The summons came on a Monday.
Not a request. Not an invitation in the style of the dinner, cream envelope, handwritten, the performance of warmth over the architecture of control. This was a phone call to Lucien, relayed through Cassian, scheduled into both our calendars before either of us had been asked if we were available. Victor wanted to see us. Together. Tuesday at noon. The Drax family offices on the fifty-fourth floor.
Cassian texted me separately, as he always did now, the habit of it having formed somewhere in the past weeks without either of us formally deciding it should: Don't let him see you thinking. He reads thinking.
I texted back: Has he ever met anyone he couldn't read?
A pause. Then: Once, maybe. I'll tell you about it sometime.
I thought about that on the drive o
