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Shoving aside my impatience with their heavy-handed efforts to appease me, I waited as Wreg leaned over the console, typing in a security code and murmuring to Neela in Prexci that we’d be using one of the interrogation rooms.

Wreg looked at me directly then, his dark eyes deferential. “I have a few things I should take care of here, first, Esteemed Bridge.”

Feeling the gist of what he meant, I nodded, gesturing expansively with one hand.

“Do it. We’ll wait.”

Wreg nodded, then leaned over Neela a second time.

I caught him sending more to her via the links, mainly about changing security codes on all of the cells and informing Yumi to come down and oversee the shift change following Raddi’s dismissal. He told Neela to have Yumi contact him as soon as she’d completed this, so they could discuss a new supervisor for the security station. He then gave Neela an additional order to reinforce security on all four cells, particularly Lily’s, given both Revik’s request and mine.

I wanted those things done, so I was okay with waiting for them to be completed.

What I wasn’t okay with were the constant looks between Jon and Balidor as they conferred silently between one another about which one of them should try to reason with me once we were all alone together in the interrogation cell.

I didn’t catch all of it, but I got the gist.

They thought I’d lost it.

Balidor also thought I was needlessly provoking Revik. Maybe even that I was wrong and he was right, or at the very least, that Revik had grounds for some of his complaints.

I didn’t want to talk to them about that, either.

When the interrogation cell got opened in the back, I walked around the security console to the corridor behind it, brushing past Oli and Torek until they got quickly out of my way. Both of them bowed, despite the grumbling I could still feel emanating off Oli’s mind, much less the louder protests coming off Raddi’s.

I could feel Raddi’s conflict, too.

His anger now felt mixed with what bordered on shame.

He was a Myther, after all. While he may not regret his decision to give Revik time to kill Cass, I could feel his shame that he’d defied me.

I liked Raddi.

Truthfully, I liked him a lot. I considered him a friend.

But I couldn’t let him get away with that shit, and everyone in here knew it.

When I passed Torek, his light felt more torn.

Torek and I had always gotten along well, and while he clearly had no desire to get in the middle of any issues between Revik and me, I could tell he felt conflicted that he hadn’t tried to do more. Revik had been his friend for decades. They’d lived in London at the same time, the whole time Revik worked for the British. Torek joined the Rebels solely because Revik asked him, although he had religious leanings, too, from what Revik told me.

He just wasn’t very vocal about them.

I liked Torek, too.

Giving him a nod as I passed, I walked through the opening in the organic metal wall.

The space promptly split into two low-ceilinged corridors.

One led to a row of security and interrogation cells on my right, the other towards the armory and equipment storage on my left. I pulled the number of the door Wreg reserved for us easily off his mind, as well as its location.

I aimed my feet for the right-side corridor.

Balidor walked directly behind me. Jon and Wreg followed after Balidor, both of them still feeling worried. Chandre took up the rear.

I jerked open the door of the room and walked in, making my way to the other side of the table before I turned and waited for them to come in after me.

The room was basic. Really, it looked like a conference room from one of my post-art school, crap temp jobs back in San Francisco, only with more expensive equipment.