That question came too fast to be casual. She had clearly been turning the pieces over in her head ever since seeing the two of them together in Torvares’s office.
Ludger looked at her and said, “No one needs to know that yet.”
The words landed lightly. Almost casually. But that only made the meaning beneath them heavier. Because no one at the table asked why. Not Elaine. Not Arslan. Not Viola. Not even Luna.
And the silence after that told Viola something before she could stop herself from noticing it. Ludger was keeping secrets even from his parents. That worried her. It worried her a lot, actually.
Because whatever he was walking into had become serious enough that he had started dividing truth by need, not by closeness. That meant he had already crossed one of those lines in his own head, the quiet ones where a person stopped thinking my family should know and started thinking my family should only know what won’t make the situation worse .
That was dangerous. But strangely, there was another feeling mixed in with the worry too. A quieter one. A more complicated one. He was treating her the same way he was treating them. Not like a child. Not like a burden. Not like someone who needed the truth softened or filtered just because she might not be able to bear it.
He was keeping her in the dark, yes. But he was doing it with the same hard fairness he was applying to Arslan and Elaine. Which meant, in Ludger’s own difficult way, he was putting her on the same level of responsibility.
That should have made her angrier. Instead, it made the edge of her frustration twist into something else. Something she didn’t entirely like admitting. Respect, maybe. Or the shape of trust that only appeared when someone believed you were strong enough to be denied the easy answer instead of protected from it.
Viola sat there for a second with that realization lodged in her chest while Ludger remained exactly as unreadable as ever. Then she and Luna looked at each other.
It was brief, but noticeable. One of those small exchanges between people who had spent enough time together to hold a full conversation in a glance and a pause. After that, Luna was the one who spoke.
“How are the preparations with Eclaire for this job?”
Ludger looked at her.
Then he said, “I won’t be taking her with me this time.”
Luna’s expression changed for a moment. Not dramatically. Just enough. A flicker of surprise mixed with something harder to pin down, concern, calculation, maybe even the quick reshaping of an argument she had not expected to need. Then, just as quickly, she pulled her usual poker face back into place.
Viola noticed it too. Luna hesitated only a second before opening her mouth again.
“If that’s your plan,” she said carefully, “then you might want to bring her. And the other two.”
Ludger’s eyes narrowed faintly.
“Why?”
Luna folded her hands more neatly in her lap, her expression composed again now that she had decided to say it.
“If you want to keep things low profile,” she said, “then noble labyrinth access matters more than brute force.”
That got the room’s attention immediately. Ludger remained still. Luna continued.
“Special barriers and sealing barriers usually need a magic key to unlock them,” she said. “Not always a literal object. Sometimes it’s a signature, a pattern, a recognized magical imprint, or an authority-linked trigger.” She glanced at him.
Ludger listened.
“But,” Luna added, “I assume Rowan and Jennifer have something similar.”
The room stayed quiet for a second after that. Because yes. That made sense. Luna watched him and added, “Without that, if you touch the wrong barrier the wrong way, the labyrinth won’t just resist you. It will announce you.”
That was the real problem. Not whether Ludger could break through. Of course he could probably break through. The problem was what happened after.
A forced breach meant alarm. Alarm meant containment. Containment meant losing control of pace, and pace was exactly what someone like Armandis would use against an intruder if given the chance.
Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly further. He already knew she was right. That was obvious in the way he didn’t interrupt.
He leaned back slightly and said, “I still prefer going alone.”
Viola’s eyes narrowed at once, but he kept going before she could interrupt.
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“It makes more sense to me,” he said. “Cause a lot of ruckus, do damage to my enemies, and get out, instead of walking into a sealed labyrinth with a full party of teenagers.”
That made the room go quiet for half a second.
Then Arslan looked at him and said, “It looks like sometimes you forget that you are one as well.”
Ludger stared at him. Arslan shrugged.
“What? You say things like that as if you’re some old war veteran and not a kid who still gets dragged into baths by his mother when he smells too suspicious.”
Elaine didn’t deny that. Viola looked pleased someone else had said it. Luna, however, stayed focused on the actual point.
She looked at Ludger and asked, “Was Eclaire against the idea?”
Ludger shook his head once.
“No.”
That answer made Viola’s brows rise.
Ludger continued, “She wanted to go.”
That was not surprising. Not after the capital. Not after the black market. Not after that shift in her where hiding had started feeling worse to her than danger.
“But,” Ludger added, “I didn’t confirm anything.”
Viola clicked her tongue softly.
Then she said, “For someone who is sometimes so reckless, you sure worry a lot about possible future problems coming to fruition.”
That line earned a brief silence. Not because it was wrong. Because it was annoyingly accurate.
Ludger looked at her and said, “I worry outside battle.”
That made Luna’s attention sharpen. Viola folded her arms, waiting. Ludger continued in the same even tone.
“During battles, I take risks that I know I can deal with the consequences of.”
That was the difference. A clean one in his mind, even if it looked strange from the outside.
“In a fight,” he said, “if I gamble, it’s because I’ve already measured the likely outcomes. Pain. Injury. Collapse. Retreat. Counterattack. Burning through mana. Breaking terrain. I take risks when I know what kind of damage I can survive and what kind I can force in return.”
Arslan watched him quietly now.
Ludger’s voice stayed flat.
“But before the fight starts, recklessness is just stupidity.”
That landed harder than the earlier answer. Because that was the real rule he operated under.
Then said, a little quieter, “So you’re not afraid of what happens inside.”
Ludger looked at her.
“I’m cautious about what gets unleashed outside if the inside goes wrong. I worry about when the damage expands beyond me. ”
That was the larger danger. Not just whether he could survive.
Whether the wrong people got tied to it. Whether the wrong names surfaced. Whether a failed breach exposed Viola, Eclaire, Rowan, Jennifer, Lionsguard, Torvares, or anyone else before he was ready to deal with the full structure snapping back at them.
Luna nodded faintly. That answer made sense to her.
Viola still looked mildly frustrated, but the frustration had shifted shape. Less he’s shutting me out and more he has already run too many consequences ahead in his head and now I have to attack the logic instead of the attitude.
Which was a much harder battle.
Arslan leaned back and said, “Still sounds exhausting.”
Ludger gave him a glance.
“It is.”
That got the faintest smile out of Elaine, though she hid it quickly enough behind her cup. Because yes.
That was probably the cleanest summary of him possible. Not fearless. Not calm.
Exhaustingly deliberate until the moment the fight began. And then, once the fight actually started, he became exactly the kind of problem reasonable people prayed would stay far away from their lives.
No one said anything after that. No one pushed. No one tried to corner Ludger into the decision they wanted. That, more than another argument would have, made the room feel heavier.
Because if they had pressured him, if Viola had demanded, if Luna had laid out another perfect tactical case, if Arslan had told him not to be stupid, or if Elaine had simply said don’t go alone with that mother’s voice that made refusal feel uglier than steel, then this would have been easier in a way.
He could have resisted. Could have braced against it. Could have turned the whole thing into one more line he had to hold. Instead, they left it in front of him. His choice. Which made it worse.
Because Ludger did not actually want to let things escalate so far that other people had to suffer for his decisions. That was the core of it. Not mistrust. Not arrogance alone. Not even just caution. If the breach went wrong, if the labyrinth bit back harder than expected, if the structure snapped shut, if Armandis’s hidden machine reacted too quickly, then it would be his judgment that had brought others into the blast radius.
He could bear his own consequences. That part was simple. Bearing the consequences when they landed on people around him because of a choice he had made, that was different.
He hated that version. He hated the possibility of it enough that most of the time he solved it the easiest way available: He just carried more himself. But it looked like the people in his life had no intention of letting him shoulder all the burdens forever.
That was… irritating. And not entirely bad. Which was even more irritating. Ludger didn’t say any of that out loud.
But the long sigh that left him was enough. Enough that the others understood there was more behind it than mere annoyance. Enough that Viola’s expression shifted first, some of her usual sharpness softening into something quieter.
Enough that Luna stayed still and said nothing, which in itself was a form of respect.
Enough that Elaine and Arslan both looked at him the way people looked when they already knew what the answer would be before it was spoken, but understood that the speaking still mattered.
Ludger let the silence sit for one more second.
Then he said, “Fine.”
Viola’s eyes sharpened at once.
Luna’s posture changed by a hair.
Ludger looked between them and added, in the driest tone possible, “Let’s proceed with the operation.”
That might have sounded almost formal if not for what came next.
He exhaled through his nose and said, “It will be called: The infiltration of six teenagers into a sealed imperial labyrinth. What could go wrong?”
That line cut the tension just enough. Not much. Just enough.