My chest tightens with protective tenderness as I watch him sleep. This remarkable, brilliant, wounded man who’s survived so much and somehow still found the courage to let me hold him while he wept.
I want to stay here forever, just watching over him, making sure nothing disturbs this rare moment of peace. But the universe, it seems, has other plans.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. Then again. And again.
Dyfri doesn’t even twitch. Whatever healing sleep has claimed him is deeper than I’ve ever seen.
I carefully extract myself from the bed and grab the phone, frowning at the string of missed calls from a private number.
Bloody hell. What now?
I’m just reaching for my clothes when there’s a sharp knock at our door. Not the polite tap of staff, but the sort of authoritative rap that means business.
“Mr Caxton?” Agent Morrison’s voice cuts through the morning quiet. “We need to speak with you. Immediately.”
My stomach tightens. Morrison doesn’t make unscheduled house calls unless something terrible has happened. And he has never made them for me.
I glance back at Dyfri, still deeply asleep, and make a decision. Whatever this is about, I need to understand the situation first.
I throw on yesterday’s clothes and slip out of the bedroom, closing the door as quietly as possible behind me.
Morrison is waiting in our living room, flanked by two other agents I vaguely recognise from security briefings.All three look grimly determined, and there’s a tension in the air that makes my skin crawl.
“Morrison,” I say, trying to project calm authority while my heart hammers. “This is unexpected. Has something happened?”
Morrison’s pale eyes fix on me with sharp focus. “We’ve been conducting surveillance on activities related to our previous discussions, Mr Caxton. The results are... concerning.”
“Concerning how?” I ask carefully.
One of the other agents steps forward, a woman with steel-grey hair and the bearing of someone accustomed to being obeyed. “We have surveillance footage from three days ago. An abandoned office building in East London.”
My blood turns cold. They’ve been watching Silas’s meeting location. But that means they’ve been watching us, despite our agreement to work together.
Morrison produces a tablet and swipes the screen. Audio waveforms dance across the display as Silas’s voice fills the room.
“The summer solstice is our target. Maximum symbolic impact...”
A recording of our Resistance planning session. Every detail of what we’re attempting to accomplish, laid out for MI5 to analyse.
“I’m confused,” I say, working to keep my voice steady. “Are we under surveillance now? I thought we had an understanding.”
“We do,” Morrison replies. “Which is precisely the problem. Our understanding was that we would explore ways to work together toward mutually beneficial outcomes. What this recording suggests is that you’vebeen working with other parties to plan major operations without any MI5 input whatsoever.”
The grey-haired agent nods. “Our agreement was contingent on cooperation, Mr Caxton. What we’re seeing looks remarkably like you’ve decided to proceed independently.”
Ah. They’re not angry about the Resistance itself, they’re angry about being left out of the planning. The tentative partnership we agreed to has remained exactly that. Tentative. While we got down to serious plotting with Silas, Cai, and Ninian, MI5 only watched from the sidelines.
“The people I met with,” I say slowly, “have very good reasons to be cautious about government involvement. They needed time to assess whether cooperation was viable.”
“And have they?” Morrison asks. “Assessed it?”
“They’re... considering it.”
Morrison’s smile is thin. “Mr Caxton, what we heard on that recording was detailed planning for an operation to permanently sever interdimensional portals. That’s not ‘considering cooperation’, that’s preparing for action with or without us.”
“Which brings us to why we’re here,” the woman adds. “This kind of operation, targeting the opponent’s infrastructure with permanent consequences, requires professional oversight. The potential for catastrophic failure is simply too high to ignore.”
I run a hand through my hair, suddenly feeling the weight of trying to balance impossible loyalties. “What exactly are you asking for?”
