Chapter 570

KAEL

I thought about it.

“Early on,” I said. “In the first few months.”

*And since then,* Khris said.

I didn’t answer.

Finished

*She stopped asking for space,* Khris said, *and you kept giving it to her. Because it was easier. Because the den is easier. Because being a good Alpha and a courteous presence is easier than-*

“Than what,” I said.

*Than figuring out what’s actually between you and having it be real and new and not what you planned,* Khris said. *The future changed. It’s not what we built. And you’ve been standing at the edge of the new one and looking back at the old one and calling it processing.*

“You’re very philosophical tonight,” I said.

*I’ve had six months of the derr floor to think,* Khris said. *Also I agree with the left knee.*

I stood up.

I needed to find Aria.

I needed to fix was the wrong word, you didn’t fix something like this, you addressed it, and the address required actually knowing what I was going to say rather than another sequence of sentences that communicated the opposite of what I meant.

I went into the corridor.

And stopped.

Aria was at the far end of the hall, near the secondary sitting room. Killian was with her – I didn’t know when he’d appeared, whether he’d been there when she left the quarters or had found her in the corridor after. They were talking in the specific low register of a conversation that wasn’t meant to carry, and Aria’s posture had the slightly released quality of someone who’d been tense and was being talked down from it

“What’s he doing,” Khris said.

*I don’t know * I said.

“Should we- Khris started.

No, I said. “We’re not eavesdropping.

1:40 pm

Chapter 570.

*I wasn’t suggesting eavesdropping,* Khris said. “I was suggesting you go talk to her.*

*She’s talking to Killian, said.

*So you wait,* Khris said.

Finished

*Or I don’t interrupt,* I said. *She needs she went to Killian for a reason. Or he found her for a reason. Either way the conversation is happening and I’m not going to stand in the middle of it.*

Khris was quiet for a moment.

*You could wait here,* he said.

*I’m not standing in the corridor watching them,* I said.

*Then what,* Khris said.

I looked at the corridor. At Aria’s back, at Killian’s face, which was doing the thing Killian’s face did when he was saying something he meant – the slight difference between Killian performing and Killian actually

present.

He was actually present.

He was saying something that was landing — I could see it in the way Aria’s shoulders changed, the specific release of someone receiving something they needed.

*Good,* Khris said, quietly.

*Yes,* I said.

*He’s actually good for her right now,* Khris said. Which is complicated.*

–

*It’s not complicated,* I said. *She needed someone to talk to and he was there. That’s that’s the pack doing what a pack does.*

“You’re being very generous,* Khris said.

*I’m going to the den,* I said. *Tomorrow I’ll talk to her properly. With a plan for what i’m actually going to say instead of-*

‘Instead of the disaster that just occurred, Khris said.

“Yes, I said. *Instead of that.*

I turned.

The light was on in Ivory’s clinic.

I saw it through the window at the end of the main corridor – the specific warm light of the clinic’s interior lamps, the ones she kept on when she was working late, and the shadov. of someone at the desk.

“Don’t, Khris said.

1:40 pm

Chapter 570.

*I wasn’t going to,” I said.

*You were absolutely going to, Khris said. *You’re already walking toward it.*

I was, in fact, already walking toward it.

Finished

*This is the wrong night for this conversation,* Khris said. *You just managed to tell your mate that she made you say you loved her. This is not the night to also have the Ivory conversation.*

*When is the right night,* I said.

*Not this one,* Khris said.

–

*Khris,* I said. *We have not talked about it. Ivory and I. Not directly, not the way it needs to be talked about. She gave me up – she arranged the whole thing, the moor child, the bond, she gave me up knowing what she was giving up — and we’ve had nine months of almost saying it and managing around it and using the books as proxy and neither of us has sat down and said the actual thing.* I stopped outside the dinic door. *The future changed. You said it. The future changed and I’m still holding the old one because I never finished putting it down properly. Aria said I haven’t moved on. She’s not wrong.*

*She’s not wrong,* Khris agreed.

*So I need to have this conversation,* I said. *With Ivory. So I know what I’m actually doing and why and I can be honest with Aria from a place of actually knowing rather than feeling guilty about not knowing.*

Khris was quiet.

*That’s,* he said, the most self-aware thing you’ve said in six months.*

*Don’t make it strange,* I said.

*I’m not making it strange,* Khris said. “I’m noting that it’s true.*

I pushed the door open.

Ivory was at the desk in the specific posture of someone who’d been there for hours – the particular way the body settled into extended work, the slight forward lean, one hand holding the pen and the other keeping the page flat. She had a pen in her mouth, chewing the end of it the way she did when she was thinking through something complex. She was muttering – I could hear it from the door, the low continuous sound of someone working through a problem out loud at a volume not intended for audience.

The desk was covered in structural maps of the curse’s architecture. I recognized them because Ivory had been pulling them out at every briefing for weeks – the root’s position, the bond channel, the failsafe architecture she’d been mapping.

She looked up when I came in.

Are you dying,” she said.

“What? No,” I said.