Page 144 of Reaper Said Mine

“That’s thoughtful. Please tell her my skull remains stubborn.”

The aide blinks twice, decides there is no safe follow-up, and retreats with the pastries.

Behind me, Vakka’s voice murmurs from the disguised comm bud tucked against my ear. “Your skull is stubborn. Medical confirmed.”

“I thought you were supposed to be silent unless there was a threat,” I murmur into my cup.

“I consider pastry diplomacy threatening.”

“You consider everything threatening.”

“I have kept many idiots alive that way.”

Across the gallery, Gnash glances toward me. I do not know whether he heard the exchange or merely felt my irritation through the bond, but his mouth shifts with the faintest trace of humor. The connection between us has become impossible to ignore now. It does not control me, and it does not read like words, but it carries weight, warmth, tension, and the occasional sense that he is one bad political comment away from tearing decorative furniture apart.

I look away before some aide starts writing body language analysis for Theryki.

The informal gathering is exactly what I expected: a soft battlefield. No official record. No seating chart. No treaty clauses. Just wine, whispers, and the kind of elegant verbal stabbing that lets everyone leave with clean hands. Theryki has already circled me twice without engaging directly. Gobold has loudly informed three separate groups that assassin machines would not penetrate a properly militarized corridor. Wilcox has spent the evening listening more than talking, which makes her the smartest person here besides Skahar, who is currently pretending to nap in a chair near the food tables while somehow missing nothing.

Dawson would love this room. He would call it electric. He would tell me to describe the tension, the bond, the dangerous attraction, the glamorous peril of it all. Then he would cut every word about debt transfers, false manifests, and covert factional manipulation because nothing ruins a sexy scandal package like evidence.

My compad vibrates against my ribs.

Not a call.

A file.

The sender ID is blank, which is usually how trouble introduces itself. I turn toward the railing, angling my body so no one can see the screen, and open it inside a quarantine shell. Vakka is already in my ear.

“You just received a dirty packet.”

“I noticed.”

“Do not open it.”

“I’m opening it safely.”

“You and Gnash use the word safely in ways that make my job worse.”

The file unpacks into a compressed communication burst, fragmented by relay damage and deliberately routed through dead commercial nodes. The first layer looks like nonsense: shipping pings, maintenance request markers, tariff dispute references, and pieces of a catering invoice. Then the decryption tag I built earlier from Halcyon’s financial pattern catches on three routing codes and rearranges the whole thing into message fragments.

My breath goes still.

Vakka hears the change. “Ursa.”

“I need Skahar.”

“Do you need Gnash?”

I look across the room. Gnash is still with Wilcox, but his eyes have already shifted toward me. Of course they have. The bond does not let me panic quietly.

“Not yet,” I say.

“That is an answer I dislike.”

“Put Skahar on my left.”

“Already moving him.”