I roll my neck over the back of my armchair, gripping my waist with a grimace when my movement disturbs my aching side. I could feel the train beginning to slow for the past few moments, but it’s the shadows shifting through our cabin as we pass through the dome lock that finally disturbs me from my work. Folded open in my lap is my black folio, a few sheets of paper in front of me with my sketch. I twirl my pencil in my hand as I lift my head to look out the windows again.

  With a rush of changing colors, the pale outside world suddenly becomes the beige and greys of human landscapes again. Rushing buildings slow enough for me to see conditioning units, and hanging conduit tangled with loose wires, and streaks of rust. The high walls of the concrete train tracks don’t offer much of a view below and to the sides of the tracks where I might see humans or symbionts walking.

  Across from me in our cabin-booth, Rhett gets to his feet. As he stretches up to an overhead bin, his white buttoned shirt rides up to give me a quick view of his abdomen and Adonis belt dipping into his black suit slacks. I dart my eyes elsewhere, returning to my sketch.

  When he drags down our bags, I lift my eyes again.

  “What’s happening?” I ask.

  “We’re changing trains.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now.”

  I look back down at my sketch, drumming my pencil against the side of the folio while I think.

  “Is that a symbiont?” Rhett’s tone is mild, with that sideways disinterest he’s so good at faking.

  I cover my sketch with both hands. “No.”

  He hangs over me, one hand lifted to grip the overhead bars beneath the storage bins to keep balance as the train continues to slow. “What else would it be then?”

  “Sure, fine. Yes, it’s a symbiont.”

  “Can I see?”

  I blink, sniffing as I consider the request. Then I slowly draw my hands back, unveiling the sketch of the Felis I’d been working on. I’ve drawn it styled after Nessa’s symbiont, with a long sharp face and large ears, and a skinny body that exudes irascible elegance. Rhett touches his lip as he looks at it, silent for a moment.

  “How do you-”

  “By memory,” I interrupt, not really liking where that line of questioning might go. “I did all the scientific drawings for my dad’s lab. It’s a Felis.”

  He scratches his chin. “Nessa has a Felis.”

  I’m deciding I really dislike where his thoughts go once he starts thinking. I shut the portfolio, making a show of beginning to pack to change the subject. “Where are we?”

  Rhett looks over his shoulder out the window. “South Fengxian city.”

  Ah, another of the Big Five then. I lift a hand to grab at the air between us. “Bag, please!” Pooka, who was sleeping on my feet, lifts his head with a growl of displeasure.

  Rhett plops my luggage on the seat next to me for me, and I stiffly rotate in my seat to slide my portfolio back into it. I continue, “How long’s our stop?”

  “Bit over two hours.”

  “Mank.”

  “There’s some shops and things just outside the station…?”

  I brighten slightly at the idea of seeing something new, then hide my enthusiasm with a grumble, “I probably can’t handle much walking.”

  “I’m hungry. We can just get something to eat, then wait at the station.”

  The train finally slows to a complete stop. As I zip my bag closed, without a word Rhett scoops it up again and slings it over his shoulder, his own bag carried at the end of one hanging arm. The Vespa traveling with us are all crawling on his bag as well.

  We take our time weaving through the crowds of the station, making our way to security and a clerk’s desk. As usual, Rhett takes the lead, slapping down a familiar black business card for the Intertrain clerk. “Is the guest lounge open?”

  The clerk takes the card, a shimmer of silver passing over it as his symbiont reads it. “Welcome, Executive Hawthorne. Of course, let me just look up your itinerary and we’ll get you settled shortly.”

  “One guest.”

  “Of course.”

  It doesn’t take long for us to be shepherded down a side door from the clerk's office, to a gleaming sitting area composed of booths with glass walls for privacy, and a small buffet with drinks and a variety of pickled finger foods. The clerk gestures for us to take a booth, unlocking the glass door with a swipe card that they then leave with Rhett. “Let us know if we can be of any service to you. I’ll come get you when your next train is due.”

  “Ta,” mutters Rhett, dropping our belongings in the back of the booth. As the clerk departs, he raises an eyebrow in my direction. “You good to take a walk?”

  “There’s food over-”

  “You can get that shit anywhere.” As he shuts the booth doors again, Pell steps from his wrist and remains hovering over the lock. “There’s a market stall that was here last time I visited. I wanna see if they’re still open.”

  “I don’t have anything other than Vello. What currency do they take?”

  “I have Qianlou, don’t worry about it.”

  I watch his back as he walks off, and pass one glance back to Pell, who now seems content hovering in place around the electronic lock of our booth, bags trapped beyond the glass. Pooka drops to his backside with a huff at the base of the door, tucking his chin onto his paws again and returns to sleep. I give them both a lingering look, wondering if I could ask to just stay here and go back to my drawing, then I sigh, and follow Rhett. I haven’t been to Fengxian, might as well see the place if Rhett is so restless.

  Stepping from the clean corridors of the Intertrain station, I’m immediately assaulted with a world of red and gold matching Fengxian’s logo’s colors. Sleek corporate vehicles speed past on tight roadways, symbionts tossing horned heads in front of cars parked by the station waiting riders. Pedestrians bustle along the streets, a huge number of avian symbionts flying above them and darting between protruding signs or hanging banners as they flit above their hosts. Instead of neat glass storefronts like Apex prefers, here the stalls are open to the air, and tightly packed together with goods on display behind hanging red banners with the shape of male Pavos, their long trailing tails decoratively arced over their heads with eyespots forming a circle around the central body. The smell of food wafts through the air between the tight buildings, mingled with the stench of heavy cooking oils and the usual odours of humans.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Rhett waits for me to catch up, then carves a path for us with purpose. I hover slightly behind him, letting him clear the way so I don’t risk bumping anyone and jostling my sensitive torso. He leads me down an alley, where the stalls grow smaller again and employees are packed at tight standing bars eating a variety of foods on offer.

  “Do they not have mess halls?” I ask, grabbing Rhett’s shirt to tug him closer so I can speak in his ear over the crowd.

  “This is the equivalent of their mess halls. It’s just a buffet arranged a little differently,” he replies, pausing to turn close to me and coming to my ear to speak. I can’t help but notice how he still keeps his body between me and the moving crowd, continuing the effect of clearing a halo of space around me. “Here, this one.”

  He shoulders himself a space at the end of the bar, and as I follow, he wraps an arm across my shoulder to tuck me in front of him. When I start at the touch, his fingers withdraw just as quick, stretching across my shoulders instead to gesture for the stall’s proprietor, waving a small black token between two fingers that almost looks like the interface of a city-monitor without the wrist band. I didn’t see him retrieve the token from any pocket, so I watch it with curiosity.

  The shopkeeper draws close, sizzling fryers spitting behind him he calls over the crowd. “Out of towners, you got the right kinda cash? I don’t do credits.”

  “Yeah, two servings. Just scan me.”

  The shopkeeper holds up a small black portable station, scanning the token in Rhett’s fingers. The red LED flashes green, and the shopkeeper doesn’t even reply as he turns to meet the request. Within only a moment, two small plastic bowls are dumped unceremoniously in front of us, each with four thin sandwiches made of food unlike anything I've ever seen before.

  Each sandwich is deep-fried, composed of two thin round discs dotted through with numerous holes, and a filling sandwiched in the middle. Rhett collects some black plastic chopsticks from a jar in front of us, handing me a pair, then taking a second pair for himself and digging into his own plate without waiting for me.

  “What is it?” I ask, picking up the first one to peer at it curiously.

  “Lotus root. Filling is mushrooms and ginger,” he replies between mouthfuls. He grabs two upturned cups from a tray of them across the bar as well, flipping them both upright in front of us. Without a word, the shopkeeper is back, pouring hot, fragrant tea into each as well. “Don’t be picky,” he chastises.

  I take a bite. The root is crunchy but simple, contrasting with the minced filling, which is vibrant with ginger and onion flavors. It’s not bad. It’s not spicy, at least.

  “Why this stall?” I ask.

  “Hmm. I like lotuses.”

  Well, okay then. “They grow in water, right?”

  He hums in affirmation, just audible over the conversation around us. “What do you think?”

  I take another bite, then a sip of the hot tea and consider my answer. “It’s not bad.”

  That earns a snort of amusement. “You have no idea how much this costs to be rated ‘not bad’. You like sweet things, right?”

  I’m silent. Then I nod, feeling a little shy.

  “There’s a dumpling place that does a coconut custard filling, we’ll pick something up on the way back.”

  I take another bite. Then I ask a dangerous question that is out of my lips before I can even stop myself. “Would you ever take over Aquila from Regina?”

  His demeanor changes the moment I voice the words, the edge of his jaw stiffening. I know there is no Vespa with us, but does he? He puts his mouthful back down on his plate, and chews as he thinks. “For what purpose?”

  It’s a question I don’t even know the answer to. Realistically, what would change? For him, almost nothing. He has every freedom a free-man could ever wish for.

  For me though? I’ve toyed with my thoughts of collecting Adrian and Rhett as allies, aware they would strengthen my position and safety. But for what purpose indeed? I don’t quite know what I want. Some dirty part of me wants the liberties I see them get. But what about everyone else? Or the symbionts? What could change, if anything? Aquila is one tiny cog in a grand machine that keeps humanity alive from day to day with no purpose other than its continuation. We’re too small; we’d always be too small.

  So I say the only answer I know to give him. “Dunno.”

  Rhett clears his throat and pushes his plate away from him. “I will inherit it one day.”

  “Owen’s half too?”

  “Owen’s half too.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Logistically, not much. Once I get too slow for the field or we get an employee to replace Pell, they’ll probably shift me to learning the business and engage me in some favorable partnership one day.”

  “Engage? As in marry?”

  He laughs darkly. “I am, as you say, a nepo-baby. Gotta make more of them to build the family business, ideally with a partnership that is just as favorable.”

  I poke at my food with one chopstick. “I always figured that was the catch behind the marriage and child licenses. They’re not going to outright stop you from being human, but if the genetics aren’t good or whatever, no point in having mouths to feed that won’t pan out as investments.”

  Rhett looks grim but adds nothing to my musings.

  “What about your dad’s business?” I ask.

  Wrong question. He retreats, his eyes slipping away from me to look out over the crowd now. There is a long pause, and finally. “I can’t. There’s too much… bad blood… with his crews.”

  “I guess management doesn’t necessarily need it to be family that inherits?”

  He cuts me off. “I have a younger half-brother.”

  “Oh.”

  “He’s fourteen.” Then the pause carries the unspoken, he hasn’t manifested yet. Another chance to reproduce his cryptid father then.

  “Who started Aquila?” I ask, trying to take the conversation back from the pathway I didn’t intend to stumble down.

  “Owen did.”

  “And Regina?”

  “She was one of the first employees when they got started. It’s a spin-off from Owen’s old life. He used to be an executive at Apex. Or his family was or something.”

  “She was employed by Aquila before she manifested?”

  Rhett starts, his blue eyes flashing back towards me. “How do you know that?”

  Fuck. My fucking mouth. “Uh, it makes sense. She’s younger than Adrian, and he’s been with Aquila for twenty-six-something years. Aquila must be at least that old then. You’re younger than that?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “Yeah, so, math, right? She must have had you pretty soon after manifesting, which makes her younger than twenty-one when Aquila started.”

  He relaxes. “I guess. Yeah. Aquila is twenty-eight years old, although the first few years were spent collecting the right employees to get the organization started. Mum came from Apex too.”

  “Oh, more nepo-babies then.”

  “Something like that. I’m not sure how they met.”

  “What's the deal with Owen? Why’s he never around?”

  Rhett shrugs. “He keeps out of the unsavory parts of the business. Keeps the legitimate half of things legitimate. We bring in the money on the back.”

  “Would you change things? When you inherit?”

  Rhett is silent, half focused on me with darting eyes that I know signal him thinking. He thinks too much, sees too much, and makes too many connections. No wonder he’s so good at this shady stuff. Adrian and I, by comparison, have an easily understood alliance. We know each other's secrets.

  Rhett is the greatest danger and opportunity to us both. The wolf-prince set to inherit Aquila’s clandestine empire, gathering secrets in his web and giving none of his own up. Adrian is in his head regularly, planting his little ‘traps’ for his own security, and even he remains cautious of Rhett’s motivations. With a sudden start, I realize that might be why Adrian kept such a close eye on him after the incident with the Erratic.

  Finally, Rhett scratches at his chin, breaking eye contact. “Dunno.”

  I’m not sure I believe it's an honest answer like my own was. “Thanks, by the way.”

  “Hmm?”

  “For… helping.”

  “Oh, yeah. I take care of my own. Let’s head back. There won’t be time to get your coconut dumpling.”

  He picks my final half-finished lotus root sandwich from my plate and turns his back into the crowd.

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