“How reliable is the source?”
“Ninety-two percent. The cipher is authentic. The timing tracks with Voss’s troop movements over the past week.” Skarreth pulled up a secondary display. “He’s been repositioning assets along the Dren corridor for six days. I read it as posturing. It wasn’t.”
Nadir’s double-jointed thumb tapped against his thigh — a rhythm Skarreth recognized from decades of partnership. The old butler was calculating.
“The transport reaches Cassiel in thirty-six hours.”
“Thirty-four, if they maintain current speed.”
“And the raid window?”
“Forty-eight to seventy-two. But Voss won’t wait for the upper end. He’ll hit early, before anyone can reroute.”
Silence. The star charts hummed, painting constellations across Nadir’s smooth skull, catching the faint raised ridges that ran from temple to crown.
“I can reroute them from here,” Nadir said. “The backup relay at Corsis can receive a burst transmission if I time it to the patrol gap. It adds twelve hours to their transit but keeps them safe.”
“Do it.” Skarreth wiped the display. “What’s our window?”
“Six hours before the patrol gap closes.”
“Then we have work to do.”
They worked. The encrypted comm cycled through authentication protocols while Nadir pulled up the Corsis relay coordinates and Skarreth mapped the revised route through the Vehn Passage — longer, less comfortable, but clear of every known Voss patrol signature. The gathering was forty-eight hours out. The transport would clear the danger zone with hours to spare if everything held.
Everything had to hold.
Skarreth reorganized the household in six hours. He restructured the gathering preparations, reviewing guest lists, seating arrangements, security protocols. He moved through the estate like a blade through water — frictionless, leaving no wake.
He did not think about the studio. He did not think about the sound of his name in her mouth — not Lord Skarreth, not the title, but the word itself, stripped bare, spoken against histhroat in a voice rough with want. He did not think about any of these things because thinking about them would unmake the operative, and the operative was the only version of himself that could save twelve lives in thirty-four hours.
He was crossing the east corridor at midday when she found him.
She stood at the intersection where the gallery met the residential wing, wearing one of the soft, layered tunics Nadir had selected for her comfort, her locs pulled back from her face with a strip of fabric. Paint on her fingers. She always had paint on her fingers. The smudge of cadmium yellow on her left thumb was the exact shade she’d been using for the highlights in the second portrait — the one that looked at him with his own eyes and made him believe, for the span of a heartbeat, that the man in the painting might actually exist.
Her face lit up when she saw him. The warmth that moved through her dark brown eyes was like light entering a room. She crossed the distance between them and touched his arm — her hand finding the place where the muscle met the curve of his biceps, the same spot where she’d gripped him last night when —
He flinched.
Not a flinch of the body. His body was iron. But the warmth behind his eyes went out like a door closing, and he watched her register it — watched the light in her face hit the dark and fracture.
Her hand fell away from his arm.
He was protecting Octavia, not betraying her — sealing the vulnerability to keep her safe, to keep his judgment sharp, to keep twelve people alive. The withdrawal wasn’t cruelty. It was triage. But the result looked identical from where she stood, and he knew it, and he absorbed the knowledge without anesthetic because anesthetic was another luxury he couldn’t afford.
“Studio sessions are cancelled until after the gathering.” His voice came out in the aristocratic register. Cold. Cultured. The mask was so seamless it might never have slipped. “I’ll need the studio cleared for guest accommodation.”
She studied him. That relentless gaze moved across his face and found nothing to hold onto. He kept the mask and did not breathe.
“Right.” A single word, clipped at the edges. She turned to go.
“Wait. Come with me.” He led her to the study. Not the studio — the study, with its desk between them like a barricade, its star charts dimmed, its intelligence reports locked away. He stood behind the desk. She took the chair across from him without being invited, settling into it with the deliberate grace of claiming ground.
“The gathering begins in forty-eight hours.” His voice was the operative’s now, scrubbed of inflection. “During it, you’ll play the role we’ve established. My acquisition, visible and compliant. You know the cover.”
She listened without expression. The dark brown eyes gave him nothing.
“I need you to stay close during the event itself. Move through the rooms. Be seen. Let the guests draw their own conclusions about why Lord Skarreth’s portrait artist is still here.” He held her gaze. “You’re good at performance. You’ve been watching mine for weeks.”
