Page 268 of Sky’s Edge

“I’ll discuss it with Tanyn and sit with you and Jorda to devise a job description,” I went on. “Does that work for you?”

“I’ll have BR forward Jorda’s job description to you. We can start with something already drafted.”

“Great.”

“Okay then, I need to know if you’ve seen this.”

She turned to her tablet, tapped it, then handed it to me.

I expected her to show me some pic of me where I had my mouth open too far or where I looked grumpy and then give me a lecture about how to comport myself when cambeings were around.

It was not that.

It was a pic of Gayle and Cormac.

She was standing in the door of a UtiliSport, about to climb in, but she’d stopped and twisted to look up at Cormac, who was, no other way to put it, crowding her in that door like he was her personal shield. He was so close, and so big, you could barely see anything of Gayle except her shining, glorious hair and her profile. He had his hand on the top of the door and his head tipped down to look at her.

Their faces were very close.

She appeared attentive, he appeared intent.

They looked like an item.

Because they were, even if they weren’t.

The caption screamed Another One Down, and the pic had been posted earlier this morning.

“She arrived in the craft right before him at the engagement party,” Mira told me. “And that was taken outside her home this morning. As you can see, beings are putting it together.”

“They’re not being very discreet,” I mumbled.

“They’re not. Were you aware they intended to make some kind of statement?”

I handed back her tablet, shaking my head. “No. But I can comm her.”

I could.

But I already knew they weren’t making a statement.

They were just being in their own worlds, or world, seeing as they were sharing one.

“It might be good they take some of the attention off you and the king,” Mira remarked. “As it goes in the cycle, since the media don’t chew on anything too long, they like fresh meat, you two will be old news, they’ll be new. Of course, we can squeeze some pics in of you both going to the ballet, or out to dinner, or something. And then, to the citizens of the Edge, you and His Majesty will just…be.”

It would be nice not to be in this castle all of the time. It was big, and gorgeous, but the reprieve down in the Fall did not suck.

Even so.

“I’m not sure they’re ready to be outed,” I told Mira. “I don’t know why they aren’t being more careful.” I did. Cormac was fighting a losing emotional battle (or I hoped it was losing), and Gayliliel had spelled herself not to care. “I just wouldn’t count on that when His Majesty and I do what we need to do.”

She lifted her chin to acknowledge what I said and then asked, “Is there anything else?”

“No. Thank you for the time.”

“Don’t mention it,” she replied, got up and left.

I watched her go.

She was professional and not unfriendly, but she made it clear she had a job to do and not a lot of time to waste on chitchat and relationship building.