Chapter 486
ARIA
M
*You’ve been horizontal for five days,* she said.
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*I’ve been horizontal for approximately sixteen hours per day,* I said. *I’ve been vertical for the other eight. The yoga class is vertical.*
*The yoga class is you inventing a new yoga practice,* Silver said. *That’s not the same as doing something.*
*I know,* I said.
*Go find Kael,* she said. *He’s probably doing something interesting.*
*What makes you think that,* I said.
*Because his wolf is doing something interesting,* Silver said. *I can feel the wolf’s awareness from here. He’s focused on something. Focused Kael is different from bored Kael*
This was new information. Silver’s connection to the wolf – Kael’s wolf, the enormous black animal that had snarled at me in the lower slopes and then very slowly, through a series of small events and bridge
– was something I was still learning moments, been beginning the process of some kind of recognition the parameters of.
*Can you tell what he’s focused on,* I said.
*Not specifically,* Silver said. *But there’s amusement in it. Whatever it is, it’s making him quietly amused.*
I went to find Kael.
His office door was ajar.
Not wide open
– the specific ajar of someone who’d been comfortable and hadn’t thought to close it fully. The kind of ajar that produced a sightline into the room if you were standing at the right angle in the
corridor.
I was standing at the right angle.
Kael was at his desk.
He was also, unambiguously, reading a book.
Not one of the intelligence files that occupied a significant portion of his desk surface. Not the coalition correspondence that required ongoing management even during a break. Not anything that could be plausibly described as work-adjacent or pack-relevant.
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Chapter 486
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A book. With a plain cover and the kind of binding that indicated it had been read multiple times. Held with both hands in the way of someone who was genuinely invested in the content rather than performing reading.
As I watched, he said to himself, quietly and with complete absorption: “Busted now, Everest. I told you using the window was the solution back then. Now his wife has caught you. And you can’t even lie because he’s knotted inside you. Ah, this is so funny.”
I pressed my lips together.
The book in his hands was one of Ivory’s novels. I recognized the cover- or the specific lack of identifying cover, the plain wraparound that Ivory used to maintain plausible deniability about her reading preferences in professional contexts. This was from the stack that predated Aria’s arrival, the ones that had sat in the secured collection in Ivory’s quarters and that Kael had apparently been accessing during what was supposed to be a break from pack responsibilities.
I cleared my throat and knocked on the open door.
What happened next was impressive in its speed.
Kael’s head came up, the book came down, there was a very brief moment of calculation, and then the book was somewhere it hadn’t been a second ago. I watched him move it but couldn’t precisely track where it ended up because his hands were faster than the calculation required.
He sat upright and arranged his expression into something that could be read as normal.
“ARIA,” he said. Then, adjusting: “Aria. You’re here.”
“I’m here,” I confirmed.
“Is someone dying,” he said.
“No,” I said.
“Are you dying,” he said.
“No.” I said.
“Is the building on fire,” he said.
“Not currently,” I said.
“Then,” he said, with great dignity, “what brings you to my office.”.
“I heard you,” I said.
“Heard me,” he said. “Doing what specifically.”
“Talking to Everest,” I said.
“I don’t know an Everest,” he said.
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“The character.” I said. “In the book you were reading.”
“I wasn’t reading a book,” he said.
“Kael,” I said.
“I was reviewing a document,” he said.
“Where’s the document,” I said.
He looked at his completely clear desk with the expression of someone discovering that the desk was clear and finding this surprising.
“I finished reviewing it,” he said.
“You were telling Everest that using the window was the solution,” I said.
“I don’t know what you-”
I walked around the side of the desk and picked up the book that had landed at an angle against the wall behind his chair. Paper-wrapped. Plain brown cord. The specific wear pattern on the cover of something that had been read multiple times.
Kael looked at it with the expression of someone encountering an object that had appeared in their environment without explanation.
“Wow,” he said. “How did that get there?”
“Kael,” I said.
“Someone cleaning the room,” he said. “They must have left it. The domestic rotation, sometimes they move things from other-”
“This is one of Ivory’s novels,” I said.
“Is it?” he said. “I wouldn’t know what those look like. I’ve never seen them. They’re not something I have any familiarity with whatsoever.”
I looked at him.
He looked at the book in my hand with the expression of someone encountering an unfamiliar object.
“Fine,” he said. “Sheesh. They’re interesting, alright? They’re actually well-written once you get past the first chapter, and the character development is-” he stopped. “They’re good. I’ll say they’re good and I’m not going to defend that beyond good.
“You are the Alpha of this pack,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Shouldn’t you have things to do,” I said.
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“We’re on break,” he said.
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“Yes,” I said, dropping into the chair across from his desk with the specific heaviness of someone who’d been moving toward this conversation all morning. “About that. I’m bored.”
He looked personally offended. Not at me on my behalf, which was the specific quality of his offended expression when the offense was about something he found genuinely absurd.
“Let me make sure I understand this,” he said. “You want to work.”
“I need something to do,” I said.
“Why,” he said.
“Because there is nothing to do and I’ve been massaged approximately eighteen times in six days and the yoga instructor has decided I’m the class reference point and the only social interactions I have are meals and sleep.”