this.
'God,' Shawn thought, staring at the ceiling with total exasperation. 'You're all-powerful. But making me appear with clothes on… is that really so hard?'
The breeze came through the window again.
Shawn pressed his hands a little tighter.
Then he looked at Iris.
Iris was looking at him.
Her red eyes fixed on his face.
Not looking down.
Not looking up.
Just staring straight at him, with an expression Shawn couldn't tell if it was surprise, curiosity, or something else entirely.
Shawn opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
"Hi," he said, in a tone that was the exact combination of embarrassment, discomfort, and resignation.
Iris blinked.
And then, very slowly, a smile appeared on her face.
Not a big smile.
A small one.
Almost imperceptible.
But it was there.
Iris rose from the floor with a calm, unhurried movement and lightly brushed off her clothes.
"Where did you go?" she asked, in a completely composed voice.
Shawn looked at her.
'Good question,' he thought.
The problem was the answer.
Shawn opened his mouth to say something.
Something simple.
Something that sounded reasonable.
Something like he'd gone for a walk, or to get supplies, or that he just needed some fresh air.
Anything that wasn't the truth.
But before the words could come out, he felt it.
The burning.
It started at the tip of his tongue and spread backward in less than a second.
It wasn't unbearable pain.
It was more like a warning.
A very clear, very specific warning that Shawn remembered.
'No,' Shawn thought, snapping his mouth shut.
The burning disappeared.
Shawn looked at the ceiling for a moment.
'Seriously,' he thought, irritation that had been building for days now bubbling up. 'Seriously, God. No clothes, and no tongue either? What's next? Are you going to take my feet so I can't run away from awkward conversations?'
Shawn looked back at Iris.
Iris was watching him with her head slightly tilted to one side.
"What's wrong with you?" she asked, genuinely curious.
Shawn smiled.
It was a tense smile.
"Answering that…" he said, choosing every word carefully, "…is complicated."
Iris looked at him in silence.
She said nothing for several seconds.
Her red eyes slowly moved across Shawn's face, as if reading something he didn't know was written there.
Shawn resisted the urge to look away.
Then Iris spoke.
"You're quite the mysterious girl," she said, in a calm tone that was neither a compliment nor an accusation.
Shawn didn't respond.
Iris took a slow step forward.
"There are two things about you that catch my attention," she continued, hands clasped in front of her. "The first is the way you healed me yesterday."
Shawn said nothing.
Iris went on.
"The second thing," she said, stopping at a distance that was close enough to be uncomfortable, "is that at no point—neither when you disappeared the first time, nor right now when you reappeared—did I sense any trace of teleportation mana."
Shawn blinked.
"None," Iris repeated, emphasizing the word. "And that's not possible. Any mage who uses teleportation leaves a signature. Always. Without exception."
Shawn looked at Iris.
Iris looked at him.
"So," Iris said, her voice still calm but now carrying a different weight, "I have two questions for you."
Shawn waited.
"The first," Iris said, "is what kind of mage you are."
Pause.
"And the second," she continued, not breaking eye contact, "is how you knew someone was poisoning me."
Another pause.
"Yesterday was the first time we met."
Silence returned to the room.
Shawn held Iris's gaze.
What the hell was he supposed to answer if he couldn't lie?