JESSA

Nobody said anything as the briefing broke up. That was worse than shouting.

Deyric set up the workstation without looking at me. Three displays, a secure partition, the encrypted files queued and ready. He pointed at the chair, tapped the screen, and left.

Professional. Efficient. Not one word that wasn’t about the work.

I sat down and started on the first encryption layer. My hands knew the patterns from years I’d tried to forget. My brain could do this on autopilot, which was good, because the rest of me was shaking.

Zevik found me twenty minutes in. He leaned in the doorway, feather crest flat, arms crossed.

“Consortium,” he said.

“Diplomatic corps. Not military.”

“There a difference?”

“To the people inside it, yes.” I kept my eyes on the display. “To the people it hurts, probably not.”

He was quiet for a moment. “You know, I crashed a transport on Velik Prime. Killed three of my squadron because I was showing off.” He shifted in the doorway. “Everyone’s got something they carry. You’re not special.”

He left. I stared at the encryption and breathed.

Ressh found me next, carrying two mugs. He handed me one and sat on the edge of the table.

“So. Corren, not Torrin.”

“Corren, not Torrin.”

“Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue differently.”

“It does if you’re Consortium.”

He sipped his drink. “You know, I spent years on this ship before I told anyone what Vain actually did to me. Alix got it out of me eventually, but the rest of the crew?” He shrugged. “Some things take time.”

“You’re not angry?”

“Jessa.” He looked at me with those amber eyes, his traceries shifting back to their usual bronze and gold. “You’ve been feeding this crew and breaking up Zevik’s fights and making sure Solren doesn’t hoard the medbay supplies for years. I don’t care if your father was the Consortium president.”

“He wasn’t. Mid-level.”

“Right. Mid-level.” He stood. “Drink that. You look terrible.”

Alix came after lunch. She pulled up a chair and watched me work for a full minute before speaking.

“Corren. The real name. It’s been sitting dormant in the Consortium registry this whole time?”

“Since I was twenty.”

“No connection to the Raptor. No connection to Torrin.”

“None. Two completely separate identities.”

Alix leaned back. “Interesting.”

She studied me for another moment. Then she nodded once and left.

The second encryption layer was harder. Someone had modified the standard authentication, buried a private channel underneath the government system. My father’s department had never used anything this layered. Whoever built this wanted it hidden from the diplomatic corps itself.

Solren appeared beside the workstation. I hadn’t heard him come in.

“You look like you haven’t eaten.”

“I’m fine.”

He set a cup of something hot next to my elbow. “I didn’t ask how you were. I said you haven’t eaten.” He straightened. “When you get to a stopping point, come to the medbay. I want to check your cortisol levels.”

“My cortisol levels are fine.”

“Your cortisol levels are mine to worry about.” He looked at me with those dark Rokavai eyes. “You told the truth about something you’ve been carrying alone for years. Your body is going to have an opinion about that whether you want it to or not.”

He left. I drank whatever he’d brought me. It was warm and tasted faintly of herbs and I was not going to cry at a workstation over a cup of tea from the ship’s medic.

Thoryn I didn’t see at all. But when I went back to my quarters to use the refresher, there was a protein bar on my bunk. The expensive kind, from the stash Maris kept in their quarters. No note. Thoryn didn’t do notes.

Palm down on the table in the briefing. Protein bar on the bunk. He’d said everything he needed to say.

I went back to the encryption. Third layer.

It was late when I felt him in the doorway. Not heard. Felt. The particular weight of Serak’s attention, the way the air in a room shifted when he was watching.

“You haven’t said anything,” I said to my screen.

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. That you’re angry. That you understand. Something.”

He came into the briefing room and sat at the table behind me. The chair scraped. He settled. I didn’t turn around.

“I’m not angry,” he said.

“But.”

“No but. Torrin checked out clean when you joined. I had no reason to dig further. And you did the work. You kept this crew running. The rest was yours to share when you were ready.”

“I should have been ready sooner.”

“Maybe.”

I turned around. He was sitting with his hands on the table, and even in the dim light of the briefing room the dark along his jaw was visible. I made myself look at his eyes. Black, pupil-less. Nothing to hold onto. Never had been.

“Are we alright?” I asked.

“You and I are fine,” he said. “Get some sleep. You can finish the decryption in the morning.”

I almost said something. About the dark on his jaw. About the way he’d looked at me when the room was waiting for his verdict and he’d chosen to ask about the protocol instead of the secret. About the ceiling, and the late watch, and the mugs, and the years of small things neither of us named.

I didn’t. I went to my quarters. I didn’t sleep, but I went.