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the ki-rin’s murder of the assailant didn’t seem to affect me; it was as though I’d been watching a real—nonmagical—movie, like the blood and gore and dying wasn’t real. Maybe because the ki-rin was fatae, I hadn’t picked up its emotions from the gleaning, and I was reacting to that blank space? The dead guy had been a real human being, and he was dead. Why wasn’t I feeling anything?
    Because he’d assaulted her. Because I was glad he was dead. The thought bothered me, a lot. Justifiable, yeah, but we were supposed to see the facts, and I couldn’t do that if I let my emotions cloud judgment, maybe make me overlook something. That was as bad as trying to protect the victim, in its own way.
    The tea was doing its job, settling my stomach enough that I didn’t feel like I was going to puke again. I finished the rest of the liquid, and held it upside down to show the boss I’d been a good little girl.
    Venec looked like he was going to say something else, then stopped and tilted his head, looking at me like I was some new bit of evidence. That feeling that tiptoed into me whenever he did that came back, little muddy cat feet.
    â€œWhat?” I heard the defensiveness in my voice, and reached down to touch my core, almost in reflex. But no, the current there was still and calm. Damn it, I would not let him get to me, not just by looking at me with that heavy gaze, like I was being weighed and judged, and the jury was still out. Nobody, not even J, not even my dad, had ever made me feel like that. I didn’t like it, at all.
    â€œTrigger the display for me, please,” Venec said, and I got the feeling that wasn’t what he had meant to say, but I wasstill unnerved enough that I didn’t push. He could trigger it himself, with a little effort, and I was almost tempted to tell him to do so, but my mentor had taught me manners, and I had some natural smarts to go with it. The office mood was informal, but I never made the mistake of thinking that orders weren’t meant to be obeyed, even if they weren’t phrased as orders.
    â€œThere’s soup in the ready-room,” the Big Dog went on, still staring at me. “Go eat something before you fall over.”
    I stared back at him, not quite sure he was speaking in English. Soup. Soup…sounded okay. My stomach could handle soup.
    And it hadn’t been a suggestion. The sugar in the tea had helped, but it was going to drop me into a crash pretty damn soon, if I wasn’t careful.
    I went back into the room to reset and trigger the display, then pushed past him and headed for the kitchenette. Venec went into the room and I heard him sigh. Ah, give me a break, I thought; I’d cleaned up the worst of it. It was just going to smell a little musty in there for a while, was all.
    The break room was still empty, and I found the soup in the fridge easily enough, tossing it into our small, battered microwave and letting it reheat, scrounging some crackers and a soda while I waited.
    It was another half hour before the rest of the team started to straggle back from the scene. Nick was the first through the door. He stopped short when he saw me, and pasted on a snarky grin.
    â€œHey, Dandelion.”
    He loved calling me that, because of my hair being short and fluffy and naturally blond. I let him think it annoyed me, because it amused both of us. The things we did, the way the Guys pushed us, and we pushed ourselves, a lot of stress built up and there was only so much drinking you could do and still do your job. Teasing let us blow off some of that tension in reasonably healthy ways.
    I’d been in some situations—high school being the prime example—where the allegedly friendly sniping could get nasty. Not here. Not to say we didn’t occasionally do damage, especially Sharon’s smart, sharp tongue, but it was never intentional.
    From the very beginning, it had been like that,