Page 60 of Throwing Fire

Kez giggles. “Would you have stayed?”

“Would? I fucking have.” Helas has bitten me a few times. Never hard enough to draw blood. The day she draws blood will be the last time that bunny ever bites anyone.

We both look up at a series of silvery chimes from the clocks hanging over our heads. They’re announcing the hour: twenty-hundred. Some of the clocks also spark and rain a silvery message down over the crowd.

Please take your seats.

The triplets at work.

Because the triplets are having it much too easy, I decide to relocate from the head table. I shift the Roysten R-and-D Xec and his trophy SO into our seats, and allow myself a little smile at leaving Myhre, Ape, and Chi to their squeals of gratification and the triplets’ collective tooth-grinding, while I escort Kez to seats on the left wing of the seating area. That we’re behind a column that would prevent anyone from the outside getting a clear headshot at her is a bonus. That we’re at a table with the R-and-D Xec’s counterpart from the Clouds is part of the plan.

What’s not part of the plan is how Kez stiffens and turns white when the Xec’s guest joins us, just as I’m asking the Cloudlander what she knows about the E.C.

Kez stands slowly, and because she’s standing, I rise, too.

“Jaxon,” she says.

“Kezzy.” The man gives her a broad, white smile. His teeth ain’t perfect, his right lateral incisor is chipped. Snaggletooth. But otherwise, he’s got beach-boy good looks: tall, blond, blue-eyed. He’s even got a little dark-blond goatee. Bet he thinks it makes him look tough.

Kez catches me before I slam my saber right through those golden good looks. She grips my arm with one hand and pushes the saber back into its sheath with the other. “Public,” she whispers to me.

The Cloud Xec looks horrified, flicking her retrogenned cats-eyes from me to Jaxon. “Jax?” she asks tentatively.

He brushes her off and continues to lock stares with Kez. “Wasn’t sure you’d be here tonight, Kezzy. I heard you had an accident.”

I hear a rustle of silk. Her hot jasmine scent washes over me a second before Myhre grabs my other arm with both hands.

The four of us stand locked in a deadly tableau for a long moment, until Myhre breaks it by yanking on my arm.

“Gentlemen,” she says. “If you would take your seats? Dinner is served.”

I release the saber. Hand Kez back into her seat. Myhre turns and has a short, sharp conversation with the Tyngaling who was seated next to me. He and the two women with him quickly relocate. Myhre seats herself in a rustle of silk and when I remain standing, watching Jaxon, she grabs my arm again and pulls me down into my seat.

She leans into me, filling my lungs with fake flowers, and hisses in my ear, “The Commissioner of Peace for Nock City is sitting less than ten meters away.”

“Easy, Ree,” I tell her. “I’m just ... excited to meet Kez’s old friend, Jaxon.” I emphasize the name to clue her in. “I’ve heard so much about him.”

“You Snow?” Jaxon asks. He takes a bulb ofargentéfrom the wait-bots who are circling our table, offering fresh drinks and setting out thehors d’oeuvres. Shrimp cocktail, of course. “I’ve heard about you, too.” He shrugs, not really looking at me.

He doesn’t pause meaningfully or emphasize my name. He may have heard about Snow, but he doesn’t know whoIam.

“Heard I been lookin’ for you?” I ask, picking up a giant shrimp and beheading it with a quick twist before popping it in my mouth.

“Have you? No, I hadn’t heard. Guess I don’t move in your circles.” He rolls his blue eyes around the room. “Gotta say, you throw a cracking party.”

“I’m so glad you’re enjoying yourself, Mister Mereia,” Myhrechimes in. “Miz Brook, I wasn’t aware you were bringing a guest,” she says to the cat-eyed Xec, who is still looking horrified.

“I-I—” she stammers.

“Chriz and I are old friends,” Jaxon says.

“Bu-but we only met last month,” the Xec responds, looking bewildered. I can see how she ended up in R-and-D, although Marketing might be a better place for her.

“Long enough to wash off the stink of the cubes, huh, Jax?” Kez says. My kitten unsheathing her claws. I lazily slide my arm across the back of her chair.

Jaxon shrugs and wolfs down a shrimp. Wipes his mouth with gusto. “That’s quality shit. Not much of that in the cubes. Or the gutters of Nock.” He sneers at Kez.

“Much in the E.C.?” I ask and am rewarded with a flicker of his blue eyes.

---