Maudlina laughed softly - a warm, throaty sound that sent another jolt straight through him. She didn’t step away. If anything, she leaned in a fraction more, close enough that her sleeve brushed his arm.

"Ideas are fine, Jake. As long as they don’t interfere with the plan. Ankerita’s right about one thing - you are the trump card. But even trump cards need the right moment to be played."

Her eyes held his, full of teasing heat.

"When the time comes... when someone finally tells you to stop holding back... I wonder how much you’ll have saved up. I’ve seen what happens when young men like you finally let go. It can be quite... overwhelming. For everyone involved."

Jake swallowed, the playful banter making his blood run hotter.

He could see it in her face—the flush, the way her eyes had darkened, the slight shift in her stance that spoke of awareness, of wanting.

She felt it too.

The underlying sexual tension was no longer subtle; it was a living thing between them, electric and heavy.

He wanted to reach out, to trace the curve of her hip through those trousers, to pull her closer and find out exactly how experienced those hands really were.

From the way she was looking at him, he suspected she was imagining something similar—perhaps what it would feel like to have a young man’s energy focused entirely on her, to stop being the steady support and become the one being thoroughly claimed.

But Ankerita’s voice rose again from across the room as she finished with Maureen, and the moment shifted.

Maudlina exhaled slowly, that same small, rueful smile returning to her lips even as the heat in her eyes remained.

"We should probably focus on the floors ahead," she said, her voice steady but carrying that unmistakable undercurrent of promise.

"Five levels left. Plenty of time for... other things once we’re not surrounded by exploding crystals and whatever else is waiting upstairs."

Jake nodded, though the hunger in his gaze hadn’t dimmed at all.

"Later, then," he said.

The single word carried weight.

"After we clear what needs clearing. I’ll hold back on the field like your sister wants. But when the fighting’s done..."

He let it trail off, his eyes making the rest perfectly clear.

Maudlina’s smile widened, slow and knowing, full of the same playful, dirty promise.

"When the fighting’s done," she agreed.

The tension between them didn’t vanish—it simply banked, like a fire waiting for the right spark. She stepped back just enough to restore the professional distance, but her eyes lingered on him a moment longer, warm and full of the same heat he felt.

"Try not to spend all your focus looking at the support instead of the threats, Jake. I’d hate to have to explain to Ankerita why her trump card got distracted by a pair of very capable hands."

Jake laughed softly, the sound low and rough with restrained desire.

"No promises," he said.

"But I’ll try to keep my eyes - and everything else - focused where they’re needed. For now."

Maudlina turned away with a final, lingering glance over her shoulder, the sway of her hips deliberate as she moved to rejoin her mages.

Jake watched her go, the playful, charged exchange still humming through him.

They had both felt it—the raw, sexual tension that had risen so naturally between them and he couldn’t help but see her as the perfect embodiment of everything he found irresistible.

Maudlina made her way back toward her sister.

Ankerita was waiting.

More specifically, Ankerita was staring directly at her.

Maudlina immediately became suspicious.

"What?"

"Are you done flirting with him?"

Maudlina nearly stumbled.

"I wasn’t flirting."

Ankerita’s expression remained perfectly flat.

"You were standing two feet apart and smiling at each other for five minutes."

"We were talking."

"You were flirting."

"We were discussing strategy."

"Was the strategy in question named Jake?"

Maudlina opened her mouth.

Paused.

Closed it again.

Ankerita nodded once.

"That’s what I thought."

"You’re impossible."

"And you’re obvious."

Maudlina folded her arms.

"I hate that you know me so well."

"We’ve known each other for twenty-eight years."

"Still."

For the first time, a faint smile tugged at the corner of Ankerita’s mouth.

"Just try not to get distracted."

Maudlina followed her sister’s gaze across the room.

Jake was talking with Maureen.

"He’s attractive," Maudlina muttered.

"I have eyes."

"And surprisingly competent."

"I have eyes."

"And powerful."

"I have eyes." 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Maudlina sighed.

"You’re making this very difficult."

Ankerita’s smile widened ever so slightly.

"I know."

A beat passed.

Then Ankerita added in a calm voice,

"If it makes you feel better, he was looking at all the women the same way."

Maudlina froze.

"...What?"

Ankerita was already turning away.

"Five minutes."

"For what?"

"Before we move."

"Ankerita."

The older woman continued walking.

"Ankerita."

No response.

Maudlina stared after her.

Then glanced toward Jake.

Then immediately looked away again.

*

The passage to Floor 2 descended at a gradient subtle enough to feel before it registered visually, the floor tilting under their boots while the walls maintained their precise vertical faces, and the mana saturation pressing against Jake’s active Sight grew heavier with each meter they covered downward.

He adjusted the ability’s draw to compensate, finding the minimum resolution that still gave him useful information rather than running it at full sensitivity and burning through units unnecessarily.

The descent leveled and the passage opened.

Floor 2 was larger than either floor above it, the dimensional expansion Maudlina had identified in the architecture delivering on the promise of its upper-floor scale.

The space extended in all directions beyond comfortable sight range, divided into sections by structures that were different in character from the barrack buildings above—lower, wider, and built around functions that the ground floor’s open design and the barracks’ residential grid hadn’t required.

Equipment of all kinds Jake had no names for anything in either of his languages that occupied some sections, dark and inactive but clearly constructed rather than grown.

Wide flat surfaces at working height ran in parallel rows through the space’s center. Channels cut into the floor between the rows connected to drainage systems whose purpose he preferred not to examine too closely.