Page 158 of Maksym

Maksym did not look at the guard. He did not need to. His hand rested lightly on my back. The touch said enough.

The doors opened.

Inside, the lobby ceiling vaulted three stories overhead in a ribcage of exposed stone beams. Every surface had been polished to a mirror finish that reflected nothing true.

Security waited ahead.

A long row of glass barriers divided the lobby from the inner corridors. Guards stood at each station, some vampire, some witch, one whose nature I could not place and did not care to guess before coffee.

A guard approached with a scanning wand.

I lifted my arms.

The wand moved along my sides, over my back, down my legs. It chirped softly near the clasp of my portfolio. The guard opened it, inspected legal pads, pens, printed notes, tabs, my laptop, and a stack of documents that had become extensions of my nervous system.

“No weapons,” he said.

“That depends on your opinion of legal writing,” I replied.

The guard looked at me blankly.

Maddie snorted behind me.

Remy’s mouth twitched.

The guard handed the portfolio back.

“Proceed.”

We proceeded. I felt the brush of the wards run down my spine. Of course they would suppress magic in this place.

Beyond security lay a corridor of white stone and black floor, colder than the lobby and quieter by design. Our footsteps moved with us, clipped and multiplied by polished surfaces. At the end, a man—clearly a wolf shifter—waited outside another set of doors.

“This way,” he said.

No title. No welcome. Fine.

He opened a side door and led us into the antechamber.

Kazimir paused near the center of the room. Maksym stopped beside him.

The separation happened before anyone announced it. Some invisible line existed here, and the kings stepped toward it.

Maksym turned to me.

For one irrational second, I wanted to catch his sleeve.

Not because I could not stand without him.

Because I had only recently learned the exact shape of standing beside him, and now the room asked me to stand alone in front of people who had helped create the conditions that allowed Lucian to thrive.

He saw the thought cross my face.

I knew he saw it because his expression changed by no more than a breath.

“You are ready,” he said.

Not are you ready?