Page 49

“Problem, Regillen?” Director Tegula asked from the head of the table. His eyes were daring me to make a scene.

“The fork slipped,” I said, my voice rough, cutting through the polite atmosphere.

I turned to Madame Koresh without smiling, dropping the polished cadence of the Academy to give her the dead stare of Sector 9.

“You’re talking about his fluids like he’s a juice box,” I said.

“Excuse me?” She looked affronted, clutching her pearls.

“He’s sitting right there,” I said, gesturing to Felix with my chin. “He’s eating dinner. And you’re talking about extracting him like he’s livestock.”

“Leander,” Felix hissed a warning.

“I am discussing State affairs,” Madame Koresh snapped, though a flush of embarrassment crept up her neck.

“In the slums, we have a word for people who obsess over other people’s junk,” I countered. “And it isn’t ‘Commissioner’.”

The table went deadly silent before General Vokar barked out a laugh. “He’s got teeth! I told you, Tegula. The boy has fire.”

“He has a lack of discipline,” Tegula said, his gaze drilling into me. “Asset Regillen, apologize to Madame Koresh.”

I held Tegula’s gaze, and the threat in it didn’t need subtitles. Apologize, or I liquidate you. Felix had told me the plug was one incident from being pulled, and I had promised him one night of civilization, and I was already burning it down.

But Felix was staring at me wide-eyed, and for the first time tonight he looked present. The glass look was gone. He was looking at me like he had never seen me before, and if one apology was what it took to drag him back into his own body, that was easy work.

“My apologies, Madame,” I said, the words tasting like bile. “I’m new to high society. Where I come from, we don’t touch things that don’t belong to us.”

It was a fake apology wrapped around a warning. He’s fucking mine.

Koresh stiffened, but she forced a thin smile. “Of course. Cultural differences.”

The main course arrived, roast lamb garnished with rosemary and a reduction that smelled like iron. I picked up my knife and cut into the meat with more force than necessary, imagining it was something else entirely.

Under the table, I felt a pressure against my knee.

Felix had shifted his leg, pressing his thigh against mine. It was a subtle weight, a silent request for grounding in a room that was trying to eat him alive, and the heat of his body bled through the fabric of our pants, offering a tether or asking for one. I couldn’t tell which.

For a second the instinct to push back was overwhelming. My body wanted to anchor him. But the field came back, as it always came back: Felix walking away while I lay in the dirt, Felix carrying Getha’s bag down that corridor like a beaten dog.

He didn’t get to lean on me. Not now. Not while he was still wearing another man’s collar.

I shifted my leg away, leaving a cold gap of air between us.

Felix flinched, his hand tightening around his fork until his knuckles turned white. He pulled his leg back and shrank into himself as the rejection hit home.

We ate in silence, separated by six inches of empty space, but the peace didn’t last. Anatol Getha watched us from Table Four, swirling a glass of red wine until the liquid lapped against the crystal. His eyes flicked to the gap between us, the six inches I had just manufactured, and he smiled.

He raised his glass in a mock toast. Then he tapped the side of his nose.

Beside me, Felix went rigid and shrank into his chair.

“Excuse me,” Felix murmured, dropping his napkin onto his plate. “I need air.”

He stood up abruptly, almost knocking over his chair, and walked fast toward the balcony doors without looking back.

“Felix?” Madame Koresh called out.

“Let him go,” Tegula said, cutting into his steak. “The boy is high-strung. He needs a moment.”