Page 4 of Dose

“I’ve been awake since three. You’re just slow.”

“I’m not slow,” he says, falling into step beside me. “I’m relaxed. There’s a difference.”

“Mm.”

He always walks too close. It used to bother me. It doesn’t anymore.

“Did Nik say what it’s about?” I ask.

“He didn’t have to. Marcus was already pulling files when I walked past the Archive. The set of his shoulders had that I’ve been awake since two and I have opinions energy.”

“That’s every morning for Marcus,” I say.

“True. But this morning he also had the coffee, which means we’re hunting.”

“There’s a coffee for that?”

“Black. No sugar. Made in the small pot. Reserved exclusively for grim resolve,” Darius deadpans.

I almost laugh. He notices. He always notices. He doesn’t comment, which is the closest Darius Voss gets to mercy.

The living room is already half full when we walk in. Ezra has claimed the corner of the long couch nearest the planning table and has three tablets open in front of him, arranged at angles. He doesn’t look up when we enter. He raises one hand, two fingers extended, which is his version of good morning.

“Morning, Ez,” Darius says.

“Two fingers means I’m thinking, don’t speak,” Ezra replies, not lifting his eyes.

“Two fingers means good morning. We agreed.”

“We did not agree. You decided, and I tolerated it,” Ezra states.

Darius shakes his head. “Same thing.”

Raphael is in the kitchen on the other side of the open partition, sleeves pushed up, hands moving over a board of something green. He’s making breakfast for whoever wants it, which is most of us, because Raphael’s breakfasts are the one thing in this household nobody complains about.

“Theon,” he calls without turning. “The amber stuff. Is it ready?”

I run a hand across the back of my neck. “By nine. I just have to titrate the second batch.”

“You’re a saint,” Raph states.

“I’m a chemist.”

Lucien is on the floor in front of the couch, sitting cross-legged, doing nothing in particular except existing in that quiet way of his that makes the room feel calmer when he’s in it. He nods at me. I nod back. We’ve never needed many words.

Marcus comes in from the corridor that leads to the Archive, tablet under one arm, mug in the other hand. Black coffee. Small pot. Darius gives me a look that says I told you, and I refuse to acknowledge it.

“Mercer,” I say.

“Kovač,” he replies. His voice is rough at the edges.

Dominic is already at the planning table. He’s wearing someone else’s face this morning—his own features, but the set of them borrowed from somewhere else. He’s been working on a deep-cover identity for weeks. The shape of his mouth isn’t his. I know better than to comment on it. You don’t poke at Dom on mornings like this. You let him surface in his own time.

“Dom,” I say.

He glances up. His eyes settle. Something flickers, and the mouth shifts, just slightly, closer to his own. “Theon. You look tired.”

I shrug. “I look thirty.”