Page 92 of Problematic

“That didn’t answer my question.”

“It answered the only part relevant to your continued employment.”

Vale sighed. He had been doing that a lot lately. Sighing, pinching the bridge of his nose, and looking at me like loyalty had become a chore.

“The city council wants a visible show of force,” he said. “They think that if we do not respond by tomorrow, the smaller districts will start assuming you are distracted.”

“They can assume whatever they like.”

“They suspect something.” He lowered the tablet. “You vanished from a southern strategy meeting because a camera went dark in a barista’s apartment. I covered for you, but the Southern Lords aren’t stupid.”

For a second the map between us hummed, red points glowing at the edges of my territory while every reasonable part of my life waited for instruction. Then my phone vibrated. A single pulse against the inside pocket of my jacket.

Vale saw my face change.

“Oh no,” he said.

I pulled the phone from my pocket.

“Don’t start.”

The alert waited on the screen. DEVICE ACTIVE. My pulse shifted. The southern map vanished from my mind like someone had cut the power to it.

Vale looked from the phone to my face. “Is that . . .”

“Yes.”

At first he was quiet. Then, carefully, he asked, “Should I . . . leave?”

I opened the feed. The screen filled with Liv’s face. The camera was so close to her face that all I saw was one brown eye, the curve of her cheek, a flash of hair. She was still in her flower shop shirt, the dark fabric wrinkled from a long shift.

She frowned at the lens. “Is this thing on?” Liv squinted harder, then tapped the camera with one finger. The camera dipped, swung, caught her ceiling, her chin, the edge of her bed, then her face again as she turned it in her hand with the confidence of someone who knew almost nothing about surveillance equipment. “Okay,” she said, voice low. “Hi, Murder Boy.”

I smiled. “Hello, Liv.”

Vale coughed once. I looked up. He was staring very hard at the wall behind me.

“Leave,” I said.

“I was already leaving.”

He was, in fact, not, but he moved fast enough now to preserve his life. At the door he paused.

“Sir.”

“Vale.”

“Don’t do anything too drastic.”

“Out.”

The door shut behind him. Finally.

On-screen, Liv took a breath and held the camera out from her face. The angle widened enough for me to see her bedroom. I went still. That bedroom had been the one violation I refused to give myself.

The feed rocked as she moved. Books passed in a blur. Her nightstand. She set the camera on the bookshelf, pointed it directly at the bed.

My laugh came out before I could stop it. “Oh, Little Flower.” She had no idea what was doing. Or maybe she did. Maybe, just maybe, that was the point. That possibility dragged heat straight through me.