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Rose shook her head again, this time in dismissal. “It’s nothing, really. She just made a comment about missing the chance to officiate Dominic and I’s wedding. But it was weirdly tense.”

“She said the same to me and Lukas,” I said.

“What?” Rose whipped her head toward me. “She did?”

I nodded. “Part of what we have to talk about.”

“Okay. How is everything else? Sebastian finally get you that tonic?”

“He did.” It took a few days, but it wasn’t like we could rush him by telling him I’d been poisoned. “It only took about three days for everything to bounce back.”

“Looks like it,” Rose said, nodding to the school of brightly colored fish swimming right off the balcony.

I smiled at the sight. “It turned into one of our most fertile years. Figuring everything out between us actually made production go through the roof. And without the poison getting in the way…”

“You have that.”

I laughed lightly. “Exactly. If only everyone else would open their eyes to how many fish are out there.” Lukas and I couldn’t walk through the halls without someone asking if this was the exception and they should expect a new norm of lean and competitive catches.

“I’m sure this season will soothe that,” Rose said, her hand resting on my arm lightly in comfort. She knew better than anyone how much I relied on stability to prove that I was doing my job right.

I had a retort building, something close tolet’s hope sowhen Lukas and Dominic walked back up. Lukas moved to pull my chair out and Dominic and Rose got the hint, rounding to the other side of the table.

“We waiting on Adrian?” Dominic asked as Rose sat, then moved to his own seat.

Lukas sat down next to me. “We’ll give him a few more minutes. He’s never late.”

He wasn’t. It was a rather annoyingly perfect personality trait. But like everything in Adrian’s life, it wasn’t clear if that was natural or a practice in control.

“That smells good,” Rose said, looking at the lunch plated on the table.

“It’s a new recipe Myra is trying,” I said through a smile. Myra was by far the best cook I’d ever come across—not that I’d tell Rose or Belen that. But she was so passionate about creating new recipes, it was a joy to witness. “Nothing with bell peppers, I promise,” I added, throwing a pointed look to Dominic.

Dominic chuckled under his breath, taking the lighthearted jab in stride. Rose looked just about gleeful.

“What’s the problem with bell peppers?” Lukas asked, eyeing our grins.

Dominic’s smile dropped into a hard line as he thought about what sparked his aversion in the first place. “Long story involving spiders and the early days of our marriage.”

Rose laid a hand on her husband’s. “Dominic, that fork isn’t doing anything to you.”

Lukas opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, a slight wind blew through the room. A moment later, a portal formed.

Persy appeared, stepping out of the dark stone walls of Prometheus into our dining room.

Others looked ominous stepping through portals, like ripping a whole through the fabric of the world. With Persy, it was more like someone blew glitter in your face and when your vision cleared, she was standing there in the shimmering haze. There was never any doubt that she was qualified to handle the rehabilitation of some of the worst criminals in the world, but her sunny disposition and cloud white hair threw people off.

“I know you were expecting Adrian, but you get me instead,” she said, smiling brightly. “Hope that doesn’t disappoint.”

Everyone opened their mouths to say no, but she pulled a tray from behind her back and any objections went straight out the window. Dominic practically climbed over Rose and Lukas was out of his chair before I could blink.

Their massive forms eclipsed Persy, her laugh the only thing breaking through. They both turned, Dominic with a cupcake shoved in his mouth and two more in his hand. He gave one to Rose and started in on the other already.

Lukas was balancing a rather precarious stack of lemon bars in one hand and two cupcakes in the other. It was my turn to lurch forward, reaching for the bars to protect them with my life. I loved lemon generally, but in Persy’s desserts, it was like ambrosia.

Lukas chuckled, helping me place them on my plate and dropped down next to me.

“We would never have a problem with your presence, but where is your brother?” Dominic punctuated his question by taking Rose’s wrist in light grip and pulling it toward his mouth to take a bite of her cupcake.