{Enki | Abresson’s Residence}

“Hang in there, Morning Star.”

Lucy liked Yito. She was talking to him over their earpieces. He, Dolton, Praw, and the others waited outside the room to make her case to Abresson. Meanwhile, Gait’s unhindered half headed for Enki’s hull, sure to kill everything inside the Dyson’s Sphere.

Matt and Puk would need rescuing, no doubt.

Here, Lucy tended to some finishing touches. Polishing a few edges and tying some loose ends. “Thanks, Yito. Be careful.”

Dolton sounded more than a little concerned about her well-being, which just added a cherry to Lucy’s sundae. “I worry about how Abresson will interrogate you. You don’t know what he’s like.” He had an earpiece too. Dolton was a teacher in his past life, so he enjoyed fancying himself as a spy.

Sat on her knees in the middle of the Eminent’s residence, Lucy could see how this looked from his point of view. He didn’t know her. “Thank you for caring, really. I promise I’ll be all right. Over and Out.”

One quick fluff of her hair, a little rip to her smock neckline, and some biting of her lips should do the trick—

Abresson stormed into the hallway up to his door. He growled at his guard. “Do you know Primary Rem’s whereabouts?!”

Yito, standing at attention outside Abresson’s residence, said, “No, sir. And there’s a matter to attend to in your quarters.”

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In the hour since Lance had exposed Lucy as a Shadow traitor, she’d convinced her Tritan guard of their own cover story and turned them over to her side. The preferred veneer was that Matt, not of the Shadow, brought her along for work on the demolition project using a fake marriage as pretense and, when she turned down his advances, he betrayed her by lying about her agency with the Shadow.

Personally, Lucy thought it was complicated; however, the boys convinced her Abresson was one of those people who believed complex stories because it confused his basic intelligence.

Yito and the others reported the situation and followed the Eminent into his foyer, where Lucy waited.

“You mean, you left a young woman in my residence?” Abresson didn’t sound at all put out.

Dolton asked a good question. “Will you see to her before you find Primary Rem, sir?”

Abresson ignored him and walked into Lucy’s line of sight. He took one look at her and said, “Leave us.”

Yito tensed like he wanted to defend her, Dolton wouldn’t meet Lucy’s eyes, and Praw glared at the back of Abresson’s head.

“I am Eminent, and you will leave my residence. Now.” He bit the last word in a snarl.

They left.

Abresson stepped around Lucy to somewhere in the space, out of her line of sight. He worked with something, and it chinked. When he came back around, he held two glasses in his hand. “Thirsty?”

Lucy reached for the drink, nodding gratefully on her knees. She licked her lips when he chilled the glasses in his hands and gave her one. Wide-eyed, she gaped. “How did you do that?”

Abresson chuckled and sat down on the seat across from her, favoring an injury to his arm. “I’m gifted… Lucy, is it? That’s a pretty name. I’m Eminent Abresson.”

“I’ve looked forward to meeting you.”

In the middle of bringing the rim to his lips, Abresson stopped at her words, and sat the drink back down. “Have you?” When he reached to put the glass on the nearest table, his jumpsuit pulled back enough to reveal the white scars on his indigo wrist.

Lucy licked her lips again and sighed the words out, “Yes. For some time now.”