Page 36 of Reckless Heir
I think about that.
I think about whattoo expensivemeans in the language of this world — not money, not performance, but the specific kind of value that's harder to describe and harder to dismantle. I think about the seminar and what I know about information gaps and decision architectures. I think about a grammar workbook I could probably get through the library acquisition system if I listed it as something else.
I don't know yet what I'm building.
But I know I'm building something.
Outside, November. The first of it, the genuine cold settling in, the kind that has weight. The trees at the edge of the courtyard are stripping down to branch and shadow, precise and bare.
He doesn't know if I'm alright,I think, about Luca.
He can't ask.
Neither can I, yet.
I put the tablet away. I open the seminar notes for real this time, with a pen, and I start making different notes in the margins — not the assigned analysis, but my own. The gaps I see. The decisions I'd have made differently.
What I would have needed to know.
What I can learn.
11
SOFIA
He's in the study. Door half-open — the way it is when he's not actively working but not unavailable either. I've learned to read the doors.
"I want to send a message to Luca," I say.
He doesn't look up from the screen. "Fill out the communications request."
"I did. Three weeks ago. Fourteen to twenty-one business days." I come into the room. "It's been twenty-three."
He looks up.
"The approval hasn't come through," he says. Flat. A statement, not an explanation.
"I know. That's why I'm here." I hold his eyes. "Three words.I'm fine, Luca.You can read it before it sends. Redact anything you consider leverage. But he doesn't know if I'm alright and it's been over a month and I need you to understand what that costs."
The study is quiet.
He looks at me for a long moment — the kind that's running a calculation I'm not allowed to see.
"Write it," he says. "Leave it on the desk."
I writeI'm fine. Sofia.Four words. I leave it and go.
That evening the sent confirmation appears in my portal. Timestamp: 11:47 PM.
I don't know why that detail matters. It does anyway.
The invitation isn't verbal this time. It's a card on my pillow — heavy cream stock, embossed gold lettering — which is how I know it's an Obsidian event rather than a Romanov family obligation or a campus function. The Obsidian communicates exclusively through material objects: cards, boxes, sealed envelopes. As if the act of touching something makes it real in a way that speech doesn't.
Midnight. The Old Opera House. Black Tie.
I read it twice, then set it on the dresser and look at the dress he's left for me.
Silver. Metallic, not the soft kind — liquid armor was my first thought, and I've had it every time I look at it. It doesn't drape; it clings. It turns my silhouette into a statement I didn't make, which is the point of every item of clothing he selects for me. He dresses me in the messages he wants to send and sends me into rooms as the envelope.
