Felix wanted to say that the only guest that mattered had been served first and that she was now rightly, and possibly royally, screwed. She looked steadily at him as she raised the cup and took another deliberate sip. Carlisle hovered, obviously hoping she would change her mind. He left only when another figure filled the doorway.

  Felix almost dropped the cup in surprise.

  “Ah, Minister,” Carlisle said, in his best aid-de-camp voice. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I’m afraid the captain is still feeling a little under the weather.”

  It was clear from the quizzical look on the Minister’s face, and the slightly uplifted eyebrow that her boss didn’t believe a word Carlisle had said. He came straight to the point.

  “Sensors registered a lizardine life-form in your office, Captain. A full-blooded lizardine. Any explanation as to why that might be?”

  Felix greeted him with a look of pure feigned innocence. Keeping the teacup held at chest height, she refrained from demanding to know why such sensors had been installed in her office without her knowledge, and replied, “Because the sensors are on the blink, sir?”

  The minister was not amused. He returned her look with an expression so stern that Felix no longer had a hard time keeping a straight face.

  “That would be a first,” he said, “but whether or not you say they’re working is beside the point. And if your office is so empty, who is that?”

  Felix glanced in the direction he was pointing, but saw nothing and nobody standing in front of the bookshelf he indicated.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t see anything.” He might not believe the sensors were playing up, but he could do nothing without proof.

  The minister waited, staring at her as though she ought to know what he wanted. In truth, Felix did, but revealing Mika’s presence was not on the cards until the lizardine warrior chose to make himself known, and that, patently, wasn’t now. She hoped Mika knew what he was doing.

  “Look, sir, you know I would tell you if I saw the one that got away from the institute, but he didn’t hang around and he didn’t show an interest in talking. I know we can’t afford another incident, and that display they put on was bad enough that I can’t think of how we’re going to regain the ground they lost us.” She was still holding the teacup in her hands, when her aid knocked quietly at the door. Motioning for him to enter, she realized she was holding what they were looking for, in her hands. It wasn’t hard to put an edge of desperation in her voice. “But, sir, there’s a reason he wasn’t armed. Maybe they were sending him to negotiate, and if that’s the case, sir, why would I be hiding him in my office?”

  The minister hadn’t reached his position by being anybody’s fool. He glanced at the cup Felix held, as though it suddenly meant something.

  “Captain, the lab won’t tell me there’s lizardine DNA on the cup, will they?”

  Felix wanted to ask why on earth he’d send her best china to the lab. What she managed was a very bitter, “Only mine, sir” which seemed to satisfy him.

  “Very good.” He turned to Carlisle. “If you would do the honors, Lieutenant.”

  Carlisle poured, refilling Felix’s cup as part of his duties.

  The minister stayed a little longer, asking about the incident at the institute, and then questioning her over her relapse in the car. By the end of it, Felix was gripping her cup so tightly she was surprised it hadn’t shattered. When he seemed to run out of questions, the minister rose and set his cup on her desk.

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  “Go home, Captain,” he said, and there was a gentleness in his voice that hadn’t been there before.

  “But my report,” Felix protested.

  “You just gave it,” he told her. “No need to type it up. I’ll have my secretary transcribe it later this afternoon. He’ll send you a copy in the morning, and you can sign off on it, if you agree.”

  Felix rose with him, walking him to the door without realizing she carried her cup with her.

  “Good afternoon, minister,” she said, and he shook her hand before walking away.

  “I’ll have the car ready to meet you,” Carlisle said, but Felix shook her head.

  “Ma’am, you can’t walk after today. Medical and Security—”

  “Will both have pink kittens,” Felix finished for him, then softened her voice. “If you don’t mind, Carlisle, I’ll take a cab.”

  “Thank you.” She stood in the open doorway, listening as Carlisle called the cab company and gave the address for pick up and drop off, then she went back to the office and cleaned her teeth, before going home.

  “I’ll see you in the morning, Manx.”

  * * *

  Felix felt Mika pass her in the corridor, but didn’t panic. She knew him, now, had his scent, the taste of his presence, had shared a cup with him in a time-honored tradition that intensified her own innate abilities to a point where accuracy was no longer a problem and identifying him was guaranteed.

  She thought she sensed others, and that both made sense, and no sense at all. If Mika had come with an escort, why hadn’t they prevented his capture? And why were they hanging back, even now?

  She ran her pass over the scanner on the way out, waving goodbye to the guard as she left. She did not worry when Mika’s presence was no longer a tangible thing. He now knew her address and would meet her at the apartment. Knowing him, he would probably be inside when she got there.

  Felix tried to stifle the brief spike of annoyance she felt, and to tamp down the nervous anticipation roiling in her gut. She wasn’t looking forward to the evening ahead, but it could mean gaining ground in the negotiations. ‘Her’ race depended on it, just as Mika had said. How then could any gift, even the elder’s sword, be more important than that?

  She let the cab take her home, fighting all the way not to let memory take her under, aware, just the same, of a subtle lizardine presence, something close by, and yet just out of reach. If she hadn’t known Mika wasn’t here to start a guerilla war, that niggling something might have caused her more concern.

  Mika slipped through her apartment door as soon as she unlocked it. He had at least done her the courtesy of leaving the door on its hinges and not offending the body corporate with more destruction than necessary.

  “They will ask me to hunt you,” she said, as they walked inside together, she as tangible as the day, and he as invisible as any ghost.

  He dropped the blend as soon as the door had closed behind her.

  “How do you know it’s safe?” Felix asked.

  Mika let his jaw relax into a smile.

  “I know.”

  Satisfying herself with a mere frown at his reluctance to share, Felix went into the kitchen.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No.” His voice at her shoulder made her jump.

  “Do you mind if I eat?”

  “Do you really feel like eating, after the drug Manx hit you with?”

  The answer was no, so Felix stopped and looked up at him.

  “There was something you wanted to ask me,” she said.

  “Yes. This way, if you please.”

  In spite of it being her apartment, Felix allowed Mika to lead her out of the kitchen and through to the living room. She wasn’t too surprised when he continued toward her office, but stopped at the door.

  “Can we talk in there?” he asked, and Felix noted the way he slipped into the lizardine tongue, saw the formality in his request. He was not asking to talk. He was asking to ‘meet on an official and formal basis’, to ‘negotiate at the highest level’—in her office, her home office.

  She answered as formally as she could muster. Her duties on Aquapearl had not required she learn diplomacy. Fortunately, Mika understood that. They had met on the battlefield more than once; the last time had seen her successfully evade his attempt to ‘reacquire’ her before she was cycled out of the war zone. It had been an abrupt ending to her admiration of the color of Aquapearl’s oceans. The lizardine could bend light even when submerged.

  When they were comfortably settled, she behind her desk as Mika wished, and he to one side in the reading chair she used when she was researching and did not need to make notes, he gestured for her to make the opening statement.

  “You had need to speak with me?”—‘to negotiate on the deepest, most formal and official level’.

  “It is true that part of our negotiations must be at this level, but the more important part is to do with the gift you received from my nest parent.”

  Felix felt her mouth go dry. His nest parent—a task given to the oldest and wisest in a tribe, a grandparent of sorts, but a ruler, too. Cold shivered over her. She had only ever spoken to one nest parent. Once. The memory still brought tears to her eyes, made her tremble. Unable to find her voice, she gestured for Mika to continue.