Page 158 of Eight of Swords, Part One

Mimi’s birthday is in three days’ time. ‘Little how?’

‘Like…’ he shows her, index and thumb stretched to fit a penknife inside, the type he has in mind. ‘This.’

‘That’s too little.’

‘You can’t have one like Daddy.’

‘Why not?’ She sounds just like Jules. ‘I always be very careful.’

‘You’re always careful but, babygirl, where would you keep it?’

‘In my Tower,’ she whispers.

The Tower is the second floor Lachlan added to her Wendy House because his little girl said she likes being high up sometimes.

Lachlan considers. ‘I don’t know if you’d be able to hold it.’

‘That’s why I wannit,’ the four-year-old says. ‘To learn.’

‘Well, that’s very smart. I can’t give you a big one like mine, but I’ll get you something very special, all right?’

‘Promise?’

He kisses her cheek, sets her down. ‘Promise.’

✴

Prep for the party tonight is well underway.

Jolene’s new comms devices are in place, fully stormproof, and Lachlan has a new management system that’s partially automated. He goes about his checks before escorting Jules out of his bedroom and down to the ballroom. ‘Kestrel en route to Whiskey Reach with Cascade,’ Lachlan informs control.

Jules looks over at Lachlan, especially dressed up tonight. Diamonds and silver and sapphires and silk. He looks like royalty, treasure made manifest.

‘You never told me why Cascade,’ he points out to Lachlan who opens his mouth to offer the same nonanswer as before, but Jules goes on. ‘So I asked Mikhail what it meant and he told me.’

‘Oh?’

‘He told me in the military they have a term for when something goes wrong. Cascade failure. Code CF.’

Lachlan snorts. ‘That’s clusterfuck.’

‘On paper, it’s cascade failure.’

‘It’s just a codename, Jules.’

‘Mimi is Shimmer, and I’m a clusterfuck, is that right?’

Lachlan stops abruptly.

‘You know what? You’re right. That is why I chose it,’ Lachlan tells him, barefaced while the boy reels slightly. ‘Do you know how fucking smart the other side has to be to cause a CF? You have any idea the scope of ingenuity used to so catastrophically fuck up the best-laid plans of military men that they have to declare that? Power is power. Take it as a compliment.’

‘Whatever,’ Jules mutters as they resume their journey.

‘And besides,’ Lachlan adds, a little forcefully, ‘I didn’t call you a failure. A cascade is just the force of elemental momentum. Where it points and what it does is entirely—’

‘Yeah, I get it, thanks.’

Oh, he’s a pain in the ass, but Lachlan has actually missed him being bratty.