The soft chime of the door’s ether lock announced Mezos before he stepped into the room.

Arik did not look up from the terminal.

He was watching a real-time stream of Wrohan’s power fluctuations, more specifically, the suspicious pulse radiating from the Eastern Districts, which the official royal monitors continued to misidentify as line noise.

Wrohan was very fond of misidentifying things that embarrassed it.

Mezos crossed the suite with the measured tread of a soldier who had spent the last hour submerged in the strange, vibrating reality of Lab V and come out sharper for it. He looked different than he had that morning. The haggard gray tint of ether starvation had vanished, replaced by crystalline clarity. His eyes were brighter. His posture smoother. The restless tension that had sat beneath his skin since they entered Wrohan had finally eased.

"The rest of the delegation has been processed," Mezos reported. "Noah handled the logistics. The men are stabilized. For the first time in weeks, they are not fighting their own nervous systems."

Arik finally leaned back.

His gold eyes followed Mezos as he placed a physical data slate on the desk. In an age of digital clouds, encrypted projections, and mirrored servers, Mezos only used physical slates for information that should not exist anywhere official enough to be stolen.

"How did the others feel about this?" Arik asked.

Mezos’s blue eyes rested on the slate for one beat too long.

"Liam Canmore did not merely give us a source. He gave us the right source. The men are calling it the Well. They do not understand how a Wrohanese omega built it." A pause. "Frankly, neither do I."

Arik’s fingers tapped once against the ether-glass surface.

"He did not build it for us," he said. "He built it because the king is a thief and the patriarch is a butcher. We are only the beneficiaries of his rebellion."

Mezos inclined his head. "A rebellion disguised as municipal engineering."

"The most dangerous kind." 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

"Apparently."

Mezos hesitated for a moment.

He was on friendly terms with Arik. Friendship, however, did not mean he could ask anything he wanted without consequences. Not when Arik’s quiet had begun to resemble old decisions rather than new irritation.

Still, Mezos had survived this long by knowing which discomforts were necessary.

"I heard from Mira that you are not going to renew the consort contracts," he said. "But I did not receive any new orders regarding the wing’s security."

"The security remains."

Mezos was silent for half a breath.

Arik’s gaze stayed on the terminal. "There will be a new occupant soon."

Mezos stared at him with the face of a man already predicting disaster and an omega engineer retaliating. "Soon?"

"Yes."

"Does the new occupant know this?"

Arik’s mouth curved faintly. "Not yet."

For one second, Mezos only looked at him.

Then he laughed; disbelief escaping before discipline could catch it.

Arik finally looked up.

Mezos lifted one hand, palm out. "Forgive me, Your Highness. I am adjusting to the speed of imperial architecture."

"It is not architecture."

"You just assigned him a wing."

"I said there would be an occupant."

"You said Liam would choose what to do with the rest of the rooms."

"A practical observation."

"A possessive one." Mezos’ smile grew into a grin.

Arik’s expression did not change.

Mezos’s amusement faded by a degree, though not entirely. "He does not know."

"No."

Mezos pinched the bridge of his nose in the very clear attempt not to say something that would get him killed in the next few minutes.

He failed.

"Arik... are you mad?"

Arik raised one brow.

Mezos lowered his hand and looked at him with the exhausted severity of a man who had commanded guards, survived courts, and still found himself professionally defeated by one possessive imperial heir.

"What if Liam has a relationship? What if he does not want you? How did you develop this level of possessiveness in two days when you do not give a flying rat about your consorts in Agaron?"

Arik considered him for a moment.

Then he said, "That was several questions."

"I am aware."

"Poorly arranged."

"Answer any of them before I arrange myself out of a window."

Arik’s mouth curved faintly. "The consorts in Agaron were contracted."

"And Liam is?"

"Not."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the only answer that matters."

Mezos stared at him and genuinely tried to decide whether this was the old woman’s reading, the Star, the genius behind Liam’s impossible machine, or Arik simply being unhinged.

Unfortunately, all the options available had evidence.

He had seen the fortune-teller’s face when she turned the cards. He had heard Arik’s silence afterward. He had stood over the chasm and watched the Vanguard bend around him like a loyal beast recognizing an old master. He had also known Arik for years, which meant he could not dismiss the simpler explanation that the crown prince had taken one look at a furious omega with a bruised face and a turbine and lost whatever remained of his diplomatic restraint.

Mezos exhaled slowly. "You understand that from the outside, this looks catastrophic."

"Why?" Arik asked genuinely.

Mezos stared at him.

For one bright, terrible second, he actively considered throwing himself out the window. The suite was several floors above the ornamental gardens, but he was a high arcanist and had survived worse landings. The alternative was hitting the crown prince into logic, which was politically inadvisable and personally tempting.

Arik spoke before Mezos could decide.

"Wrohan wants to throw a dominant omega at me," he said calmly. "It could very well be Liam."

Mezos closed his eyes.

"I hope Liam hits you."

Arik’s mouth curved. "He might."

"No, I mean with intent."

"He usually has intent."

"Arik."

The name came out like a warning bell.

Arik leaned back, composed in the way only a man standing near a cliff and calling it a balcony could be composed. "If Wrohan intends to use an omega alliance to soften Agaron’s position, then redirecting that attempt toward Liam is politically sound."

"Politically sound," Mezos repeated.

"Yes."

"You saw a wounded man protecting a forbidden turbine under a university and decided Wrohan’s grotesque courtship trap should be improved by placing him inside it?"

"No."

"That is very close to what you just said."

"I said Wrohan wants to throw a dominant omega at me. I did not say I would allow Wrohan to throw Liam."

"Ah," Mezos said. "So you intend to catch him first."

Arik’s smile deepened by half a degree.

Mezos pointed at him. "That expression is exactly why Gabriel called."

"Gabriel calls often."

"Gabriel called because you are becoming Damian with better tailoring and worse plausible deniability."

"My tailoring is excellent."

"Your priorities are diseased."

Arik laughed softly.

Mezos did not.

That made the laugh fade, though not the amusement behind it.

"Liam is not a pawn," Mezos said. "He will know if you try to move him like one."

"I know."

"He will not care that your reasoning is cleaner than Wrohan’s."

"I know."

"He will hate being discussed as a solution to any problem involving your consort contracts, Wrohan’s diplomacy, or the phrase dominant omega."

"I know that too."

"Then why are you speaking as if the matter is a scheduling correction?"

Arik looked at the terminal, where the Eastern District pulse continued to appear and disappear under royal monitoring as harmless line noise.

"Because I am trying to remain civilized," he said.