Todd’s mouth opens. “Of course I accept—”
Todd goes still. The room tightens around him, every polished surface turned into a witness. Skylor sets the binder on the table.
“You are relieved of your duties, Mr. Childs.”
The silence that follows is thick enough to bite.
Todd turns and looks directly at me. His face is beet-red, and he snarls his words out like a raging bull. He lunges toward me, and I jump back. “You did this. Working behind my back, you conniving little bi—”
Skylor reaches him in three steps, closes one hand around the front of Todd’s jacket, and lifts. Todd’s shoes leave the floor. Not high. Not dramatic. Just enough to turn his face into fear. Just enough to remind everyone in the room that Skylor Ak Layn is not human and doesn't need to be.
“Mr. Childs.” Skylor’s voice has not gotten louder. It has gotten quieter, which is so much worse. “I was prepared,” Skylor says, not even winded, “to give you a dignified exit. No one speaks to my staff that way.”
My staff.
His staff.The words don't fit right. I don't examine why.
Skylor holds Todd there for one long, measured breath, then sets him down and steps back as if he has not just redefined desire. “Security will see you out. Your personal items will be sent to you.”
Todd straightens his jacket with hands that are not steady. He does not look at me again. His shoes squeak across the floor, and the doors close behind him. The room exhales at last, or maybe that is me remembering I still have lungs. My notepad has a dent where my fingers gripped too hard.
Skylor turns to me. “Miss Watson, I apologize for his behavior." He rolls his massive shoulders back. "And mine."
My name in his mouth melts my spine. I straighten to compensate. "No, uh, it's okay." I swallow. "Thank you. He's never done anything like that before."
"Good, then I won't have to follow up with my fists." My mouth drops open. If a fly had happened by, it would most definitely have been caught. I force my lips together as if this is the first time they've met.
“Now, let's look at your projections,” he says.
“They were based on his editorial direction, which was the wrong direction.” The words come faster now that the adrenaline has somewhere to go. “Athena started bleeding readership when Todd shifted toward gossip. Celebrity divorces. Detox pieces. Shame dressed up in glossy covers. That’s not what your mother built.”
His expression does not move. “You know my mother’s vision.”
“I know what she wrote in the first editor’s letter. I know what this magazine was before it became what it is now.”
“And what was it?”
A test?Fine.I can handle his tests more easily than my heat spike. “It was a place people picked up when they needed to feel less alone inside their own skin. Not smaller. Not ashamed. Not like their body was a project everyone else had permission to grade.”
His eyes stay on mine. My pulse still has not forgiven him for existing.
“Everything’s changed,” I say. “You can get anything delivered from anywhere now. Shoes from Paris. Skin cream from Mars colony labs. Coffee from a mountain farm halfway across the world. Half this city has alien neighbors, and nobody even notices until the alien is blocking the subway stairs.”
His mouth almost moves.Almost.
“But all these new advances can’t reach through a screen and remind you that you matter,” I continue. “That your body is yours. That your life has worth before anyone buys it, rates it, claims it, rejects it, or tells you how to fix it.”
I stop because my throat is closing around the words. Too much. I've said too much. The old memory rises anyway.Sixteen. Bathroom stall. My thighs stuck to cold porcelain. Girls laughing outside the door. Mocking my body while I hid. Later, at home, I hugged my copy of Athena to my chest. Using it to build my confidence while others attempted to destroy it.
“That’s what Athena was supposed to do,” I say. “That’s what we lost.”
For a beat, Skylor is quiet. Then he says, “The magazine is called Athena for a reason. My mother understood the intersection of esteem and fashion. For her it was never only about beauty.”
“You’re right.”
His brows shift a fraction. "She'll like you, Beatrice Watson. She hardly interferes with the magazine anymore. But she'd bash my head in with a rock if I let it die without trying to save it."
"I'd appreciate the opportunity to give it my best shot." I don’t look away. “Beauty matters. Fashion matters. Wanting to feel good when you walk into a room matters. Realistically, Athena needs substance and shine. The women who pick up our magazine deserve to see both within our pages and themselves.” I pause, hating the raw place my voice has found. “Believe me. I know what it is to need to read that.”
