Void System: Every Heroine Makes Me Stronger

Severin crossed the inner court with road dust still on his boots.

Alicia kept his right side as they entered the house. Nyra followed a step behind and left, her leather bag still hanging from her shoulder. Neither woman spoke on the way to the west records room.

He opened the door and went in first.

The records table stood where it had the day before. Severin took the chair near its end. Alicia stopped on his right, slightly behind his shoulder, while Nyra looked over the room before choosing the chair closest to the door. She settled her smoke-black tail clear of the seat. The bag stayed on her shoulder.

Severin pulled the door shut. He left the lock alone.

Nyra’s gaze touched the lock and moved back to him.

He rested his forearms on the chair arms. "What you already agreed to doesn’t change."

Her ears angled toward him. "Because somebody tried to carve the list off me?"

"Because that wasn’t part of our agreement. The attack changes the risk. It doesn’t rewrite work you’ve already accepted."

Nyra watched him for a moment, then leaned back enough for the chair to take some of her weight. "All right. That’s less irritating than the alternative."

"I want more than separate handler jobs."

"There it is."

Alicia’s mouth twitched. She said nothing.

Severin continued. "You can keep taking separate work the same way. If you take wider work with me, the terms are different."

Nyra hooked a thumb beneath the strap crossing her shoulder. "Start with money."

"For work that actually makes money, you get a share."

Her stare flattened. "A share is what people say when they don’t want to say the number."

"Then we set it before you take the larger job," Severin said.

"You set it?"

"We do. The share and what we’re counting are agreed before you say yes."

Nyra’s ears edged forward. "And afterward?"

"Marienne’s records show what came in afterward. You compare that with what we agreed before the work started."

Nyra’s mouth pulled sideways. "Your records. Your treasurer."

"What we agreed doesn’t change after you accept it."

She tapped her thumb against the strap while she thought. "No company share tucked inside that?"

"No. The share is payment. It doesn’t buy you a piece of my company."

"Good." Her mouth bent faintly. "I don’t want to discover I’m responsible for your roof because I helped you rob the right bastard."

"You won’t," Severin said.

Alicia’s silver ears lifted for a heartbeat.

Nyra caught it and glanced at her, but the moment passed without comment.

"Next," Nyra said.

"Protection."

The humor left Nyra’s face. She shifted forward slightly in the chair, attention sharpening.

"If you take a job from me and someone comes for you because of it," Severin said, "the threat becomes mine to answer."

"That sounds expensive." Nyra kept her eyes on him.

"It can be."

"It also sounds like a polite way to put somebody behind me every time I meet a source."

"It isn’t," Severin said.

Nyra’s eyes narrowed. "No Alicia at the next table? No men across the street pretending they don’t know me?"

"You choose how you approach your sources. Protecting a job you took from me doesn’t give me the right to follow every step you take."

Nyra’s gaze settled on his mouth instead of his eyes, her focus tightening around the sentence. Severin recognized Deception Trace in the way her attention narrowed.

Nyra held that concentration through a quiet breath, then another. When she spoke, her voice had lost its teasing edge.

"No deliberate lie in that."

Severin gave a small nod.

Her gaze shifted past his shoulder to Alicia. "And you?"

Alicia met her eyes. "If Master doesn’t tell me to follow you, I stay with Master."

Nyra studied her for a beat, then looked back to Severin.

Nyra shifted back against the chair. "Fine. What does ’wider work’ mean before that phrase grows teeth?"

"The people you’re already good at reaching. Handlers, brokers, the people who know which name is false before an office clerk does. You decide how to approach them."

"You decide who I approach?"

"I decide what I need answered. You tell me which source can answer it, what that source is worth, and how much of the question they should hear."

Nyra shifted in the chair. Her tail stayed low. "And if your question is bad?"

"Say so."

She watched him for a beat. "If the information is too thin to choose a target?"

"Say that too."

"If I think the person you want squeezed is the wrong person?"

"Give me the reason."

Her ears moved a fraction wider. "And then?"

"I choose the target. I choose whether force gets used."

"So I don’t get command."

"No."

Nyra nodded. "At least that’s clear."

"I want you doing what you did with the broker and the yard. Tell me when I’m trusting the wrong source or when a story doesn’t hold together. Keep sources apart when they shouldn’t know about each other. If I put someone in front of you and your experience can help, sit in. If I don’t have enough to move, tell me before I spend men or blood."

Nyra’s fingers loosened from the strap. "That sounds suspiciously close to a real job."

"It is."

"No title?"

"Not now."

She gave him a dry look. "You really know how to seduce an employee."

The hint of amusement left Alicia’s mouth.

Severin looked at Nyra. "That part comes next."

The dry look disappeared.

Severin didn’t soften the words. "I still want you."

Nyra’s smoke-black ears came forward.

Alicia shifted a fraction closer to Severin. A silver ear angled toward Nyra. She didn’t interrupt.

"As an employee?"

"I already covered that."

She kept her eyes on him. "Right."

"Taking the work doesn’t make you mine."

Nyra didn’t answer at once.

She looked at Alicia, who stood at Severin’s right with her hands relaxed and her attention steady.

Nyra returned her eyes to him. "If I take the work and tell you no to the rest?"

"The work stays what I offered."

Nyra’s fingers tightened around the strap. "My pay?"

"Doesn’t change because you refuse me personally."

"My paper? My money?"

"Yours stays yours."

Her jaw eased slightly, though her eyes remained sharp. "And if I don’t refuse you?"

Severin held her gaze.

"If you choose to be mine and I accept you, I expect obedience."

Alicia’s ears lifted.

Nyra glanced at her again. Alicia said nothing.

"You make that sound very simple," Nyra said.

"It is."

"For you."

"For me."

A short breath escaped her, almost a laugh and not quite. "And before I choose?"

"Until then, I don’t command you that way."

Silence settled across the records table.

Severin didn’t fill it.

Nyra’s right hand stayed on the bag strap. Her ears turned briefly toward the closed door.

Alicia stayed beside Severin. Nyra’s path to the door remained clear.

Nyra looked back at him.

"So that’s it?"

Severin nodded once. "Those are the terms."

"And you want an answer now?"

"No."

Her brows rose slightly.

Severin waited.

The seconds stretched. Somewhere deeper in the house, a drawer shut. Footsteps crossed a corridor and faded again. Nobody came to the records-room door.

Nyra pushed herself upright.

Her tail hung low. The bag never left her shoulder. She tightened the strap, then stayed beside the chair nearest the door.

She looked at him from beside the chair.

"Before I answer," Nyra said, "let me leave alone first."

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