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Sebastian scoffed. “You will not. If Maxwell’s going to force me to endure your company, you’re at least going to play the game I want to play.”
Not waiting for Turner to agree, Sebastian stomped over to the board and started tapping on its screen to choose the game. He chose the easiest and simplest one Colin had loaded up; he wasn’t going to be completely cruel to Turner.
Turning around to announce the start of the game and start explaining the rules, Sebastian’s heart sank to see Garrett striding over with a twisted sneer. Did he have to? Now? Couldn’t Sebastian have one evening?
But before Sebastian could gear himself up for a fight, Maxwell stepped easily in front of Garrett and stopped him with a hand on his chest. Garrett looked down—far down since their height difference was not trivial—at Maxwell with a scowl that eventually softened as Maxwell spoke. Sebastian couldn’t hear them from this distance over the din of the bar, but Maxwell said something, Garrett replied, and then Maxwell threw back his head and laughed.
Laughed! As though Garrett could be witty, which Sebastian was pretty damn sure he couldn’t be.
They said a few more things, and then Garrett shook his head, rolled his eyes, and walked back to a table against the far wall.
A table with Martha at it. Sebastian met her eyes. They looked at each other for a second, and then Sebastian spun back around to his dartboard. He loved Martha. He really did. But he didn’t want to talk to her right now either.
“Turner, where—oh.” Sebastian cut off his own bark when he realized Turner was beside him, watching him mess with the board and waiting patiently for instructions. Sebastian passed him a handful of darts. “These are yours.”
He explained the rules, made sure Turner understood them, and started the game.
Then he immediately stopped it because Turner’s throwing technique was beyond horrendous and needed to be fixed if they were ever going to play a real game. So he lined him up and started putting him through some practice exercises.
“Do you really think Leon Hess doesn’t care about a single person?” Turner asked after throwing his last dart in their third practice round and stepping aside for Sebastian.
Sebastian barely managed to keep hold of his dart before throwing it wildly off-center in surprise. He glanced at Turner to see him looking at Sebastian with that too-thoughtful, too-curious expression and composed himself enough to throw his dart dead center before replying. “Yeah. I do, actually.”
“So you think he does all this just because he’s an angry, power-hungry, would-be dictator?” Turner watched as Sebastian threw another dart, just off-center this time. “It’s a pretty common assumption among the Klah’Eel.”
“I didn’t say that.” Sebastian shook his head. He threw his last dart and then went to retrieve them all. It was the first round he didn’t have to stoop to the floor, Oliver finally having managed to get them all on the board. “I think he’s definitely an angry control freak. But I think he cares a lot about Southern Tava’s independence and what the people have gone through, what they deserve, and the wrongs the Klah’Eel have committed against them. To be honest, I think he even cares about the people in some abstract, distant way.”
Oliver took the darts Sebastian passed him and lined up again. “But not a single person.”
“Nope.” Sebastian grabbed Oliver’s elbow before he could throw his first dart, readjusted his grip, and then let him go and nodded for him to continue. “Not a single person. Not the individuals. Not the soldiers, not the citizens, not anyone.”
Not him.
Oliver threw his last dart—one very near the middle—but didn’t concede his position. He studied Sebastian with narrowed eyes, then looked at Maxwell, who was sitting on a stool next to them, happy to not have been roped into their little practice session.
“Okay, what is it?” Sebastian put his hands on his hips and looked between the two. “What do you two so desperately want to say? What?”
Oliver tilted his chin. “That’s just not what Mal’ik thinks.”
Sebastian gave Oliver a scornful look, then waved his hands and shooed him off the dart-throwing spot. “And what the fuck would Mal’ik know about Hess? He’s only been here for like a week and a half.”
“He was at the barricade in Kaston when we got word that headquarters had been overrun.” Maxwell finally spoke.
“He was with Hess,” Oliver added, watching Sebastian’s face instead of Sebastian’s dart.
“So?” Sebastian threw his second dart with too much force, and it bounced off the digital board and onto the floor. He sighed. It was amazing how much Hess could get to him without even being here.
“So he saw how Hess reacted to the news.” Oliver didn’t go to pick up the darts once Sebastian had thrown his last one—even though it was his turn—so Sebastian grabbed them again himself.
“Let me guess.” Sebastian repositioned himself, not feeling like guiding Oliver through the motions again, and Oliver looked way more intent on titrating useless information to him than learning how to throw a dart properly. “He was furious and frustrated and disbelieving. But ultimately level-headed and decisive.” Sebastian allowed himself a grim little smile. It was one of the things he’d always admired about Hess, one of the reasons he followed him so loyally. “He’s good under pressure.”
Another glance between Oliver and Maxwell, and this time Maxwell spoke. “He wasn’t this time.”
Maxwell’s tone finally made Sebastian drop his hand to his side and turn to face him. “What do you mean?” He looked at them both. “Go on. What happened?”
“He tried to get back to headquarters.” Maxwell stood from his stool and took a step toward Sebastian as though to be closer in case anything happened. “He tried to get back to you.”
The sounds of the bar dimmed around Sebastian. “What?”
