Page 69 of Kazimir

“Fine,” I said. “If you ask me nicely.”

Amelia looked up. “Please, for Kyra.”

Ryder put a hand to his massive chest. “With my deepest professional respect.”

“Look at that,” I said. “Manners survived the apocalypse.”

The tension in the room eased by a thread. Not enough to undo its purpose. Just enough to let everyone breathe.

Archon went on, “There is another matter. Sariel is arrogant, but he is not entirely stupid. If he believes the bond gives him an angle, he may attempt not only force but legal theater. A summons. A demand for parley under celestial custom. Something crafted to make refusal appear as guilt.”

“No,” I said instantly.

The word cracked out of me with a force that made even me blink.

Kazimir’s hand tightened at my neck.

Archon’s gaze warmed by a degree. “I thought as much.”

I swallowed. “I’m sorry. I just—”

“You owe no one an apology for pattern recognition,” Amelia said. “If a man used procedure to hurt you once, he’ll try it again. We can all count.”

Nikolay nodded gently. “Then we do not allow you within reach of any meeting he defines.”

Kazimir’s voice cut through the chamber, quiet and absolute. “She will not attend any parley not even on my ground, under my law, or with Archon present and my full force at her back.”

He did not look at me when he said it. He didn’t need to. The sentence wrapped around me anyway, hard and clean. Not a cage. A wall.

My eyes burned then, which was inconvenient because crying in front of strategists felt like dropping a scalpel during surgery.

Lucia noticed, because of course she did. She rose without drawing attention to the fact and came around behind my chair, setting one hand on my shoulder. Not coddling. Steady. Her fingers squeezed once.

“You’re doing well,” she said quietly, the words for me and nobody else.

“I feel like my skeleton is trying to leave the premises.”

“That’s normal solnyshko,” she replied. “But it’s still tucked in your skin. This is good.”

I let out a sound that might have been half laugh, half damaged prayer.

Amelia shoved back from the table. “Good. Since we’re all agreed on not handing her to the heavenly sex pest, I need to start turning the club into a mirror maze for angels.”

“Again, poetic,” Bohdan said. “And I hate it.”

“You hate everything that can’t be solved with velvet and blackmail.”

“Untrue. I appreciate excellent tailoring.”

Kazimir lifted two fingers. The room obeyed that gesture faster than some countries obeyed law. “Go,” he said to Amelia. “Take whatever you require.”

She was gone in a blur of boots and copper hair and determination, already muttering to herself about thresholds, ley angles, and whether the roof drains were original to the building.

One by one the others began to peel away into their assigned functions. Maksym and Taras left together, speaking in low, clipped phrases that sounded like cities being moved on a board. Bohdan was on his phone before he hit the door. I heard the soft edge of his charm sharpen into command. Nikolay paused beside me, big hand settling for a brief moment over his heart in an old-world gesture that needed no translation. I returned it instinctively. His smile was tired and kind.

“We will make this painful for him,” he said.

“Good,” I whispered.