Chapter 623

“She tried to give you cat ears, Jordan said

“She was testing a compound,” Kael said. “That happened to have an unexpected side effect in early trials. She happened to be curious whether the side effect was reproducible in a controlled subject.”

“And you were the controlled subject,” Jordan said.

“I was the convenient subject,” Kael said.

“Did you get cat ears,” Killian said.

Everyone looked at Killian.

He had the specific expression of someone who’d asked a question and was standing by it.

“I did not get cat ears,” Kael said, with the dignity of someone who had thought about this. “I had approximately six hours of heightened sensitivity to sound and an unusual relationship with elevated surfaces.”

“You climbed things,” Jordan said.

“I assessed the structural soundness of several elevated surfaces,” Kael said.

“He climbed the library shelving,” Nina said. “I saw it.”

“I was checking the upper inventory,” Kael said.

“From the top shelf,” Nina said.

“The upper inventory,” Kael said. “Which is at the top.”

“He sat up there for forty minutes.” Nina said, to me and Killian. “With his coffee. He kept saying he was working but he was just sitting there.”

“The elevation was useful for thinking,” Kael said.

“He purred,” Jordan said.

“I did not-”

Chapter 628-

Frithed

“There was a sound,” Jordan said.

“There was a-I had heightened sensitivity to–the sound was sot-

“It was a purr,” Nina said.

The sound was adjacent to-” Kael stopped. “The point is that Ivory has a long memory and a creative approach to expressing displeasure and you should not eat anything she gives you for the next three days.”

“Noted,” I said.

“This goes for everyone,” Kael said, looking around the table. “Not just Aria. We all had a hand in blocking her today.”

“She’s going to be specifically angry at Killian,” Jordan said.

Killian looked at Jordan.

“You said I think we should wait,” Jordan said. “While looking at her directly. In her meeting. About her timeline.”

“Yes,” Killian said.

“That,” Jordan said, “was either very brave or very-”

“Brave,” Nina said.

“I was going to say unwise,” Jordan said.

“Brave,” Nina said again.

“Both can be true,” Jordan said.

Killian looked at the door Ivory had left through.

“She’s allowed to be angry,” he said. “I’d rather she be angry and here with us.”

The room went quiet.

Not the processing quiet. The specific quiet that arrived when something had been said that was true in a way that couldn’t be managed or deflected or worked around.

Kael looked at Killian with the expression that had the twelve layers and also the thing underneath them.

20

Chapter 628-

Fausted

Yes, he said. “Seme.”

Jordan looked at the door.

“She’s not fine,” he said.

“Obviously,” Nina said.

“She said she was fine,” Jordan said. “She said it in the specific tone of someone who is categorically not fine and is performing fine with the specific intensity of someone who wants you to know exactly how not fine they are.”

“She broke the clipboard,” Nina said.

“Yes,” Jordan said. “With the very controlled physical expression of someone who is managing something significant and the clipboard was the available outlet.”

“Why is she so set against waiting.” Nina said. Her voice had the specific quality it got when she was doing the accounting and the numbers weren’t adding up. “Yes, the root is dangerous. Yes, the Convention timeline is real. But she’s been in urgent situations before and she manages them with patience.” She paused. “This doesn’t feel like impatience. It feels like—”

“A deadline she hasn’t told us about,” Jordan said.”

The intelligence register was fully operational.

He was close.

Silver said: *He’s very close.*

*I know.* I said.

*He’s going to get there,* she said.

*Not before I get to Ivory,* I said.

*You hope,* Silver said.

*I hope,* I said.

“Whatever it is,” Nina said, “it’s connected to why she’s been in the lab every night. It’s connected to the documentation she’s been building. It’s connected to-” she stopped.

“Nina,” I said.

3/6

She looked at me.

“Let me talk to her first I said. “Before we–before the inner circle makes it a full investigation. Let me talk to her”

Nina looked at me for a long moment.

You know something,” she said.

“I know some things,” I said. “Not all of them. I need to talk to Ivory to understand the rest.”

“Aria.” Nina said.

“Please,” I said. “One day. Let me talk to her first.”

The room held.

Niña and Jordan were looking at me with the expressions of two people who’d decided to trust and were doing it despite the specific instinct of their combined intelligence operation telling them that trusting without all the information was not their preferred operational mode.

“One day,” Nina said.

“One day,” I confirmed.

Kael looked at me.

He looked at me for a long time with the twelve layers down and the actual him visible, the one that had been showing up more since the book club, more since the morning where we’d talked about what we actually wanted.

He was trusting me.

The specific quality of it – not the managed version where you said you trusted someone and held yourself at a remove. The actual version. His mate, whom he’d chosen, whom he’d told about the children’s names, whom he’d given the convention option to and watched choose to stay.

He was trusting me with this.

“One day,” he said. “And then we talk about whatever you find.”

“One day,” I said. “And then we talk about everything.”

He held my gaze.

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02 pm

Chapter 62NT

Finished

Then he nodded.

“I’ll eat with the general pack,” I said.

“Wise,” Nina said.

“Also wise.” Jordan agreed.

I looked at the clipboard pieces on the table.

Silver said: “She’s going to move in three days.*

*I know,* I said.

*That’s what we have,* Silver said.

*I know,* I said.

*Is it enough,* Silver said.

*It has to be,* I said.

“Jordan,” I said.

He looked at me.

“What’s shocking,” he said, and I realized he was still in the mode of the previous

conversation, “is that Kael sided with you. Not against Ivory specifically. Just -sided with you. That’s-” he paused. “That’s significant.”

“My jaw dropped,” Nina said, for the second time. “I had to physically close it. I’m still processing.”

“It was not jaw-dropping,” Kael said. “I agreed with my mate’s reasonable request for preparation time. That is a normal thing.”

“Jordan,” Nina said.

“On paper, yes,” Jordan said. “In the context of the past fifteen years of observational data on Kael’s decision-making patterns-”

“I hear you having a conversation about me,” Kael said.

“We’re including you in the conversation,” Jordan said. “You’re right there.”