I ate slowly.
I had been told once, in a different kitchen in a different country,that you could read the rank of a man at a table by how the staff moved past him.
The man across from me wasn’t the highest-ranking shifter in this compound. Yuki was. He was the one the staff was most physically careful about, because rank here ran on a second axis, nothing to do with titles: who could kill on the council’s behalf at short notice.
The staff knew it.
“Mr. Graves.”
“Yes.”
I set my fork down. Squared it to the plate. “Permission to ask a personal question.”
“No.” Immediate. Flat. Almost impressive.
“Right.”
He didn’t smile. I thought I caught something behind his eyes. I might’ve imagined it.
“Eat,” he said.
* * *
He walked me back to my quarters at a quarter past one. The corridor outside my door was empty. He stopped two steps short of the door and turned to face me.
“Ms. Cordero.”
“Mr. Graves.”
“You may want to rest. The state dinner schedule begins tomorrow, and you will not have an empty afternoon for some time.”
“Noted.”
He didn’t move.
He was looking at the floor between us. Not at me. The line of his shoulders had a tension in it I hadn’t seen all day. A small concession of weight. He had been holding himself back by force. The force was beginning towear on him.
“Mr. Graves.”
He looked up.
“Are we going to do this for two weeks?”
“Do what?”
I gestured between us. The gesture didn’t require translation.
He looked at me a beat longer than necessary. His face didn’t change. His voice did. “Go inside, little spy.”
I had been prepared for several answers. That wasn’t one of them.
The words landed too quickly to catch: the accusation first, then the intimacy of it, then the private little hook of his voice aroundlittle.
Absolutely not.
“What did you call me?”
His jaw shifted. “Go inside.”
