I like feeling better, breathing air that doesn’t hurt.
And the second I admit that, my brain starts trying to connect the improvement to the man who brought me here.
The gratitude trying to take root under my ribs sets every warning instinct I have on edge. He gave me this for a reason. I’ve spent too much of my life watching powerful people buy loyalty with things that should never have been luxuries in the first place.
The door opens behind me without a knock. The temperature in the room shifts.
I don’t turn.
Instead, I track him by sound. His footsteps are already familiar, which is irritating in ways I don’t want to examine too closely. There’s nothing hurried about the way he moves. No hesitation. No need to announce himself. The air shifts before he reaches me, warmth rolling ahead of him until I can feel it against the back of my neck and along my bare arms.
Sethrai run hot.
I know the biological explanation. Knowing it doesn’t make it any less distracting.
“You’re early,” I say, keeping my attention on the screen.
“You’re already working.”
Footsteps stop beside the workstation. A moment later something clicks softly against the desk.
“The access logs you requested.”
That gets my attention.
I turn and immediately spot the data chip sitting beside Percy’s casing. Zavin’s hand rests next to it for a second before he pulls away. My gaze catches on the scales across the back of his fingers, iridescent bronze beneath the amber glow. The light breaks across them in flashes of gold and copper.
I look away before the observation can become something else.
The chip slides into Percy’s reader with a click.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
He pulls a chair alongside the workstation and sits. I’ve seen him do this before. The posture looks relaxed at first glance, but there’s calculation underneath it. He’s careful about the space he takes up. Careful about the impression he leaves.
The problem becomes obvious the moment the files load.
Names are gone. Identifying markers stripped out. The timestamps are intact, along with the traffic volumes and routing data, but anything that connects the records to an actual operative has been scrubbed clean.
I scroll through the files, already spotting the gaps.
“I can still map the substrate activity from this.” I highlight a section of the log. “Traffic volumes. Routing paths. Junction throughput.” My finger taps an empty section where a movementrecord should be. “But if someone’s moving through the substrate, they’re crossing paths with legitimate traffic. I need to know which movements belong to your people and which don’t.”
“You don’t.”
I look up.
“The redactions protect operative identities.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The movement brings him closer, heat radiating from him strongly enough that I feel it along my side. “You don’t have clearance for that information.”
My shoulders tighten before I can stop them. The reaction arrives first. Recognition follows a heartbeat later. The words aren’t the same. The feeling is.
You don’t need to see that file, Miro. It’s above your clearance level.
Amir Okoro’s face across the conference table, his smile settling over the room like a lid dropping onto a pot. Yuki stood by the door with her tablet clutched against her chest, smiling too widely. A bruise flashed on her wrist when her sleeve slipped, gone again the moment she noticed and tugged it back down.
I exhale slowly and force my breathing to steady.
