Scene 6: A parlor.

  Rafael is half expecting to be led back to Rich’s room, but instead he follows the man only a few corridors from the quartermaster’s office to the nearest iteration of the compound’s ostentatiously appointed drawing rooms. Rich settles down on one of the stiffly beautiful couches no one ever sits on, and Rafael perches beside him.

  “Right,” Rich says, and taps one finger to the opposite palm. Nothing happens save for the flash of rage that passes across his stern features.

  “Right,” he repeats in a saw-edged snarl before visibly swallowing the anger down, shoulders working with the effort. “That's—sorry. That's for implants. Rings, you click. Which you know. Okay. Let's see how much of this I’ve got down…”

  They go over pulling up a screen, manipulating it, various commands and gestures. How to pull up a media file, how to play audio to all screens, to Rafael’s screen, to Rich’s. How to access the database for the compound, the recorded media there.

  There’s passing little of interest there, at least in the way of entertainment: a variety of movies extolling the virtues of war and the heroes therein, a few that appear to be horror, a handful of documentaries about men of violent means and cunning conspiracy. Hidden behind all those, as an afterthought, the folder of cinema and theater classics that Rich brought up the previous night—a paltry collection, but infinitely more than Rafael had before.

  And below those…

  Rafael doesn’t intend to open every file, and he all but scrolls past, but the preview of the file is a familiar white and red. Even shrunk to so small an image, he’s becoming familiar enough with Rich’s craggy face that it catches his eye. He taps the folder as Rich starts to explain something about “file nesting,” and opens the video file.

  It’s a shot from across a restaurant of Rich sitting at a table, throwing back a glass of wine in a single swallow. At the table with him is a short, slightly-built young man Rafael hasn’t seen before, profoundly beautiful in a way that speaks of gene modification, all flashing silver eyes and a thick fall of curls dyed vivid violet-red, laughing at whatever he’s saying, gesturing ebulliently.

  The recording moves closer, and Rich looks up past his gorgeous little friend and says, “Hey, they brought some wine around while you were gone, I saved plenty for you. Oh! Are you recording?”

  “Just savoring the moment, sweet thing,” Carraway says from behind the camera, and Rafael goes cold as in the playback, Rich grins from ear to ear, plainly delighted.

  “Well, come savor this wine. Liam says it's a good one.”

  In an even thicker strain of the exact same accent, though a higher and more musical register, Liam says, “It's KR-Resilient reds from Nappa fuckin’ Valley, if it wa’n't any good I’d be lettin’ the Berkley team know who was trashin’ their babies—”

  “Well thank god and all you scientists that it's fine,” Rich laughs, and looks back to the camera, to Carraway, with a glowing, silvery happiness. “You see what you're gettin’ yourself into, buddy? There's no off-switch on genius.”

  “He's welcome to come look for one,” Liam murmurs, and Rich only laughs again and pours himself more wine. He's so happy. The way he moves, the way he looks—it hits like a blow, it bruises the eye.

  “Ah,” Rich says, now. Heavy and flat. “Yeah. That. The big man likes his hunting trophies, huh.”

  “He's—there's more? Are there—” Rafael closes out the video of the restaurant and pages with boiling horror through the rest of the folder, the little matchbook-sized scenes. There are a stomach-turning number of faces he recognizes not at all, dated years and decades long past. Caught in distant candid shots or clearly aware of Carraway’s attention… and to a man, pleased and proud to have it, entirely ignorant of the fate soon to befall them.

  Rafael isn’t looking for Sam, but he could hardly forget the first friendly face he saw here, even five long years since. When he touches the miniature of Sam’s face, the video flashes to life on the screen: a slight, handsome Black man in a secondhand suit he wears like it’s as fine and fitting as a patrician’s. He’s at the head of a crowd, on the broad ridge of some arcane piece of industrial machinery, pacing along it as sure-footed as a cat. He’s a dancing flame of a man, a flashing smile and darting hands, giving an impassioned talk that’s half charming and disarming humor and half inflammatory call to arms.

  Quicksilver words filter through from a distance, in a voice at once achingly familiar and heartbreakingly half-forgotten, the power of the people and together we bargain and hey, if the boss wants to fuck us he could at least buy us some dinner first! Hell, I’d take him out on the town if he’d pay us enough!

  To the side of the camera, a man says, “This is what Cartwright was pissing his pants over?” and Rafael recognizes with a shivering jolt the voice of Carraway’s sergeant, Sandgren. There’s a familiar note of vicious anticipation in his voice when he goes on, “I’m not complaining about a paycheck, but he could have dealt with this whole union mess himself if he was willing to get his hands dirty. I’ll go get some of the boys, make this good and loud—”

  “No, not yet,” says Carraway from behind the camera, and the tone of his voice is all hungry consideration, slow and thoughtful. “I think I’d like to talk to this one… directly.”

  Rafael closes the video with a clumsiness he can’t blame on a lack of familiarity. He’s abruptly aware that his grip is stressing and sparking the edges of the screen, and takes his hands away to pass one over his eyes.

  Rich shifts in his seat, almost silent except for the soft creak of the couch beneath his weight. When Rafael sniffs and draws himself back together to raise his head, the young Hastings is watching him closely. He shifts again, eyes darting to the screen where Sam’s face flickered from view, opens his mouth and then swallows whatever he was going to say.

  “He’s gone,” Rafael says, and the words meant as a smooth explanation emerge as harsh as a raven’s croak. “As so many of these poor, damned souls are, by now.”

  “Yeah,” says Rich.

  “There are so many.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How could,” Rafael begins, and goes still as a third and final familiar visage appears under his drifting touch. A pretty young poet, stage rings glittering and long braids swinging, caught in a sweeping bow. A face hardly recognizable as the still and lifeless parody that plays him now in the mirror, a smile like the rising moon, free—

  “Hey,” Rich says, hand coming to Rafael's cheek, turning his head away from the screen and up towards Rich. “Don't, you don’t gotta swim any deeper, okay? There’s nothin’ on the bottom to dive to, I promise. You gotta stay with me, you know, don't go… anywhere else. You're okay, just, stay here.” He's biting at his lip, brows knit anxiously together as he gazes down at Rafael.

  Rafael stares at him for a second, the bruisy shadows under his green eyes, and then finally, finally catches his breath and nods weakly.

  “Alright,” he says. “Yes, I—sorry.” He looks down at the image of his own face for a trembling heartbeat, then closes it decisively and breathes out sharp and fast, steadying himself. Buddha and Hecate and all Christ’s angels, but the last twenty-four hours have drained him dry, and this morning is hardly begun yet.

  “May we… do something else, for a while, please? I’m sorry, if that’s not too inconvenient.”

  “No, it's cool, that's fine!” Rich says hastily. "Plenty of time to show you more ins and outs later when we're actually working. Let’s… I usually check on the guys, this time of the morning, find out how everyone’s doing.”

  Rafael is taken aback. “You come to the harem wing? Every day?” He’s been so distant from current events recently that he couldn’t name even half the men in the dormitory hall, but he’s fairly sure he hasn’t been so utterly listless as to miss regular visits from an enormous Hastings.

  “No, no I mean—yeah, no. Not by myself, anyway.” Rich grimaces and gestures at himself. “I’d just freak everybody out. I talk to Connor. He’s a vet, y’know, he takes care of people in there, when he can.” He gives a low rumble of distaste. “He’s brilliant too, y’know? All’a you, you’re all these sharp, fun guys, and Carraway doesn’t give a shit.”

  “Taking a… five hundred to go fishing?” Rafael asks delicately, and Rich gives a startled huff of a laugh, bright despite the bitter edge of it.

  “Yeah, you got it. He might as well buy a bunch of plastic toys and just play with those instead.”

  “Toys don’t cry,” Rafael says before he thinks better of it. Rich’s face sets in hard, cold lines, and it takes a moment to recognize the look as sorrow instead of anger.

  “Yeah,” Rich says quietly, and heaves an enormous sigh. “Yeah, well. Nice to know we’re qualified for the position, huh?”

  “I would… hate to be underprepared for the job,” Rafael hazards, and is intensely relieved to see Rich crack a smile. Even better, Rich claps him warmly on the back, friendly and confiding and approving and god Rafael’s still so pathetic. He swallows back the stab of self-loathing with the reflexive ease of long practice and climbs to his feet on Rich’s urging.

  They meet Connor in another of the manor’s endless parlors, set back off the central hall. He’s lying on a sofa, legs thrown over the back, his honey-brown curls wild against the pillows. He’s also dismantling a decorative wicker orb ring by ring, and tossing each ring onto the tines of a taxidermied twelve-point stag’s head mounted high above the mantlepiece of a false fireplace. His aim is startlingly good.

  “Hey, Red,” Connor says casually when he notices Rich, as if the sudden appearance of a huge soldier mod in the only doorway couldn’t possibly be cause for alarm. He tosses another ring right at Rich, who snaps it out of the air in a single, economic blur.

  “Connor,” Rich says, with such distinct disapproval that Rafael’s heart freezes itself to his ribs.

  “What? I’m improving the place, I’m decorating,” Connor says, unfazed, and tosses a few more rings onto the antler tips. “I’m doing art to the art. Carraway oughta gimme a raise.”

  “I’ll let him know next time I see him,” Rich says dryly, and goes over to the mantlepiece to clear the rings off antlers mounted at least nine feet off the ground.

  “You can put ‘em back together if you want,” Connor says, apparently unaffected by this much oversized muscle stretched out before him. “I mean good luck figurin’ out how, I busted the glue.”

  “You’re a menace,” Rich says with audible fondness. “You know the shit you get up to’s enough to put Sandgren half-mast just looking at you, would it kill you to go a day without giving him the excuse?” He comes back to drop all the rings into the bowl of wicker orbs on the coffee table.

  When Connor reaches for another one, Rich pushes the bowl beyond his reach. “C’mon, buddy, he’s not the guy who’ll have to mop the decks when you’re done trashing ‘em.”

  “Fair deal,” Connor smiles, careless of the defeat. “You want a sitrep or what?”

  “Yeah, how’s everyone doing? Haven't seen Hunter up and about recently, he okay?”

  “He's not so hot these last couple days. Y’know Sandgren gets to play hardball when he actually catches somebody breaking a rule, and Hunter was actually beatin’ his goddamn meat when Sarge walked in, poor stupid sumbitch.”

  "Oh, shit," Rich says, wincing.

  "Yeah, it’ll take him a minute to walk that kinda spankin’ off.”

  “Yeah,” Rich sighs. “I thought I was fucked, yesterday—Carraway got me, after Sandgren shoved all that shit down my dick. Got me off and then acted like—” he growls. “You know how he fucking acts.”

  “You shot off early and you still got to fuck your new buddy last night?” Connor says, eyebrows rising. Rich flushes scarlet, looking startled and confused. Connor snorts and gestures meaningfully to—oh. To the bruisy pink marks Rafael left on the Hastings’ paper-white throat. That weren’t there before Rich returned from their card game last night.

  Ah.

  Connor doesn’t look resentful, at least. “What’s your next trick, big guy? You gonna drink ditchwater and piss moonshine?”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Workin’ on it,” Rich says, and settles his colossal frame into the delicate curve of the sofa. Connor casually shifts around to prop his bare feet up on Rich’s broad thigh, and Rich picks one up without any prompting and starts rubbing it.

  He says, voice soft, hands busy, “You haven't had to give Hunter stitches or anything, though? Glue him back together? Sandgren’s always making all those awful fuckin’ threats…”

  “Naw, he’s got a whole tiger's worth of stripes for it, I figure it was prolly a caning, but nothin’ split. And then just when the one’s startin’ to heal back up, I got back after cards last night and find out Domingo went and threw another fit; broke one’a those big cabinets full of the stupid li’l china dogs—”

  “Oh no, not the china fuckin’ dogs,” Rich murmurs, an earthquake's sotto voce. “Those were so vital to morale.”

  Connor gives a bright silvery laugh. “The china fuckin’ dogs! He threw the whole damn armful out the window. Glass and busted china all over the courtyard out back. And as soon as Stefan got back to the room he went and snitched, the li’l shit…”

  Rafael leans himself unobtrusively against a bookcase as the conversation winds on without him, feeling oddly lonely. He checks the insides of one of the books, but it’s just cheap machine-generated nonsense text, with not even a semblance of coherence. “Once in the course of events in Istenguard most forthcomingly our party dwelled before night in the Forest Of Whispers there was…” He checks another book, and there’s only incomprehensible diagrams.

  In his first year here, after discovering one single precious collection of Shakespeare and then not a scrap of any other poet or playwright, he’d checked every single book in the entire compound. Most of the books that were real had already been located by the boytoys that had come before him, and left in carefully marked locations. Rafael had found six more real books, in odd corners and forgotten niches, and traded the first four to Sam for sweet kisses, seasoned with triumph. After that, though, Sam had been gone, and Rafael had to mark the last two himself.

  There had been an attempt, before Rafael’s time, a year or two before Sam’s, even: some unfortunate men of years past had gathered as many real volumes as they could find, attempting a makeshift library in one of the bookcases of the harem wing’s largest parlor. According to Sam, the story passed down was that Sandgren appeared one morning without warning and was seen studying the shelves with the particular anticipation of a man intending some petty cruelty. No punishment ever came from it, but the threat was enough; in a few panicky hours, Carraway’s prisoners had scattered the books back across their ornate prison, each with its place on the shelf carefully marked.

  Here and now, Rafael trails his fingers over the undersides of the shelves, one by one, until he finds a notch scored into the wood. The book directly below it is nonsense, as are the surrounding three—the system might be breaking down, for lack of anyone who knows to continue it—but then the one on the end is real. A Brief History Of Space And Time, bound in soft blue leather and silver lettering.

  Rich and Connor have gone quiet. When Rafael turns, holding the book, they’re both staring at him, and he freezes with the shock of it.

  “You knew that was there,” Connor says slowly. “You know how to find books around here that are actually real.”

  “The books aren't real?” Rich asks, frowning.

  Mutely, Rafael pulls another nonsense volume off the shelf and hands it to Rich, who leafs through the pages intently, perplexity shifting into clear displeasure. The real book Rafael offers to Connor after only a brief hesitation.

  “Well, slap a stamp on my ass and ship me to Atlanta,” Connor says, doing his own examination. “Shit, you know—you been stuck here ages, I bet you know all kindsa shit that got forgotten along the way.”

  Rafael doesn’t know what he knows that’s been forgotten. How could he? He hasn’t been living here for the last few years, not any more than he absolutely had to be. He was lying in bed, waiting to die, watching the sun crawl across his window and the roses bloom and wither and bloom again.

  “There's,” he forces himself to say, “there’s a notch scratched into the underside of some of the shelves, and the real book should be situated beneath. This one was on the end—I think it was either misshelved, or whoever put it back didn’t know how to align it properly. But… there. Now you know.”

  “Lord, I could kiss you. That’s fantastic. You think of anything else, come n’ find me, okay?”

  “Yes, of course,” Rafael says. But now that he’s trying to think of things, anything at all, his mind’s gone entirely blank.

  Rich gets up and goes over to the bookshelf. He checks a few books at random, his thick eyebrows knitting together in growing ire, and Rafael finds himself holding very still, watching.

  “This isn't even a proper LLM,” Rich says, voice roughening towards a growl. “It's just a Mark V. Shaney, that's antique, that's flintstone tech! You can run Markov chains off a cadmium battery. You can run ‘em off a salt battery! What the fuck.”

  “The china dogs weren't real china, neither,” Connor puts in, and waves A Brief History. “Our lord and master don't much care how real anything is, long as it fits on the shelf and looks pretty.”

  Rich chuffs and sighs. “Well, I can at least go through the shelves later,” he says, sounding less irate. “Put them back in the right places.”

  “Better not,” Connor says. “They must’ve been scattered around for a reason, right? Anyone sees you rootin’ them all out, jig’s gonna be up.”

  “Sandgren,” Rafael says. “When I was… new here, Sam told me that Sandgren found out the bookshelf they were keeping all the real books together, so…”

  “Yeah, that’d do it,” Connor says.

  “Fuck that guy,” Rich says disgustedly, that terrifying Hastings growl returning with new force at the edges of his voice. “Antisocial piece of shit. Any sane goddamn society would ship him out, but no. Carraway fucking promotes him—”

  “Welcome to the Kentucky Territory,” Connor says, with bright, false cheer. “Where the good Lord ran plumb outta hearts but he sure had a whole bushel of leftover assholes!”

  “You know, he couldn’t destroy the real books if all of them were real,” Rich says slowly, thoughtfully. “I didn’t know they weren’t, because uh, I’m not really much of a reader? So I never cracked one open. Pretty much stopped reading anything but technical manuals the minute they let me outta school, my buddy Trimmer was always raggin’ on me for it. But god, everyone here’s so bored, aren’t they?”

  “I mean, some of us are catatonic,” Connor says. Then, “Aw, shit, sorry, Raf. Didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

  “It’s alright,” Rafael says, startled to be apologized to. “It was a perfectly accurate assessment.”

  “I bet I could just order in real books, though,” Rich says, clicking his white data rings together, and half a dozen screens bloom against his fingers. “There’s… couple dozen bookshelves, with six or eight shelves apiece… I’m not gonna count them myself and it looks like the compound doesn’t know how many, exactly, she’s got right now or could hold at capacity. Hold on, I’m gonna have to teach her what a book is and she’ll be able to count for me.”

  “You’re going to what?” Rafael says.

  “Oh, you din’t know?” Connor says. “The house’s alive and Rich talks to her.”

  “That’s not how it works,” Rich says absently. “I just tuned up her operating system to an actual functional AI governor instead of the rat’s nest of corporate code she was running on before. I swear, the only reason landside places don’t sink is they physically can’t. But god, they should.”

  Rafael looks at Connor to see if he understands any of this, and finds Connor giving him an identical look.

  “‘Kay, here we go," Rich goes on, "she’s got an estimate. Whole buncha zeroes… I have no idea if that’s a lotta books for somewhere landside or not. Anyway, I can’t get a line out of here but she can order in all kinds of supplies from the furnishing catalogs she’s subscribed to, and there’s these whole packages, library sets… So if we cut anything that doesn’t guarantee real actual books written by people for other people to read… no yeah, here we go. The Gentleman Scholar Grand Library set, full-size, all authenticated human authors and one bonus canine co-author. History, science, literature, art, good for large mansions, small palaces, exclusive resorts, and private educational institutions. That sound ‘bout right?”

  “Yes,” Rafael says, after a stunned moment. “Yes, that’s… fantastic. That’s perfect.”

  “Cool,” Rich says, like he hasn’t just pulled the moon down on a string, and makes a few more decisive gestures. “Connor, can you get some of the guys to help you hunt down the books that hold water? Shame to let ‘em get pulped too…”

  “Yeah, I reckon Asher’d help,” says Connor, who’s watching Rich now with the fascinated confusion of a man seeing a new animal for the first time. “Don’t think he gives a good goddamn about books, but he’d sure like to stick one to Sandgren. Omar and Domingo, too, if you don't mind not lettin’ them know you kicked this off. They're still not so keen on your whole everything.”

  “Can't win them all,” says Rich, and then frowns at his screen, brow furrowing with concern for the first time since he began the endeavor. “Oh, huh. This seems like secretary shit to me—but it says I gotta get Mx Sayegh to sign off.”

  Rafael’s heart, so briefly exultant, sinks. “You haven’t already?”

  “No?” says Rich. “Books are secretary stuff, right? It’s not like it’s tools, or food, or guns or something. Whatever Carraway buys. It’s just books.”

  “Landside, Red,” Connor says, like he’s had to say it before many times. “Out here books cost money.”

  “Books cost—you have to pay for stuff on the Fleet, too,” Rich says, as though he has said this many times as well. “We even have bookstores, you gotta pay for the printing and binding and everything, my big sister's probably kept half a dozen bookshops afloat all on her own.”

  “Yeah, and y’all pay for your boat books in boat scrip.”

  “In—credits, we have credits. I get enough ribbing from Sol about economics to take it from you too!” Rich waves a hand in a grandly defensive gesture, like a wizard, and stands up decisively. “Well, anyway, even here you can’t stop a hop halfway. I guess I’ll go ask them to put it through for me. Can you go talk to Asher?”

  “Might as well,” says Connor, and rolls off the couch, bouncing spryly to his feet like a rubber ball. “Just lemme know how we do. I’ll meet you out by the sunset roses when you got it dusted.”

  Rafael falls in by Rich’s side as he marches down to the quartermaster’s office again, sure that he should say something but with no idea whatsoever of what to say or how to phrase it. Rich seems to have no hesitation about the matter at all, and before Rafael has even decided why exactly this is a bad idea, he’s walked up to the quartermaster’s door and given it a firm, polite knock.

  Mx Sayegh opens it looking irritable, blinks owlishly at the man, and says, “Hastings. Again.”

  “Hi, yeah,” says Rich. “It’s Merrill, sen. I was trying to fix some stuff up around the place and it said I have to get you to sign off.”

  “‘Some stuff,’” repeats the quartermaster with clear suspicion, and Rich nods and wordlessly hands over the screen, with its neat images of books and fine shelves on it. Mx Sayegh looks it over and then squints up at him with the expression of a person trying to see where the trick is.

  “Why exactly would we replace all our books?” they say.

  “Well, they’re garbage,” Rich says earnestly, radiating righteous indignation. “They’re all just procedural generation—auto-text bullshit, and not even convincing stuff! Have you ever gone around and opened them?”

  “I have my own personal collection of books,” says Mx Sayegh absently, but their frown has darkened, and they split the screen Rich gave them into a second and begin scrolling through it at speed. “This is pricey.”

  “We’re already spending something on warehousing junk cargo,” Rich says, “instead of carrying any kind of functional load. Let alone one that would be a worthwhile investment. Old books are valuable, right? But auto-text books are just useless props, and they degrade over time, and they’ve been here since before Carraway took over, I think. Why shouldn’t we pitch out the trash and put in something worth dusting on the shelves?”

  Rafael has never much spoken to the quartermaster, but he’s aware of them—and more importantly, he’s been his troupe’s liaison with many a small town’s lesser powers and seconds-in-command. Nothing incenses and motivates a middle manager like the implication of powerlessness. He wets his dry lips and puts a deferential hand on Rich’s arm.

  “Mr Carraway guards his wealth as a dragon guards its horde,” he says with meek concern, as though he doesn’t even intend the quartermaster to take note of him. “He may not consider this an apt use for his money…”

  “I mean, we can’t just leave the books like that,” Rich says, playing his part to the letter, all ignorant bewilderment. “He liked that I got that stupid show piano of his tuned up… oh. But when I tried to get all that—that, um—the grass? Lawn? I thought he just hadn’t gotten around to putting in a garden there yet and turns out he likes wasting floorspace.” He looks glumly from Rafael, who’s wearing a mask of understanding and sympathy, to Mx Sayegh, who’s watching him with an ever-more-familiar expression of irritable bafflement. “And it’s not like he noticed they were junk text before…”

  “I think it would be a well-worthy use of space and money,” Rafael reassures him. “But I’m sure we would have to ask him, or perhaps Mr Sandgren… Neither of them would have given Mx Sayegh leave to spend…”

  “I have discretionary funds available,” Mx Sayegh says with the expected sharpness. “And it isn’t William’s business how I spend them.”

  “I apologize,” Rafael says at once, the picture of wincing innocence. “I spoke out of turn—”

  “Yes, you did,” says Sayegh firmly. “That’s enough from you.”

  Rafael complies, resisting the twitch of his lips as the quartermaster scowls at the screen, precisely as bothered as Rafael hoped they would be. Rich seems not to have noted the victory. He shifts uneasily, broad mouth crimping in obvious discomfort at Rafael’s chastisement, but Mx Sayegh seems hardly to notice or care. They glare at the library set for another few moments, narrow-eyed, and then click their tongue, perform a series of complex gestures, and decisively dismiss the screen.

  “Those will be delivered as soon as the company agrees to the security measures,” they say. “If you notice any more fixtures that have no utility, report them to me, Hastings.”

  “Merrill,” Rich says meekly. “Uh. Yes, sen.”

  “…Merrill,” says Mx Sayegh, and Rich brightens and snaps off one of his nautical salutes as the quartermaster turns without another word and closes themself back into their office.

  “Man,” Rich says, and turns a beaming grin down toward Rafael. “This is great! Wow. Uh. You gotta be careful, though, Mx Sayegh doesn’t really… I mean, Sandgren’s not really the boss of them…”

  “I’m well aware,” Rafael says, voice low. He can hear the quartermaster moving things about inside, scraping and clattering, but it seems wise to be cautious nevertheless. “However. I think a great many things could be done in this place if it was… tastefully implied that our esteemed sergeant of discipline would disapprove of them.”

  “What?” says Rich, and then “Oh!” thick red brows twitching up in obvious surprise. “Oh, huh. Yeah, I guess. That’s smart, damn.”

  “Oh,” says Rafael, startled despite himself by the praise. “Well. I’m only glad that it led to something for the better. Even the dullest of tomes would be better than empty nonsense.”

  “Exactly,” Rich says in relief, and claps Rafael gently on the shoulder. “Okay, hell yeah. Let’s go meet Connor and let him know!”