"You crossed after him with an incomplete core."
"Yes."
"You tore your channels open."
Arik raised one elegant, long finger.
"Technically, I never had channels. A complication of being reborn with a fractured soul, I suppose."
Severin stared at him.
Mezos looked away, though not quickly enough to hide the faint movement at the corner of his mouth.
From the bed, Liam said, eyes still closed, "He says that as though it makes the situation better."
"It makes the accusation inaccurate," Arik replied.
"You crossed a collapsing Gate without ether channels," Severin said slowly.
"Yes, but I never had them, so the distinction matters."
Severin’s watery jade eyes narrowed.
"That distinction does not improve your chances of survival."
"It improved Liam’s."
For a moment, Severin had no answer.
Then he looked toward Mezos. "Has he always been like this?"
Mezos considered the question.
"Worse, usually."
Arik raised a dark brow. "You are both becoming disrespectful."
"You entered Nuria by doing something that should have killed you," Severin said. "Respect is currently being reviewed."
A sharp knock sounded at the door.
No one answered quickly enough.
The physician entered anyway.
He took one step into the room, saw Arik standing in a bathrobe with gold shining through both bandaged hands, Mezos holding the remains of a blue ether blade, and Severin surrounded by enough shadow to qualify as an environmental hazard.
His expression became very still.
"At least three wards are currently screaming alarms for ether-strained individuals," he said.
Arik lowered his raised finger.
The physician pointed at him. "You should be unconscious."
Then at Mezos. "You were sedated."
"I developed resistance."
"You were sedated nine minutes ago."
"I am elite."
The physician looked toward Liam, who had pushed himself farther upright against the pillows, his hair falling loose around his shoulders.
"And His Majesty should be resting."
"I was," Liam said, not bothering correcting anyone anymore.
"You are now participating in whatever this is."
"I have not yet decided what this is."
"It is over," the physician said. "Everyone will return to bed. Immediately."
Severin moved behind him.
The physician sensed the shadow and began to turn.
Two fingers touched the side of his neck.
His eyes widened before closing as unconsciousness took over.
Severin caught him before he struck the floor.
Arik stared.
"You rendered a palace physician unconscious."
"He was interfering."
Severin lowered the physician into the nearest chair and adjusted his head against the cushion with surprising care.
Mezos watched him. "How long?"
"Ten minutes."
"What did you use?"
"Shadow induction."
"That is prohibited in most military jurisdictions."
"So is entering restricted imperial rooms while shouting."
Arik looked toward the unconscious physician. "Cassian will hear about this."
"Cassian hears about everything eventually."
From the bed, Liam pushed the blanket aside.
"I want to see the office."
Arik turned toward him. "No."
Liam placed his bare feet on the floor.
"You were prepared to carry me there thirty seconds ago."
"That was before the physician confirmed that the wards are detecting ether strain."
"They are detecting you and Mezos."
"And you."
"I am curious."
Liam stood.
The room tilted beneath him just enough that Arik crossed the distance before Liam could pretend it had not.
His arm went around Liam’s waist.
Liam steadied himself against Arik’s chest and looked up with immediate annoyance.
"I am fine."
"You nearly fell."
"I did not reach the floor."
Severin studied them with the expression of a man reconsidering several conclusions about imperial dignity.
Liam ignored him.
"I want to know whether the office opens."
"It will."
"Then there is no reason I should not see it."
"You require sleep."
"So do you."
"I do not."
"The wards disagree."
"The wards are dramatic."
Behind them, one of the alarm symbols on the wall pulsed brighter.
Liam looked pointedly at it.
Arik did not.
Mezos dismissed the last of his ether blade and moved toward the concealed passage. "The longer we debate, the more likely another physician arrives."
Arik looked at him. "You are encouraging this."
"I would rather inspect the imperial office than explain why Commander Mireth incapacitated medical personnel."
Severin lifted one shoulder. "Both can still occur."
"No more physicians," Arik said.
"That depends on them."
Liam caught the edge of Arik’s robe sleeve.
"Take me."
Arik looked down at him.
The curiosity in Liam’s crimson eyes had fully replaced the last traces of sleep. He was exhausted, poisoned, and wrapped in a palace night robe, but the possibility of a sovereign lock responding to a reincarnated ether signature had awakened the engineer in him.
That was considerably more dangerous than wakefulness.
"You will remain beside me," Arik said.
"Yes."
"You will not touch anything."
Liam’s expression became carefully neutral.
Arik narrowed his eyes. "Liam."
"I will not touch anything without first determining what it does."
Severin stepped into the shadowed opening in the wall.
"The physician will wake shortly."
Arik looked toward the unconscious man.
Then toward the corridor beyond the closed door, where the palace wards continued issuing silent warnings that would eventually draw someone less easy to incapacitate.
He bent and lifted Liam into his arms.
Liam’s hands caught around his shoulders and settled against him, one arm circling his neck while the other remained tucked between them.
Mezos entered the passage first.
Severin waited beside the opening, his watery jade gaze shifting over Arik’s leaking bandages and Liam’s bare feet beneath the hem of his robe.
"The three of you are medically irresponsible."
"You put the physician to sleep," Arik said.
"I did not claim moral superiority."
Shadow closed behind them as they entered the hidden corridor.
The passage was narrow and nearly lightless, built inside the palace walls rather than beneath them. Severin moved without sound. Mezos followed several paces ahead, his uninjured hand trailing near the concealed blade at his side.
Liam looked over Arik’s shoulder at the walls.
"How old is this route?"
"Older than the current palace interior," Severin said.
"What powers the concealment?"
"Shadow anchors."
"Independent or connected to the imperial core?"
"Independent."
"Can they be replicated?"
"No."
"You answered too quickly."
"I recognized the beginning of an interrogation."
Arik adjusted Liam higher against his chest, his hold tightening, stone-warm and caramel pheromones surrounding him.
The passage ended at a dark panel of stone.
Severin pressed his palm against it.
The wall opened without sound.
Beyond it waited a private corridor lined with black columns and narrow gold lights. At its end stood a pair of sealed doors engraved with a dragon coiled around the imperial crest.
There were no guards or servants standing outside.
The air itself felt untouched.
Severin stepped aside.
"The imperial office."
Liam became completely alert in Arik’s arms.
The doors were not merely closed. Ether had hardened across their surface in overlapping layers, each ward folded into the next with the density of armor.
Liam leaned forward.
"Put me down."
"No."
"I need to see the lock."
"You can see it from there."
"Not properly."
Arik sighed and lowered him carefully, keeping one arm around his waist.
Liam stepped closer to the doors but stopped before touching them.
Golden symbols moved beneath the black surface, appearing and disappearing too quickly for ordinary sight.
Liam’s eyes narrowed with fascination.
"It is not a single lock."
"No," Severin said. "It is a sequence."
"How many layers?"
"Thirty-two." He tilted his head, thinking. "Oddly specific numbers...’
Mezos looked at him. "Felix opened the first?"
"Three."
"You said one."
"I said the first ward recognized him. The next two opened through stolen override commands."
"And the fourth?"
"Removed most of the grafted channels in his arm."
Liam glanced toward Arik’s bandaged hands.
"You do not have channels."
"Correct."
"That may be useful."
Severin stared at him. "Only a Canmore would describe a missing ether structure as useful."
Liam looked toward him. "Felix would have called it inconvenient."
"I am beginning to understand why he disliked you."
"He has good instincts occasionally."
Arik placed his right hand against the center of the door.
Gold flared beneath the bandages.
The first ward awakened.
Then the second.
Then every layer ignited at once.
The corridor filled with sovereign light.
Liam forgot exhaustion entirely.
"Oh," he whispered.
The dragon engraved across the doors opened its eyes.