Page 80 of Alien Burn

Roemary wasn't speaking to her.

“No. Not yet, but soon. The move to secure housing changed the geometry, I've had to rebuild⁠—”

She stopped. Footsteps carried her toward the window.

Sereya kept her arm lifted, fingers still hooked around the sheet.

“Because it has to look local, that was the entire⁠—”

“I was sent in case the other arrangements failed. They have failed. You don't get to give me their share of the blame.”

Another interruption. Sereya couldn't distinguish a single word of the other person's reply. The sound was thin and abrasive, as though Roemary were speaking to someone through running water.

“The Rhysgarrd name does not go anywhere near this, and you can tell him I said so.”

Sereya's grip tightened.

She didn't know the name. She knew the voice. Not the words or even the tone, exactly, but the flat, impatient way Roemary spoke when she had forgotten that anyone might be listening. No charming laugh. No gentle correction designed to make the person being corrected feel stupid for objecting.

Just anger.

“He keeps finding reasons to speak to her,” Roemary said. “No, I haven't lost⁠—”

The hiss sharpened. She fell silent.

Sereya lowered her arm a fraction. The sheet shifted on the shelf, and she caught it with the hand already pinned around the pillowcase.

Don't move.

Roemary paced back across the room. The hem of her robe appeared in the narrow opening and disappeared again.

“I can manage him.”

She sounded less certain this time. Sereya had never heard anyone make Roemary sound less certain.

“Yes. I understand. The deadline is firm.”

The call ended.

For several seconds, Sereya heard nothing but her own breathing. She was afraid even that was too loud.

Then Roemary let out a rough breath. Something knocked against the table. She crossed the sitting room again, and the suite door opened and shut.

Sereya waited.

Her shoulder began to ache. She lowered the sheet into her arms and stood with it pressed against her ribs until she could make herself step out of the alcove.

The sitting room was empty.

A cup lay on its side beside the breakfast tray. Tea had spread across the table and was dripping onto the stone floor.

She stared at it.

Roemary never left a spill where someone important might see it.

Sereya locked her bedroom door and put the linens on the bed.

She took out her comm.