Then she picked up her bag, checked her fake implant in the mirror, and went to collect her Fraluma.
Chapter Seven
Coreni
The Blue Fancy was exactly the kind of place Coreni avoided when she had a choice, which tonight she did not. Dark blue walls, silver trim, music loud enough to function as a second atmosphere. The crowd was shoulder-to-shoulder and getting friendlier by the drink, and the whole space smelled of expensive implant polish and someone's poor decision to wear too much scent.
She stood in the entrance for a moment and reminded herself that she was here for two things: to keep her editor from filing a formal complaint about her disappearance, and to listen. Parties were, in her professional experience, one of the more reliable places to hear things people hadn't decided to say yet.
Edi-Veen stepped in behind her and the noise hit him like a physical thing. He didn't flinch — she was beginning to think flinching wasn't in his vocabulary — but something in his posture adjusted, recalibrated, the way a very precise instrument adjusted when its readings suddenly didn't match expectations.
"How many people," he said.
"About two hundred. Give or take." She glanced up at him. "Breathe. You're scanning exits again."
"There are four. Two are inadequate."
"That is not the point. The point is to look like you're enjoying yourself."
He looked at the crowd. The crowd, for the most part, looked back. He was difficult not to look at — the height, the stillness, the quality of contained attention that read as intensity even through the noise and the dark.
"They are staring," he said.
"They're curious. Smile at someone."
"You told me not to speak to anyone."
"Smiling isn't speaking."
A pause in which he appeared to genuinely consider this distinction. "I will attempt it."
"Please don't say attempt. Just —" She took his arm the way she had in the ele-tube, because it had worked then and because it gave her something to do with her hands. "Follow my lead. Nod occasionally. If anyone asks, your name is Evan and you're visiting from the Carrow settlement."
"Evan," he repeated, with the careful neutrality of a man cataloguing an alias.
"It sounds like your name. You'll remember it."
"I will remember it regardless." He looked down at her hand on his arm, then back up. "You do this when you are in uncertain social situations."
"I do what?"
"Take my arm."
She let go of it. "I do not."
"Twice now."
"I'm being strategic. Don't make it strange."
"I did not make it anything," he said, which was technically accurate and somehow worse.
She walked into the party and didn't look back to see if he followed, because she could feel that he did.
Draka found her in four minutes, which was actually impressive given the crowd density.
"You came!" She materialized out of the press of bodies with the energy of someone who had been watching the door. Her implants were new — a delicate filigree along her cheekbone, purely cosmetic, catching the blue light in a way that suggested she'd chosen the venue specifically to show them off. Coreni suspected this was accurate. "I was starting to think you'd bailed again —" Her eyes moved to Edi-Veen and stayed there. "Oh."
"This is Evan," Coreni said. "He's visiting. From Carrow."
