Mezos’s hand went to his comm, and Liam almost moved to stop him.

"No," Liam said. "Amara needs Marin more than I do."

"You do not know her case," Mezos replied.

"I know enough."

"No," Mezos said, and for once there was no polish in the word, only the hard edge beneath it. "Her condition is clear. Severe, but clear. Marin is coming mostly to monitor and support what the other physicians have already begun."

Liam’s mouth tightened.

Mezos pointed at him without mercy. "You, on the other hand, are the mate of the future emperor, working inside an unstable ether environment, with a condition that has been misdiagnosed, hidden, or deliberately mishandled for years. You are the priority now."

Liam looked offended at Mezos for saying the truth, which was an impressive amount of audacity from a man currently standing inside the truth.

"Then Arik..."

"The prince said nothing because he was waiting for you to say it," Mezos said.

Liam’s mouth closed.

Mezos tilted his head, his expression calm again, but not gentle enough to let Liam escape. "Did you think Arik brought the best of the best here only because of Amara?"

Liam went still.

"Yes, Amara is important," Mezos continued. "But if her case had required Marin personally, she would have been sent to Agaron before anyone asked him to move an inch."

He stepped closer and stabbed one finger against Liam’s chest, not hard, but precise enough to feel like an accusation.

"I wondered why Arik ordered Marin to come. It did not add up. Her treatment had already started. Her case was being monitored. Marin could have reviewed reports from Agaron." Mezos’s eyes narrowed. "Now I know why."

Liam did not move.

"It was for you."

Liam looked down at the finger still pressed lightly against his chest, then at Mezos, and very carefully, he stepped back.

"No," he said.

Alexander’s expression did not change.

Mara looked like she wanted to say something and was biting the inside of her cheek hard enough to deserve hazard pay.

Mezos lowered his hand. "Yes."

"No," Liam repeated, because sometimes repetition was a valid engineering response when reality was being unreasonable. "Arik did not order an imperial physician to cross borders because of me."

"He did."

"He would have said something."

"He was waiting for you to say it."

"That is not how normal people handle medical information."

"Arik is not normal people," Mezos replied. "Neither are you."

Liam opened his mouth.

Closed it.

That was becoming a deeply unpleasant habit today.

The Vanguard roared beneath them, and Liam hated that even the machine seemed more stable than he felt. He had spent years understanding danger through systems: pressure, load, flow, output, failure points. He could look at a violent mechanism and know where it would break.

This was not a mechanism.

This was Arik knowing, arranging, and Arik waiting for him to come to the edge of the truth by himself instead of dragging him there like every other powerful person in Liam’s life had tried to do.

Liam looked at Alexander. "You told him enough for that?"

Alexander held his gaze. "I told him enough to keep you alive."

"That was not your decision."

"It was exactly my decision."

Liam’s red eyes sharpened.

Alexander did not flinch.

For a second, the air between them was not between an engineer and a university security guard. It was between a man who had spent years guarding a door and the person who had never realized how many threats had been stopped before reaching it.

Alexander’s voice remained rough and quiet. "I am responsible for Lab V security. That includes you."

"I am not equipment."

"No," Alexander said. "You are more fragile and more stubborn."

Mara made a strangled sound.

Liam turned toward her. "I should fire you."

"You won’t," Mara said with a faint smile.

She set the documents aside and crossed her arms, looking entirely too comfortable for someone currently participating in a coordinated assault on her supervisor’s dignity.

"But Liam," she continued, "Mezos and the prince are right. You should know what is actually happening with your ether. Not just theories about damaged channels, incompatible responses, or whatever creative nonsense physicians came up with when they couldn’t explain it."

Liam sighed.

The sound carried years of frustration, old medical reports, and the exhausting experience of being treated like a problem nobody could solve.

"I know," he admitted.

The confession surprised everyone, including himself.

Mara blinked.

Mezos looked mildly victorious.

Alexander remained annoyingly unreadable.

Liam hated all three of them.

"I know," he repeated. "I just need to get used to the kind of man I chose as a mate."

Silence followed as everyone understood Liam on a spiritual level.

Mezos was the first to recover.

"The kind of man who orders the best physician in Agaron across an international border?"

"Yes."

"The kind of man who quietly investigates your medical history without telling you?"

"Yes."

"The kind of man who discovers a potentially life-altering piece of information and waits for you to be ready instead of forcing it?"

Liam looked offended.

"Stop making it sound reasonable."

"It is reasonable."

Alexander finally snorted.

The sound was so unexpected that Liam stared at him.

"You’re laughing at me."

"No."

"You are."

"I am laughing at the realization."

"What realization?"

Alexander’s scar shifted slightly as his mouth twitched.

"That after years of fighting Canmores, politicians, physicians, and university administration, the first person to successfully corner you was a man who decided to be patient."

Mara immediately turned away, shoulders shaking.

Mezos looked toward the ceiling.

Liam pointed at all of them.

"No."

Unfortunately, none of them looked particularly intimidated.

The Vanguard continued to roar beneath the platform, vast and powerful and infinitely easier to understand than people.

Liam looked at the machine, then at each one of them, and finally said the words that tasted suspiciously like surrender.

"Fine."

Mezos immediately reached for his comm.

"Don’t you dare look so pleased," Liam warned.

"I never look pleased."

"You do. It is subtle and deeply threatening."

"Thank you."

Liam groaned and covered his face with one hand.

Behind him, Mara laughed.

Alexander looked far too satisfied.

And somewhere in the diplomatic palace, Liam had the horrible feeling that Arik was about to become unbearable.