Rina froze.
For one second, Sylvia thought Thomas had overestimated the threat.
Then Rina’s face went through an entire imperial crisis in silence.
"You would not," Rina said.
Thomas looked at her.
Sylvia, who had only been inside Alamina’s court indirectly and mostly by watching Dean refuse to behave normally in sacred buildings, still understood one very important thing.
Thomas would.
Rina understood it too.
Her hand lowered slowly from where she had been pointing at him. Her eyes narrowed, then flicked to Sylvia, then to the door, then back to Thomas, calculating routes of escape, degrees of humiliation, and the possible number of royal relatives who would become involved if this information reached Emperor Otto.
Apparently, that number was horrifying.
"You are weaponizing my father," Rina accused.
"You weaponized Sylvia’s phone."
Rina opened her mouth, then closed it, because apparently even she had limits when confronted with the truth.
Sylvia shifted inside Thomas’s hold, mortified by the fact that her body had decided his arm around her waist was not a crisis but a solution. "What night club escapades?"
Rina’s head snapped toward her. "Nothing."
Thomas said, "Several things."
"Commander Lancaster."
"Princess Gregoriana."
Rina’s expression darkened. "This is why no one likes disciplined men."
Sylvia, unfortunately, knew that was untrue, because she was currently pressed against one and having several extremely inconvenient emotional reactions to it.
Thomas’s hand rested at the center of her back, heavy and steady.
Rina’s eyes sharpened with the delighted cruelty of an older sister, except she was not Sylvia’s older sister and therefore had no legal right to look so pleased about Sylvia’s imminent suffering.
Then her expression changed again.
This time, it was not because of Thomas.
It was because reality had apparently remembered her address and started knocking.
Rina straightened with an awful suddenness. "Actually, I should go."
Sylvia blinked. "Now?"
"Yes, now. Immediately now. Spiritually, I have already left."
Thomas did not release Sylvia. "Wise."
Rina pointed at him again, but with considerably less force. "Do not sound proud of me. I find it unsettling."
"You should have considered that before making yourself a problem."
"I am a princess. I was born one."
"You developed professionally."
Sylvia made a sound that tried very hard to be a cough and failed.
Rina stared at Thomas as if he had betrayed several international agreements by being funny.
Then she grabbed her coat from the back of Sylvia’s chair with the urgency of someone fleeing not from Thomas Lancaster, but from the royal family she had just accidentally summoned by existing too loudly.
"My father would be unbearable," she muttered, shoving one arm into the sleeve. "He would not even be angry first. He would be quiet. Do you understand how much worse quiet is when it comes from Otto?"
Sylvia said carefully, "I can imagine."
"No, you cannot. You have not seen him decide that he is disappointed in a way that requires three departments and a family dinner." Rina found the other sleeve and nearly missed it. "And Mother would look at me."
Thomas’s brows moved slightly.
Rina shuddered. "Exactly."
Sylvia did not know Empress Minerva well, but the way Rina said Mother made it sound like Minerva did not need punishment when she had eyes.
"And Arion," Rina continued, with growing horror. "Arion would laugh."
"He would," Thomas said.
"He would tell Dean."
"He would."
"Dean would tell Sylvia."
Sylvia lifted a hand. "I am Sylvia."
Rina ignored that. "Then Tyana would hear about it."
That name landed differently.
Even Thomas’s expression changed by half a breath, which, for him, was the equivalent of someone else turning around and walking into a wall.
Sylvia looked between them. "Tyana?"
"My older sister," Rina said, as if announcing the existence of a natural disaster with perfect hair. "Older than Arion, smarter than everyone, and worse because she listens with compassion before destroying you with accuracy. She would want details. She would ask for details. She would sit down with tea."
Thomas said, "And enjoy herself."
Sylvia whispered, "That sounds terrifying."
"It is," Rina said. "She once explained to a minister why his mistress had better political instincts than him in front of the mistress, his wife, and his mother. Everyone thanked her afterward. That is the kind of woman we are discussing."
Sylvia absorbed that.
Then, because her mouth hated her, she said, "Your family sounds like a united predator den."
Rina stopped.
Thomas looked down at Sylvia.
For one terrible second, Sylvia thought she had offended a royal princess in her own living room while being held by the commander Rina had just provoked into a territorial arrival.
Then Rina smiled.
It was slow, delighted, and deeply alarming.
"Oh, I like you," she said.
Sylvia closed her eyes. "Please do not."
"I do. Tragically." Rina moved toward the door, then turned back with one finger raised. "But because I like you, I am leaving before my father hears about my attempt to emotionally torment his commander’s future wife."
Sylvia choked.
Thomas went still.
The apartment went very, very quiet.
Rina’s smile widened by an inch.
Sylvia’s soul, which had only recently returned to her body, took one look at the situation and left again.
"Rina," she said weakly.
"What? I am leaving. This is growth." Rina opened the door, then looked at Thomas. "Do not ruin her."
Thomas’s answer came without hesitation. "I will not."
Rina’s teasing expression softened for the first time into something almost careful. She looked at Sylvia, then at Thomas’s arm around her, then back at Sylvia’s face.
"Good," she said.
Then the softness vanished beneath royal mischief. "Also, Sylvia, when he kisses you, breathe through your nose. Men like him forget people require air when they finally stop pretending they have restraint."
Sylvia made a strangled sound.
Thomas’s face became stone again, but the tips of his ears betrayed him.
Rina saw it.
Rina treasured it.
Rina fled.
The door shut behind her.
Silence fell.
Silence with Thomas Lancaster’s arm around Sylvia’s waist and Sylvia’s entire nervous system standing on a balcony, screaming into the rain.
For several seconds, neither of them moved.
Sylvia stared at the closed door as if Rina might come back and rescue her from the consequences of Rina’s own work.
She did not.
Rina was probably already halfway down the corridor, preserving her life from Otto, Minerva, Arion, and the terrifying tea-drinking judgment of Tyana.
Thomas’s hand shifted slightly against Sylvia’s back.
Sylvia forgot the door existed.
"Are you all right?" he asked.