Luis answered, “It is. They felt they had no room to speak here, so they abstained at our request, in exchange for some room on a trade deal we’re working on. Internal, nothing to do with you.”

“If I may,” Miss Militia said. “This is more formal and more serious than I expected. Could I excuse my guests and speak with you in private? I want to bring up things you have shared with me in private.”

There was some discussion, much of it in a language that wasn’t translated back to us.

Miss Militia turned around, and she smiled. I hadn’t seen her face in some time, not since my stint in the Wards. She looked about as stressed now as she had then. But she looked more tired now.

I didn’t miss her gaze slipping from me to Sveta, and then to the guards behind us.

“They may take a recess and rejoin us if they desire,” Luis said.

“Go,” Miss Militia told us. “Be careful.”

Again, that flicker of a glance at the guards.

Be careful.

Guards escorted us from the room. What we’d seen was preliminary, a setting of the stakes, a testing of the guests by challenging a volatile member and making an offer, probably a trap. And then the real terms. What they wanted.

I left that scene behind, as Miss Militia stood alone against five nations. This was where she had been, and what she’d been working on.

The guards that followed us into the adjacent room blocked my view of her.

Be careful, she’d said.

She’d said it in a way that made me think trouble was imminent.

I didn’t want to do this. To have this conversation. The room we entered was like a greenhouse patio, with tables and chairs set against the wall. Snow was piled against the glass. It was warm. I could see Miss Militia if I looked past the guard and through the window into the meeting space. As the guard moved, though, my vision obscured.

Tristan was keeping an eye on the window too. He looked at me, then back to the window.

Yeah. We were on the same page.

I so didn’t want to do this.

Amy sat on a table. My mom sat on a chair beside her, my dad beside her. Marquis was a distance away, closer to Chris.

A good fifteen feet separated us from them. A gulf.

“Hi Chris,” Rain said.

“Hi,” was the deep-voiced answer.

“Missed you, believe it or not.”

“I didn’t miss you. Sorry.”

I couldn’t ignore Amy’s face looking at me from the sidelines. Silent, staring. The hands tattooed with my metaphorical blood.

“You put on some weight,” Kenzie said, still smiling.

“Puberty and changer powers, you know. It’s a thing,” Chris answered.

Changer. He still pretended.