A large, warm hand closed over Liam’s, stopping the screwdriver just before it could slide beneath the access plate.
"You truly do not want to listen to me."
Arik’s voice was low and dark enough to make the air feel heavier.
Liam looked up.
Arik stood close behind him, one hand around Liam’s wrist, the other already removing the screwdriver from his fingers with smooth and infuriating efficiency. He had arrived without sound, without warning, and now the entire narrow bridge entrance seemed to belong to him.
The guards behind them had gone still.
The prince had come directly from a council session. His dark formal coat remained immaculate, sharp lines of black and gold fitting his tall frame. His black hair, slightly tangled by the wind, framed a face that was too beautiful to be comforting and, at the time, too cold to be mistaken for anything other than threatening. Golden eyes, bright as live ether, fixed on Liam with a displeasure so focused that even the bridge lights seemed dimmer for it.
Liam, naturally, was unmoved.
"Well," he said, entirely unbothered, "you could explain why you are refusing to do so many things, and I could pretend to understand before breaking in."
Somewhere behind them, one of the guards made the mistake of inhaling too sharply.
"Liam," Arik warned.
"Yes, yes, you are very terrifying." Liam glanced at the confiscated screwdriver now in Arik’s hand. "Now can you let me finish this?"
"No."
The answer landed with absolute finality.
The hovering bridge beneath them gave a faint pulse of light, suspended between the imperial residence and Felix’s sealed palace by Nuria’s ether lattice. Beyond its transparent edges, Deira opened around them in a breathtaking drop of air, light, and impossible architecture.
And at that moment, entirely ignored by everyone except perhaps the guards, who looked as though they would rather throw themselves over the side than remain trapped between Arik and Liam.
Liam turned slightly within Arik’s hold and looked up at him with irritating calm. "You are overreacting."
"I am underreacting."
Liam placed his free hand over his chest, adopting an expression of theatrical offense. "You? My love, you are the definition of overreaction when it concerns me."
Arik’s fingers tightened around his wrist.
Not enough to hurt.
More than enough to remind every person present that the man holding Liam could probably tear the hovering bridge from its ether anchors if sufficiently provoked.
"Would you like examples?" Liam asked.
"No."
"You bought a hotel."
"It was the nearest available accommodation you threatened to use."
"You banned my ether signature from half the imperial residence."
"Three locations."
"One of which is an entire palace."
"A palace belonging to the man who poisoned me."
"You confiscated my screwdriver."
"You were using it to break into said palace."
"And now you are glaring at trained imperial guards until they contemplate voluntary flight."
The closest guard went rigid.
Arik’s golden gaze shifted toward him.
The man looked straight ahead with the desperate discipline of someone attempting to become part of the bridge railing.
"I am not contemplating anything, Your Highness."
Liam nodded toward him. "He is lying."
"Liam."
"There. That tone. Overreaction."
Arik looked back down at him, his face beautiful, cold, and sufficiently murderous to silence an entire council chamber.
Liam smiled.
It was not a sensible reaction.
It was, however, the reaction Arik had expected from the only person in two lifetimes who had never learned to fear him properly.
"You crossed a restricted sector," Arik said. "You disabled a preservation barrier, ignored direct orders, declined my calls, and attempted to open a palace containing unknown ether mechanisms created by Felix."
"When you list everything together, it sounds worse."
"It is worse."
"I had a plan."
"You had a screwdriver."
"It was an important part of the plan."
Arik held the tool up between two fingers. "This?"
"Yes."
"This is not protective equipment."
"It protected me from remaining outside."
One of the guards made a strangled sound and quickly disguised it as a cough.
Arik’s attention never left Liam.
"You are not entering."
Liam’s smile disappeared.
Arik immediately knew he had chosen the wrong wording.
"You cannot keep banning me from places because they frighten you," Liam said.
The guards became even stiller.
Arik’s expression did not soften, but something shifted behind the fury.
"It does not frighten me."
"It does when I am involved."
Silence stretched between them, filled only by the low hum of the bridge’s ether field and the distant rush of waterfalls falling from Deira’s floating islands into the clouds below.
Arik slowly lowered the screwdriver.
"Yes," he said.
The simple admission took some of the mischief from Liam’s face.
Arik stepped closer until Liam was nearly enclosed by his body, his voice dropping too low for the guards to hear comfortably.
"You make every danger unbearable," he said. "So forgive me if my response lacks moderation when I find you attempting to enter the home of the man who murdered me."
"Leave us," Liam ordered the guards, his voice suddenly carrying an authority entirely absent from the playful tone he had used moments earlier.
The men hesitated.
Not because they intended to disobey him, but because leaving Liam alone beside a sealed palace with Arik in his present mood appeared professionally questionable.
Arik did not look away from Liam. "Go."
That settled it.
The guards withdrew across the hovering bridge, boots striking softly against the luminous surface until the outer security field rose between them. They remained visible on the other side, rigidly facing away while undoubtedly listening through every permitted channel.
Liam waited until the field sealed.
Then he lowered his voice. "I have to tell you something."
Arik’s anger vanished with frightening speed.
"What happened?"
"First promise me you don’t get mad." Liam said, closing the almost nonexistent space between them, Arik’s hand tightening on his waist.
"That means it is something that would make me mad."
"Yes. It will, so promise first."