Chapter 369

NINA

I found out about the poly comment on a Tuesday.

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Specifically, I found out about it from Margo, who had heard it from Celine, who had apparently been maintaining professional composure for approximately sixteen hours before the structural integrity of that composure had finally failed and she’d told Margo everything in the domestic corridor outside the linen storage room at seven in the morning.

Margo had then told me, ostensibly because it was security-relevant information about a visitor’s state of mind following an official Luna meeting, but actually because Margo had been holding it for six hours and needed somewhere to put it or she was going to tell someone inappropriate.

I was the appropriate person. I was always the appropriate person.

I sat with the information for approximately thirty seconds.

Then I went to find Ivory.

She was in the clinic’s preparation room, doing the morning inventory of medicinal stocks with the focused efficiency she brought to all administrative tasks – methodical, unhurried, each item checked and noted before moving to the next. She heard me come in and registered my presence without looking up, which was the usual arrangement.

“I need you to tell me,” I said, “if what I’ve just been told is accurate.”

“That depends significantly on what you’ve been told,” she said, making a notation.

“That Aria told Sera Quinn,” I said, keeping my voice even, “that the two of you had kissed. And that she had subsequently realized she was always meant to be in a poly. And that this was why she wasn’t threatened by Sera’s information about you and Kael in the clinic, because she was apparently in a relationship with both of you and found Sera’s attempt to use that information as leverage to be more annoying than threatening.”

Ivory’s pen stopped.

She turned around.

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Her expression went through three distinct phases. The first was blank – the genuine blankness of someone processing something they hadn’t known they needed to process. The second was something that started in the region of disbelief and developed rapidly into something more complex. The third was the specific expression that appeared on Ivory’s face when she’d encountered something that was simultaneously infuriating, impressive, and funny in proportions she hadn’t finished determining.

“She didn’t,” Ivory said.

“Celine witnessed it,” I said. “The recording device has been confirmed in Aria’s desk drawer.”

“There’s a recording,” Ivory said.

“Celine confirmed the recording exists,” I said. “She didn’t hear the playback. She was apparently too busy surviving the original.”

Ivory looked at the ceiling for a moment. The look of a woman communicating with whatever higher power she’d decided was responsible for her current circumstances.

“She told Sera Quinn,” Ivory said, slowly, with the precision of someone reconstructing a sequence of events to make sure she’d assembled them correctly, “that we had kissed.”

“And that it was transformative,” I said. “In terms of self-discovery.”

Ivory pressed her lips together. The motion of someone conducting a very serious internal conversation about what facial expression was appropriate.

“And that she was now in a poly,” I said. “With both you and Kael. Which is why Sera’s information was not a weapon because it described a situation Aria was actively participating in and enjoying.”

The silence in the preparation room had a texture I could feel.

“Nina,” Ivory said, and her voice had arrived somewhere that was trying very hard to be the serious register and was not fully succeeding.

“Yes,” I said.

“Did Sera believe her?”

“According to Celine,” I said, “Sera left the office looking like a woman whose entire strategic framework had been dissolved by a bluff so audacious she hadn’t prepared for it.” I paused. “Which is to say, yes. She believed her, or at least believed it enough that the weapon stopped working, which was the functional outcome.”

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cost you.” I held Ivory’s gaze when she turned back to face me. “She didn’t say it with anger, from what Jordan described. She said it like someone who’d received a piece of information that was rearranging other things and needed time to figure out where everything went.”

Ivory looked at her inventory notes. At the pen in her hand. At the window, which offered the same small rectangle of sky that the east courtyard offered and which served the same function – something to look at when looking at people was too immediate.

“I should talk to her,” she said.

“Probably,” I agreed. “When you’re both ready.”

“I’m-” she started. Stopped. Started again. “I’m not sure what I want to say.”

“You don’t have to know yet,” I said. “Give it time. It’s been a significant week for everyone in terms of information received.”

Ivory made a sound that was agreement and also something more complicated.

“The poly comment,” she said, returning to it with the expression of someone who hadn’t finished with something and needed to deal with it before putting it away. “Kael.”

“Doesn’t know yet,” I said.

“He’s going to find out.”

“He’s going to find out,” I confirmed. “These things travel through Shadowmere at remarkable speed.”

“Who else knows?”

“Currently,” I said, “Celine, Margo, me, and shortly everyone Margo has spoken to since seven this morning, which given Margo’s communication efficiency is probably a significant portion of the senior pack,” I paused. “Jordan almost certainly knows or will within the hour. Elite knows everything eventually, usually before anyone tells her.” Another pause. “Martha was in the domestic corridor when Celine told Margo.”

Ivory closed her eyes briefly. “Martha.”

“Martha,” I confirmed.

The implication of Martha knowing something was that it would be discussed in the kitchen and the kitchen was the fastest information distribution system in Shadowmere, significantly faster than official channels and considerably more thorough. If Martha knew about the poly comment and the curtsey and the document, within twenty-four hours there would be no

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senior pack member, domestic staff member, or regularly present training yard occupant who didn’t also know.

“What’s the pack going to do with it,” Ivory said, and the question was genuinely asking rather than rhetorical.