"This is your room."
Annan stopped outside an empty guest room, pushed open the door, and stepped aside.
Irilanze had no interest in her room. "Where's your bedroom?"
"Uh... over there." Annan pointed casually toward Lilith's room.
Irilanze made a note of it. After entering the room, she turned back and said softly, "Would you like to come in and sit for a while?"
"No, thanks..." Annan took half a step back.
Why did Irilanze seem more like the mistress of the house? Wasn't this my place...?
Annan beckoned to Head Maid Abby, who was watching from a distance. "Where's Eldest Sister?"
"Idelia is in the garden."
That reminded Annan of something. "Irilanze, there's something very important I need to tell you..."
"Yes, I will!"
Without making a sound, Abby quietly backed away.
"That's not it..."
"Then it's not important."
"You'll think it is."
Annan led Irilanze to the garden behind the City Lord's Mansion.
Idelia sat in her wheelchair beneath the Otherworld Tree, which had grown much stronger since Annan had left. She was as serene as a figure in an oil painting.
"This is Free City's World Tree," Annan said.
Irilanze stared at the Otherworld Tree. Her mouth slowly fell open. "How is that possible... How can there be a second World Tree!?"
"Why can't there be?"
"The Elven Royal Court spent ten thousand years trying countless ways to make the World Tree produce a seed. Even watering it with Moon Pool Springwater did nothing... The Moon God of the Elves once delivered a Divine Oracle: only one World Tree would ever exist in the Allen World."
The sapling before her was a little strange... but its aura was unmistakably that of a World Tree!
"Because it came from another world."
Annan walked toward Idelia beneath the tree