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Unusual. Generous word. Points to Janus for saying it with a straight face.

Corian leaned back, and I finally let myself take him in. He hadn't moved since the meeting started. Every time Janus spoke, he actually listened and whenever one of the others shifted, his attention flicked there and back again.

Squad commander. Wonderful. My new jailor had a man bun and excellent posture, I wasn't sure I could fully forgive him for the first one.

"I'm not walking through everything in here," Janus said. "Anything you need for duties in the records. Two things need dealing with before Jade leaves with you."

My fingers curled again.

People always found tidy little words for moving me from place to place. Assigned. Transferred. Scheduled. Approved. None of them changed who got to decide, and it was never me.

"First. Jade has an ability we've never confirmed in anyone else. She's been trained and monitored inside the Citadel since she was a child. Don't mistake the restrictions around her for a lack of control. She has more control than most operatives twice her age."

That sounded suspiciously like a compliment.

Nykos spoke next, that permanent crease looking a fraction sharper. I'd assumed at first the scowl meant he hated this arrangement as much as I did. The longer I watched him, the less sure I was that any of it was actually aimed at me.

He seemed annoyed with the entire room.

I could work with that.

"What ability, sir?"

"Biomancy."

The room changed.

Nobody jumped up or reached for a weapon, which I counted as encouraging, but the finger-tapping stopped. Halver shifted in his chair. Alex straightened like a string had been pulled through his spine.

Nykos's jaw tightened. "What exactly does that mean?"

Janus looked at me for half a second before he answered. I knew that look. Masters had used it all through my childhood whenever they were deciding how much of me someone else got to know.

"It means she can sense and manipulate living biology," he said. "Muscle, nerves, blood flow, tissue, organs. Given enough access to her ability, she can change how a living body functions."

Alex blinked. His hair fell past his shoulders in pale strands, the kind I'd only ever seen on the cover of a romance novel a night-shift custodian used to read. I'd spent years wondering if anyone actually had hair like that outside badly drawn covers. Apparently they did, though I doubted the princess in question had been built like someone who could put another man through a wall.

"Right." He drew the word out. "That sounds mildly terrifying."

The corner of my mouth tugged. At least one of them had decent instincts.

"It can be," Janus said. Always nice to have the High General confirm your ability to terrify people during introductions.

Corian looked at me properly for the first time. Not the kind of look that made my spine straighten, just a quick pass over my uniform, my hands behind my back, and then it settled on the black crystal band around my throat.

His expression changed. Not pity. I knew pity well enough to hate it on sight, and this wasn't that. Something colder, more deliberate, like he was already recalculating something and didn't want it showing on his face. I tucked the thought away without deciding yet what to do with it.

Nykos followed his gaze a second later.

Janus opened a desk drawer, took out a small white crystal, and set it on top of my file with a hard click. Every pair of eyes went to my neck, and the collar felt heavier, though it weighed exactly what it had weighed for years.

Nykos swore under his breath. I'll give him points for that. His eyes cut to Corian first, like he expected the real answer to come from him rather than the room at large.

"They keep her nulled?"

The edge in his voice had sharpened.

Janus let out a slow breath. "The Council decided years ago that letting a Biomancer have unrestricted access to her ability while training was too much of a risk. Dannian and I have challenged it more times than I can count. It stayed in place."