already sitting in her ch

sat beside them, waiting its turn, and no amount of Adrian's certainty from the night before had managed to dislodge

nd Elena had spent the morning pacing until Cassian, Adrian's second, a broad, unreadable man who'd introduced

hysical proof there of what she'd done, some mark to match the one spreading slowly across her collarbone. There was nothing. J

sian said. "He's earned it more t

years to earn things I d

twitched, almost

m then? Three hu

said it without unkindness, more like a man who'd learned the shape

ck came

her eyes, sudden and sharp, and then the world tilted si

, and a man in front of her who wore Adrian's face across three centuries of difference,

oice was Adrian's voice, and Elena, no, not Elena, someone using Elena

you across every lifet

Elena came back to herself on her knees on the safe floor's carpet, Cassian's hand steady on her sh

e, urgent, his hands finding

She stopped, the name catching in her throat like it belonged to someone e

went ve

he said quietly. "No on

not l

and there was something in his expression tha

that

ce, cataloguing every small reaction like he was afraid she'd slip back into the vision

oes tha

t. And I don't l

that made Elena's stomach drop before he'd said a single word. "The intruder from earlier wasn't wo

tain

to Elena, something almost apologetic in the

g into the version of himself that gave orders instead of comfort. "Double the

hole floor for me," Elena

early lost you twice in the last three days,

by a team Elena hadn't even seen deploy, she found Adrian alone

his shoulder before he c

rememb

nt it, or how they'd known before Adrian himse

that?" s

ed like a man who understood exactly how littl

hat frightens me more than anyt

n his hand. A second mes

ree is when it