Salvar came out of the bathroom with the clean energy of someone who had not just locked the most powerful man in Thornvale inside a primary school toilet cabin.
He feared Silas.
That did not mean he was a coward.
It meant he was strategic about his fear which was an entirely different category.
He straightened his collar, scanned the outdoor area, located the social networking man from earlier standing in a cluster of parents with the magnetic energy of someone who collected people the way others collected receipts, and walked over.
"Hi," Salvar said.
"Oh hello!" The man's face lit up with the enthusiasm of someone who had been waiting for this specific person to reappear.
He pulled Salvar into the conversation cluster with the practiced ease of a man who had never once in his life failed to make someone feel included. "Everyone, this is umm..." The man hesitated and looked at Salvar's face.
"It's Salvar."
The cluster nodded. Salvar nodded back.
This was networking. This was exactly what he needed to be doing instead of thinking about what was happening in a locked bathroom cabin approximately forty meters away.
"I still don't know your surname," the man said.
"It's just Salvar," Salvar replied pleasantly.
The man waited.
Salvar smiled back and asked, "And how should I adress you?"
The man cleared his throat. "Oh, I just realize I never introduced myself. Do you know me?"
Salvar looked at him.
If I knew your name I would not be standing here waiting for you to say it.
"I apologize," Salvar said warmly, "I have the brain of a fried shrimp. You will have to remind me."
The man laughed with genuine delight. "Caliber Drocurus."
Salvar nodded slowly while his brain filed the name.
Caliber.
Drocurus.
He turned it over.
Checked it against every inventory of names and faces and connections he had spent the past week cataloguing from his horizontal research position in the penthouse.
Nothing.
Then something.
Then everything.
WAIT.
"Oh my god." Salvar's expression transformed completely. "I am genuinely honoured."
Because Caliber Drocurus was not a local star or a regional businessman or someone's moderately successful cousin.
He was a medical scientist.
Specifically the medical scientist who had developed the compound that addressed omega heat complications in ways that the entire pharmaceutical industry had been attempting and failing for a decade.
His name was in every business profile adjacent to healthcare, every omega rights discussion that had teeth behind it, every conference that actually mattered.
And he was standing in a primary school garden having his hand waved away by people who had lost interest the moment they heard he had exclusive pharmaceutical contract with Hylee Pharmaceutical and had no interest in talking business.
"Who doesn't know you," Salvar said.
Caliber grinned. "And you? What do you do?"
"I am embarrassed to say honestly." Salvar laughed. "I work as the butler for the Beladore family."
He watched Caliber's face for the specific micro expression of someone recategorizing him downward.
It did not come.
"Oh you poor thing," Caliber said with complete sincerity. "Babysitting adults must be exhausting."
Salvar decided he didn't disliked Caliber Drocurus, yet.
The cluster dissolved around them as people remembered they had other networking to do and Caliber's exclusive contract made him simultaneously impressive but unapproachable. Which left the two of them falling into step together as the parent tour of the school began moving through the corridors.
Caliber, Salvar discovered within approximately four minutes, was a talker.
A warm, genuine, physically expressive talker who punctuated every sentence with some form of contact.
A hand on the shoulder.
An arm swung through his.
A pat on the back delivered at random intervals like a punctuation mark.
Salvar hated physical touch, but he endured this with the patient expression of someone who had survived considerably worse.
"Where are you residing in Thornvale?" Caliber asked, swinging their linked arms.
"Sky High Haven."
Caliber stopped walking.
"You live in Sky High Haven?"
"Yes."
"That building is literally my dream." Caliber gripped his arm tighter. "You have to invite me someday Salvar, promise me."
"I would need to get permission to bring guests..."
"From who, the butler council?" Caliber joked.
"No, actually from the family I work for." Salvar was genuinely surprised at himself for sprouting lies while beholding no consequence.
Caliber pouted with the genuine devastation of someone for whom this was a real setback without the awareness of the perfect fabrication crafted by Salvar.
Then he recovered. "Fine, I won't pester you. But I want it on record that I am manifesting an invitation."
"Alright, I promise." Salvar said with a reassuring smile.
They walked in comfortable silence for approximately thirty seconds.
"I didn't realize you were married," Salvar said, glancing at him.
"Not married." Caliber smiled. "The child is my boyfriend's son. I am just here because his is presenting at a conference today."
Salvar nodded.
The session moved.
Salvar glanced inside the classrooms through windows and came a library that smelled like institutional carpet and ambition.
Staff members explaining curriculum with the rehearsed enthusiasm of people who had done this tour many times and still meant most of it.
Caliber talked.
Salvar listened and filed.
By the time the interactive session concluded and the doors opened to release the children back into the wild, Salvar had Caliber's phone number, and potential shop they can visit later, and few remarkable landscape of Thornvale.
They didn't talk business, just casual chat.
Then Salvar saw Milo and Caliber went to find his boyfriend's child.
Milo came out of the hall at his standard speed which was faster than necessary, his backpack bouncing, his face carrying the specific expression of someone who had accomplished something.
Beside him walked a smaller figure.
Neat. Quiet. Dark haired.
He could have befriended anybody but...
Of course,
Of course it had to be Xavier.
Salvar produced a smile from somewhere and deployed it.
"Uncle Sal look at my new friend!" Milo grabbed his hand and gestured with his entire body. "His name is Sabior!"
Xavier looked at Salvar.
Salvar looked at Xavier.
"My name is Xavier," Xavier corrected, tone deflat of any emotions.
"That's what I said. Sabior."
Caliber made a sound beside him as he came back after retrieving the child.
Salvar did not look at his face.
"Your resting face is very judgmental," Caliber commented from his left. "You don't like the friend?"
"That is just my face," Salvar said immediately and smiled again. "I have no opinions about the friend."
His face genuinely hurted from the effort he made to make himself look welcoming.
Xavier looked around the outdoor area with the systematic efficiency of someone conducting a search.
"I do not see father," he said.
Caliber and Salvar turned toward him at the same time.
Father.
Not dad. Not papa. Not any of the soft variations that children defaulted to.
Father?
Caliber mouthed something at Salvar that looked like who raised this child.
"Uncle Sal where is Sabior's father?" Milo asked with genuine concern.
Salvar knew exactly where Sabior's father was.
Sabior's father was in a locked primary school bathroom cabin waiting for someone to come and open the door.
That someone was theoretically Salvar.
That someone had been hoping the situation would resolve itself through means that did not require him to go back in there.
It was not resolving itself.
Xavier reached into his backpack and produced a phone. He dialed with the focused efficiency of someone who had done this before and found it effective.
Caliber looked at the phone.
Then at Xavier.
Then at Salvar with an expression that was asking several questions simultaneously.
"Why do you have a phone, kiddo?" Caliber asked.
Xavier looked up from the screen.
"I took it from my father's pocket," he said simply.
"..."
"And who are you calling?" Salvar asked
"Calling Father."
"..."
"Oh, does he have a spare phone?" Caliber asked cautiously.
Xavier stopped his calling the number and gave a thought.
"No, he doesn't."
"..."
They were literally speechless.