"No." The refusal is immediate. "I won't parade her through business meetings like a?—"
"Like a slave?" Eve finishes. "That's what I am, Rafe. For the next six years and forty-nine weeks."
I flinch at the precise count.
"Who'll hold my leash while you're gone?" she asks quietly. "Technically, I can't move through the Spire without one of you holding it. IGC regulations for terrorist sentences."
The practical question makes me nauseous. "Lorian will?—"
"No,” Lorian says, not being able to trust himself. “Father could watch her," he suggests. Then, immediately follows with, "No. Terrible idea."
"Absolutely not." The thought of Father's hands on Eve, of her kneeling where Autumn kneels...
"I'll be fine here," Eve says. "Lorian can?—"
"I don't want to leave you." The admission escapes before I can stop it. "Three weeks without..." Without seeing her. Without touching her. Without the brutal rhythm we’ve settled into—public humiliation followed by private reprieve. It will be both relief and agony to be away from her.
"I'll miss you too," she says simply.
The honesty breaks something in me. I cross over to her, pulling her up, and into my arms. I close my eyes and hold her, steadying myself on the reality of her.
“I hate this," I whisper against her temple.
"I know." Her arms come around me.
"Six years and forty-nine weeks," I echo.
"Six years and forty-nine weeks," she confirms.
"Tonight," I say finally to Lorian. "Give me tonight alone with Eve."
Lorian nods. "Fine. I'll handle the evening meetings and cancel High Table.”
After he leaves, Eve and I stand in silence.
"Show me the appeal documents," she says. The IGC doctor wasn’t very thorough, and when he took her translator, he didn’t take her intelligence enhancer.
I pull up the holographic displays, spreading legal briefs across the air and turning on the visual translator for her. It’s not as good as an embedded one, but it still gets the job done.
Eve reviews the appeal documents with the same intensity she once brought to diplomatic protocols. "This won't work," she says after an hour. "But this might." She pulls up a subsection, highlighting dense legal text. "Your lawyers missed something. The IGC statute 4471.3 states that sentences can be commuted for individuals who provide 'exceptional service to galactic security.' If we could prove that my actions ultimately prevented a larger terrorist action..."
"How?" I lean forward.
“I can’t think of a way. But it's the first legitimate loophole I've seen." She manipulates the display, cross-referencing other cases. "There's precedent. An Imperial who exposed corruption while committing minor crimes had their sentence reduced by sixty percent."
I grip her shoulders. "This is why I need you."
"Rafe, I committed major crimes, not minor ones. And I’m human, not the most upstanding species in the galaxy."
"We could claim coercion. Mental manipulation. The Venus Lock'seffects?—"
"Stop." She turns to face me. "Rafe, stop. I knew what I was doing. The IGC knows I knew. No amount of legal maneuvering will change that."
"Then what? Do I just accept this? Watch you kneel at my feet for seven years? Hold your leash while the woman who should be my equal crawls behind me? Your spirit won’t survive this. And I know mine definitely won’t."
"You’ll survive it if I have to," she says. "We’ll all survive it. Together. Rafe, you have to be strong."
"No, there has to be another way. Good behavior protocols, work release programs, something?—"
