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the dragon studied him and waited.
    Quentin returned Dragos’s gaze bitterly and shook his head. No you don’t, you arrogant son of a bitch, he thought. You will not drive me away that easily. I’ve won my way into your Tower by your own rules. If I leave, it will be because I choose to do so for my own reasons, and not because you manipulate me into it.
    Something strange flickered across Dragos’s face. If Quentin were pressed to describe what he had seen, he would have said that the dragon almost smiled.
    Whatever that subtle expression really was, it was gone almost immediately. Dragos strode behind his desk and turned to face them.
    Dragos said, “Do you know what I was doing this morning? I was walking Liam so he would fall back asleep and let Pia stay in bed for a little longer. Then I came across you two jokers brawling all over the hall. I should add, brawling in one of the main hallways of the upper floors in the Tower. You had no idea I was there, did you? You were fucking oblivious to everything else outside of your own vendetta. What if I had been someone else babysitting Liam and taking him for a walk—say, Talia, for example?”
    Talia Aguilar was a Wyr selkie and the new head of PR for Cuelebre Enterprises. Sleek and delicately rounded, with soulfully large eyes, Talia was gentle to the bone and didn’t have a single fighter reflex in her.
    Sourness churned in Quentin’s stomach. As viciously as they had been fighting, they could easily have plowed into someone like Talia and caused major injury, if not death. A quick glance at Aryal’s tight expression told him that she realized it too.
    “I’m banishing the two of you from New York,” Dragos said.
    Quentin moved sharply while shock bolted over Aryal’s expression.
    Dragos was still speaking in a rapid-fire staccato. It took a few moments for the words to sink in. “… and you are going to work your shit out somewhere else way the fuck away from here. I don’t want to have anything to do with you until then, and let me tell you, nobody else does either. I’m going to give you an assignment. You have to work together on it, or you both lose your sentinel positions. You cannot return before two weeks are up. You cannot stay away longer than a month. That’s your time frame. When you return to New York, you will somehow have made peace with each other, or you both lose your sentinel positions. After the Games, we now have a detailed list of current runners up. It won’t be hard if we have to make that transition.”
    He paused to study Aryal’s bone white face and Quentin’s rigid posture.
    “You have continued to put extra strain on everybody else, right when they could have used a break,” he said. “Soif you make it back successfully and you manage to hold on to your jobs, you are going to work double time until all the other sentinels have had a vacation. That’s how you’re going to make this up to them. For today, you’re going to pack light. Get your affairs in order. Tend to your wounds. Return here at five o’clock for your assignment. Maybe by then I’ll be able to tolerate the sound of your voices. Now, get out of here.”
    Seething with reaction, Quentin managed to keep his clenched face turned away as he limped toward the door and Aryal followed.
    Not less than two weeks. Not more than a month.
    Banished.
    With the hellion.
Maybe he should just hang himself and be done with it, except he would not give the bitch that kind of satisfaction.
    I’ll win this game, he thought. Just like I’ve won every other game I’ve played in my life. Besides, with any luck, the assignment will be dangerous; she’ll get herself killed and save everybody a world of hurt.
    Then his eyebrows rose.
    He cocked his head.
    Of course if that happened, it would have to be obvious to everybody that either her death was accidental, or somebody else had killed her.
    There might be some merit to pursuing this train of thought.
    “Oh, and one more