"…Brother."
A brief silence passed.
Then Leonard spoke again, more lightly this time. "You really made me chase you halfway through the rankings, didn't you?"
Sylvie blinked. "So you did watch it."
"I said I would, didn't I?" His tone softened, just slightly. "And it was… quite something."
There was no exaggeration in his voice. No pomp. Just a quiet thread of conviction.
"You fought like someone who's been doing this for years," he continued. "Controlled. Adaptable. And that glyph collapse spell near the end? That wasn't Arcadian standard theory."
Sylvie glanced away toward the trees. "No. It wasn't."
"I figured as much," Leonard said. "You've been learning from someone."
"A few people," she murmured. "But most of it was… me. Patching things together."
A faint pause. Then, warmer—
"I wanted to make sure you saw something real when you finally looked."
Leonard didn't answer immediately.
But the silence wasn't cold.
"…I did," he said at last. "I saw exactly that."
