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“It depends,” his father said. “But, Pilot, I have a great favor to ask you.”

“Whether I grant it depends, too. What do you want?” Jace asked, and though those sunglasses covered his eyes, Khoth knew Jace looked at him then.

“To greet my s-son,” his father’s voice cracked a little.

There was a very long silence other than the flapping of the Justiciars’ robes in the wind that was sweetened with the scent of flowers. Jace’s expression was tight. Faint lines of displease appeared around his mouth and the muscles in his jaw worked.

Jace finally snapped, “Can you run that past me once more, Justiciar Voor--”

“Not Voor,” his father interrupted softly.

“Not… not Voor?” Jace asked sharply.

“No, not any longer,” his father said.

The wind blew and his father’s selchitte clacked. Khoth’s eyes darted to them. They were different. They were changed. They looked… his eyes slid to Typhon’s selchitte and he saw some matching ones there. His gaze jumped to the others in Typhon’s party and recognized the same colors and configurations in their hair.

“You call Khoth your son, but he is exiled and so that’s forbidden. I heard in no uncertain terms from your wife that Khoth is no longer recognized as a member of your family, let alone the Alliance!” Jace practically spat out, his anger over his view of the injustice of it and his pain mixing together.

Khoth wanted to soothe the young man, even though this was about him. But Jace felt everything so keenly and expressed it seemingly for him.

“I am well aware of what Nova has said and done, but like many of those things the exile was wrong, too,” his father said.

Khoth truly couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He could hardly breathe. What was going on here? The selchitte. His father still calling him “son.” The Moturins here and ready to offer him sanctuary. Was he the only one they had offered it to?

“So…” Jace was openly glancing between his father and Khoth. “So what does this mean? Khoth isn’t exiled or--”

“Nova controls the Voor so Khoth is exiled from them, but I am a cousin to the Moturnin line,” his father touched his chest as he said this. It was a very faint connection indeed, though all the ruling Houses shared some blood from intermarriage over the years. “And Typhon has been so good to allow me and my son to return to that line.”

Khoth gasped. The sound was like what one made when one exited deep water after holding one’s breath for a long time. “What are you saying?”

“That neither of us belongs to House Voor any longer, my son,” his father said and stepped towards him.

“You… you choose to--”

“I chose what was right. Who was right,” his father answered. “That was only logical.”

His father cupped Khoth’s head. His hands were directly over the missing hair that would have held his selchitte. Khoth trembled. His vision blurred as tears threatened to roll down his face. He felt like he was coming apart. Like Jace earlier, he knew that this could not happen. Not in public and certainly not here and now. He must get a hold of himself. Jace’s hand gently grasped his wrist and the trembling stopped. Jace was there. They were together. All was well.

He looked up into his father’s eyes and saw similar traces of tears. He covered one of his father’s hands with his own and allowed himself one moment of tenderness by turning his head into that familiar hand. His father’s thumb brushed over the orbit of Khoth’s eye, over his ta’na. He smiled tremulously.

Then both of them broke apart. Stepping back from one another. Not out of a desire to do so, but for propriety. They had shown too much intimacy for Thaf’ell society. And he would not make them question his father’s decision to choose him any more than they already must.

“We realize your plan was to meet with the Council, Pilot, but the reality is that there is no Council right now to meet with,” Typhon said to Jace. “Not one that is recognized by all in any case. There is chaos.”

“Is High Councillor Voor not in charge?” Jace asked.

“It depends upon who you ask.” Typhon shrugged. “I know that you thought she would be a good bet to force the Alliance to change, because of her passion to secure the Alliance. And perhaps she will be still useful. But she must fight and win back her position on her own.”

“You think if I put any weight behind her--”

“That she will have no authority. She will be seen as your puppet and nothing more,” Typhon advised. “She must win this fight on her own. Best you are nowhere near it.”

Jace frowned at this, but didn’t object. Typhon was very good at politics. Khoth had watched him move through the ranks and somehow come out unscathed, but his enemies all had daggers in their backs. He was telling Jace the truth, but only because it likely served him.

“But my family’s compound is open to you and your people,” Typhon said with great magnanimity as if it were only Jace who benefited from this offer. “I can see that your companion--”

He was pointing to Dr. Hayter who had started to wander off a few steps even as Davies put a hand on his arm to guide him back. But Dr. Hayter realized he had been recognized.