These rich pricks love a dinner.

Surviving didn't get me rest or therapy or twenty-four hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Nope. It got me a new freaking dress.

"It's not terrible," Allie says from the armchair beside the mirror.

The stylist shoots her an offended look.

"I mean... only it's not..." She shuts up.

"Thank you, Allie," I drawl dryly. "Your support is overwhelming."

I turn sideways and examine the gown they've poured me into. It's silver-blue, fitted through the chest and waist before spilling over my hips in layers of translucent fabric. The sleeves and shoulder pads are massive, pillowing out higher than my head. In addition to the ridiculousness are thousands of tiny, expensive crystals that catch the light whenever I move.

Azura's colours. Of course.

The League won't let a branding opportunity pass just because my body feels like it's been thrown off a building.

Repeatedly.

My ribs are strapped beneath the dress, my burned forearm is hidden under a sheer sleeve, and the worst of my bruises have disappeared beneath enough cosmetic cream to resurface half the walls in the Rookery. My hair falls in arranged waves instead of its usual braid, making me look softer than I feel. More expensive. Less likely to threaten anyone with a fork.

It's a pretty weak facade, all things considered.

The woman working on my face grips my chin and turns me towards the light. "The coverage is separating here." Her thumb presses the side of my throat, and I flinch.

She sighs. "Try not to move."

"Try not to jab the bruise."

"It isn't from the Game."

Allie's gaze lifts sharply from her tablet.

The stylist leans closer, studying the dark mark beneath my jaw with the detached interest of someone assessing damage to a piece of furniture. "This is a bite."

"No, it isn't."

"It has teeth marks."

I force a shrug. "Eight B had a difficult afternoon."

The woman stares at me. Allie makes a strangled noise that might be a laugh.

"Your dragon bit your neck?" the stylist asks. She, rightly, sounds sceptical.

Nope. Your Butcher Boy did. Seems he's got the hots for me even if he wants to kill me.

"Bee's very precise," I lie.

Eight B's head is large enough to swallow my entire torso, but I'm committed to the bit.

The stylist glances at the medical report on her tablet. "There's no mention of a dragon bite."

"He seemed embarrassed. I didn't want it on his permanent record. You know how touchy dragons are about these things."

Allie presses her lips together so tightly they disappear.

The stylist's expression suggests she has never wanted to resign more. She reaches for another jar and begins covering the evidence that Gabriel Vekk had his mouth on my throat last night.

Heat climbs into my face. I don't need a mirror to remember the corridor, or the hard line of his body pinning mine against the wall. I can still taste expensive liquor on his tongue and feel the scrape of his stubble against my chin. My hips remember him too, traitorous things that they are.

Bram's kiss had been different. Softer at first. Desperate beneath it. A goodbye neither of us had been willing to name.

Gabriel's had felt like the beginning of a war.

God, Liz. Who kisses two men within hours of each other? Especially two men I can't trust.

If the Games don't kill me, my love life will.

The stylist pats more paste over the mark. "There. Almost invisible."

Shame she can't do the same for the memory.

Allie waits until the woman crosses the room to select earrings before leaning towards me. "Eight B?"

"Not one word."

"He would've taken your entire head off."

"It was a very restrained bite."

Her glasses slip down her nose as she studies me. "Was it another rider?"

My face flames brighter. "No."

Her eyes widen. "Oh god. Was it Vekk?"

I shake my head. "Are you delusional? The man hates me."

"That doesn't mean he's not hot for you."

I flick her a scowl, hating that she so easily echoes my own thoughts. "He does not."

"Oh please. He had a stiffy at the pool."

I blink. "Allie, please never say that again. My god, woman, what are you? Twelve?"

She settles back into the chair with an amused grin.

The last twenty-four hours have done nothing to make sense of what happened. After finding Bram's note on my pillow and the scale still beneath my mattress, I managed maybe two hours of sleep before the nightmares started. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the Apex dragon falling, the dead rider crushed between two animals, Crimson riders hitting the sand in pieces.

I woke screaming.

By breakfast, the League had covered the dark circles and bruise, and had us trotting out, smiling for the cameras.

Medical assessments followed, then a post-Game debrief, three sponsor calls, and an hour-long strategy review in which Kiera announced that Game Two would take place in thirteen days. Thirteen days to turn luck into skill.

I'm fucked. So royally, absolutely, totally, impossibly fucked.

Somehow surviving the first Game has made this whole journey towards death that much worse.

Should have let them kill me when they tried.

A chime sounds over the speakers. The stylist looks at the clock and swears under her breath. "We're late."

"Good. Maybe they'll begin without us."

She shakes her head. "The Survivors' Procession can't begin without all the survivors."

"That's a pity."

She places a delicate silver chain around my throat, positioning the blue stone pendant over my chest. "There. Shoulders back. Don't touch your hair. Don't drink anything dark enough to stain your teeth. If anyone asks about your injuries, you're recovering well and looking forward to the next Game."

"What if they ask how I feel about the people who died?"

Her hands pause before she continues fluffing my ridiculous sleeves. "Express your sympathies and redirect the conversation towards your gratitude for surviving."

"They have a script for grief?"

Her eyes meet mine in the mirror. "They have a script for everything."

The doors open before I can answer. Nikolai strides in wearing a midnight-blue suit and the expression of a man already anticipating my failure. His eyes sweep over me.

"Acceptable."

"Careful now. Compliments will spoil me."

He ignores that. "Tonight is important. Game One established you as the season's breakout rider. Your survival clip has become the most replayed moment from yesterday's broadcast." He pauses. "Well, the second most played."

"Who beat me?"

"The Crimson rider plunging to their death."

I shake my head. "That'll teach me to ask."

He adjusts one cuff. "Three new sponsors approached Dr. Bauer this morning. Your personal engagement metrics have passed Gabriel Vekk's for the first time this season."

That catches my attention. "People like me more than Vekk?"

"People find you novel. Don't mistake curiosity for affection."

There's the Nikolai I know and tolerate.

He turns to Allie. "Your transport is waiting downstairs. The other members of Azura have already departed."

"Why didn't we go with them?" I ask.

His expression doesn't change. "They were ready on time."

The stylist makes a quiet sound of vindication.

I glance once more at the mirror. The woman staring back looks nothing like me. She looks composed, wealthy, almost untouched. Like she spent yesterday watching the Game from a private box instead of tasting blood, sweat and fear. Instead of fighting for her life and watching others lose theirs.

"Elizabeth?" Allie says.

I look away from the mirror. "Let's get this over with."

The Hall of Sovereigns has been transformed overnight. Yesterday it held sponsor exhibits and broadcast equipment. Tonight, hundreds of candles float beneath the vaulted glass ceiling, their flames reflecting on the glass until it looks like the stars have descended to watch us eat. The corporate banners have been replaced by black silk threaded with the colours of the surviving teams.

One banner is missing. Crimson Dominion. In its place hangs a length of unbroken red fabric, dark enough to pass for blood in the low light.

Long tables fill the hall, arranged around a polished dance floor. Sponsors, officials and corporate representatives mingle beneath the floating lights, champagne in hand, their laughter subdued enough to suggest respect without requiring them to feel it.

At the far end, five chairs sit on a raised platform. Each is empty. A black glass rests before each vacant place, filled to the rim with red wine.

Five riders flew for Crimson Dominion yesterday. The arena kept every one of them.

The families are seated below the platform. Five tables. One for each rider who didn't leave the arena. They've been arranged in a shallow crescent facing the empty chairs, close enough for the cameras to capture them above the mourners' shoulders. Every relative wears a black ribbon pinned over their heart and sits beside a League-appointed family liaison.

The liaisons are easy to identify. They're the ones smiling.

An elderly couple sits at the first table, their posture unnaturally straight. At the second, a man sits between two teenage boys who stare at their untouched glasses of water. One family has brought a little girl in a black dress. She swings her legs beneath her chair, too young to understand why everyone keeps telling her to sit still.

At the last table, a woman sits alone. Mrs Polick, according to the place card.

Oelia's mother.

Her eyes are swollen, her fingers knotted around a handkerchief. Unlike the other families, she hasn't managed to smother her grief.

My stomach turns.

"They make the families attend?" I whisper.

Allie nods. "Attendance is strongly encouraged."

"Meaning?"

"The compensation package includes a public-mourning clause."

I stare at her. "They have to come if they want to be paid?"

"They have to cooperate with official memorial events."

I look at the families again. Nobody seems particularly upset to be there except Mrs Polick.

"They don't look like they're grieving," I murmur. "They look like they're at an unwanted dinner party."

"Most of them are." Allie keeps her voice low. "Quadrant families plan for three children. The heir, the spare, and the I-don't-care. The first inherits. The second insures. The third gets handed to the League. Everyone prays a dragon picks them so the family name gets glory without risking continuance of the bloodline."

"And if no dragon picks them?"

"Then they've wasted twenty years of school fees on a child they never bothered loving."

Ty's voice drifts back to me from last night, flat as ever. My sister is the heir, my brother is the spare, I'm the disposable, they-don't-care.

I'd thought he was being bitter.

"I'm surprised they don't outsource the riding to Rookery kids. God knows they don't give a shit if we live or die."

"But then you'd have power the elite want to control. They'd never allow it."

Yet here I sit, in crystals and silk. No wonder they need me dead on schedule.

"And her?" I nod towards Mrs Polick.

Allie's voice drops further. "She only had one daughter."

I look at Mrs Polick's hands, knotted around the handkerchief, shaking as she brings it to her red-rimmed eyes.

Oelia wasn't an I-don't-care.

A camera drone sweeps close. Allie smiles automatically.

I don't.

"Welcome, Miss Reeves."

I know the voice before I turn. Administrator Kovac stands beneath Azura's banner in a black gown that fits her with military precision. Her dark hair is pinned away from her face, and the same black polish covers her fingernails. She looks exactly like she did when she offered me a choice between execution and the Games. Immaculate. Controlled. Entirely unsurprised to find me alive.

"Administrator." I force a smile. "I was beginning to think you only appeared when someone needed threatening."

Her gaze shifts briefly to the empty chairs. "The League honours every rider who sacrifices themselves for political stability."

"By making their families sit beneath their empty chairs?"

"Their presence reminds us of the cost."

"Ah. I imagine they remember without the theatrics."

Kovac's eyes sharpen, though her expression stays pleasant for the cameras circling us. "You performed well yesterday."

"I crashed."

"You survived."

"An inspiringly low standard."

She takes a glass from a passing tray but doesn't drink. "Eight B's response to you has generated considerable interest. The compliance division will perform additional testing before Game Two."

My spine tightens. "What kind of testing?"

"Non-invasive assessments. Blood, tissue, neural-response mapping."

"He doesn't like strangers."

"Few creatures do."

"He has fifty-foot wings and breathes fire. His dislike carries more weight than most."

Kovac's lips curve. "Your concern for him is admirable, Miss Reeves. But do try to remember that Eight B remains League property."

I bite down on my answer.

"Good." She shifts her attention to Allie. "Miss Cartwright."

Allie straightens. "Ma'am."

"You're adapting well to your new role."

Allie blinks slowly. "I'm trying."

"Try harder. Azura cannot afford a second-rate tactician."

Allie pales. Kovac walks away before either of us can respond, gliding towards the officials gathered near the platform.

"I hate her," I mutter.

"I've never met her before."

"You're not missing much."

Allie frowns. "Why does the Head of League Operations know who I am? And for that matter, when did she become the Head? It hasn't been announced. I'd know"

I shrug. "Does it matter? All I know is she's a snake and we'd better watch our backs when she's around."

The orchestra begins a low instrumental piece. Guests are directed towards their tables, and Nikolai appears long enough to steer us into the Survivors' Procession. We're announced by team. Apex enters first, then Meridian, Shinhu and Vekk.

Gabriel leads his riders into the hall wearing black formalwear with the Vekk crest picked out in gold across his collar. The red mark I left on his cheek is gone, but I know exactly where it should be. His eyes find me as he passes. They drop briefly to my throat, and a smirk touches his lips.

The bastard knows they covered his mark. I resist the urge to touch it.

His father isn't with him tonight. O'Maury is. The bodyguard follows two steps behind, dark hair slicked back from his scarred face, dressed in a black suit without insignia. Nothing about him says servant.

His gaze finds Allie. She stops walking—only for half a beat, but I feel her tension through the hand she has tucked around my arm.

O'Maury smiles. Allie looks away.

Before I can ask whether she's all right, Azura is announced.

The applause hits us. People rise from their seats as we enter, straining to see.

Twenty-four hours ago, half this room had money on me dying first.

This feels like ownership.

I lift a hand because Nikolai is glaring from the edge of the room. The applause swells. By the time we reach our table, my face aches from fake smiling.

"You're famous," Jax whispers.

"I'd rather have money."

"You have sponsors."

"Azura has sponsors. I have bruises."

"Some people pay extra for those."

Kiera elbows him before I can.

We take our seats at a table beside Vekk's. Ty is on my left, Allie on my right. Kiera sits opposite me with Chloe and Jax beside her. Dr. Bauer occupies the head of the table, surrounded by representatives from our largest sponsors.

The first course appears before anyone has touched the cutlery. I stare at six forks and choose the one farthest from my plate.

Allie silently moves my hand to the other side.

"Thanks."

"You were about to eat fish with a dessert fork."

"Way I see it, they both stab things."

A server steps between us to pour wine. Crisp shirt. Black waistcoat. A familiar scar across one knuckle.

I look up.

Bram's hair has been combed away from his face, though several blond strands have already escaped to fall across his forehead. In service uniform, he looks like the kind of man rich women ruin their marriages for. His gaze meets mine, and for a moment neither of us speaks. He looks me over slowly—face, shoulders, arms—like he's confirming the broadcast didn't hide something important.

Then his eyes settle on my throat.

The cosmetic coverage is good, but apparently not good enough. His jaw tightens.

"Wine, miss?"

I hand him my glass. "Are you working?"

"I'm deeply wounded you assumed this is my leisure activity." He fills my glass without spilling a drop.

"Where did Gris find the uniform?"

"On a dead man."

Allie chokes on her water.

Bram smiles at her. "I joke."

"I can never tell with you."

"Part of my charm."

Movement stops him from saying more. Daisy enters on Preston's arm.

She wears green tonight, a deep shimmering colour that glides over her skin like water. Her hair is piled in curls, diamonds flashing at her ears and throat. Preston beams as the cameras turn towards them.

Daisy's smile is flawless until she sees me. Then she notices Bram standing beside my chair, and something passes between them.

Bram turns away first, moving to fill Ty's glass. Preston steers Daisy towards the Vekk table.

Of course he does. Men like Preston collect powerful acquaintances the way some collect bottle caps.

"Gabriel!" Preston calls. "Magnificent work yesterday. Truly magnificent."

Gabriel rises and accepts Preston's hand. Daisy stands beside them, smiling pleasantly until Gabriel's attention settles on her.

"And you are?"

"Daisy Okonkwo." Her voice is soft and warm, every syllable designed to make a man believe he has her complete attention.

Preston says, loud enough for me to hear, "Daisy was telling me she knew Miss Reeves before all this. Grew up together, didn't you, poppet?"

"We did."

Bram is pouring wine three chairs away. He doesn't look up, but his shoulders have gone rigid beneath the white shirt.

Wonderful. This should end well.

"Extraordinary." From the corner of my eye, I can see Preston looking over at me, as if poverty has become a charming shared hobby. "You must have some stories."

"None you could afford," Daisy says lightly.

Bram coughs into his fist. Gabriel's mouth twitches. Preston laughs too, assuming everyone is enjoying the joke with him rather than at his expense.

Administrator Kovac takes the stage before the conversation can continue.

The room darkens.

The first portrait appears above the empty chairs.

OELIA POLICK — CRIMSON DOMINION

Oelia smiles down at us from her official rider photograph. She can't be more than twenty. Her hair is swept over one shoulder, her chin raised, her Crimson uniform pristine.

Yesterday, I watched her body hit the sand.

Tonight, the League gives us childhood photographs.

Oelia missing her front teeth. Oelia in an Academy uniform. Oelia at her first dragon trial, dwarfed by a helmet too large for her head. The images give way to training footage and polished interviews in which she talks about duty, sacrifice and making her mother proud.

Mrs Polick's first sob cuts through the music.

It's small. Almost swallowed.

Every head at her table turns.

The League liaison beside her leans close and whispers something. Mrs Polick shakes her head, pressing the handkerchief over her mouth.

The memorial continues.

Oelia launches from the Crimson starting zone. Her dragon cuts through the air. She laughs during a training exercise. She raises one fist after completing a combat run.

Then comes yesterday's footage.

The League cuts away a second before she hits the ground, offering mercy now that they've already broadcast her death in slow motion to millions.

Mrs Polick makes a sound like an animal in pain. It rises from her chest as a long, broken wail.

The liaison touches her arm, looking embarrassed.

"Mrs Polick," she murmurs, loud enough to carry in the sudden quiet. "Perhaps we should continue this in another room."

Oelia's mother stares at her. "What?"

"The League understands this is a difficult evening. If you need a moment to compose yourself—"

"Compose myself?"

The camera drones turn towards her.

The liaison's expression tightens. "We ask that expressions of grief be kept to the designated private areas."

For one suspended moment, Mrs Polick doesn't move.

Then she screams.

It rips through the hall, raw enough to make every polished guest recoil. "My daughter is dead!"

The liaison rises. "Mrs Polick—"

"She's dead!"

Mrs Polick surges to her feet so violently her chair crashes backwards. She tears the black ribbon from her chest and hurls it at the liaison.

"You put cameras on her while she fell!"

The memorial freezes with Oelia smiling above her.

"Please lower your voice," the liaison says.

"You showed my daughter dying." Mrs Polick strikes the table, overturning her wine. Red floods the white cloth and drips over the edge. "You slowed it down. You replayed it. You let those fucking animals discuss whether she was dead before she hit the ground."

Security begins moving along the walls. The liaison reaches for her.

Mrs Polick slaps her hand away. "Don't touch me!"

"Ma'am, you need to come with us."

"No!" Her scream fractures into a sob before climbing again. "Where were you when she was falling? Where were any of you?"

She turns on the room.

Sponsors avert their eyes. Officials remain seated. A man at the Meridian table lifts his glass to drink as if the interruption is little more than an inconvenience.

Mrs Polick sees him. "Fuck you!" The words detonate through the hall. "Fuck all of you!"

A security officer reaches her table.

She snatches up a black glass and hurls it. It misses him and shatters across the floor, spraying wine and shards of dark crystal over polished shoes.

"You sat here and ate while they showed my baby's body!" she screams. "You bet on her death. You cheered when she hit the ground. You fucking murdered her!"

Two officers seize her arms.

Mrs Polick fights them. She kicks, claws and twists, dragging one officer sideways into the table.

Plates crash to the floor.

"Let me go! Get your hands off me!"

I push back my chair.

Kiera's hand closes around my wrist beneath the table.

"Don't," she says quietly.

"They're dragging her out!"

"I know."

"She needs help!"

"If you cross that room, we'll be penalised." Her gaze meets mine. "I'm sorry, Liz, but we can't afford for you to be noble. We need all the advantage we can get."

Mrs Polick screams again.

Her grief is stripped down to mere sound, her entire body fighting the men hauling her away from the memorial to her child.

I wrench against Kiera's grip.

She holds on.

"Please, Liz. Please."

"I hate this," I whisper.

"So do I."

The officers drag Mrs Polick past the other bereaved families.

The little girl at the third table begins to cry. Her grandmother pulls her close and covers her ears.

One of Oelia's mother's shoes comes off. It remains beneath the table, overturned on the polished floor.

"Rot in hell!" Mrs Polick screams at the stage. "Every one of you! Rot in fucking hell!"

The doors close behind her. Her screams continue from the corridor. They fade slowly.

No one moves. The frozen image of Oelia still smiles above the empty chairs.

Kovac stands at the centre of the stage, waiting.

Not shaken. Not angry.

Patient.

When silence finally returns, she inclines her head towards the remaining families.

"The League recognises that loss affects us all differently."

Mrs Polick's overturned chair is removed.

Her spilled wine is covered with a clean cloth.

The liaison sits back down at the empty table as though Oelia's mother was never there.

"Let us continue," Kovac says.

The memorial resumes.

The four other riders smile above us in turn. Their families remain silent. One father lowers his head. The little girl buries her face against her grandmother's chest. A teenage boy stares at the floor with his jaw clenched so tightly I can see the muscle jumping from across the room.

Nobody else cries.

Some of them have seen what happens when grief becomes inconvenient. Some of them are mourning an investment, not a child.

When the final portrait fades, Kovac raises her glass.

"To those who entered the arena. To those who did not return."

Everyone drinks.

Dinner resumes as the main course is served.

Conversation rises around us with astonishing ease. Sponsors discuss market projections over the remains of Crimson Dominion. Politicians laugh into their wine. A man at the neighbouring table argues that yesterday's deaths prove Game One lacked sufficient weaponry. On the platform, the five black glasses sit full and untouched. Nobody clears them. Nobody looks at them, either.

Survival doesn't make any of us human to the elites in this room. It just makes us entertainment.

After dessert, the tables are cleared from the edge of the dance floor, and Director Hallam steps onto the stage.

"Tradition dictates that the reigning champion open the Survivors' Dance with the rider who most captured the public imagination during the previous Game."

My fork stops halfway to my plate.

Jax leans across the table. "That's you."

My jaw tightens. "No, it's not."

He grins. "Want me to break your ankle?"

I glance over at the Vekk table, seeing that Gabriel is already standing. "Fuck. Maybe. Yes. Do it."

Applause follows Gabriel across the floor. He stops before me and offers his hand, every inch the polished Vekk heir.

"Dance with me, Grunt."

"No."

His smile doesn't shift. "There are four cameras behind you."

"Then I hope they capture my refusal from a flattering angle."

Dr. Bauer clears her throat. I don't need to look at her to feel the threat.

Gabriel bends closer. "If it helps, I'm equally unhappy about this."

"Your face says you're loving this."

"My face has better manners than yours." He wiggles his fingers.

I place my hand in his before Bauer can have me executed with a dessert spoon.

The crowd applauds as Gabriel leads me onto the dance floor. His hand settles against my waist, warm through the thin fabric. Mine rests on his shoulder, and his fingers close around the other. The orchestra begins.

"I don't know how to do this," I hiss.

"I gathered that." He winces when I step on his foot. "You're leading with the wrong leg."

"You're lucky I'm not leading with my fucking knee," I mutter, struggling to follow him.

He guides me into the first turn, and I stumble, catching myself against his chest. His arm tightens, holding me steady.

"Relax," he murmurs, pressing his hand against my lower back. "You're trying to crush my hand."

"I'm imagining it's your throat."

"Whatever gets you through."

The room rotates around us in a haze of candles and watching faces. Gabriel moves with the same control he shows on Helix, anticipating every mistake I make and quietly correcting our path so nobody else notices.

I hate that he's good at this. I especially hate that my body remembers exactly how he felt pressed against it.

His gaze lowers to my throat. "They covered it."

I dig my nails into his shoulder. "Disappointed?"

"I could fix that."

Heat drops through me, low and stupid.

"You come near my neck again and I'll remove your teeth."

His mouth curves. "You didn't object at the time."

"I slapped you."

"After."

"I was drunk!"

"So was I."

"Then it didn't count."

"Is that what you told Wilder?"

My step falters. Gabriel catches me before I tread on my hem.

"I don't know what you mean."

He glances over my head towards the far wall. "He watches you like he's waiting for someone to try taking you from him."

"Bram doesn't own me."

"Didn't say he did."

I glance towards the edge of the floor. Bram stands beside a pillar with a tray balanced on one hand. He isn't smiling now. Our eyes meet across the ballroom.

Gabriel turns, placing himself between us. "Stop looking at him."

"Jealous, Vekk?"

"No." The answer comes too fast.

"Then move your oversized ego. It's blocking my view."

His hand spreads over my waist as he guides me backwards. "Are you sleeping with him?"

I smile sweetly. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

His jaw tightens.

Before I can enjoy the small victory, movement behind him catches my attention. O'Maury has approached Allie.

She sits alone at our table, watching us with the expression of someone witnessing a public execution. O'Maury stops beside her chair and offers his hand.

Allie shakes her head.

His smile widens. He bends and says something near her ear, and the colour leaves her face.

She puts her hand in his.

"What's your goon doing?" I ask.

Gabriel follows my gaze as O'Maury leads Allie onto the floor. "Dancing."

"She doesn't want to."

"Neither did you."

"You didn't threaten me!"

O'Maury positions Allie in his arms. His hand settles at the centre of her back and pulls her closer than necessary. She goes rigid.

I start to turn. Gabriel's grip tightens.

I glare at him. "Let go!"

"You'll cause a scene."

"He's frightening her."

He shrugs. "Rhett frightens everyone."

"That doesn't make it acceptable."

"We're in public. It's highly unlikely he intends her any particular harm."

I try to look past him. Gabriel turns us smoothly, keeping me moving. Across the floor, O'Maury says something that makes Allie stumble. His hand closes around hers, holding her upright. To the watching cameras, it probably looks intimate.

I know an interrogation when I see one.

"Get him away from her," I hiss, digging my fingernails into Gabriel's neck.

He winces but keeps dancing. "Cartwright is capable of speaking for herself."

"She said no!"

"So did you. And yet here we both are."

I glare up at him. "You're an asshole."

"I've been called worse by better."

O'Maury spins Allie beneath his arm. As she returns, I catch a fragment of his question.

"—tell Reeves?"

Allie shakes her head. Gabriel doesn't react.

He didn't hear.

I search Allie's face when the dance brings us closer.

"I heard nothing," i hear her say.

O'Maury's smile stays pleasant. "You're a terrible liar, little dove."

The next turn carries us away.

Gabriel looks down at me, his expression blank.

"What?"

He shrugs. "I'm just trying to figure out how you survived."

"Maybe I'm a better rider than you think."

"You're not. And if you're not careful, next Game you'll end up six feet under just like Oelia."

The alliance sits like a stone behind my ribs.

Gabriel's team has no idea what's coming. In thirteen days, three corporations will descend on them at once. Kiera refused to join the attack, but she also made it clear we won't interfere. We'll collect our orbs while Vekk bleeds.

I study Gabriel's face.

He killed five people yesterday. He's threatened Kai. Humiliated me. Treated me like an irritation since the moment I fell onto Helix. He wouldn't warn me if our positions were reversed.

Would he?

The memory of Bloomfield's assault haunts me.

Let her go.

Gabriel could have walked away that night. He didn't.

Fuck. I hate owing people.

The orchestra begins the final progression. Our bodies draw closer as the remaining dancers circle around us.

This is my opportunity. I could tell him everything. Meridian. Apex. Shinhu. The coordinated attack. The plan to cut through his support riders and leave him isolated.

My loyalty belongs to Azura. My silence may get people killed.

"Watch your back in the next Game, Vekk."

His gaze drops to mine. "What?"

I force myself not to look away. "You heard me."

His thumb moves once against my waist. "Planning to put a knife in it, Grunt?"

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

"Gabriel." It's the first time I've used his name. His expression shifts. Not enough to call softness, but the amusement falls away.

"I mean it. Watch your back."

His eyes search mine. For one breath, I think he understands.

Then his mouth curves. "You're worried about me."

"Don't flatter yourself."

"Too late."

"You know what? I hope Helix eats you and shits you out like the turd you are."

"There she is." He strokes his thumb over my inner wrist. "How I've missed the sweet words you whisper."

"Fucking bastard."

The music ends. Applause rises around us. Gabriel releases my hand but keeps the other at my waist for one beat longer than necessary.

"Have no fear, Grunt. I always watch my back," he murmurs. He steps away.

He didn't understand.

I can't tell if the sick feeling in my gut is relief or disappointment.

Fuck it. I did my duty.

I turn, searching the dance floor for Allie.

I've got more important things to do than save a serial killer.

Allie doesn’t return to our table.

Her chair's empty, her tablet abandoned beside an untouched dessert. I search the crowd and see O'Maury strolling back to the Vekk table with the satisfied expression of a man who's concluded his business.

Fuck. 

Whatever he said to her, it must have been bad if she scampered away like a rat hiding from a cat. I scan the hall and catch a flash of Azura blue slipping through the terrace doors.

I follow, weaving between dancers and dodging a waiter with a tray of champagne. Nikolai calls my name somewhere behind me. I ignore him, pretending the orchestra swallowed it.

The night air hits my face as I step outside. The Academy gardens stretch below, lit paths threading between hedges and reflecting pools. Beyond the walls, the Northern Quadrant glows against the dark, its towers looking down on the rest of the city.

It’d be beautiful if it wasn’t a view bought with blood. I find Allie standing at the rail, her head bowed. She grips the stone railing with both hands, her knuckles white.

"What did he want?" I ask. 

She doesn't answer.

"Allie?"

"To know what I heard at the pool." Her voice shakes despite her attempt to steady it. "Whether I told you, Kiera or anyone else."

"What did you say?"

"That I heard nothing."

"Did he believe you?"

She looks back over her shoulder to the glass doors. I follow her gaze to see O'Maury standing inside with one hand in his pocket, speaking to Gabriel. He glances towards the terrace and lifts his glass to her, his smile reminding me of Gris.

Allie shivers and turns away. "Not even slightly."

"Did he threaten you?"

"Sort of. Not exactly." Her fingers tighten around the railing. "He reminded me that my uncle's position won't protect me from Vekk. Then he asked whether I understood what happens to people who interfere with Gabriel."

What?

I drop my voice, crowding closer. "Did you hear more than you told me?"

She hesitates. "You had enough to worry about." She finally looks at me, eyes over-bright behind her glasses. "There's more."

“Seriously?"

Her voice wobbles between fury and fear. "He… knows something about me. Something I’ve tried to hide. He offered to discuss the terms in his quarters. He made it very clear what currency he had in mind."

My grip on the railing could crack stone. "That fucking—"

"Liz, I don’t think he’s completely bad." She pushes her glasses up, flustered. "The threat was delivered along with the offer, but he didn’t press further. The rest of the dance he asked what I drink. What I read." She shakes her head. "Why would a man like that care what I read?"

My jaw tightens. "Because he's manipulating you."

"That's what I'm afraid of." 

I lay a hand on her back. "He's not touching you. Ever. If he comes near you again, I'll feed him to Bee myself."

She splutters. "Please don't joke." Allie takes off her glasses, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know if I can take it.” 

"Who's joking?"

She doesn't answer. She glances back again and O'Maury sees it, winking at her before moving out of view. When I look back, her cheeks are pink, and I know it isn't from champagne.

I know that particular shade of stupid. I've been wearing it since last night.

Oh shit!

"Allie. Do you like him?"

"No!" It comes out too loud. She checks the doors and drops her voice to a furious whisper. "He's terrifying! He's Vekk's attack dog. He cornered me at a pool, and tonight he suggested I sell him my silence with my body. He is the last man in this Academy any sane woman would—" She stops. Breathes. "He's very tall."

"Tall,” I repeat.

“And well, it’s just…” She flushes, looking away. “No one’s ever… You know. I’m not… I’m just…” She stutters to a stop.

“Holy shit, you do like him!” 

"Shut up!"

"Allie!"

"I'm scared of him," she admits. "I just wish that was the only thing I felt. He’s attractive, and I don’t know. I’ve never been the subject of anyone’s interest before. I’m the wallpaper, you know?” She blows out a breath. “Being scared would be simpler than whatever this is."

Simple has never once been on the menu for girls like us.

"Yeah," I say. "I know."

Allie pulls in a shaky breath and straightens, visibly packing it all away. "God, can we talk about anything else? Actually." She turns on me, slapping my arm. "You lied to me this morning!"

"Ow! About what?"

"Your dragon did not bite your neck, you liar!"

Heat crawls up my ears. "He might have."

"Elizabeth! I might be petrified of the beasts, but even I know there’s no possible way that dragon could make a bite that small."

I roll my eyes. "Fine. Gabriel did it. Are you happy?"

"Damn," she whispers, her eyes widening behind her glasses. “That's… did you like it?” 

I shrug. “I didn’t not like it.”

She shakes her head, leaning against the rail. “What a pair we make.” 

I bump her hip with mine, leaning beside her. “Yeah. Just two girls who have seriously fucked up priorities when it comes to men.”

She raises her hand, pretending to wave a flag. “Red flags ahoy.” 

We fall into silence, watching the dance of people on the other side of the glass. The music reaches us through the doors. I watch these rich pricks smile and chat and dance, circling each other like sharks around prey. 

They may have more credits than god, and be cleaner, but these people aren’t any different than those in the Rookery. There’s no heroes here. No goodness. Nothing but greed and survival at any cost. 

"Did you warn him?" Allie asks quietly, breaking the silence. 

I glance over at her. "About what?"

"The alliance."

I stiffen, hesitating. "I told him to watch his back."

She stares at me.

"What?"

"That isn't a warning. You threaten him every time you speak."

I turn towards the gardens. "I tried."

"No. You did enough to assuage your guilt. That’s not the same thing."

“Oof. Don’t hold back, Allie.” 

Allie's anger fades as quickly as it came. Her shoulders slump. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You're right."

The terrace doors open, forcing us both to shut up. Of all the people in the world, I don’t expect it to be Daisy who slips outside. She closes the doors behind her, her smile warm when she looks at us.

"I hope I'm not interrupting?"

"Not at all." 

She pulls me into a tight hug. "You did it," she whispers. "You magnificent, terrifying bitch."

"I mostly screamed and crashed."

"You did both beautifully."

She releases me and turns to Allie. "You must be the Allie. I’ve heard all about you."

Allie pushes her glasses up her nose. "Um, yes?"

I grin. "Allie, this is Daisy. She and I knew each other back in the Rookery."

Daisy kisses Allie's cheeks. "Anyone Liz trusts is worth knowing."

The terrace door opens again. Bram steps outside carrying three glasses of champagne and a folded white cloth over one arm. "Thought the survivors might be thirsty."

Daisy arches an eyebrow. "What about me?"

Bram hands her a glass. "You most of all."

Her expression softens and she takes the wine. Allie accepts hers, leaving Bram with none.

"What about you?" I ask, tipping the crystal towards him. 

He scoffs. "I'm working."

"You've never allowed employment to interfere with drinking."

"I’m on a path of personal improvement."

Daisy snorts.

Bram sets the tray on the railing and glances back through the doors.

"Drones don't do the terrace while the dance floor's lit," he says quietly, catching my curious look. "The cameras like rich people dancing." He looks at Daisy. "Did you manage to speak to him?"

She rolls her eyes. "I listened while Preston spoke at him. Men reveal extraordinary things when they assume the woman beside them is furniture."

"And?"

"He’s real, at least."

Bram's posture changes.

"Who?" I ask, glancing between them. 

They both look at me.

"The broker," Daisy says. "The one who may be able to move your…” She glances at Allie. “Product."

My champagne sours on my tongue. "You know about that?"

"I told Tova," Bram says by way of explanation. 

"And Tova told me," Daisy says. She winks. "We're excellent at secrets."

"So I'm learning,” I drawl dryly. 

“What am I missing?” Allie asks, her gaze bouncing between us.

I hesitate, unsure how much to reveal. “It’s something not quite legal.” 

She freezes, her eyes narrowing. “How ‘not legal'?”

Bram lowers his voice. "We found a broker who finds buyers looking to collect restricted biological material. Dragon teeth. Tissue. Genetic samples."

“The dragons,” she breathes. “You want to sell their bio waste.” 

I nod, wincing. “They need the credits, and we’re not using the discarded scales.”

She blows out a breath. “Wow. I wasn’t expecting this.” 

Daisy’s smile is small. "Rich people rarely are."

“Can you keep the secret?” I ask Allie. 

She nods slowly. “Honestly? I’ve never agreed with how little regard has been given to the Rookery. I mean, they’re not even counted in the census, let alone—”

I interrupt her. “Sorry, Al, time is limited. We can discuss your rich girl privilege later.”

She shrugs. “That’s fine.” 

"Do you trust the broker?" I ask Daisy. 

"No," Daisy and Bram say together.

Daisy continues. "But I trust the client who gave me the name. He's greedy, vain and terribly selfish in bed. Men with that particular combination tend to only work with those they can trust."

"We’ll background-check the broker before anyone makes contact," Bram says. "If this is legit, we’ll arrange a meet."

"We?" I ask. 

His eyes settle on mine. "Scale's yours."

"I gave it to you."

"You tried to leave it to me because you thought you were going to die."

"Doesn't make it less yours."

"Does to me."

The ballroom glitters beyond him. Gabriel stands near the orchestra, listening to Kovac while O'Maury watches the terrace.

"Why didn't you take it?" I ask.

Bram's expression loses its humour. "I’m not collecting a dead woman's bequest."

My throat tightens. 

Daisy looks away, giving us privacy without going anywhere. Allie becomes intensely interested in her champagne.

Bram steps closer. "You want me to take it now, I will. But you're going to be there when I do, and you're going to understand what happens next. If we move that scale, Gris can't know. The League can't know. No one in this building can know."

"How comforting," I mutter. 

He places a finger under my chin, tilting my face up. "Fifty thousand credits is enough to buy interest from dangerous people, Saint."

I force a shrug. "I live in a building full of dangerous people."

"Exactly."

His gaze moves briefly towards Gabriel. "Daisy will find out tonight whether her broker is the real deal."

Daisy raises her glass. "And whether they have buyers willing to pay for it."

"Tomorrow night," Bram says. "Your room. We collect the scale together."

"And then?"

"After that, we work out how to sell it without ending up in Gris's ledger as a cautionary tale."

"What about Tova?"

"She’s in the Rookery dealing with Gris. Someone’s gotta make sure he doesn’t catch wind of this before it’s a done deal."

"And you?"

His hand slides up to cup my jaw. His lips quirk into a cocky smile. "I do the dangerous parts."

A body crashes into the door behind us, followed by laughter. It breaks the spell around the four of us. 

Bram steps back, dropping his hand, leaving the heat of his touch behind. 

Daisy sets down her half-drunk glass. "I should find Preston before he mistakes my absence for independence." She kisses my cheek, and brushes her fingers against Bram's wrist. “Allie, can I escort you back in?”

Allie nods, throwing me a look over her shoulder as they leave.

Bram picks up his tray. 

I hesitate, wondering if I have a right to ask what I’m about to. "Bram?” 

He turns. "Yeah?” His eyes narrow. “Why have you got your scheming face on?"

"I need you to find something for me."

His eyebrows lift. "Thought I was already stealing a dragon scale."

"I need a holodisk reader."

The humour slips from his face. "What for?"

"My Dad gave me a disk before I came here. I don’t know what’s on it."

Bram glances at the door behind me. "Does anyone know you have it?"

"No."

"And this place doesn’t have a reader?"

"It’s old tech. And I don’t think Dad wants me to let people know I have it."

"Fuck,” he curses softly. "How old?"

"The casing is stamped with the year." I tell him the date. "Dad said I needed a reader from the same period or one with backwards compatibility. Anything newer will either reject the disk or try to convert it through a League-connected system."

"And you don't want it touching their network.” He nods slowly. 

"Dad was very clear about that."

"What's on it?"

"I don't know. He said it contained everything he didn't have time to teach me."

Bram studies my face. Behind us, music pours through the terrace doors as the orchestra begins another dance. Somewhere in that ballroom, wealthy people are drinking to our survival while planning how to profit from our deaths.

"Do you think you can get me one?" I ask.

"A working holodisk reader from the correct year that isn't registered, networked or being watched?"

I wince. "When you say it like that, it sounds difficult."

"It sounds expensive."

I hesitate. "If I tell you this, you can’t let anyone else know.” I cast a glance at the door. “Promise me, Bram.”

His eyes narrow. “Go on.”

I hesitate, dropping my voice, stepping close. “Bet on Vekk Industries losing riders in the next Game."

Bram stares at me. For once, there's no immediate joke. His head tilts as he searches my face, confusion giving way to suspicion.

"Vekk are odds-on favourites to win."

"Trust me. You'll more than earn your money back."

He frowns. "What do you know, Liz? And why do I get the feeling this is dangerous?"

If Vekk is going to bleed, someone I care about might as well profit from it.

"Just place the bet before the odds shift."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting tonight."

His gaze stays locked on mine. "How many riders?"

"I don't know." I cross my arms over my chest. “You gonna place the bet or not?” 

"I want to know whether placing that wager gets my throat cut."

"That's a risk every time you enter Gris's den. You and I both know that."

"Fair." He considers me for another long moment. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do.” 

He reaches past me and pushes the ballroom door open. Music and conversation flood the terrace. He steps through, adjusting his cuffs as the charming server slips into place over the thief.

"We deal with the scale first," he mutters, holding the door for me.

"And the reader?" I press. 

He grins. "I said I'll see what I can do, Saint. Don’t push your luck.” 

Then he's gone, swallowed by black suits and glittering gowns.

I stand there for a count of twenty before I follow, slipping back into the noise and candlelight like I never left.

I make it four steps before I see him.

Gabriel. 

He’s beside the next set of terrace doors, glass in hand.

He saw me return with Bram. He watches me realise it, and he smiles—slow, pleased, patient—then raises his glass in a small, private toast.

Fuckity fuck fuck! 

The ballroom doors bang open.

The music stumbles. Heads turn. A stable hand stands in the entrance, grey uniform streaked with sand and blood, chest heaving like he's run a marathon. His eyes sweep the glittering crowd, wild, searching.

They find me.

"Reeves!" His voice cracks across the hall. "Come quick! It's Eight B!"

I hike my skirts to my thighs and run.

The stable hand leads the way through the ballroom, scattering guests in his wake. I follow, seeing the bloody smears from his boots on the marble flooring. Crystals bite into my palms where I’ve gathered several thousand credits’ worth of silver-blue fabric.

Bee, what have you done? 

Nikolai shouts my name. I ignore him, dodging a sponsor too slow to move and almost taking a tray of champagne with me. Glasses topple behind me, followed by a shriek of outrage that’s quickly swallowed by the music and noise.

The stable hand pushes through the main doors and I chase him into the corridor. My heels hammer against the polished floor, each step jarring my bandaged ribs. The dress tangles around my legs despite my best efforts to hold it clear, layers of sheer fabric wrapping around my calves.

One heel catches as I reach the stairs.

My ankle rolls, sending me sideways into the railing. Pain tears through my ribs, sharp enough to steal my breath.

“Fuck!” 

I kick off both shoes and keep moving. By the time I reach the lower corridor, footsteps thunder behind me. I glance back, seeing riders pouring from the Survivors’ Dinner in a wave of black suits and glittering gowns, drawn by the stable hand’s blood and the promise of a fresh disaster.

Gabriel leads them. 

I ignore him, hurrying after the hand who shoves through the rear doors and breaks into a flat-out sprint. 

Cold air slams into me as I follow, hurrying toward the dragon complex. I’ve made the walk every day since arriving at the Academy, but tonight the distance stretches impossibly far beneath the lamplights.

A roar tears through the dark. The sound rolls over the Academy grounds, deep enough to vibrate inside my chest.

Every dragon in the complex answers.

Eight B roars again.

Louder.

Furious.

Goddamn it! 

I hike up another handful of my skirt and run harder.

The grass is wet beneath my bare feet. Stones and clipped stems cut into my soles, but the pain barely registers beside the burning in my lungs. My ribs feel as though they’re being pulled apart from the inside, and my injured arm throbs beneath its sheer sleeve. 

Fire bursts from the ventilation stacks above the stable complex. The building doesn’t catch. It was built to contain creatures capable of melting steel, with fire-retardant panels and an automated suppression system powerful enough to drown an ordinary building.

That doesn’t stop Eight B from trying.

Another blast lights the roof from below. White suppressant erupts through the vents, turning the air above the stable cloudy.

“Bee!” I scream, gasping for breath. “I’m coming!” 

An alarm wails, a relentless, jagged, ear-piercing screech that drills straight into my eardrums. Red emergency lights flash over the entrances. 

As I draw closer, I can hear the slamming of bodies against reinforced walls, the shriek of claws scraping across steel.

I round the final corner and skid to a stop at the stable entrance. Duncan staggers backwards through the stable doors, dragging an unconscious man.

Blood. It’s all I see. Black-red, tacky, flowing, it covers Duncan’s hands, his chest, the front of his uniform. It pours from the unconscious man’s shoulder, soaking what remains of his white dinner shirt. His arm hangs at an impossible angle, ripped almost entirely from its socket. Strips of flesh stretch and tear beneath its weight as Duncan lowers him onto the concrete.

Someone vomits behind me.

Stable hands swarm the injured man, forcing him flat while one presses the flesh above his ruined shoulder. He wakes with a scream, his shoes striking the concrete as he thrashes, smearing blood beneath their polished soles.

Duncan spots me at the edge of the crowd and strides over, his face streaked with sweat, blood, and soot.

“He’s gone fucking feral.” He jabs a finger towards the stable. “Rich fuckers tried to ride him, and he’s ripped them apart. He’ll kill himself and everyone else if we don’t settle him.”

I swallow hard, fighting against the fear clawing in my throat. “How?” 

“I don’t fucking know, Reeves. Get your fucking ass in there before he kills someone else!” 

I plunge into the smoking building. 

The air inside is almost impossible to breathe. Smoke mixes with the white suppressant hanging in the corridor, turning the flashing emergency lights into red smears. The chemical catches at the back of my throat, bitter and caustic. I cough into my elbow, but the first breath only drags it deeper into my lungs.

The main stable block is chaos.

Dragons slam against the reinforced walls of their individual stalls, agitated by the alarms and the scent of blood. Fire rolls across the ceiling farther down the corridor, triggering another burst from the suppression system. Handlers run between the enclosures, opening emergency routes and screaming instructions no one can hear over the alarms and roars.

“Evacuate the block!” Duncan bellows behind me. “Riders, get your dragons to the flight grounds. Move!”

The riders scatter.

Kiera takes control of Azura, sending Ty and Chloe towards their stalls before running for Tempest. Jax passes me with his shirt half untucked and his dinner jacket held over his face.

Other riders push into the block, still dressed for the Survivors’ Dinner. Gowns drag through chemical foam. Polished shoes slide across blood and wet concrete. Someone from Meridian is openly sobbing as she fights with the emergency release on her dragon’s gate.

Nobody looks polished now. 

Eight B roars again.

The sound shakes suppressant from the ceiling.

I gather my skirts and keep moving, following a slick trail of blood towards his stall. A section of metal has been torn from the wall and lies across the corridor. I climb over it, catching the hem of my dress on one jagged edge.

The fabric jerks me backwards.

Pain tears through my ribs as I fight to pull it free. The suppressant has soaked through the delicate outer layers, making the gown heavy. 

Goddamn this fucking thing!

I release the skirt and reach for the fastening at my back. My fingers slide over wet fabric, crystals and bare skin without finding it.

“Hold still.”

Allie appears through the chemical haze. Her glasses are fogged, and she has one hand pressed over her mouth. The bottom of her blue dress is soaked white with suppressant. Her face is white, her eyes wide with terror. Every impact from the surrounding stalls makes her flinch, but she keeps moving my way.

“Allie, no! What are you doing in here?”

She cringes when a dragon slams into the stall closest to her, but keeps walking. “Helping you.”

“You’re petrified of dragons!”

“You think I don’t know that?”

Eight B throws himself agains tthe wall of his enclosure, roaring hot air and fire at the roof. The impact shakes the floor, and more suppressant shoots out of the vents above us, clouding the air.

Allie goes rigid. Her eyes are enormous behind her misted glasses, and her chest rises in short, shallow breaths. Then she continues forward, gently pushing my hands away. 

“Let me.”

Her trembling fingers find the concealed fastening and drag it down my spine. Hot air sears my skin as she peels the gown from my shoulders, careful of the dressing covering my burned arm.

The fabric catches around my hips. 

“Shove it,” I say, wiggling while she pulls. “Rip it if you have to.”

“I’m trying,” she grunts, tugging harder. She plants one foot against the ruined hem and yanks.

The gown finally gives, sliding over my hips and collapsing into a glittering, chemical-soaked heap around my bare feet.

I step out of it wearing nothing but my underwear and the white medical strapping around my ribs.

The suppressant immediately finds every cut and abrasion on my skin, burning fiercely. 

I curse, turning toward Bee’s stall, forcing myself to ignore the pain. 

“Wait!” Allie drops to her knees and searches along the inner seam. Her first attempt slips. On the second, the stitches tear with a sharp ripping sound. Allie pulls free a long strip of fabric and stands. “Turn around.” 

She wraps the fabric over my mouth and nose. Her fingers shake so badly that the first knot comes loose. She curses beneath her breath, coughing against the burning chemical, but determinedly ties it again, tighter this time.

Another dragon screams.

Allie’s hands freeze against the back of my head.

“You need to get out,” I order. “Go, Allie!” 

She doesn’t move.

I spin, giving her a little shove. “Allie! Go!”

“Don’t try to command him.” She grips my shoulders. “Not while he’s like this. He’ll think you’re a threat.” She breaks out in a coughing fit, bending over, her eyes watering. “Watch him. Tail, wings—” she gasps, coughing once more. 

“Fuck, Allie!” I drop beside her, placing a hand on her back. 

A massive shape moves through the suppressant behind her.

Helix fills the corridor.

The female is so large that the span of her folded wings nearly touches both walls. Her purple-chrome scales flash beneath the red emergency lights, and each step sends a tremor through the concrete.

Gabriel walks beside her, one hand pressed to the underside of her jaw as he guides her towards the exit. His dinner jacket is gone, and the sleeves of his white shirt have been shoved to his elbows. Helix’s violet eyes move constantly, searching for whatever has upset the rest of the stable block.

O’Maury follows several paces behind them.

Helix sees me.

She slows, nostrils flaring as her gaze travels over my exposed skin.

Gabriel follows her attention.

His eyes land on the fabric covering my face, then drop to the bandages around my ribs and the bruises marking my stomach and thighs.

His expression hardens.

Eight B thunders out another roar.

Helix’s head snaps towards his stall. Her wings begin to open. Gabriel grabs the ridge beneath her jaw and pulls her attention back to him.

“No.” He presses his forehead briefly against her scales. “Keep moving.”

O’Maury looks away from them, his eyes narrowing on Allie.

He changes direction without a word.

One moment, I’m crouched beside her. The next, his arm circles her waist and she’s lifted clean off the floor.

Allie lets out a startled squeak as he throws her over his shoulder. She tries to push herself upright, but another coughing fit folds her across his back. O’Maury secures one arm around her thighs, turns and carries her towards the exit.

He doesn’t say a fucking word and, for once, I’m grateful for his particular method of dealing with problems.

Gabriel continues guiding Helix through the suppressant. Her enormous tail sweeps past me, close enough that I feel the rush of air across my skin. 

Eight B roars again, and someone begins screaming inside his stall.

Fuck! 

I push myself upright. The damaged inner gate bows towards the corridor, its locking mechanism hanging from exposed wiring. Deep gouges score the reinforced metal, and a broken suppression nozzle swings above the entrance, striking the wall with a dull, rhythmic clang.

Beyond it, something enormous moves through the smoke.

I tighten the fabric over my mouth.

Then I climb through the broken gate.

The heat hits first.

It presses against my exposed skin, trapped inside walls designed not to burn. The strip of fabric over my face filters some of the heat, but every breath still scrapes down my throat and sears my lungs.

The stall looks as though a bomb has detonated inside it.

Eight B has torn the feeding mechanism from the wall. Wires spit sparks into the chemical haze, and half his enrichment toys lie crushed beneath his feet. One of the overhead suppressant nozzles hangs by its cables, swinging back and forth as it sprays foam across the sand.

My bare foot lands in something warm.

I look down.

Blood.

It runs across the floor in dark smears, gathering in the shallow grooves around my toes. A bloody handprint marks the wall beside me, the fingers dragged downward before disappearing into a thick swipe.

I follow it to the first body.

A man in a blue dinner jacket lies crumpled against the base of an enrichment tower. His spine bends in a direction it shouldn’t, his head resting near one shoulder while his body faces the other.

One shoe remains on his foot. The other sits several feet away with something still inside it.

My stomach rolls.

Bee, what did you do?

The second body lies closer to the back of the stall.

Eight B has one foreclaw planted over the guy’s chest. His talons pierce the floor on either side, but the weight alone has crushed the man flat. His face is gone, burned away with most of his hair. What remains of his white shirt smoulders beneath Eight B’s claw.

Eight B lifts his head, scenting the air.

Blood coats his muzzle and runs between his teeth. His wings are spread to their full width, the membranes rigid enough to reveal every vein beneath the grey-blue surface. His tail stretches straight behind him, twitching.

His breathing comes in short, sharp bursts.

Stressed. Aggressive. Feral. 

The gash along his flank has reopened. Blood runs over his scales and drips from his belly, mixing with the blood beneath him.

Behind his left wing, two men huddle against the rear wall.

One wears the remains of a silver dinner jacket. The other has lost most of his shirt and presses both hands over a deep burn covering his side. Their faces are wet with tears, eyes fixed on the dragon standing between them and the only exit.

Eight B’s head snaps towards me.

Fire burns at the seams of his throat.

I stop.

His sea-green eyes lock onto mine, pupils narrowed to thin black slits. There’s no curiosity in them. No recognition. Nothing of the dragon I know.

This is the animal the Academy warned me about. The dragon who killed every rider they tried to force onto his back.

I lower my gaze to his chest, adopting a submissive pose. 

“Hey, Bee.”

He roars.

The sound strikes me at close range, snapping the loose ends of the fabric tied around my face. Heat rolls over my bare skin, carrying the smell of blood, chemicals and cooked flesh. The power of it pushes me back a step, my ears ringing, my hair wet with dragon spit, whips behind me.

He stops, dropping his head to snap at the ground. 

Behind him, one of the men starts crying harder. Eight B’s attention shifts towards the sound.

“Hey.” I take one step sideways. “I’m over here, big guy.”

His tail lashes.

It slams into the wall hard enough to crack one of the heat-resistant panels.

I freeze. The glow in his throat brightens.

“Okay,” I whisper. “You don’t like that.” I lift my hands slowly, showing him my empty palms. “It’s me, Mister Bee. Liz. Your friend. I’m the one who feeds you, remember? The chick who sneaks you some tasty treats when no one’s looking?”

His nostrils flare, but the suppressant coats everything. My scent. His. The dead men. The blood covering the floor.

I take another step.

Eight B lowers his head, his eyes locked on me.

Not in recognition.

In preparation.

My heart strikes hard against my ribs. Every instinct I honed in the Rookery tells me to run. Find an exit. Get behind something larger and less flammable.

But the only exit is behind me, and there’s no escaping a dragon. 

You came in here for him. You have to see this through. 

I force myself to remain still, lowering my voice to the same calm, gentle tone I’ve used with Kai numerous times. “I know you’re scared, Bee.”

A growl vibrates through the stall.

“Yeah, well, me too.”

His wings stay rigid.

I move slowly, placing each foot carefully to avoid the shattered equipment covering the floor. Glass cuts into my heel, and I bite back a gasp. I feel it enter, sharp and cold, followed by a rush of warmth as blood joins everything already coating the sand.

Eight B’s eye tracks the movement.

“I promise, dude, it’s me,” I murmur. “Just with fewer clothes. But then I think you’d have burned me on sight just for wearing that monstrosity. Seriously, those shoulder-pad sleeves were atrocious.”

One wing shifts.

The men behind him see it too.

The one in the silver jacket rises.

“No,” I warn, forcing my voice to stay calm. “Let me get him under control first.” 

The guy ignores me, his eyes fixed on the damaged gate.

Motherfucker! He’s gonna get himself killed. 

Eight B’s attention remains on me.

“Good boy,” I praise. “Such a good boy. Did those dickheads think they could ride you? I bet you were sleeping, huh? Resting after your big battle. Well, I can’t blame you for being grumpy and a little stabby. I know what it’s like to get woken up by rich pricks who don’t know how to respect boundaries.” 

I take a slight step forward, and Eight B snorts, but I see his wings relax. 

“Good boy,” I praise, staying still. “Such a good—” 

The man makes a break for it. 

“No!”

Eight B twists, a roar bursting from his throat. His foreclaw sweeps across the stall, the tip catching the man across his back and shoulder.

Fabric, skin and muscle open together, and he flies sideways, hitting the ground hard. His scream becomes a wet gasp as he curls around himself, blood flooding from four parallel wounds.

Eight B lunges after him.

I run directly into his path, throwing my arms wide.

“BEE! Stop!”

His head dips towards me, jaws opening.

I slam both palms against his muzzle. The scales burn beneath my hands, blistering my palms. Blood makes them slick, and my fingers slide as he jerks against me.

“Look at me!”

He snaps his teeth, snorting sulphur and heat into my face. The fabric covering my mouth tears free. I breathe in suppressant, choking as the strip disappears.

Eight B’s chest flares.

White-orange light fills his throat, sparking. 

“Come on,” I rasp. “You want to kill something else?”

His jaws open wider, smoke billowing out. 

“Start with me.”

For one impossible second, Bee doesn’t move.

Fire burns behind his teeth, white at its centre and orange where it catches against the blood coating his jaws. Heat pushes over my exposed skin. The air between us warps until his face breaks apart and reforms through the haze.

My palms remain pressed to his muzzle, my skin bubbling under the heat. 

Every instinct I possess is screaming at me to run.

“Go on, if you must,” I whisper, resigning myself. “I understand.” 

His chest expands, and the scales beneath my hands grow hotter.

I look into his eyes. Sea-green and wild, the pupils narrow to black slashes. Beneath the pain, fury and terror, he’s still in there. 

Fuck. I can’t go out like this. 

I press my hands harder against his scales, staring straight at him. “You know me, Bee. Let’s settle down, yeah?”

Eight B releases a short, violent breath. Smoke rolls around my arms and curls over my shoulders. My lungs seize, every attempt to breathe dragging more chemical dust into my throat.

“I’m the ugly little thing who keeps climbing on you,” I continue. “You know, the one with terrible survival instincts.”

One of his eyelids flickers. It could mean recognition. It could mean he’s choosing which half of me to eat first. Either way, he doesn’t burn me.

Behind him, something scrapes against the floor.

Eight B’s pupils widen.

Fuck!

“Uu-uh. No, buddy. Don’t look over there, look at me.”

His head begins to turn. I slide my hands higher, ignoring the blisters rising beneath my palms, and press my forehead against the armoured ridge above his nostrils.

“Bee, settle.”

A dark shape moves through the suppressant at the edge of my vision.

What the hell is he doing here? 

Gabriel enters low, his body bent beneath the reach of Eight B’s wing. Ty follows so closely he’s almost touching him. Neither man looks at me. Their attention remains fixed on the injured guest lying in the middle of the stall.

Blood pumps slowly from the four furrows across his back.

Too slowly.

His hands twitch against the concrete.

The other survivor remains pressed into the rear corner, both arms wrapped over his head. His dinner jacket has been torn from one shoulder, and urine darkens the front of his trousers.

He sees Gabriel.

Hope breaks across his face.

I lift my head from Bee’s snout and shake my head at him slowly, mouthing “Don’t move.”

He starts crawling anyway.

Of course he fucking does. There aren't enough credits in the Northern Quadrant to purchase these fuckwits an ounce of common sense. They have the survival instincts of a chicken. 

Eight B’s nostrils flare.

“Stay with me,” I murmur, stroking his jaw. “That’s my good boy.” 

His breath blasts across my chest. I force myself not to recoil as sparks scatter over the bandages around my ribs. One catches against the edge of the fabric and dies, leaving a black pinprick behind.

Gabriel reaches the injured man.

Ty takes his shoulders while Gabriel grips his legs. Blood smears over Gabriel’s forearms as they lift, the man’s body sagging between them.

A soft groan escapes him.

Eight B’s tail lashes, striking a wall. The reinforced concrete buckles where it strikes.

“Easy,” I say. “They aren’t taking anything from you.”

His gaze darts past my shoulder.

I move with him, keeping myself inside his line of sight.

“We’re only cleaning away the filth.”

His eyes roll, his massive jaws opening to show blood strings between his teeth.

“You’re right, this is entirely their fault. I’m sure I’d feel the same if someone broke into my room and tried to ride me like a pony without permission.”

Gabriel and Ty carry the wounded man towards the exit. Every step is slow. Careful. The unconscious guest’s arms drag between them, leaving two uneven streaks through the blood.

The remaining man crawls after them.

His eyes stay fixed on the exit. He doesn’t look at the two bodies he leaves behind. One lies close enough that his hand slides through the dead man’s blood, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

Eight B notices.

His head lowers, his ears flicking and his tail begins to whip back and forth like a frenzied snake. 

I step closer until the front of my body presses against his muzzle. The contact hits like a white-hot brand. A sickening hiss sounds where my skin meets his scales. I jump back, but within seconds, the sweet, heavy stench of roasting meat blooms between us, clinging to the roof of my mouth and making my gorge rise.

The heat burrows deep, bypassing mere surface sting to trigger a raw, violent panic that makes the nerve endings misfire into a throbbing, electric agony. Blisters form almost instantly, tight translucent bubbles swelling into the open flesh beneath. Every shallow breath pulls the sharp, metallic tang of scorched protein down into my lungs, anchoring the horror of feeling my body burn.

Ignore it! You need to keep him calm if you’re getting out of here. 

“You’ve done enough,” I tell him, fighting through the white-hot agony. “Settle, my boy. Calm, big guy.” 

A rumble begins deep inside him, the sound travelling through my bones.

“I know.” My voice breaks into a cough that I fight as nausea rolls through me. “I know they hurt you.”

Blood from the gash in his flank runs in thick, dark lines, disappearing beneath his belly. I imagine waking to strange hands on my body, laughter in my ears and metal driven into a wound that hasn’t yet closed.

I stroke his jaw, trying not to gag as my blistered palms break over his scales. “I would have killed them too, Bee. I wish I could feed them to you one expensive piece at a time.” 

The men reach the entry. Ty backs through first, guiding the injured man’s shoulders around the twisted remains of the gate. The other survivor crawls between them, close enough to Gabriel’s legs that he nearly trips him.

They’re almost clear. Then the man looks back.

Eight B stares at him.

For a heartbeat, neither moves. 

Then the guest panics. He surges to his feet and runs.

His shoulder catches the damaged feeding panel hanging from one hinge. Steel tears free from steel. The panel crashes to the floor. The sound explodes through the stall.

Eight B rips his head from my hands. His wings slam open, throwing me backwards. I hit the compacted sand hard enough to empty my lungs. Pain detonates through my ribs.

Bee lunges.

“No!” The survivor screams and throws himself through the entry. Gabriel releases the injured man into Ty’s grip and turns.

Eight B’s claws tear across the floor as he charges after them.

I jerk upright and grab the first thing my hand finds, a length of blood-slick riding strap attached to a broken saddle.

I fling it at Bee. The buckle strikes the ridge above his eye.

Eight B stops. Slowly, he turns towards me.

Oh shit!

His head lowers between his shoulders. The fire grows bright.

“I’m sorry!” I cough, desperately sucking in air as I scramble backwards. “Bee, I’m sorry!” 

Behind him, Gabriel shouts something, but the still-screaming alarms devour the words. The siren continues its relentless rise and fall, each pulse driving Eight B’s claws deeper into the floor.

I get one foot beneath me.

His tail whips against the wall.

The impact splits the already damaged panel from floor to ceiling. Suppressant pours from a ruptured line overhead, striking his back in a white torrent. Eight B roars and snaps at it, his jaws closing around empty air.

I raise both hands. “Calm, Bee! Calm down!”

I hold my ground. If I move, he hunts. If I shout, he hears another threat. If I stay still, he might remember me before he turns my internal organs into steam.

One can only hope. 

His chest swells.

The fire climbs his throat.

There is no hesitation in his eyes this time. Only mindless pain.

“Bee—”

He reels back, opening his mouth. I raise a hand, knowing it’s useless, knowing that I won’t die in the arena but here, in a dirty stable beside a pile of dragon shit. 

I’m sorry, Kai. I guess I was never meant to be more than a smudge on a sidewalk. 

Something strikes me from the side.

An arm locks around my waist as my feet leave the floor. The momentum drives us both behind the fallen feeding barrier a fraction of a second before Eight B unleashes the fire.

The world becomes white.

Heat crashes over the steel. The barrier shrieks as its protective coating blisters and peels. The person twists above me, one hand cradling the back of my head while his body covers mine.

I force my eyes open.

Gabriel Vekk stares down at me.

His face is inches from mine, stripped of arrogance and amusement. The silver flecks in his eyes catch the firelight, and for one disorienting second, he looks every bit as feral as the dragon trying to kill us.

Fire finds the gap beneath the panel.

It races over the floor in thin orange streams, close enough to curl the hair at my temple. Gabriel drags my legs against his and presses me deeper into the sand.

His shirt is smoking, his face red and stained with sweat and dirt and ash.

Our gazes lock, holding as a lifetime passes between one heartbeat and the next. 

The blast stops. For half a breath, there is nothing but the tick of overheated steel.

Then Eight B inhales again.

“Move!” Gabriel barks. He hauls me upright before my body remembers how to work.

“I have to get back to him!” I protest, fighting his grip.

“We have to get out.” He tugs me along, dragging me toward the gate.

“But—” 

Done with arguing, Gabriel hooks one arm beneath my knees.

“What are you—”

He lifts me against his chest.

Eight B roars behind us.

Gabriel runs.

Every stride jars my ribs. I grab his shoulders to stop myself falling and catch sight of Eight B over them. He comes after us, claws gouging the floor, but a ceiling batten has fallen across his path. His wing strikes the wall when he tries to clear it, twisting his body sideways.

That obstruction buys us a handful of seconds. Gabriel uses all of them. He carries me through the broken gate as another burst of fire scorches the corridor behind us, bursting out into the clean, fresh night air. 

As if they were waiting for us, Duncan and two stable hands drag the exterior doors closed, the reinforced panels meet with a deafening clang.

Eight B hits them violently from the other side. The doors bow outwards. Everyone stumbles back, the ground shaking under our feet. 

I push against Vekk’s chest. “Let me go.”

His arms tighten. “No.”

“He’s alone in there.”

“The bastard tried to burn you alive.”

I fight him, squirming in his arms. “He’s frightened.”

“So am I.”

The admission is so sharp and unexpected that I freeze.

Gabriel’s face is inches from mine. Suppressant streaks through his dark hair. Soot smears one cheek, and there’s blood across his jaw that I’m not sure is his.

“Please put me down,” I murmur, my gaze locked with his. 

Slowly, his eyes search my face, he does as I ask.

Eight B breaks our look by slamming into the doors. The metal bows another inch.

“Fuck! He’s going to break his neck.” I turn, hurrying across to the entry. 

Duncan is shouting at the stable hands to reinforce the locking mechanism. An officer appears with a rifle designed to punch sedatives through dragon armour.

The tranquilliser canisters clipped beneath the barrel are large enough to stop Helix.

“Put that down!” I order, then bend over, coughing up suppressant chemicals. 

The officer ignores me and braces the weapon against his shoulder. 

Gabriel steps between us.

“Lower it,” he orders. 

The officer frowns. “The animal is actively breaching containment.”

“And the rider is attempting to settle him.”

“The rider is the target of his aggression.”

“I noticed.”

Eight B strikes the door again. The central hinge twists.

The officer raises the rifle higher, readying himself for when Bee breaks through. 

I straighten, sucking in gasps of air and swiping at my watering eyes. “No, you can’t—”

Gabriel catches the barrel and shoves it towards the ground.

“Vekk—”

“If you fire without authorisation and kill a registered League asset, you’ll spend the rest of your miserable life paying for the privilege.” He leans in, fisting the man’s shirt. “Do you understand me?” 

The officer’s jaw tightens.

For once, obscene wealth proves useful.

“Someone turn off that fucking alarm!” Duncan bellows.

A stable hand runs towards the emergency controls. He slaps his palm against the panel, enters a code and swears.

“It’s locked into the suppression system.”

“Override it.”

“I’m trying!”

The siren screams on. Through the reinforced doors, Eight B roars with it. The two sounds climb over one another until I can no longer tell where the machine ends and the dragon begins.

A man in service whites shoulders through the crowd.

Bram.

His waistcoat is gone, his collar hangs open and something dark streaks one side of his shirt. His gaze finds me. It moves over my bare legs, the blood on my skin and Gabriel’s hand locked around my arm.

He stops for half a beat. Then Eight B strikes the doors again.

“Can you stop the alarm?” I rasp.

Bram looks towards the emergency panel. A stable hand stands in front of it, stabbing uselessly at the controls while a red message flashes across the display.

AUDIBLE ISOLATION REQUIRES EMERGENCY COMMAND AUTHORISATION.

“Probably.”

He crosses the yard and drops to one knee before the locked compartment beneath the screen.

“You can’t open that,” the stable hand says. “Command carries the override key.”

“Then there’s no harm in having a poke, is there?” Bram pulls two narrow pieces of metal from inside his cuff before sliding both tools into the lock. 

The stable hand reaches for him. “Interfering with an active emergency system is—”

“You wanna deal with this?” Bram asks Gabriel. 

“You’re dismissed. Mention this to anyone and I’ll kill you myself.”

The stable hand scrambles to his feet and runs off, fleeing into the night. 

Bram hums under his breath, adjusting the tools. Finally, the lock clicks. He opens the compartment and presses the silence control.

The alarm cuts off halfway through its next wail.

The suppression system continues hissing through the walls. My ears manufacture the missing sound, a high whine lodged somewhere behind my skull.

Eight B hits the doors again.

Once.

A second impact follows, weaker than the first.

Then nothing.

Nobody speaks.

Somewhere behind me, an evacuated dragon gives a low, distressed call.

Eight B answers. His roar is still furious, but without the alarm cutting through the air, I can hear something beneath the rage.

A crack. His roar falls at the end, becoming a low growl. 

I pull away from Gabriel. This time, he lets me.

“Open the door.”

Duncan looks at the warped panels. “Reeves—”

“Not all the way. Enough for him to see me.”

“He’ll rip them apart.”

“He’s doing that anyway.”

The tranquilliser officer steps forward. “This is insane.”

“I think it’s safe to say we all left sanity back at the ballroom.”

Bram rises from the panel. His gaze meets mine. “You sure, Saint?” 

I nod.

He doesn’t try to stop me.

Duncan swears, moves to the manual release and disengages the lower lock. The door opens six inches before the damaged hinge catches.

Smoke curls through the gap.

I approach slowly.

Eight B’s eye appears on the other side. His pupil contracts when he sees me.

“Hello, Bee.” I slowly hold my arms out to my side. “Hello, gorgeous boy.” 

A low growl vibrates through the door. I stop an arm’s length away. My body has begun to shake. Not visibly, I hope, though I suspect that wish has failed. Blood from my palms runs along my wrists. Every breath scrapes the inside of my lungs.

I lower myself to the ground.

Eight B watches, snorting loudly. 

Nobody behind me makes a sound.

“So, it’s been a hell of a night, hey?”

His eye disappears. Claws scrape against the concrete. The doors shudder as his body moves past them, and for one sick moment I think he’s circling for another strike. Then his muzzle presses against the gap.

Blood and soot cover his scales. A piece of silver-blue fabric hangs from one horn—the remains of the dress lining I lost when Gabriel tackled me.

I extend one hand. He jerks back. I stop.

“All right, bud. I get it. It’s hard to trust when we’re out here and you’re locked in there by your lonesome.”

His nostrils flare.

“Take your time. Apparently, we have all night.”

Behind me, someone shifts their weight.

Eight B snarls.

“Everyone back,” Gabriel orders sharply.

Boots retreat behind me, crunching on the gravel.

I don’t look away from Bee.

His wings are still raised when he passes the gap again, but they no longer strain at full extension. One sags lower than the other, dragged down by exhaustion or pain.

I begin talking because the silence gives fear too much room. 

“You missed a really horrible dinner.”

Eight B’s claws scrape across the floor.

“Seriously, terrible. You would’ve hated it. Too many people, nowhere to lie down and not one decent mouthful of protein. Almost makes me miss the shit cakes they call rations down in the Rookery.”

His muzzle passes the gap. Smoke spills from his nostrils, but he doesn’t strike the doors.

“You know they had six forks? Six. All arranged around one plate as though I might need to defend my dinner. I mean, who the fuck needs six forks?”

A short breath leaves him.

“Exactly. A fork is a fork.”

He disappears from view again. I keep speaking.

“You’d have eaten the table.”

He comes back, stopping to blink through the gap.

“Probably the guests too, but we’ve established that isn’t acceptable.”

The pupil narrows.

“Too soon?”

His muzzle bumps the doors. Not hard enough to bend them. More like he’s testing whether they remain between us.

I rest my blistered palm against the metal beside his nose.

“They made me dance with Vekk,” I continue instead. “I was magnificent. Didn’t step on him once.”

Bee snorts. 

“Fine. Twice at most.”

Bee’s eye shifts past me, and I glance backward to see Gabriel standing a short distance away. 

“That’s the one,” I murmur. “The irritating smell you can’t quite identify.”

Vekk rolls his eyes but stays there, watching. 

I turn back to Bee. “Anyways, it seems I owe you for getting me out of a shitty night. I mean, you could have left a few more people alive, but I’m not here to quibble.” 

He huffs out a growling purr, and I watch as his head dips down in a familiar invitation to pat him. 

With a silent sigh of relief, I shuffle forward until I can lean my forehead against his muzzle.

“Good boy. I’m going to open the door now.”

One eye opens.

“I’d appreciate it if you could try not to murder anyone.”

His nostril shifts against my wrist.

“I understand that’s a significant restriction on your evening, but I’m cold.”

A quiet sound comes from behind me. Gabriel, almost laughing.

I glance back once more.

He stands several paces away, arms folded over the scorched remains of his shirt. Ty waits beside him, one shoulder soaked in the injured man’s blood. Bram leans against a fence post, watching all of us with an expression I can’t read.

I have no idea where anyone else is. 

Bram moves towards the release panel.

“Slowly,” I say.

He disengages the second lock.

The doors part another foot.

Eight B tenses.

I keep my hand against him.

“Easy, big fella. You’re okay.” 

The door groans open. The stable looks as though a bomb detonated inside it. Sections of wall hang loose. Battens and electrical wiring swing from the ceiling. A feeding trough has been crushed almost flat. Fire blackens the ceiling, and suppressant runs pink and white through the drainage channels.

“Whoa, dude. You really know how to throw a tantrum.” 

He lowers his head to me, but his body stays tight. His wings are half-open, the torn edges trembling. The wound along his flank continues to bleed.

“We need to get him outside,” Duncan says from somewhere nearby. “The suppression residue will keep aggravating his lungs.”

I don’t dare turn to look at him. “The other dragons?” 

“Clear of the block. Most are in the flight yards.”

“Where should I take him?”

“Our exercise yards. They’re empty and locked from the outer perimeter.”

I push myself upright.

The world tilts.

Gabriel catches my elbow before I fall.

“I’m beginning to think you enjoy doing that,” I mutter.

“What?”

“Putting your hands on me.”

His grip tightens slightly. “If I enjoyed it, Grunt, you wouldn’t still be standing.”

I should pull away. Instead, I use him to steady myself.

Eight B notices. His head rises. Smoke leaks from his nostrils as his gaze settles on Gabriel’s hand.

Gabriel doesn’t release me.

“Careful,” I warn.

Vekk huffs. “I am.”

“I was talking to him.” I jerk my thumb at Bee. 

“Reassuring.”

I press my palm against Bee’s jaw. “It’s okay. He’s helping.”

Eight B growls.

Gabriel looks up at him. “Your gratitude is overwhelming.”

“Perhaps don’t antagonise the dragon who nearly roasted you.”

“I assumed poor decisions were the theme of tonight’s event.”

Duncan and Bram open the doors fully, revealing Bee. 

He doesn’t move.

I take one step backwards.

“Come on, Big Guy. Let’s get you settled for the night.”

His head follows me.

I take another step, then another. 

Finally, his claws scrape forward.

Thank god. I wasn’t sure I had the capacity to wrangle a wild animal again tonight. 

We move slowly. I walk backwards with one hand against his muzzle while Gabriel remains beside me, his fingers locked around my elbow. Bram moves ahead of us, clearing our path while Ty and Duncan follow at a distance. 

We guide him through the paths at a careful pace. His breath grows steadier as the suppressant thins. By the time we reach the exterior doors, his wings have folded close to his sides.

He’s still frightened, but no longer preparing to kill everything he can reach.

I’ll count that as progress. 

The night opens around us. Eight B stops beneath the stars.

Wind moves across his scales, carrying away the last traces of smoke. The other dragons call from the distant flight yards. Helix’s answer rises above them, deep enough to tremble through the grass.

Bee lifts his head.

For a moment, he looks less like a weapon, and more like a broken animal waking from a nightmare.

What have they done to you, Bee? What made you this way?

His exercise pen waits ahead, enclosed by reinforced barriers sunk deep into the ground. Duncan opens the inner gate from the control station.

I walk through first. Eight B follows. At the centre of the pen, I stop and place both hands against his muzzle again.

“You’re safe.”

His eyes move towards the stable. I don’t know how much he understands, but he turns away from the building and presses his head into me. The weight nearly knocks me over.

Gabriel’s hand lands between my shoulder blades, bracing me against the dragon.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“I assume you’re talking to the dragon?” 

“Obviously.”

Eight B releases a long breath. His wings loosen. The tension leaves his body in slow, uneven pieces. His head lowers until his jaw rests against the ground, trapping my feet beneath it.

I stay there until Duncan says the medical team has arrived to treat his flank.

Only then do I ease my legs free.

Gabriel walks me out of the pen. The gate closes between us and Bee, but he remains where I left him, watching through half-lidded eyes.

I make it as far as the side of the stable before my body resigns. I slide down the wall and sit on the wet grass, knees drawn towards my chest. Every bruise and burn has found its voice, screaming into existence. My palms throb. My ribs object to breathing, my skin is blistered and tight, and the soles of my feet have gone numb but I assume that’s only because there can’t be much of them left.

Across the yard, Eight B stands beneath the floodlights while Duncan approaches his flank.

He doesn’t try to eat him.

I’ll take the win. 

Gabriel drops beside me, stretching his legs across the grass and leaning against the wall. His white shirt is grey with soot, the fabric blackened across one shoulder where he covered me from the fire.

I have no idea where Bram’s disappeared off to, but I have to assume he’s gone somewhere to ensure his cover isn’t blown. 

I hope you’re safe. 

I close my eyes, leaning my head back against the wall. 

For a while, neither of us speaks.

“You know, Vekk,” I say eventually, opening one eye to peek at him. “For someone who wants me dead, you seem awfully invested in keeping me alive.”

His head turns. Soot darkens the line of his cheekbone. Without the ballroom lights and tailored black jacket, he looks younger.

Almost human.

He watches me for a beat. “You’re welcome.”

“I didn’t thank you.”

“You will.”

I snort. “Unlikely.”

The corner of his mouth lifts.

His gaze drops over me. Not like it did in the ballroom. There’s no heat in it now. No deliberate provocation.

He takes in the blood, bruises and thin scraps of clothing remaining beneath my bandages.

Then he begins unfastening his shirt.

I raise an eyebrow. “You really think saving my life is going to get you laid?”

“Try to contain your disappointment. I don’t sleep with women who smell like dragon shit.” He pulls the shirt from his shoulders and holds it out to me.

I stare at it, confused as to what he’s offering. 

With an eye roll, he tosses it in my lap. “You’re naked. Cover the fuck up.” 

I pick it up, running my ruined hands over the scorched and blackened back. Despite the scorch marks, most of the fabric remains intact. I take it and slide my arms through the sleeves. It hangs to the middle of my thighs.

I look at him, trying to work out what he’s up to. Of all the unexpected things that happened tonight, finding our Gabriel might have a decent bone in his corrupt body definitely rates up there. 

He watches Eight B rather than me. In the floodlights, the scar along his jaw stands out against his skin. There’s blood dried across his forearms and a burn rising over one shoulder.

For once, I can’t find the Vekk heir in him. There’s no arrogance. No polished smile. No careful angle offered to the nearest camera.

Only Gabe. 

He saved me.

The knowledge settles somewhere uncomfortable.

A voice calls across the yard. “Vekk!”

Gabriel’s head turns.

Director Hallam stands near the stable entrance with Administrator Kovac and a cluster of security officers. Cameras gather behind them, red recording lights blinking through the dark.

I feel Gabriel change beside me.

His shoulders straighten. The exhaustion disappears first. Then the uncertainty. His expression closes, every private piece sliding behind a smooth, expensive and impossible to touch mask.

By the time he rises, Gabe is gone.

The reigning champion, Gabriel Vekk, stands in his place.

“See you around, Grunt.”

He doesn’t look back.

ALLIE

The ground swings past my nose in time with Rhett's stride.

Upside down, the world looks different. Wet gravel. A dotted line of suppressant dripping from my ruined hem. A man’s belt against my hip, and the flat, unhurried rhythm of someone carrying a coughing tactician from a burning building.

I cough. Try to breathe. Cough harder. My lungs have narrowed to drinking straws, each breath whistling in and burning out. The chemical taste coats my tongue, bitter as burnt toast.

“Put me down,” I wheeze, kicking weakly.

“No.”

Behind us, Eight B hits a wall that was never designed to be hit. The impact rolls through the ground, up through O’Maury’s body, and into mine. The alarm goes on screaming its two-note screech, and somewhere inside that building Elizabeth is standing in front of a feral dragon in her underwear.

I twist towards the stable, trying to catch a glimpse as he carries me further into the dark. His arm clamps down across my thighs.

“Liz is still in there,” I gasp between coughs.

“Yes.”

“We... have to... go... back.”

“You have a lung problem. Your friend has a dragon problem. One of those I can fix.”

We pass the assembly point. Lantern lights flicker across huddled evening gowns, a League liaison arranging survivors and riders into neat column while camera bots hover around, catching the action.

O’Maury doesn't proceed to the designated area.

I should object. Screaming is technically available to me. I file it under last resorts, between fainting and biting. Instead, I concentrate on not suffocating on my own vomit that threatens to choke me as I cough.

He carries me past the equipment sheds to the dark side of the feed store, where the floodlights don’t reach and the drones don’t bother flying. Then he bends and sets me down on a crate.

Gently.

What is his angle? Why is he doing this?

The coughing takes me again, deep and tearing. My vision spots at the edges as I bend in half, hacking up suppressant that burns my throat.

Metal clatters. I blink at the smear of him moving along the wall, popping the latch on an emergency med station. He comes back with an oxygen kit, cracks the canister with one thumb and fits the mask over my nose and mouth before I can flinch. He snaps a bronchodilator cartridge into the side port, tightens the strap and adjusts the flow.

“Breathe. Slow. Through your nose if you can manage it.”

Cold, medicated air floods in, hitting my throat and airways. Almost immediately the worst of the coughing eases.

It’s obscene how good it feels.

He crouches in front of me, forearms on his knees, and watches me struggle to not die. The stable roars behind him. The red emergency lights paint one side of his scarred face, leaving the other in the dark.

“A woman with asthma shouldn’t run into a burn building.”

I stiffen, freezing as my gaze flicks up to meet his.

How did he...?

My asthma isn't in my Academy file. I paid a records clerk three months’ allowance to make certain of it. Tacticians with respiratory conditions get flagged as liabilities, and liabilities get replaced. My uncle doesn’t know. Kiera doesn’t know. The Azura sponsors certainly don’t know.

“I don’t have asthma,” I say into the mask.

“Denerol. Forty micrograms, twice daily.” He tilts his head. “Filled by a chemist in the Fourth Corridor under the name Anna Carter. Which, as an alias, is frankly disappointing. You collect it on the third Thursday of each month.”

Breathe. Slow. Through your nose.

“The clerk you bribed kept a copy,” he adds, almost kindly. “It's easier if you kill them. Less chance of future blackmail.”

I take my glasses off. Not for any strategic reason. My hands want a task that isn’t shaking. The lenses are filmed with suppressant, and I clean them on the one dry inch of my dress before putting them back on.

God, I shouldn't have bothered. It was easier when I couldn't really see him. He's sharper now, his features clearer.

“What do you—" I cough, gasping for air. It takes a minute before I have it back under control. "What do you want, Mr O’Maury?”

“Rhett.”

“What do you want, Mr O’Maury?”

The corner of his mouth lifts, pulling at the scar along one side of his face.

Rhett O’Maury isn’t handsome by Academy standards. Academy men are polished into symmetry, all clean profiles and expensive teeth. Rhett looks like someone tried to ruin his face.

The emergency light catches in his pale eyes. Even crouched, he takes up more space than he should. The black suit can’t disguise the breadth of his shoulders or the fact that he carried me out of the stable without once breaking stride.

I lower my attention to his hands and immediately regret it.

Long fingers. Blunt knuckles. Completely steady.

One of those hands was wrapped around my thighs less than a minute ago.

I squeeze my thighs together, forcing myself to ignore how the heat of his touch has lingered.

Oxygen deprivation. Clearly.

“You already answered the only question I had,” he says. “At the ball. You heard nothing at the pool. You’ve told no one. Correct?”

“Correct,” I lie.

“You’ve practiced that word.”

“I haven’t.”

“Practice is good. Keep practicing.” He rises and slides his hands into his pockets.

“You should get back to your employer,” I rasp, holding the mask to my face. “I’m sure he’s—”

“Saka Tanish.”

The name drops between us like a body.

I haven’t heard it spoken aloud in years. Not since the funeral. Not one person in my life speaks the name aloud. My uncle refers to that woman, when he refers to her at all.

“I don’t know who that is." The denial is automatic.

“Your chin dimples when you lie, do you know that?”

The mask hisses. I breathe because the machine makes me.

“Saka Tanish,” he says again, softly, as if he's not flaying me alive. “Second daughter of the Tanish family, who hold the Sixth Corridor and everything that moves through it. She got herself pregnant to an Academy rider. The family had plans for her, and a rich man’s baby wasn’t in them. So she handed they baby up the hill before anyone could stop her.” His eyes stay on me. “And when the war between the families came, she died in it.”

“That’s a fascinating story,” I say, fighting nausea.

My voice doesn’t shake. I count it as one small victory.

“Do you know how she died?” Nothing in his voice changes. “Not the year. The how. The who.”

I don’t. No one ever explained how my mother died. Only that she was murdered.

I force myself to answer him, to hide the rabid curiosity that hits.

"Why would I know anything about a random woman?"

I'm sorry. Forgive me.

“Well I do,” he says, rocking backwards and forwards on his heels. “You know what else I know? You keep a photograph. Only one. She’s laughing in it, sleeves rolled up.” He taps two fingers against his own wrist. “You’d have seen the ink a hundred times, a thousand, and maybe you don't even know what you're looking at.”

I was thirteen the last time I took that photograph out of its hiding place. I'm certain no living person has seen it.

The oxygen mask beeps, indicating I'm breathing too quickly. I force myself to slow down, fighting the panic scratching my chest.

Oh god. What does he know?

He unbuttons his cuff and rolls the sleeve back, once, twice, with the slow care of a man who has all night. It's excruciating, the anticipation as he turns his forearm to the red light.

Dense black geometric lines of ink wrap his wrist and climb up his arm, lines crossing and recrossing in a woven pattern.

Like a net.

Like hers.

“Sazagai,” I whisper, staring at the tattoo.

“So you do know it." He chuckles. "The Families are your mother’s people.” He rolls his sleeve back down, buttoning the cuff again, unhurried. “Just as they're mine.”

We're not related, I already know that by his tattoo line. While the Sazagai are a crime syndicate, they're made up of five core families. His tattoo indicates that we're from different blood lines.

“The Tanish are a lesser mob, answering to the family that gave me this ink,” he adds. “Your grandfather would ask my elders’ permission before starting a war.”

I stare at him, trying to comprehend all the ways he can destroy me. All the things he's revealed in the last five minutes.

He knows about my lungs. That ends my career.

He knows about the bribe. That ends my freedom.

He knows my blood. That ends my life.

Or worse. It hands me to people who will use me until they need to spend it.

"What do you want?" I manage to bark out.

He chuckles. "Who says I want anything?"

"Everyone has a price. Even a Sazagai."

He smirks. "Your team is last on the board. If Azura folds, the League has no use for a tactician who’s never won anything. You’ll be graduated out by winter. And your uncle sits on a council." He crouches, his hand moving to rest on my knee. "You know what will happen.”

I do. But I want to deny it. I have to.

“My uncle would never—”

“Outside these walls, you’re not a council member’s niece. You’re Saka Tanish’s daughter. You and I both know your uncle will sell you down a river without a second glance. Your grandfather won a war but lost a child. He's going to give your uncle whatever he wants in exchange for a granddaughter raised inside the Academy.”

He crouches again, bringing those glacier eyes level with mine, and settles two fingers against the inside of my wrist.

“A granddaughter inside the Academy is a rumour. But the minute you're thrown outside these walls, the Family will collect you, Allie.”

My name in his mouth is worse than little dove.

Little dove is a power move.

Allie sounds like a fact.

I straighten, barely resisting the urge to pull away from him. “And you’re offering what? Protection?”

“Yes.”

I swallow. “In exchange for?”

O’Maury studies me through the clear plastic of the mask. His fingers remain against my wrist, resting lightly over my pulse.

“The Sazagai protect in exchange for three things, little dove. Blood. Business. Bed.”

The oxygen hisses between us.

“We aren’t blood.”

“No.”

“And I’m not part of your business.”

“No, again.”

My pulse jumps beneath his fingertips.

His gaze lowers to the mask covering my mouth.

“You can't want me in your bed,” I whisper.

“I do. I've already offered twice tonight.”

The words contain no embarrassment. No hesitation. Just brutal honesty.

Why? Why on earth would he do that? Does he want to humiliate me? Use me? What could he possibly get from this arrangement?

“You’re offering to make me your mistress?”

“Mistresses are hidden.” His thumb moves once across the inside of my wrist. “I'll ensure your grandfather knows exactly whose bed you’re in. Exactly whose protection you're under.”

The stable bleeds heat across the yard, but I feel chilled to the bone.

“You want everyone to believe I belong to you?”

“Everyone will understand what happens if they touch you.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

“No.” His eyes meet mine. “I want you in my bed too.”

“And if I don’t sleep with you?”

“Then you don’t accept my protection.”

The answer comes too easily. He isn’t ashamed of the terms. He isn’t pretending they’re generous.

I take the mask off. “You’re asking me to trade one man’s claim for another.”

“I’m offering you the right to choose which claim the Sazagai will recognise.” The amusement leaves his face. “Me or your grandfather. Don't mistake this as generosity. Your grandfather will use you just as much as I will.”

“Are you saying it's better the devil I know?”

His fingers slide from my wrist, but I can still feel where they were. "Something like that."

“At the ball you made me an offer but mentioned nothing about the Sazagai. Why?”

“Forty people could read my lips at the ball, and half of them file reports to the League. A man propositioning a wallflower is furniture. Nobody writes it down. A Sazagai man taking an interest in a Tanish daughter is a headline that gets people killed.”

“So you meant it?"

“Every word.”

I'm not equipped for that answer.

“The books,” I blurt. “At the dance. You asked what I read. Why would you ask?”

He shrugs. I wait but he remains silent. It takes me a minute to realise he's choosing not to answer.

What is this guy's problem?

“Do you expect me to decide now?” I ask finally, watching the light play across his face.

“No.” He reaches forward and reseats the mask back over my face. “You’re frightened, oxygen-deprived and still wearing soot from a burning stable. Even I have standards.”

“That’s almost disappointing.”

His eyes sharpen, his gaze locking with mine.

Oops.

I blame the medication.

“When Azura loses, don’t go home,” he says. “Come to me first.”

“And then?”

“Then you decide whether you want what I’m offering.”

“Your protection.”

“My protection. My name between yours and theirs. My bed. All of it.”

“And if we win?”

The corner of his mouth lifts.

“Then I’ll have to find another way to get you under me.”

The alarm dies mid-wail. We both turn towards the stable. One more impact shudders through the ground. Then another, weaker.

Then nothing.

“Liz.”

I’m off the crate before my legs have voted. I drag the mask down and the tube tears free of the canister. The night air rakes my raw throat.

O’Maury doesn’t stop me, but he does call out. “Cartwright.”

I look back.

I shouldn’t.

I do.

He stands at the edge of the dark, and it occurs to me that in the space of minutes he has destroyed the lies on which I've built my entire life.

“Next time a building’s burning,” he says, “wait for me.”

“There won’t be a next time.”

“Mm.”

He turns, and the shadows take him the way water takes a stone. His voice drifts back, easy as ever.

“Remember, your grandfather knows where you are, little dove. But I'm the one who got here first.”

I stand alone between the floodlights and the smoke, staring after him.

Whatever Rhett O’Maury really wants from me, he's already made certain I understand the cost.

Security guards eventually find me and frogmarch me into one of the team outbuildings. They put me in a room with a table, two chairs, a glass of water, and a mirrored wall that I’m certain is two-way. 

Same decor, different chair. Look at me, climbing the ladder.

The last time I sat in a room like this, I was cuffed to the furniture, bleeding from the head and waiting to find out how I’d die. Tonight, nobody bothers with cuffs.

A medic wrapped my hands in gel bandages on the walk over, sprayed regen gel across the new burns on my chest and legs, and found me a pair of drawstring trousers to wear under Gabriel’s ruined shirt. 

No painkillers though. Shame. 

I rest my wrapped hands in my lap and watch the door. My feet throb. My chest stings where I pressed it against fifty feet of furious dragon. The shirt reeks of smoke with a hint of expensive cologne.

Gabe has good taste. 

I’m not sure when he stopped being Gabriel or Vekk and became Gabe. Maybe somewhere between saving my ass and handing me his shirt. 

What is with that, by the way? I mean, I thought the guy hated me. 

As the minutes drag on, the adrenaline crash hits, and I lean forward, dropping my head onto my forearm as I try to catch a few minutes of rest. 

The door swings open, bouncing off the wall with a loud clatter. I jerk upright, squinting into the bright light as Administrator Kovac enters the room. She’s still in her gala black, looking surprisingly unruffled considering the events of the evening. 

She sits across from me and places her tablet on the table, face down. 

“Miss Reeves.”

I straighten, giving her a nod. “Administrator. We really have to stop meeting like this. People will talk.”

“People are already talking, that is the problem.” She folds her hands. “Your dragon killed Edmund Murdoch, Tier Two, and Harlan Kim, Tier Three. The dragon also critically injured three others. One may keep his arm. The surgeons are less hopeful about Mr Combe’s back. The third sustained extensive burns across his torso.”

“What does their Tier have to do with anything?”

Kovac looks at me as if I’ve asked why fire burns. “Everything. Their deaths carry financial and political consequences.”

“So they matter more.”

“To the League?” She pauses. “Yes.”

“Got it. Well, my excuse, if you want to call it that, is they broke into his stall,” I say. “You don’t poke a tiger then get pissed when it bites. Why are you expecting that a war machine would be any different?”

“They were guests of the League, Miss Reeves.” Her voice doesn’t rise. It never rises. “He is property. When property malfunctions and kills a guest, the property is recalled.”

She turns the tablet over.

DESTRUCTION ORDER: ASSET 8B, AZURA ASCENDANCY

The text below is dense and grey and doesn’t matter, because all I can see is the signature line at the bottom.

Blank. Waiting.

My hands fist in my lap, the blisters screaming. I barely notice.

“You can’t.”

“I assure you I can. One signature. It would be a kindness, in its way. He’d be gone before he woke.”

“They climbed on him,” I snap, filled with rage. “He woke with strangers on his back and no doubt people poking at wounds your Game gave him. He did what any of us would do.”

“That,” Kovac says, “is precisely what frightens the sponsors.”

The door bangs open, causing us both to jump. Allie stands in the archway, wheezing as she tries to catch her breath. She tries to say something, then holds up one finger as she bends over, gasping. It’s as if she’s run here. Like me, she’s still wearing her ruined dress, which has dried stiff with suppressant. A borrowed tablet with a cracked screen is clutched to her chest. Her glasses sit crooked on her nose.

“You can’t… kill… him,” she wheezes.

Kovac glares. “Miss Cartwright. This is a closed session.”

“I’ll… be… quick.” Allie gasps, fighting for breath. After a second, she sucks in a big gulp of air, forces herself to straighten, and rounds the table to set the tablet down in front of Kovac.

“Sovereign Asset Protection Act, Section 12.4. League dragons are protected government assets. Unauthorised contact or interference constitutes treason, punishable by death and forfeiture of assets.” She stops to cough, hard, one fist pounding against her sternum. It takes her a beat, but she catches her breath and continues. “Where death occurs during the offence, forfeiture shall be enforced against the offender’s estate.”

Silence.

“Mr Murdoch and Mr Kim died committing treason,” Allie points out, crossing her arms over her chest. “Against a protected government asset. Eight B isn’t the offender in this incident, Administrator. He’s the state’s evidence. Destroy him, and the estates’ lawyers will argue the League buried the circumstances. The League will be liable for any suits their families bring.”

She clears her throat and begins coughing. I silently hand her my water, which she chugs. After a smack of her lips, she hands it back, not missing a beat in her argument.  

“Keep Eight B, and the League is owed forfeiture from two Tiered estates. That’s a great deal of money.”

I stare at her. Kovac stares at her.

Treason.

A month ago, that word was a noose around my neck. Tonight, it’s a shield around my dragon.

“You are citing the Act at me?” Kovac asks, arching a brow.

Allie pales. “Yes, ma’am.”

“The Act was written to protect dragons from thieves.” Her gaze slides to me, pointed as a pin. 

“Actually," Allie corrects. "It was written to protect government property, including dragons, from interference and vandalism.”

I hear a bump from the other side of the mirror that isn’t a mirror. Sounds like someone's having a very bad night.

Before Kovac can answer, the door opens again. Nikolai walks in without knocking, tablet raised like a torch, wearing the expression of a man who has struck oil in his own bathtub.

Oh god. What new hell is this. 

“Before anyone signs anything,” he announces, “you need to see the numbers.”

“Mr Brandt—”

“Fourteen million replays in just over two hours.” He sets his tablet down on top of Allie’s.

On the screen, a clip loops, showing Gabriel tackling me as Bee breathes fire. 

I didn’t even know there was a camera in there. 

“Fourteen million and climbing while we stand here.” He straightens his midnight-blue jacket. “If the League destroys that dragon, we’re not managing a scandal, Administrator. We’ll be starring in one because I can tell you right now, the people want to see if she can tame him enough to ride him in the next Game.”

Oh yay. More betting on my death. 

Kovac frowns but says nothing.

“Dr Bauer’s lawyers are awake,” Nikolai adds pleasantly. “All nine of them. Financially, we’re already seeing a slight increase in the markets. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s a significant bump by this time tomorrow.”

Allie argued that killing Bee is legally innocent, Nikolai has made it financially stupid.

Well, I take back any bad thought I’ve had about the guy. Sometimes his ruthless pursuit of capitalism is useful. 

We’re all silent as we wait for Kovac to make a decision. I can hear my heart pounding in my ears, my chest tight as I wait for her ruling. 

Please see reason. 

Odds are we’re going to die in the next Game, but at least that’ll be on our terms, not because some rich drunk idiots decided to climb into a dragon’s den. 

Finally, she turns to me. 

“The order remains drafted,” she says. “Undated. Unsigned. Should that animal so much as singe a groundskeeper, I will complete it, and no clause Miss Cartwright can recite will stop me. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Administrator,” I answer meekly.

“Good.” She stands, smoothing her gown. “One further matter. The Fixtures Office met this evening.”

Allie’s eyes widen. “They did? But it’s two in the morning.”

Kovac tucks her tablet under her arm. “In light of tonight’s incident, and the considerable public appetite it has generated, Game Two has been brought forward. You’ll fly in five days.”

I slump back in my chair, stunned. 

Five days? Five fucking days?

Thirteen was already a joke. Thirteen days was barely going to be enough to heal Bee’s flank, let alone work out something that slightly resembled a winning strategy. 

What the fuck? 

“His flank won’t be healed,” I protest.

“That’s hardly my problem. Additionally.” She pauses at the door, turning to look back at me. 

Our gazes meet, and I understand that she’s determined to put a target on my back. 

I got lucky the first Game. But they can’t afford for a Rookery grunt to go any further. 

“Azura Ascendancy will carry a penalty into Game Two.” She smiles, but it’s devoid of any warmth or humour. “Gross mismanagement of a League asset, resulting in loss of life. You’ll have a delayed launch. Your team releases sixty seconds after the opening siren.”

Allie makes a small sound, pitching forward. “What? A sixty-second delay raises opening-phase mortality by—”

She stops herself.

Too late.

Kovac smiles, and it’s the first true smile I’ve ever seen on her face.

Fucking terrifying. 

“Anything to add, Miss Cartwright?”

Slowly, Allie shakes her head. 

“Good.” The door clicks shut behind her.

Nikolai collects his tablet.

“Well. That went considerably better than I thought.”

I flick him a glare. “She sentenced us to launch into a live arena a full minute behind every dragon in it. We’re gonna be sitting ducks.” 

“True, but at least your dragon is alive to do the launching. And we’ll make bank before then.” He checks the time and grimaces. “I need a statement drafted before the morning cycle. Nobody speak to the press for the next few hours. I need time to work.” He points at me on his way out. “Burn that shirt before a camera sees it.”

Then it’s Allie and me and a room that feels suddenly enormous.

“Ready to go?” she asks, helping me to my feet. 

“Yeah. I think I’m done with surprises for tonight.” 

We don’t talk on the walk back. The grounds and corridors are empty at this hour, sensor lights blooming ahead of us and dying behind. The thick scent of roses floats over the ground, pushed by large air filters that fight to hide the lingering bite of smoke and suppressant. 

It seems the Academy is determined to pretend that nothing happened here tonight.

We’re nearly at the stairs to the residential wing when Allie’s head turns my way. 

“Liz?”

“Mm?” 

“Isn’t that Vekk’s shirt?”

I keep walking. “Didn’t you get carried out of the stables by O’Maury?”

Silence.

We glance at each other, both of us blushing.

She snorts. I grin. We both laugh. 

“Fuck, we’re a mess,” I sigh, looping an arm over her shoulder. 

“But you’re my mess.”

I snort, bumping her hip with mine. “If only I was into girls.”

“Let’s be honest, I’m out of your league, Reeves.”

Laughing, we climb the stairs.