Maelor needed thirty seconds. He got exactly thirty seconds. The door opened on thirty-one, and the Crown Prince of Drakenfell stood in the frame.

Alaric checked his pocket watch. “Thirty-one.”

Hyran held out his hand. Alaric dropped five gold into it without looking up.

“I bet twenty,” Hyran said.

“I bet forty-five. We were both generous.”

Maelor was still hunched over Serena, both palms pressed to her temples, emerald light pouring from his hands in dense, concentrated streams. His nose was bleeding, twin lines of red tracking from both nostrils to his upper lip, and the intensity of his focus had drawn every line on his face into sharp relief.

Alaric held out a handkerchief. Maelor looked at it. Looked at the sleeve he’d already ruined. Took the handkerchief and tucked it into his pocket without using it.

“New cloak is up,” he said. “She will remain unconscious for several hours from the venom. When she wakes, the cloak will be active.”

“How long will it hold?” Dex asked.

“Seven days if she stays calm.” Maelor’s mismatched eyes lifted to Dex, and the look in them was the flattest, most unamused expression Dex had ever received from a man whose face was still bleeding. “Which brings me to my next point. Something upset her before you marked her. The cloak I placed after the temple was built to withstand seven days of moderate emotional stress. It lasted two. Whatever happened between the placement and the moment the Emperor appeared degraded the structure by approximately sixty percent.”

Dex blinked.

“If you are going to upset her,” Maelor continued, “let me know in advance. I will reinforce the cloak beforehand. I would prefer advance notice over emergency portals. My schedule is complex. My robes are expensive. And my nose bleeds every time I do this, which I find personally offensive.”

“In advance,” Dexmon repeated.

“Yes.”

“You want advance notice before I upset my wife.”

“I want advance notice before anyone upsets her. You are simply the most likely candidate.”

Silence.

It dawned on Dexmon with a slow, grinding clarity that he should have seen this coming hours ago.

The trial. She had insisted on attending. Both he and Fin had told her she didn’t need to be there, and she had gone anyway, because Serena did not let other people fight her battles, and the cost of that principle was a woman who walked into a courtroom and absorbed fifteen charges worth of damage while her cloak absorbed her emotional response and crumbled under the weight of it.

Of course it upset her. Of course it degraded the cloak. She had sat through two hours of hearing every terrible thing that had been done to her and to him, read aloud, in order, in a room full of wolves.

“Guinevere Ashford’s trial,” Alaric cut through the quiet. “She attended. Confirm?”

“Yes,” Dex replied.

“She attended,” Maelor repeated with a sour look on his face. “A trial full of psychological knives where charges were read aloud describing every act of violence committed and no one thought to inform the mage responsible for keeping her cloaked?”

“It didn’t occur to me,” Dex said.

“Clearly.”

The single word carried enough disdain to redecorate a war room. Maelor had mastered the art of saying everything with one word and nothing with twenty.

“Fin and I both told her she didn’t need to go,” Dex replied.

“I also told her she didn’t need to go,” Hyran added.

“So three of you told her not to do something, and she did it.” Maelor looked at all of them. “Have any of you considered trying a different approach? Because whatever you’re doing has a zero percent success rate.”

Dex didn’t answer.

Aegon: The mage is correct. But there’s a piece he didn’t say. No one is saying.

Dexmon: Don’t.

Aegon: The Gamma is what’s hurting her the most.

Dexmon: I’m upset for him too. His fated mate is batshit crazy.

The image of Gavriel sitting motionless in the third row kept flashing in Dexmon’s mind. That and what he felt through their matebond from Serena.

Aegon: You banning their friendship, is what hurt her, Dexmon.

Dexmon: Finnick did as well. Don’t put this all on me.

Aegon: You would also feel better if you checked on the Gamma. Are you still mad at him?

Dexmon: He screwed my mother. Kissed my mate. Then saved my life. I have no fucking idea.

“Reverse psychology then,” Maelor continued.

“Tried it,” Hyran sighed.

“And?”

“She saw through it in four seconds.”

“Then we add reverse psychology to the list of failed strategies, alongside direct instruction, emotional appeals, and whatever Finnick Shadowclaw does that also doesn’t work.”

Alaric, who had been silent throughout, took a long drink from his flask.

“Going forward,” Maelor said, lifting his chin with the authoritative energy of a man issuing a royal decree from a position of nosebleed-induced moral superiority, “any event, conversation, confrontation, revelation, argument, trial, tribunal, sentencing, or emotionally charged interaction involving the Crown Princess will be communicated to me no fewer than six hours in advance.”

“Six hours,” Dex said.

“Minimum.”

“You want me to predict when my wife is going to be upset six hours before it happens.”

Maelor’s expression could have been bottled and sold as condescension. “You are married to a woman who has two mates, an Emperor trying to kill her, and who puts up with Hyran Thornfell on a daily basis. She is going to be upset frequently. You should be able to anticipate at least seventy percent of the triggers. I am asking for the ones you can see coming.”

Hyran rolled his eyes.

“If anything changes at all, you contact me immediately.” Maelor looked at Serena one final time, the clinical detachment giving way for half a second to something warmer, something that looked suspiciously like concern wrapped in professional obligation. Then it was gone. “She needs rest. Actual rest. The magical kind where nothing terrible happens for a consecutive period of time.”

He opened a portal, stepped through, and was gone.

Dex crossed the room and gathered her from the couch. She settled against his chest without stirring, her breathing deep and even, the venom holding her in a sleep that her body desperately needed even if the delivery method was less than ideal.

He pressed his lips to her hair.

“Six hours,” he muttered. “He wants six hours’ notice.”

Hyran looked up from his journal. “Start a list.”

“Of what?”

“Things that upset her. You will find it is comprehensive.”

“Is this a serious suggestion?”

“I have never been more serious. Start with the letter A. Agnes. Work forward. You’ll run out of parchment before you reach the letter D, which is where Dexmon sits, which should concern you.”

Dex looked at Hyran. Hyran looked at Dex. Neither of them laughed, which was the funniest part.

Dex straightened, Alpha resolve settling into his bones. He give Maelor his notice. Serena would get the rest she needed. He’d make damn sure of that. And the next storm that hit, Dex would meet it with fire instead of fear.

The Dragon King Incarnate was done reacting. It was time to hunt.

“Hyran. I change my mind. Show me what I can do with this gold magic.”

Hyran’s brow rose. Alaric capped his flask.

“Whatever that is,” Alaric said, “I’m going to need a bigger flask.”