Corinne rejoined Cécile, the happy surprise of seeing Yeijiro fading quickly. She kept her voice low, but only through a great deal of effort. “It’s irresponsible.”

“What did you expect?” Cécile matched her tone. “No one knows how that rift was opened. Of course they’re not going to broadcast it until they can promise it won’t happen again.”

“What if another one gets opened?” Corinne hissed. “What if another demon comes through?”

“What do you want me to do?”

Corinne wished she had an answer. “I can’t believe Mother ordered—” Corinne looked around, making sure no one was close enough to overhear. Not just because the demon was supposed to be a secret, but because Corinne was about to start swearing and saying extraordinarily rude things about her mother. Who, in addition to being a meddling control-freak who thought she knew best about everything, was the current Prime Minister of the entire Dragon clan.

Cécile, probably recognizing the look on Corinne’s face, elbowed her in the side before Corinne could get started. “Don’t,” she said. “Just…go home. Try to calm down. Don’t talk to anyone else till you can manage to do it without getting yourself in trouble.”

“I make no promises.”

Cécile sighed. “Please Corinne. It’s over our heads. It’s not our job to worry about it.”

Corinne glared.

Cécile spread her hands in a clear gesture of surrender. “Fine. I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself. But I have work to do, so I’ll see you later.”

Corinne navigated the labyrinthine fortress without having to think. She’d grown up in these halls, spending as much time here as she ever did in her actual home. She’d attended the Academy, and then moved to the fortress for real once she’d been accepted into the Phoenix Guard.

The Phoenix Guard, along with the Flame Guard who protected the Academy, and the Dragon Guard who protected the Parliament, all lived in one of the old buildings that had been part of the original fortress construction. Each soldier got their own small—but private—apartment. It was to the old wing that Corinne was headed, but not to her living space.

The flight suits of the Phoenix Guard were a marvel of technological achievement merged with magic. No other clan had anything like them, and the Dragon held the technique of the suit designs as close as a Serpent with a secret. There was constant competition among the engineers to find ways to make them better, to push the limits of the already cutting-edge construction. To earn your place among the people who created and maintained the flight suit was every bit as prestigious as flying with the guard. One had to be either an incredibly skilled Akashic, or gifted with a nimble and clever technical mind.

Corinne was both of those things. She was, in fact, the designer of the most current iteration of suits worn by the guard. Which meant that in addition to the tiny apartment—which was no more than the place where she slept at night—Corinne had a workshop all her own. That was Corinne’s true home.

Corinne paused at her door for the nima to recognize her, and she felt the little tingle as it slid open. Her workshop wasn’t huge—one room with a little closet bathroom in the back. Elsewhere, there was a larger workshop and garage that all the guard and their mechanics and engineers had access to, but this was Corinne’s private space, and she loved it.

Corinne’s mangled suit hung on a frame next to the door. As Corinne walked by, it twitched, trying to respond to her presence. Corinne lay a hand on it and gave a mental command for it to go back to sleep. It was far beyond fixing, but she’d need to dismantle it when she had the time, carefully unthreading all the nima-enchanted bits and either repurposing them to a new suit or setting them free.

Months to build something new. Even if Corinne worked with one of the other engineers, the suits were complicated and had to be assembled layer by layer, wire by wire, enchantment by enchantment. It couldn’t be rushed, or you ended up with a suit you couldn’t trust.

Most of the workshop was full of machines and tools—every device Corinne needed to work on parts ranging in size from a full sized suit of armor to the most delicate microchip. The walls were full of hooks and shelves and matrices of drawers for storage.

Sitting on her workbench, something that hadn’t been there when she’d left this morning.

A large oblong package, very flat and very thin, wrapped in a silky red cloth and tied with a golden ribbon that had been shaped in an incredibly artful bow—a bow in the shape of a dragon head breathing fire. As Corinne approached, she felt the gentle tingle of the nima. Whatever was inside was enchanted.

A note was attached, a folded slip of paper that also tingled with nima energy. Magically sealed, so Corinne knew it had reached her unopened. Corinne lifted it free, and it unfolded in her hand all on its own. A cool tingle ran over her palm as a tiny snowfall fell from the paper like a cloud, disappearing as it struck her warm skin. Other than that, the paper was blank.

That was fine. Corinne now knew what this was and who this was from, and a shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with the lingering cold of the magic.

It had been a strange Shadow Court. Or maybe this was what Shadow Court was always like, and it only seemed strange to Corinne. In that, at least, Corinne wasn’t alone. The Dragon Fortress and Tapti—the capital city—they were command central to the most conservative, the most uptight, the Dragon families and leaders with the least sense of humor and the most rigid sense of propriety. The Emperor and all her courtiers had been…disruptive.

Corinne had been in a unique position to see just how much the Imperial presence had thrown off everything. Her parents were two of the clan leaders who’d been—quietly, and behind closed doors—freaking out. Or at least, freaking out in their own very uptight, controlled, Dragon way.

They hadn’t even known the worst of it, as far as Corinne could tell. The debauchery that had gone on behind closed doors. The politics played out skin-on-skin. The parties…

A sudden shiver ran through Corinne, a visceral memory of light touches on her skin, of the press of lips…

Maybe she should count herself among the Dragons who had been disrupted. Except that she had no interest in everything returning to the way it had been, and she’d been so afraid it was going to have to. This gift said otherwise.

The soft fabric unwrapped easily to reveal exactly what Corinne had expected—a mirror. It was lovely, framed in pattern of woven gold and silver, with a tracery of snowflakes etched into the corners. Corinne ran her fingers lightly across its smooth, cool surface, felt the tingling presence of the nima.

“Lady Snow?” Corinne waited, but the mirror made no response.

She’d try again. After she was sure her duties were finished for the day. After she’d grabbed that drink with Yeijiro. She’d come back here and…

And maybe Shadow Court wasn’t as over for her as she’d feared.