Liam hated that tone.

It usually meant someone had brought him politics and expected him not to throw a wrench.

Rex looked toward Stanford, who stood near the reinforced doors with calm, dreadful attention.

"Arik already knows part of it," Rex said.

Liam’s fingers stilled.

"Part of what?"

Rex’s mouth twisted. "George is planning to announce that the owl brooches will be removed."

The platform went quiet.

Even Mara stopped typing.

Liam turned fully. "What?"

"As a gift," Rex said, voice flat now. "For the engagement between Agaron and Wrohan."

For several seconds, the only sound was the Vanguard roaring beneath them.

Then Liam laughed.

Mara muttered, "Oh no."

Rex looked at him. "That is not comforting."

"It was not meant to be."

Stanford’s expression had not changed, but his comm was already in his hand.

Liam looked toward him. "Do not."

Stanford inclined his head. "Too late."

Rex straightened from the rail. "George wants to present it as a gesture of trust. A romantic diplomatic concession. Wrohan honors the bond between its noble engineer and Agaron’s Crown Prince by lifting restrictions from the Agaronian delegation."

Liam stared at him.

Then looked down at the Vanguard.

Then back at Rex.

"He wants to remove suppression brooches from a foreign imperial delegation currently inside his capital while negotiating a treaty he barely understands because he thinks my engagement makes it sentimental?"

Rex smiled without humor. "Yes."

Mara whispered, "That is so stupid it became poetry."

Liam’s eyes narrowed.

"No," he said slowly. "That is not only stupid."

Rex’s expression sharpened.

Liam looked toward the red ether intake below, watching the raw power feed into the machine he had built while half of Wrohan pretended it was impossible.

"If George announces it first, he turns the brooch removal into his generosity," Liam said.

Rex’s jaw tightened. "Yes."

"And if something goes wrong after the brooches are removed..."

"Then George can imply Agaron abused the trust granted in honor of the engagement."

Mara made a sound of disgust.

Liam wiped his hands slowly on a cloth.

"That is almost clever, if I didn’t know it was Felix manipulation 101."

Rex’s expression darkened. "You see it too."

"I was raised close enough to the Canmore rot to recognize the smell." Liam tossed the cloth onto the worktable. "George thinks he’s reclaiming control of the narrative. Felix is letting him think that because it makes George useful."

"For now," Rex said with a long sigh.

Liam looked at him.

Rex’s gaze had gone distant, fixed somewhere beyond the Vanguard’s churning ether. "George has been making decisions too loudly. Too publicly. He reclaimed Ray’s bloodline after the Amstrong had published it, pushed your engagement announcement, and now wants to present himself as the gracious king removing Agaronian restrictions."

"He is trying to look indispensable."

"No," Rex said quietly. "He is trying to look sovereign."

The word settled heavily between them.

Mara’s fingers stilled above the diagnostic panel.

Liam’s eyes narrowed. "You think Felix wants him dead."

Rex did not answer immediately.

That was answer enough.

"When?" Liam asked.

"Soon." Rex’s mouth twisted. "Not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon enough every move George makes now feels like someone giving him rope and letting him admire the quality of it."

Liam glanced toward the red ether below.

"And Ray?"

"Ambition makes him convenient." Rex’s voice was flat. "If George dies after Ray publicly contests my position, the court splits. Felix steps in as the only man old enough, powerful enough, and sainted enough to ’stabilize’ Wrohan."

Mara whispered, "That is vile."

"That is Felix," Liam said.

The reinforced doors opened.

Arik stepped into Lab V with Mezos behind him.

The Vanguard’s light caught on the faint gold at his cuffs, and for a second the whole platform seemed to remember that the man walking across it was not simply Liam’s mate.

He was Agaron’s Crown Prince and another chosen of ether.

And he looked directly at Liam.

The bond warmed with such immediate, possessive relief that Liam forgot, briefly, how to breathe.

Rex saw it.

The corner of his mouth moved, tired but almost amused.

"I will send the rest to Mezos," he said, stepping away from the rail. "And I will leave before His Highness remembers you have spent a week pretending this lab is a residence."

Liam glared. "Coward."

"Alive coward," Rex replied.

He inclined his head to Arik as they passed.

Arik’s eyes did not leave Liam.

Rex wisely kept walking.

—

The doors sealed behind Rex with a hydraulic hiss.

For a moment, no one moved.

The Vanguard turned beneath them, vast and alive, dragging raw red ether through its lower intake rings and forcing it into discipline. Blue light burst along the secondary veins. White current climbed the relay spine in clean, luminous streams.

Then something changed around it.

The gate embedded beneath the lowest platform pulsed once, red ether shifted like an animal lifting its head.

Mara’s hands froze over the console. "Oh."

Liam looked down sharply.

The gate pulsed again, light crawling through old lines he had thought dormant, not fully awake, not connected enough to answer anything without deliberate activation. But the ether below moved toward Arik the way a happy pet might run toward the sound of its owner’s voice.

Arik stopped near the observation rail.

The brooch at his collar still restricted him. Liam could see the faint red-and-gold owl pinned there, could see the suppression field biting down around his ether signature like a poorly made cage trying to hold back weather. And still the Vanguard answered him.

Or not the Vanguard.

The gate.

The old, impossible thing underneath Liam’s beautiful illegal machine.

Arik’s golden eyes lowered toward the chasm.

For one second, something that was not entirely Arik looked back.

Then his gaze returned to Liam, and the ether quieted.

Mara swallowed and took one careful step away from the console. "I suddenly remembered a diagnostic in the lower archive."

"You do not have a diagnostic in the lower archive," Liam said.

"I do now."

She fled with admirable speed.

Stanford remained by the door, expression blank.

Mezos stood behind Arik, looking like a man who had decided the diplomatic and metaphysical situations were now equally intolerable.

Liam lifted his chin. "You received Rex’s message."

"I received several messages," Arik said.

His voice was calm.

That was bad.

Liam hated that tone.

It had none of the heat he could argue against. No raised voice, no visible anger, no dramatic alpha posturing that would allow Liam to become cold and superior in response.

It was the tone of a prince who had done with waiting.

"You are going to say something unreasonable," Liam said.

Arik walked slowly toward him, making the platform seem smaller with each step.

"No," Arik said. "I am going to say something overdue."

Liam’s fingers tightened around the wrench still in his hand. "I have been working."

"You have been hiding."

"I have been repairing a turbine."

"You have been sleeping in your lab."

"I was tired."

"You were avoiding my suite."

Liam tried his best to find an excuse, but his brain refused to help.

Arik stopped in front of him, close enough that the bond surged warm and immediate between them, close enough that Liam could smell him under the metallic bite of ether and heated machinery.

Warm stone. Caramel. Possessive restraint fraying at the edges.

"I asked you to come back," Arik said.

Liam looked away first, which was unforgivable.

"I had work."

"You always have work."

"The Vanguard does not repair itself."

"No," Arik said. "But it has become a convenient excuse."

Liam’s eyes narrowed. "Careful."

Arik smiled faintly, but there was no amusement in it.

"I have been careful for a week, Liam."

The words landed harder than Liam expected.

The gate pulsed again below them, faintly this time, as if agreeing with him.

Arik’s gaze did not waver. "I let you stay because you needed the lab. I let you avoid the residence because the bond was new, and you do poorly with being cornered. I let you pretend exhaustion was the reason you kept sleeping here, because I knew if I pushed too hard, you’d turn this entire platform into a battlefield and call it maintenance."

Liam made a tsk sound, pouting that it was in fact what he wanted to do.

"We need to talk." Arik said with an extended hand.