“OH COME ON.” Matteo flings the GQ down on the rug with the theatrical betrayal of a man who has been failed by his own legal team. “I WAS SET UP TO FAIL. I had a perfect deniable defense and you all assassinated it. From the couch. With kindness. Rémi, yousnitched.”
“You snitched on yourself,” Rémi says, evenly, returning to his Lego cathedral.
“Santori,” I tell him, sweetly, leveling the cup at him, “I cannot decide whether to thank you, hex you, or simply ask ifthere is a budget cap on this initiative that I should be aware of so I can plan my retaliation.”
“No cap, Pinky. Spend the rest of your natural life pinkafied. It is my gift to the world.”
“Iris.” Jude’s voice has gone, in the past half-second, careful.
I turn my head.
“Yes.”
“How are you feeling, this morning.”
I blink up at him.
How am I feeling? It is six-forty-five in the morning. The only thing I have done is harass a winger about a glitter cup. What kind of question is that.
“I am fine?” Out loud. “Why. Why are you asking it like that.”
“Your scent.” He says it neutrally, in the same level captain register he uses to ask a forward what kind of pain he is in. “It is up a notch this morning. More than yesterday. I am noting it for the record.”
Matteo, on the couch, has gone very still in the small attentive way of a winger who has clocked a play forming.
Rémi looks up from the Lego.
“Mine?” I ask, weakly. I tip my chin to my own collarbone, breathe through my nose. The same frosted strawberry. The same cold ice. The same sugar-pink note that, I suspect, the human nose loses the ability to register on itself within seventy-two hours of growing up inside it. “I cannot — I am not picking anything up. I do not feel different. I do not feel anything.”
“It is faint,” Rémi says, calmly. “But it is there.”
Oh, Pinky. We are doing this.
“Remi.” Matteo, casual, the lazy edge dropped clean out of his voice. “Did you ever look into the blocker stuff with her, properly. The new appointment.”
“I was going to ask.”
“GUYS.” I throw both hands up. The pink cup rattles. “Can we, for the love of all that is holy,notmake this a kitchen-island intervention. I am drinking from a tumbler. I am wearing a hair clip in the shape of a tiny crown. I look like a Saturday morning cartoon. Have some respect for the aesthetic.”
Matteo, on the couch, slowly folds his arms across his chest.
Oh, no. He is doing the cross-arm. He is doing the cross-arm and he is going to scold me.
I groan. I drop my head back. I look at the ceiling.
“Fine. Fine. I booked it. Last Tuesday. I have an appointment next week with the Omega specialist at the campus clinic, to talk about the new blockers and other preventative measures to slow or lower the extent of a potential Heat. Appointment is set. I have not cancelled it. I am notplanningto cancel it. I am going. I will sit in the waiting room. I will hold their stupid clipboard. I will be a model patient.”
I level my head. I stick out my tongue at Matteo with the dignity of a thirty-year-old career goalie reverting cleanly to seven.
“Happy?”
“Marvelous.” He winks. The cross-arm uncrosses. “Sweet tart for you when we get to the rink, sweetheart.”
Oh, damn it.
I beam. I cannot help it. The face goes giddy before I have authorized the expression, and I see Matteo clock it, and I see Jude clock him clocking it, and I see Rémi clock all three of us, and somewhere very deep inside my chest a small private file gets updated toIris O’Shea, twenty-four-year-old grown adult Omega, can be reliably purchased for the cost of a single pastry.
Tactical disaster. They are going to use this forever.
