Page 159 of Maksym

Statement.

I inhaled.

“Yes.”

His fingers brushed mine once. No more. In this room, under these eyes, it felt more intimate than a kiss.

Kazimir inclined his head to me. “Counsel.”

I looked at him. “Your Majesty.”

Devon stepped forward before he could move away and took both my hands.

Her fingers were cool and stronger than they looked.

“If someone says something stupid,” she whispered, “imagine me throwing cheese at them.”

A laugh escaped me before fear could stop it. It was small. It was also real.

“I’ll try.”

Kazimir’s eyes warmed faintly as Devon released me. Then he and Maksym moved toward the inner chamber entrance, where another guard admitted them through a narrower door.

They disappeared. The room seemed to notice.

Maddie stood very still beside Nikolay. Her face remained lifted, her lipstick perfect, her whiskey eyes too bright. Nikolay’s hand on her back.

I looked at the white walls. The black marble. The wolf guard with his arms crossed. The long table. The two chairs.

Then I set my portfolio down and said, “Well, I’ve been in worse rooms with worse people and lived to file the paperwork.”

Maddie blinked. Then she laughed. Not loudly. But enough.

Nikolay’s shoulders lowered by a fraction.

Bohdan looked around with faint disdain. “The decor is aggressively hostile to joy.”

Remy sat in one of the chairs along the wall and crossed her legs. “That is because joy cannot be compelled.”

Lucia remained standing. “It can be stabbed.”

Doc looked at her. “We talked about appropriate courtroom energy.”

“This is not a courtroom.”

“Not helping your case, sweetheart.”

I sat. The chair was as uncomfortable as predicted. Good. Comfort might have made me careless.

The wolf guard watched us. I looked back at him with my prosecutor’s face. He looked away first.

Outside the closed doors, old powers gathered and called it order.

Inside the antechamber, I waited with my notes, my dead pens, my living anger, and the people I had chosen to defend.

The doors opened without a sound, which somehow made it worse.

I had expected weight. Groaning hinges. Some theatrical announcement in a language dead enough to impress itself. Instead, the great doors parted on silent mechanisms or magic or both, revealing the Council chamber beyond with the cold composure of a mouth opening to swallow testimony.