“And then they died,” Chief says. His voice is gravel.
“And then they died.” Hallie doesn’t look away from him. “The cargo accident. The cover-up. With the two of them gone, the only people who understood the plot were gone, and the proof scattered, and it just stopped. For years. They needed them gone, so they made them gone, like closing out a line on a ledger. It was a business decision.”
Nobody says anything.
I think about my parents, who I barely remember, because I was the youngest. I think about a House on a planet I’venever seen deciding my mother and father were a problem to be solved.
A growl rumbles in Cannibal’s chest.
“You’re sure,” Heavy says, rough.
“I’m sure of what the documents say,” Hallie answers, careful, honest. “I’m sure your father found something and your mother helped him and the timing isn’t a coincidence. I can’t give you more than the records give. But the records give a lot.”
“It’s enough,” Scar says.
We all look at him.
He’s risen from his chair, and he’s holding the slate now, scrolling slow, and his scarred face is colder than I’ve ever seen. “Grytel will confirm the Chronos side; he’s been waiting for exactly this thread.” He doesn’t look up. “We have Ines to help with this research.”
“Yes,” she agrees, fiercely. “I’m on this new line of research.”
“House Vaszneth. We have a name now and finally a reason for what happened. We have proof their reach extends all the way here, because they sent three of their own to this compound to bury it.” Now he does look up, and his eyes move over all of us, his brothers, and land last on me. “They came into our home and Rook almost died. And they have been sitting safe on Chronos this entire time thinking we’d never know their name.”
“We can’t touch them from here,” Chief says, not arguing, just laying the board out. “Vaszneth’s untouchable from Timbur. We don’t have the reach.”
“Not yet.” Scar sets the slate down with great care. “There’s one thing I still don’t have, and it’s the thing that keeps me up. I don’t know how they reached our power grid. That cascade wasn’t an accident, somebody put their hand on our systems and squeezed at the exact moment it would’ve killed my brother. I don’t know how. And until I do, I’m not going to pretend we’resafe.” He says it flat, no drama, which is how I know he means every word. “But we have the name. The rest is mine to chase.”
And that’s all he says. Of course he has support for all of this from the entire crew as well as Ines, who is an attack creature in her own right. But he’s always been so single-minded in his determination, it isolates him, when isolation isn’t necessary. He’d carry the whole thing alone if we let him.
Hallie reaches under the table and finds my hand and squeezes.
“Okay,” she says softly, just to me. “I’m done. I said the thing. Can we…?”
“Yeah.” I’m already standing, already pulling her up with me. “We can.”
“Aaaand there they go,” Jana announces to the room. “Pay up, Hook.”
I gether down the hall and into my room, well, our room. The word is still new and enormous in my chest. I close the door behind us, and the rest of the universe goes quiet behind it.
For a moment we just stand there. No fever this time. That’s the thing I keep marveling at. In the holosuite I was barely a thinking creature, run by a drive a million rotations old. Now I’m just Maxon, in my own room, with my mate, and there’s nothing chasing us and nothing dying and nowhere either of us has to be. We have a whole week. We have, gods willing, a whole life.
I tuck a strand of that dark red hair behind her ear. My claws are careful. My personal crystal hums in my pocket, thrilled that I’ve taken Hallie as my bride. “You did a brave thing out there. In the kitchen,” I tell her. “That wasn’t easy to say.”
“It needed saying.” She leans into my hand. “Your parents deserved better and I want their killers brought to justice.”
I have to take a breath. “Thank you,” I manage, “for giving us the means to make that happen.”
She tips her face up. “I love you.”
And there it is, plain, in the daylight, no fever burning it out of her.
“I love you,” I tell her back, and it’s the easiest thing I’ve ever said. “My Queen.”
She’s laughing when I kiss her, and the laugh melts into something warmer. I walk her slowly backward toward the bed with my hands framing her face like she’s the most breakable, precious, unbreakable thing in the Four Sectors. My hand finds the flat of her belly through her shirt and rests there and she covers it with her own.
“You scent it now too?” she whispers.
“Since the holosuite.” I can’t keep the wonder out of it. “Ours. Already.”
