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I looked between them, then at the plate waiting beside Alex.

Apparently, that was that.

The tightness across my shoulders eased when Alex's eyes flicked from me to the empty chair I was hovering beside, then he nudged the plate into place in front of it. The invitation was obvious, but he left me to accept it or not, returning to his own sandwich before my hesitation became something that everyone else might notice.

I took a bite and found nothing unusual inside. Sliced meat, cheese, something green, and a sharp taste I didn't recognize but liked well enough to take a second bite before I looked closer.

Alex noticed. "Good?"

"It hasn't killed me."

"I'll take that as praise."

Nykos made a quiet sound that might have been a laugh, though his expression didn't improve enough to support the theory.

Conversation carried on around me while I ate. Alex complained someone had taken the last of a jar he'd labeled as his; Nykos pointed out that writing your name under something instead of on it didn't make it yours, and Halver revealed he'd eaten it two days ago. Corian said little, though his attention kept drifting toward the file beside him.

He put his sandwich down. The others quieted enough that I knew whatever came next had already been discussed before I walked in. Corian looked at me, and for the first time since meeting him, his jaw tightened and his eyes dropped to the table before finding mine again.

"We read your file."

I glanced toward the chair beside him.

"I assumed you would."

"Properly," he clarified. "Once you went to your room."

That made sense. Janus had covered the important parts in the meeting, but he'd told them anything they needed for duty was in the records, and Corian didn't seem like a man who'd stop at the first few pages. Still, something tightened low in my stomach. My records held most of my life, or at least the version the Council thought fit to write down.

Training schedules. Assessments. Medical reports. Ability development. Lists of Masters assigned to me over the years, neat summaries of what they had supposedly taught me.

Councilor Tayvin though...

I cut the thought off before the name finished forming.

Not now. Nothing in that file would tell them anything worth knowing about him. The records looked the way they were supposed to look, and the only person at this table who knew otherwise was me. I took another bite of my sandwich and looked across at the men.

Alex's attention dropped to his plate like it held the answer to something.

Every other minute I'd spent around him said eye contact wasn't something he struggled with, yet here he was studying a piece of bread like it might explain its contents if he stared hard enough.

Halver looked the same as always, quiet and watchful, though there was a tension in his shoulders I hadn't noticed before.

Nykos looked furious.

Not at me. I'd already learned the difference, I think.

"What?" I asked.

Corian shook his head. "Nothing you need to answer for. We realized there was a basic problem with how today was handled."

"That narrows it down."

Corian took the jab without comment. "You know our names. You know we're Nephrite, and that I'm squad commander. But nobody told you what any of us can do."

That was true.

Janus had spent a long time explaining what I could do and Ashter, while nobody had thought to mention that dropping me into a combat squad without telling me what the people beside me could do mattered too.