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‘Sorry. You’re right. We’ll leave. I just wanted to do a quick check-in before I head up to the cockpit. You can find me there if you need me,’ I said, then floated right back out as the others trailed after me.

‘Artemis, wait,’ Cadmus called, stepping into the corridor behind us.

I twisted back around to face him, ignoring the way my limbs awkwardly bumped into the walls in the process. ‘What’s up?’

‘Uh…’ he hesitated, twisting his fingers together and seeming uncharacteristically bashful. ‘I need to talk to you about something.’

‘Is it urgent?’ I asked, my impatience to get somewhere secluded to figure out how to reinstate my own gravity causing my words to snap out a little more tersely than I had planned. I winced when he flinched then tried to hide it by rubbing the back of his neck.

‘Well, kind of, but it can wait until you have a spare moment,’ he said, already beginning to back away.

‘Okay,’ I said eager to leave and not so eager to talk with Cadmus. Whatever conversation we needed to have was not going to be a comfortable one after the moment we’d shared inside the facility, but I could grudgingly admit that I was probably better to just get it out of the way so we could move on. The mere thought of what had transpired had me internally squirming with discomfort, but I softened a little when I realised I was being rude. He was behaving unnaturally timid around me and it was throwing me off. ‘I’ll send for you when I’m free and we can chat?’

I didn’t mean for it to come out as a question, but something about the way he was behaving was rubbing off on me and I found myself just as shy and awkward as he seemed to be. It was probably just because he was usually so composed and wielded an air of superiority almost like a weapon, but there was no sign of that right now and I didn’t know what to do with it.

I hoped the coming conversation was about something other than what had happened between us inside The Program’s Nova Station facility, but my gut was telling me that was a wound that would fester until it was treated. I didn’t really know what to say about it, nor how to feel, so I’d been pushing itaside and pretending it was nothing. Cadmus’s nerves were telling a different story, however, unless I was completely wrong and he wanted to discuss something entirely different that had nothing to do with my hands cupping his two cocks while I fucked another man…

Nope. No time for thoughts like that.

We said our farewells and went our separate ways, me towards the cockpit and him back inside the infirmary, and I shoved the entire interaction into a box to open when I had the time to ruminate on it. I knew I would overthink and jump to conclusions, so I wanted to have the discussion with him first before I put my foot in my mouth.

Who was I kidding? I was already overthinking things.

I wished Libby were here to help me keep my feet firmly planted on the floor – metaphoricallyandphysically – and my head securely in the present, but once glance down at Baldr’s big green eyes, an exact replica of his mother’s, and the effect was just the same. He smiled wide when he realised I was giving him attention then snuggled deeper into my chest as he watched the happenings below.

My feet may not have been on the floor, but this was suddenly the most grounded I’d felt in a long time.

As we swooped lower through the doorway into the cockpit, a sharp trill of high-pitched laughter cut through the air. Eloria was already here, and she apparently found my sudden weightlessness immensely amusing.

‘I don’t know why I expected you to walk in like a normal person, Captain, but it’s clear I need to adjust my expectations,’ she teased.

‘Oh, shush, you,’ was my brilliant response.

Julius the Weapons Expert was here, too, jaw to his chest as he gawped at me.

‘She canfly, too?’ he squeaked out.

‘I think the real question is, can she get down?’ she shot back in an overly dramatized whisper.

‘I’m working on it,’ I mumbled sulkily.

‘She couldn’t move on her own five minutes ago,’ Xander said, his lips tilted up at the corners in a smirk. ‘At least she figured that much out.’

Eloria mirrored his amusement. ‘Indeed.’

‘Good morning, GC Stanson. I hope our course is remaining smooth sailing.’

‘Eloria,’ she said, making him rear back like she’d smacked him clear across the face, his eyes expanding until they looked as if they’d pop right out of his head and I held in a snigger. ‘Our dear captain here prefers to be referred to by her given name, and I’ve never been too keen on titles either. Let us forego the formalities in private, yes?’

‘I…’ he began, then sighed as he sent an exasperated glance in Addy’s direction that she returned with a smirk. ‘I don’t think I have much of a choice,’ he chuckled.

‘You really don’t,’ Addy teased.

Eloria turned to face me, effectively dismissing the others while Julius continued gaping at us in silence, his jaw working like a suffocating fish. ‘Are you feeling more up to making that call now, Artemis?’

‘I don’t really think now’s the best time. You made a good point yesterday, and I don’t want their first impression of me to be influenced by my inability to keep my feet on the ground.’

She laughed again, the sound high and tinkling and filled me with a lightness I had previously only felt with Liberty. ‘That’s probably a good call. I pulled up their contact details for you this morning and did a little research on royal protocol. You’ll have to jump through hoops to get through to them and it will take a while – royal security and all that – but all you need to do is be here once gravity is back on your side. Though I must warn you that they will more than likely refuse to speak to you personally. They don’t typically permit strangers direct contact with the royal family. You’ll more than likely be told to leave a message for the security team to pass on.’