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Corian closed his eyes.

I stopped halfway through sliding another knife into my pack.

"Lord?"

Alex straightened immediately, looking far too pleased with himself.

I looked between them. "Why did you call him Lord Favaris?"

"Because our fearless commander has apparently neglected to mention that he's heir to House Favaris."

My attention moved to Corian.

He looked deeply unimpressed with the direction the conversation had taken.

"You're a lord?"

"Technically."

Alex made an offended sound. "There is nothing technical about it."

"Take the crate, Alex."

"House Favaris," Alex continued as though Corian hadn't spoken, "old noble family, substantial land, political influence, generational wealth, all the usual things that make normal people resent him."

Corian pointed toward the front hall. "Alex."

I stared at Corian again. The information rearranged several things I'd noticed without actually changing any of them. Corian carried authority easily enough that I'd assumed it came from years of commanding Nephrite, but he'd been raised around another version of it entirely. Somehow the fact he wasn't particularly interested in using his status against anyone became more noticeable once I knew he had one.

His hair was still ridiculous, being noble did nothing to improve the man-bun.

Corian caught me looking. "It isn't as interesting as Alex is making it sound."

"You're the heir to an entire House."

"Yes."

"And you never mentioned it."

"It wasn't relevant."

That was such a Corian answer that I didn't know why I was surprised.

He must have recognized something in my expression because he sighed and pointed across the room toward Nykos.

"At least I'm not as bad as him."

I turned.

Nykos slowly looked up from the inventory he had been writing.

I raised one eyebrow.

He stared back at me.

I waited.

He said absolutely nothing.